oh mom...

I've been waiting 8 months in anticipation for this little guy to move, now he's going crazy. He won't stay still when I change him, i have to totally pin him down to get a diaper on him. Today he was going from sitting, to crawling, to his knees, to standing over and over again. He's a monster!! haha While i was putting clothes on him i caught myself saying "will you hold still!" I couldn't believe after so many months of craving his moving independance that those words came out of my mouth. I've got a bad case of the "the grass is always greener"

Anyhow here are som cute shots of Keegs moving around and in cute "long john" onsie with even a button butt!

We're Crawling!

It's kind of funny that I've waited for this day for what seems like SOOo long and now that it's here it doesn't feel as amazing and exciting as i thought it would. BUT It's here and it IS exciting and so cool to see Keegan changing and gaining independance and confidence. To see him make a decision and go for it. I love being able to see what he is thinking by seeing where he goes! Soooo Keegs is crawling!!! Here's proof. He started inching two days ago and then yesterday took some great strides. Today he doing an occiasional crusing. It was fun to celebrate thanksgiving and have the family here to see his brand new trick!

Cloth Diapering day 3 and 4

So. I finally used the Fuzzibunz!
I had some ladies in my Mommy and Me class help me figure out how to fit it well. They are so cute! I wasn't able to get the full wear out of them for Keegan because both times i've used them, Keegan was ready for a nap. So he napped in them and they withheld the naptime great but needed to be changed shortly after.

A few tips on washing that i've discovered so far:
1) Don't worry too much about stains, they come out! Even if they turn a tinge yellow the sun will get the rest out. Crazy? but True.

2) Just take out the inserts and throw them in the washer. No need to pre-soak the diaper or insert. The first couple days I was soaking and ringing out the insert. I know it sounds gross but for some reason i didn't mind doing it. (I didn't even wear gloves...eww) I guess not being grossed out is a mother-thing.

3) After wash, try an extra spin cycle. If the inserts are still damp ring them out, and then put them in the dryer. I was doing about two dyer cycles and then i decided to ring them out by hand. SO much faster to dry after that.

4) Don't dry the outter diaper in the dryer. They dry super fast on the rack/line/whatever you use. Plus it helps with overall diaper life and from keeping the velcro to fray.

5) If you have one size diapers don't forget to unsnap them to full size when drying. It may add an extra step when stuffing them comes along but they dry faster in full size.

6) Purchase more than six diapers. Six was a good number to start and test drive in. Seriously now, I think I'm sold on the whole cloth diapering idea, I just need more diapers so I can do laundry less! (www.weebunz.com)

7) If you have a Diaper Champ, no need to get a "wet bag" for home. They work like a charm and keep the smell in! I love my Diaper Champ! You can keep one hand on baby and use the other to put the diaper in the pale with one swift motion. No lift and twist stuff like the diaper genie. AND no special diaper liners, just a simple garbage bag! woo! I will invest in a wetbag for traveling though, no stink=my friend

Cloth Diaper Day 2

Day #2

Today we only went through 4 diapers... I'm not sure how that worked out to be... they are difficult to tell when it's time to change because the insert is so absorbent! We don't use them for naps so that is partly why we went through so few diapers.

My Husband actually changed and put on a new cloth diaper today! He didn't have too much to say about it, I think that is a good thing! If there was something difficult or weird about them I'm sure I'd hear him make a comment but it went smoothly! And he put them on just right, not too tight, not too loose. I think that has been one thing that is hard to know about these cloth diapers. With a disposable you mindlessly stretch and velcro the diaper without worry of them being too tight. But with the cloth you can get them too tight and the elastic can leave a red mark on baby. Which is no good and I assume can lead to future chaffing. Yet if they are too loose then they leak like the other day. I suppose that is where all-in-one "grow with me" diapers aren't as ideal as fitted cloth diapers? I'm still going to use them. I LOVE the idea of him wearing them til he's potty trained.

So here is what I'm doing with the dirty diapers for now. Basically just rolling them up and throwing them into the laundry room. That won't last long I bet, i heard they can get smelly. Haven't noticed yet. I have so few the smell isn't adding up. AND because i have so few, i launder them everyday. so i just throw them in. I like how the Heiny's roll up better than the Bum G's

See how much tighter the dirty Heiny's roll than the Bum G's? I think that helps with smell.



Below is a picture of how the Heiny's advertise the laundry tabs. Just attach the velcro to itself and it should stay that way while washing. Not true. A fellow mom told me today that she attaches the velcro as if her daughter is wearing them and throws it in the machine. I'll try that and hope for no diaper chains or stains.

Here is a picture of a few of the diapers and how i keep them ready for service. I pre-stuff the inserts and pre-line the diapers with the flushies so they are ready to go. no thinking required. I hope that was a help when my husband changed Keegan yesterday.

The flushies come in a roll like pictured and you just line the diaper with it and then toss that and the poo in the toilet when soiled. SO easy! and not so yucky as scrapping poo.

After wash i toss the inserts in the dryer and hang dry the outsides. When keegan wakes up for his night feed i go in the laundry room take the inserts out or the dryer (they are usually still a little wet) and hang them for the remainder of the night. I figure I'm up and awake might as well stroll over there and get the diapers ready for morning. takes two seconds.

Still haven't used the fuzzibunz. A friend in my Live and Learn class told me she LOVES them and is glad they are snap because her velcro is starting to ware on her others. Her baby is 7 months old and she has been using them from the beginning. Her baby is just as wiggly if not more than Keegs so I guess the snaps are doable. I'm trying them day #3, tell you more about it later.

I don't have much more to say. Still liking the cloth diapering. And still finding them not as much work as i thought. I am nervous every time i think he's going to poop though. I'm dreading the first "bad" poop. bleh.

Cloth Diapering Day 1

Cloth Daipers Day #1

I think it went pretty well!! Keegs looked pretty darn cute in his new big booty cloth diapers. I read somewhere that cloth diapers might slow your baby from moving around and maybe make it so they don't crawl until later but Keegs isn't crawling yet anyways so no troubles there. a little extra fabric didn't make much of a difference for Keegan today.

We had one mishap. I think I didn't fasten one on of the happy heiny's tight enough, and we had some leakage at a potluck. It could have been my lack of Velcro skills or the fact that Keegs was in the diaper or nearly 3 hours. who's to know? ha.

We had two poops. The cloth diaper liners "flushies" worked like a charm!! I love them! You just lift the liners out and flush them down the toilet. no touching or scraping the poops = one happy mom. The poop left a little mark on two of the diapers so i was pretty curious how and IF they would come out but while folding and stuffing the diapers this morning i couldn't tell which diaper had been pooped on. I thought that was pretty amazing! They came out perfectly white.

As for my thoughts on the different brands of pocket diapers..

I think I might like the Happy Heiny's the best. I love the thick velcro and how the velcro overlaps eachother. It makes it easy to roll up the diaper after use and velcro it closed on itself. A downside of them I found is that in the laundry they get all tangled up.. i tried velcroing them closed but they came apart and formed a diaper chain in the wash. The diaper that leaked earlier in the day was a happy heiny but i truly think that was my error.

The Bum Genius are pretty good too. I'm not a big fan of how small the velcro is, i think it makes it hard to trust how secure I'm just unsure i'm getting them to fit right. compared to the Happy Heiny's the Bum Genius velcro just isn't my cup of tea. They don't roll up and fasten to themselves (when the diaper is dirty) very well but maybe that's not a big deal for other people. I sort of like to do that. But they fit great and work great and I love that the pocket part of the diaper; it has a flap that closes in the insert. And their laundry taps work great, they don't attach to the diaper chain in the washer.

I didn't use the Fuzzibunz yet. Keegan has been a little cranky and wiggly lately so i'm thinking the initial fitting of the Fuzzibunz might take some time. they have adjustable elastic on the legs and snaps on the waist that i need to make sure fit securely, that might be tricky at first but once that happens i'm sure they will work just fine.

Here is a picture of my sons poop diaper! oh joy right? I just wanted to show you how poopy it was after the use of the "flushie" and tell you that YES IT ALL CAME OUT! the diaper is perfectly white now! I'll take an after photo sometime.

These cleaning solutions are what i used to wash the diapers. It was a suggestion by a friend (http://www.woollybums.blogspot.com/) I got her recipe on her blog. It's just a mixture of each of the three solutions (1 cup each) and then you just put two or three tablespoons in the washing machine. take out the pocket inserts from the diapers. lock down the laundry tabs to help insure you don't get a diaper chain, close the door and wash on hot. DONE! SO easy! I thought cloth diapers would be a ton of work but its simple.

I put the inserts in the dryer and the outsides to try on a drying rack and by morning all was dry and ready for use. the inserts took along time to dry though, i had to put them in the dryer twice and they were still a little moist. So i hung them to dry overnight and they were all dry but one by morning. i guess that is good news though right? super absorbent?

Anyhow i think the first day went pretty well! He wore the diapers for probably two and half hours max each. one leak. (my fault-pretty sure) two poops. no stains. happy baby! successful cloth diapering day. I think we used a total of 5 diaper today because we didn't use them during naps or bedtime. I wasn't ready to venture that far. So far we only have 6 diapers so i'm glad we're doing the system that we are for now. soon i hope to invest in more so we can launder less often. But I'm excited to be saving the landfills diapers six cloth diapers at time!

hope the info helps. if anything its good for me to process my experience. I'm surprised how much i enjoy using them! I thought I would kind of dread every diaper change but I get excited when its time for a diaper change! haha oh the little things a mom takes joy in.

Day two coming soon.

Cloth Diapering?

There's a whole world out there that I was too overwhelmed with motherhood to even think about before now. It's called "Natural Parenting."
Who knew what I was putting on my babies bum was unnatural parenting? who are these people telling me how i parent is unnatural?
anyhow, i'm discovering an aspect of so-called "natural parenting" and it's called... DUN DUn duun.... cloth diapering.

Once I babysat for a family that did cloth diapering. I think I was around 11 and the baby had to have been just a couple months old. the mom was around the house doing errands or something, so when baby cried crazy she would come and help. I remember the first day when she showed me how to cloth diaper. I was freaked out by the saftey pins. and stink. and wetness. but was only 11 and so i didn't get stressed out. who gets stressed as a preteen? not me.
so when it came to having my own child and thinking about cloth diapering that memory is what came to mind. The thought if it made me a little stressed. "No thank you" thats what Brent and I both thought. Plus, Keegs is baby number one, there were enough new things to overcome i wasn't ready for the cloth diaper challenge. UNTIL now. He's nearly 8 months old and i am JUST NOW starting for feel more grounded in this mommy business. I've been doing some research and learning about this whole daunting cloth business. They have some great new cloth diapers out there now! ones that are basically as easy as disposible just but plus a laundry wash. Or at least that is what the ladies in my Mommy And Me class say, and all the advertisements, and the people on YouTube.com
so i've decided to try it out. i mean they are DARN CUTE. Cost effective. I love the idea of buying cloth diapers for Keegan that will last til he's potty trained AND use them for our next child+. I had no idea that according to a study done by the Women's Enviromental Network: "Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste. In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up 50% of household waste." Crazy. So here goes.

I took a leap and bought 6 different cloth diapers this week. All "Pocket Diapers" from what I have researched they are the most "family friendly" (ie. daddy and grandparent friendly) ones out there. supposedly they won't have as much of an odor problem which is nice for my smell sensative husband and curious Charlie-dog.

I'll be writing about the ins-and-outs for a bit i think. So sorry for those of you that might read this and not be interested. I figure i have no clue how many people actually peek at this blog so i might as well just write about it. AND since researching i've found that other mom-blogs have been the most helpful in finding information on cloth diapering so if i can be that resource for other curious moms then, great!

First Firestation Trip!

This last weekend we went to a Lakeside Bible Camp Staff reunion party on Whidbey Island. One of the people that currently work at the camp is a volunteer firefighter and so he took all of us to the firestation to let the kids romp through the firetruck. It seemed like they had a fun time. we took it as a photo opportunity. we're discovering the joy of having a baby and a cool camera = lots of fun photo opps. here's a few.

What a cutie.

On another note. Keegan has been pretty fun lately. He's mumbling all the time saying things like "baboo" "mom mom" "Da da da" and just plain trying to have conversations. last night at the dinner table my friend Christine asked Keegan if he really could talk but he was just keeping it secret and he shook his head "no" as if he was answering her question. it was hilarious.

Tonight at the dinner table it was babbling on and on and laughing at his own babbling as if he was telling a funny story. He is a real kick.