The Story On Cloth Diapering

We've been cloth diapering for a few weeks now so we thought it was time to update you as to how it's going. Overall, it is a lot easier than we thought it would be. It took probably a day to get into the routine of doing it, and once we had each changed one or two diapers, it became like old hat.

Emma wears FuzziBunz cloth diapers, one of many brands out there.


They come in a variety of fun colors and she seems to find them really comfy. She will be able to wear the ones we bought her until she is potty trained and we can reuse them for a future Brew.

Here's a cute little baby model wearing one. She kind of resembles Emma, doesn't she!?


We keep a little trash can with a cover near her changing table. When she's ready for a diaper change, we take off her dirty diaper and throw it in the trash can. When we're ready to wash all of her diapers, we just take the waterproof liner with all of the diapers in it and dump everything into our washer. We rinse on cold first, wash on hot using a special detergent, and then dry on low heat. They come out looking completely unused. Super easy.

A lot of people have asked us about the whole poop issue. Honestly, breastfed babies don't have solid or smelly poop, so changing a poopy diaper is no big thing. And once you become a parent, I think you just develop the stomach to handle all types of bodily stuff. Although we have had zero physical contact with her poop while cloth diapering so far, there may be parents who want zero contact with their kids' poop ever, so there are options for them. I would share those options here but I'm afraid I've already made half of you sick or quit reading so I'll stop :)

Cloth diapering is definitely not for everyone but we like it because the diapers are really cute (way cuter than the ones I wore, I'm sure), great for the environment, great for Emma, cheap in the long run, and pretty easy to use and clean. We're happy campers!

Reunion

Last night was one of the best evenings we've had in a long time. We spent it with 9 little babies and their amazing parents. It was the reunion for our Bradley birthing class!

We've been looking forward to it for a long time. Us mamas have been sending e-mails back and forth about everything from baby poop to cloth diapering, but it was so good to see them again in person and to hear about their labors, deliveries, and parenting thus far. Maggie and Pat hosted us in their cute house with a great backyard. There was a lot of food and the weather was perfect.

Emma had a great time. I think she remembered all of her baby friends. Although her bedtime is creeping towards 6pm these days, we stayed until 9pm. The partying wore her out. She took a 3 hour afternoon nap today, which was a record!

Without further ado, here are some of the pictures that were taken last night.

(I would have given practically anything to have my camera!)

Here's our class. Unfortunately, this particular picture doesn't include our instructor, who also happened to be our doula. If someone sends me a copy of the one that does include her, I'll definitely post it. She is amazing and I don't think we would have had the birth we did without her.


The best part of the evening was the little baby pinwheel we made. You saw a picture of it yesterday. It was the cutest thing ever.


Slowly, babies had to be picked up because they started crying.

Here were the final three.


Who do you think won the contest and stayed on the blanket longest happy as can be?

Why, our little Emma did, of course! I think she would have been content to lay outside on that blanket all night long. The only thing that would have improved life for her is if she were naked while laying on the blanket outside. She loves to be naked. She grins ear to ear before every bath, diaper change, and wardrobe change.

And here's a shot with our largest and smallest baby! Liam (on the left) was 6 lbs. 5 oz. when he was born. And William (in the middle) was 11 lbs. 11 oz. when he was born. Thank The Good Lord I did not have to birth that child. Emma could not resist crashing a shot with the two of them in it.


And for your viewing pleasure, here is a video of the babes laying on the blanket together. If you hear me in the video, I am probably the one who is beside herself with all of the cuteness ensuing. Emma was grabbing little Milo. Aubrey was making a move on little Liam. It was great. You could have parked me in a chair and left me there all evening.

Wordless Tuesday

The "Where's Waldo Emma?" Edition



I promise I will explain this picture and several more (not taken with our camera, unfortunately) to you tomorrow evening. This evening I have get to immerse myself in a research article that I hope will be published in the next issue of the Journal of Family Business Strategy. If it's published it'll be my first first-authored publication. Woo to the hoo.

A Long Days Work...

Sunday evening, oh how I'm so glad you are here. I (Tyler) never thought it would come. 48 hours of work the last three days to go along with the 26 hours from the rest of the week made for a hard week (or I guess normal these days). Not necessarily the work part, but being away from the girls.

However, I was able to get in some dodgeball this week. 2 1/2 hours to be exact with my buddy Matt. Who knew dodgeball could be such a good workout? If I'm invited again, I think I need to make this a Wednesday ritual. There is no resting and there are no water breaks. It is dodgin' and ballin' the whole time.

Also, THE DALLAS COWBOYS TRAINING CAMP OPENED THIS WEEKEND!!! Less than two weeks until their first pre-season game. I think DEZ is going to be the year.



Till next Sunday...

Playroom

We have a little sunroom just as you enter our house that we're currently using for an office.

[Here is where I would insert a picture of our sunroom for you to see but alas we have no camera. Still. Grrr, Canon.]

We're thinking about converting it into a playroom sometime in the next several months. It's just the right size and gets great sunlight.

I've already started designing it in my head and looking for pieces of furniture that would work in there.

Do you do that kind of thing, too?

So far I think it would be great to have something to store all of Emma's books and toys in,


a fun and plush rug on the floor for when she starts crawling and walking,


a little table and chairs that she can sit at,


and some cute artwork for the walls.


The walls are already painted a soft buttercream color and we can't really do much with them. And the curtains hanging in there will probably stay.


I'm itching to get started!

Just Say No

Have you ever visited the Pioneer Woman's website?

Do not, I repeat, do not go there if you are hungry. Also do not go there if your baby is sleeping and your husband is playing dodgeball, preventing you from speeding to the grocery store. Just don't do it.

But, let's just say that you did.

You would find step-by-step directions (with unending photos) for how to make this blueberry pie,


strawberry shortcake cake,


and chocolate cobbler.


And do not get me started on the non-dessert items on that website. One word: sinful. I need to order her cookbook.

Favorites

Emma smiles so much! I can't wait to capture some of them on camera for you; they would fill your love tank for sure. Although TB and I are responsible for getting most of her smiles (as it should be!), a lot of things make her happy, too:

1. We bought this book for her a few weeks back.


She loves it. Her favorite part is the end. It goes something like this:

"Emma, how big is Baby Elmo?"

...turn page...

"Baby Elmo is sooo (which we exaggerate in the worst way possible) big!"

I'm not sure if it's our exaggerated "sooo!" that gets her or the fact that on the last page Baby Elmo pops out and becomes double his usual size. But either way, it results in huge smiles and makes me want to read it to her five times in a row.

2. This bug plays a lullaby when you stretch him out.


The first time she saw him was when we were on a walk. She and I wandered into a toy store up the street and when I held him up for her to see, she gave him a big smile. Sold! She continues to smile at him daily.

3. This is Sophie the Giraffe.


She squeaks when you squeeze her. Emma's a big fan of us walking Sophie up and down her arms, legs, and tummy. The great thing about Sophie is that she is made from 100% natural rubber and is painted with natural food paint. So, Emma can safely chew on her all day long when she starts teething.

4. What does not make Emma too happy is being buckled in her car seat. She doesn't mind her car seat at all if she's not buckled in (on a walk, for example), but the moment we buckle her in, she lets us know that she wants out ASAP. What's saved the day on a few occasions are these toys that stretch across the handle. She loves them because they rattle and/or make music, which she's totally into these days. She's even starting to reach for them!

Shhh!

Don't tell Emma but we bought her her very first Christmas present.

Blog readers, meet Betty. Betty, meet blog readers.



Betty plays music and when she rocks back and forth her wings flap. I found her on Craigslist last week. I began stalking Craigslist for fun and unique kids things when I was pregnant. I figured it would be a good place to find new or gently used toys and other big ticket baby items. We've actually bought quite a few things in the past year on Craigslist, including Emma's pack 'n play and bassinet. Our latest find, Betty, is new. She sells for $125 regularly and we bought her for just $40. I'm definitely not the most thrifty person in the world but I was really excited to find her. It's so satisfying to be able to save money and buy Emma a few more outfits, toys, etc. because of the money we saved. Now I just need to ask Tyler to take her downstairs when I'm not looking so she stays a Christmas present :)

I'm backkkk....

That's right, it's me, Tyler! I know you have seen me in pictures but you've probably been wondering if I'd ever blog again. First off, I'd like to thank my beautiful wife for the wonderful job she has done with the blog so far. She has kept us going strong and kept this sucker alive.

As many of you know, it's golf season, which in my world means I live at the golf course. For example, the last three Fridays and Saturdays, a 14-16 hour day was an average day. The days get long and my brain turns to mush just from working. Sundays are my short days (5:30-2) and my vacation begins Sunday afternoons. I have had Mondays off lately which is great because Mondays are our family day. It is why I work and why I can make it through the weekend each week. As you know we've been to the zoo, taken plenty of walks, and taken some family naps. We have had some great times just being a family. I never thought being a Dad could be so great. When Emma smiles, it feels like the world stops. She is an amazing baby and we love her to death.

Driving to work around 5 each morning means there isn't a lot of traffic or people up, including Katie and Emma. I can't make my normal phone calls to Katie to talk about the day so I have to listen to the radio. Lately, I've been digging sports talk radio because it isn't football season and I don't have to listen to people talk about the Viqueens.

A few weeks ago, I was on The Common Man Show. Dan "The Common Man" Cole is known in the sports talk radio world as the golf ambassador of the Twin Cities. An hour of his afternoon show is usually spent talking about his round from the morning. He tries to play a different course each morning before his show. I see him once to twice a month at the Dunes early in the morning before he heads to work. Anyway, over the years we have become familiar with each other and as I mentioned I was able to talk with him on the radio about the Dunes a few weeks ago. Well, last week he stopped in to play and I just so happen to be listening to him the day before in the car (with Katie on the way to purchase a cloth diaper) and heard his piece on golf. So, in casual conversation, I brought up the story and we talked a few minutes about golf and his son (Dan Cole Jr. who he calls "Deuce" on the radio). Long story short, I told him that Katie and I just had Emma a few months ago. He asked the normal questions like has she been to the golf course (Yes), is she playing golf yet (Yes), how many birdies has she had (Four), and so on. As the conversation was ending, he mentioned that he would bring up Emma that day on the radio. Did he? Who knows, we were unable to listen. We'll just say that he did and call Emma famous! She is already being talked about on the radio. What a lucky girl.

Well, that's is all I have for now. Look out for more posts from me in the future. I'm going to try and do one once a week and help KB out since when we started the blog it was a team effort. I will talk to you soon!

Super Sleeper

We have one heck of a sleeper on our hands. Emma has always slept well. In fact, she was about a week old when she slept through the night for the first time. It freaked us out! As if she didn't sleep well enough already, her new bedtime routine is really paying off. For the past few nights, Emma has gone to bed between 7pm and 8:30pm and slept until 6:30am or so the next morning. And she doesn't wake up at 6:30am for good. She eats, smiles, coos, does some wiggling, and then goes back to bed until 9:30am or so. We really don't hear crying in our house in the middle of the night. It's amazing. And sooo not typical. Just talking about it in this blog post makes me feel like I should throw my body in the direction of any wood surface I can knock on. I hope it doesn't end for awhile!

P.S. Our blog posts just aren't the same without pictures, are they? We can't wait to get our camera back! We're having a hard time finding our old one so we may have to write picture-less blog posts until we get it back.

The Switch

We made a big decision this week.

Hint?

We'll be doing a little more laundry from here on out.

No, Emma does not have a twin we have yet to tell you about :)

Our big news is that we've decided to do away with our disposable diapers and switch to cloth! It's kind of a long story but what first peaked our interest in cloth diapering was that nearly all of our friends were using them. Not like that's a good reason to do anything, but it did make us wonder, 'What are we missing!?' We did some reading, chatted with friends, and decided to make the switch ourselves for these reasons:

1. Disposable diapers have stuff in them that are pretty harmful to babies, and diaper companies aren't too excited about disclosing what's used to make them. Mothering Magazine just published a great article on the topic.

2. Cloth diapers are healthier for the environment. The average baby goes through 5,000 diapers before s(he) is potty trained and the average disposable diaper takes hundreds of years to decompose.

3. Cloth diapers are cheaper than disposables. Twenty-five cloth diapers may mean we'll be doing laundry every few days but it also means we'll save over $3,000 in the long run.

The cherry on top is that cloth diapering is nothing like it used to be. Really. Companies are making it easy, quick, convenient, and even fun.

Fun?

Uh huh, fun.






Our stash of cloth diapers is scheduled to arrive tomorrow! Once we get the hang of things, I'll be sure to let you know how it's going.

Wordless Wednesday

The Here-Are-My-Owies, Do-You-Feel-Sorry-For-Me? Edition

Two Month Check Up

Emma turned two months old on the 9th and so she had her second check up today. We dreaded it for a long time because we knew what it meant: lots of shots.


The good news is that we learned Emma is right on track in terms of development. She is in the 75th percentile for weight (11 lbs. 10 oz.), the 70th percentile for head circumference (must be the longitudinal statistics we studied together), and the 45th percentile for height. And because she's smiling, giggling, reaching for things, holding things in her hands, lifting her head, and cooing, her doctor said she's "advanced for her age." It's like she just got her first A in school. We're kinda proud.

The bad news is that Emma didn't enjoy her shots one bit. Obviously we didn't expect her to but it was way more traumatic than we thought it would be. In fact, our family of three sat and cried like we were all babies for about 5 minutes afterwards. We think it was so traumatic because Emma doesn't really cry or fuss. She's the most easy going and happy baby imaginable. So, seeing her come completely unglued like she did and shed her first real tear was hard.

After her appointment she ate a little and fell fast asleep. She's only awakened once and we gave her some Tylenol because her legs were sore and she was pretty fussy. Hopefully after a good night's sleep and lots of lovin' from Mom and Dad she'll feel better in the morning. Oh, we hope.

Bedtime

It's 9:18pm. What's so special about 9:18pm, you ask? Emma is sleeping! It may not seem like a big deal but little Brew usually doesn't go to bed until 10:30pm or so. She goes to bed late and wakes up late. We credit her early bedtime, which has happened 3 out of the 4 past nights, with our new "routine."

We have bath time at 7pm and then rock, smile, "talk," read, and eat. Usually she falls asleep eating. Coincidentally, the first night she went to bed early, we used our California Baby products. They have a lavender scented shampoo and body wash and lavender is clinically proven, according to Johnson's, to help babies sleep better.

I would take a sweet picture of Emma sleeping in between us right now (she has the cutest sleeper on...I'm tempted to pick her up and squeeze her) but unfortunately we had to send our beloved camera to Canon for repair. The auto focus on our lens stopped working. In the mean time, we'll dig out our old camera so you don't miss a minute of our faces.

The Big 100

If you were here I'd pour us a glass of wine in celebration of our 100th blog post! Can you believe it? I spent some time this evening looking back at our lives over the past few months. Gosh that was fun! We have so much to be thankful for.

Of course, our blog wouldn't exist at all without you. Thanks for coming along on our blog journey and being the faithful readers you have been. You've tuned in as we've shared our day-to-day happenings, favorite websites, and experiences with pregnancy, birth classes, and raising Emma. I'd say we've been through a lot together! So, really, thanks for reading. We sincerely hope you'll keep reading as long as we keep writing.

And because you're not here with us, here's to 100 more blog posts.

Wordless Wednesday

The I-Really-Love-Looking-At-Myself-In-The-Mirror Edition

Tummy Time

Emma's been spending a lot more time on her tummy these days. We've read it's important for her to do now so that one day she'll be able to push herself up, roll over, sit up, crawl, and pull herself into standing position.

In general, she likes tummy time for the first few minutes as long as she's distracted by her toys or us. She wiggles her legs and bottom and lifts her head to a 45 degree angle.


But after a few minutes, things turn ugly, beginning with her smile turning upside down.


We hope tummy time will become more fun for her as she gets stronger and can flip from her tummy to her back and push herself up with her arms. In the mean time, we'll be suffering through it!

Couples League

Hope you had a great 4th of July weekend! We sure did.


On Friday evening we played in our couples golf league with Jeff and Nancy, a great couple.


As you can see, Emma came along for the ride.

Here she is with her Daddy driving our cart. Emma loved facing forward and looking around as we drove.


And here I am with our pretty baby.


While one of us hit our ball, the other one of us played with her in the shade.


She was quite helpful to have around. She has an amazing talent for predicting bad shots :)


As you can imagine, the evening drained us. We started with an awake and excited baby


and left with a sleeping one.