She's here! Baby Ivy was born on May 14th at 4:34 a.m. and she was 10lb 2oz and 22 inches long. I'll post the full birth story later, but I just wanted to check-in today.
I'm really glad to be back among the able-bodied but so far all i've managed to do is plant some pumpkins in our ditch (note to self: check and see if the pumpkins are dead yet - if not, water them). I have so many things I'd like to do this summer, but I don't know if much of anything will come to fruition with four kids. A banging/music wall in the backyard is on my list, as are some upgrades to my garden and sandbox, but for today I think the most i'm going to get done is hang the wash on the clothesline and maybe water a few things.
So, as we were out and about with Grandma yesterday, I got to thinking - there is lots of help for new moms out there. ECFE classes, classes at the hospital, blogs, websites, books, etc. But once you are on your third kid, and certainly your fourth, none of that is very helpful or relevant anymore. You already know lots of potty training tips and how to install any car seat in any vehicle. But no one has classes on how to raise a BIG family. Because raising four is WAY different from raising one. Different problems and issues, and i'm guessing there are also different tricks and tips and ways of handling things when you have four or more. Ways to organize your life and wrangle your kids so you end the day with approximately as much hair as you started it with.
So that is another item on my list - find the wisdom of parents of large families - find out what they know. And when I do, i'll be sure to share it with you :-)
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Ready As I'll Ever Be
The due date is just 12 days away and other than a general layer of filth over the household, I would say we are pretty ready for baby. We have help in place for this month, all the unisex baby clothing is unpacked and washed and put in drawers, but most of all - the baby has a safe, beautiful, quiet place to be. We've finished the baby nook. I WOULD post pictures right now, but in working on getting our room clean yesterday, my dear husband tromped all over the baby's floor bed and decided the baby nook was a great place to store junk while he was cleaning. I cleaned it back out again, but I still need to vacuum in there and the bedding needed to be washed after dirty junk was stacked on it. So I'll take pics after the bedding is back in there. But in the meantime i'll tell you what we did. Amazingly I managed to finish just about everything on my list!
We started with a coat of light green paint, and my husband got it in his head that the baby should have carpet (the only carpet in our entire house) so he installed a brown carpet remnant on the floor. We used a
bookshelf we got off of craigslist.com for a room divider and covered the remaining distance with a Regalo Easy Step Extra Wide gate. That combo seems to be working pretty well since we bolted the bookshelf to the wall.
The floor bed was from craigslist.com as well - a twin size futon. It is quite firm and thin and low to the ground so while it would make a pretty uncomfortable night's sleep for an adult on a futon frame, it should work perfectly for our purposes. I'm looking forward to being able to nurse baby to sleep laying down in THAT bed and then sneaking away for adult time with the hubby in OUR bed. Nothing like nursing laying down to get a new baby knocked out, but invariably when you try to gently put them in their own bed, they wake up. Hopefully this will be a great solution to that problem.
We have some Wee Gallery wall decals up for decorations. I had seen the Wee Gallery art cards in various Montessori catalogs and thought they were great, so when I saw that they also made wall decals, I knew I had to have some for the baby's nook. They turned out very cute. I'm not sure how long they will last (when Julia was two she ripped down the beautiful wallpaper mural we had up for her) but at least they were cheap and I know where I can get more in case these get destroyed (as often happens in this house).
I decided to skip the eyebolt in the ceiling for the mobiles for a couple of reasons. First was that I could just see the kids going crazy and trying to hang on any kind of rope or string or elastic that hung down all the way from the ceiling. And second was that I wanted more portability. I'm not sure how much time the baby will really spend in that space so I thought that a portable mobile holder would make more sense. So we ended up with a wooden toy arch from Ikea which has removable toys and is set up very nicely to be able to hang your own items from it. We did hang a mobile from the baby's ceiling, but it is one just for looking at. For that mobile we went with the Flensted swallow mobile. I like it because it is high contrast (black, white, red) and contrasts well against our white ceiling, and also it is extremely lightweight so it moves in the slightest air currents in our house. If you open up the window in the baby's room and lay on the floor bed you can see the sky and clouds out the window, the swallow mobile twirling, and hear the birds out in the backyard - it's lovely.
The other thing we have in the baby's nook was a splurge that I've been eyeing for a long time. I wanted one with both Henry and Violet but just couldn't afford it or justify it. It's an unbreakable child-safe mirror that mounts either vertically or horizontally. I have it in the horizontal position right now, but once the baby grows out of that, I can put it vertically and the whole family can use it for hygiene and grooming.
As usual, the baby's room is the nicest room in the house. When each of the kids were born we put alot of time and effort and love into their first rooms that we NEVER give to the rest of the house. It's just so much more fun to make a beautiful nursery than it is to clean the livingroom or do dishes. Another upside? They don't make it dirty! For about the first 6 months or even more, if you clean the baby's room, it pretty much stays clean. Unlike the rest of the house which is filthy again about 20 minutes after you've cleaned it.
So while there is still (and always) more things to do around here, I think we are about as ready for this baby as we'll ever be! Wish us luck!
We started with a coat of light green paint, and my husband got it in his head that the baby should have carpet (the only carpet in our entire house) so he installed a brown carpet remnant on the floor. We used a
bookshelf we got off of craigslist.com for a room divider and covered the remaining distance with a Regalo Easy Step Extra Wide gate. That combo seems to be working pretty well since we bolted the bookshelf to the wall.
The floor bed was from craigslist.com as well - a twin size futon. It is quite firm and thin and low to the ground so while it would make a pretty uncomfortable night's sleep for an adult on a futon frame, it should work perfectly for our purposes. I'm looking forward to being able to nurse baby to sleep laying down in THAT bed and then sneaking away for adult time with the hubby in OUR bed. Nothing like nursing laying down to get a new baby knocked out, but invariably when you try to gently put them in their own bed, they wake up. Hopefully this will be a great solution to that problem.
We have some Wee Gallery wall decals up for decorations. I had seen the Wee Gallery art cards in various Montessori catalogs and thought they were great, so when I saw that they also made wall decals, I knew I had to have some for the baby's nook. They turned out very cute. I'm not sure how long they will last (when Julia was two she ripped down the beautiful wallpaper mural we had up for her) but at least they were cheap and I know where I can get more in case these get destroyed (as often happens in this house).
I decided to skip the eyebolt in the ceiling for the mobiles for a couple of reasons. First was that I could just see the kids going crazy and trying to hang on any kind of rope or string or elastic that hung down all the way from the ceiling. And second was that I wanted more portability. I'm not sure how much time the baby will really spend in that space so I thought that a portable mobile holder would make more sense. So we ended up with a wooden toy arch from Ikea which has removable toys and is set up very nicely to be able to hang your own items from it. We did hang a mobile from the baby's ceiling, but it is one just for looking at. For that mobile we went with the Flensted swallow mobile. I like it because it is high contrast (black, white, red) and contrasts well against our white ceiling, and also it is extremely lightweight so it moves in the slightest air currents in our house. If you open up the window in the baby's room and lay on the floor bed you can see the sky and clouds out the window, the swallow mobile twirling, and hear the birds out in the backyard - it's lovely.
The other thing we have in the baby's nook was a splurge that I've been eyeing for a long time. I wanted one with both Henry and Violet but just couldn't afford it or justify it. It's an unbreakable child-safe mirror that mounts either vertically or horizontally. I have it in the horizontal position right now, but once the baby grows out of that, I can put it vertically and the whole family can use it for hygiene and grooming.
As usual, the baby's room is the nicest room in the house. When each of the kids were born we put alot of time and effort and love into their first rooms that we NEVER give to the rest of the house. It's just so much more fun to make a beautiful nursery than it is to clean the livingroom or do dishes. Another upside? They don't make it dirty! For about the first 6 months or even more, if you clean the baby's room, it pretty much stays clean. Unlike the rest of the house which is filthy again about 20 minutes after you've cleaned it.
So while there is still (and always) more things to do around here, I think we are about as ready for this baby as we'll ever be! Wish us luck!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
CuteyBaby Diapers Review
So, I really was completely ready and excited to love this new diaper, but alas, it was not to be. It's not a completely awful diaper, but just isn't something I'd buy considering all the other great options on the market. Why?
*It didn't hold up to the overnight toddler test. I have a 3yo who still wets the bed at night and a husband who absolutely CANNOT distinguish the difference between a daytime and a nighttime diaper, so ALL my diapers need to be able to handle a nighttime call to action. This one wasn't able to handle that. We didn't get a big puddle, so it did work somewhat, but the pee had wicked onto the outside of the diaper between her legs (a common place for that to happen) and made her jammies wet.
The insert portion of the diaper wasn't completely soaked or anything so personally I think the problem is in the laminate that is used on the outside of the diaper. As nice as super soft laminates are, I have found that time and again, when you get away from the basic polyester PUL, you tend to encounter wicking more often. Minky often has this problem and cotton knit laminates. Which makes them just fine for daytime use when diapers are changed more often, but sometimes causes nighttime problems.
*The tabs are removable. This fact is touted as a benefit for CuteyBaby diapers - that way you can just remove the velcro when you wash so the velcro lasts longer and the diapers stay looking newer because there are never any snags or diaper chains. While this is awesome in theory, the fact was that in our house, we were delayed in trying out this diaper by a few weeks because I took the velcro off to do the initial pre-wearing wash and it promptly disappeared. Just grew legs and walked away. I eventually found it so we could try out the diaper, but just the fact that it has small pieces to get lost turned me off. I think if you are concerned about velcro wearing out and diaper chains, just using a snap diaper is a much simpler option.
So - those are the big two reasons I would choose another brand over CuteyBaby. It did have some nice features - soft outer, interesting inner channel and soaker set-up that worked well, cute prints available - but those weren't enough to make me want to buy a bunch of my own.
*It didn't hold up to the overnight toddler test. I have a 3yo who still wets the bed at night and a husband who absolutely CANNOT distinguish the difference between a daytime and a nighttime diaper, so ALL my diapers need to be able to handle a nighttime call to action. This one wasn't able to handle that. We didn't get a big puddle, so it did work somewhat, but the pee had wicked onto the outside of the diaper between her legs (a common place for that to happen) and made her jammies wet.
The insert portion of the diaper wasn't completely soaked or anything so personally I think the problem is in the laminate that is used on the outside of the diaper. As nice as super soft laminates are, I have found that time and again, when you get away from the basic polyester PUL, you tend to encounter wicking more often. Minky often has this problem and cotton knit laminates. Which makes them just fine for daytime use when diapers are changed more often, but sometimes causes nighttime problems.
*The tabs are removable. This fact is touted as a benefit for CuteyBaby diapers - that way you can just remove the velcro when you wash so the velcro lasts longer and the diapers stay looking newer because there are never any snags or diaper chains. While this is awesome in theory, the fact was that in our house, we were delayed in trying out this diaper by a few weeks because I took the velcro off to do the initial pre-wearing wash and it promptly disappeared. Just grew legs and walked away. I eventually found it so we could try out the diaper, but just the fact that it has small pieces to get lost turned me off. I think if you are concerned about velcro wearing out and diaper chains, just using a snap diaper is a much simpler option.
So - those are the big two reasons I would choose another brand over CuteyBaby. It did have some nice features - soft outer, interesting inner channel and soaker set-up that worked well, cute prints available - but those weren't enough to make me want to buy a bunch of my own.
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