pumping, el fin

Dear Medela Pump in Style,

We had a good run the last 10 months visiting each other three times a day. Me in an office chair and book, you whirring away filling up those tubes with magic milk.

But the time has come where you just aren't working anymore. At least for me. Your letdown feature has left my body unresponsive and 40 minutes of time with you leaves me with not even enough milk for a bottle. Which makes me mad.

Ultimately we worked together for Henry who has found that during the day he prefers solid food. Mornings, nights and weekends he wants the milk but thankfully we don't need you for that.

I'll be boiling all your little parts and packing you up in one final cleaning blitz. No more scrubbing pump parts every single night to prepare for the next day. No more lugging that black bag around like a second purse. I already feel lighter.

Til next time,
Sarah

ten months

Dear Henry,

Double digits, man! You're just a joy in our life. You've mastered sitting down from standing and discovered the art of the rapid crawl. You'll even crawl into a different room to explore. You're stranger anxiety seems to be waning, and you just rarely ever cry.

You've started to wave a little and you've added more letters to your babbling and know that mama is me. You respond to your name and "look." Sleeping has become easier and you go to sleep without much fuss and sleep generally til 4 a.m. when you wake up for a quick snack before sleeping until 7 a.m.

You love playing with other kids and laugh when they are with you, walk by you or can be seen from a distance. Same with animals.You reach out when you want something and lift up your arms when you want to be picked up.You've learned what no means and give the most sad face ever when you're told to stop doing something. It makes my heart ache but seriously, you cannot eat cat hair.

Your favorite foods are still chunks of cheese, Cheerios, chicken and brown rice, anything Mexican (true story) and most vegetables. You're good with bananas and pears but other fruits you aren't so sure about the texture.

This month you've been taking Kindermusik classes where you've been dancing, shaking, singing and listening. When I play my violin for you, you sing along. You also went to Minnesota this month to hang out with the family and some of your little friends. For my first Mother's Day, you made me a stone with your clay hand prints, which will be fun to look back at.

We love you little man!

Kisses,
Mama

cloth diaper remix

Two weeks old, rocking a prefold and cover.

We've done cloth for 10 months now, and I am to the point where people start asking me questions. Despite my present battle with detergents (maybe), I know what I'll do next time for the first six months and beyond.

Prefolds get my vote
We started with Lil Joey newborn diapers that leaked like a faucet no matter what and automatically equaled a clothing change. Regardless I think they are the cutest and I used them until I realized that cuteness < laundry efficiency. So 90 percent of the time we used prefolds with Thristies covers. I had 24 prefolds in newborn size, which fit until 8 months because we have a small-bottomed child. I could usually make the covers last for two or three diaper changes before the went into the laundry pile. Now we still use prefolds but use vintage Gerber prefolds from the 1980s. True story. I have no idea if the current version of these work as well as the old school ones, but my hunch is no.

One-size pocket diapers for speed and laziness
My current stash includes 1 FuzziBunz one-size, 4 FuzziBunz mediums, 2 Kawaii one-size, 6 Bum Genius all-in-one one-size with snaps, 1 Bum Genius with velcro and 1 Blueberry Deluxe. I am neutral on Bum Genius vs. FuzziBunz. They work equally well, and I think it's a matter of personal preference. Kawaii diapers have a bamboo insert and are half the price of the other two brands. I could use my other one-size diapers even when he was teeny tiny by adjusting the snaps but the Kawaiis leaked and I could never get as tight. They work fine but I see them wearing much faster than the more expensive brands.

We like the pockets for babysitters, daycare and anytime we're going to need to change diaper fast in public. The downside is I have to air dry them and of course I only use them once (versus the Thristies cover).

Nighttime battle
Henry is a nighttime nurser and until he switched to his now up once to nurse and only for comfort routine, we'd leak and have to wash our sheets weekly (yep, we slept on pee sheets some nights, judge away). Wool soakers worked but the cleaning/lanolizing routine was just too much for me to fathom in the beginning. I had Sugar Peas fleece cover that worked sometimes but mostly not. It's better now that he only nurses once during the night, usually closer til morning.

I was committed to cloth from the beginning but I always fear that when we do use disposable (travel with no access to a laundry room) I will experience the glory that is throwing a diaper in the trash and never seeing it again.

It doesn't happen though. And every time I do shell out $12 for 36 diapers, it confirms we made the right choice.

diaper stripping

Ten months in, we're loving our cloth diapers.

I'm careful to use only cloth-diaper-safe detergent (Charlie's Soap) and diaper rash ointment that won't ruin the absorbing magic of my diapers (GroVia Magic Stick).

Recently, however, they have been stinking it up.

First, I thought Henry's pee just smelled that strong. Then he started getting little blisters in his nether regions. So naturally, I started googling and found that most likely he was getting ammonia burn. Holy mom guilt!

Last night I did my first attempt at stripping aka removing all the nasty.

Pocket inserts and prefolds

1. One teaspoon (for HE machines) of Dawn dish detergent* 

2. 1/4 cup bleach in the wash cycle.

3. Normal diaper cycle (I do "Whitest White" with extra rinse)

4. Hot rinse again

5. Hot rinse again

6. Dry as normal.

*They say to use the blue formula. I used green because I was lazy and didn't want to go to the store.

Covers
Same as above minus the bleach.

This morning they smelled neutral which I feel might be a good sign. Fingers crossed!

favorite onesie

Henry's grandpa is a soil scientist and picked up this onesie at a soils conference. Though they don't have onesies online, you can view all the Association of Women Soil Scientists' dirt shirts here. Cute shirt, plus support women in science. Win!

more budget

I've gotten a couple questions regarding our budgeting process since we've paid of some major debt. Here's what has worked for us.

1. Write it down.
We are not perfect with tracking this but we have our budget spelled out to the dollar using this document. Ideally I would be then adding everything to the sheet instead of keeping vague running totals in my head. Knowing the parameters though of what we have left after fixed payments works of us. I am not so strict though that I go through my Target receipts to separate out personal supplies and groceries.

2. Get friendly with the bank.
Twice a month money is automatically taken out of our checking account (where paychecks are deposited) and   distributed to our other three accounts. The most goes into our money market account which we use as our future house down payment savings and grad school tuition payments. We never pull money out of this account.

Next is our emergency fund. We use this for things like car repairs, medical expenses or other unexpected bills. It makes it easier to pay them knowing "that's what the emergency fund is for."

Last is our travel fund. If we had all our money together, we'd never spend it on travel because it'd take away from our house down payment or set us back in other savings. But travel is something we've determined is a priority for our family so we have our fund. It gets about $200/month which really does add up fast. Knowing it's designated for travel makes it easier to use. Dave Ramsey would tell me I shouldn't travel while we still have student loan debt. I would tell him to zip it.

3. Be ready to sacrifice.
Initially budgeting was hard. It was all this money we were putting off limits. But now that we've been doing it almost three years, I forget we even have that money. Because we made the sacrifice initially, it was easier to just take the money we used to pay off our second mortgage and put it toward the highest interest student loan. We didn't allow ourselves to experience a month with a couple thousand extra dollars.

We still go out to eat, but we budgeted for that. I still can buy a new dress, but it's budgeted. We no longer spend in excess on clothes we don't need or updates on our stuff that really could wait. We don't have extra luxuries like cable or gym memberships but I can honestly say our marriage has benefited.

4. Snowball effect
It works. You pay off one bill, transfer that money to another bill and so on. Because we are comfortable with the level we're living at, as we have made more money it goes toward debt. It also allowed us to start a college fund for Henry and set up two life insurance funds as soon as we became parents without any real extra sacrifice in our monthly budget.

5. Attitude
Sometimes I get really jealous when other people are buying huge houses at our age, buying new cars or going to concerts every weekend. (that's a lie, I hate concerts) But, if Dave Ramsey taught me anything it's "Live like no one else so later you can live like no one else." There will be a day in the not too distant future, where we will be living debt free. But we'll know how to live within our means and maintain a budget no matter what our bottom line.

nine months

My tiny little Henry,

Nine months! We just got back from your appointment, and despite the fact I was positive you were at least 20 pounds, you are just over 16 pounds (3rd percentile) and 26.75 inches long (10th percentile). It's all normal since you are very, very active. You still wear 6-month pants and shorts and 6-9 month shirts and onesies.

You are crawling all around the house, and pulling up on everything forcing us to watch you like a hawk.You prefer standing to anything even being held (tear!). Your favorite activities are pulling books of the shelves and pulling laundry out of the basket, one-by-one. You love being outdoors, crawling in the grass and reaching out to other kids.

You are very social and enjoy yelling at anyone walking by who doesn't admire you. You still high five but have added shaking your head and the symbol for touchdown to your repertoire. You have one top tooth and the others are coming in with a painful vengeance. Your separation anxiety is pretty intense some days and breaking your mama's heart.

You are starting to prefer solid food over nursing though we're still at it. You pretty much love all foods though your favorites are bananas, applesauce, cheese, muffins, macaroni and cheese, peas, apple cinnamon oatmeal, sweet potatoes and carrots. We've even started ordering a kids meal at restaurants occasionally.

This last month has been active! You went to Chicago with us and Grandma, enjoying both the Museum of Science and Industry and the Children's Museum at Navy Pier. You had a taste of your first deep dish Chicago pizza. A few weeks later you went to California to see your godmother Ashley graduate from college and you got to spend time with your cousin Adilyn. You loved the beach and digging in the sand. SeaWorld was also a big hit. It's fun to go places with you where you actually notice where we are. You handled your first plane rides like a champ - much better than your anxious, over packed parents.

You are a smart, active, happy boy. We're so proud to be your parents.

Much love,
Mama