Baby Jeans

Is there anything cuter than a little dude in baby jeans?  I think not.  I love that he has huge cuffs--the jeans are a size too big to accomodate for the huge cloth diaper!

It Ain't Easy Bein' Green...

Little one was in a green diaper on a green blanket this morning.  What a little leprechaun!

And while he was being Irish, Ingrid was being British.  We watched the royal wedding this morning (DVRed it, was not about to wake up at 3am...) After the wedding she had to put on her princess dress and crown.  Oh lord.

Yesterday was fun, too!  We went to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum and Ingrid got to run loose.  We got a membership that will come in handy on rainy days and in the winter.  When we got home, Otis, who had been asleep in the Moby the entire outing, woke up and was nothing but smiles.  Yay!

Cuteness.  And now it's the weekend and it's supposed to be nice and sunny and we have lots of plans for walks, parks, and coffee with friends.  Awesome.

Diapers Galore

Yesterday we got a TON of diapers in the mail!!  Three different people sent us diapers at different times and they all came on the same day, so strange.

We got three FuzziBunz Mediums from our friend Brandy.  I love these, it's what we used on Ingrid when she got bigger.  Otis is still in his XS, though, so the Mediums will be awhile.  Good for the future!

We also got nine Small gdiaper covers in cream, brown, green, and blue.  I love these, we also had one of these for Ingrid and it was my favorite while it fit her.  I am using newborn prefolds to stuff these with, and also the newborn inserts from our BumGenius pockets that don't fit Otis yet.  I got these off diaperswappers.com.

From Kelly's Closet we ordered two BumGenius 4.0s, two Kawaii pockets, a Bummies SuperBrite in red!!  and another Thirsties cover.  I don't think the pockets will fit quite yet, they're all one size and we're finding that Otis' skinny chicken legs make it hard to use one size.  They're in the dryer right now, so we'll find out today if they work yet or not.  The covers are awesome,  I love both Bummis and Thirsties.  Double leg gussets, a little pocket for your diaper to go in, easy peasy.  The only thing I have with Thirsties is that their sizes run big.  Otis is just fitting into his XS covers! 

As I said on Facebook, such pretty things for Otis to crap in!  Gotta love cloth diapers...

Siblings, and a Growing Baby

Ingrid likes being a big sister.  Sometimes she freaks out when I'm feeding Otis, or if I ask Brendan to deal with her because I'm holding him.  But for the most part she loves him and is a great little helper.  She loves to get diapers or clothes for him, whether I ask for them or not! 

Yesterday we were doing a little floor time with Otis.  He's pretty strong but he'd much rather look at people's faces so he doesn't last for too long.

I was on the computer listing more stuff for the shop when I hear "I can hold my brother all by myself!"  I look over and there's Ingrid, holding her brother.  All by herself.  And walking around on the hardwood floors.  Where she's been known to slip and fall ten times in two seconds.  I had a heart attack and yelled NO NO NO NO NO!!! which made her burst into tears because she had been so proud of herself.  Poor kid thinks she's ready for anything and everything...

But Otis was fine, just wide eyed looking around, like usual.  This kid is growing like a weed!  I'm not sure how much he weighs now, but he just switched over from newborn clothes to 3 month!  How exciting.  And he's outgrown the XS Bum Geniuses we have.  Also, he is just starting to act more like a normal baby and not a sleepy, snoozy newborn.  He smiles and makes eye contact and has started cooing and almost making the wee-est little giggles when you touch his nose or chin.  It's amazing to think he was this tiny little 4 lb. skinny chicken legged thing with tons of hair all over his body to help keep him warm.  Now he has an enormous head and a little fluffy faux-hawk. 

And this kid is a sleeper!!  Hot damn, we deserve a sleeper.  He goes to bed around nine or ten and sleeps until five-ish.  It's amazing.  If only Ingrid could do that.  She's almost three and still gets up three times a night, crying for her blanket or lately it's "I'm so lonely, I really need you, mama!"  God she knows how to tug those heartstrings, doesn't she?

Otis loves his mama-milk!  I just love the drunk look he gets on his face after he eats.

Ahhh, that's good stuff.  The nursing is going extremely well, another thing I'm amazed by.  It's so funny because I see all this stuff about no pacifiers, no bottles, until they get good at breastfeeding.  This kid has had everything in his little mouth and still nurses just fine.  Or takes a bottle.  He doesn't care.  Where did they get this whole "nipple confusion" thing from?  I think the first month of nursing is just hard, no matter what, whether you have pacifiers or bottles or not.  I'm just so glad the hard part is over and now I can just feed him whenever, wherever. 

Dishes and Diapers

Since we have a dishwasher I never have to wash dishes in the sink.  That being so, I forgot how much Ingrid loves to splash around in dishwater.  The other day I had a bunch of bottles and pumping stuff to wash, and Ingrid came in all smiles "can I wash dishes, too??"  So we put a towel on the floor and she went to town splashing around.  She told me she was making me a water cake.

Today after our doctor's appointment--where we found out Otis is 6lbs 6oz!!!!--we headed over to the cloth diaper store to see what they had in the used section.  We have a bunch of prefolds but the newborn size Prowraps are a bit big on our little man, so they leak a bit.  I was so pleased to find a huge stash of Bum Genius AIOs in the extra small size.  They are truly newborn sized diapers and fit our chicken legged guy really well.  We bought all six that they had!

While looking through this little colorful stash it hit me that we have only bought one diaper brand new!  I found an extra small FuzziBunz on Amazon for super cheap in only one color (bright green which I would've bought anyway!)  Other than that we have always gotten used diapers.  I am such a cheapskate :) 

In other news, Ingrid is learning new things in leaps and bounds!!  Brendan has been drawing letters with her and she is getting really good at making Ws and Hs.  Tonight she drew one and said "this isn't good enough for me, I'm going to erase it."  Ha!  Little perfectionist.  She's also recognizing that words on the pages of books actually tell the story.  This will be a problem someday, as I usually skim over parts of books if they are too long for her attention span.  But now she's asking me what each word is.  I have a feeling she won't let me get away with the skimming over thing for much longer!!

Gain Weight Otis!

Ingrid and I made a sign that said that while Otis was in the NICU.  And it has worked!  Otis is home with us again, weighing about 5lbs 8oz and gaining steadily.  Or at least we hope so...I found that nursing him doesn't give the calories he needs because he can't suck hard enough yet.  So, we are back to bottles of fortified breast milk.  He's sucking them down like a champ and will hopefully have gained enough weight when the visiting nurse comes back tomorrow. 

Ingrid is pretty cool with having a little brother.  He is now officially "Bub" and she has to kiss him and say goodnight to him.  I love seeing her as a big sister! 

I tried out our XS Bum Genius today, it totally fits!  I have smalls in other brands, but they still look pretty huge.  And I have some prefolds but they need to be washed still, so we're still using the disposables the hospital sent home with us.  Today I had the BG on, though, and it looked so enormous and cute I had to take pictures.  Can't wait to be strictly cloth diapering again!

Big Butt Pants!

Oh holy cuteness!  My friend Brandy got me this pattern so I could make her daughter some pants that fit over her cloth diapers.  Why didn't I ever think of this???  The pants I made Ingrid always always were too tight in the butt, I could've used this pattern for her for sure!  Good thing I have it now for Otis.

Anyway, I tried a basic pair today to see how the pattern worked.  It's pretty straightforward except it takes some getting used to when sewing the curved part of the butt panel.  It just doesn't look like it's going to match up and then viola!  It does!  Amazing how patterns work, eh?

Here's the front:

And here's the butt.  Love that panel!

Now to add some pockets, a coordinating fabric cuff, rick rack.  The possibilities are endless and I'm so looking forward to making more!  And Miss Brandy is a super fine photographer in the Charlotte NC area so hopefully she'll take some sweet pics of her chunky monkey and let me use them when I sell the pants.  Hint, hint, Brandy.

Little Gymnast

This morning we took Ingrid to a gym that has a toddler play program. Our friends had gone there a few weeks ago and let us know they were going again so we joined them. Ingrid had so much fun! They just have all the soft squishy stuff out for the kids to run and jump on, trampolines and jumping boards, cones and hula hoops and exercise balls.

As soon as Ingrid got her shoes off she went full force the entire hour we were there! She ran from one thing to the other, and of course found the bin of chalk for the uneven bars and had a chalk butt the whole time...She loved the little ramp mats and kept going up and down, up and down.



I just love how liberal Ann Arbor is, because whenever I get around a group of moms and their kids I see breastfeeding toddlers and other cloth diaper users. One woman was a nanny but pregnant for twins and was asking me about Ingrid's cloth diapers and where I got them from, which kind were the best and how do I wash them. It's really nice to have a rational conversation about that instead of people asking me how much poop I get on myself and how smelly they are, how crazy it is to be using them in the first place. Ahhh, liberal oases, may I always live in one :)

Anyway, Ingrid ran the whole hour, ate a snack in the car, I blasted Yo Gabba Gabba music to keep her awake, and then she passed out as soon as we got home. I am off to lounge and read the book I got from the library yesterday--Water for Elephants. So far it's gotten me hooked, we'll see how the rest goes.

Nerdy Chemistry Picnic

Yesterday we met Brendan in Ann Arbor for the University of Michigan Chemistry Department Picnic. They have it every year to welcome new graduate students, with burgers, hot dogs, chips, beer, soda, etc. It was so much fun! Ingrid had a good time running around the big field and eating chips, and everyone kept exclaiming over her pigtails, which had gotten kind of wonky after she fell asleep in the car on the way there.

It was so funny because they had a desert contest which was obviously chemistry themed. These were my two favorite entries:


Someone went to a LOT of trouble to make those!!

It was a very Ann Arbor evening, as there were four of us with kids sitting near each other. Ingrid got into the diaper bag and pulled out her diaper, and all the moms were like "oh, is that a FuzziBunz??" And a conversation about cloth diapering ensued, as all of us used them! I thought that was pretty cool, but it IS Ann Arbor. It's kind of the norm here to use slings and cloth diapers and be eco-friendly...

Ingrid had a good time with other babies and we got to eat outside and enjoy the last of the summer, so it was a good night all around!

Our New FuzziBunz

So we won two FuzziBunz diapers!! We got them in the mail a couple days ago and my first impression is that they are so luxurious! Perhaps it's because we're using super old, very used cloth diapers that have life left in them but aren't anything new fangled. I am pleased with our diapers, one because they were cheap, two because they were used, therefore nothing new had to be processed for us to get them, and three because they do the job. After all, they are being used to catch pee and poo--if they do that, I'm satisfied.

But these FuzziBunz!! Oh my god, I got them out of the envelope and just kept touching them. They have fleece inside and it's very very soft, something you'd want to put up against your baby's butt. Like you know how you feel when you get a new sweatshirt and it's unbelievably soft inside? That's how these diapers are.

I just tried one on Ingrid and it's trim and cute. The diapers we have are one size, but they change size using the snaps on the front. The FB have adjustable elastic on the leg openings and on the waist. Which means they are very adjustable to kids with fat legs and/or fat bellies, which is nice. Ingrid has the chubbo legs but a skinny belly, so sometimes it's hard to find things to fit right.

She wore them a couple times and it was very strange because I KNOW she went pee, but it didn't feel wet at all. That was so strange to me, as our other diapers get wet when they are wet. I'm not sure how I feel about that, actually. I like the idea of her being able to be in her diaper for more than an hour, but the thing I like about cloth is that she feels it's wet, and hopefully will want to go on the potty sooner than if she never feels it. Hmmm, a blessing and a curse??

But overall, I am in love with FB diapers!! If we have that second baby I will for sure get some small sized fancy diapers. They are so soft and cushy and not at all bulky. I like our plain jane diapers for every day, but I could see using the FB for traveling and days out and about. I'm so thankful to clothdiaperblog.com for having this giveaway so I could try something new :)

We Won!

Earlier I had posted about a cool diaper giveaway on clothdiaperblog.com. Turns out, we won! How exciting. We get two FuzziBunz one size diapers to add to our collection. I'm so excited to try another brand and see if there's some huge difference or not. The ones we have work fine, but what if other ones work EVEN BETTER??? I'll let you know what I find out...

Diaper giveaways

We didn't win last week, so let's try this week! I would love to try these FuzziBunz, as I have seen a bunch of people using them. They look pretty cute :)

Cloth Diaper Update

We found some! A family had a gotten a couple bins from someone else and decided not to use them. So we got about 45 diapers, snap-in inserts for extra absorbancy, 12 prefolds, and an assortment of sizes of covers. All this for $50! Not bad.


Ingrid seems to like them just fine, and I personally enjoy her new big booty. Her shorts didn't even fit when I put them on over the diaper--she had to go up a size!

Now we are just awaiting our diaper covers we ordered from etsy. The ones we got today were totally old school vinyl/elastic uncomfortable looking things so we ordered some colorful ones that should be here soon :)

Cloth Diapers

We are on a quest to start cloth diapering! I debated when Ingrid was born if I wanted to do these, but of course we were so poor and I thought it would be gross to wash diapers, blah blah blah. I wish I had really thought about how much disposables cost. It's so easy not to see how expensive they are because you're just shelling out a small amount each time. But then I looked at the fact I spend $35 every three weeks on a case of diapers, that's 17 cases in a year, that's $595! Which makes the start up cost of cloth diapers, at $100-300 look really great! Yesterday was spent on the computer researching the different kinds and getting really overwhelmed. There are so many different varieties, each with pros and cons. I just don't know where to start, how much I want to spend, what's going to work for me. Luckily I found a few women on craigslist that have been really helpful and we're off to meet them this morning. Hopefully we will come home with some new cloth diapers and begin our journey. Also, there's a diaper giveaway on clothdiaperblog.com. Wouldn't that be awesome if we got some freebies to try?