If My Morning Was a Picture Book
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Monthly Archives: September 2010
I Love…
Hanging my laundry to dry outside makes me happy. I love not using the electricity (or spending the money) to dry them in the dryer. I love the smell of the clothes off the line. I love the way the wind whips out the wrinkles by the time they are dry and how nicely they fold. I love how I can let them blow out there all day, without worrying about them getting wrinkled because I got distracted and didn’t put them away right away. I love the excuse to spend a half hour outside while Micah runs around or plays in the kiddie pool. He is always trying to steal my clothespins and I love that, too. I love looking up at the line while I’m pinning up a shirt or a tiny pair of Micah shorts, and looking at the beautiful blue sky painted with puffy white clouds. What a view… I don’t miss the laundry room one bit when I’m out here.
Do you line dry your clothes?
How Do I Find the Time?
My friend Sarah commented on a previous post that she doesn’t have time to update her blog as often as I do, which made me wonder why I have the time? What am I not doing? Why the heck do I have so much free time to sew blog and do my photography? Then I realized the major thing that is missing from my life that gives me the time (besides a job outside of the home): TV!
I don’t even know how this happened, because it was never this thing that I set out to do on principle or on purpose, but I don’t want TV anymore. I mean, I’ll watch it at other people’s houses if it’s on. I will occasionally watch a movie with Eric. Sometimes I’ll put on a Christian concert DVD in Micah’s room while we play. But in general, I don’t watch TV at all. I didn’t watch it that much before, but now that we moved our TV to the movie room in the basement, I never watch it.
I think it’s good for me.
Fleece Take 2
So the fleecies were a really good idea…. in theory. On his butt, they were BULKY. I messed around with the folding and snapping of his covers, but it was just not working the way I wanted. It was to much fleece. Wrapped around the entire diaper made it hard to fold or bend, making them stiff. I was getting fed up. So….
This afternoon I started playing with a new idea. What if I put the fleece directly on the prefold? At first I thought it would limit the way he could wear the prefold – i.e. no more snappi – but then I realized all I would have to do is fold them “backward” if I wanted to use the snappi. Instead of putting the fold side of the diaper on his bottom, I would put the opposite smooth side against his bottom. I tried it and it works. The perk is that I can trifold it and place the fleece side against his bottom, and it keeps him dry without wriggling out of place and giving him a diaper rash. The trifold is great for toddlers since it is fast, thick (for large amounts of pee), and you don’t have to worry about newborn poo splashing everywhere. Yes, I said splashing, and I meant it.
Anywhooo, the first thing I did was snip the pocket apart. Don’t feel bad, the pockets took me 45 seconds to make, so it didn’t hurt to unmake them. I only need half of the pocket for each diaper, so I’m also doubling the amount of liners I have without spending a dime. I trimmed the fleece to fit the center part of the prefold.
I then set my sewing machine to the widest zig zag stitch available and zig zagged my way around the diaper, centering the stitch over the edge of the fleece.
Tah-dah!
Ever since I started cloth diapering, I have been on a mission to find the best system possible. I like the prefolds because they dry so fast and they easily “transform” into whatever kind of diaper you want. There are so many different ways to put them on a baby. I think they also rinse cleaner because they are nice and thin when they are opened up, compared to an insert or an all-in-one diaper.
As soon as I started diapering Micah in cloth, I realized that fleece is an essential part of the system to prevent diaper rash. If I do not have a fleece liner on hand, I put Micah in a disposable, because that’s how bad his rash gets if he does not have that fleece wicking away moisture from his skin.
So all this time I have been searching for the perfect way to combine fleece and cotton to make a diaper that fits the following criteria:
1. It’s simple to put on a squirming toddler. When the fleece was loose from the prefold, it would move around when I was trying to get the diaper on him and I would get frustrated. It always ended up looking like a McDonald’s hamburger: sloppy with the toppings hanging out the sides.
2. Easy to disassemble for washing. I quickly found out that the pocket diapers I made a while back and the fleece pockets I recently made required a lot of contact with soiled areas when I was trying to take them apart before putting them in the pail. Ew.
3. Must be easy to rinse off mucky poo. Sometimes Micah’s doo-doo resembles pureed pumpkin, and that does not fall into the toilet well. Scraping? Gross! Swishing? Works the best, but totally impractical when you are dealing with a large one-piece diaper. It was always easy to get off if it was just the fleece or just the prefold. I would just hold a corner, swirl and drop right into the pail waiting next to the toilet. I didn’t even have to touch anything!
4. Must be inexpensive. Prefolds are always cheaper than their fancier counterparts, unless you are buying silk and cashmere prefolds, of course. Do they make those? I don’t think so, but it would be kind of funny to say “we’re so rich, our baby poops on cashmere.”
I don’t want to jinx myself, but I think I may have finally discovered the holy grail of the prefold and fleece combo. Do they make these already made? (*Googles it…*) I couldn’t find anything, but I didn’t look very long. If you find something similar, leave a link in the comments section.
Monkey Man
Yesterday I was cleaning the kitchen when I looked over to see my toddler on top of the dining room table!
“Micah, get off that table, you little monkey!”
“Oooh oooh, haaa aaaa.”
(Every time he hears the word “monkey,” he makes the sound of one.)
I can’t even count on both hands the number of times I have pulled him off of that table since. Lately he has developed a love for climbing. He has no fear of heights and that scares me. I am finding myself constantly pulling him off of furniture: the coffee table, the dining room table, the back of the couch, the cubbies in the living room…. he is a little money man!
Keeping things out of his reach is harder than ever. I can’t put it on the table because he climbs up there. I’m putting things on kitchen counter, but I’m counting the days until he climbs up that, too. Eric’s younger brother crawled on top of the fridge when he was little. It wouldn’t surprise me…
I remember talking in a child development class in college about nature versus nurture and gender roles. Now that I have watched Micah grow and develop over the past year and a half, I definitely lean towards nature. Micah fits the boy stereotype so well, it’s crazy. He is obsessed with mowers, trucks and he loves to play rough. He is so different from the little girls I have sat for.
One thing I have noticed about this age is how much energy he has and how much he needs to get it out of his system, especially before bed. We try to get outside so he can run around, since that seems to tire him out the quickest. It’s hard to really play in our back yard because it’s small and we don’t have a fence. He always wants to go into the neighbor’s house or the road. It’s nice when we can run around at grandpa and grandma’s. Both of our parents have nice big yards. Eric’s parents have a trampoline in their backyard, which Micah is really intrigued by. Part of me loves to watch Micah get on this thing. The other part of me envisions him breaking his neck. Comes with the territory of being a mom, doesn’t it? Still, I let him on and watch real close. The three of us block the sides and watch him bounce little baby bounces and giggle. He is soon joined by the dog, which is funny to watch, too.
The best part about toddlerhood, I think, is how affectionate and cuddly he is. I just love it when he wraps his arms around my neck and says, “awwww.” Or the way he grabs my head and pulls me in for a big kiss on the lips. He loves to bring a book to me after his afternoon nap and reads it in my lap. There are so many sweet things about him. The happy, cute, precious moments definitely outnumber and outweigh the moments of frustration. Tantrums are definitely not fun, but they don’t really happen unless he’s tired and hungry, which means I can prevent most of them if I stay on top of nap and snack time. He is so mischievous, and the twinkle he gets in his eye when he is about to do something sneaky is so hard not to smile at. He loves to walk 20 different ways around the house, sometimes in a crouch and sometimes with a bounce. Sometimes he’ll just flop on his back and tap his heels on the floor while staring at the ceiling fan. What it must be like to be 1 year old!
That Guy I Love
Oh Eric…. he is such a good daddy. He makes really good homemade pizza. He is extremely smart and he’ll explain or teach anything he knows with endless patience. He sports a five o’clock shadow at 9am. He has really nice teeth and he never wore braces. He was a wrestler and his legs are so muscular, they are bigger than my waist! His laugh is so contagious. If you are having a bad day, just sit in the same room while he watches pretty much any Leslie Nielsen movie, especially “Wrongfully Accused,” and you’ll be tearing up and doubled over in no time. And…. he makes really cute babies. 
Fluffy Butt
Doesn’t this remind you of the jean diaper commercial? Only better, of course, and only because I’m partial to fluffy baby butts. The best part about this picture is the sunglasses: he dug them out of the diaper bag and I didn’t notice he had them in this photo until I loaded it onto my computer.
Micah is sporting a Thirsties Duo Wrap cover over an Imagine prefold and a homemade fleece liner.
Micah Loved Kiddie Land
So last weekend we went to the Walworth County Fair, and while we were there, we took Micah to kiddie land, which had a butterfly barn, tractors and other fun stuff like hay stacked up for kids to climb over.
Grandma is laughing because Micah was worried about all the other butterflies, but had no idea there was one on his head. Priceless.
And despite the fact that Micah pitched a fit that could be heard a quarter mile away when we left the little tractors, he still prefers the real thing with Papa:
He says, “mow mow! mow mow!”
The Best Thing I Ever Got For Free
Have I ever mentioned how much I love Freecycle? One of the best things I ever got through the group was an old serger, which has sparked a real creative streak. Wait a minute, my whole life is a creative streak. Is that bad to say? Well…
I love my new serger.
I have been making “fleecies” – or fleece pockets to hold my prefolds and keep my baby’s bottom nice and dry. They work wonderfully. I’m not going to lie, Micah looks bootylicious (meaning he’s got extra junk in the trunk) when he wears his prefolds trifolded under a cover, but you cannot beat the absorbency. Nothing gets past these diapers, not even monster poo. Or coyotes. (The only reason I wrote that last one was there are literally coyotes howling outside my house. Scary! But not as scary as some of the poop I have to deal with on a daily basis.)
A serger uses two needles and four threads to make one powerful, can’t-pull-it-apart, stitch, all while perfectly trimming off the edge and locking it in to prevent fraying.
I also made a few cute little monsters out of felt. I actually made these with my standard sewing machine. One of them was received by and napped with a certain 17-month-old boy who shares my DNA, lucky him. He calls the monster, “baby.” The other two are going to a pair of really cute 5-year-old twins who belong to my good friend Lindsay. She does not know this. She may actually see this before the birthday party tomorrow, but that’s okay. I’m pretty sure the girls don’t read my blog. (Lindsay, don’t show this to them…)
The purple monster with yellow pigtails is going to Lana & the pink monster with blue & white hair is going to Kyla. I love how the monsters are wearing skirts. They are so fashionable. Micah’s monster is a trapezoid, and that never goes out of style.
J-O-Y
Bliss is a square of milk chocolate melting on your tongue.
Contentment is a baby slumped over your shoulder in sweet slumber.
Happiness is doubling over in laughter over an inside joke between you and your husband.
Joy is knowing you are loved by God, and always will be, even when you go through droughts – when there is no chocolate, no sweet moments with a baby on your shoulder, no laughter with your hubsters. Joy does not pay attention to circumstances, only the solid truth of God’s unconditional love and the ransom Jesus paid for your sins.