Potty Training, part deux

I can't remember the last time I talked about potty training. I think it was last month... So I figured we're due for an update.

Penelope has been fully trained for almost a year. She started right before her 3rd birthday and was day trained in a few weeks, night trained 2 months after her birthday. I can't remember the last time she had an accident, but the child has a bladder like a steel trap. I'm pretty sure her bladder is larger than mine.

Griffin decided to start PT'ing midway through last month. Or rather, I sort of decided to start PT'ing. He had (yet another) rash and so we did undies at night, which turned into undies during the day. (Side note: while both kids did get the occasional rash when we were using cloth diapers, Griffin's rashes became much more frequent AND much more severe in disposables. Also? Diaper companies are increasing the size/visibility of the "dump the poop in disposables" notice on diaper boxes. Just another plug for cloth.)

The first week of PT'ing was a laundry-fest. We (meaning Bryan) did a load of laundry every day... the second week was much better. Third week we were having days with NO accidents (woot!) and this week has been quite good. The biggest challenge was getting him to poop on the potty - yesterday he finally told me that his "butt hurt" and then pooped on the potty. So I'm hopeful that in the next few weeks I'll be able to say that we're fully day-trained - possibly right around the time of his 2 1/2 "birthday" on the 16th.

He did wake up dry this morning, but I won't hold my breath for night-training anytime soon. Maybe after his 3rd birthday. But I am so happy to be done with diapers during the day.

This is one of the remnants of childhood that I will not be sad to see pass. Potty training and teething are two things that I can leave happily behind me, even as I mourn for other baby-related stages we won't see again.

Actually, it's pretty easy being green

"Green" has become big business in the last few years. Which is good and bad. Good in that being environmentally friendly is, well, good. And bad because some products that claim to be "green" are not.

But if you want to go green, it's not really all that hard.

One way to go green (and save green) is to buy used/refurbished. We bought a refurbished washer on Tuesday after our washer died. B had fixed the beast, but it broke again and he was pretty sure it was the transmission. So off we went to Appliance Warehouse, where we found a 7 year old washer (energy star!) that was 1/10 of the price of a new washer. Score.

So they recycled our old washer for us and we have a working washer that cost less than a student loan payment.

Another way we save (a LOT) is cloth diapering. A lot. Sooooo much.

How much?

Well, the average household spends about $3,000 on diapers per child. So for two kids, that's $6,000.

Six THOUSAND dollars.

We have spent about $600 on cloth diapering supplies, overnight disposables, and travel wipes. That's an OVERestimate of cost.

So by cloth diapering, we save approximately $5,400.

Yeah. You read that number correctly.

PLUS, some of our diapers have pretty good resale value. After Griffin is potty trained we may recoup some of our cost by selling our used cloth diapers.

So we'll save even more. I know people who have saved more than us - using prefolds is cheaper than buying the pocket diapers. It is entirely possible to buy ALL your cloth diapering needs for less than $200.

And we haven't seen an increase in our water or our electricity (a small increase in electricity, but you get that when you have kids anyway). We do 2-3 loads a week. It's pretty easy.

And for a savings of over $5,000 - it's worth it. For us anyway.

I really should be doing homework

Today was spent sewing diapers - and Sarah and I made a lot of progress. Although we still have a lot more to do. It's a little overwhelming, but we'll get there. Once we're done we'll probably do something silly like decide to make a bunch more to sell :)

I received some rather annoying news today regarding my wrongful termination claim, but since it was based on blatant lies I'm not going to stress myself out. Whatever happens, happens. I have facts & truth on my side so regardless of the final outcome I can sleep knowing that I did everything I could to stand up for myself.

I really should be finishing this paper... it's due Sunday. I only have a few more paragraphs to write, but I'm finding it hard to motivate myself. If I finish it then I'm done with homework until next week - which would be nice. It would free up tomorrow for focusing on nothing but sewing and it would mean that Sunday the three of us could have a family day without me worrying about writing. So I guess there is plenty of motivation for me to finish...

Should really get to that paper.

Like now.

Really should.

Sleep, glorious sleep

For the last 4 nights Penny has slept through without waking and stayed in her own room. This is made of awesome... although I still wake up at least a half a dozen times. Today I got up at 6:45 and was able to eat breakfast before P woke up at 7:30. I really, really hope this phases lasts - it'll be nice to catch up on a little sleep before we start back at square one with "&".

Next weekend we get her room done and will probably move her over so she can get used to sleeping in her "new" bed. I hope the transition goes well, although since "&" won't need the nursery for awhile after he/she is born it won't be a big deal if Penny needs to stay in the nursery for a couple of months longer.

This week is going to be busy. On top of the perpetual job searching, we have music class, a Rice Krispy Treat party, a prenatal appointment, I teach a cloth diapering workshop, I have to attend a class at the Employment Development Department (part of receiving unemployment - they look over my resume and give me job search tips), Grandma Barbara is in town, I have a paper to write, and Sarah and I have diapers to sew!

Today P and I went over to Sarah's and I sewed the pocket part of 17 diapers. After the first they went pretty fast - we still have a lot to get done (cutting the rest, pockets on the rest, elastic, snaps, and then sewing them all together) but so far we're off to a good start. They're going to be SO CUTE when they're all finished!

The Great Diaper Experiment

So today was Day 1 of "The Great Diaper Experiment" and it went really well. From start to finish it took us about 2.5 hours to finish one diaper, but it was our first and we had to make patterns, discuss steps, and figure out how to work the snap machine. Once we get into making the "real" diapers things will go much faster (especially if Sarah is able to cut a lot of fabric - go Sarah go! I hate cutting, so if she can get a good chunk of it done before we meet up again Monday I will love her forever).

Anyway, once the cutting is done we can focus on doing a sewing/snapping assembly line and they should come together pretty quickly. They certainly won't all be done in one day, but I don't think it'll be more than 3 days of sewing to get all 60 finished (40 for Sarah and 20 for me).

I have to admit I was starting to get really overwhelmed by the project - sewing + school + job searching + being a full time mom = holy crap! But thanks to Sarah's friend Deborah (who guided us through the process) we have a much better handle on how to get these done and I'm now excited and confident that we can make it work.

It's going to save us all a TON of money on cloth diapers and they're going to be SUPER cute. I promise to take pictures and post them once we're done.

Sarah found out she's having another girl, so most of her fabric is girl-ish (and it's all really cute). I went with what I thought were gender neutral colors, but some of mine will look more boy-ish. I'm ok with this though because even if "&" is a girl I have NO problem putting my girls in blue. Although (slightly hypocritically... ok, *really* hypocritically) I think I would have a problem with putting a boy child of mine in pink. I'm annoyed at my own hypocrisy - and annoyed how much America's cultural prejudices have seeped into my unconscious. It shouldn't matter what colors my kids wear. And if "&" is a boy and he wants to wear pink or other colors traditionally associated with girls, then I will do my best to let him do so. (And yes, I know that pink used to be a boys color way back in the day, but it's not anymore!)

So that was today's adventure.

Tomorrow is the Superbowl. I'm rooting for the Saints (although I do like the Colts - but I have a soft spot in my heart for the city of New Orleans). I hope it's a good game and not a blow-out...

Next week we have a midwife appointment, and the week after that we start on Pen's new room in earnest. My due date is fast approaching! I'm getting really excited to meet "&" - find out if it's a he or a she - and settling into life as a family of four. 10 weeks left!

Le Sigh

We unsnapped the last snap on Penelope's BumGenius diapers today.

I have no idea what we're going to do when she outgrows the BGs...

Moving on up!

Yesterday we moved the snaps on our BumGenuis diapers to the second level.

For those who have never seen or used a BumGenius cloth diaper, this means we expanded the diapers - so they're a bit bigger. There are three levels, the smallest is for infants and the largest is for toddlers (in general).

Our Amazonian baby is now in the middle size - at 2 months old.

Eep!

Later today is Penny's first doctor's appointment... will update later.

Breastfeeding, Cloth Diapers, and the First Night...

We had to give up breastfeeding... between supply and latching issues, it was becoming too stressful for both of us. It was a really difficult decision, but it's for the best - if Bryan and I decide to have more kids down the road then we'll definitely try it again. We have found a formula that works best for us, Enfamil Gentlease. We were on Carnation Good Start, but my friend Christina gave us some of the Gentlease and it ended up making her less gassy so we decided to stick with it.

So while breastfeeding didn't work out for us, cloth diapers really have. We're using the BumGenius 3.0's and they're fantastic - we've only have one leaking issue, and that was because I didn't check the leg gusset for gaps when I put it on her. We don't have enough of them to last a whole day though - so we use disposables at night. Next week I need to go out and buy a few more... we'll have to space out our purchases because they're not exactly cheap, but they'll save us money in the long run. We tried the pre-folds with covers and she wet right through those. I may just need to put her in the larger size pre-folds in order for those to work. There's a cloth diapering workshop at MSN (Mother's Support Network) next week so I'm going to try to go to that to get some tips.

One of these days I need to post about projectile vomiting.

So I've been wanting to post about the first night post-birth for quite awhile. I don't want to forget it, even though... well, I'll just start the story.

Penelope was born at 3:27 am, so we were all up and awake for a very long time. After all of the post-labor clean up and check ups, the midwives put Bryan, Penny, and I to bed at about 5am. I woke up with Penny around 7:30 and moved to the couch where Grandma was sleeping; we were able to catch a little more sleep before everyone else woke up. The day was spent resting and staring at the baby... then the three of us tucked ourselves into bed and naively thought we'd get some sleep. Ha.

Not long after we were all in bed, Penny started fussing. I attempted to nurse her, but a combination of post-labor related pain (which made it impossible to sit up properly in bed), improper latching, and supply issues made nursing in bed and exercise in futility (granted, at the time I had no idea we were having latching or supply issues). The fussing quickly turned into crying and that quickly turned into screaming - sometime in between the transition from crying to screaming I started to loose it. I had been a mom for less than 24 hours, I was exhausted, incredibly sore, and finding breastfeeding to be more of a challenge then I had expected - it was probably the lowest I had felt since, well, probably ever.

Thankfully my mom had spent the night and she came in to see how I was and if there was anything she could do. She took Penny and walked her around to try and get her to sleep while I sobbed on the bed. Poor Bryan slept through the whole thing - he was exhausted and didn't have the hormones or endorphins that had been keeping me on my feet.

So mom and I moved out onto the couch and attempted to figure out what Penelope wanted - I tried nursing again. At this point nursing had become an incredibly painful experience, which was disheartening because all of the books and literature I had read said that nursing should not be so painful that it makes the mother cry... and at that point even the thought of nursing made me want to cry and I would tense up every time she tried to latch.

After hours of attempting to nurse and attempting to get Penelope to sleep - I finally broke down and gave her a bottle. It was like magic, after she finished she slept! I was so relieved that I had figured out what my baby wanted, but a part of me was also sad - I was obviously doing something wrong if I couldn't get her satisfied exclusively through nursing.

It was a very difficult night - but it wasn't all bad. That night I started to understand Penelope's different cries and which each of them meant. I also learned that I was capable of enduring a grueling night of no sleep, and that I have an amazing reservoir of strength and patience. I learned that I will not always have the answers nor will I always know what to do - and that's ok. Parenting is done by trial and error, good parents are the one who never stop trying and learn from their mistakes.

So while I'm incredibly happy that we have never had a repeat of that unforgettable first night, I'm thankful that we had that night - it was an important night for me as a mother and helped me understand a lot about myself.