Tag Archives: family

It Certainly Doesn’t Smell Like Roses

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I’ve been cloth diapering for a few weeks now and we’ve officially made the decision to continue with it. This means a trip to the store soon to pick up some more pre-folds because I’d really rather not be doing laundry every day for the next three years. Dan is pretty stoked with the whole situation and I’m surprised and pleased to see he likes it a lot more than he thought he would. Then there’s me. I don’t love it. I don’t think I even like it. I have little fantasies about going back to disposables on like a daily basis, but then I think of the money saved and the potential environmental savings and I just… can’t.

And the thing is – I’m a little bit PO’ed about the whole thing. I like a lot of green things – I prefer using cloth grocery bags over paper or plastic any day. I love nursing and would never really want to go back to the bottle – I’m thrilled it’s working so well this time around. We use reusable water bottles and I can’t even imagine using a new plastic bottle for EVERY bottle of water I drink – because I drink a LOT of water. And there are other things, too, that my sleep deprived brain can’t think of – but the point is – I was pretty sure I’d love cloth diapering, too, in a sort of “so it should follow that…” mentality.

I’ve read blog posts of CD users who absolutely rave about cloth diapering. Who say they can’t even imagine letting a “yucky disposable diaper” touch their darling’s delicate skin now. People seriously seem to love the heck out of cloth diapering and I know people can go a bit over board and exaggerate, but seriously? I thought I’d at least like it. I know that with all things, we have our extremists – the people who love or hate something so much it makes you green in the gills just listening to them talk about it. But even with that grain of salt taken… I clearly expected too much.

Because now that I think about – seriously – we’re talking about diapers here. About poop and urine. Does anybody really like changing diapers, like in a, “Gee golly I can’t wait for another diaper change!” kind of way? Does anybody love the rustic smell of throwing out a bag of dirty diapers or washing reusable ones? Really? They are diapers - they stink by nature. Are all these enthusiasts full of *it, or am I reading into their raving the wrong way?

Basically, I think I set myself up for failure by somehow imagining this level of CD enjoyment that just doesn’t exist. Because seriously, picture when disposable diapers first came out – do we think that housewives everywhere said, “Yuck – no thanks!” Or that those same housewives, before the invention of disposable diapers, were like singing songs merrily about how much they loved changing diapers and washing them? It’s not exactly a party game people.

Don’t get me wrong – there is something to be said for not having to run to the store in the middle of the night because we somehow used the last diaper and need to buy more – never mind the cost savings of not having to buy diapers every week or month or whatever until BB is potty trained. That’s kind of sweet. And those little water proof covers can be cute even though they are also gigantic and practically double my daughter’s clothing size – and she’s a peanut, for the record. And I mean, the size of the diapers isn’t exactly the hugest of inconveniences, I can deal. And I know that poop stinks, period – so even though I personally think it smells WAY worse on cloth diapers, whatever, it’s not like it smelled awesome in a Huggies. All I’m really saying – is that I’m disappointed in myself for expecting some weird level of happiness that diaper changing is never going to deliver – and mildly miffed with the world wide web for encouraging that level of excitement, even though it isn’t really their fault.

If I’d gone into this whole thing only wanting to save money and feel like I’d done my part environmentally… I don’t think I’d be so disappointed. If I’d somehow remembered that at the end of the day we were still talking about poop, I wouldn’t have had such unrealistic expectations. But it really has me wondering, am I the only one? How many parents out there cloth diaper, not because they freaking love it to pieces, but because of the cost savings, etc.? Has anyone else soldiered on with CDing despite not loving it in the least? Show of hands?

love thursday: the loves of my life

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I’ve been all about getting more family pictures lately – usually our pictures are just of one or two of us – and I still don’t have any of all four of us, but between this photo shoot and this one, we’re close. I secretly adore the realness and imperfections of these pictures. Sure, I wish the baby wasn’t crying – but at the same time, was she likely to do anything else with a grabby three year old holding onto her not so gently? He tried, but seriously. I do love all of MM’s goofy faces and Dan’s expression in the last one just says it all – we may be sleep deprived and occasionally weepy, but we are still… filled to the brim with love.

Love Thursday is the brain child of Chookooloonks. Check out her post today for more thoughts on love, and the comments section for other people playing along.

52 Weeks: Mother(oftwo)hood

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It’s not easy cramming three people into a self taken picture but we tried. Well, I tried. For the most part, MM was not the least bit helpful as he thinks the picture taking happens at the wrong end of the camera… But here are two that came out well and one that I love in spite of it’s obvious imperfections.

~*~

52 Weeks is a year long challenge for YOU, hosted by Forever in Blue Jeans, to be in a picture once a week for 52 weeks. We are always the ones behind the camera, this is YOUR chance to get out in front and be in the pictures with our family. We are glad you are joining this challenge. More importantly your family will really enjoy having you in the picture. Thanks for playing along! Oh, you can just jump in now with 1 of 52, you’re not getting off that easy! Now go take a picture!

5 Great Things…

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First off, I just wanted to thank everyone for your kind comments and words of encouragement in yesterday’s post. You guys are wonderful and between your words of advice and the general therapeutic nature of writing, I felt a lot better. Anyway, I thought I’d take a different approach today and write about the things that are going really well – that way I’ll have given equal attention to the good and the bad of these days, which are so fleeting…

Jean @ Working Momma 247 has been doing Gratitude Posts lately and that is really what inspired me to give this a go, so here are 5 things that I’m grateful for / happy about right now or just things that have made me smile…

  1. I finally finished reading Dead Until Dark last night – I feel very proud of myself for sticking with it, never mind for finding reading time at night again. I actually ended up really liking this book – I’ll try to write a review soon.
  2. Last night Dan attempted to make a 5 course dinner in celebration of our anniversary. I think it was a little overly ambitious, especially with him not getting home to start cooking until 6:00 pm and us having the new baby and the crazy preschooler, but we had a fun time anyway. Even when he caught the garlic bread on fire. It was actually a really nice night and there was really no point where either of us were upset when our plans went crazy it was just kind of like, “Yeah this is our life now.” I am impressed looking back on it, at how well we both just rolled with the punches. 5 courses turned into roughly 3 which I commented was maybe perfect for a 3 year anniversary. Maybe in two years we’ll attempt it again? We still have the ingredients to attempt courses 4 and 5 sometime this weekend maybe.
  3. MM has added two new phrases to his constant vocabulary – “two minutes” as in, two more minutes until nap time, bedtime, diaper change etc. He says it so cutely that it’s hard to be annoyed, never mind the cleverness of his scheme to bide his time. The other phrase is “two little” as in, I’ll have “just two little crackers” or “two little grapes” or “two little oatmeal.” This one doesn’t really mean he wants 2 – one bowl of oatmeal is fine and he will want more than two grapes but again – it’s cute. He’s cute. There’s cuteness.
  4. We finally got our washer / dryer fixed – again. Apparently another bird made another nest in the vent and our office manager guy came himself, climbed up on the window sill in MM’s room (teaching him new bad habits – hurray!) and got it out, then added a vent cover so as to nip the problem in the bud. And that night Dan added to our child proofing stick in the window thing so that MM will definitely not be able to open to window to reenact our office manager’s actions. In retrospect, I totally shouldn’t have let him watch, but all is good and fixed. Finally.
  5. BB is just beautiful – have I said that enough? She’s healthy and happy and nurses well and is getting bigger and becoming more alert during the day and we are all crazily in love with her. And when the bad seems to pile up on me, it really should be remembered – that I have two beautiful, healthy, brilliant children – not to mention a helpful, caring, patient husband who cooks me 3 to 5 course meals and changes the diapers at night…

How about you? What are 5 great things in your life right now?

Pictures From The Company Picnic

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Today we went to the company picnic, which they hold annually. It was pretty lucky that my grandma was able to fly up the day before the picnic so that she could come, too! The weather was a bit chilly but they had lots of fun things to do (a petting zoo and a construction petting zoo, blowing bubbles in a kiddie pool, MM got a free balloon and fun hat and there were lots of other kid friendly events that we skipped like face painting, pottery painting, a climbing wall and some bouncing rides that were just a bit too old for MM – things for him to look forward to next year! :) And of course the food was delicious – Dan, Grandma and I all had lobster and steak with Caesar salads, watermelon and a few other sides. MM had the “kids meal” – macaroni and cheese with hot dogs – which was perfect – and there was cake and cookies for dessert. Dan also competed with some of his coworkers in a big tug of war competition – sadly his team did not win but they had a great time trying. I’d call it a perfect afternoon. Here are some pictures from the day:

Love Thursday: The Things We Keep

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Yesterday I took away all of my son’s toys. All of them. At some point during the course of the day I hit the point of no return – watching the way he abused his belongings had irked me one too many times; putting his toys away for him either because he wouldn’t or because he wouldn’t do it right… I may be asking too much of a three year old but the thing that really bothered me happened after I took them away. He didn’t care. Guys, I’m serious – I took ALL his toys away and he didn’t even whimper. He seemed to think it was funny. And apart from asking for one stuffed animal before nap time, he never asked me for a single toy. And the rest of our day was pleasant. Awesome even. What the frig?

When my husband came home and saw the empty toy room he was a bit astonished. “Do I even need to ask how your day was?” I believe was his response. When I told him that after I’d taken the toys away it had been a great day and that his son didn’t even seem to miss all the great stuff I’d put away… He was a bit surprised, too. I’ve often thought that MM has too many toys – sometimes it’s hard to really appreciate something when you have it in mass quantities. But whenever we’ve tried to weed through his things and donate stuff, we never get very far because it’s all great stuff, you know? Where do you draw the line? Last night we played hard ball. Sort of. We went through all his toys and got rid of well over half of it. Except, by got rid of, I really mean we put it in our storage closet downstairs. And looking around his toy room there is still a ton of stuff, but the difference is still huge. Instead of having several dozen stuffed animals on his bed, he now has six. And those are the only stuffed animals in his possession, there aren’t any in the toy room. So what’s left in his toy room now you ask? Let me show you…

We left all his train accessories and of course the terrific table my dad made for him.

Likewise with his awesome tool bench – an old Christmas present from his auntie – honestly the big toys are the least of our problems and this one is in constant use.

This used to also house all his little stuffed animals, which are now in storage. He loves to dress up in funny hats and put his worldly possessions in fun bags. Now these things are front and center in the Dress Up Bucket and the stuffed animals which used to mostly just get dumped on the floor when he wanted a fun hat… yeah those are gone.

Dan and I are huge nerds and we wouldn’t have the heart to get rid of great educational toys. The puzzles, abacus and the wooden “foods” all stay. These are also favorites of the boy’s so I know they’ll be used frequently. Hopefully now they’ll be used MORE in fact.

These are in addition to a bunch of little matchbox cars that live with his train set. Like any boy, MM loves “things that go” – we kept most of his trucks and cars out (though not all of them).

Of course the great Mega Bloks have to stay and the blue bucket has a couple toys we deemed worth keeping…

We used to have two buckets filled to the brim with small toys, some things in multiple, like he needs that many. This is probably the part I’m proudest of. I feel a little silly having such an empty forlorn looking bucket, but then I remember Christmas is always just around the corner…

There was no chance of us getting rid of the great pull out couch, his “baby sister” doll and blanket. Likewise with books and the things above the bookshelf. NO books were gotten rid of – because well his parents are book fiends.

Like we’d probably be shot if they went missing. His prized possessions to be sure.

The bottom line for me, and the part that makes this a Love Thursday is that I want my son to LOVE the things he has and in turn, take marginally good care of them. When we moved we got rid of so much of our own clutter (maybe not enough, but a LOT) and our main method for selection was, “Do we HONESTLY love this thing?” We were brutal but it was worth it. It was liberating. And MM has been happy as a clam today, playing with the toys which remained – not even a second thought seemingly going to things which are gone. At some point we may donate a bunch of the stuff downstairs – and if he asks for it and we are feeling nice we may bring some things back up. But honestly, I think he still has plenty and it’s all stuff we all love.

Love Thursday is the brain child of Chookooloonks. Check out her post today for more thoughts on love, and the comments section for other people playing along.

Independence Day Weekend

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This weekend was my first time celebrating the 4th of July without going to the town parade, fireworks, visiting family for cookouts, etc. We spent the entire weekend celebrating with just the 3.5 of us and I have to say it was a pretty nice weekend. Our original plan involved going to the beach on Saturday and making a huge feast on Dan’s tabletop grill, but those plans were rained out. So we decided to go to the beach on Sunday with a modest feast and cook the majority of it at home that day.

Saturday July 4th went a little something like this…

After a french toast with powdered sugar, strawberries and blueberries breakfast (so festive!) we spent Saturday morning mulling around Walmart spending a lot more money than we intended to, but on things we needed (we got the sleeping bag for MM and a great nursing gown for me and BB). That afternoon we had bratwurst cooked over a George Foreman grill (hot dogs for the picky three year old), homemade pasta salad and deviled eggs. I’m going to admit right now that Dan did almost all the cooking this weekend.

(We were talking last night about our culinary interests and what we thought they’d be etc. I always assumed I’d become this perfect homemaker who cooked amazing dinners, desserts, etc. and basically owned the kitchen. But apart from desserts and the occasional lucky recipe, most of my culinary prospects have been lackluster. I can do a quick, easy main dish like it’s no one’s business but when I try to get fancy, I rarely feel my efforts have been rewarded by an amazing dish. It never feels worth it – you know? Just stressful. Then somewhere in the middle, Dan got interested in bread making, which turned into pizza making, which, with the help of Food Network in the past month and a half, has turned into – he loves to cook. And his food is good, ladies. I am spoiled rotten and I’m not complaining. I actually feel relieved. Sometimes I’m a bit jealous but since I can still kick his butt in the dessert department and I still mostly own the rest of the homemaking gig, I think it evens out and I’m proud of him. So in general, the kitchen belongs to Dan during the weekends especially and more often on weeknights than I care to admit to – but I can play the pregnancy card for now.)

Anyway, this has very little to do with the weekend – so I’ll get back to my little recap. After lunch we spent some time doing MM’s favorite thing – playing with toys. Every day (several times a day) he will come over to one of us and say, “Do you want to come play in my TOY ROOM?” and you know I feel terrible when I am too busy which seems to happen a lot – even more so for poor Dan. So that afternoon we both said a whole hearted YES and spent awhile doing just that. MM was in his glory.

For dinner that night we continued our original menu plan with the second half of our feast – Dan made homemade beef teriyaki – complete with the wooden skewers just like at a Chinese restaurant and oh mylanta, it was Good. We had that with leftover pasta salad and celery with peanut butter and cream cheese and for dessert – lemon bars, homemade right of a Betty Crocker box. I always go back and forth between strictly homemade and “times-a-wasting” and to be honest, this lemon craving of mine is still so new to me that I wanted to try a couple of box recipes first – that I know I can’t likely screw up – so that when I try homemade later when my energy levels return to “normal” I’ll know if it tastes close to right and what things should look like. These came out pretty good – and Dan kicked it up a festivity level with his “plating skills” (all husbands should be required to watch Iron Chef America – I think he secretly scores each of his meals by flavor, plating and originality).

(this picture doesn’t do it justice, I am still working on my food photography and meanwhile the ice cream and whipped cream were melting so I gave up early and got to eating!)

Then on Sunday, our holiday weekend continued…

The weather was gorgeous so we were thinking it would be the perfect beach day. But we set out first thing that morning to Target (which was closed on the 4th) to buy one very special item – Baby Blueberry’s infant car seat and stroller. We got the Graco Mulberry style travel system I’ve had my eye on for months now despite going back and forth a bit, wanting to be sure it was the one, we can now safely say – yes it is, and it’s ours! We had a cheap Cosco travel system with MM that we loathed so much we actually donated it shortly after he outgrew the car seat, vowing to get ourselves something nicer for the next baby. I was worried that wouldn’t happen after Dan got laid off, but with the help of the $100 Rent.com visa we got, the price was cut in half and we decided to do our sanity a favor and go for it. We’re very happy with it from what we’ve seen so far. By the time we got home the weather was too beautiful to wait any longer.

So we packed up our beach gear and the food we had planned for that day’s lunch and headed to our new favorite beach (not that we’ve checked out any others yet). Dan got to work immediately cooking the rest of the bratwurst and some more hot dogs for MM while MM got to work immediately playing on the beach’s playground.

Then after lunch we headed to the beach. Unfortunately the algae levels were too high or something so the department of health mandated the water be “closed” so we didn’t get any swimming in but the boys still had fun playing in the sand. After a couple minutes building sandcastles Dan taught MM the age old fun of being buried in the sand which he thought was just terrific!

That night we made homemade pizza with pretty much everything but the kitchen sink thrown on top, leftover pasta salad and some watermelon that was leftover from another culinary feat this weekend – we made this delicious watermelon lemonade that I saw on Smitten Kitchen last week. Everything was delicious, making a terrific end to our holiday weekend.

Again with the picture not doing the meal justice.

Aloha Friday: Do You Y?

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It’s time for another Aloha Friday, the day that you take it easy and look forward to the weekend, in Hawaii and blog land anyway. As you should know by now, over at An Island Life, Kailani decided that on Fridays she would take it easy on posting and ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.

If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your link at An Island Life’s blog. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

My husband has been telling me since MM was an infant that he wants to get a family membership to the Y – I’ve always said, “Sure sweetie, someday.” You know those things cost money – and it’s not like we used our gym membership enough to have justified buying them – would we use the Y membership?

But about a week ago he pulled up the website for our local Y and showed me all the things we could do there, what it cost, etc. and I have to admit I was tempted. They have free childcare for when Dan or I want to work out or take a class, they even have kids’ programs like, um, preschool and other fun classes the kids could take in art, sports, music, anything really. Swim school – yeah they have it. And the price was shockingly not bad for what you get out of it. But of course I am still sitting halfway on the fence, wondering, is this really the good deal it seems to be? Are their child care centers good enough? Are the classes that good? Would I use them? Is it REALLY as economically sensible as it seems?

So…

  • Do you have a Y membership or have you had one in the past?
  • Did you use it and like it?
  • What were / are your favorite things about the Y? Least favorite?
  • Any advice for Y newbies?

52 Weeks (9 of 52): Vilas Zoo Continued

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52 Weeks is a year long challenge for YOU, hosted by Forever in Blue Jeans, to be in a picture once a week for 52 weeks. We are always the ones behind the camera, this is YOUR chance to get out in front and be in the pictures with our family. We are glad you are joining this challenge. More importantly your family will really enjoy having you in the picture. Thanks for playing along! Oh, you can just jump in now with 1 of 52, you’re not getting off that easy! Now go take a picture!

Yesterday I posted pictures of Dan and MM at one of the zoos in Wisconsin. It’s called the Henry Vilas Zoo and it’s free admission and open year round! Parking was a bit of a bear (hehe, get it?) but MM had a blast – this was probably our best zoo trip to date as he is finally at that age where he’s like, “Holy cow – it’s animals!” and he had preferences about what he wanted to see, etc. His favorites from this trip were the bears (obviously), monkeys, penguins and the giraffe but there were lots more animals than that, although it is a rather small zoo, I was very impressed over all. I definitely recommend it if you are ever traveling in the area.