If I were to be graded in Juggling, I would get an F.

Gosh, I'm usually pretty good about keeping this blog updated, but I've gone a week without a post!  No, I haven't been lost in a pile of dirty cloth diapers (it's going REALLY well, by the way).  Things have just been insane.  I have a feeling this post is going to be a bit raw.  It's been so hard for me to juggle everything.  Lately I've been fantasizing about being a stay at home mom.  I love my job, truly.  It pays really well and I enjoy what I do.  But a full time career plus being a mother seriously leaves me no time to do anything else.  Nothing.  It's near impossible to keep up with the housework for some reason.  Yet, I see that other moms who work have no problems.  It makes me start to feel like there is something wrong with me.  I rarely cook, thank goodness my husband LOVES to cook and prefers it, because I don't have time to do it.  By the time I get home, 100% of my attention is on Jude for 2 or 3 hours before he goes to bed between 7:30 and 8.  Then, I do just the basic things like loading the dishwasher from dinner, doing some laundry, etc. at which point I am exhausted.  Then I usually have some sort of project that needs to be worked on (like this week, writing and addressing invitations to 150 people for my in-laws 25th anniversary party). Okay, so what about the weekends?  Excellent question.  Phil is usually doing something for his 80+ hour a week career (which I wouldn't change- he is SO awesome at his job and LOVES it), so having him watch Jude while I do something like scrub the floors is impossible on most weekends, especially in the summertime when his industry goes insane.  My son will MAYBE take a 45-60 minute nap in the mornings and a 30 minute nap in the afternoons.  I guess I just don't know how to do the deep cleaning stuff like washing windows, shampooing carpets, scrubbing floors, organizing closets, cleaning out basement storage, gardening....and the list goes on and on.  How do working moms DO all this stuff???  I guess the only option I have is to use vacation time from work while Jude is at daycare.  But then that is more time I will not get with my little boy.  I'm left wondering if I'm too attached to get things done when Jude is with me.  Have a created the baby who refuses to be left in an exersaucer to watch while I'm doing things?  I know I have a bright, inquisitive baby who wants to be a part of everything, but sometimes I feel like it's because I wore him nonstop and coslept with him and allowed him to be a part of all mundane tasks that now it has to be that way forever.

 I know I'm just rambling at this point and I am not blaming the way we parent exactly.  I'm just envious of all my mom friends both in real life and in the blogosphere that seem to be perfect.  Moms who bring home a great salary, cook, clean, and entertain while maintaining the perfect body, wearing makeup, always looking beautiful, and giving their husbands just as much attention as their children.  I feel like the only part of that I even come close to is the great job and nothing else.  I feel frumpy, chubby, disorganized, unkempt and frazzled.  I need to stop complaining and just try harder, but that's easier said than done- especially when I don't even know where to begin.

Part of why I just don't feel good enough has to do with the fact that I can honestly say my mother is damn near perfect.  Growing up raising two kids two years apart, she did it all: crazy fulltime career with insane hours and a husband who traveled two weeks out of every month on average, a perfect house- PERFECT, running us kids around to all of our extra curricular activities (if you knew me in gradeschool and highschool, I seriously danced for 6 hours a day, 6 days a week, nuts), and never forgot one single permission slip, dress down day at school, soccer practice, lunch money, nada.  Most days, I'm lucky if I don't forget my breastpump or purse, let alone remember anything else.

I know I'll figure it out and maybe just try to convince myself that perception isn't always reality (but this is hard when I SEE my other mom friends doing it all).  I can do this.  I can. 

Right?

11 months

My sweet baby boy is eleven months today.  This time is going by way too fast.  He is starting to look and act less and less like a baby and more and more like a toddler. 

Likes:
Avocado eggrolls from Kona Grill
Snugglepuppy book
When Mommy dances for him
Playing "This Little Piggy" with his toes
Pulling all the toys out of the daycare toyboxes
Walking while someone holds his hands
Exploring every nook and cranny
Yogurt, yogurt, yogurt (if you offer it to him at a meal, he can't see it and it has to be given last otherwise he refuses to eat any other food)
Puppies
Having a bite of whatever someone is eating
Brushing his teeth (well, more like sucking the baby toothpaste out of the bristles)

Dislikes
Diaper and clothing changes
When Mommy leaves the room
Someone new taking him out of our arms before he is acclimated to them
Exersaucer
Telling him he can't do something

We survived!

I'm happy to report that our first day of cloth diapering went extremely well!  In fact, it went so well that I'm angry that I didn't try this sooner and let fear get the better of me.  Granted, we used pockets and fitteds for the entire day as I wanted to send the prefolds through one more wash and dry cycle.  I'm still a little intimidated by prefolds with snappis, but I'm sure it will be just like the others.  The only mistake I did make was forget that a fitted diaper wasn't a pocket (I was distracted by the striped skulls on the front) and forgot to put a cover over it.  Luckily, I noticed some dampness on the front of Jude's onesie before any huge mishaps occurred.

Daycare will be the next hurdle.  If you are thinking of cloth diapering and you send your child to daycare fulltime, you will have to check with the daycare provider to ensure they will be on board.  Oh, a tip I learned in regards to that:  make sure to talk to them in person with a pocket or AIO diaper in hand.  Most people when they hear the word "cloth diaper", the image of complicated cloth folding and big bulky diaper pins comes to mind (myself included before I knew better!).  Once they see that cloth diapering can be just as easy as disposables, most will go along with it with no complaints.  I didn't have an issue since the director of our daycare center said that many parents over the years had cloth diapered.  The only thing we needed to do was bring in a diaper pail to leave there and also a new wetbag everyday.  Then we would just transport the dipes to and from daycare in that.  We still have some disposables to use up at daycare, but will probably start with the cloth this week there as well!  We won't mess around with sending the prefolds there, only pockets and AIOs.  So far, so good!

In other news that is un-cloth diaper related, we are in the midst of trying to plan Jude's 1st birthday party which is occurring in a month.  My baby will be one year old in ONE MONTH??  It seems impossible.  It makes me sad and happy all at the same time.  I know it is stated over and over, time and again, but it really does go by so fast.  That's why I love to keep this blog- if only to remember the little things.

Here we go!

My first cloth diaper purchases are all ready to go!  I currently have about one day's worth of dipes.  So far, I have an assortment since we're not sure what diaper(s) is going to work best for Jude.  Another amazing bonus of cloth diapering is the resale value.  Anything that doesn't work out for us we can always resell at a diaper swap or Craigslist.  Score! 

Here is what we have so far:  Bumgenius 3.0 (light blue), Fuzzi Bunz pocket (red), Happy Heinys pocket (butter), Thirsties Duo (mango), Thirsties cover (green), a Rumparooz G2 pocket (monsters), Monkey Snuggles fitted (skull stripe), and a Monkey Snuggles overnight (chocolate chip cookies).

 
I also got 8 organic prefolds with snappis to try out.  There's no turning back now! 

I spent all of tonight prepping the diapers for our first official day of cloth diapering Jude tomorrow.  The biggest time consumer was prepping the prefolds.  I boiled them for about half an hour and then ran them through several wash and dry cycles in order to get maximum absorbency once they are on the little boy's bum.

Wish us luck!

And the cloth diapering journey begins...

Well readers, we're doing it.  We are jumping right in to cloth diapering starting this weekend.  Oh, first and foremost, a HUGE thank you to my friend Hannah over at The Swoboda Family for schooling me in all my newbie questions in regards to cloth diapering.  Hannah and I went to high school together ten years ago (yikes!).  I was looking at pictures on facebook of her ADORABLE (no seriously, this kid is something else) daughter and saw that she loved to babywear like we did so we started talking about fun baby stuff! She is a clothdiapering guru and I'm sure I'll be bugging her for many more weeks until I get this thing down.  Anyways, where was I?

Yesterday was an important day.

I received my first fluffy mail!  That's right, the 'fluff' I speak of was none other than my first cloth diaper order!  I've been stalking Jillian's Drawers for some time now and finally made the plunge.  I ordered a three pack of different brands of pocket diapers: A Bumgenius 3.0, a Happy Heinys, and a Fuzzibunz.  They are just so stinking cute. 

I've been frustrated in that the only cloth diaper store that is closest to me is 60 miles away.  Ugh.  My city has a huge need for a cloth diapering store.  Lo and behold, I found a couple who operates a cloth diapering boutique out of their home and they have an awesome selection online!  So, I spent my lunch yesterday eating Whole Foods to go food and shopping on their website, Top to Bottom Baby Boutique. I know it's local so I wasn't expecing a huge selection, but oh my gosh- their selection surprised me and I, in typical Erin fashion, went nuts.  A dipe with stripes and skulls on it and overnight cloth diaper with chocolate chip cookies all over it?  Yes, please!  I'm going to pick up my new stash later this afternoon.  Expect a post tonight or this weekend that will be photo-heavy.

If you would've told me a few years ago I would be THIS excited about cloth diapers, I would've told you that you were nuts.  Now it looks like I'm the one who is nuts.

A sign that cloth diapering is the right move...

So, my friend Rebekah wanted to cloth diaper from the very beginning and built up quite an impressive stash of them.  Turns out, the cloth diapering isn't really working out for them, so she is hosting a giveaway on her blog!  How exciting.  I really think it's fate since we decided to make the transition over to cloth and I am in the (expensive) stage of buying different types of dipes and trying them out to see what I like and dislike.  Check out her giveaway and follow her blog, To Infertility and Beyond..or just go over to see the adorable photos of Hampton (how cute is that name?) if nothing else!

To all the mamas who have ever bedshared...

Someone shared this little poem with me and it made me melt.

A Child's Fragile Sleeping Soul
by Peggy O'Mara

They tried to steal his soul.

Creeping in,
In the middle of the night.
Waiting for the crack
Between the dreams
When he was neither here
Nor there.
When he was spinning in
His mind,
Crying out in his sleep.
When he no longer remembered
His name.

They tried to steal it then.
When he was not remembering.

But just at the moment
When they might have snatched it.
Just when his mind was lost and hungry,
Just when he cried out helplessly,

I reached over
And touched his hand.

And the evil spirits
Were once more
Cast adrift
Forever.

Mother's Day and The Mama Necklace

My Mother's Day rocked.

Jude woke up at 5 am (oh yeah, and he slept through the night- he must've known it was Mother's Day) and I brought him in to bed with us.  He chattered and giggled away until Phil got up with him so I could sleep in, which I didn't think I could do.  Then I woke up at 9am to the smell of a Skinny Vanilla Starbucks latte, a bouquet of beautiful flowers, a card and a beautiful little wrapped gift.

Sidenote:  Thanks to the blogosphere and mommy blogs, I fell in love with The Mama Necklace from ripegoods (etsy love!).  I showed Phil months ago and then assumed he forgot.  He didn't. 

I love the 'concept' of mother necklaces.  The only issue I have with them is that most you find in stores are just cheesy.  That's not for me.  This has that earthy, hippy, artsy vibe that I love in jewelry.  And it's eco-friendly.  What is there not to love?

The day was awesome.  I was spoiled by my two favorite guys.  I'm a lucky, lucky lady.

What kind of mom are you?

I was thinking the other day about all the planning that goes on once you find out you are having a baby. If you had asked me to describe the sort of mother I planned on being before Jude got here, the following description would probably sum it up best: Stroller walking, disposable diaper using, crib sleeping, breastfeeding for up to 6 months at the most, caffeine drinking, still maintaining somewhat of a social calendar, working mama. It wasn't a conscious thing, I didn't research anything, yet, I think I'm the complete opposite of all of that and it all just happened naturally.



Stroller: I will say we use it now more than we ever have previously. For at least the first 6 months, Jude was one of those babies that didn’t want to be put down. At all. End of the world to be out of my (or anyone’s arms). I’ve heard all my life that carrying a baby around too much will “spoil” him and I guess I believed that. But, once he was here and in my arms, I knew that this couldn’t be true. How can you spoil a child by holding him close to your heart rather than constantly at a distance? Why did holding him feel so much more natural to me than putting him in a stroller or playpen while I went about my business? In my gut, I felt that this wasn’t true in regards to Jude. So I held him. All the time. I invested in wraps and slings to help lessen the load, but for the first 6-8 months, he was attached to me (literally) constantly. And it WORKED! Jude loved being strapped to me or Phil all the time. He was always happy and smiling and content. Whether I was loading the dishwasher, shopping for groceries, or taking a walk around the block, it was good to be Jude. Once Jude learned to crawl a couple of months ago, it felt as though our babywearing chapter started to close just a little bit. I still pop him in a sling when he is having a clingy moment or I just need to carry him somewhere since he can’t walk yet. But with the crawling milestone, it is as if he is happy with a little independence and loves to explore his surroundings while not attached to me (though he prefers to have me within eyesight). So in our experience, babywearing Jude constantly in the beginning helped him to trust that the world was not a scary place as long as he was in mom or dad’s arms. I feel he took that experience and is now anxious to touch and see and hear the happenings going on around him. Maybe the opposite is true for other babies, I guess we’ll find out if/when we have another!


Disposable Diapers: I’ll admit I’m still on the fence about this one. We use gDiapers when not at daycare and Pampers for daycare. Before Jude, I thought cloth diapering meant squares of cloth with big ole diaper pins. Um, no. Cloth diapers now are pretty much the coolest things ever. And what’s cuter than a big fluffy cloth diapered baby butt? Um, nothing! Anyways, since this whole Pampers-causes-chemical-burns-and-rashes-on-babies-investigation, I’m really wondering why the hell I’m not asking more questions as to what is IN disposables? I don’t know, the whole thing makes me nervous. I’ve ordered the cloth diaper trial from Jillian’s Drawers and I’m sure I’ll be posting about our cloth diapering adventures soon! I’m kind of excited!


Cribs: Babies sleep in cribs, right? That’s what they do. There aren’t any other options. At least that’s what I thought before I got pregnant. When we started to get the nursery all set up, I was adamant about getting the perfect crib. And we found it, all right. It was beautiful and everything I imagined. Majestic and dark wood and perfection. So we bought it, took it home, and got it (after much cursing on my husband’s part) set up. That’s when I got uneasy. The nursery is the sitting room off of our master bedroom, and therefore, it was ideal. Jude would be sleeping literally ten feet away from me. I wouldn’t even need a monitor at night since I would hear him cry. As his due date approached, I started to feel more and more uncomfortable with him sleeping in another room, but pushed those thoughts aside. Then, the little mister was here, we brought him home, and it was bedtime. What if he stopped breathing? What if someone broke in his window and we were sleeping so heavily we didn’t even hear and they STOLE him? What if the cat somehow opens his door and decides to sleep right on his face? (Hey, when you’re post-partum and experiencing a severe hormonal fluctuation, ANY scenario you come up with in your head is totally plausible!) So, we set the pack and play up right next to the bed on my side, inches from me. The Mama Bear instincts in me woke up at even the slightest sound or movement he made. Jude was also the baby that was up pretty much every hour for the first four months, then every 2-3 hours for the two months after that. So bedding close to each other made things a lot easier. When Jude wanted to eat, I would just pull him in bed with me and doze while he nursed. We are now to the point where we realized that Jude sleeps better for the first half of the night in his crib. So, after about 8 months of non-use, we are now using the crib! Jude goes to bed for the first half of the night and wakes up around 1 am. I go in to his nursery, where I see him standing up in his crib with his arms outstretched for me. I grab him and take him in to our bed for the other half of the night. We have plans to stop the semi-cosleeping before 18 months. I just really love it. As a working mom, I cherish every second I can spend with him- even if it is sleeping. There really is nothing like a chubby finger stroking my face or a warm little arm encircling my neck in the middle of the night.


Breastfeeding: “Breast is best” is the classic mantra one hears constantly while preparing for baby. With that knowledge, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I figured I would give it my best shot and if it worked out, great! I planned on weaning around six months and then going to formula, thinking it would be much more convenient at that time. I’ll be honest, the first four weeks of breastfeeding were pure hell. We had latch issues you wouldn’t believe. He would get frustrated, I would cry. I would get frustrated, he would cry. My nipples were cracking, splitting, bleeding. Everytime he latched, I felt razor blades. How could something so natural be anything but?? But with the difficulty came a sense of intense determination. We were going to get this and we weren’t going to let each other give up. So I talked to a lactation consultant and went to La Leche League meetings. Then, it clicked. I’ll never forget the nursing session that changed it all. He latched on and started audibly gulping. Wait, I didn’t feel like my nipple was being sawed off! Oh my gosh, did I just feel my milk letting down? Am I experiencing that euphoria that comes with the rush of oxytocin with the letdown? Is that my baby all blissed out and drowsy? Is that actually milk pooling out of his mouth? EUREEKA!!! From then on, I was hooked on nursing. We were a great team and there was NO WAY I was quitting at six months after all this hard work. So we kept plugging away and here we are, almost eleven months later and still going strong. My supply has really plummeted lately, but he’s also nursing less as he takes in more solids. In about six weeks, we’ll start whole milk. I’m sure I’ll be obsessing over this next chapter very soon, so stay tuned.  (Oh yeah, the caffeine part ties in here too. Before I was pregnant, I would seriously knock back like 5 diet sodas a day-gross. Once I was pregnant, I would have a Coke or so a day. I pretty much quit caffeine shortly after having Jude since I thought it might have something to do with his sleep issues. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. But I still stopped it. I’m slowly adding a coffee to my diet in the mornings now that Jude isn’t nursing as much. God, that stuff rocks.)


Social calendar: None to speak of. I’ll touch briefly on this, but I feel the need to address it in a post of its own someday soon. I am horrible at balancing “me” time with motherhood. I think if I were a stay at home mom I would be much better about this. Since I work 40+ hours a week, I CRAVE time with my baby. If I have to spend extra time away from him, I am overwhelmed with guilt. Big time. How can I be away from my baby 8 hours a day and then tack on another few hours? This pretty much rules out any dates with my husband. We’ve gone on a couple, but nothing extravagant like spending a whole night away from him. Recently, I’ve gone out with girlfriends for dinner and drinks, but only after Jude goes to bed and I’m home before his first night waking. This is something I need to work on, although I’m not quite sure how I can get over the guilt I carry around with me that daycare spends more time with my son during the week than I do.


So there it is. I’m pretty much a complete oxymoron of the mom I thought I was going to be. The “stroller walking, disposable diaper using, crib sleeping, breastfeeding for up to 6 months at the most, caffeine drinking, still maintaining somewhat of a social calendar, working mama” in my head became the “babywearing, maybe cloth diapering, semi-cosleeping, extended breastfeeding, non-caffeine drinking, no social calendar to speak of working mama” instead.


I suppose there are a few morals to this post I’m probably failing at getting across. The first is that you really can’t plan what kind of mom you’ll be ahead of time. The second time is that it’s never okay to judge someone else’s parenting choices since there are reasons behind those choices that you just can’t know. We all do what is best for our babies since each baby is such a beautiful individual. And that, my friends, is what makes parenthood so truly incredible.

Nature vs Nurture

Before I had a baby, I always thought that most of the reasons why girls were the way they were and boys were the way they were was because parents and society molded them to be that way, teaching them how they are supposed to be.  Now that I'm a parent, I'm constantly noticing this isn't so.  It is so apparent, even as a baby, that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.  For example:

I walked into daycare to pick Jude up a couple of weeks ago.  As I was filling out the sheet stating what time I picked him up, I heard the unmistakable sound of plastic banging loudly on plastic.  As I approached the door to the infant room, the noise grew louder.  I got to the doorway and saw four girls roughly around Jude's age all sitting quietly close to one another.  One was gazing at a book and turning the pages, two were softly cooing to each other, and the other was twiddling the ear of a stuffed animal.  I did a quick scan of the room searching for my son and saw him.  He was over in the corner next to a giant empty toybox, the contents of which were strewn about all around him.  He was standing up, trying to climb into it, while simultaneously banging a plastic cup against a toy piano with all the strength he could muster.  He was also screeching out something that I can only describe as a baby battle cry. 

I've been noticing little things before this:  he tackles me to plant big, wet, open mouth kisses on my cheek- there is nothing gentle about it.  He insists on crawling with a truck or a car at all times and has just now started to make a vrrrrroooom sound to it as well (I'm sure it's coincidental, but how is it that he inherently knows how a car sounds??).  He loves nothing more than to spill water or food onto his highchair tray and smear his goopy fingers all over anything within his reach with his toothy, devilish grin.  He loves catapulting himself off everything without so much as a warning (thank goodness my mommy adrenaline hasn't reached low levels yet as I'm always one step ahead of him- so far).  Oh yeah, and he's 10 1/2 months old!

Where did my son learn to be such a......boy? 

I know for a fact my husband isn't conducting classes on the benefits of rough play.  I'm pretty sure there aren't lesson plans being snuck in behind my back about how toy trucks give life meaning or speeches on the joys of smashing things together.  Therefore, I can only attribute this classic male behavior to one of those mysteries of human nature. 

I suppose it just gives some affirmation to the phrase "boys will be boys".  And I love having a boy. (Who is now a big boy and eating grilled cheese and pineapple chunks...when did this happen?!?)

Cloth Diaper Trial

So, one of my biggest regrets about a decision I made regarding Jude was not starting right away with cloth diapers.  I seriously thought about it.  They are cheaper in the long run (they do require more money up front for the initial investment in a cloth diaper stash), way more eco-friendly (yes, you do use more water to wash them but it's at least using a renenwable source and not spending a million years in a landfill), and just exposes a baby's bum to way less moisture, chemicals, etc.  The cloth diapers that are out today are not the square piece of cloth and diaper pins of old.  I was shocked when researching them while I was pregnant.  They've come such a long way!  Plus, they are freaking adorable.  Who wouldn't love a fluffy butt like that?

Anyways, I need to find out if daycare will support cloth diapering.  Depending on how much of a hassle it is, I may still do disposables at daycare and then cloth diaper at home and on the weekends.  Jillian's Drawers has a 21 day cloth diaper trial program for $10.  How it works is that you get enough diapers of all sorts of brands to cloth diaper for 10 days.  That way, you can decide which kinds you like and which ones you don't.  You can send back the ones that you don't want to keep and either exchange them for more of the ones you do like or get your money back! 

I'm not sure how much Phil is on board with this whole thing.  I think once he sees that it isn't quite the hassle is appears to be, he may go with it.