diaper sprayer tutorial

if you are going to use cloth diapers, you'll eventually want a diaper sprayer. once we started hannah on solids, her bowel movements got a bit firmer and i did not want to put that in my washer. swishing in the toilet got very old very quickly, so i built myself a diaper sprayer. it was insanely easy, and i am so ridiculously proud of myself. a friend had suggested i could make my own very inexpensively. it cost me about $25 to make; apparently you can buy them for about twice the price and i'm thinking the only difference is that those might look a little more streamlined.


this one is from pottypail.com. it retails for $34 plus $6 s&h and you still have to do some assembly/installation. mine was cheaper and required minimal additional effort.

i actually did not use jaimey's instructions, i just could not understand them. sorry jaimey! the general idea is about the same though (i think) and there is a great video tutorial here. first, shut off the water at the main valve behind the toilet, and flush the toilet once or twice to drain the tank. then disconnect the supply line from the tank and the water pipe. you will need a flexible supply line to install your diaper sprayer; you might have to look for a toilet in your home that has a flexible line. i put ours in the upstairs bathroom closest to hannah's room.

you will need two 3/8" barb adapters; one 3/8" x 3/8" x 3/8" tee barb connector; five 1/4" - 5/8" hose clamps; one kitchen sprayer assembly; and one ball valve. the ball valve should be either 1/4" or 3/8", depending on the size of the threaded end (MIP) of the barb adapters. i got 1/4" because the 3/8" valve looked bulkier. also, you may want to measure your toilet supply line to be sure that you don't need a 1/2" tee barb connector, but apparently only about 5% of homes in america have 1/2" connectors.

you will also need a hacksaw or a small hand saw, a couple monkey wrenches or a set of crescent wrenches, a screwdriver for the hose clamps (usually flathead), and some teflon tape. you might also want a hook to hang the sprayer on the wall; i just used a large cup hook that i bent a bit more open with a pair of pliers. i thought about taking pictures while i was making this, but i was so excited to get it done that i just did it.

using a hacksaw, cut the supply line in half. cut the fitting end off the kitchen sprayer assembly as close as possible to the fitting (you want as much tubing as possible), and then cut the tubing again about six inches down from the spray nozzle. you will end up with a spray nozzle with a short bit of tubing attached, and a long piece of tubing with nothing on either end.

slide a loosened hose clamp onto one of the supply line pieces, then work one end of the tee barb into the hose. do the same for the other side of the supply line and tighten the clamps with the screwdriver.

wrap the threaded ends of the barb adapters with teflon tape, then slide a loosened hose clamp onto the tubing attached to the spray nozzle. work the barb end of one adapter into the tubing, then tighten the clamp. do the same for one end of the rest of the tubing, then slide a hose clamp onto the other end, work it onto the third end of the tee barb, and tighten the clamp.

screw one end of the ball valve onto one of the threaded ends of the barb adapters in the sprayer tubing and tighten with the wrenches. you will need two wrenches, one to hold the tubing and one to tighten the valve. do the same to connect the other end of the ball valve to the sprayer tubing.

now your assembly is complete and you just need to reinstall your jury-rigged supply line back onto the water line and the toilet tank.


turn the water back on a little and open the valve, then spray the sprayer. you will probably need to play with the valve to see how much water pressure you need to spray your diapers.

the purpose of the ball valve is to prevent constant water pressue on the kitchen sprayer. the sprayer is just plastic and i did not want anything in the sprayer to fail and cause a flood. when the red lever is sticking out, the valve is closed; i just line up the lever with the tubing to open the valve and "turn on" the sprayer.



you can see i just screwed that mug hook into the wall to hold the sprayer. apparently this is also good for rinsing kiddos while they are taking a bath, though the water is not heated so i don't see why you'd want to spray your kids with freezing cold water. personally i think this will also be awesome for spraying down the tub/shower when i'm cleaning it.

all total this project took me about twenty minutes from start to finish.

i know it isn't a huge thing, building and installing this sprayer, but if you would like to come to my house and marvel at my handiwork you're more than welcome to!!

update: i used it for the first time last week and it works GREAT!! yay! also, i was thinking - this is a very easy thing to take with you if you move. just shut off the water to the toilet, take off the jury-rigged supply line/sprayer assembly, and reinstall a new (uncut) supply line. you could also easily install one in an apartment, just like you would your favorite showerhead.

cross-posted at éireann

babyproofing

for some reason i am inordinately proud of these:


that's my soaping cabinet. it's next to my refrigerator in the kitchen, a lower cabinet. it contains all the soaping supplies i use on a regular basis - herbs, colorants, oils, soap scraps. tools that could hurt The Kiddo. glass bottles that could break. essential oils and fragrance oils that could be fatal if ingested. sodium hydroxide - LYE - that will destroy her skin if she touches it. we have latches for all our cabinet drawers and lower doors, but i wanted something sturdier for the soaping cabinet. something with a key.

those are just cabinet locks that i picked up in the latches section of home depot, the same area where you would find those little locks that go on window frames. they have a flat or offset piece in the back that swings across the cabinet frame, blocking the door, and they are pretty darn strong. the same kind of thing you'd find on a filing cabinet in your office. for some reason i was a bit put off by this project but decided to just dive in and do it, and it ended up being very simple. i traced the frame on the back of the door (so i knew where the frame hit the door) and then marked where i wanted the lock. i drilled a hole the size of the lock completely through the door, then diassembled the lock, fit it into the hole, and reassembled it in the hole. the concept is the same as installing a new door handle.

also, i should have checked but ended up completely lucking out - the locks are sold individually but the two i grabbed off the rack ended up taking the same key. the package does note on the back which key they use (ours was something like # 21233). i don't know why i didn't think to make sure when i bought them because it would have been a massive pain in the butt if i had to use one key to get into the left side and a different key to get into the right side.

cross-posted at éireann

hannah recommends: crinkle squares!

just so you know, this is not exactly a shameless plug for my etsy shop. there's nothing new under the sun - a friend's baby had one, and i was intrigued by it. [so, they ARE out there to buy commercially - i don't know where or what they're called, but they're there.] her daughter loved it, and i figured i could make it pretty easily. i made a "test" one for hannah and she ADORES it.


i've posted about these on my facebook page, and a couple baby-less friends asked what they were. a crinkle square is simply two pieces of fabric sewn together with a crinkly middle. i usually use two layers of cellophane though i did initially purchase "crinkle material." cellophane seems to work just fine - it does melt under intense direct heat, so i do have to be careful when pressing them, but i wash hannah's in hot water and dry in the dryer on high heat and the square is fine. on one side i use plain cotton in a cute print, and on the reverse i use some sort of interesting textured fabric for tactile interest.


hannah has two though i've been selling them as a set of 3 which is cheaper than buying them individually. she has a cute one with pink flowers and brown corduroy on the back which she's kind of meh about. i think she's not keen on the corduroy, though another friend's son LOVES his corduroy one. the one in the photo above is the "test" one i made with her butterfly fabric and some plush minky that my mother had sent up for a changing pad cover. that plushie square is one of her absolute favorite toys so far. it's soft and feels kind of like a burpie (which she also loves). she can stuff it in her mouth (but not choke on it thank heavens) and squish it and best of all IT MAKES NOISE. thank the Lord it does not make annoying noise like some of her toys. she can happily play with her crinkle square for 20 or 30 minutes straight, and i don't go insane after 10 seconds of listening to it.

get them here! i was thinking too, they would make a great baby gift.

cloth diapers

love my baby in cloth diapers. L.O.V.E. them.

we actually don't use only the gdiapers that i raved about. (sarah also raved about them here.) i think maybe a lot of people using cloth do this, have multiple different diapers that they use. our multiples are handmade which thrills me to no end. add that to the thrill of having tk in cloth diapers and you just might see my head explode.

i had mentioned a long time back how my mother was sewing diapers for the upcoming baby; once she arrived we discovered that they did not work so well. they leaked all over the place, because even though they were plastic lined, once the flannel inside got wet there was no stopping the moisture from spreading out the legs. my poor mother. you have to give her credit though, this was her first foray into diaper-making and she handled this setback well: she went right back to the drawing board and got some different fabrics. she made some more, we tested them, tweaked them, perfected the design, tightened up the elastic (she seems to be afraid of elastic, but i think you can't be if you want the diapers to work), and lo, we have a fabulous diaper!


it's a pretty basic diaper design, but what you can't see are the pockets on the inside edges (front and back) to hold the soaker, so the soaker can just be changed out and the diaper itself reused if it's still dry. that was a little design tweak that she ripped off from the gdiapers and modified and i love it. we have a couple in this pretty peach and a couple in a beautiful mint green too.

this one was a gift from my friend jaimey. isn't it fun? her design is one-size, so the velcro waistband is very large so that it can expand as the kiddo grows. the top also snaps down so that the diaper can be elongated as the kiddo grows, too. isn't that clever?


when she sent them, hannah was kind of swimming in them, so we have not used them yet. also, with jaimey's diapers you can just lay the soaker into the middle, or you can slip it into a pocket in the back (in between the lining fabric and the outer waterproof fabric) for an all-in-one diaper. i'm telling you, CLEVER.


this one is also from jaimey and it is my absolute favorite of all the diapers we have. ohmygosh is that print not the. best. EVER. i just love it. and yes, she'll make you some too! you can find her diapers here.

my mother also slipped a pattern off the gdiapers that i have so we could make our own! she made one and sent it to me and it is absolutely adorable. i forgot to take a picture of it though. who knew one could get this worked up and excited over something the baby poops in?

also, i made wet bags! they were insanely simple so i don't know why i am so ridiculously excited about them, but i am. i made four for carrying around with us, with a drawstring closure on the top and cord stops to keep the wet diapers from leaking out. i also made two (waterproof) cloth liners for my diaper dekor diaper pail. we had specifically chosen this pail because it did NOT wrap the diapers individually like the diaper genie does. can you imagine having to undo each one of those before washing? no thank you. the refills for the diaper dekor are not insanely expensive - $14.99 for two, and one refill lasts about two months - but why pay for it when you don't have to? so i made two liners - one for the pail, and one to put on the pail when the other liner is in the wash. it's not like we have to do any extra laundry to wash the pail liner, so why buy them?

diaper update

much to my chagrin we are still not 100% into cloth diapers. we're getting a little closer every day though. i have a couple cloth diapers that my mother sewed that are a little big still, and a couple that need the elastic adjusted as they leak at the legs otherwise. and then i have my gdiapers. i mentioned before that i would report back on how i liked them once we started using them, so here you are.

i don't work for gdiapers and i'm not affiliated with them in any way. and i'm actually not using the ones i bought from them last month, either. the kiddo is only 12 pounds so doesn't fit the medium size i purchased. however i did find some in the small size on craigslist, which is what we have been using. and i love them.

LOVE. them. L.O.V.E. love them.

they do not leak. they are so cute and look like they are pretty comfy on tk. very easy to use and quite a clever system, with the polyester snap-in liner and the flushable pad. and those flushies? FABULOUS. i love flushing her poop away just like mine. no smelly diaper pail anymore! our diaper pail now holds only cloth stuff (wipes, changing pad liners, dirty diaper covers), which is how we intended it to be in the first place anyways. GREAT.

on the downside, those CUTE covers are not cheap. (SO lusting after these ones for tk, how ADORABLE are those?) i know cloth diapers in and of themselves are not cheap to begin with, but still. neither are those flushies. they work out to about 40c each, which is more than regular disposables, even the pennies-pricier nature babycare sposies that i prefer. so while i like the flushies and they are quite convenient, i think i'll save them for "special occasions," like when we go on vacation this winter and i won't have access to a washing machine when the diaper stash gets low. it's nice to be green and all, but i just can't afford to use gdiapers at that price, even with coupons.

fortunately i came up with a solution: cloth inserts instead of flushable ones. other cloth diaper brands do it all the time, so why couldn't i with these? i cut out three layers of terrycloth the same size as a flushie and stitched them all together. the terrycloth fits into the snap-in liner just the same as a flushie does, but i can wash and re-use these. three layers is nicely absorbent without becoming overly bulky.

then i discovered that gdiapers had just come out with washable cloth liners, just like me.

so that's where we are on the diapering issue. i don't have a ton of cloth liners, so we can only use them for about a day and a half before we have to switch to flushies or sposies. the cloth liners work great and i think are really the only way gdiapers could be cost effective as a cloth diaper. the flushies are great to use and all, a fabulous idea (the hybrid diaper - love it), but just don't fit into our budget on a regular basis.

mama recommends: watch your language

in my spare time (hah!) i've been immersed in this:


how babies talk: the magic and mystery of language in the first three years of life by robera michnick golinkoff and kathy hirsh-pasek. it's so interesting to find out about how the kiddo's brain will develop and how she'll progress from being this helpless little baby into a little talking person - and what we can do to influence and aid that process. highly recommended.

gdiapers

if you're at all interested in cloth diapering, pop on over to my friend jaimey's blog and get in touch with her about gdiapers' everyday g's contest. i've never used gdiapers and i'm excited for the chance to try them out. i love that the liner is flushable and compostable as well - green and convenient.

update: if you have never tried gdiapers, now is the time! i ordered mine and am SO excited for them to come so i can start using them. i'll give a full report when we start, which will not be until kiddo hits 13 lbs. though, to fit into the medium size that we ordered. (she's already 11½ lbs. so it won't be long.) in the meantime, use coupon code g628Buquet to get $30 off a 6-pack of everyday g's. that's 44% savings! awesome!

speaking of green and convenient, we've been trying different brands and so far my favorite disposable diapers are made by nature babycare. we are still in 'sposies as we currently only have two cloth diapers that work without leaking. my mother is sewing up a storm down south and hopefully we'll be able to transition into cloth full-time when she comes up to visit in a couple weeks. in the meantime, the nature babycare are pretty nice as far as 'sposies go. much nicer than the huggies pure & natural that had previously held first place. according to the package and the website, the nature babycare are also compostable/degradable, so i feel [marginally] less guilty about throwing them out.

my problem with 'sposies is not just the impact on the environment but also just the sheer waste - i pay all this money for something the kiddo is just going to poop and pee in, and then i throw that money in the garbage with the poop. it just kills me. even more so when we have times like last night, when i took off her diaper for her bath and discovered that she had barely used it. a tiny bit of poop and pee. of course, i can't put that back on her, so in the trash it goes and i didn't even get my money's worth of poop- and pee-holding-capability. so, keep your fingers crossed that we can be in cloth as soon as possible, it will save my sanity.

can't think of anything at the moment.

hannah's baby shower cake made it onto cake wrecks! inordinately excited about this.

hannah's two-week appointment was yesterday and everything looks good. she has gained a pound over last week and a half an inch over her birth length. the nurse thinks so little because her conehead has disappeared and the extra length from that was probably counted in her 20" birth length; she was probably a little bit less. other than a bad case of diaper rash, she is perfectly healthy and happy.

and not only am i in love with my baby toiletries, but i got props on them from the doctor yesterday! she said specifically that my bum cream was great for her diaper rash, and mentioned that commercial baby wipes can sometimes aggravate diaper rash. i said that we were using cloth wipes instead, wet with either plain water or water with aloe vera gel, which she also heartily approved of. yay for me!

we're trying to start her on a good sleep schedule, but it's difficult. she's only three weeks old, after all. i'm not sure if it's too early to start but i figure we can at least try. i figure she needs to get used to sleeping in her crib, especially at night, and she needs to learn that nighttime is when we sleep and not when we are awake and needing to be cuddled and loved on. not that i don't want to cuddle and love on her, just that i want my sleep as well and the sooner she learns about sleeping at night, the easier life is going to be for mama and daddy and on her in the long run.

in other news, trying not to be too frustrated over brian's response to the baby. he gets very frustrated when she cries, especially when he can't stop it right away. he wants to cuddle her but only when she's quiet, and gets annoyed that "she just wants her mommy." i know he loves her - he's completely smitten - but i think he will like her a lot more when she can respond to him, when he can do something silly and make her smile at him.

sort of green baby (so far)

updat on how things sre going on the green baby front:

1. love love LOVE my baby toiletries, especially the bum cream. her poor little crack was getting so red and rashy and in thirteen years she will probably die of embarrassment that her mother mentioned her bottom on the internet. the bum cream came out just the way i wanted it, soft and creamy and hallelujah IT WORKS. she still has a bit of rash (something i am attributing more to the 'sposies than the cream, more on those in a moment) but the majority of it cleared up within a day. i also love the lotion, it is nice and light and not greasy or anything. her feet were a little flaky for some reason and the lotion is very nice on them. and she got her first bath the other day with mom's lavender soap and i am happy to say her skin is as sweet and soft as before. (the evils of soap is a myth perpetuated by cosmetics companies, imho.)

2. love love LOVE her cloth wipes. we have been using them with solution sometimes and just water sometimes, and both i love. sometimes i microwave them for 20-30 seconds so they are warm on her bottom. my mother made them out of an old flannel sheet she had, just cut out squares and serged the edges. they're like little soft washcloths and much more effective than store-bought wipes, maybe because they have a little more texture. the solution i put in a spray bottle for easy dispensing, i also got a mini spray bottle for the diaper bag. so convenient. the only thing with the solution is, i started leaving the calendula oil out of the recipe. i know the idea is that it makes the wipe a little slippery (and thus suposedly easier to use) but it doesn't seem to get on the wipes anyway and they seem to be fine without it. unless i could figure out how to keep it in solution with the water, i think it will stay out. normally one would use polysorbate 20, but i'd rather stay away from the synthetic stuff for the moment.

3. not completely discouraged by breastfeeding, it's getting better. i tried pumping yesterday for the first time and can i just say, GET A HANDS-FREE PUMP. i have a medela pump in style which i thought worked pretty awesome, granted i have only used it the once but DAYUM i got 4½ ounces out of it in the one sitting. maybe that is not awesome but it was to my uneducated mind. i was so proud to see that little bottle sitting there in my fridge. my, how my priorities have changed. but, HECK. how in the world are you supposed to change the settings et cetera if you are holding both bottles to your boobs? i only have so many hands, people. jaimey, i am taking your advice and cutting up an old bra.

4. cloth diapers. ohh, sigh. not loving them. i think it is more the style/pattern of the diaper than the fact that it is cloth. my mother has been making them and if we are going to continue to use this pattern it is going to need some major tweaking. more elastic in the legs and across the back, but especially in the legs. a bit wider in the crotch, to accomodate the "pad." and the ones she made with plastic liner just don't work... if any flannel gets wet outside the liner, the moisture just seeps all across the outside. the minky/pul ones she made work WAY better. or maybe we just have to find another pattern. i'm not ready to give up on cloth just yet, even though brian insists he "cannot" change her when she is wearing a cloth diaper. in the meantime we are using these new huggies pure & natural 'sposies. as far as 'sposies go i rather like them. they're just so soft. i don't want hannah to wear anything i wouldn't want to wear if i were a baby, and these are just so soft and gentle against her skin.

sweet baby showers

last weekend was my baby shower, hosted for me by my lovely best girl alice. unfortunately because she was "working" and behind the camera i think i don't have any pictures of her, unless there happen to be some on her camera or someone else's that i don't know about.

brian would not let me "travel" to san diego so alice or my mother could host a shower down there, so they came to us up here in sacramento and we had the shower at our house. when we were initially talking around dates and locations i did not think the 8 hour drive would be an issue. after all i made it in january no problem, just a regular trip. as is the case so very often, i was glad he got his way and that i did not make the drive down at 7½ months pregnant. ugh. i probably could have flown... but i hate flying.

i fell in love with the decorations for nicole balch's baby shower so we made our own baby clothesline. cheap (free!) and easy decor.


i really like how ours turned out. so sweet.

allie had the girls decorate onesies:


and bibs for hannah. the orange giants one ("i drool like my daddy") was made by brian.


though it wasn't really a co-ed shower because he had said he had no desire to be involved, brian stuck around some to see what all the fuss was about.

alice also had the girls dressing babies for time (mil and heather):


only the dresser was blindfolded, and their partner had to give them instructions. my mother, ella, and kirsten:


nichole and kelsey finished pretty quickly and won the game:


while carrie and brenda came in a pretty close second:


alice also had everyone identify baby food by a blind taste test. we tried not to pick out yucky ones when we were at the grocery store.

i don't have pictures of the gifts everyone gave us but suffice to say those ladies were overly generous, each and every one of them. there was just too much to take pictures of. and what good taste they all have as well! hannah is going to be the best dressed kid on the block, that's for sure. at least, until i have to start picking out her clothes on my own. this gift came a day or so later, from my aunt in seattle:


i could not resist posting a photo, because those little sheep booties? are called "best of chums." how sweet is that?

speaking of sweet, it was kind of a warm day so we had ice cream cake instead of regular cake. i love ice cream cake.


(we all got a kick out of seeing how the decorator drizzled "welcome baby hannah" over the roses on the cake, so you might see this one show up on cake wrecks!)

the truly best part of the shower was seeing all my girlfriends (well, most of them) and getting to spend some time with them. for pretty much all it was a bit of a drive out to our house and because of that i don't get to see them altogether that often, and i really miss them. like miss kelsey here.


i really appreciated everyone taking the time to come out and see me. (we should have parties more often!) i hope everyone had fun, because i certainly had a great time. thank you, ladies!

we are at: 35 weeks 2 days.

baby recipes

planning on making my own "toiletries" for the kiddo, brian thinks i am a bit nuts but is willing to let me. maybe because i've "proved" myself in the past by making my own stuff for my own use. he and i and lots of other people have used them and not died yet or had their faces melt off so i guess he figures our gal will be no different.

baby soap:
20 oz. olive oil
10 oz. coconut oil
10 oz. corn oil
2 oz. shea butter
10 oz. water
5.875 oz. NaOH
1 T. lavender eo
1 T. tee tree eo
1 oz. calendula oil

diaper cream:
1 oz. sweet almond oil
1 oz. shea butter
1 oz. calendula oil
½ oz. coconut oil
½ oz. beeswax
½ oz. zinc oxide
a few drops lavender eo
a few drops tea tree eo

bandicoot's ooh lotion:
20% olive oil (or maybe some sweet almond and/or shea and/or calendula subbed in?)
5% e-wax
5% stearic acid (possibly less for a thinner lotion?)
6% honey
1% citric acid
63% water
germaben ii
a few drops lavender eo

cloth wipe solution:
1 tsp. white vinegar or liquid soap (we'll see which works better)
1 T. calendula oil
a few drops lavender eo
a few drops tea tree eo
¼ c. aloe vera gel
½ c. water
germaben ii

baby powder:
4 oz. cornstarch
4 oz. arrowroot
1 oz. white kaolin clay
1 oz. powdered lavender buds
1 oz. powdered calendula petals
6-10 drops lavender eo

because it is so gentle and basic, the baby soap is also nice as a face soap. i might infuse the olive oil with lavender, yarrow, and slippery elm bark. likewise, remove the zinc oxide and the diaper cream becomes a very nice lip balm. baby powder is also nice for big girls as it is talc-free. and interestingly, the wipe solution (with vinegar, not soap) is very similar to a facial toner recipe i make and love; i am thinking i could maybe sub in citric acid for the vinegar, if i wanted to cut out the vinegar smell?

we are at: 33 weeks 3 days.

cross-posted at éireann

huge stash and nowhere to put them. because i am still nesting.

we (i) really want to do cloth diapers on this kiddo. brian is very skeptical. i am getting a lot of support and encouragement in this (thanks, jaimey!) but i think he will not believe it until he sees it.

to save money, my mom has been sewing little diapers for i don't know how long. i know she made some at least two years ago, because she showed them to me with strict instructions NOT to tell anyone, lest they think she is nuts to be sewing for a baby that had no plans of existing at the time. once we got pregnant she ramped it up and has been sending them to me. she complains a little sometimes but i think secretly she likes experimenting with the different fabrics and construction techniques and being able to contribute to the kiddo. she even cut up an old sheet to make cloth wipes.


obviously this is not the entire stash. the entire stash is in a box in the closet that is not even close to containing everything, and yes it is driving me nuts that i can't put them away yet.

the green one and the elmo one (at the bottom) are the two that i attempted and while they are not awful, i think hers will get more use. i didn't put any elastic in mine so we shall see. they all take little liners in the crotch area, kind of like little maxipads to absorb the pee and poo. i have a huge bag of terrycloth "liners" similar to the one with elmo on it. the blue-gray stripey thing is one of the wipes she made, for which i am planning on making my own wipes solution. once i get a recipe down that i like i will post.

we are at: 30 weeks 3 days.

serious nesting issues

brian asked me the other day if i feel crazy or different or anything (anything that could help him, please!) when i go all hormonal off on him, and i don't. i feel perfectly rational and justified and MY HUSBAND IS JUST BEING A JERK, it's so not me and has nothing to do with the 18 additional pounds i'm carrying or the demonically high levels of radioactive hormones coursing through my veins. honestly, i do feel perfectly normal, except for this raging nesting instinct that has been rearing its head for the last month or so, and oh Lord we have another TWO MONTHS of this?

that nesting instinct has manifested itself in the nursery, where i have been sewing insanely for the kiddo and doing what i can to prepare for her arrival. i know i have lots of time still, but who am i to fight the hormones and body chemistry that God has blessed me with? ergo, we bought a crib and i promptly had to make bedding for it:


not only the quilt but the other linens as well. it all kind of snowballs, doesn't it? then the rocker (that mil rocked brian in as a baby) needed a pillow, for back support. and the underside of the crib was just plain ugly to me and needed a skirt, though i hate skirts. then i was not thrilled with the pink sheet over the mattress. and then, and then, and then.

the name on the wall, that was all brian, by the way.

we also got an inexpensive bookcase which i felt the room really needed to balance the crib and rocker (and the soon-to-be dresser). i really wanted this one but apparently it is discontinued IT DOES NOT SAY THAT ANYWHERE and unavailable. the other one does not actually look as awful as it does online:


most of those books are from my childhood though some are from brian's and some are from when i was tutoring in college. and the pregnancy books. the beatrix potter breakables go up on shelves once the dresser gets here and we are able to hang shelves. mostly this stuff was all on the floor and it helped my hormones to get it up off the floor, organized, some semblance of put away. i will be so much better once the dresser arrives and i can get to work organizing the crap that is currently in boxes and bags in the closet, and then i can kit out the closet with shelves, hooray!

we are at: 30 weeks.

cross-posted at éireann

sales and marketing

another doctor appointment this morning, everything is fine as usual. all my test results have been perfectly normal and i am measuring fine so the kiddo is growing okay. the doctor said i am probably the most "normal" pregnancy she has ever seen, very low-risk. good words to hear.

we registered yesterday, what a nightmare. just like registering for our wedding of course, that little gun and brian being completely bored and frustrating, but of course how annoyed he would be if i picked everything out myself and didn't "force" him to do it with me. at least with our wedding registry, i knew what we wanted and needed and what we would and wouldn't use and the hardest decision i had to make was do we want red placemats or blue ones and do we care about china or do we just want to pick out a pretty porcelain pattern and just have one set of dishes (YES thank heavens). but this! i mean, good Lord. i'm faced with an entire wall of bottles, and i'm supposed to know which ones i'm going to like best? and which are the "best" ones to use? i mean, what makes this one better than that one? and they all say "designed to reduce colic" which i guess is a good thing but doesn't help me distinguish one from another. and some are plastic and some are glass and they're all bpa-free which is good, but are they phthalate-free, and is it that huge of an issue because the bottles my mom used on me were likely even more full of chemicals than these are and i'm fine, and glass would be great because it doesn't have any chemicals at all and it is easy to clean, but do i really want to be toting around glass bottles in a diaper bag that's going to get dumped on the ground and tossed into the backseat of the car or the trunk or accidentally dropped when i have my hands full? and in the end i'm sure they're all basically the same, just pick one, but still, the choices! and those are just the bottles! there were two whole aisles of strollers, and all i wanted was an inexpensive umbrella stroller, don't they make those anymore? these were like the cadillacs of umbrella strollers. what about the poor people who can't afford $89 for a flipping collapsible umbrella stroller? and that didn't even include those behemoth graco travel systems, one of which we already have THANK GOD WE DON'T HAVE TO REGISTER FOR IT. and it weighs 25 pounds, do you see why i want an umbrella stroller, why does it have to be so hard?

bright spot:


brian really wants a child-sized armchair for the kiddo. at least, he says it is for the kiddo.

my mother strongly suggested that we register so people would know what we need, or i would have probably not even bothered, because i feel with this kiddo like i did with our wedding - so insanely marketed to, and i hate it. we already get parenting magazine, because you get a couple issues free from motherhood maternity, but they keep sending it anyways, fine, as long as i don't have to pay for it, and it's just full of ads for all kinds of crap that will make my life as a mother so much easier and better and my kids smarter and more beautiful and all kinds of hype like that, and i wonder how in the world did anyone raise children before all this? i mean, seriously, how did anyone ever get along without this?

and i'm trying so hard to resist all the plastic crap and disney princesses and bright colors and commercialism, i don't want to be a walking advertisement for fisher price. brian says i should just give in because resistance is futile, but i'm trying, am i fighting a losing battle?

we are at: 29 weeks.

sit down and buckle up

took my car over to the fire department this morning to have them check the installation of our car seat. it didn't seem too terribly difficult to install but then again owner's manuals are not the easiest things to decipher, are they? my mother generously got us a graco quattro tour travel system which is this behemoth stroller and a carrier that snaps into a car seat base. it looks pretty easy to use but i was not sure how to install it in my 1999 honda, which is old enough that it does not have that LATCH system that seems pretty simplistic to use. i have read for years that something like 80% of all car seats are installed incorrectly and are therefore at risk of not protecting your baby in a crash, and while i don't anticipate having an accident, i want to be sure the car seat does what it is supposed to do if that happens. i think i would kill myself if my baby was hurt because i didn't take the time to make sure i was putting the car seat in correctly.

it was kind of a fun experience, i had never actually been in a fire station before. maybe when i was in preschool but i don't remember it. they had me pull my car into the garage which i didn't expect - right in there with the big trucks! and man is that garage huge.

i had tried installing the car seat yesterday and i thought i had gotten it in properly. good thing i went because it turned out that it could have been a lot better. i didn't install it wrong or badly... but it could have been a lot more secure. the instructions in the manual did not seem very clear to me and i did not realize that there is a ratcheting mechanism in the rear seat belts that locks the shoulder belt into place. that locking mechanism meant i could use the base and make sure it was strapped securely into the backseat. (the way i had it done before, i couldn't use the base.) the base is convenient because i can just pop out the carrier and take our gal into the grocery store or bank or wherever without having to unhook her from the car seat. and it's really easy to secure the base into the car and remove it later, if we want to put it in brian's car or something.

and, not to turn this into a product pitch, but the firefighter gal who did the seat check said they have found that the graco systems that we have are a great combination of safety and convenience and ease of use for parents. she said a lot of parents really like them, and the firefighters like them as well because they are easy to use safely. so kudos to my mother who picked up our travel system!

we are at: 25 weeks 2 days.