Independent napper

Hollie is funny about her naptime and bedtime habits.

At bedtime, I stay with her until she falls asleep.  This is a capital-m Must.  She will not go to sleep unless someone is there.

At naptime in the afternoon, it's the opposite.  As she gets sleepy, I sometimes try to lure her into the bedroom to read some books (which is the last part of our bedtime routine) but she fights and fights and whines and whines and just refuses to relax.

However, sometimes when I notice the onset of drowsiness around noon or so, I sneak into the bedroom to fold some laundry or clean the bathroom.  [To be clear, I always have an eye on her, or at least an ear]  When I do this, she nearly always finds her way to her bed and into dreamland within like two minutes, without so much as a peep.

This just baffles me!  I cannot come up with a plausible explanation for why she would need to be lulled to sleep at night, but need to be on her own in order to nap in the afternoon.  I certainly didn't teach her.     

Maybe this is one of those things that I'll think about in a few years and it will all make sense, but for now, I guess if it works...it works.

Sooooo close!

We're pretty sure Hollie's first word is going to be "baby" or "bath". 

Right now, for bath, she just says the first syllable - bah - whenever we are headed to the bathroom, and she can point out bathtubs in pictures.

For baby, she uses one of the following:

bay-bay
bee-bee
bee-bay
just bee
or
just bay

but never the actual word!!  So frustrating, but cute.  She looooves finding pictures of babies everywhere.  I bet she is going to be such a great big sister.  :)

Also, have I mentioned that she can identify her...

head/hair
eyes
ears
nose
mouth/teeth
belly/belly button
arms
legs
and toes?

Well, she can.

Here they are...

...our new diapers!

A bazillion prefolds, a few covers, and a few bumGenius's for trips outside the house.

I made them into a pile and tried to get Hollie to sit on it for the picture, but that just wasn't happening.

Our official first all-cloth-diapering day was last Friday, and Hollie's been doing really well. 

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The outdoor temperatures have necessitated finding new fun things to do indoors lately, so we recently tried crayons.  Yeah, we won't be doing that again for a while.  They just taste too darn good.

So instead we tried drawing with pens.  Just regular old ball-point pens.  It was great...she had fun, and I didn't have to worry about her ingesting anything!

An added bonus: we also discovered that we may have a future tattoo artist here...

Voila!

You Capture - Black & White

This was a really cool challenge, but then I ended up taking a photo that has to be in color in order for you to get the point...

As of Monday, we are officially a two-car family, and owners of our very first mini-van!  If you know Daniel and I, you know that in our opinion (until recently) buying a mini-van could be equated with the most

ultimate,

epic,

eternal,

undeniable

nerdiness.

They're just not, well... cool.

It turns out being parents has made us kinda nerdy.  I am embarrassed by how excited I am to be driving around in this. 

[Also, I would love nothing more than to be able to say we bought a black and white van just for this You Capture challenge, but that wouldn't be true.  That would have been awesome, though.]

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Be sure to go see the other black and white posts for You Capture hosted by Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry!

Cloth diapering, round 2

The new diapers are in!!

First, the Dream-Eze All-In-One.

This one got great reviews, and is supposed to be very trim (as in close-fitting (as in not bulky)) and narrower between the legs.  I was worried that this would give it an awkward fit in the back, and it does...sort of...but Hollie doesn't seem to mind.  She seems reasonably comfortable in it.

It is, however, bulkier than I thought it would be, in the back.  :(

I guess I had gotten my expectations ridiculously high (I tend to do that), but Daniel reminded me that you need some bulk, if you want any absorbency.  Which is true.

Moving on...

The pre-fold and Snappi (so cool!)

(Sorry, I didn't realize the prefold would match our bedsheets so perfectly.  Hopefully you can see it!)

Here's how they work.  I tried to get a picture of it on Hollie, but it just wasn't happening.  I was also anxious to get the cover on it, before she figured out how to remove the Snappi!  [Also, the bear is not the same size or shape as a baby, so the fit is not at all this awkward on her!]

So, here it is with the cover.  Even easier than I thought it would be...I love it!  It took waaay longer than our average diaper change, but it once we get used to it I'm sure it will go quicker.

I think our plan, at this point, would be to use the pre-folds and covers at home, and something more user-friendly (like an AIO or pocket) whenever we go anywhere and might need to do a quick change in the car/restroom/park bench/etc.     

We're going to use these for a while, give them a chance to fit into our life, and then decide exactly what's best for all [three] of us.

Life after ear infections...

 

 

... is a walk in the park.

Yay!

Down to 99.6, as of two minutes ago.  Yay antibiotics!

More cowbell, please!

After going to bed last night perfectly healthy, Hollie woke up this morning with a fever of 101.8.  After getting her clothes off and giving her Tylenol, we spoke to the nurse at the doctor's office, who told us to just wait and see.  It's probably a virus, which will go away on its own in a few days without any other symptoms.  If she does develop any new symptoms or the temp gets higher, we'll need to take her in.

She seemed fine though, maybe a little fussy.  For breakfast we had some favorites: honeydew melon, yogurt, and cheese.  After eating, she was in a great mood, and went back to sleep for about an hour and a half.

When she woke up, her temp was 104.2.  I panicked, called the doctor's office again (and left a message...again), and called Daniel at work, contemplating just taking her straight to the emergency room.

While I waited for the nurse to call back, I gave her a cool-ish bath (which she did not enjoy) and we had lunch: strawberries and a cream cheese sandwich.  After that she seemed to be in much better spirits again.  I took her temperature: 102.2.  Whew.

Then the nurse finally calls back.  Despite the drop in temperature, she still wanted us to come in.

An hour later we were in the doctor's office.  She was down to 101.1, thank goodness, and a quick look in the ears showed infection.  In both ears.  :(  Went home with a prescription for amoxicillin.

Well, at least we know what it is.  She never showed any discomfort...no rubbing or pulling her ears...nothing.  She did fuss when we used our brand new ear thermometer, but I'm pretty sure she would've done that anyway.  I'm glad we caught this when we did, and that she has been in such a good mood all day.  I'm praying it doesn't become a chronic thing.     

But hey, the new diapers came in the mail yesterday!!!  Reviews coming soon, as soon as our patient/model is back in tip-top shape.

Update -- 10:30pm
Hollie just went to sleep for the night.  After we got home from the doctor, she took another nap and woke up with her back and chest absolutely burning up.  I didn't even take her temperature.  I was scared to see what it was.  We spent the rest of the evening just sitting around, keeping her comfortable and persuading her to eat and drink.  Since the bath didn't go so well earlier, we tried wiping her down with some wet washcloths, which she liked even less.  Tylenol doesn't seem to be helping with the fever or the pain.  :(  Poor girl.  Hopefully that first dose of antibiotics will have some effect tonight, though the doc said this could take three days to completely go away.  I feel so bad for her!  :(

You Capture - America

We didn't go see fireworks for the Fourth this year. I was kinda bummed. Though I was terrified of them as a little kid (who wasn't?) I slowly fell in love with them over the years. However, this year...

• A) The weather sucked.
• B) Hollie's bedtime these days just happens to coincide with sundown.
• C) I think everyone in our neighborhood did fireworks in their front lawns (starting precisely at bedtime) (despite the rain) so we got a great show right across the street anyway.

So, of course, we just had some friends over for some good food.

Homemade strawberry icebox pie.

Just waiting to be topped with a layer of whipped cream.

As I'm writing this (three days later), I'm thinking,

Why the heck didn't we add blueberries, so it would be red, white, and blue?!

But, to be honest, about eight seconds after the whipped cream touched that pie, my only thought was,

Wait, where'd the pie go?

And who left this empty pie tin and stack of dirty plates?

Yeah, it was that good.

That's our slice of Americana. Go check out more at Beth's!

You'd think we do nothing but EAT around here

We do other stuff, like go for walks and take baths and visit places. But so many of our cute/funny/unforgettable moments occur at mealtimes.

Like the time we had the best yogurt ever! Or so you would think, looking at this...

And like the time she just took her snack and chilled in the old car seat...

And like the time she decided she's rather sit in Dad's lap and share his dinner...

Even before that particular night, we'd been thinking that she'd just about outgrown her high chair. I wanted to get her a little table and chair but those things (the nice ones) are so darn expensive! So I scoured Craiglist but came up empty.

But then one day I was down in the basement getting some laundry and realized that one shelf from our free-standing plastic shelves might make a perfect little table...

We already had the chair, from a few months ago when she started showing us that she was ready for toddler-sized adult things.

It worked out better than I could have hoped. She loves it!

I'm going to throw this picture in because I just don't know what else to do with it.

I got her these alphabet magnets, and I swear within minutes they had all found their way under the fridge. Here she is looking for them. I swear she wears clothes. And diapers. Occasionally.

Cloth diaper trial [pt 4]: Happy Heinys

No one is paying me to write about this, the opinions expressed are my own and no one else's...blah blah blah.

Can I just say, I think this is my most favorite brand name of anything...ever?  I love it.

These diapers worked great.  They didn't leak at all...during the day.  We didn't even try them at night.  Continuing to use disposables at night is sounding more and more like what we will end up doing.  With any future babies, we do plan on just using cloth right from the beginning so they'll be used to a more bulky diaper at night...but Hollie is just too old at this point to make that kind of change.

She seemed fairly comfortable in them.  The only thing that seemed to bug her was the velcro straps that close in the front - they are very wide (top to bottom) and thick (front to back).  Just like wearing a very wide belt that cuts into your belly when you sit down.

Otherwise, it is a pretty trim diaper, fitting into most of her clothes, which is a big plus.

I also loooooved this print!  She looked like Pebbles from the Flintstones!!!  I wish she had enough hair for a little ponytail.  sigh...

 And who says you can't just park it in the bathroom to read a book?

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Here's what it all comes down to.  

When we started all this, I assumed that our best option was to go with one-size diapers that can adjust all the way from newborn to toddler size.  So that's what I ordered for our little trial.  However, we're worried that with this style of diaper we're sacrificing a good fit, and by going with "sized" diapers instead: small, medium, large...we'll get the diaper that Hollie's most comfortable in.  And that's what's most important.  That and saving $$$.

We are going to return the Fuzzibunz and the Happy Heinys, but we stained the bumGenius so we're keeping it.  I kind of liked that one the best, anyways.  :) 

So we're back to square one with a new trial.  I just ordered two more diapers: an "all-in-one" diaper, as well as a "prefold" with a cover.  

The all-in-one, or AIO, is like a pocket diaper (like the three we just tried) except that the insert doesn't go inside a pocket, it just snaps into the inside of the diaper.  Don't worry, there will be pictures.  I ordered this particular brand because it's supposedly the best fitting, "trimmest" diaper out there.

The prefold is almost unchanged since your grandmother used them (except that you don't use pins anymore).  They're basically squares of super-absorbent material that fold into a diaper shape.  Instead of pins, you secure it with an amazing little contraption called a Snappi.  Then you put a cover over it, which is just like the waterproof outer layer of a bumGenius or any of the other ones.  These, I think, allow the most customizable fit, which is what we're looking for. 

Can't wait for them to get here!  If these don't work out, I think we're just going to throw in the diaper towel on this, and, like I said earlier, start our next baby in cloth right from the beginning.

Cloth diaper trial [pt 3]: bumGenius follow-up

Disclaimer: No one is paying me to write about this, the opinions expressed are my own and no one else's...blah blah blah. 

So, I tried the rubber-banded-insert thing overnight, and I threw a Sham-wow in there to be safe... and it leaked.  :(  Both the insert and the Sham-wow were wet, so I'm glad I used both.

After that, my next thought was that the diaper wasn't fitting her properly.  Obviously a diaper that's too big will leak, and I've been leaving them on the largest snap setting, hoping that will make her the most comfortable.

The next night I tried sizing the diaper down one setting, and it still leaked. 

To fix this problem, I think we would need to add more inserts.  But since doing that isn't an option (for Hollie's comfort) then I guess one solution would be to use cloth during the day, and disposables at night.  In terms of cost, this would still save us money over using disposables exclusively.  

I should add that during the day, we can use one insert normally, and she is just fine.  It's only during the night that we're having the difficulty.

Grumble grumble grumble.

Moving on to Happy Heiny's...

Anxiously awaiting...

...the first word.

Lately (as in the last few days) she's been saying something that sounds vaguely like "quack" when we read about ducks.  Actually it's more like "whack".

She also says something vaguely like "baby" when we read our book about babies.

Again, it's very vague, and possibly all in my imagination.  Nothing is going down in the baby book yet.  But it's coming soon.  I can feel it.

Another update on the cloth diapers is in the works!  Tomorrow or possibly Saturday.  We've had a busy week.  :)