7 Quick Takes Friday: the SCAAARY Edition!

It seems that I've seen an awful lot of spooks around lately! What's up with that? I've never been one for scary things, but in the spirit of the holiday, let me tell you about a few of my scariest experiences:

1. Cleaning out my fridge. This is the stuff of horror films, and an ongoing fright. The worst one was finally cleaning it after a trimester... or two... after the morning sickness set in and kept me out of the kitchen for months. I could have sold my fridge to the local university biology department!

2. Being stalked by a cougar... almost. I was twelve and out camping with another family. I was walking out to my tent at night when I heard a low, menacing growl. I froze in my tracks, but the growling continued. All I could think was, Oh my gosh, it's a cougar, I'm going to DIE!!!! A half hour later, still petrified to the spot, I suddenly realized that the growling was from the other family's dad-- SNORING at a zillion decibels.

3. Dreaming that I died. You know how usually, when you have a nightmare, you wake up right before you die? I dreamed right through my death once, and it was weird.

4. Watching the Borgs from Star Trek: Next Generation. I was exposed a very young age to those scary cyber-beings that killed and assimilated everything in their path. They were scary then, but after seeing a feature full-length film all about Borgs at the ago of twelve, I had nightmares and stupid real-life fears about them all the way into college-- until Adam made me watch THE MOVIE again. And you know what? They are a lot less scary to a 21-year-old than to an 8-year-old. Go figure.

5. Finding half a fly in my macaroni and cheese. Even worse, I never found the other half. I took me a looooong time to eat mac and cheese again, and even now, I will give my macaroni a few stirs to check for, um, extra ingredients.

6. Getting a little too close to a mouse. Once again, I was twelve. Wow, that year is turning out to be a little more traumatic than I remembered! I was sitting on the floor, reading, when my cat came crashing wildly into the room. Before I knew what was happening, the mouse that she was chasing dove for the nearest hiding place-- up my pant leg. I was instantly on my feet, screeching and shaking like a madman until the mouse came flying out of my pants. Okay, that one was actually more funny than scary at the time, but I'm sure that the mouse was plenty traumatized.

7. Watching those stupid internet movies. You know, the ones that force you to turn up the volume and concentrate on the screen really intently for several minutes, and then flash a horrific picture and blast a blood-curdling scream! The first time I saw one, I just about destroyed my dorm desk and brought half the wing running to investigate the screaming-- from me, not the computer. Here it is, in case you were wondering:

And that finishes up my Seven Quick Takes! Here's hoping you all have a safe, fun, and fear-free Halloween!

EC Update

Well, for all my recent talk of diapers, you may have thought I threw in the towel, er, prefold with the Elimination Communication thing.

But we're still with it!

This is very much a part-time, whenever-I-think-about-it thing. I only catch about every other time he needs to go. And night-time and going out in public? Forget about it!

But I still consider this to be a very successful venture...

...Because ninety-five percent of the reason I'm doing this is because I dreeeeeeead toddler potty training, and every time Baby D uses the toilet, it's reinforcing the idea that it's totally okay to go somewhere other than his pants! The other five percent? I hate cleaning poopy diapers. So my goals are being accomplished!

Also, I'm starting to think that this should be called "Parent Potty Training", because Baby D totally knew his stuff right from the get-go. Even with my haphazard pottying schedule, he will go almost every time I put him on the pot, as if he's been holding it and waiting for the opportunity. I'm now convinced that babies have better bowel control than we give them credit for! The real training involved in this is me learning to read his cues. I would always wonder why he'd get inexplicable fussy bouts, until I learned to recognize some subtle differences with these bouts-- turns out, Baby D has a full-bladder fuss as well as a hungry fuss.


So here's what a typical EC episode looks like:

Baby D starts fussing. I know he's not hungry, but he's tensing his stomach muscles, grunting, and kicking around.


Me: Do you need to go POTTY? Mommy will take you POTTY. Let's go POTTY!

(I say "potty" a zillion times so that he'll know to hold it for just a few more minutes while I get his diaper off! I think he's making the connection, because sometimes when I say it, he instantly stops fussing, like he knows he'll get to go soon. What a smarty-pants!)

He is now adequately undressed and positioned over the toilet.


Me: Ssssss.... pssssss..... ssssss.... (that's the cue sound)


Adam (walking by the door): Uh oh, there's a couple snakes in the bathroom!!

Me: You hush. Ssssss.... pssssss...

After a minute or so, Baby D does his business.


Me: Good for you! You went POTTY!

Baby D: Goo!



So that's how everything's going on that front. It's pretty fun, but that's because I'm keeping my expectations reeeeeeally low. And what do you know, I'm pleasantly surprised how it's going! Well, both my guys are clamoring for me, so it's time to get off. Adios!

Fun at the Aquarium!

Yesterday was Adam's birthday! He turned the big 2-5. Since he's a big fish enthusiast, I surprised him with a trip to the aquarium! I didn't get many pictures of the actual fish, because it was too dark. But here's what I did shoot...

The birthday boy with the tickets! 

The aquarium was all decked out with spooks!

Notice my finished sling? :-D

The balloon ghouls didn't care that it was Adam's birthday!

How did Adam measure against the Gar pike?

A little better than Baby D did!

The way to the shark tank was fraught with peril.

Here are some fish!

We took a video of a really funny fish.

When we returned an hour later, he was still at it.

All the excitement was just too much for Baby D.

The whole family, on our way out.

And that was our day at the aquarium. I hope Adam's day was fin-tastic!

Homemade gDiaper Insert Tutorial

This post was a little longer in coming than I wanted. The past couple of nights, we've been transitioning Baby D from sleeping with us in the big(ish) bed to slumbering in the co-sleeper. He is literally ONE FOOT away from where he used to be, but the move has transformed him from a baby happily sleeping three- or four-hour stretches into a little guy who is waking up every hour and a half. UGH. So I've been feeling a little zombie-like, and not inclined to blog. But here I am, so let's get started!


Because of my apartment situation, I need two qualities in a soaker: the ability to be cleaned with one wash cycle, and the ability to air-dry well. I also wanted as little bulk as possible. Picky, picky! Most of the tutorials I found involved several layers of an absorbent fabric encased in an outer layer of fleece, which made me a little nervous about both the cleaning and the drying aspects.

So here's the design that I came up with.

Materials needed:

• Fleece
• Microfiber (I used those cleaning cloths found in the auto section at Wal-Mart)
• Scissors
• Thread
• Sewing machine (you could do it by hand; it will just fall apart sooner)

Step 1: Cut the fabric. You will need one 15x7 piece of fleece and four 13x5 pieces of microfiber. I apologize in advance for any eye injuries caused by looking at my fleece. That's just what I had in the closet!

Step 2: Stack all four microfiber pieces on top of each other, then center that on top of the fleece. Pin in place.

Step 3: Mark a line in the middle the top layer of microfiber, lengthwise (2.5 inches from the long edges).

Step 4: Stitch along the line.

Well, that was easy, wasn't it? You now have a new soaker! The microfiber should have a lot of free flaps, for easier washing and drying, like this:

Be sure that the fleece is the part touching baby's bottom. Microfiber will wreak havoc with baby skin!

And, of course, we need a practical demonstration! :-D :-D :-D

The 8-pack of microfiber cloths cost me five dollars, and it yielded four inserts' worth. The fleece, which I dug out of the closet, was free! Final cost: $1.25 --compared to $5 for one gDiaper-brand insert!

P.S. My cousin Rachel suggested also using prefolds as inserts. I tried this out using my small prefolds, and it worked just great! I am jazzed to be able to keep using the prefolds after Baby D outgrows their conventional use; plus, he will continue to have natural cotton against his skin-- that was my one misgiving about using fleece. But I still plan on using these liners for nighttime diapering, because the microfiber is super-absorbent, and the fleece wicks away that moisture from the skin!

So I bought some gDiapers...

Since Baby D is gearing up to move into the next diaper size, I've been spending many pleasurable moments poring over cloth diapers on the web, deciding what design I might want to try next. Cloth diapering is a sickness, I tell you. You love the feel and the way they look on your progeny's cute little tushie, you get really excited over new designs, and you just want to collect them all!!! In that way, it's kind of like Pokemon.

So when I found myself at Babies 'R Us, holding a gift card from a dear friend, and staring at a sale for a two-pack of gDiapers, I thought, What the hey, and bought them with a pack of flushable inserts.

Well, let me tell you, I am pretty impressed with the gDiapers! I really love the option of switching between cloth and disposable inserts (which will be most handy when we visit family for the holidays), and how easy it was for Hubby to figure out. Anything that results in ME changing fewer diapers is totally on my approved list! :-D The diaper itself is made from a soft jersey cotton, so it's more like wearing a pair of undies than a diaper. They are very cute, feel more organic than conventional cloth diapers, and have less bulk, as well. I am really enjoying them, and am considering making gDiapers my main diaper system for Baby D's impending size change (I bought size Medium, which fits from 13-28 pounds, so he's already fitting into them. Good gravy, what am I feeding that boy?!).

But I have two beefs with gDiapers. First, the Aplix tabs are very inconveniently placed in the back. Which means that anytime I put the diaper on, I have to roll a wiggling Baby D one way, fiddle around the back, and then roll him the other way, and fiddle around the back again. Really, guys? Getting the tabs away from little hands is a great idea and all, but the adult hands kind of need to reach them, too!

The second beef is that you have to purchase additional (expensive!) parts for this system. The two-pack came with three liners, but I'm finding that I will need to purchase a six-pack of additional liners, especially if I go whole-hog with the gDiapers. And according to the manufacturer, the liners only last about six months, or one hundred washes, so I'd need to restock at some point, assuming that Baby D hasn't expanded to the size of a small gorilla in six months. You never know.

You also need to buy either the flushable inserts or the cloth inserts. Well, the flushables are a great way to go bankrupt fast ($15 for a 32-pack! Oh, the price of convenience!), so naturally, I wanted to buy the cloth inserts. Until I saw the price tag.

A six-pack for $30?!!!

"Geez Louise!" I said to myself, standing in Babies R' Us. "There HAS to be a way to make these at home!"

And guess what? There was. Stay tuned next time to see how I made one insert for $1.25!

My FAILgarden

It amazes me how many of my real-life friends mention that they read my blog. I am even more amazed when they say, "Oh Maria, you are so talented at sewing/cooking/whatever the heck you're writing about!" I'm glad to know I've got you all fooled, haha. :-D But blogging rarely tells the whole story, and for every domestic success, there is usually a spectacular domestic failure!

So in the spirit of keeping things real, I will share with you one domestic failure that not even some creative blogging can help: my garden.

I should have thought it through. I have a black thumb. The little strip of soil next to my apartment is of terrible quality. And that strip of land only gets about 3 hours of direct sunlight every day. But did all this stop me from attempting a small garden? Nooooooooo.

So, without further ado, let's walk through my little garden! Just to show you how bad it is, we'll start with my prize crop. It is my prize crop because it's the only plant that actually produced something edible:

That is supposed to be a cucumber plant. And yes, there is a cucumber hidden in there!

Looks like Vlasic is still going to be getting my business this year.

I have no idea what went wrong with my cukes. They initially did so well, and then just stopped thriving.If you could grow bottles of Coke, then this is analogous to planting a Coke seed, expecting nice two-liters, and only coming up with those dinky Coke ball things. Ah, c'est la vie.


Now, let's go on to the most impressive plant in my garden. This is one I didn't even plant. It just started sprouting outside the window one day, and I said, "Hey, that looks like a squash of some sort!" and let it grow wild and free. And boy, did it ever!

My parents are gardening geniuses and always have giant flower beds and abundant veggie crops every year, furthering the switched-at-birth possibility. They immediately identified it as a pumpkin plant during their recent visit to see Baby D. It must have been the accidental product of a perfectly-placed jack'o lantern last year,  but at least I got some beautiful flowers out of this one!

My parents told me, yup, the garden definitely failed because it doesn't get enough sun. So you can understand my puzzlement at my lavender plant, because somehow it got too much sun:

Now that is just sad.

Especially when other things are thriving just fine...

This is home to a scary, giant spider that has been living with us for a few weeks. It gives me horrible heebie-jeebies, but I can't bring myself to kill it. So I just walk VERY FAST to the door. Moving on!

What garden would be complete without herbs? Behold, the dill plant!

I estimate there to be juuuust enough to chop up and add to a fried egg. In case you didn't know, dill is heavenly in eggs, and that was the whole reason I grew it. Which is a good thing, because obviously, I will not be making any pickles with my cucumbers. 

And last, and maybe least, are my radishes. The night after I carefully planted the seeds in a perfectly even and symmetrical row, a surprise thunderstorm literally flooded up to my doorstep and wreaked havoc with my garden. Now, instead of a radish row, I have a radish "row":

And maybe it should be "radish" "row":

Say radish row too many times, and you start sounding like Scooby Doo.

Say, now here's something else I grew over the summer!

Now I feel much better about the rest of the garden.

WFMW: Cheap, Cheap Art for Baby's Brain

As a new parent, I keep hearing from all sides how babies really benefit from visual stimulation in the early months. According to experts, the best artwork for baby's brain is black-and-white patterns: broad stripes, checkerboards, bulls-eyes, et cetera.

As a young parent, I am flat broke. As much as I would love to buy up all the art that will certainly make my kid a genius, all of my money has to go towards other things, like, you know, rent and stuff!

There is a whiteboard hanging above our desk-- I mean, changing station, for those To-Do lists I love to make. Tonight, in a flash of inspiration, I grabbed a black marker and drew a pattern. Voila, instant art!

Baby D loves checking it out!

Cheap ways to grow baby's brain: that definitely Works For Me!

Well, THAT was a short maternity leave

I just realized that if I had chosen to continue with my job, I would have had to go back to work today.

Wow.


Baby D has been around for six weeks now, the amount of time my former employer allowed for maternity leave, and, it seems after consulting my friend Google, an average time for maternity leave across the board. Geez Louise, where did the time go?? There is NO WAY I'd have been able to leave Baby D today! He is just finally starting to normalize in behavior and habits. I'm still healing up from that dang C-section. And the house is, of course, still a big mess.

How do working moms do it? Managing kids, household work, and a job? They could definitely teach me a thing or two about organization!

I've always known that when we had kids, I'd stay home and make them my job. And this has come with a price. I joke that when Baby D was born, we didn't go from two incomes to one-- it's more like we went from one income to half an income, lol! So we're pretty broke right now. But fortunately, I have a hubby who is of the same mind as I am, and is as committed to making that happen. And, of course, I'm brainstorming on ways to generate some income from the home!

We'll make it work, even though I foresee a hard road. But today, my hat is tipped to the working moms, who have to do something even harder: say goodbye to baby and walk out the door.

Is anybody actually vaccinating their kid anymore?

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?

That is the question I need to answer by Baby D's two-month checkup.

After listening to the arguments and doing some research, I'm leaning towards the yes, vaccinate camp.

After years of getting are you crazy? remarks for unusual lifestyle habits I practice, such as attempting a home birth, practicing NFP, and my latest thing, EC-ing, I find it odd to be leaning towards a decision in favor the mainstream-- and still getting the "Are you crazy?" vibe. Almost everyone I've talked to has chosen not to vaccinate their kid, and it almost makes me feel like a sellout, a blind sheep, brainlessly following the system without a thought.

But I have thought it out. I've read books, I've heard the arguments; and I think the benefits of vaccination protection outweigh the risks (especially if no one else is vaccinating their kids, ha ha!). I know that Baby D will not be getting a few vaccinations: Hep B, which is essentially an STD and therefore not an issue for babies; the flu shot, which only immunizes against a few strains; and chicken pox, which is, well, chicken pox.

I'm still not 100% decided. On one hand, these vaccinations are highly recommended by CDC and the AAP, highly trained health professionals who have a much better idea of what's going on than I. They spend their whole lives researching this stuff and practicing it. On the other hand, these "highly trained professionals" have, in the past, highly recommended using leeches for bleeding. Medical science is always changing, and who knows if that will also apply to vaccines.

On one hand, Baby D will have to get these vaccinations to participate in public school activities (unless we're in a state where one can decline for religious reasons), and most definitely to get into college, so why not wait until necessity dictates it? On the other hand, I know from firsthand experience what it's like to get the whole series of every shot your senior year of high school. And believe me, it SUCKS!!! (all my immunization records got lost-- neither my parents nor the doctor's office had them, so I had to get everything all over again-- I'm guessing upwards of twelve shots over a five-month span. I now have no fear of needles, and needless to say, if I go through with Baby D's immunizations, I will guard those records like a rottweiler!!!)

On one hand, I could do what a lot of people are doing, and take advantage of the fact that most other people are immunized, and avoid vaccinations myself-- called "herd protection". Of course, if no one else is immunizing their kids, that's not much of a herd!....And then there's the sibling thing. Anyone who has had a few siblings knows that once one person gets sick, the whole family generally has a mini-epidemic. What's worse than one kid with whooping cough? Four or five kids with whooping cough! On the off-chance that one of my kids got exposed to a vaccine-preventable disease, I think vaccination might be good for my own sanity and the sibling's health.

I'm not too worried about aluminum levels, considering Baby D's size (at six weeks old, he is 12 pounds, 12 ounces!). Even so, there is an alternative schedule that spreads the vaccinations over tons more office visits, but I don't think that's very practical.


I feel like I will be getting tacit condemnation from the moms who are choosing not to vaccinate, as once again, "someone succumbs to the system." Oh, the joys of being a parent-- having to do what you think is best, regardless what Aunt Martha or the next-door-neighbor thinks! All you moms out there, what did you decide about vaccinations? I'm very curious to hear about your experiences!

I totally pulled a fast one on Baby D yesterday.

The little guy, bless his heart, LOVES to be held 24/7, and he has the world's best sensor for when he's put down while asleep. I've tried everything-- putting him down while drowsy, or awake, or dead asleep; laying him on the bed, or the co-sleeper, or the couch, or the car seat; lying down with him and then slooowly scooting away... every single time, he is wide awake and fussy within two minutes!

Fortunately, I thoroughly enjoy holding him. Unfortunately, my enjoyment is hard to maintain when I'm surrounded by mountains of dishes and laundry. So yesterday afternoon, I nursed him to sleep on my Boppy pillow, waited till he was deep asleep... and in one big motion, slid the whole ensemble, Baby D, Boppy, and all onto the couch.

He never even moved a finger, Yes, yes, yes!!!

I know you're not supposed to let a baby sleep in a Boppy, but before you call CPS on me, let it be known that I was there the entire time to listen for every wheezy newborn breath... and take pictures.

Look at those giant feet! Well, his Daddy wears a Size 15, so this isn't a big surprise.

I used the time to work on a ring sling, in the hopes that one of these days, I can stick him in the sling and go about my business. It does my heart good, to know that there are crafts after Baby D, even if I have to trick my own son to do them. Ahhh, the guilty pleasure!

I was so stoked to work on the sling with two free hands! With Baby D being such a snugglebug, I pretty much need the sling to work on the sling. It's going to take a while to actually finish the project, because I have yet to order the Sling Rings (oops), but for now, feast your eyes on these delicious fabrics:

That is my last 2.5-yard stretch of free floor remaining in the apartment.

This is the outer layer. I'm making the sling two-layered for two reasons: 1) added stability, and 2) cold weather, it's a'comin'! And I promise I vacuumed the floor right before this picture was taken. Am I the only one whose carpet never fails to embarrass?

Here, from the same fabric collection, is the inner layer. Most people would probably pick a solid color, and certainly not another pattern, but it's kind of like how I cook: the more stuff I can throw in, the better. My husband is a bit more accepting of the sewing mish mash, but that's probably because he doesn't have to eat it.

I'll post more pictures when I finally finish it!