Old-School Cloth Diapers

Happy in a clean diaper 

(which he's still wearing as I type this)

Old-school prefold diapers intimidated me so much when I first started cloth diapering. Pocket diapers are a lot more straightforward to put on...and I had a wriggly child. But with the new baby, I was determined to try prefolds. After diapering a bucking bronco of a toddler, an infant doesn't seem nearly as hard.

Prefolds are an inexpensive way to cloth diaper. You can customize your fold to your child. And best of all, the diapers can be used for all sorts of things...including a great burp cloth. (Like this one, which may be yellowed with dried spit up...but was right by my computer so I snapped a quick pic.)

The prefolds I use are NOT the thin Gerber ones you might find at a big box store. Those make so-so burp cloths, but are not good cloth diapers. Most of my prefolds came from a Little Lions coop, but there are many places you can buy good, thick Chinese prefolds like mine.

The diapers haven't changed much, but fastening has. Some people still use pins, but many parents use a Snappi. It's a T-shaped stretchy plastic fastener with hooks on the ends. My diaper folding technique isn't the best, but the covers I use have contained things when the diapers wasn't snug enough on the legs. 

The covers I use are made of PUL, a waterproof fabric. You can also use wool or some fleece as a cover. I'm loving PUL covers with an extra leg gusset to contain poopsplosions and hook and loop fasteners for easy adjusting of size. I really like my Thirsties covers and Bummis Super Brite covers for the newborn stage. 

Gator is wearing a small Bummis Super Brite in the photo above, with an infant prefold underneath. I use this cover with fitted diapers as well, and it fits differently over those. Both fitteds and prefolds require a cover to be waterproof. And with my rudimentary prefold-folding skills, a good cover is a real clothing saver!

Yes

My daughter keeps coming up to me, sweetly holding out her hand toward me...only to say "I got a booger". Lovely. 

She is saying another word that we've waited a looong time to hear regularly. It's "yes". For months she's repeated what we say as her affirmative response. "Yes." Such a simple word, yet so nice to hear. Too bad we hear "no!!" a lot more often.

Russell the Sheep

My awesome friend Stacia sent us what has become Violet's favorite book at the moment. Her parents like reading it (and rereading it and rereading it...) more than most children's books. It's cleverly illustrated and a fun book in general.

Russell, like my little girl, has trouble falling asleep. So he tries all sorts of things to fall asleep, but nothing works. We get to see what happens to poor Russell as he makes these misguided attempts to get comfortable. Someone seemed to identify with Russell and is fighting sleep a little less these days. 

"Russell Book" gets asked for almost every night. A stuffed frog of mine has been renamed Russell, too, which is a high honor. Very few of the baby dolls and stuffed animals in our house have names, and the ones that do tend to be named after important people in my daughter's life. 

One of my favorite things about Russell the Sheep is the illustrations. On every spread, there is a frog friend. He's easier to find on some pages than others, and sometimes we just go through the book and look for the frog. 

The illustrations and storyline of the book are such that my little girl can tell us the story, complete with favorite quotes ("hopping mad!"). She's never done that with a book before. 

We love this book and highly recommend it, especially for a two year old who has trouble falling asleep!

Goody Giveaways

Steph is giving away a cute, cute hair clip on her Green Kiddos blog. Of course, I won't twist you arm to enter and create more competition for me... but I do encourage you to check out her blog for lots of green living tips!

Chick-fil-A is giving dads a free milkshake on Father's Day. Child must be present to receive the gift for dad, and not all restaurants are participating. Details here.

Frugal Girls does a weekly Friday Freebies roundup. The selection is always changing. I've received all sorts of free samples and other goodies that I found out about on that site.

We're not giving her away--at the moment. 

She picks THIS to be proud of...

Short story: 

As my little girl excitedly told her grandpa on the phone, "I went poopy!"

Long story:

Violet was playing happily and imaginatively with her Little People, rubber duckies, and other menagerie while I took a little break to feed Gator in the other room. She came down the hall, saying, "I went poopy. Change my diaper. I got poopy on my hand." 

Good, she's at least being aware of when she goes and telling me rather than letting it get smooshed into a huge mess. Wait a second, hand?!

Please let this be imaginary poop on her hand, like she gets imaginary poop on her feet when she's changed, since her little brother gets real poop on his feet as he kicks around. 

I laid Gator down and followed my little girl, who was walking rather strangly, as if she was saddle sore. She was also holding out a dirty hand. Eww. As I started to clean her, I realized there was yucky brown stuff on her arm, leg, shirt, and shorts, in addition to all over her hand. Apparently she'd been sticking her hand down her diaper. Ewwwwwwwwwwwww

We did a change of venue and undressed her in the tub, where water was immediately run for a bath. This whole time, my little girl who was being so not talkative that morning was babbling on and on about her poop. This was quite an exciting thing for her and she seemed rather proud. She also told me, as we've told her, that she can wear her panties when she goes poopy and peepee on the potty all the time. It's amazing all the little tidbits that were coming out of her mouth. Anything that related to going to the bathroom, baths, etc. was talked about extensively. 

I'm still on the lookout for areas that may need decontaminated after this incident. Too bad there isn't a sanitize button for my house. 

And what was baby brother doing while I was attempting to clean up his sister? He filled his diaper too. He even exploded out his sposie onto my sheet. Sorry, bud, your sister outdid you this time.

Joey Man in his skivvies, or not

We love Melissa & Dougproducts. They are quality toys that encourage children to think in creative ways. There's also something nice about a wooden puzzle or toy in a plastic world.

Violet's latest M&D is the Joey magnetic dress-up doll. I purchased it before Gator was born and hid it away for the big sister to play with later. During the first few weeks he was home, "Joey Man" was played with quite a bit while I was nursing the baby. He still provides a lot of imaginative play.

Joey's outfits include police officer, fire man, construction worker, pirate, knight, and superhero.  The pieces mix and match for some rather interesting combinations. He has hats, shirts, pants, and shoes. 

There are several variations on the magnetic doll, including a princess, ballerina, and girl. I really liked the variety of outfits Joey provided. My daughter wasn't limited to different princess or ballerina outfits...her man can be any number of things. And I'm the kind of mom who would rather buy a boy doll than  princess doll for her daughter when princesses have not yet been requested. At $10-$13 a set, often with free shipping, we can always add a magnetic girl to the collection too.

        

Prudent Advice

A friend of a friend has an amazing blog. Word is there will be a book. Awesome! 

Prudent Advice for My Baby Daughter

My baby son will benefit from much of her advice as well.

If you knew my daughter when her vocabulary was much more limited, you'd know why I like this one so much:

#102 Teach your baby the word "yes."

They learn "no" on their own so quickly.

Wiped out

I've been recovering from mastitis. It's every bit as bad as I'd heard it was. Wow. Like an awful flu with a sore breast too. Thank goodness medicine makes you start feeling better faster since it's bacterial. Major chills, aches, and fatigue makes it hard to care for yourself, let alone anyone else. Thank goodness Grandma lives nearby and whisked away the toddler when I was really sick, and the little guy was pretty content to hang out in bed for for a day or two. It won't be long before he's into things and doing a lot more than eating, filling diapers, and sleeping.

Flower Shower

Helping Grandpa water flowers. She's "giving them a shower".

Ahhhhhh.....

If only things were this peaceful for more than a moment...