Wait to Cut the Cord

This is a great article about why parents should wait to cut the cord, if they can. It's short and sweet and easy to read.

We waited to cut Penelope's cord and it was one of the coolest things I have experienced. While I was holding my newborn daughter, staring into her eyes and basking in her glory, I was also holding her umbilical cord in between my thumb and first finger to feel the blood pulsing into her. When I stopped being able to feel it anymore, a moment later, Peter cut the cord. I am not sure how much time had passed, which reminds me to ask my midwife to see my birth record-my memory is so fuzzy about exact time of when things happened during my labor that I want to see my file. Looking back, I will probably wait even longer next time. Maybe once the placenta is out and I am out of the birth tub. Even though we waited, it all happened so fast!

Has anyone else done this? How long did you wait?

Recycle, Reuse...Refashion!

This is cute top that I bought while I was living in Spain, my sophomore year of college. Its been a long time since it fit, but I can't bare to give it away. With my new post-partum mommy boobs, there is NO way it's ever going to fit again, so I decided to cut it up and give it a new life through Penelope. Peter said to me the other day, "man, you really like cutting stuff up now, huh?" Yup, I do. I am not sure what has come over me, but every spare second I have I am in the dinning room sewing or getting ready to sew!




















First I cut off the sleeves. Then I turned it inside out and took in the sides a bit to make it more of an A-line dress shape.



















Then I sewed on hot pink bias tape to finish the armholes and make the straps. Here is a good tutorial on how to use bias tape. And Ta Da! Super cute toddler sized dress. I was so proud of myself for this one, I came up with the idea all on my own. In fact, I thought I was kind of a genius for turning a woman's shirt into a toddler dress, but when I searched online I found numerous other women who have been doing this for a long time! Oh well, great minds think alike.

And then I made her a little bow to match! I used a fabric button cover kit from JoAnn Fabrics. Here is the tutorial for that.

Sugar Snap Peas Baby Food

These are some super DELICIOUS sugar snap peas, from Turkey Hill Farm, that I got at the Lake Ella Farmer's Market the other week.

They were picked at the peak of their sweetness and they are oh so yummy. I got enough for me to munch on and to make some for Penelope. I once read about a New York chef, who introduced her babies to solid foods by offering only what was in season.

She figured that by doing it that way, she would always offer a food at their best possible taste and have a better chance of her child liking what she offered. It's a theory I would like to try as well, especially after I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last year.

















First, I de-vained the peas, and then I steamed them for just a couple of minutes, not very long at all. You could do this with raw peas too, you get more nutrition out the peas that way.  Next, I put them in my mini food processor and grinded them up good. I left lots of texture though.


















Then I added the secret ingredient...Breast Milk!! Mmm...look at all that yummy fat at the top! If you wondered why Penelope weighs 20 pounds at 5 months, this is why.

The finished product. I put one tablespoon into each ice cube section. My plan is to give these to her frozen in one of those mesh thingys. I thought it might be a soothing teething tool and great way for her to taste the food without choking. I am skipping the whole spoon-feed-pureed-baby-food and going straight to seeing what she can get in her mouth herself.

Mostly out of pure laziness, I do not want to spend lots of time making baby food and dealing with spoon feeding her. It's called Baby Led Weaning, because technically the moment you introduce solids you have begun the weaning process.

Flowers

This is a picture of the flowers Peter and Penelope got me for my first Mother's Day. I love that they had calla lilies in them, I have never had that kind of flower given to me before. I love regular lilies too. When Penelope was born, my Aunt sent a bouquet of lilies and now whenever I smell them I think of Penelope's first week.




















This is a little arrangement I came up with to elongate the life of some flowers I had bought for myself from New Leaf Market. The rest of the flowers had gone bad, but these mums were still kickin'. There wasn't enough of them to make a pretty bunch, so I decided to put them in three little vases and make a simple but lovely arrangement.

Handmade Crinkly Baby Toy

I recently made Penelope a cloth, crinkly, clutching toy (say that 3 times fast). I also made one for my friend Lia and her new baby Lucia. Penelope was given one, just like this, from a friend of mine and it was the first toy she showed any interest in. Because it was cloth, she was able to clutch much easier. And because it crinkled, it was endless entertainment. These days she is more into anything that is NOT a toy, but she still likes it.

Ok, so first cut two squares of fabric, any size will do. Then cut out pieces of ribbon. You can do a lot and space them close or farther apart, your call. Then pin them facing inwards like the picture. Then put the right sides of the fabric together and make a little sandwich with the ribbon inside and sew all the way around, but leave a space to turn your toy back inside out. I left a too small of a space and it took me FOREVER to turn in back inside out.


















Insert your crinkly object into the hole opening. I used the stuff you wrap gift baskets in, and I can't even think of the name right now. Penelope got up at 5am this morning ready to party, so who can blame me. But you could use anything else that crinkles.



















Once you turn it back inside out, do a top stitch all the way around. Where you left the hole open, turn the edges and fold them inside. Once you do the the top stitch, you wont be able to tell where your hole was. I did mine in purple thread, even though it didn't match because I was too lazy to change my thread. You could do a much cuter color combo.

Done! Time to play! See what I mean? Penelope is much more interested in Sky than her new handmade toy.

New Pregnancy Blog and other great links

A new blog just started up, called Delightful Pregnancy. I heard about it from one of my favorite parenting blogs, Peaceful Parenting. When I went to her site to check it out, I saw a post calling for birth stories and I immediately sent mine in. Turns out I was the very first person to respond and she posted my story this morning! She brought me to tears, reading how my story affected her, and it made me even more glad I submitted it-maybe other women will have the same reaction and find some inspiration by reading it.

I also just read some great news I wanted to share. The CDC just came out with new numbers today that show that home birth is on the rise! It's still only 1% of the population that chooses to give birth outside the hospital, but at least we are making progress!

And lastly, my dear friend Lindsey, just got back from her Introductory training to Birthing From Within (the type of childbirth classes I used to teach) and she has started to blog about her experience. I am so excited for her and so happy to have a resource like her in town. I finally have someone that I can refer people to for childbirth classes!

Why We Use Cloth Diapers

I got Penelope's size large cloth diapers this week and I thought I would take a moment to explain why we cloth diaper in the first place.

Surprisingly, cloth diapering has actually been a very pleasant experience. I thought it was going to be much more work. It is more laundry, but other than that, its pretty convenient. I do a load of diapers about every two days. About once a month, I hang the stained diapers outside on a clothes line to dry and it magically gets all the stains out. I have about twenty diapers in my stash. I do a dry pail system where I just throw the dirty diaper into a trashcan with a pail liner. When its time to wash them, I put everything in the wash, liner included and do one rinse cycle on cold and then a wash cycle with detergent on hot. I have to do two cycles in the dryer to fully dry them. We use a diaper called Dream Eze by the Natural Baby Company and they are a type of diaper that are called an All In One or an AIO. That means I don't have to stuff any additional inserts to use the diaper. These types of diapers are most like disposables in that way, but they are also some of the more expensive cloth diapers on the market. I just put them on, snap her up and Penelope is ready to go. Even Peter is a pro at putting them on her. I used a Pocket diaper when she was a newborn, until she was about three months old. It was a diaper called Pocket Change by the same company, but they don't make them anymore. I really liked those diapers, even though I had to spend extra time stuffing the inserts, because they were so trim. But I have really grown to love the Dream Eze diapers, and even though they are a bit bulkier than the Pocket Change, it's not that bad, the only thing that she has a hard time fitting into are jeans. The company has discontinued the Dream Eze style as well, but has come out with a similar style and it's a one size fits all. That means you have snaps in the front and the diaper "grows" as your baby grows. The concept seems great, especially considering you save lots of money by buying only one size diaper. But I am glad I have three different sizes. I hate big bulky cloth diapers and the one size diapers seem like they would be pretty bulky, especially on a newborn, but I don't speak from experience. I also use cloth wipes and make my own wipe spray, which is a piece of cake to make. I spray the solution on a cloth wipe and wipe her like normal. We bought all our diapers locally from a business called Ecological Babies. The owner, Jen, was super helpful and helped me picked out the diaper that was right for me. I never once felt overwhelmed.

Ok, so back to what I was originally wanting to write about: why we cloth diaper. My biggest reason is not because of the environment or to save money, I am most concerned about what touches my daughter's skin. I have done no real research at all, but to me, the chemicals that a disposable diaper has in them to make them so absorbent just can't be any good. Now, those chemicals may or may not give her cervical cancer or exzema, but they sure aren't doing any good to her skin, so I want to avoid it. I like knowing that what is touching her skin all day and all night is organic cotton. Makes me sleep better. Well, not really, since Penelope gets up every hour but you know what I mean. And she has never had a diaper rash in her life and that is always great.

The next biggest reason we cloth diaper is for the environment. We are greatly reducing our carbon footprint by choosing to cloth diaper. Even when you calculate in the washing and drying of the diapers (this is not the case if you use a diaper service). I saw a great article the other day that said it takes nearly 3.5 billion gallons of oil to produce the 18 billion throwaway diapers that Americans toss each year. To put that in perspective, that's more than the amount of crude we import annually from Kuwait. The article went on to say that it takes 2/3 cup of petroleum to make just one disposable diaper. Pretty nutty, huh? To that, I say NO Thank You, this is not OK and I will not participate in that much petroleum consumption.

The third reason we cloth diaper is to save money. Now, we have already spent almost a grand on about 64 diapers, two pail liners, 36 cloth wipes and a shower sprayer that connects to our toilet (this is for later when her poo is solid and I have to dump it in the toilet before putting it in the pail). So we are not seeing any savings this first year, as that is about the amount that we would have spent on disposables her first year, but next year we will see some ROI. And when we use all the same diapers again for baby number two, that's when the savings will really add up!

I will use a disposable here and there, I am not a Nazi about it. If all my diapers are in the wash, on goes a disposable. If I am running a bunch of errands, then I will take one cloth diaper and a couple of disposables because the cloth diapers take up so much room in my diaper bag. I also never use cloth wipes when I am out, I don't want to deal with the hassle of pre-soaking my wipes then forgetting about them and having a mold issue. The wipes and disposables that we do use in a pinch are from Seventh Generation have the least amount of chemicals possible.

Has anyone wanted to try cloth diapers but felt overwhelmed? The Natural Baby Company has recently come out with a really great product that has flushable liners that would be a great cloth diaper with training wheels that you can check them out here (but if you actually buy them be sure to do so locally from Ecological Babies!)