Milestones

At 10 months old my Georgia Girl can sleep through the night, feed herself finger foods, roll over every which way and pull herself up when holding onto you hands, both of these being extra exciting after all of her months in various forms of braces and casts due to her hip dysplasia, she can sign Eat, Milk, More and All Done.

And as of today she can do this!

You must've been a beautiful baby

My heart. My Girl. My baby.

I'm having a bit of a baby breakdown today. Make that a full on baby breakdown. I'm not ready for this beautiful baby girl to no longer be my baby. I understand that I will not be trading out babies at the hospital or anything. I know that they are not going to make me give one over for the other, but still, its a weird place to be. I remember the day I took my pregnancy test for our Sweet Surprise. I woke up, nursed my tiny baby, then received a positive pregnancy test. It was weird.

I love being a mom. I sometimes had dreams of running a fortune 500 company, but my lifelong dreams were of being a wife and a mother. I'm living my dreams is so many ways. Still, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around raising two babies today. Two tiny babies.

I don't know how I'm going to split my time.
I don't know how I'm going to split my heart.

I don't know how I'm going to go grocery shopping.

I feel overwhelmed, grateful and sad all at the same time. There are times when I feel this tiny 23 week old baby kick in my belly and smile ear to ear marveling at the utter blessing that we get to do this twice. Then there are times, like today, when I cuddle my 10 month old and cry because I'm not ready for her to be my big kid.

God brought me to this and I am certain that he will bring me through this. I can also understand in my head that I will fall totally in love with my second baby and still remain completely in love with my first baby, my heart just doesn't know how yet.

gCloth Diaper Diary

I have been cloth diapering my sweet babe for one week now.

Day 1
Diaper one and all I can think is "I don't like this at all" and "This is so wet!" But I've resolved to give it the old college try and stick to it so I put on another cloth diaper and forge ahead. My process is still pretty inefficient since I don't want to change everything and invest in the wetbags and whatnot if I'm not going to be using cloth diapers for a very extended amount of time. Right now I've decided to toss the dirty cloth diapers into the diaper pail and I already have and toss out the wipes. Then I plan to do one load of diapers at night that will then be ready for use by morning.

Day 2
I feel like she is always damp! The website says that your baby has to be changed every 2 hours or they will get diaper rash but they say nothing about this always damp feeling that seems to be covering her at all times. I don't feel like I know what I'm doing yet. I'm still trying to find the best way to pull out the wet insert without it touching everything in site and just figure out this whole cloth diapering thing period. The hybrid inserts were so easy to adjust too but I'm have more frustration transitioning to the cloth inserts. Still, I'm going to keep on keeping on.

Day 3
I'm getting better at this and it is slowly beginning to feel like I might be able to do this. I'm still fighting the always damp feel and I don't like my baby to smell like urine so I don't know how often I am really going to need to change her in a day. This feels a little crazy, but not as crazy as it did three days ago. It is working out pretty well to just dump the cloth inserts into the diaper pail I already have, the big downside is that at the end of the day I have to reach in and pull each on out by hand and transfer them into the bathroom garbage can to carry them downstairs to the laundry room. HA! I really want to love using these cloth diapers. I really want to love this and save my family money. If I do end up in love, or at least in deep like with the gCloths, I will need to get a pail liner that I can pull out rather than the dipping my hands into the bin every night.

Day 4
For this time I have gone all cloth all the time. I pack a gallon size ziploc bag with me to use at my wet bag and have Georgia in gCloths and only the cloth. I figure that if I'm going to do this I want to do it all the way, and after I'm used to it I can decide if I want to take the disposable hybrid inserts with me when I'm out. For this time, it is easier for me to only use one diapering system at a time. With that said, I am taking all of my cloth diapers to the Farm with us for the weekend. One full weekend away with the cloth diapers.
In a HUGE positive, I have been putting two cloth inserts on G at night and we haven't had one leak or problem. She is actually staying very dry and comfortable at night. And that is a big giant relief and positive points for the gCloths.

Day 5
Finally! Finally I have solved the always damp issue. After doing some more research on the gDiaper site I reread that the liner needs to go in the creases of the legs, just like underoos do, and after adjusting the liner to fit into its place the dampness has gone away. Hooray! Now I feel like my baby girl can go a reasonable amount of time in one cloth diaper and not smell or feel damp after 45 minutes. We are out at the Farm and I'm really starting to get the hang of this. I have a few Ziplocs where I'm tossing the dirties and then I am still one the same schedule of washing my one load of diapers at night and have them all ready again in the morning.

Day 6
This is getting easier. I don't hate cloth diapers today. I know what the expect with a normal cloth diaper change and that is probably the most helpful thing. I feel that I know how to handle the wetness and the dirtiness and have a simple plan in place for how to store the diapers and how and when to clean them. Today, I am not in deep love with the gCloth diapers but I am not loathing them either. This is getting better.

Day 7
No pins. No folding. No soaking. As far as cloth diapers go, I believe that these are about as easy as they come. I am feeling more confidant in this process and feeling like I can do this for awhile. I do need another pack of the gCloth inserts since I use up my whole stock in a day and it would be nice to have a few more in the drawer each morning, just in case the nightly load isn't dry. After getting home from the Farm I found that I needed to use one of the hybrid inserts while the diapers were in the dryer and was shocked with what I found. At changing time, I felt that the disposable inserts actually took longer to deal with post change than the cloth! My beloved flushables take more time post change to tear, tear, swish and flush than it takes me to toss the cloth in the bin. I laughed outloud when I had the thought "I wish I had a cloth!"

I may be a full convert yet.
The pigs are not soaring through the skies flying with freedom and flare, but the pigs have sprouted wings and gotten off the ground. The unthinkable, the unlikely is starting to happen. I am starting to actually like the cloth diapers.

gDiapers takes on The Fair, Camping and Overnights

For days 5-9 gDiapers went on the road with us and proved to be a very accommodating travel companion.

First gDiapers came to the county Fair. It was the first time I had to changed one of the gDiapers in public but it turned out to be nothing, to be even a smidgen easier than changing a disposable. I have found that I don't have to "preload the Little G" like they tell you too on the videos on their website. So I can leave my baby's bare bum resting on the liner inside of her Little g pants and and then life her legs and slide insert right in. Being able to do this at the Fair made it so that her tiny little toosh was spared from any splinters the wooden bleachers may have tried to impose upon her. It was quick and easy and I tossed the insert with my empty peach milkshake cup and we were done with it.

Then gDiapers took on tent camping with us in Central Oregon. She swam in her blue little swimmers, I think it was her Shilo Pitt moment wearing boy cloths. That or I bought the wrong ones! Then she wore her Little G pants for the rest of the day and slept in the remaining Pampers diapers that I had taken with us. Not one leak or problem the entire weekend. Plus, I felt a nice sense of accomplishment about tossing away the biodegradable inserts while camping out in the wilderness.

Once home I was finally out of the back up Pampers. Now I was no longer just getting my feet wet, I was swimming. It came to be that Georgia had to sleep overnight in her Little G Pants. I checked it out on their gDiaper website and it suggests that you put two inserts into the Little g's for over night. So with fingers crossed and plans to do an entire load of crib sheets and baby cloths in the morning I doubled up the inserts and put her to bed. Much to my happy surprise she woke up dry! Again no leaks, no rashes, no trouble.

All in all gDiapers took on The Fair, Camping and Overnights like a champ.

Now onto today... The cloth diaper portion of this trial has officially begun with Miss Georgia Sweet sitting next to me right now wearing her first ever cloth diaper.

Now, time to see if pigs really do fly...

gDiapers days 3 & 4- The Flood

Day 3- The Flood

Georgia had just woken up from a perfect morning nap. Two full hours of sleeping gave me some great time to clean the kitchen, make the beds and enjoy a lovely cup of coffee and then she woke up at just the right time to get her ready to take her to her hip doctor appointment, which by the way was the best hip appointment we've ever had. She received a perfect on the x-rays and we don't have to go back in until she is 15 months old, that means January. The longest stretch between appointments we've been allowed so far and the closest thing to an "all clear" we could have gotten.

The day was lovely and the picture of perfection.

Until it all went down, or didn't.

It was day 3 of my gDiaper trial and I was sold. Loving these flushables and the sheer cuteness of the Little gPants. Everything had been so easy for three full days and I was proud of my diaper find. Then in the matter of minutes a too close for comfort catastrophe.

Rip. Rip. Swish, Flush...flush. Followed by the tell tale phrase "Go down! Go down! Ah crap, go down!!" and I reached for all of the towels in the bathroom in a flash. The gDiapers flushable refill was not flushing and the third story toilet in our 101 year old craftsman style house was seconds from overflowing. I reached for the plunger and shoved it quickly into the bowl.

Splash! Whoosh! Then the sound of way too much water flooding over onto our tile floor, the tile floor on our top floor. And it was still running!

I did the first thing that came to mind and grabbed that little thing that stops the water from running and in a MacGyver type moment grabbed for the only things I could reach, a hair ribbon and a pair of scissors. I tied the hair ribbon around that thing inside the back of the toilet, wrapped it around the scissors and hooked the scissors onto the handle and then quiet. It had worked! The water was stopped. It has since been pointed out to me, by both my mom and my husband, that I could have reach down and turned off the water. But that didn't occur to me at the time and I prefer a little MacGyver in my life anyhow.

I dashed out the door to the linen closet and pulled out literally everything it was holding and threw it with great force onto the flooded floor of our third story bathroom. Praying all the way.

Reaching for the trash can, I tossed all of its contents into the sink and began to scoop out as much water as I could and throw it into the bathtub. It was effective and I was able to lower the water level enough so that each plunge of the plunger did not splash more water out onto the sopping wet towels.

Plunge. Plunge. Plunge. Plunge. Faster. Then slower.
It wasn't working.

It was time. Time to reach into the bowl and see what I could find.

What I found was that a small bit of the inner liner of the refill had found a secret place to hid within the layers of the outer liner and once flushed had formed a gel ball that was lodged securely in my toilet.

First I tried with my bare right hand, up to the elbow in toilet water, and with each grab and tug small ineffective pieces came out in my fingers. Next I tried with my bare left hand with the same result. Before the end of my half hour escapade as the Bare Handed Plumber I had tried the swish stick, scissors, tweezers, and lots and lots of pleading prayers to Jesus.

Finally, with a new fangled technique of bare right hand work and a spinny pully moved I created with the swish stick the gel ball budged. Again I pulled and twisted. Two more times of the pull, twist, pray approach and it was free! We were all free!

Flush went the toilet!

And not a moment too soon since Georgia was more than done with her independent play time in her room around the corner.

I soaked up all remaining standing water, rolled all of the wet towels up into my bath mat and walked the nearly 50 pounds of wetness down the three flights to the laundry room, already preparing myself for having to tell Daren that I had I flooded the tip top bathroom in our house. Side note: He took it pretty well.

I believe that The Flood was cause by a combo of user error and product. Daren and I have decided to walk the flushables downstairs to the lower bathroom for the remaining days of the trial just in case. No diaper is worth a ruined house and the cost of a remodel or mold removal.

Day 4- Falling in Love again
I love these stinking gDiapers. Mostly because they don't stink! They go away and I love that. Plus they are crazy cute on Georgia's little baby body. I don't know how feasible it is to actually walk each diaper downstairs to flush them for the rest of our diapering days, but its what I'm doing for the time being.

Now is the time you check to see if there is snow in Hades, because I, part of the "I will never ever in my whole life use cloth diapers" team, am seriously considering trying out the pure cloth diapers for the second week of this trial. The cloth diapers are really where the true savings are. I may pick up one pack of the cloth inserts and give it a go.

Plus, I figure if I love them great and if I hate them, well then at least I will know firsthand what I'm talking about when I proclaim that cloth diapers suck.

Here goes nothin'....

5 months, 5 Miles and a 5 K

When Julie ran her marathon I cried.

As I sat in the chair in our living room with my cell phone in hand anxiously receiving text updates as she passed each marker, talking to my mom on our land line and my computer screen filled with the Seattle Rock-n-Roll course map, pace sheets, and the live feed of the finish line I cried. I cried joyful tears for Julie, for as long as I have known her a Marathon finish has been one of her biggest goals and I cried bittersweet tears for myself.

Sitting there in the throws of first trimester sedation and nausea, still adjusting to the fact that I was two months pregnant as my then 8 months old baby napped upstairs I cried.

When would I ever run again? Really run.
When would I ever feel like an athlete again, let alone actually be one?
When would I be me?

And I was inspired. For the first time in many months I began to envision myself crossing finish lines. I imagined how I would smile at the cheering sections. I thought of hearing my husbands voice as he cheered me on at a hard mile marker during some big race. I dreamt of the t-shirts I would make my children wear for family photos at a big post race block party. I dreamt of feeling like myself again, tough and athletic with an easy laugh and enjoying it all.

The next week as I poured over Julie's blog detailing her entire marathon experience I clicked on the Skirt Chaser 5k link. For a moment I was back. I felt the athletic drive and that old friend the competitive spirit swell up inside my gut. A quick check of the family calendar and I sent my husband a text proclaiming "We are running the Skirt Chaser 5k. I can totally bust out a 5k!" He was in and we were registered.

I had already been an active member of Baby Boot Camp where we work out with jogging, lunges, wall sits and resistance bands for 60-75 minute sessions all while pushing our little ones in strollers. So my fitness level was good and I was cleared to continue running.

A month ago Daren and I took Georgia on our first family fun. We ran for three miles around our neighborhood and I was so proud for making it the whole way and so grateful that Daren pushed the stroller. As a dating and newly married couple running together was our thing. We would meet up at the trail head for an evening running date or head out early on a Saturday for a long run then hit our favorite breakfast spot all sweaty and beaming with endorphins. We ran together, we raced together and we fell in love together. The first time Daren even said "I love you" was after a big hard race up in Seattle. Running was part of who we were as a couple and since I got pregnant with Georgia, that had been missing.

During my first pregnancy I was too afraid to run. Too afraid to do much of anything other than walking and some yoga. And I lost myself. I gained many many lbs and struggled with the massive physical changes and the mood swings that accompany any baby baking session. I had not completely come back to myself, or to Daren, when we found out we were expecting our second child.

Two weeks ago I ran five miles at five months pregnant. Daren, once again got me out onto the road and told me that he was certain that I could run the whole loop. I told him absolutely not and that I would be turning around at the 1.5 mile marker and heading back home. The mile marker came and went and I never turned around. I ran five miles. I ran five miles with Daren. I ran five miles with Daren, the only running partner I've ever had, while five months pregnant with our second baby and it was awesome.

We were back!
We were back because I was back.
I was running.

Saturday we ran in the Skirt Chaser 5k! The women started three minutes before the guys and they had to chase us down, chase the skirts if you will. I took off knowing that my main man would catch me and when he did, about the mile and a half in, I was so happy. I was so excited to see him! The conditions were hot and muggy and I was starting to overheat so for the sake of the baby in the belly I walked for a bit, and Daren being the incredibly supportive race partner that he has always been, walked with me. Then ran me all the way into the finish line.



We were us. We were Daren and Sarah the couple, more than Daren and Sarah the parents. We were running a race together and we loved it and we loved each other and it was wonderful.

And I am me.
I am running.

Running has saved me in these last few months. Its saved me from the pregnancy blues and the massive weight gain I had the first time around. It has brought me back to myself, even while pregnant, and in fact its even lifted my bum a little!

So thank you to the road and to the miles, though few today will be fast and far again soon.
Thank you to Julie for inspiring me to Run Like a Mother.
Thank you Daren for running with me and pushing the stroller.
And thank you to my body, for holding together and holding my babies.



Running I love you, even when I hate you.

gDiapers trial day 2

Today is day two of my two week trial with the gDiapers and I still like them and find them adorable.

They actually are simple to use. In truth, they are not as simple as a true disposable diaper but they are still easy. With a disposable you take it off and wrap it up on itself and toss it into the bucket. With these you there are a few extra steps with the loading of the gDiaper, the tearing of the sides, swish and of course, the walk to the bathroom. All in all those steps only take a minute or two more and I am curious to see if that time lapse shortens even more once I have a routine in place. For me, when my rating scale of easy to hard diaper changes runs the gauntlet from normal disposable diapers all they way up to Spica Cast diapering, these are pretty stinking easy.

I did have one small set back this morning when the inner lining of the insert fell not into the toilet where it belongs but onto the floor of my bathroom. The insert was swinging back and forth while I held it by a corner and worked to tear the two sides off and splat, onto the floor it fell into its tiny disintegrating pieces. Therefore I had to proceed to wash my bathroom floor while half dressed about ready to step into the shower. I don't know many women who like to spend that much time in the reaching for the floor to clean position while in that particular state of attire.

Today's enlightened moment was when I realized the simple notion, that if we go with these gDiapers permanently it would be very handy to have a swish stick next to each toilet in the house. That way no matter where you change your baby you can walk it to the nearest bathroom, not just hiking it upstairs to the one with the sparkly clean floor.

I was laughing today as I exclaimed to Daren what a silly sense of accomplishment I feel as I flush these things. It just feels like "Ta Da" I just flushed a diaper!

Miss G in her LittleG's - gDiaper trial day 1

As life would have it, I have found a touch of hippie in me and Motherhood has been really trying to bring it out. I've been trying to make my own baby food, but Georgia won't eat it. This fact makes me laugh every time I think of it. She prefers the organic stuff in the jar over just about anything I mix up in my new Magic Bullet and offer to her.

When I say a touch of hippie that is exactly what I mean. More like a smidge or a dash of hippie. I recycle, as long as its convinent. We eat the mostly organic food, the dirty dozen of fruits and veggies and much of our meat and dairy but if there is a sale on something non-organic I don't hesitate to go that route and Doritos and Hershey's Bars have yet to be seen with an organic stamp. I like to use all natural Butt Paste and washes on my baby if I have them, but it doesn't bother me if we're at the farm and I use whatever is available. I nursed my baby the best I could for six months but when it was time to switch to formula I was not afraid that I would be giving my baby "poison in a can". I enjoy pursing the most healthy options I can find for my family but sometimes it is not the most economical way to stay on budget.

So a smidgen of hippie it is and today I purchased our first two week trial of a cloth/disposable hybrind diaper called gDiapers.
I have been so surprised by how much I spend on diapers each month. And with another adorable baby booty on its way I started to look into other options that were affordable and easy. My priorities in finding a new diapering option are 1.Affordabliity. and 2. Ease.

I know that, especially in the part of the country I live in, I'm supposed to be this all organic, cloth diaper loving, baby food making, non-chemical wearing, music class going, non-spanking, no sugar giving, always covered in sunscreen mother and I'm just not. Its the new Super Mom of this decade. As Mother's we're no loner looked down on if we don't work outside of the house, but we are looked down on if we give our children sugar and choose an epidural over an all natural delivery. As women we all get to be whatever kind of mother we want to be and we each mother out of who we already are and I was not the Earth Mother before I became Georgia's mother. Though I am finding I am turing into a bit of a hybrid, just like the gDiapers.

My cousin first introduced the brand to me and after much research I have decided to give them a try. According to my math, after the initial invesment the insterts are cheaper per diaper than the disposables that I use. I bought the starter kit at the Whole Foods up the block which includes 2 LIttle G pants, a swish stick, and 32 biodgradable intert refills. The refills either flush, compost or toss. The website has videos of each and I am going to flushing route during the trial while we're at home and then the tossing when we're out and about. I just flushed my first one and it actually did break up and go down without any problems in our 101 year old plumbing.

Four hours into my two week gDiaper trial and I like them. We'll see how I feel in two weeks and if it does actually end up to be a more economical choice for our family.

I'll keep you posted.

Here is my Miss G sporting her gPants this morning.

A moment

I was trying to capture a fun posed picture with Georgia smiling and then this happened and my heart grew.



Its the first picture of my two babies.

20 weeks pregnant with Lil B The Sequel and my 9 month old Georgia.

How to woo your wife and build a fort

I have yet to find anything sweeter than finding my husband playing with our baby. To hear him reading her a bedtime story through the baby monitor melts my heart like never before and she sparkles the minute he walks into a room. As I was cooking breakfast recently I heard squeals of laughter coming from the living room. When I walked around the corner I found this, Georgia's first lesson in Fort Building by Daddy.