Diaper repair to benefit families

I’m starting to collect, repair and redistribute (to other families in Central Vermont) cloth diapers that would otherwise end up sitting in a box, unused.

What kind of repair am I talking about? To start, I’m focusing on cloth diapers called pocket diapers and all in one’s- the ones with PUL (polyurethane laminated fabric that wicks away moisture, keeping little ones clothes dry) that have failing elastic. When these diapers with elastic are washed and dried over and over again, the elastic wears out, leaving families with lots of leaks and a frustration toward cloth diapers. I’ve been repairing these diapers (think Fuzzi Bunz and Bum Genius) and while they are time consuming to repair, I feel like it’s worth the effort in order for these diapers to get used and not lost to attics or (please, no!) landfills.

In some cases, I believe that convenience and cost gets in the way of families using cloth diapers. Each new diaper costs around $18- some more and some less. We’re talking over a hundred dollars to get your “starter kit”. Of course, once you have a second and then a third child, you see the benefits and can feel good about the initial expense. Imagine, however, a family who wants to use cloth but can’t afford the cost of these fancy diapers. If the family is really persistent, they may go with flat diapers. The lower cost of a dozen diapers is more manageable. But, when your little baby turns into a wiggly “don’t you even think of putting me on my back to change my diaper” on the move toddler, some families will put the flat diapers away, not wanting to deal with them and perhaps turn to disposable diapers.

For those families who are kicking themselves for not continuing the cloth diapering legacy, turning to disposables can be hard. I’ve talked to some of these families. So, what if there were a service in the area that could provide a small number of fancy diapers to help these families continue on a cloth diapering roll, helping them build a stash!

I will still be doing elastic repair for hire. But, for those who have diapers to donate, I’ll also be doing this service for families. One thing I could use your help with: Help me name my service- the charity (for lack of a better word, not the for hire stuff)! Let me know leaving a comment here, through facebook or my email if you have it. How do I convey the type of service?

They breathe in unison

After a day full of debating with a two year old lawyer and consoling a teething one year old, the sound of two children sleeping is music. Pure music. It’s so easy to fall asleep next to them after putting them to bed. I guess I should say that they put us to bed as much as we “put them to bed”. Our sleep routine, for lack of a better term, begins when baby brother starts to get tired. He leads us upstairs where we get everyone’s teeth brushed (mine, too) and possibly do a bath, if someone requests it, and head into our room. Baby brother and his big sister play as he gets in some pre-bedtime nursing in between giggles. Just when I think he’s about to fall asleep, I’ll hear bilingual baby get off the bed, head over to the closet and say, “I think my brother wants to play with me”, and he in turn gets off the bed and plays with her. They laugh so hard together. It makes a long day melt away.

When this first started I was alone with the kids- bilingual papi was doing one of his late nights at the university library. I don’t care when the kids fall asleep when it’s just me and they usually fall asleep when they’re tired, so that night I went with it. They were enjoying their play so much, and nobody was getting hurt, so I couldn’t bring myself to break it up. After a bit of play, baby brother came to the bed, crawled up, and fell asleep as he nursed. Eventually, bilingual baby also came to bed, pushed her tiny body against mine and dozed off in the middle of a thought. The breathing began.

Simply nursing baby brother puts me to sleep but now I get a double whammy. Even if I wanted to get up and be a night owl, I’ve got two little bodies keeping me warm, breathing that deep sleep breathing. Just thinking about it is putting me to sleep. Baby brother’s breathing is still shallower than bilingual baby’s but they come together so often, I can’t help but think that they are in sync even when they are asleep.

When the world ends

for a two year old, it ends. Quickly. Tantrums, as the mainstream calls them. I call it all venting. Venting, in our family, happens periodically but on occasion it happens as an explosion. Take for example, my desire to take her in and out of the grocery store in her stroller. Bad idea. I knew I was going into potential toddler warfare but tried it anyway. I figured I was only getting two items. By the end of my very quick trip to the store, I had a screaming child, one who I didn’t want to pull out and have scream indoors. Oh, and the judging eyes. So many of them. What a horrible mother I must be… No heart… no compassion. After paying and walking outside I was ready to curl up into a little ball and hide until she stopped venting.

She’s going through something. You can just tell. Once she vented she was done. We walked home relaxed. But for those minutes, maybe even seconds in the store, my head was about to explode. Plus, I tried to watch a friend’s kid and she exploded and couldn’t ground herself back, so she got picked up and then another friend stopped by for a quick visit and the world came to an end again and both my kid and my friend’s kid were melting. By the time I got to the grocery store, I had reached my screaming quotient and was done. I just wanted everyone to take a much needed nap- including me. It didn’t happen due to more melting.

I’m often asked if I’m overwhelmed by having two kids and I have to say that my deer-in-headlights look is mostly due to having a 2 year old. I don’t think they are terrible but their emotions are grand and they feel very deeply. So, in essence, they need a shoulder to cry on. A lot!

Baby brother turned ONE!

It was bound to happen and it happened this weekend. I don’t think I’ve thoroughly processed this thought. A friend came over and brought over Agar Jelly (aka Kanten jelly, Japanese jelly, etc). It’s made from Agar Agar flakes, a derivative of seaweed. “Like ordinary gelatin, agar is flavorless and becomes gelatinous when it’s dissolved in water, heated, and then cooled.   Agar, though, gels more firmly than gelatin, and it sets and melts at a higher temperature–it can even set at room temperature.  Agar, like gelatin, is full of protein (though incomplete), but it also contains the rich array of minerals one would expect from seaweed.” (Cooks Thesaurus) She mixed in some fruit and it was so delicious! It’s vegan so it supported my return to dairy-free life.

We were thinking of having a party in his honor but I kept putting off the preparations. It was nice to have our family and one neighbor. Sort of what we did for bilingual baby’s first birthday. Nothing big, just us and one friend.

My interest in Macrobiotics is increasing. It’s interesting to find a way of eating so close to the way we eat in Colombia. Grains, beans, veggies. A good friend loaned me a book called Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition by Paul Pitchford. Pitchford provides food remedies, or ways to treat body imbalances with food. I’d love to have the Spanish version.

My neighbor is really into the macrobiotic thing and I’ve learned a lot from her. It is very intuitive for me, having lived on rice and lentils as a kid. Some of the things that are different for me are the sweets. Fruits are left to be eaten 2-3 times a week. It makes more sense that we would do that in Vermont since so few fruits grow naturally here. However, in Colombia, fruit grows year round and it’s all local! I definitely haven’t cut out my fruit habit (sounds pretty lame to be cutting down my fruit habit) but maybe someday. First I need to find more ways to cook kale, since it grows so easily in this area.

More next on my sad tomato plants. They, along with everyone else’s tomato plants, got hit by some airborne thing and now the tomatos are rotten, the leaves are brown and falling off and overall it just looks sad. I’m wondering if I should pull it out of the ground to give more room for the kale, beets and few carrots. I’m also planning for next year already, seeing that the amount of sun on the side patch is lacking much more than I had anticipated.

Teething, Round Two

Poor baby brother has had a temperature for the last couple of days and has been absolutely miserable. Even when we’ve been around other kids. That’s saying a lot since he’s a very chill person. Right now, he’s have a minute (or two) of lack of discomfort… okay. I wrote that line and immediately heard him crying as he crawled over to me. I now have him on my back and he seems to be doing okay.

The last couple of days it’s been hard to distinguish the beginning from the end of a nursing session. He’s been latched on all day, it seems. At night I think he nurses a lot but I think I’ve got my cruise control on by then and don’t notice the number of wake-ups. It’s one of the blessings of sharing a bed with the fam. On that note, I have to say that the family bed is working out for us. Bilingual baby doesn’t seem to want to transition anywhere else but to baby brother’s side and back. On occasion, she’ll talk about making a tiny bed for herself but it ends up unused. I’ve been thinking about making her a little futon to put on the floor next to our bed. I don’t want her out of our bed but I also don’t want to misread readiness. I suppose readiness will be obvious and what we’re seeing is still a little sparse. I’m just excited to make a bed for her.

Back to the teething. It’s tough, too, that bilingual baby is also reverting to crawling and playing baby. Hers is a need to be close due to all that she’s learning, as much as it’s a call to be as close as her baby brother is to us. Some days it’s harder than others. For the most part, I think I’m juggling just fine on my own. I don’t know that help is openly received by my kids. Last night, bilingual papi did get to do bedtime alone with bilingual baby which is what they did for about off and on during my pregnancy with baby brother.

Gonna run and take a minute shower before the sewing circle arrives. I’m bringing the sewing machine down today and I can’t promise that it’ll be back upstairs by the end of the day. I’ve got too many projects I’ve been meaning to start.

On another note, I noticed that my flickr badge hasn’t been working and I don’t have concentrated computing time to try and fix it and I wanted to share some photos of our recent Chicago/California trip. So, if you’re interested, check out My flickr.

Room enough

I feel like I’m approaching my blog in a slightly different way theses days. On one hand, I just don’t blog with the voracity I used to have but why should I? My little baby boy is walking and I can’t stop watching him explore. For instance, over the last couple of days he’s figured out that the same skill he uses to get off the bed (feet first) works in other situations as well. He’s using this new skill to cross over the rim of the sliding glass door, get from the porch to the grass and even climb down one step of our stairs! He just figures this stuff out on his own. It’s very cool. As an aside, he’s such an independent walker, too. He doesn’t want all the hand holding I remember providing for other kids (my older one included). So much seems to happen in one day that when I get time to blog I have no idea where to start.

I have had one thing on my mind and I’ve wanted to share it with those of you who have followed my journey as a mom. For you, here is my story:

During the first couple of days of being in California, we stayed at my sister’s house. She had a conference to go to that week so my parents were there watching her two kids (5 and 7 months). This was my first time meeting the 7 month old. He is such a little cutie. In talking with my sister our first evening, she revealed to me that she was feeling at odds with this conference because she didn’t have time to pump. She’d been pumping at work until summer hit and she could be at home and nurse all day. Since this conference, she’d been giving her little boy some formula and she wasn’t sure what to do. I eagerly offered to express some breastmilk to give to him instead of the formula- not so much because I disagree with giving formula but mostly because I was there and I was more than willing. She then revealed to me that she was hoping I’d offer. We were on the same page. The next day I called her to ask where her pump was since I had forgotten to ask for it the night before. By this point, all I was nervous about was my parent’s reaction to my pumping for my nephew. On the phone, my sister was explaining to me how to reassemble the pump which I was instructed to sterilize first. What a pain, I thought. Can’t I just nurse him? I asked and she said it was fine and that she hadn’t even figured I’d go for the pumping to begin with. Again, same page. My nephew was fussing for food. Since I was nervous about how my family would react, I decided to hand express some milk. My kids thought it was an early buffet and came over to help themselves. Very funny. Then my mom told me that in the southern part of the United States, where some of her family is from, the concept of a wet nurse is very common. My dad then saw me doing my best at hand expressing and didn’t say a word. He didn’t even make a face. After talking with my mom a bit more about wet nurses in the south, I told her that my sister had okayed me to nurse her son. So, with my parent’s approval, I picked up my nephew and cradled him close to me and began to nurse him. He wasn’t too sure of it at first. He kept looking at me, nursing and coming off. Baby brother kept coming over to see what I was doing. What little baby did I have in my arms? He was curious. (Not jealous.) And he wanted to join in like bilingual baby had joined in when he was nursing (which I haven’t done in months). By the second nursing, my nephew was part of the nursing team. He was soon falling asleep as I nursed him in my arms, in the chair his mama nursed him in on most days. I ended up nursing him during the day for 2 days and will never forget the experience. I feel so close to him, as if my heart had expanded by nursing him.

Well, I feel like I’m at the beginning of my rope again…

Over the last two (or maybe even three) months, I’ve been barely holding my head above water. That was one of the reasons to take the costume gig. I wanted to have something else to do other than intuit my kids’ needs. I’ll now enter a parenthesis on our EC’ing, which I will approach from my perspective and what it entails for me, not my baby, but will return to my main theme in a second. Skim if you must.

Baby brother is 9 months. He crawls on hands and knees, is saying things like mama (when in desperate need) and papa (for fun times) and has a “call” that means he wants his big sister’s attention and wants to play. I’m also starting to introduce some table food. He doesn’t eat it every day, much less three meals a day, but it does allow for a calmer child when we’re all at the table eating our meals. He’s included. I don’t take him to the potty every time he’s gotta go. I don’t actually know every time he’s gotta go- but every other time I freak myself out, I’m good. He is getting to a point where he knows when he’s gone, which is when he starts calling for me and if I am involved in something (say, a kid’s costume) he’ll crawl over to me and give me the look which tells me that he’s got a need I’m going to meet. I’ve also started taking him in the morning (bilingual Papi takes him if it’s too early for me) and he seems to prefer it to diapering. I got him some 2T training pants and they actually fit pretty well. It’s perfect being outdoors so much (or having that ability) because he can then wander around in the fresh air.

My parenthesis is now closed. The theme of exhaustion will now be explored.

A week ago, I was using G-diapers to rid my sweet child of what didn’t turn out to be such a nasty diaper rash (go breastmilk!) and I mentioned to bilingual papi that on days when I’m overtired I should just use the G’s and not change baby brother so often (I change him anytime the diaper is wet or soiled). I lasted that one day with the G’s. Though I think they’re the closest I’ll get to a disposable diaper (it’s biodegradable) I didn’t start back with the cloth the next day out of pride. It was just the cycle of things.

One day, I was feeling burnt out and the next I was magically sleeping in with my two kids. The last two or three months were sort of leading to this burn out. I was going non-stop with the kids. Neither of them was sleeping very much and I wasn’t getting any time to just sit and stare off into space- which I love to do! We had 11pm bedtimes and 6am wake up calls one week and cranky kids, teething baby, and one frustrated mom feeling like she (me) was the worst parent available.

Well, I’m beyond that tunnel and I can see now what I couldn’t see before: it’s not my fault that they were grumpy. It was not my fault that I couldn’t console them each and every time. And the partial weaning continues. So, now that I’ve gotten some much needed sleep and my kids are going to bed  and having a decent night and I’m now able to get out of bed after putting them both to sleep, get up and sew while watching tv, I’m feeling the effects of R&R. I’ll also be catching my breath after Friday (my podeagi sewing deadline, sort of) and perhaps starting on a new venture: modern dance class: Saturday mornings…

Can I brag here for a moment?

I’ve been feeling a whole lot better since the middle of last week. I can now support bilingual baby in her 2 year old needs. The whining of last week that made me climb the walls seems to have no (or little) effect on me this week. Hormones. Yes.

I got her to nap a couple of days this week- though not all. Yay. Stroller central. We’ve also been trying an experiment. Instead of trying a formal bedtime we’ll just stay downstairs with bilingual baby until she’s tired and falls asleep. Last night we all passed out at 10pm. There’s something in the air here at work. Or maybe it’s just the increased daylight.

Let me continue bragging. I made sushi! I may be the last person on the earth to realize how easy and economical it is to make your own sushi but hey whatcha gonna do. I employed the “one for me, one for the serving platter” mode which left me with very few pieces. hehe

Since planting the idea (many more gardening references to come) of selling podeagis, I’ve actually had 3 people say they would want to buy one from me. I got some tags made but they won’t arrive for like a month and a half. So, off to work I go. I’ve made two so far and one is in a box making its way to my sister in California.

Bilingual baby has consented to getting into a carrier here and there lately and I just love it. I actually got her and baby brother to go for a walk in carriers. Bilingual baby had been napping in the stroller and woke up but wanted to keep going and said yes to a back ride. Gotta love it.

I have to say that she felt really light in the pod. I almost didn’t believe it. She’ll ask me to carry her in my arms when I’m cooking and my arms can’t hold her up for as long as she’d like.

Here are some of the things that I’ve overlooked while enjoying the pleasure of my kids company, our friends and sewing:

Vacuuming the upstairs

Promptly putting away the clean clothes (I’m a total college student when it comes to putting clean clothes away- I’ll wash and dry but leave the rest for bilingual papi and luckily he’s a good sport about it.)

Things I’ve learned about my toddler:

Do Not toast bread

and Do Not put anything on her bread

After peeling a tangerine, Do Not break apart the pieces

When brushing her teeth, have her play the role of some character (Pato and Pocoyo work these days) and ask that character what they had to eat so we can get all the food out with the toothbrush.

Follow the rule you use when there’s a fire: Stop. Drop. Roll. To spell it out: When you’re feeling that things are unmanageable, stop what you’re doing, drop everything including expectations and roll with the punches. (If that doesn’t work, have someone watch your kid(s) and go for a jog or a pedicure.)

I should lose (almost) every battle of the wills. We get more pleasure that way.

8 Months with a 2 year old

Baby brother is getting so close to crawling on hands and knees. So far he does the army crawl. Very efficiently. He also pulls up to standing with anything that is still for more than a second. He has 4 teeth and more coming. This morning he was in so much pain. He kept crying and couldn’t fall back asleep. We transfered ourselves into the other room so that bilingual baby and papi could keep sleeping. Eventually, we both fell back asleep.

He loves playing with bilingual baby. He smiles almost every time he sees her. No matter what she does, he loves her. I hope he never forgets this lesson.

Bilingual baby has started singing. Her repertoire includes many kid favorites plus a couple of prayers. She knows that a song from her delights mamas heart. (Her favorite is “Riverbed” by Ron Sexsmith which we’ve been singing to her forever.) She’s started sprinkling in “because…” and “sometimes”, though not on cue. You just have to wait and listen. We’re still on our puzzle kick. Loves them. I also find something so meditative (fancy word to associate with puzzles, perhaps). I also can’t find the word for the feeling I get when a puzzle is completed. Cool thing about doing puzzles with a toddler is that you do the same one over and over so you get that feeling of satisfaction over and over again. My mom, the teacher, says that by doing puzzles she’s learning mapping…. whatever that means. Not too interested in the educational link, though I know she’s learning, just not focusing on it. I don’t want to offer her a toy on the sole basis of education. She’s still in pure fun mode. Why bog her down with an adult’s perspective of what play should be? Adult’s are dull when it comes to child’s play.

I have to admit that up until recently, most of my thoughts were in the shape of ideals and theories that are based on my hopes for myself and my family. A good source tells me that the first 4 years bring out all the fears a person has about themselves as parents as well as about their children. Certainly true on our end.

I’ve started sewing for myself and gardening. On the sewing front, I have to admit I have been making things for kids and others and don’t really know how to make things fit me.

He’s starting to crawl

I’ve seen it before, with bilingual baby and her friends. The excitement is still genuine. Two nights ago, my little boy was on the floor playing when he saw something out of reach. He started with his usual turning in a circle routine only to be followed by a little shimmy that helped him move a couple of inches closer to his desired toy. I got so excited. I was excited for him and his new experience and couldn’t help but stop what bilingual baby was doing to point out what her baby brother was accomplishing. He looked up at us as if we were nuts but kept moving; hand, foot, knee, knee, foot, hand.

I studied movement and was so immersed in small motion and where it comes from that I could totally nerd out on everyone with Labanotation drawings and descriptions that could archive baby brother’s beginning moves but I will spare you and keep them to myself.

For the record, and this is due to my background and interest in movement, his moves are “whole” in a way bilingual baby’s weren’t. I can’t help but compare and enjoy their differences.