a day in the life.

Beep!  Beep!  Beep!  My alarm keeps going off and I keep hitting snooze for just another 9 minutes of sleep.  This time I decide I've stayed in bed as long as I possibly can which means I only have time for a quick shower.  I shower and dry my hair.  I can hear the dog crying and since I'm alone this week, I go downstairs to let him out, medicate and feed him.  While I'm in the kitchen I make a bottle for the baby.  She should be waking up soon.  Back upstairs to figure out what I'm going to wear.  I hate this in between Fall and Summer time.  It's cool in the morning yet 70-80 degrees by afternoon.  I never know how to dress.  I go back to the bathroom to plug in the curling iron and start putting on my makeup.  I don't hear the baby yet but I go in her room anyway.  The sound of the door stirs her from sleep and she starts to open her eyes.  It's not a happy morning and she starts crying.  I have her bottle ready though and that helps.  I finish readying myself and I'm thinking about the laundry that needs to be done.  I really wish I could just stay home today.  Since I can't, I'm going to get a jump start so I grab the dirty diapers from the pail and take them down to the basement.  I can at least run a cold rinse before I go to work.  Back up both flights of stairs and Delia is done with her bottle.  She's sitting up in her crib, sort of playing but looks like she wants to go back to sleep.  I pick out her clothes and pile everything up to take downstairs.  Then I pick her up and give her some kisses so she laughs.  I take her downstairs, change her diaper and put her clothes on for the day.  She's wearing her Halloween Hello Kitty shirt.  It's so cute.  I have a few more things that need to be done so I put her in the pack and play and she's not happy.  She cries and I feel terrible because she just wants to be held for some reason.  She coughs and I hope she's not getting sick again.  I pack up her diaper bag for the day, start my Tassimo maker for coffee and check the clock.  I have about 10 minutes.  Not enough time for breakfast but I think the milk is past it's date anyway.  There's peanut butter crackers in my desk at work.  I'll just eat those.  I grab my lunch bag and throw in a frozen healthy choice meal, a diet cherry dr. pepper (I really need to stop drinking soda again) and some carrots and apples for the baby.  I have an idea that maybe if she gets some food in the afternoon instead of dinner time, she'll eat it.  I'll give it to my sister today.  She's not crying anymore, that's good.  It's because she has her pacifier.  I realize how reliant we've become on that little thing but I don't care right now.  We'll deal with that hurdle later.  I pick up the diaper bag, my purse and lunch bag and take them out to the car.  My coffee is done when I come back in so I pour some vanilla flavored creamer in.  She's crying again but it's time to leave so I go pick her up.  She smiles immediately.  "I'm sorry baby.  I know you just want to be held."  I already hate that I'm about to strap her into her car seat.  She struggles with me while I put her sweater on and arches her back as I try to put her in the seat.  It's just one of THOSE mornings.  "Come on Tucker" into the kitchen you go.  I put the gates up at both doorways so he can't get out.  Pick up my coffee, the baby and my keys and out the door.  I groan a little bit as I put her seat into the car base.  She's getting heavier every day.  I get in the front seat and just stop for a second.  I sigh.  Man, I really hate being a working mom.  Start the car, seat belt on and release the parking brake.  "How is it only Tuesday?" I think as I pull away.

time and moments.

"Time flies" and "Cherish the moments" are just two phrases I've heard throughout most of my life.  I've always believed them to be true, but never more true until I became a mom.  My daughter is 8 months old already and I can hardly believe it.  Just yesterday I was on my way to the hospital preparing for her birth.  I have a notion that I will be thinking these thoughts with every single month and year as she continues to become the little person that she was created to be.  I've also figured out that it's possible to mourn the loss of her babyness (I know she still has some left!) and rejoice in her latest accomplishments all at the same time. 

Here are some of the most recent ones:

1.  Giving kisses.
2.  Waving hi/bye (she's not consistent with this one but she does do it on occasion).
3.  Teeth.  Her second one just popped through last week.  
4.  Pulling herself up!  This happened on the same day that "daddy" left for a 9 day hunting trip so guess who got stuck lowering the crib by herself.

 And just another picture for good measure.  The onesie she's wearing has significant meaning. :) 

when I grow up.

I've never been a career driven person and I think part of the reason is because I never found anything I felt passionate about.  My jobs have all been "this is okay and pays the bills" sort of jobs.  Since having a baby, I've undergone many changes in terms of how I feel about certain topics and what I feel is most important in life.  I've also discovered something that I think I would love to do.  Forgive me, but I'm not going to go into details of what it actually is because I don't want to be that person that just talks a lot and doesn't take action.  The problem I find myself in right now, is that even though I have a goal, getting there is hard.  It will require much time, effort, and money.  It will require more school.  Financially, Seth and I are not in the spot for me to quit my job and jump into this.  So, I'm going to take it to God.  I'm going to lay it at his feet for the time being and pray. 

I can't help but wish I had this epiphany 8 years ago though.  

glad the weekend is over.

The title of this post is something I normally would NEVER say.  This last weekend was filled with stress and frustration though so I'm sort of glad it's over and a new week has begun.  I'll give you a quick recap to let you know why I feel this way.

Friday night started out with a mouse issue.  About a month ago, we found two mice in the vent/fan thing above our stove.  They managed to fall into it from a hole above (that we think leads out to an old chimney) and were unable to escape.  One was barely alive and the other still very much alive.  So we removed them of course, cleaned up, and that was that.  One morning last week I heard A LOT of activity in the same spot and told my husband, "The mice are back".  I didn't hear anything after that but Friday evening when I got home from work, I could smell the evidence.  Unfortunately, Seth was at the Phillies game (in which they were eliminated in round one of the playoffs for those who don't follow baseball - another issue) and he didn't plan on coming home until Saturday morning.  The smell became progressively worse throughout the night and since I couldn't confiscate of them on my own, I had no choice but to open all the windows.  It helped a little but ew, gross.  I wanted to vomit.  Fast forward to Saturday morning when Seth takes the vent/fan off the wall and finds FOUR dead mice.  Bad start to the weekend.

Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon was filled with my dog having seizures.  A little background info.  Our 100 lb black lab was diagnosed with epilepsy at 2 years old (he's 4 now), takes medicine for this chronic illness and occasionally has seizures.  We have gotten used to them and how to handle the situation and he's never had more than 2 in a 24 hour period.  We don't know what prompted it, but he had 6 seizures in a 30 hour span.  They were happening about every 5 hours and he was in a haze the rest of the time.  We both thought he was going to die.  Our Vet is closed on Sundays so we called the emergency animal place and they said they would do a physical exam for any kind of increased seizure activity and decide where to go from there.  I knew waiting another whole day would make us terrible pet owners, so we decided to pay the $100 exam fee and have him looked at.  Here's where I don't understand.  This Vet suggested that it could be a reaction to an allergy flare up (never suggested to me before), his allergies look like they are caused by an inhalant (never suggested to me before) and he should have allergy testing (also never suggested to me before).  These tests would run us another few hundred dollars.  They suggested keeping him overnight to do a seizure watch and they would give a shot of valium if he seized again plus do a round of blood work.  This runs oh, about $850.  We opted to bring him home instead.  Fortunately, he did not have a seventh seizure but he's pretty out of it.  I don't expect him to come back to reality for a couple days.  I'm just at a loss as to what we do next.  We should follow up with our regular Vet but I'm sure they will want to see him and run more tests.  We love our dog and I don't want him to suffer, but he's cost us thousands of dollars in the 4 years we've owned him.

So, I'm sure you can see why I'm glad the weekend is over.

why I cloth diaper: part II.

Okay, so I decided I'm not done talking about cloth.  I will be perfectly honest and say that this was not one of the original reasons I had for cloth diapering however, after reading several articles about the contents of disposable diapers (and the way this information is protected by manufacturers), I can't help but feel even more confident in my decision.

(Disclaimer:  I'm not trying to say that these companies are all "big and bad".  I just didn't even think about the contents of disposable until I started researching cloth diapers in general.  Call me naive.)  That being said, if you're interested in some reading:

http://www.diaperjungle.com/Disposable-Diapers-Exposed.html

http://www.babycenter.com/0_whats-in-disposable-diapers-8211-and-are-they-safe-for-your_10335425.bc?page=1#articlesection1

And while I'm at it, why not share some of my favorite brands.  The world of cloth diapers is huge and you can easily get swallowed up in the decisions on what style you should use and why.  This is one of the reasons I was so hesitant during my pregnancy and eventually let it go.  I didn't know where to start.  There are still many things I don't know, but I'm glad that I now have resources where I can find the answers I'm looking for.  As I learn, I love to educate as well.  If I can convince any one person to CD, I will be happy!  (Btw, my sister who is expecting her first in April is going to and I'm sooo happy about this.)

Before I decided what style and brands to buy, I used this chart to help me figure out what's what.

http://www.diaperjungle.com/cloth-diaper-types.html

I also asked mom friends a lot of questions.   I decided that pockets would probably be the best decision for my life, at least to start out.  My intentions were to buy a few at a time (since it can be costly up front) and cloth diaper part time until I was able to build a stash that would allow me to do laundry every 2-3 days.  The majority of our diapers are Bumgenius 4.0s and I can't say enough good things about them.  They are one size which means they are adjustable and will fit from 10-35 lbs or something in that range.  Bought brand new, each diaper comes with an adjustable microfiber insert and a newborn size insert.  I use both inserts for overnight since the diaper obviously needs to hold a little more but to date, I haven't had any leaks.  During the day I just use the adjustable insert.  When I do my laundry, I stuff the pockets and they are ready to go for the babysitter or dad since he doesn't like to get too involved.  The rest of my diapers are an odd assortment of brands since it's a good idea to try a few out and see how they work for you before committing to something.  We have Softbums, Rocky Mountain, Kawaii, Fuzzibunz, WAHM (work at home mom - custom made diapers) and I'm waiting on a few Sunbabys that I ordered.  I also have some prefolds and flats which require a cover.  If you refer to the chart in the link above, you will see the difference in these styles.  Prefolds are what most people think of when they hear cloth diapers.  You no longer have to use those old huge rubber pants though.  Now they sell adorably cute waterproof covers.

I could honestly talk about this topic for awhile but I won't.  We didn't even cover laundry detergent, dirty diaper storage, extra inserts, doublers, liners, rash cream, ect.  I just wanted to share a little more about this world since I was clueless prior to taking the leap.  If you are seriously interested though, please feel free to ask me questions.  I will do my best to inform you from what I have learned or at least find the answers for you.

why I cloth diaper.

In trying to come up with ideas for this blog, I find myself feeling super uncreative and unoriginal.  In those moments, I'm going to fall back on a "why I do this" post.  Hopefully it doesn't become extremely boring.

So, as a start....why I cloth diaper and how I got there.

At some point during my pregnancy with Delia, I considered cloth diapering.  I was, and still am, active on a babycenter birth board and it seemed that a lot of people "out there" were doing this.  I decided that I love the benefit of saving money (in the long run), hate the impact that disposable diapers have on the environment, and find fluffy bums oh so cute.  After asking some questions and doing a little bit of research, I dropped the ball.  I thought, "It's too late in my pregnancy to decide this".  I also knew Seth would give me a hard time if I suggested it.  That being said, it wasn't until Delia was about 1.5-2 months old that I reconsidered.  I now had several internet mom friends that gave me all the insight and advice needed and to this day, continue to help me when I find myself stumped by the world of fluff.  I also had discovered that Seth was not all over the diaper changing train.  Add that to the fact that I do the majority of the laundry in our house, and it really was a no brainer.  I of course asked his opinion but it basically came down to, if you want to do it, go ahead.  He grumbled a bit at the money I had to spend up front and was convinced that I would give it up after a month (which was just more motivation for me to make it work).  And here we are, at 7.5 months going strong with our cloth.  Now that I'm in the thick of it, I would never go back to disposable diapers by choice.  I'm also glad that I started with my first so that by the time the second child comes along, I'd have the hang of it.  I can honestly say that I LOVE it however a word of advice for anyone considering making the jump.....beware, it can be very addicting.