Mommy Miracle

I know I've been a horrible blogger lately, and I fully blame summertime fun, new local friends, and busyness in the garden for that. I also know that I will probably jinx myself with this post, but I must commemorate this giant achievement before it passes. 

About a month ago, we made friends with a new-to-the-area family with a little boy just about Joe's age. It has been wonderful to see both boys play together and develop a little toddler friendship. It's even better that I now have someone to trade babysitting with, even though it has been relatively (knock-on-wood) easy to watch both boys at once because they keep each other occupied.

Right now, at this moment, BOTH boys are napping. I know. Insane. Two toddlers down at the same time? Also, they've been napping for over an hour so I have actually gotten WORK DONE. Crazy.

I know as soon as I hit publish they will both wake up, but I feel such a ridiculous sense of accomplishment at having gotten them both down.

Mother's Day

I'd do anything for this kid.

Jello Playdough

One of my absolute favorite playthings as a kid was playdough. Who didn't love that stuff, right? I'm a purist, so I liked to take time to really enjoy popping open a fresh tube of dough and admiring the smoothness of it before mashing it into an unrecognizable blob. I was never really a fan of the colors, though, because it was IMPOSSIBLE to make a realistic looking playdough hamburger or playdough cherry pie using neon pinks and florescent greens. (Yes, I was one of those kids who made playdough food. Sue me. I was no good at making animals because I could never get uniform legs). 

Anyways, my babysitter reminded me a few months ago that now would be a great time to get Joe playing with playdough as a tactile activity, and I wanted something to break the monotony of the large plastic toys and educational videos. I found this recipe online (recopied below) for non-toxic dough made from Jello, and since it was imperative for me that it wouldn't stain hands, clothes, carpet, tile, I gave it a shot. Plus, I already had all of the ingredients in the pantry. Bonus!

Ingredients:

1 cup white flour
1/2 cup salt
2 T. cream of tartar
2 T. Vegetable oil
1 c. warm water
1 three oz. pkg. jello (any flavor)

Directions:

Combine ingredients and cook over medium heat until it thickens and pulls away from the sides of pot and becomes dull. * Note: it burns easily so don't put over too high a heat and keep stirring. Mold and knead until cool enough to touch. Store in a closed plastic bag.

  

The kneading part was, of course, my favorite even though it can be pretty hot right out of the pot. I had to work fast to get it to cool down because I had a hooting and hollering little boy aching to get his hands on the stuff.

You'll find that it makes about 2 cups per color, so be sure to share with a friend! We spent this past rainy Monday whipping up a batch for our neighbor up the street as a birthday present. The colors aren't as neon as the store-bought stuff, but it will smell like the Jello flavor the first several times you play with it. It's not really edible, unless you have a serious sodium deficiency, but it's non-toxic for sure. 

Dear Joe: Year 1

Dear Joe,

I can only imagine what tiny, multipurpose device you may be reading this on in the future, but I know that your dad and I didn't pay for it.

That's not a good way to start this. Let's try again.

The past 12 months have gone by faster than any single year of my life. I think before you were born, time lumbered along in no big hurry to get anywhere. I waited what seemed like forever for you. Long before I was pregnant with you, even before I imagined how you'd have your father's nose and ears, I couldn't wait to meet you. My first born. I used to dream about you and could almost remember what your face looked like when I woke up.

When we found out you were on the way, I felt like I'd known you forever. There were things I will probably always regret about your birth that I had no control over. I admit that because even though things didn't turn out the way I planned and I wasn't awake the moment you were born and your father couldn't be in the room, you did just fine on your own. I learned on your birthday to have faith in you.

I'm so proud of both of us for getting through the tense first weeks of nursing and sticking with it for a full 12 months. I have you to thank for helping me achieve the greatest physical challenge of my life, and your future siblings have you to thank as well for making sure they'll have a chance, too. But don't think for a minute that I won't bring up the pain when you're in need of a good guilt trip one day, mister.

This year you've flown across the country four times--8 plane rides with countless layovers--and you're gearing up for more in your second year. You've been visited by your Gramma & Oppa, MaWat, Aunt Pookie & Uncle Sean, Aunt Andra & Cousin Grace, Aunt Diane & Uncle Ben, and Nonnie & Great-Grampa here in Oklahoma. You bring a smile to everyone's face because of your bright eyes and dimples, so much so that I have to fight off old men in the grocery store who want to hold you. You're a healthy kid, too--this past year there was a swine flu epidemic that you didn't catch (thank goodness) and you were never colicky or sensitive to anything.

Well, that's not true. You are the lightest sleeper I've ever met (where do you get that from?!?) and your father and I have employed all kinds of soothing white noise fans and gentle music to try to keep you asleep. You wage epic battles to keep from going to sleep if you think there is fun to be had by staying awake. I hope this is something you grow out of next year.

Speaking of growing, you grew 8 teeth in your first year. You eat like a bottomless pit, though lately you've taken an interest in feeding the dogs from your highchair or slowly tossing bits of food onto the floor to see if I'll notice and stop you. You're very much into playing games these days--how many CDs can you pull out of the case before we stop you, how many buttons on the keyboard can you push before we stop you, how long before I make you stop chewing on my cell phone. I've gone through 3 cell phones in your first year, by the way. It's hard to be mad though, because your face lights up at the end of the day when it's time to call Daddy at his office and you can hear his voice in your ear.


We took thousands of pictures of you and recorded dozens of videos to send to our family and friends back East. It's not easy being so far away from them, but you make Oklahoma much less lonely. I hope we can keep up with the picture and video taking, but if we don't, it's because we're too busy having fun with you to stop and grab a camera. I hope you remember those times without needing a picture or video.

Just like I didn't really understand love before I met your father, I didn't really understand joy or fear before this last year with you. I see so much of myself in you now--something I didn't expect at all--and it makes me want to be better for you. You've turned me into a full-fledged tree-hugging green monster because I want the world to be a better place for you.

You've accomplished so much in your first year, and I'm looking forward to the ride we have ahead of us in Year Two. I'm not just proud of you, I'm inspired by you and I hope one day you'll understand that when I set boundaries for you, it is because I respect you.

I love you, Bubba.

-Mama

Retail Rant/Rave: Target Bathrooms

Given that I am now a proud member of the navel-gazing blogosphere, I've decided to start airing my opinions (however irrelevant and based on whichever side of the bed I woke up on that day) about various retailers that I've encountered while trying to live up to the ideals I've mentioned here. Because we all can't live off of our homesteads (especially my apartment-dwelling hipster friends), we do occasionally have to transact in the commercial marketplace. I'm hoping these posts will lead to discussions of what we as consumers should demand of the marketplace in order for us to be able to participate in business we believe in.

 

Today's Rant: Target Bathrooms

  
From the Target line of "Dude Diaper Bags"

Now, anyone who knows me is painfully aware of my passionate LOVE for the Red Bullseye. I go into that store at 11am, and I'm one of the last ones they are kicking out with their pushbrooms at night. I buy everything from Target: clothes, accessories, food, furniture, baby toys, movies...I'm pretty much a Target merch magpie. In fact, I will make the hour+ drive (can you believe there isn't a Target closer than that?!? I know, boggles the mind) with glee in my heart. My friend Ben once said that women like his wife (my BF, who is a perfectly sensible person) completely forget how to drive when they are on their way to Target because they get so excited to shop there. I'm not a great driver to begin with, but I will gladly accept this stereotype, because it's kinda true.

My particular rant with Target, however, has to do with a recent visit we made with the whole family--Joe, Bill, and I. After an hour in the car, diaper changes needed to be made. Now parents out there reading this will acknowledge the frustrating tendency of commercial properties to only locate changing tables in the women's bathrooms, which not only puts the burden of diapering on the mother, it completely alienates guys who are shopping alone with their children. Target, and an increasing number of properties, have started adding "Family Restrooms" to their buildings, which is usually a single-toilet restroom with one sink and a changing table, but with an open-gender pass for either parent to bring their kids, also of either gender, into the restroom together. The downside to these restrooms is that they need to be cleaned/stocked more frequently because there is only one stall/sink.

On the day in question, the family restroom at our Target was locked. We knocked, got no response, waited for a few minutes, and Bill offered to just take Joe into the men's room to change him. I'm a very lucky woman because my husband fully participates in the public gauntlet of running errands with a baby, including changing diapers. Well, guess what. No changing tables in the men's room. Really Target? You couldn't have ordered one more table when you were getting the other two for the women's and family restroom? It would have been a minor annoyance quickly forgotten, but as I was coming out of the restroom with a freshly diapered baby, I noticed there was a single dad with a VERY new baby doing the knock-and-wait routine outside of the family restroom. He was clearly by himself, avec diaper bag, and looking a little desperate. I immediately went into Mama Bear mode and tracked down an employee to tell her that the family restroom was locked and she blinked at me and asked if I'd knocked to see if someone was in there. By the time I could wrestle up someone to come and change out the toilet paper (the reason it was locked--no one felt like doing it), the poor dad had given up and taken his baby out in the January cold to change him in the car. It left me wondering how many other dads had been sent to the cold car that day in pursuit of a place to tend to their infants while the door had been locked.

Now, for a retail chain that will happily market a wide range of products to this demographic--the diaper-changing dad (the above pictured bags are 2 of 12 different designs in the "Dude Diaper Bag" line)--why can't they pony up the cost of a changing table in the men's room? With the modern American family coming in so many different configurations, it seems a little incredible that such a typically in-touch retailer would completely alienate potentially HALF of their parental customers from safely and comfortably caring for their diapered children. Believe me, I'm not griping because I want more places where I know I can get out of changing a diaper by pawning Joe off on Bill. I'm thinking about fathers like the young guy with the tiny baby strapped to his chest in a Bjorn, diaper bag on his shoulder, feeling helpless because a major retailer was essentially telling him that the needs of his child were not as important because he was a man.

A Family Affair: Cloth Diapers

I chose to post on this topic because as we travel for the holiday next week, we will be forced to use the evil disposable diapers (not because there aren't products out there made for traveling green, I just was too late to buy them before our trip), so I thought I'd put some good diaper karma out there. I also wanted to help dispel the misconceptions that cloth diapers are still the old piece-of-fabric-and-safety-pins models that weren't waterproof and were picked up by a cleaning service. Please. Do you think I'd do something if it wasn't easy, modern, and cute?

WARNING: This post involves a discussion of BABY POOP and how we get rid of it. To make up for it, I've dispersed adorable photos throughout to keep things fun.
Although our friends and family thought we were gluttons for punishment and too "crunchy" for our own good (and maybe even a bit gross), Bill and I decided to use cloth diapers on our son. We did this for the following reasons:

1. Over time, it is cheaper to buy 24 cloth diapers than thousands and thousands of disposable diapers.
2. It is more convenient to have diapers on hand at all times than drive into town (25-30 minutes) when we're low.
3. The obvious environmental savings of keeping chemical-laden diapers and poo out of landfills and our water supply.

The cloth diapers of today are cute, functional, easy to clean (no, our washing machine does not smell like poop), and hardly ever leak. We LOVE BumGenius One-Size* cloth diapers because they can be adjusted to fit throughout the entire diapering period.

*I'm not compensated by BumGenius, I just love the product. I pulled this picture from the CottonBabies website.

After we wash the diapers (I do a load every 2 days or so) we stuff them so they are ready to go at the changing table. Sometimes Joe "helps" like he did tonight:
Sometimes some of the diapers even make it back to the changing table.

We also use homemade cloth wipes. When Joe outgrew all of his tiny newborn receiving blankets, I cut them up into squares. I whip up a spray with a little baby soap, some baby oil, and water and we spritz the wipes as we use them. I know it sounds crazy, but after using disposable wipes and having to fish them out of the diapers and then have them sit in the trash (do you know how long it takes to fill a trash can with just wipes?), the cloth wipes are SO much easier.
It's all about setting up a system. We use a regular plastic trashcan with a lid and a waterproof pail liner that we throw right into the wash with the diapers. There's a little patch of felt in the bag that I sprinkle with lavender and tea tree oil to eliminate smells.
And the KEY to removing "solids" from the diapers is a sprayer we hooked up to our toilet so there is no touching the nasty stuff.
Best of all (for me) is that this is all Daddy-approved. My husband is wonderful, but he feels the same way about poop as these guys:


But even my poop-hating husband (and babysitter, visitors, etc.) feel like cloth diapers are easy (been using the same ones for 8+ months). There's is a huge wealth of information over at the CottonBabies blog, but I just wanted to add my $.02.

Nine Months

On this very special Friday the 13th (and they are all special in our household*), we celebrate our son's first nine months on the planet. This is a pretty big milestone for me, because it not only marks the length of time that I spent pregnant (well, actually I was pregnant for 41 weeks, but who's counting?), but it also is the last big marker before his actual, real first birthday (according to novelty baby picture frames, anyway).

He is amazing. He has gone from a tiny little blob of babyskin to a DUDE who can walk around the house holding onto the walls. When the nurses handed me the tiny, helpless person at the hospital, the LAST thing I'd thought he'd do was walk, and yet....

He can laugh. He can converse (in growls). He can give me kisses when I ask for them. He can open and shut doors of all shapes and sizes. He can make a mess of his bedroom.

He is like a walking photo album because when I look at him, I see so many different members of my family in his facial expressions. He makes me feel at home.

I tried to have him pose for his official nine-month picture to go into the aforementioned novelty baby frame, but this was the result:


It's not just him that has come a long way in the last nine months. Bill and I have learned SO MUCH about what makes this little guy happy. I remember how hard it was in the beginning. The greatest blessing of my life has been to be able to watch this little man grow everyday, and it hurts already to think that he'll one day be out on his own.

A good hurt, which is, incidentally, my definition of the word "parenthood."



*No, we are not horror film enthusiasts or anything. I met Bill on a blind date on Friday the 13th, we later married on that date, and Joe, in all his glory, was born on Friday, February 13th, 2009. A most auspicious day, indeed.

**We've come a long way in our videography skills. We like to think.