Night Diapering Adventures

Well, Rebecca has suddenly started wetting through literally everything. To the point that we started having to do at least one, if not two changes in the middle of the night, often including her sleeper!, even with a doubler in the diapers, and even last night, she had a really good thick doubler in her diaper and she wet through and had a wet patch on either leg this morning. We decided we had to do something in order to keep her dry at night, since most nights she's wetting that heavily, and figured our best bet was going to be to find a cloth diaper with a really high absorbency level.

So... after spending a few days looking into diapers and absorbencies and such, I found that bamboo is usually one of the most absorbent available fabric for diapers... and Motherease not only makes a bamboo (one size) diaper, but it is thinner, and thus less bulky, than their cotton ones! Hey, we were wanting something that was going to last from now till whenever she trained (hence one size), something highly absorbent, and something that wasn't going to be *too* super bulky on her, since she's still so small, and they totally have what we need! So... I ordered their little starter package in bamboo rather than cotton, with extra liners to go with the three diapers that 'wouldn't' have liners. Hopefully she can't manage to wet through a 20oz absorbency (which is the combined absorbency level of their diaper and snap in liner)! I have high hopes, perhaps?!

Anyway, everything I'm reading says that these diapers on their own hold at least as much as disposable diapers, if not more, when it comes to fluid, so perhaps we'll have dry mornings now since we'll be putting in the doubling liners! Now we just await the arrival of our new diapers. They were more expensive than just cotton (of course), but not to the point that they were completely out of our price range, and we're figuring that if keeping her 'dryer' will help her sleep through the night (which seems to be the case as last night she really DID sleep a straight 8 hours!!), it's worth the money in order to have more restful nights for me. :)

Rebecca also has an interest in actually doing things like crafts, colouring, reading, etc in a more organized fashion, so I've been coming up with a few activities for her to do each day, based around (currently) a farm theme. She got a book that is a collection of stories about baby animals, and the first one takes place on a farm. :) So, we have a couple of farm animals to colour, a couple of farm animals to build (one is just a paper craft, one is a paper bag puppet, which I'm sure she's going to love, lol), and then a few other odds and ends as well. It's great, because it keeps her busy without her getting into trouble! :)

Today we glued little flat marbles onto a 'mosaic' picture frame, and wrote out her grandma's birthday card (hand-over-hand). Tomorrow I suppose I'll put the grouting onto the frame, and then Wednesday I'll stick the backing on the frame... and then get the picture intended for the frame printed on Friday, probably.

I've offered to do some knitting for a lady whose daughter is expecting in March, and I know she had a number of things she wanted to make for the baby, but she broke her wrist yesterday morning, and it's bad enough that they may even need to put pins or a rod into it! So anyway, I doubt she's going to be able to do much knitting between now and when the baby arrives, and since that's something I can do to help out, perhaps she'll take me up on it. Of course, I don't want to take away from her being able to do something special for the baby either, so hopefully she won't feel that I am offering to do that to her!

Other than that... I'm just working on tidying things up around the house today, for the most part. Oh, and I have a prenatal appointment that is apparently happening at *my* house tomorrow evening.

Everything Goes in the Mouth!

Rebecca has recently started putting pretty much everything into her mouth. Paper. Toys. Fingers. Thumbs. You name it, if she can hold it (or even just get her mouth on it), it goes in her mouth. SO, I have some pictures of an entertaning evening we had with her.

Last Monday Justin decided to have a Freezie/Icy Pop/Otto Pop/whateveryoucallit, and he was holding Rebecca. Rebecca was just fascinated by the bright yellow thing hanging out of Daddy's mouth, and thought she should get to share, but try as she might, she couldn't manage to get Daddy to share. So, she gave up on getting some of the good end. Instead, she started playing with the sealed end, and decided to copy Daddy, by putting it into her mouth (no assistance from Mummy or Daddy on any of these pictures)! So, here they are sharing a freezie.

I love her expression in this one!

Rebecca has also started really sucking her thumb recently, and it is rather cute. If she's watching something, it is normally one of her two index fingers that she is chewing on, but if she really wants to suck, she's got her thumb in her mouth.

This is just a random picture I thought I'd throw in. :-)

And, a bath time. She is becoming more and more fun at bath times, and on this particular evening (Thursday last week, I believe) Daddy grabbed the camera and Rebecca was having a chat with him about her wonderful bath.

I believe we are on the last day of cloth diapers before the trip to Halifax. I didn't want to have to panic over getting diapers washed on Friday before we leave here at 7am Saturday morning, so I thought we would wash the diapers and get them all clean and done tomorrow. That will mean an extra three days in disposables (oh horrors...) but it will make my life easier with regard to getting the dirty diapers washed.

I'm also trying to recreate our bedtime routine, because we are failing miserably at having one again. *sigh* Now I'm thinking we're going to try taking a nice walk in the evening, then coming home and reading a story, then having a bath, then eating and going to sleep with some quiet music playing. It seemed to work pretty well last night, except that Rebecca expected Daddy to be here before she went to sleep (this is the one glitch in the plan). I'm kind of dreading that part of her ideal time to go to sleep when we're in Halifax, as she thinks that she has to see Daddy before she sleeps for the night. This could make for some very wakeful nights up there!

And, I need to go so I can get some things done, and check on Rebecca (she was asleep on our bed last I checked, and I don't want her "crawling"/rolling off!!).

Happenings... or lack thereof...

Okay, I think we have *possibly* figured out Rebecca's sleeping problem. I think she is a very heavy wetter at night, and because she wets so much through the night her clothing ends up wet after about 5-6 hours, and she's cold and uncomfortable. SO, we're going to get some bamboo doublers, and see if they make any difference at all! They're like $5 a piece, which isn't too bad since we probably only need to order four or so to make it through the 2-3 days before we wash diapers again. Anyway, bamboo is supposed to be extremely absorbent, and it is supposed to wick wetness away, so I figure it's a good possibility that it may fix our lack of sleep to at least a point. The worst that happens is we spend a bit of money and not have it work at all, but it is my suspicion that since I tried changing her diaper at 4:30 and then she didn't wake again until 8:00 this morning, we may just need to give her a dry diaper halfway through the night, or find a way to keep her drier at night... hence the bamboo. Hmm... I wonder if the fabric store would sell bamboo terry or something like that...

Hayley, you suggested that perhaps she is teething, and I would go for that idea, if she were fussing through the day as well as not sleeping, but she is rather happy all day lately... today being an exception, LOL... we're NOT having a good day, and I'm not sure why. I think maybe she's got an upset tummy, because she's been spitting up a lot since last night. Anyway, she's normally only fussy for the second half of the night most times (at which point we spend more time awake than asleep).

My mum found the Whisper pant from Bummies, I believe it is, and it looks so similar to what we are using, so we'll probably be getting those. I am really starting to like the looks of the Motherease original one-size system, though I like what we are using right now as well. The only thing is, I don't think my baby is going to toilet train before she outgrows the diapers we have for her, and so I need to find some diapers for her to go into, otherwise we'll be back to flat diapering (not that that is a problem, as I am becoming rather adept at doing that... Justin just isn't as good at using them!). Perhaps we'll look at it for the next one... maybe. The more I use the fitted diapers the more I think the flats are more convenient. Perhaps I'll just see if I can track down an airflow cover somewhere that I can either borrow or have, and test those out and see if I like them on Rebecca. This is the one part of cloth diapers that I don't like!!

We have been having cool weather lately, after those nice warm days a couple of weeks back, but we have officially started the season of necessary lawn cutting! Justin cut the lawn for the first time this past weekend. Well, the front lawn, anyway. The back lawn needs a little work before we cut it. (Mainly picking up branches and such from the wind blowing things down). Now, the cool weather has not stopped the robins from starting their nests. We got up one morning, only to discover that a robin was attempting to build a nest on our lamp over the back door. Well, that wasn't working so well, so then it must have decided that our mail box looked to be a better candidate. That failed when we discovered the beginnings of the nest and got rid of it. However, Justin had some sympathy for it, and asked me about how big a space a robin needs to build a nest, and he mounted a ledge under the covering of our front porch, so now we have a robin's nest there. But, that's not all. Not only do we have a nest there, but I noticed a couple of robins coming and going a lot in our back yard, and sure enough, there is a second nest on our property. At least these birds were a little more intelligent, and they built theirs in the willow tree. But, those two nests along with our finches inside is going to create a VERY noisy yard and house!

I got our back entry tidied up quite a bit today, as well as the bathroom and cleaned the bathroom. The livingroom and dining room are my cleaning tasks for tomorrow (livingroom will be easy, diningroom will be more of a task, as I still haven't got everything organized in there!). I'm trying to devise a system of keeping track of the things that need to get done on a given day, but haven't succeeded yet. I'm currently thinking that if I put everything on index cards, and get a file box and put days of the week, numbers of the month, names of the months, etc I may actually keep it figured out, and it would be tidy and easy to keep. I don't know though. Hmm... anyone have ideas on that one? I like to make things into little jobs that one can do in 5-10 minute stints at the moment, because that's often all the time I have at any given time with Rebecca, though she is becoming much easier to occupy (and she is starting to love riding on my back in the mei tai while I work!).

And, I have some pictures, but haven't the time at the moment to get them up. I need to get Rebecca ready to go to the church for choir practise! I'll try to get them up this week, though it seems that any time I say something like that I never get a chance to do whatever it was until the following week or even later. But, I am going to try!

AAAACK! Calling Cloth Diaperers!!

Wellll... we've got a problem. I went to order the next size of the covers we've been *really* happy with, and discovered they are no longer carried in the location that we ordered them from last time. SO... now I have to either find their equivalent elsewhere (if anyone knows where to get nylon pull-on covers, PLEASE tell me!!!), or we have to select new covers for the next sizes. *sigh* And I liked the covers we're using, too!

SO... what do I want in a cover?? here's my list:

1) Doesn't leak the poop. This is my NUMBER ONE (ie, most important) REQUIREMENT. My baby apparently has really skinny legs, because we are nearing the end of the size of cover she's in, and I had to stitch the legs so they were tight enough to not have gaps. There is still one stitch in each leg hole, even though we are near the end of these covers. So, I need a cover that works for skinny-legged babies.

2) Really easy to use, so there are no learning curves for me... OR for Justin. I'd prefer to avoid velcro, if possible, because I often forget to attach the sticky tabs to their soft counterparts when washing, and Justin pretty well ALWAYS forgets. Please only recommend things that do NOT involve velcros. This was a big benefit to the nylon pants, because they were easily used, and easily removed, with no need to learn to do anything, except to be sure that the cover was covering the whole diaper (yeah... that was an initial oops, LOL).

3) We need VERY cost effective. We paid $15 for three, so I would prefer to not go beyond that much if at all possible. We like to function with six (actually, there are days I think we need ten, hehe), but if we absolutely have to we can make do with fewer...

And... if I have to knit soakers... somebody please tell me how in the world they work (they seem to be rather thin...), if they really do work, and how to care for them (ie, washing and felting and all that)!

Diaper Covers and other things

Well, I never thought I would be excited over diaper covers, but... I really like the covers! They arrived yesterday (yay for quick shipping and delivery!), and they are SO nice. Nothing like the cheap Gerber version of the same thing. I'm glad I decided to go with them instead! The bands around the waist and legs are so nice and soft, and the fabric on the actual cover just looks and feels so much more durable!

Now, while I'm very satisfied with my order of diaper covers, I am extremely irritated with Toys 'R' Us. That's where I ordered the only bassinet mattress that I've been able to find that would even come close to fitting our little bassinet. They cancelled the order, because for some reason, even though they list the item as being in stock on their site, their manufacturer apparently doesn't make them anymore or something. So, even though they're advertised as available, they're not available. So now I'm stuck having to figure out how in the world to make one! I seriously have no idea. I guess I'll end up getting some twill or something, and making one kind of in a tied quilted fashion, but I don't know. And, since I have to buy fabric and such anyway, I guess I'll figure out how to make the little bumper thingies at the same time.

My nephew is here on his own today. I think he's a little bored. He normally has his sister to play with all afternoon, but today he was done his school work by 10:30, and now he has a whole afternoon in which there are no play mates! The poor child. I'm not even sure what to do with him, because normally I would be willing to do something like cook with the kids or something, but I don't have any baking that needs to be done, and we're having soup for supper and that doesn't require a lot of cooking... He doesn't colour for very long, he doesn't draw for long, he doesn't do crafts much, unless you tell him exactly what he needs to do and when, and I'm lacking the creativity to make something with him right now. I guess we could go to the library, but that only takes 1/2 an hour of our afternoon. We could go to the park, but again, he'll be bored in 30 minutes. We could go for a walk at the nature park, but that only would take us 45 minutes... I guess if we put all of that together, it would take care of most of the afternoon, but seriously... I don't want to drive all over the city just to entertain the child! He has a ball, he has sticks, there's a tree to climb, but no... he wants to play with a person at all times. Is this the joy of caring for a youngest child? They've ALWAYS been entertained by another child?? *sigh*

Oh, and the baby bird is still alive. I'm impressed. I thought it would be dead by the end of the weekend, and actually, I thought it was dead at one point yesterday, because they had filled its crop soooo full that its head was at a weird angle and it looked like it had a broken neck. Anyway, I suspect the baby may survive, so I've decided to name it Twig, in keeping with the names of its parents, Willow and Bamboo. I don't know if we'll actually be keeping it, but it is quite cute, and I decided it needed a name.

Bird Eggs

Those finches that were added to our pet collection are currently sitting on ten eggs. I'm not sure if I should be hoping they all do hatch, or that only the four most recent ones hatch, or that none of them hatch, LOL! The birds are very faithfully tending the nest, and I'm having the hardest time getting them to keep the paper on the bottom of the cage. They keep tearing it into little strips and putting it into the nest, despite the fact that I've given them little strips of cloth/thread to nest in, and they've been plucking their feathers non-stop. Ah well, I suppose in about a week we shall see how many babies we are dealing with (YIKES!). Imagine... I'll be 38 weeks pregnant, and we'll have baby birds having just shown up out of their eggs. This could be a noisy end of pregnancy!! At least the female (a.k.a. Willow) has quit laying eggs. I was afraid we were going to be looking at the possibility of 14-16 babies in that tiny nest! Now that wouldn't have worked at all! I can't imagine that a nest that is only about 4 inches diameter would fit more than perhaps 8-10 inch-long babies, which is how big these things will be when they hatch. I think if they all hatch they're going to be crawling over each other constantly! Hopefully the mass of wiggling bodies won't be tall enough that they end up crawling out of the nest and falling on the floor (ie, possibly breaking necks and dying).

I ordered a matress pad for our baby bassinet. It's the only oval one I could find that was close to the right size, and even so, it is still a few inches too long. We're guessing it will squish in okay though, so it should be fine. It's an awful lot easier than having to make one, anyway! Now I just have to figure out how to pad the edges of the bassinet. Any ideas? I don't even know what one would make the little bumper thingies out of! Perhaps flannelette? Or just plain cotton? There's a lot of really cute stuff out there, or I could just do white, but white stains so easily that it seems it would make more sense to use something coloured... hmmm...

I have also ordered our initial need of diaper covers. Probably a good thing, seeing as currently we only have one cover in the 8-12 lb size range or whatever it is, and then strangely enough, I have ones that will fit a 2(ish) year old. I happened across them in a bunch of stuff we were given... the person who gave them to us apparently used them for panty covers for toilet training though, rather than for cloth diapering. I'm not sure where the little cover came from! Anyway, I ordered one little package of newborn sized ones for the "just in case we need it" thing, and then I ordered two packages of the 0-3 month sized ones, figuring that at that age they are most likely to have very runny messies so probably will need to wash them more often (and thus need more of those!). So, now we have three newborn, and six 0-3 month sized covers on their way, and then we'll see how big the baby is and all that before ordering the next size(s) so we know how many we need of what sizes.

Update on those ten birds eggs as of Thursday morning: There is now one live baby in the nest. Not sure if it will survive, not sure if we're going to have one baby a day for the next ten days... but if it survives, we may be on the start of a very noisy home!

Following my instincts?

Well, for the last month or so, I've been trying to tell myself that I really don't need many newborn items. Diapers, yes. Those are a necessity, lol. We now have newborn sized disposables to last (hopefully) the first week or so. Then we'll go to cloth. However, on the clothing front I kept telling myself that two sleepers in newborn size was plenty. I didn't need any more than that, because the baby will grow out of the size so fast, and will fit the 0-3 month sized stuff anyway. Well, telling myself that really didn't work well at all. I wound up dragging Justin to a store where I knew you can get newborn sized stuff in neutral colours so that we would have enough for the baby. Strange when I also know that most newborns will fit the 0-3 month stuff, but I really had this feeling that I needed a few more sleepers in the smallest size available (aside from premie sized!). Now I'm happy... I have all the newborn sized sleepers in neutrals that I feel we'll need. And, of course, I feel weird, considering I don't even know how big the baby is yet! For all we know, this kid is going to be an 8 or 9 lb baby, and won't fit the newborn stuff at all! But... for the sake of making my "instincts" happy, we have the sleepers. We also have the receipt so we can exchange if necessary, lol.

Oh, and, we're travelling about 4 hours away from here on Saturday, to Lynchburg, so I have everything (I hope?) we are likely to need for an "emergency birth" if we happen to have to birth while on the road/away from home. Towels, sleeper, onesie, blankets, hats, clothing for me, etc... Am I weird or what?! The only things we're NOT taking on Saturday are the baby seat (oh, we need to get a baby on board sign thingy... hmmm....) and the baby sling. Somehow I doubt we'll need a baby sling even if the baby were to be born en route! I figure if we were pulled over they would excuse us from having the baby in a car seat given the circumstances!

We got the baby's room completely tidied up, so I'm very pleased with that! Pictures will be coming soon. We had to find my camera cards before I could take pictures, and now I just don't feel like spending the time putting the pictures on my computer and from my computer onto here. Soon though. And, our bedroom is almost cleaned up completely as well, so I guess I'll take pictures of it as well.

So, now I'm trying to figure out sleeping arrangements for the baby. I'm a little afraid to try actual *co*sleeping, because I don't want the baby to end up getting squished by accident. I'm not quite sure how to fit the bassinet in, because of space constraints in our room, so I'm really at a loss. How does one do co-sleeping with a baby, anyway?? I would be afraid of the baby falling off the bed if it was on the outside, or being rolled on top of by mother or father if in the middle...