Cloth Diapers

I recently purchased some cloth diapers to try. They are much better than the Gerber ones that I originally bought and the company that sold them to me also had rubber pants. Somehow we thought that perhaps we didn't need those because no one sold them. And then we tried putting Rachel in a cloth diaper and, let me tell you, it didn't hold a thing.

Anyway, I went online and found Cotton Babies. They have some good products but a lot of it is terribly expensive. After I had ordered some diapers and rubber pants, I found a "Try It" kit. I would definitely recommend that anyone who wants to try cloth diapers buy this kit--even though I didn't. I'm still thinking about getting one (if I ever learn how to fold diapers right!).

The diaper covers alone are worth $24 (they are usually $12 each) and then each diaper it comes with is $2 and the Snappi is usually over $2. So that's about a $40 value for only $30. Not bad.

I am terrible at putting them on Rachel. I found a site with "Diaper Folding 101," explaining all about the different folds, complete with step-by-step pictures. I'm still terrible at it though so I'm going to have my mom show me how to do it. She used cloth diapers for years.

The diaper folding site also mentioned that a lot of people just make their own cloth diapers. I had never thought about that before, but I guess it would be a great way to recycle old receiving blankets, sheets, towels, etc. If only I knew how to sew!

And I had to include some pictures of Rachel that have nothing to do with anything...except that I took them of her while I was trying to get her picture in a cloth diaper. I gave her the soothie to placate her and she ended up playing with it for about a half hour. She wouldn't let me take it away from her--keep in mind she didn't ever really suck on it, but she did chew on it and wave it around quite a bit.

Time for Learning

I am so excited to send my son, Ian to preschool. Those of you who know him know that he is sooooo ready to go to school. Unfortunately he doesn't start until September. So, in the mean time I decided to try to find some resources of things to do with him at home. In my attempts of looking for stuff I came across this great website called Brightly Beaming Resources that I wanted to share with all of you.

It is a whole preschool curriculum from newborn on up. I know alot of you have young babies like me and are looking for things to do with them. This curriculum has an outline to do with your babies. I am going to start this week with the Steps to Reading Program. I am also going to try to adapt some of things that we will do so that Maggie can have fun with us (she is only almost 7 months old). I think Ian will like it and he will get to spend time with mommy!!!

Take a look at the website, I think you all will like it. It gives ideas for things to with your kids!!!
Happy Schooling!!!!

Playing with your infant

Rachel is so old that I found myself referring to the good ol' days as "when she was a baby" to Maria at church today. She is still a baby but Maria's baby is so much younger that...it makes Rachel seem so grown up.

Anyway, some other mothers were talking at church at how awkward it is to play with their babies. I had to agree that it was rather awkward for me at first, too. Here is this lump of a baby that doesn't look at anything and doesn't do anything special and we're expected to stimulate it. It's a hard job!

What really helped me was having Emma to babysit. She was a year and a half old. She reacted (sometimes) to things I said, and at least knew how to play a little bit. I'd prop Rachel up somewhere to watch and Emma and I would talk and play and try to involve Rachel. We played a lot of games where we'd stack blocks on Rachel and things like that.

Eventually I just got so used to giving a play-by-play of my life that when Emma stopped coming I continued to do this for Rachel. As she's gotten older it's been easier to "play" with her but she still doesn't "play" well. Mostly she just sucks on things. I'll try to play with her and still just give her a play by play of what I'm doing.

"I'm finding all the red blocks. Is this block red? No. Is this block red? Yes! Yes it is! Where is another red block?"

I do the same thing when we read a book,

"Wow! Look at all the stars. How many stars do you see on the page? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5..."

Sometimes I feel like a lunatic because I talk in this patronizing voice all. day. long.

"Mommy's making pizza dough!" (I always speak in third person. I don't know why.) "She's measuring ONE cup of flour, TWO cups of flour! See how it puffs into the bowl. Now she's mixing. Mix, mix, mix, mix, mix. Do you see her spoon? You want the spoon, don't you? You can't have the spoon..."

It's enough to drive a person mad but I actually enjoy doing it now. It's even more fun when Andrew is home and will answer all my silly questions in a high-pitched baby voice.

Anyway, I don't know. How did you guys play with your babies when they were only a few months old?

On an entirely unrelated note...Rachel has been SO good the past few days. She hasn't cared when I walked out of the room and even played all by herself for like TWO HOURS straight yesterday!!! I hope this is a continuing trend. I might even get something accomplished!

And...I found this site. It's Fisher-Price online learning games. Rachel loves to type on the keyboard so we're going to try it out tomorrow. I think she'll enjoy it.

Break Through

Today we had a break through with elimination communication. The last three weeks it has mainly just been mom and dad catching poop and also baby girl going when we put her on the pot. Today baby girl was in the bathroom shrieking and playing with the potty lid. I came in and asked if she needed to go potty. She started shrieking again. I put her on the potty and sure enough pee pee and pooh pooh. Finally some actual communication about the elimination. Hurray Baby Girl! You had better believe there was a whole lot of screaming, cheering, and clapping going on.

My Favorite way to save on Food Money!

Free food that I don't have to cook!

I am so excited!

So are all of you excited and intrigued and begging that I would type more info?

National pancake day. Free short stack of pancakes (3). 7am to 10pm. IHOP. Here's a link:
http://www.ihoppancakeday.com/

Matt heard about this, and I wondered if it was a local thing, but apparently it's all over. So I hope you all have an IHOP nearby. And that you bring a book when you go. Something tells me that free pancake day will attract quite a few customers. Enjoy!

Potty Post

So this ladies is a potty post. This last week we have reintroduced our daughter to elimination communication. We started motivated by Nancy a couple of months ago but at that time our daughter would have had nothing to do with it. This week though we decided to try again. First we just put her on the toilet three nights after dinner. She did her little business and seemed pretty happy about it. So now we are putting her on a few more times a day, after all her meals, in the morning when we wake up, and whenever else I feel like putting her on. She actually loves it. I'll give her a single sheet of toilet paper and she spends a few minutes pretending to blow her nose. She also always leaves me a special surprise in the toilet. So here is her deal. She now knows her business belongs in the toilet and always pees or poops when we put her on it. She just doesn't know yet that it only belongs on the toilet. In the end that's fine with me. My mom teases us that we're just getting better at catching and in a way she's right but we started toilet training with our son before he was two as well and the truth is he never had a fear of going on the toilet like some of the other kids we know. So my mom is probably right. We are probably just good catchers and a good year away from putting our little girl in big girl panties but in the meantime I haven't had to change a poop diaper in three days and if this helps her so that she doesn't have issues going on the potty later well hurray! On a much sicker note our three year old son is obsessed with the baby potty. He loves to be the one to empty it and it's dirty business in the big toilet. ICKY!

Chicken on Sale!

I hate to keep a good price to myself, and with all the talk about grocery budgets lately this seems appropriate. Smith's has great prices on frozen chicken right now... less than 6 dollars for 3-4 pounds bags (depending on what you buy) of boneless skinless breats, thighs, tenderloins, breats with ribs still attached and more. I went yesterday and picked up 8 pounds of chicken for just $12! That's only a $1.50 a pound, which is awesome for boneless skinless breasts. I'm a "stock up when the price is right" shopper, so I figured I'd pass it along to anyone who maybe missed in it in this week's ad (I usually just toss Smith's ads since I don't shop there). Prices good through Tuesday the 12th. Happy grocery budgeting and budget keeping, Ladies!