Week Eight: Babywearing

This week I decided to force myself to get out of the house and meet up with some moms I met through my local MeetUp group. The roads were awful. It was cold out. I was tired. But I went.

SO glad that I got my seasonal affect disorder? lazy ass out the door.

I attended a Babywearing International Twin Cities chapter meeting. Of course between nap time and lunch time I was an hour late, but I made it. I was happy to see a few familiar faces and baby O was thrilled to see a bunch of other kids.

I'm not sure if every meeting is this way, but this particular one was very chill with a bunch of mamas trying on a BUNCH of different types of carriers and learning new ways to use wraps and just chatting with each other.

We started with a K'tan and graduated to a Beco Gemini when Owen got too heavy for the stretchy K'tan, but we have loved baby wearing from day one.

K'tan on the left, Beco on the right. 

I've been wanting to buy a ring sling for a while. We use and LOVE our Beco Gemini carrier, but sometimes I feel like a ring sling that I could fold up and toss in my bag would be handy dandy. So, at the meeting I was able to try a couple ring slings made of different materials. Turns out I really like the linen ring sling because of how lightweight it is, and it seems pretty breathable.

The linen ring sling.

Here we are in a woven wrap conversion ring sling.
It was super soft but ultimately it felt warmer than the linen, and I have our Florida vacation on my mind. 

Now the fun part: because I signed up to be a member of BWI Twin Cities for $30 (yearly), I get to borrow a carrier each month from the library of carriers they have! So I took home the linen ring sling and I am loving it so far.

O got to see his friend Finley that he met when Finley's mom and I both attended the same New Mom group, which was super fun. I can't believe how much our babies have grown! He also got to be carried around in a new carrier and scope out all the other babies which he seemed to enjoy quite a bit.

O and I both had fun at the meeting and Mike enjoyed some video game time. It was a lovely way to spend a Sunday and I am excited to go to another meeting soon!

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I'll post more about adventures in babywearing in a future Accidentally Crunchy post since apparently it is yet another thing that is a tad crunchy. Who knew?

-H

Week Seven: Smooth Criminal

Have you been to Ikea lately? I have, just ask my bank account.

I happened upon a new item {or at least new to me} last time, and it inspired me to do a *finding*fifty*two* post about it!

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These pretty straws caught my eye at first just because of their color, but upon further inspection I saw that they are wider than an average straw- making them perfect for smoothies!

In the summer, we love to make smoothies for a snack or for breakfast. But in the cold months {all 10 of them, here in Minnesota} it is hard to get motivated to reach in the freezer, especially for breakfast.

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So, this week I'm challenging myself to get back on the horse with smoothies and try a few new concoctions as well.

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Here is my go-to smoothie recipe:

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To really challenge myself, I decided to branch out and try a green smoothie. *Gasp* I've never made one before. I know they are all the rage and I know they are super healthy. I'm not turned off by them at all, but I've never had the urge to make one either.

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I basically just added fresh spinach I froze ahead of time to my go-to "recipe" and crossed my fingers. It turned out really well! I liked it and so did O and his daddy. I'll definitely file this in the back of my brain in case O goes through a picky eater stage and we need to be sneaky about vegetables.

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And there you have it! Of course it was amazing to have smoothies again- I always feel so healthy when I have one. I really want to try a few new recipes, but we'll see how my motivation is during the next few days of sub-zero temps. ;)

-H

Valentine Update

Now that everyone got their valentines in the mail {better late than never} I can share pics of what I sent out!



Envelopes ready to go.

I have tons of these glittery heart stickers for some reason! {Hoarder}

I cut the "finished product" that O made into hearts to send out.

 

 

 

 The grandparents and a few others got the heart as well as the pictures I shared here.  

 

 

 

Cute, huh?
I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

 

-H

 

Week Six: A Valentine's Day "Family Date"

Mike and I have never really been big into Valentine's Day. We absolutely use it as an excuse to go out to eat and maybe even get dressed up. But we have never been ones to get each other gifts or surprises or anything.

This year, with our sweet little valentine in tow, we decided to skip attempting to find a babysitter and just find something fun to do as a family.

Top picks were Como Zoo, Sea Life Aquarium, and the Children's Museum. We really wanted the fun and excitement to go down on Friday since it was the 14th, but rationality won. We opted for Saturday morning so we wouldn't have to rush and possibly run into an overtired baby meltdown. {aww, just what I wanted for Valentine's Day}

Saturday we got up and got ready to go to the Aquarium, only to see the snow start falling. We left the house anyways, and made it within a mile or so of the Mall of America before we were almost in a crash. Traumatized, we forged ahead, only to see the exit we needed to take backed up like crazy and at a complete stop. We decided to say screw it and went out for lunch instead.

Sunday we managed to actually make it to the MOA and purchased a year-long membership to the aquarium. Since I'm a teacher they offer a membership for dirt cheap compared to the regular admission costs. If we go twice in the next year we will have more than made up for the cost of membership!

O loved it! Although I'm not sure if he enjoyed the sea creatures or jabbering at other kids more.

Happy {belated} Valentine's Day everyone!

Accidentally Crunchy: Cloth Diaper Edition: Part 2

I posted here about why we cloth diaper, but I would feel remiss if I didn't throw my two cents about how we diaper out into Internet-land with the 29,472,819,473 other blogs about how to cloth diaper. I read so many of them when we were researching and planning our cloth adventure and so many were really helpful. If I can help another mama, I'm going to!

These are all the actual items we use, right down to the patterns on the bags!

First and foremost: It is not as hard as you'd think, nor as gross {due in part to your idea of "gross" evolving after you have a kid}, nor as time consuming.

We use Bum Genius 4.0 Pockets with snaps {not Velcro, because I read that it wears out too fast}. That means that the absorbent, microfiber liner gets stuffed inside the diaper and you change it like you would a disposable diaper. They are also one-size, so the same diapers will last him until potty training. {Then we can reuse them all when we have another baby down the road!} I don't mess around with prefolds and covers and snappis or pins or anything. I just don't have the time patience to deal with all that, and I doubt daycare would be on board if that were our style of cloth.

So here is our current routine {our original routine was even easier, but then O's diet changed from breastmilk only to solids+breastmilk and the poops changed too}

1. Take dirty diaper off the baby.
2. Throw wet diapers in the wet-bag.
2.5 If there is poop, set the diaper aside until baby is changed.
3. Wipe the baby's butt and throw wipes into the trash.
4. Put a clean diaper on the baby.
5. Throw actual poops into the toilet and the diaper in the wet-bag*

Boom. Done.

*We use Mio Liners in the diapers, which catch the poop and can be flushed. We tried going without and just rinsing the diapers in the toilet but it was just too big of a pain in the butt.

See! Not really that hard at all! If you felt like step 3 was too much, you could try cloth wipes and then they can be tossed right in with the dirty diapers. I don't mind the extra step so I stick with the disposable wipes.

Now, the wash/dry/stuff routine that is specific to my HE washer:
1. Take the wet-bag to the washing machine and turn it inside out into the washer, tossing the bag in as well. {Note the lack of touching any actual dirty diapers in this step}
2. Run a "rinse and spin" with "water plus" feature selected.
3. Then, {the gross part} open the washer and un-stuff any diapers that didn't un-stuff themselves during the rinse cycle. I say the gross part because they are rinsed at this point but not clean. So, they aren't visually gross, but they smell dirty. We un-stuff at this point because the spin cycles during the wash will just send anything left still stuffed into a little ball inside the diaper and I just don't feel like that gets them clean, even though they come out of that situation looking and smelling clean. Maybe I'm being crazy.
4. Run a "normal wash" cycle with the extra settings as follows: hot, soil level heavy, extra rinse. I use a splash {about a fourth of the recommended amount for HE washers according to the soap cap} of Ecos Free & Clear detergent. {We landed on this detergent from the list of cloth diaper friendly detergents because it was cheap and available at Target, rather than having to order online. We use it on the diapers and all our other laundry}
5. Pull the diapers out and hang to dry, toss the absorbent liners {we just use the microfiber ones that came with the diapers} and the wet bag in the dryer.
6. When everything is dry, leave them in the middle of the living room floor for a few days, picking out one diaper at a time as needed  stuff the liners into the diapers and put them in the drawer of the changing table.
7. Sometimes we add a Mio liner to each diaper as we put them in the drawer, but sometimes we do that during a diaper change. We are still tweaking this part of the routine since it is fairly new.

That's it. Really.

Ok, so I realize the wash routine has a lot of steps. But they really only seem like a lot of steps when they're written out. Plus, it's not like I have to sit and watch them wash for an hour. ;)

We are lucky to have our laundry room just off the family room in the basement, so we can easily do laundry as we watch TV or play with O.

Like I mentioned above, when O's poo changed from breastmilk poop to real poop we had to adjust our routine, but once we found those Mio liners we were set. They're cheap, I buy them at Target.com with my red card so I always get free shipping, and we just lay them on the diaper between his butt and the diaper itself. It takes 2 seconds.{Our routine before O was on solids was just tossing everything in the wet-bag. Breastfed baby poo is totally water soluble and washes out no problem in the washing machine}

Another thing I want to mention: our wet bags rock. They totally contain the smell of the dirty diapers. Our big one that hangs on the side of the changing table is Planet Wise, as is the smaller one {with separate clean and dirty diaper zippered pockets} that we send to daycare. In the diaper bag we have a smaller Itzy Ritzy bag. EVERY mom should have a wet bag in the diaper bag. I have used the smaller bags to toss wet swimsuits in, drool or spit up soaked shirts, etc. They are wonderful.


So, I hope this chapter of my crunchy life opens your eyes a little to how cloth really works these days. I know I had some misconceptions about it, and I know lots of other people do, too.

Look at that fluffy butt! I can't even stand the cuteness!

-H

Week Five: Valentines!

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, so this week we made valentines!

I love to paint with babies. I love it. It is such a giant mess but it is so fun to watch what they create!

Not pictured: Craft paper from the dollar store :)

This Crayola paint is my go-to. It washes off so easily with just water. Frog tape is a must for painting life. I use this stuff all the time! We bought some when we were repainting the basement and I've been hooked ever since. It peels off so clean. It is literally just like the picture on the package--how many products can say that?

O was a great helper. He especially enjoyed the step where we had to bang the roll of tape on the ground 50 or 60 times.

My little helper

Once the craft paper was taped to the floor we got out the paint, ready for action. This is when I decided to change up my game plan and try to do that "love" resist painting. {Tape off the word love and then paint over it, and when you peel up the tape the word remains with paint all around it} In hindsight it totally wasn't necessary, but I'm glad I gave it a whirl.

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I poured the paint straight onto the paper and let O go to town. He was cautiously interested at first. This isn't his first time in recent history painting, and I'm so happy he remembered not to eat it! He didn't even try!

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The painting went well, but he kept getting distracted by the naughty kitty lurking near the bottles of paint. He wanted to "pet" Dewey SO BAD and kept crawling off the paper saying "Dew-eh".

Painting was really fun for all parties involved....until it wasn't anymore. Look at this face! So upset. We called it a day at that point even though the paper wasn't as totally painted as I had imagined. It captures the moment, I say. ;)

Over it. 

Here is the "finished" product, in some poor nighttime lighting. I say "finished" because clearly I'm not sending a giant poster out as a valentine. Stay tuned for the finished valentines after Valentine's day!

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I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day. I'll be spending mine with two valentines this year.

xoxo
-H

Accidentally Crunchy: Cloth Diaper Edition Part 1

A fleeting idea. That's all it was in the beginning. "Hey- what if we did cloth diapers?" 

Well, fast forward a few weeks and you'd see hubs and I sitting on the couch, iPhones in hand, researching cloth diapers. The different brands, the different types, the lingo that goes with them, the various washing methods, and the list goes on and on. 

It was overwhelming to say the least. We were still on the fence about it when we walked into Buy Buy Baby to start our registry. But by the time we walked out {just 3 hours later} we were committed. Cloth was the answer for us. 

 

 

It seemed that conversations with people thereafter went something like this: 

 

"I saw you didn't have normal diapers on your registry."

"Yeah we're doing cloth- they're on the registry."

"Gross." 

"Yeah well...it's what we are doing"

 

*or*

 

"You're going to use CLOTH DIAPERS?! Are you insane??"

"Yeah we are going to use cloth...I don't think our diapers will be much different than disposables."

"Yeah well, you'll never keep up with it! You'll have him in regular diapers in a month."

 

The way so many people felt it was totally cool to tell me how gross my parenting choice was was kind of upsetting. I was an emotional, pregnant woman with family and friends basically telling me I was going to fail at this- one of the first parenting decisions we made! 

 

So....that is where the stubbornness piece of the pie comes in. Instead of putting diapers on my kid being nothing more than putting diapers in my kid, it became this challenge. I had to show all the naysayers that it could be done {by full time working parents} and it wasn't that big of a deal. Most importantly that they were wrong and I was right. 

Is this a great reason? No. Is it the truth? 'Fraid so. 

 

**{I should mention that there were plenty of people who were supportive and plenty more who totally thought it was gross but didn't tell me all about how gross it was or how they thought we were going to fail}** 

 

Onward to actual legit reasons we cloth diaper.

 

The environmental/earthy/crunchy reason definitely factors in. But honestly, it was more of a happy little byproduct of our decision to cloth diaper rather than part of the decision making. Nope, in all honesty the #1 reason we cloth diaper is that it saves us money. 

Yes, we run the washer more, but I haven't noticed a spike in our bill at all. Admittedly our water bill is auto-pay and I don't pay it much attention. So it could very well be a few dollars more; I just don't notice. 

 

Yes, we had a much larger upfront cost compared to disposables. But it wasn't really that bad. We didn't go to the store and drop $800 on a full stash of our Bum Genius 4.0 pockets. We used coupons at Buy Buy Baby {Buy Buy Baby coupons and Bed Bath and Beyond coupons all via mail, email, and text} and bought them little by little while I was still pregnant. It was no big deal to spend $40 here and there and I think it was a great way to go about building our stash of about 27 diapers. 

 

Lastly, they are stinking adorable. A fluffy butt on a baby is pretty hard to beat cuteness-wise. {Maybe a naked little baby butt. Or a kitten.}

 

 

Stay tuned for Part Two of my cloth diaper post with a run-down of our routine!