Cloth Diapering! The Beginning of my Journey!

We received our batch of cloth diapers in the mail about a week or two ago. I am really excited, but very nervous!

Right now I am going to do a quick pros and cons list about my diapers:

Pros:

• Adooooorable! It is pretty silly how much I gush over something my baby is going defecate. 
• They appear to have everything advertised about them. Mainly what I am referring to here is the sizing. They are "one size"- meaning they should fit Ezzie until she is ready to potty train. The snaps look like they will definitely allow that!
• Very soft! And well, they aren't crinkly crunkle plastic with God knows what chemicals. I have a feeling my baby's tooshie will enjoy these!

Red- Smallest setting, Yellow- Medium setting, Green- Largest Setting

Cons:

• I am worried about the "bulk". Mainly- am I going to have to get her a size up in the pants to accommodate the diapers due to the bulk in the "smaller sizes"? Hmmm... We'll see!
• Snaps! I knew there were going to be a lot of snaps- this is a given with one size diapers, but every diaper change will have 12 snaps involved (six off, six on)! Eek! Of course, this is better than the archaic safety pins and still even better than pre-folds. I will just be raising a patient baby. We've been practicing with a teddy bear.
• I don't know why, but one of the prints I chose I really wish I hadn't! Its a pale pink with a black lace pattern overlay with bows. Everytime I look at it I think, "why am I putting my baby in sexy lingerie?" I am sure it isn't as bad as I am describing, but I am such a prude anyway.

And yes! They are washing right now. I am doing a warm wash/cold rinse with a squirt of Dawn dish soap (yeah, you read that right) to strip any extra chemicals that  may be on there. I mean, these diapers did come from China (insert winky face). After this I will do an extra rinse or two (to insure the Dawn is out) and then wash them with my 1 tablespoon of my homemade detergent on a warm/cold and then cold/cold cycle. Finally they will go in the dryer to seal the PUL, I will put in the inserts, snap them to the smallest setting, and toss them in the bucket for when Esme is ready for them. For those of my cloth diaper skeptics out there laughing at this insane laundry routine I have ahead of me- fear not! This is only a "prepping" stage that you do once for your cloth diapers. Every other wash day will be much more simple!

Also- homemade laundry detergent you ask? Yes. It took me all of 10 minutes to make (if that) and about ten bucks. I used a 2:2:1 ratio of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, 20 Mule Team Borax, and Oxyclean.

I poured it into a plastic snap container ($1 at Dollar Tree) and mixed with an old wooden spoon that was falling apart.

With cloth diapers you have to be super cautious with the laundry detergent you use so the diapers do not get coated. What better way to ensure that then to make your own? Each load will use one tablespoon of this detergent, which is half a scoop of the scooper that came in our Oxyclean.

Aaaand just for fun: A Hello Kitty printed diaper that is in our "stash". More pics to come!

All opened up

Closed on the absolute smallest size (sitting on top of my disgusting dryer)

Feels Like a Lifetime!

It feels like a lifetime since I've posted! I avoided my blog for so long that when I was able to post- it didn't even occur to me!

For the record: our little baby is a GIRL! We are naming her Esme Julia Christian and are so unbelievably excited to meet her!

We had a very happy gender reveal with both sides of the family! Here's some highlights in photos: 

Our delicious brunch, the day before Mother's day!

Ha! We tricked poor Grammie! What a great reveal!

The vote down in Oklahoma!

Our pinata! Filled with candy to reveal the gender!

Our dino's guts! Pink for girl!!

Maybe its because I am pregnant, but I think I was the only one who preferred the candy over the balloons!

Other than that- everything is going great! We are going to have a midwife (hopefully) deliver Esme. And even though I am starting to get more nausea in the 3rd tri I am happy and healthy! Esme moves a LOT. She has moved a remote control off my belly before and even nudged a bolt of fabric I had against my belly at Hobby Lobby!

Speaking of Hobby Lobby. Amy and I went to every craft store in town, coupons in hand, to get some nursery decorations. Here is how we made out:

EXCUSE THE MESS! I literally swiped everything off of my coffee table to get my craft supplies on there. What you're looking at:
-Fabric for baby blanket, which I am applique-ing dinosaurs on
-Wooden dinos for mobile
-1 Wooden hoop for said mobile
-Various sized wooden hoops to fill with fabric for wall polka dots
-Japanese lanterns, I may paint dinos on these
-Wooden frames I will paint for pictures of "Mommy", "Daddy", and "Baby"
-Paint and foam brushes
-Already painted letters for above the crib

Only thing missing (I think) is the ribbon to hang everything and PERHAPS a lamp I may decorate if I can do it non fire hazardly. Also, if my estimates are correct I got all of that junk for <$50. I don't count the non-pictured ribbon as that will be leftover from our wedding.

 

PS- check out my unintentional "view from above" bump. Underneath is a baby magazine I swiped off my table and it looks like I am giving birth. LOL 

 

 

So now! I am off to work on some of these crafts!I can't wait to see how it all comes together in my "Girly but not too Pinky Dino Nursery!"

A Million Years!

It feels like it has been a million years since I posted! I've been avoiding my blog because I was afraid of accidentally posting the sex and ruining the surprise for some of our family! We have that barbeque on the 29th and we are really looking forward to sharing that moment in person with family. Its been a long wait, but we only have 12 days to go! How exciting!


Anyway, we had our big anatomy scan done May 4th and baby is looking good! The heartbeat was around 147 (if I remember correctly) and yes, there is totally a baby in there! Heck, here is a picture of it looking up at us (it is really weird to think that that face is inside of me!):

 

We had a little scare at the ultra-sound when after the goop was off my belly and my bladder was empty (oh the joy!) the tech came back in for more pictures. The pictures were of the spine and the brain and all's I could think of were all those days I spent barfing my brains out and I didn't get any vitamins whatsoever. Alas, the doctor says everything looks normal (or at least nothing we needed to be notified of immediately). 

I started a new job and I am hating it! Cashiering at WalMart sucks. I would actually like it a lot if it weren't for my sore feet, ankles, and back at the end of the night. I like interacting with people, I just get super sore. I had a little "passing out" incident the other day at work, but it wasn't a big deal once I got home, superhydrated myself, and put my feet up. I have an 8 hr shift today and then two glorious days off! Then another 6 days in a row.  Agh!

One last thing. New biggest pregnancy craving: lemonade! In particular McDonald's frozen lemonade with no syrup and Simply Lemonade with Raspberry! YUM! 

Love, the Christians, Jess, Cricket, Courage, and the baby in my uterus (I forget what fruit it is this week/month)

It's a boy!

Well, at least my chicken nugget makes me think its a boy. I mean come on... a chicken nugget with a penis is a pretty clear cut sign 35 hours away from your anatomy scan, right?

Spinach Ravioli!

Next to Sweet-Tarts, lemonade, and Better-Made BBQ chips, one of my biggest cravings is spinach ravioli! It is so delicious and so easy to make!

Here is my "recipe"
1. Get some frozen cheese ravioli or tortellini and prepare according to the directions (usually pour the ravioli into boiling water and let cook for 2-3 minutes)
2. Put a splash of olive oil and a pinch of minced garlic into a sauce pan and brown the garlic on medium-ish heat.
3. Add a bag of spinach. It is going to shrink A LOT. So do it little by little, like 4 additions.
4. Once the spinach is all shrank sprinkle a little red pepper. Stir and cook on medium-low heat for about 5 min.
5. Throw your cooked and drained ravioli into the spinach pan. Let cook on low for like 3 minutes.

And you're done! Its so delicious, but the ravioli leaves a chalky feeling on your teeth sometimes, or maybe the spinach, I don't know. One of these days I am going to add some grilled chicken into the mix!!

Cloth Diapering!

Pretty much since those two (beautiful) pink lines showed up I have been begging Jacob to agree to cloth diaper. From the get-go he was against it. Then out of nowhere he turns to me and says, "Honey, maybe we should cloth diaper!" This was probably the best "news" I've gotten since peeing on that stick. Just to get it out in the open, here's the pros and cons (for us anyway):

Pros
1. Cost affective! Disposable diapers are about 30 cents per diaper. For about 3 months, baby goes through about 10 a day (sometimes more) and through potty training about 7. So that's about $270 for the newborn phase, and if the baby potty trains at the average age of 3 years old that's about $2110. Altogether that is about $2380, and that's a conservative number. A good "stash" of cloth diapers, even the more expensive ones, can cost about $500, on the high end. Personally, Jacob and I have decided to spend around $300 on them, if all goes according to plan.
2. The environment. This one is iffy, some people argue that the cost of production and maintenance (ie washing and drying) is comparable to the amount of plastic diapers we put in the land fills. Personally, I feel that "wasting" water is not as bad as filling the earth with poop. Apparently it can take 500 years to decompose 1 disposable diaper- eek.
3. Potty training! Look back to #1 when I quote the prices and say that the baby potty trains at 3 years old. Well, guess what? Cloth diapered babies generally potty train much sooner. Cloth diapered babies potty train around 18 months-24 months, disposable diapered babies around 3-4 (on average).
4. Less diaper rash. I don't remember the exact statistic, but something like only 7% of babies had diaper rashes before the disposables. Nowadays, when majority of babies are using disposables something like 78% have diaper rashes.
5. Less chemicals. Disposables have a chemical in it called, "sodium polyacralate" and if it gets on baby's skin its not good! Polyacralate is super absorbent and that is why it is used in disposables, but interesting fact: it has been banned from being used in feminine products, but not in disposable diapers. How messed up is that? Also, some people believe that the chemicals in the disposables can cause or worsen asthma and maybe even cause toxic shock syndrome.
6. Cute! Okay, Jacob likes to speculate that this is my #1 reason for choosing to cloth diaper, but I promise it isn't! But how cute are those cloth diaper covers that can come in so many fun colors and patterns? I feel like that is a lot more fun than pastel Winnie the Pooh, but that's just me.

Cons (and my rebuttal)
1. Sooo much laundry! Yeah I will have to do laundry every 1-2 days, but guess what? I can totally do it. I am notorious for letting my laundry pile up, but we always have clean towels and undies and whatever we need. The baby will need diapers so they will get washed. It may be irritating, but I feel like I'd get in a groove, every other day gotta do a load, and it will just be 2nd nature. Who knows maybe it will help with my other laundry habits.
2. So gross! You have to scrape poop!? Yeah, you have to scrape the poop, and this was Jacob's main issue. But did you know you are supposed to do that even with your run of the mill Pampers, Huggies, and Luvs? Yeah for real!Its a violation of World Health Organization, APHA, and CDC guidelines to just "throw" your poopy diapers away. Think of gross poop is and all the "crap" it contains. When it goes into our landfills it can leach into our water supply, not just the obviously gross stuff, but viruses too- like Polio. They have diaper sprayers that aren't that costly, and yeah its pretty nasty, but I heard breast fed babies' poo doesn't smell quite as bad as formula fed babies, so I am thinking I can deal. Plus I worked at a vet clinic.
3. Leaks and blow-outs. I only read about this in a couple of places, but cloth diapers are just as (if not more) effective at containing those messes as disposables. The most common cause of leaks with cloth diapers are either low quality/absorbency or the brand/style just doesn't just fit your baby. Just like disposables you need to explore other options- if Luvs doesn't work you try Huggies, same theory applies to cloth diapers.
4. Uhm, what do you do with your dirties before they are washed? Diaper pails or bags are really effective and there are a lot of options to be used. I haven't really read about a mother who could not find a solution to the stinkies because there are just so many out there. Also, it isn't like there is a pail of dirty diapers hanging around your house for a week(+). You wash your diapers every other day, at least, along with the liner or bag.
5. Diaper creams. No, you can't use Desitin or the raved about Butt Paste because it messes with the absorbency of your cloth diapers, but there are plenty of options out there for baby. And actually, breast milk is good for soothing rashes, weird, huh?
6. Energy cost. Okay, I can't really get around this one, except by saying the increase in our electric bill is going to suck (it won't be comparable to the cost of disposables, though I am sure) and we don't pay for our water!
7. A lot of day cares don't allow them! If our baby ends up in day care we will try to find a cloth diaper friendly provider, or just suck up the fact that baby will be on disposables. Not really something that can be avoided.

Okay so that's my schpeel on cloth diapers. I am really excited about this little venture. I honestly haven't come across one family member who is completely supportive of it and that kind of sucks, but I have some friends helping me out and that is great! The choice to cloth diaper was a hard one for Jacob and I, or at least a long time coming. For Jacob it took a ton of deliberation and it could have just as easily gone the other way. In fact, we have two packages of disposables under our bathroom counter. So that being said, I don't "judge" anyone who chooses to use disposables, it is a personal parenting choice that everybody  has the right to make themselves!

Night everyone! Love, the Christians- Jacob, Jess, Cricket, Courage, and the melon kicking my bladder

Heart beats, Ultra sounds, and Color Schemes!

We had an appointment yesterday morning and everything is looking good! I am measuring right where I should be- a huge relief to the twin scare/ slightly enlarged uterus! The baby was moving a lot (she said) when using the doppler and it's heart rate was at 154.

I just scheduled our big ultra-sound/ anatomy scan for May 4th at 9:30 am and I couldn't be more excited! Now, how do I get through these next 12 days without bursting? No clue.

In the meantime, I've been fantasizing about the nursery. I plan on doing a lot of DIY projects- an appliqued quilt being the main element. I've also found some cute ideas for decorating lamps and wall art. Our "theme" will be for girl- dinosaur and if its a boy- Beatles themed. I am so excited to get going on this quilt! In the meantime, we've come up with a little rough color scheme (boy on left, girl on right):

 

It's funny, the girl color scheme is pretty much our wedding colors. I am not too keen on pink nursery, and plus if we use light green elements we can use them for future children (if there are future children).We'll see! I am so excited!