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Choosing a Race for my Child
May 31, 2011 in Parenthood & Life • Reflections on Parenthood
A couple of weeks ago, we got an email from our health insurance company, Kaiser Permanente. Since I've been with Kaiser (since 1998 or so), I've been really impressed with them. They're generally very forward-thinking, even offering such services as acupuncture and biofeedback. I love that about them.
That's why I was shocked by the email we got - and very, very angry.
The email was about Charlie, and I only remember one of the questions: "Which race does your child identify with? Please choose one of the following options." Guess which option was missing? That's right: mixed race.
My child does not identify as Caucasian, nor does identify as Asian. She is BOTH, for crying out loud. Equal parts. I can't believe that, in this day and age, we are still asking people race questions with radio buttons instead of check boxes. We "decline to answer," for lack of a "screw you" option. Thanks a lot, Kaiser.
I knew this time was coming, but I honestly didn't think it would happen before she could walk.
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A Blurb book for every year
May 25, 2011 in Personal Projects • Displaying Memories • DIY and Crafts • How To
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Sometimes when I tell people about the things I do -- my little projects and such -- I realize that I sound like a complete and total crazy person. Normal people have better things to do with their time than think up ways to redecorate their not-even-a-year-old baby's room.
That being said, if you know me, you are not surprised by any of my projects. Yes, some of them are time-consuming (I'm not going to lie - our weekly photo project takes quite awhile), but some of them aren't as much work as they look. For example, I realized that I sounded like a Martha-wannabe (read = nut-job) when I told my friend H that I have a digital photo album made for every year. But in reality, it's not nearly as much work as it sounds. When H said, "I've been meaning to do that..." and was subsequently surprised by how easy it sounded, I decided to share my method with you guys.
First off, here's a couple of snapshots of the inside of some of my albums:
I use blurb to make all of our books. My main reason for doing so is their desktop application, BookSmart. BookSmart allows you to work on a book over time, automatically saving its changes so you don't lose your work. It also allows you to work on more than one book at a time, which is great if you have holiday gifts to make (or if you're trying to make albums of previous years). Originally, my plan was to work on the book as the year went on, so I didn't have to do it all right before the end of the year - that would be really overwhelming. Unfortunately, I just don't have the discipline to sit down at the computer and work on it every week!
You know what I do have the discipline to do, though? "Star" my favorite photos in iPhoto each time I import new ones. After all, I'm looking at them anyway, right? Then, at the end of the year, I make a "smart" album in iPhoto to show only my starred photos, export them to a folder, and drop them into BookSmart. The book automatically fills, in chronological order. After that, all I have to do is format the pages so related photos are on the right page, and fill in a little bit of text if I feel so inclined. It's genius, if I do say so myself. ;)
If you have a Mac (and especially if you take a lot of photos), a big tip is to download the app iPhoto Library Manager. This application allows you to divide your photos into multiple libraries, which makes organization a lot easier AND makes BookSmart run a lot faster. I have an a new iPhoto library for every year - that application is one of my all-time best purchases ever!
The work I put into these yearly photo albums is 100% worth it. Every once in awhile, I pull one of these books off the shelf and reflect on how grateful I am. Both for this life, and for these photos. I'm so glad they aren't buried on a hard drive somewhere!
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At night time, I find that the cloth isn’t absorbant enough. Thus, we use a biodegradable gRefill, which is more absorbant. To soak up the extra night-time pee, you can either use another gRefill folded in half underneath the main gRefill (which gDiapers recommended), or you can stick a couple of cloth “boosters” underneath the gRefill, which is what we’re doing. Once again, this has a lot to do with our pocketbook. We use Amazon's Subscribe & Save for gRefills, but they still aren't cheap.
Being a Hippy Mama: Step 1, Cloth Diapers and Wipes
May 23, 2011 in Urban Hippies • Green Baby
In case you couldn't tell by our obsession with hybrid vehicles and backyard chickens, Y and I try to be as "green" as we can. Things were obviously no different when it came to having a baby. Lucky for us, we're finding that being environmentally responsible with our baby stuff is actually saving us a LOT of money, too. So I'm going to share with you guys what we have been doing, starting with a little summary of our diapering methods.
Before I start, I have to address an issue that irritates me a lot. There is some amount of controversy about whether or not cloth diapers are truly better for the environment than disposable diapers. I honestly think this is a huge load of crap. We do an extra load of laundry per week in a high efficiency washer - there is simply no way that’s as bad for the environment as 50+ disposable diapers in a landfill - I just don't believe it. And to be honest, that discussion boils my blood, because I’m pretty sure the people who say cloth is as bad as disposable are just trying to make themselves feel better. But I digress.
We use gDiapers with a combination of cloth and biodegradable inserts. Because all of the terms I'm going to use can be kind of confusing, I've got a couple of little image guides for you, the first of which is here:
There are a bunch of different kinds of cloth diapers, but I'm only going to cover what we use. I'm not an expert on everything, mmkay? So. There are a few different parts that make up a gDiaper. Here's how it works: you have the gPants, and inside the gPants is a waterproof pouch, which snaps into the pants. The cloth or biodegradable inserts fit inside the pouch. The gPants come in three sizes: small, medium and large.
When Charlie was a wee tot, we bought a whole bunch of small gPants and gCloth inserts from Craigslist (note: small is an easy size to find used, because babies only wear it between 8-12 pounds). I fell in love. Chuck’s little butt looks so darn cute in gDiapers, and they are very easy to use. I have tried all-in-one diapers a few times and have had nothing but troubles (leaking and such), so I consider myself a loyal gDiapers fan. I especially love that you can use either cloth or disposable (biodegradable!) inserts with them.
During the day, we mostly use cloth, unless we're going out (more on that below). If you're doing cloth with gDiapers, you have two options: pre-folds or the gDiapers brand gCloth. Pre-folds are really cheap, and all you have to do is fold them in thirds and stuff them in the gPants. However, they make for a really big bum, whereas the gCloth is much more streamlined (it's basically flat, but really absorbent). We used gCloth when she was in size small gDiapers (I found them on Craigslist), and we now use pre-folds (because I'm cheap - gCloth is REALLY expensive).
During the day, we mostly use cloth, unless we're going out (more on that below). If you're doing cloth with gDiapers, you have two options: pre-folds or the gDiapers brand gCloth. Pre-folds are really cheap, and all you have to do is fold them in thirds and stuff them in the gPants. However, they make for a really big bum, whereas the gCloth is much more streamlined (it's basically flat, but really absorbent). We used gCloth when she was in size small gDiapers (I found them on Craigslist), and we now use pre-folds (because I'm cheap - gCloth is REALLY expensive).
At night time, I find that the cloth isn’t absorbant enough. Thus, we use a biodegradable gRefill, which is more absorbant. To soak up the extra night-time pee, you can either use another gRefill folded in half underneath the main gRefill (which gDiapers recommended), or you can stick a couple of cloth “boosters” underneath the gRefill, which is what we’re doing. Once again, this has a lot to do with our pocketbook. We use Amazon's Subscribe & Save for gRefills, but they still aren't cheap.
If I take Charlie somewhere in the car, I generally put her in a gRefill (for some reason, the car seat makes this kid poop almost every time - there's no greater laxative, I swear!). Although we have a wet bag for carrying around dirty diapers, it's just easier to get rid of the poop and put the gPant in the wet bag if it's dirty.
For most people, dealing with the poop is the part that dissuades them from cloth diapering. I'm not going to lie to you: there will be poop. But the poop is honestly not that bad. We bought a diaper sprayer for our guest bathroom, which helps with clean up - no scraping off the poop. Next to the toilet, we have a Simple Human trash can (because it's pretty and you can open the lid by stepping on it) with a PlanetWise diaper pail liner in it. If there's poop, you hold the diaper in the toilet, spray the poop into the toilet, then toss the dipe into the pail. Done and done.
The vast majority of the diapers, though, are pee diapers (did you know that a lot of babies only poop once a week?). We have another can/liner set up next to the changing table, and I mostly just pull the pee diaper out and throw it in the can. End of story. When it's time to do the laundry, we just turn the bag inside-out into the washer, and voila! You didn't even have to touch it.
I mean, really, people: the honest truth is that babies poop. Sometimes, they poop everywhere. Their clothes (and, let's be real here: your clothes too) will get poop on them, especially if you use disposable diapers (which tend to cause "blow outs"). So if you're afraid of poop, you'll probably get over it. If you're afraid of having poop in your washing machine, take comfort: after you spray the poop in the toilet, there really isn't any left on the diaper to go in the washing machine anyway. If you really don't want to spray the poop, I've heard good things about diaper liners, but I have yet to try them.
Now, onto the wipes.
Reusable wipes are such a no-brainer, I can't believe more people don't use them! Even the people I know who use cloth diapers usually use disposable wipes. When Charlie was about a month old, I was horrified to find that we'd gone through a huge box of disposable wipes, which cost about $75. Bad for the environment and bad, bad for the budget.
Reusable wipes are just washcloths. The best kind are thin and small; we have three brands, two of which I love (Gerber and Imse Vimse. Stay away from Spasilk - they're scratchy and don't absorb well). When it comes time to change a diaper, I squirt some diaper solution onto a wipe and wipe her butt. Then I throw the dirty diaper and the wipe into the diaper can. Easy peasy! We use squirty bottles like these, filled with water, a little bit of baby shampoo and almond oil, plus a drop of tea tree oil (other recipes here). We have disposable wipes for the diaper bag (and I admit I use them on especially nasty poops).
A few tips:
- After she outgrew size small, we had to buy a lot of medium gPants new (I recommend buying them at Babies R Us and doubling up on coupons). It’s an investment upfront, but saves a TON of money over disposables in the long run.
- If you're wondering exactly how we get the pre-folds in the gDiapers (or want awesome close-up photos of every aspect of gDiapers), check out this post from Joyful Abode.
- I like gCloth better than pre-folds, but the pre-folds are much, much less expensive. I bought the pre-folds to fit the medium size gPants, but in retrospect, it would make more sense to buy the gCloth for size medium/large instead of size small. She’ll be in mediums until she’s 28 pounds, and the larges use the same size gCloth. Definitely more bang for your buck if you're going to spend money on gCloth at all. Otherwise, just be cheap like me and buy pre-folds. Three dozen is more than enough.
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Favorite things: Stuff for older babies
May 19, 2011 in I Freakin' Love This Thing! • I Freakin' Love this Baby Stuff
You can add this stuff to your registry too (we added some of it; other stuff we discovered later), but you won’t use it until your baby is a little bit older.
Toys - Early Months
At some point around the third month, your baby will stop finding the ceiling fan super fascinating and will start to notice other things. That’s when they’ll actually start to play with toys! These are our favorites:
- Activity Mat - this is one of the first toys we introduced. She liked staring at the different hanging things, and eventually grabbed for them to make the music play. It soon became the place she felt most comfortable experimenting - when she learned to roll over (both directions) she tried it here. I'm kind of amazed that she loved this until we didn't bring it out anymore.
- Sophie the Giraffe - yes, I know everyone recommends her and she’s super expensive for a toy. But Charlie loves her. She squeaks and is a fun rubbery texture, perfect for chewing on. She loves it so much that we have 2.
- Baby Paper - this was given to us by my cousin Ruth. It’s the most simple thing in the world, but it’s LOUD and Chuck LOVES it (see above). I don’t know where she found it (probably a local store) - this was the only online retailer where I could find it.
- HABA Happy Quartette blocks - we just bought these, and Charlie LOVES them. The different textures and sounds are really cool. I also love that they're simple.
- Bright Starts Rattle - Good for getting the attention of a smaller baby, and easy for them to hold onto when they are starting to grasp things. Charlie now tries to shove the entire thing in her mouth.
- Angel Dear Monkey Rattle - this thing is wet 24/7: shake, stare, stick in mouth, repeat.
- Bright Starts Lion - For some reason, they don't have this on Amazon and I can't find the lion, only the dog. My friend Kathy gave this to Chuck and it's a #1 favorite!
- Winkel Toy - my mom bought this before Charlie was born, and it’s become one of her favorite toys! It kind of bounces, and those tubes are the perfect size for a baby mouth.
- Stacking cups - I know they look simple, but Charlie LOVES these. They may be her favorite toy. I couldn't bring myself to take them from her when we decided to start eliminating plastic.
- Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes - Before I had Charlie, I swore I wouldn’t have anything in my house that made loud noises with flashy lights (that stuff makes me crazy), but my friend Krista gave Charlie this, and we both love it. Hey, I can admit when I’m wrong! She flips around like crazy on the changing table, and this is the only thing that will keep her on her back long enough for me to get her dressed.
- Car Seat bar - you don’t have to get this one, but an activity bar in the car seat saved our freakin’ sanity. Yes, it has a light and music. Yes, that’s necessary.
- Bright Starts crinkle book - I don’t know what it is about this thing, but Charlie seems to be fascinated by this book and could play with it for hours. This is a set of three.
- Skip Hop Bath Birds - Charlie loves these for bathtime, and they're fun for washing her hair. My only complaint is that she sometimes tries to poke her own eyes out with the beaks, so you have to keep your eye on what she's doing with it.
- Wooden Toys - we are trying to limit the amount of plastic Charlie shoves in her mouth, so we bought a bunch of random wooden toys, which she likes (but none of them are specific favorites enough to list above).
Toys - Later Months
C still plays with most of the toys above, with the exception of the activity mat (when she started pulling up on things, it got kind of dangerous). We've purchased most everything below from Craigslist. Every baby is different, and some of them love the exersaucer while others prefer the jumperoo (or, if they're like C, they hate both). We didn't want to waste money on something she didn't like. This way, we buy something and sell it when she hates it or outgrows it - usually we can sell it for the same price! Gotta love that.
- Jumperoo - I am still sad that Charlie didn't like this, because my friend K's daughter LOVED it. Charlie's main interest is exploring, though, so it's no wonder that she didn't want to be confined. I'm not going to lie, I was slightly relieved to let our friend H borrow it - one less huge plastic apparatus.
- Activity Table - This was a recommendation from our friend Kathy, and OMG Charlie loves it SO MUCH.
- Zany Zoo - If you hate plastic crap as much as I do, you'll love this. It's not chic per say (haha), but it isn't as much of an eye sore as either of the items above!
- Bucket - One of Charlie's favorite activities is taking things out of containers. She likes emptying her bookshelf and dirty laundry. I bought her this bucket to put her toys in because it's rigid enough for her to use it to steady herself.
- Push Toy - Charlie still hasn't mastered this, but I am expecting she'll take off any day. My friend Sarah gave us this, and her daughter loved it! I can't find the one we have, but this is the same concept.
Health Stuff
- Teething is no freakin' joke. If you don't want to be heading to the all-night pharmacy like I did, get a supply of baby tylenol, baby ibuprofen and various homeopathic stuff just in case (not the teething tablets - those have been recalled. Also, sadly, orajel isn't safe either). These teething rings are great too - we throw them in the fridge (we used to throw them in the freezer. Then I learned they can damage the gums. Oops! She liked them. :-/ ). We also have an amber teething necklace, but I'm not sure I believe it works.
- I added this to the last registry, but the Baby Comfy Nose snot sucker is worth repeating. I know it sounds gross to suck the snot out of your kid's nose with your mouth, but there will come a day when you won't think twice about it. And if you need this thing at 3am, you're welcome. ;)
Other Stuff
- Breathable crib bumper - It’s ugly, yes, but when your baby outgrows the bassinet and moves into the crib, you can’t have a regular (read = cute) bumper, because they’re a suffocation hazard. If you don’t have a bumper, you’ve got baby limbs getting stuck 10x a day and the possibility of a hurt appendage. To be honest, it makes more sense to get one of these from the get-go. Just forget about the cute one. I know, you're obsessed with it (I was too), but you'll probably find it's a waste of your hard-earned dough.
- Sleep sacks - if you swaddle your baby, they will eventually outgrow the swaddle, and you'll have to figure out a way to keep your kiddo warm. Blankets are a no-no because of SIDS, so you'll want a "wearable" blanket - AKA a sleep sack. These Aden & Anais 4-layer sleep sacks are amazing. They are made from four layers of cotton & allow baby to regulate his/her own temperature. We just bought a couple of the single layer sacks for the summertime.
- Extra waterproof mattress pad (plus towels) - I know this sounds weird, but I tell you, we used this every day until Charlie started crawling. Babies love to be naked, and they also love to pee. We laid a mattress pad on the floor, covered it with a towel, and let Chuck roll around. If she peed, it got on the towel and not the floor (you need the towel because the pee beads up on the mattress pad). We invested in a California King size once she became more mobile. Now she crawls off it, but it was great, it really was.
- These Zutano booties are fantabulous. We got ours on diapers.com on sale, but now they're gone (sad face). I want a pair in every color. Little feet get easily cold outside, and socks just aren't enough. These are fleece, and they don't fall off.
- Baby Legs (or Target brand leg warmers). Charlie is a little devil on the changing table, and there have been times where I've had such a hard time getting pants on her that I've just left the house without any. Baby legs keep her legs warm and protect her little knees from rug burns while she's crawling. The only drawback is that they're kind of expensive. We have some from Target, too. They're not as good quality-wise AT ALL, but they're like, $3. You can't really beat $3. Tip: Become a "fan" of Baby Legs on Facebook - they have TONS of discounts on their website, and you can get them for a lot less. Also check out retailmenot.com before you buy anything.
- Big kid car seat - I recommend registering for this, because you will definitely need it. C doesn't need this yet, but this is the one we're getting - it's top rated from Consumer Reports and half the price of the Britax Boulevard that everyone loves (thanks Sarah!)
And that's all I've got! Anyone have anything else to add (note: I'm going to do a separate post on baby proofing)?
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Stinkerpants Clothing is Here!!
May 5, 2011 in
I am so excited to announce that my clothing line is live on the website!!
We're also offering special launch pricing - save $5 on each item, bringing the price to $19. We also now ship every order over $10 for FREE (I hate paying for shipping, so I figured you guys probably do too!)!
Check it out, and please share with your friends!!
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