Diapers

I've been cloth diapering for about a year now, so I thought I might pop in with a little report.

We started cloth diapering pretty soon after M. arrived. We had two types, Kawaii pocket diapers, recommended to me by my cousin (who was also kind enough to send me a few to check out before M. arrived and bought any) and gDiapers, which a friend gave me after she had used them with her little guy. The Kawaii diapers were definitely too large when M. was first born, even thought he tipped the scales at 9 lbs. 3 oz. I don't know what it is about newborns, because even when they're quite chunky, they're just so squooshy that nothing quite fits on them the way they're supposed to, or at least that's been my experience. And even though M. was big, it was mostly in his length, not his width, so all those little diapers, which don't fit quite as tightly as disposables, would fall right off his skinny butt.

But within about a month we were able to start using the gDiapers in conjunction with our very LARGE supply of 7th Generation diapers (my mom went a bit wild in that department, already suspecting that the cloth diapers would be just a bit too big at the start). For the most part, we enjoyed the gDiapers. They did the job pretty handily, were easy to care for, cute, and economical (we never did buy any of the disposable inserts, so these were entirely free to me). I had two complaints, one being I felt they leaked fairly easily. Some people swear by them, which leads me to believe that perhaps there was something wrong with how I was using them or maybe those folks don't mind a leaky diaper or their kids weren't heavy wetters. I also didn't like that they weren't one-size fits all. Had I really, really liked them, I would have had to buy medium and large versions of the diapers as well, and these babies ain't cheap. Most of the other brands of cloth diapers we explored were supposed to be good to go from the newborn stage (or around there, as we already explored) to potty training. I really liked the idea of only buying a batch of diapers once and being all set for a few years.

After a bit (maybe a month and a half), the little man was ready for the Kawaii diapers. I have really enjoyed these. They fit nicely, rarely ever leak, if at all (my older ones that have seen a bit of wear are the ones that leak, the ones I got new do not - I think it's because of the newer, more absorbent inserts). I have a hodge-podge of both snaps and velcro and I like both. I will say, the velcro are the ones that tend to leak a bit, and as I mentioned, that likely has something to do with the fact that the inserts I use with those are older and don't absorb as much as they once had. They're also a bit smaller. BUT, now that we're at the extra wiggly stage of diaper changes, those velcro tabs are a life saver. They make changes very quick and efficient. But I do love my snaps, even if they take a bit more time. They 're big and fluffy and come in lots of nice colors. From a purely asthetic standpoint, I do wish there were more color/print choices offered by Kawaii, but for the price point (a bit more than half compared to a few other, more well known brands that offer the similar designs and quality), I'll take what I can get.

I had really worried when I was pregnant with M. about whether or not cloth diapering would work for us. Every time I looked anything up I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. Different types of diapers, different kinds of cleaners, different ways to clean them (A special attachment for my toilet? What?!), different types of materials, different combinations of materials... It was all so much and it amazed me that any mother would take on this seemingly impossible endeavor. But I was determined to at least give it a try.

I know a lot of people recommend taking a few kinds of diapers and trying them out and then making a big purchase of the kind that works best for you. I guess I'm not that kind of person. I had one kind recommended to me and I just sort of went with it. Pocket diapers made the most sense to me, both in terms of use and in the amount of money they cost. I figured I would make whatever I had work. If you're the type of person who will power through what you've got, then I honestly make the suggesting of researching as much as you possibly can, talking to other moms, thinking about your lifestyle and laundry habits, and then just go ahead and order the type of diapers you think will work best rather than fussing with all these different types and overwhelming yourself with choices and then having to remember to order more diapers while in the midst of having a newborn.

Another thing about cloth diapering that I found at first overwhelming and now rather interesting is the care of cloth diapers. They seemed like such trouble with everything I've read and now that I've been dealing with them for about a year it seems silly. Yes, you can take great pains to wash and maintain your diapers - special detergents, stripping them on a regular basis, line dry vs. in the dryer, and so on. But I've found that I can wash my diapers, strip them very occasionally, and they're not any worse for wear. I already use natural laundry detergents or make my own, so that wasn't an issue any way, but I don't wash them separately (usually, sometimes I have a pile up and I do just a wash of diapers) or do anything very special to them and both the Kawaii and gDiapers have held up nicely and still do their jobs.

And that's what I've got to say on the diapering front. I am very proud of the fact that we have not bought a single package of diapers and very few wipes (I tend to use cloth wipes as well, but the husband is less keen on that, so sometimes he splurges on disposable wipes if he knows he'll be solo with the baby a lot one week). It feels good to know that we're using diapers that are better for our little guy and much better for the environment. I remember feeling immensely guilty throwing away SO MUCH with E., who was mostly diapered with disposables, but we used really old school cloth for a while, too (pins and everything). If you're reading this and have any questions you think I might be able to answer, leave a comment or give me a shout on Facebook.

Happy Birthday Eve

Tomorrow my baby turns one year old (if you're interested, you can find his birth story here). It hardly seems possible that a whole year has gone by since I was handed that slippery and sweet boy. This adventure in raising two children, both so completely different from one another, has been amazing and a huge learning experience. I've tapped into parts of myself I hadn't been aware of and as I've watched both my children grow, physically, mentally, and emotionally, I've grown as well. I'm blessed in every way with this little family and in this little boy.

So, what can I say to my sweet boy at (very almost) a whole year old?

My, my little man, you have grown so much and are so big! You'll have a check up next week and we'll know more then, but at last check you were a skinny little thing, but so very long! I'm not quite sure where we got you from, being all tall and skinny, yet here you are. You're fitting nicely into 12-18 month clothes and even starting to creep into 24 months, at least length wise (you don't always quite fill out those pants in the waist and I'm already wishing for those adjustment tabs. You've also sprouted some lovely tufts of hair that are somewhere between a light brown and an almost strawberry-ish blonde. It seems you may have got just a wee bit of your Mahoney roots in the roots of your hair. And, finally, you've decided to get some teeth. Well, a tooth, your middle front one, to be exact. It's just popped through in time to help you with some birthday cake this weekend (off to a good start, right?).

You are doing so, so much! You've been cruising for what seems like months now (maybe since December) and crawling since you were nine months old. You don't quite crawl in the usual way, much to everyone's amusement. You like to keep your right leg in the usual crawling position with your left leg tucked underneath you as you push yourself along. It's very sweet and you're very fast! You also love to dance to any and all music (And you love, love, love music. It soothes you when you're very upset, even Mama's singing!). You love crawling up into Sister's rocking chair or climbing onto your doggy riding toy from Memere. You give high fives and hugs, and are a pro at waving hello and bye-bye.

You've started to become such a little person! You understand a lot of what we say and are working very hard to be able to participate in the discussion. You've started saying bye-bye, doggy, and daddy (though daddy and doggy sound pretty close). I know more and more words will be coming so soon and I'll be excited to hear what your little voice really sounds like. You love so many people, and so many people love you back. You adore Daddy and Sister - your face just lights up when you see them and they play with you. You are a bit of flirt, flashing big, shy grins at the ladies in your life (or even women you don't know!). It's been a joy to see you grow and change and start the journey to become you.

Right now you're patting Autumn (the doggy) and giving her loves and quietly "talking" to her. You are such a sweet boy and I love you so much.

Happy birthday, little bubby boy.

Book Review: Simplicity Parenting

I just finished an amazing book and I need to share (I'm also participating in Mama Kat's writers' workshop this week). Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne was one of my latest reads and it's totally flipped my world and ways of thinking when in comes to my kids, my parenting, and how I manage my home and our family rhythm.

I suppose the thing that touched me the most about the content about the book is how the philosophy sits with me amongst all the other parenting "tips" I've read and heard since I had E. nearly six years ago. First of all, I have very mixed feelings about identifying with a particular philosophy or style, because it seems a bit silly to me. I mean, I don't think my mom described herself as an "AP" parent or "laissez faire" or anything else that I suspect she might describe as being nonsense. That said, I personally find a lot of comfort in have names for things - it makes it easier to identify what I like and feel good about/doing, and in this age of Google, having a label or name for something certainly makes it easier to gather more information.

So back to my point - when it comes to parenting style/philosophy, the tips and advice within Simplicity Parenting ride the fence nicely between gentle, AP style parenting and some of the ideas aligned with more traditional parenting (something my own parents and grandparents might be familiar with). Essentially, the idea is to make sure your children know you are the parent (there is none of this ridiculousness with lots and lots of choices, talking every little life event out, and letting the kids make most, if not all, of the calls in their day) and you're here to make things safe and calm and predictable, which is exactly what young children (kiddos under 7) need.

On the other side of that coin, however, is not an authoritarian dictator, but loving parent who takes the time to gently guide her children into life. As a parent, you make decisions for you children not from a place of what works best just for you nor just for the child, but for the family as a whole. Simplicity Parenting doesn't tout a child or parent centered world, but a family centered world. There is also an underlying understanding of what your child is trying to communicate with his or her actions, good or bad. Behavior, good or bad, is not something to reward or punish, but to be considered as a symptom of something larger happening in her world. When you figure out what that larger thing is, you can either fix it if it's causing negative behavior or you can encourage it if it's causing positive behavior.

Another point made in the book and applied in multiple areas is the idea of stepping back. Step back in the home's physical environment. Get rid of the stuff and clutter. Get rid of the toys (!!). This is the tip I took to the most quickly and have found the most success with so far (I've only just finished the book). We got rid of about 3/4 of the toys and other things in our house and it has improved things immensely. Step back in your day - for very young children and even kid's in the middle grades, there isn't much reason to have so many scheduled activities. Kids' days are so heavily scheduled with school that it is a release ("a breath out," so to speak) to come home and have nothing structured to do. Step back in your words - there is a lot of reasoning out of things and talking about things with kids these days. I know in the past I've spent a lot of time explaining myself to E. or tying to get her to use her words for things, too. It's easy to forget that children, even especially bright children, don't always fully comprehend what is happening or being said, even if they have a wonderful vocabulary and seem to sound "ready" for things, whether it's an explanation of why fishies must live in water or why they must go to bed now instead of later or why there are thousands dead after an earthquake they heard about on the news.
 

I also loved how the book was written. As I was perusing reviews on Amazon I noticed a pattern of people complaining about the writing style, that Mr. Payne sort of went on a bit and could have made his point more quickly and with few words. Yep, he sure could have, but there is a comforting, dreamy quality to the writing that caused me, at least, to slow down a bit and really think about what he was saying and why. I rather think those who complained that he "took too long" to get the point missed the whole point of the book - life is not supposed to be rushed through! Enjoy the journey as much as the result.

And lastly, if you're looking to begin to dip your toes into the world of Waldorf, this is the book. I dived right in and read a book of lectures and then Rahima Baldwin Dancy's book You are Your Child's First Teacher, which was great, but it's all very Waldorf and I feel a lot of those books leave you feeling with a bit of guilt, like, "Why didn't I know all this before having children! I've ruined them!" which is a feeling I really dislike, but I also know to take a lot of these things with a grain of salt. I think that if I had read Simplicity Parenting first, I would have left a lot of that guilt behind. Plus, Waldorf, for those who are less...I don't want to say less open-minded, but are maybe a little leery of New Age-y kind of stuff, but anyway, Waldorf can seem a little strange, and if you read this book first and you get the basic parameters of the Waldorf education/parenting philosophy, the stranger stuff doesn't seem so strange, or you can at least look past it and enjoy the universally really wonderful things that come with it.

And that concludes my much longer than intended review of Kim John Payne's wonderful book, Simplicity Parenting.

Five Things My Five Year Old Has Taught Me

1.  Use your words...less. Whether it's giving E. directions or answering one of her many questions, the less I say, the more I get. Commands are simply and gently stated, but they are still commands ("Brush you teeth," versus "Could you please go brush you teeth?"). Questions need answering, but she doesn't need my somewhat exhaustive answers, rooted in history or science. Sometimes those sweet fairy tale-esque answers are just fine or even the occasional, "I don't know."

In life the words you leave out are just as important as the ones you include. I'm a talker (you may have picked that up if you've read this blog enough), but I've had to learn to parse and watch my words and this whole "thinking before you speak" stuff has helped me beyond making sure E. gets herself together before we step out of the house.

2. "But Mama, you're so pretty!" Sometimes she might saying it to suck up to me, but you can't deny that earnest and slightly baffled look when E., queen of the selfie, begs me to let her take my picture and I'm more than a bit reluctant. It's easy to forget sometimes that I am E.'s first standard of feminine beauty (I promise I'm not as arrogant as that just sounded) and body image confidence. It's also easy to forget I'm not quite as hideous looking as I seem to think I am (despite my husband reminding me pretty frequently I'm not hideous at all), but having E. around has reminded that not only do I need to at least pretend that I think I'm beautiful, but there might even be some truth behind it.

3. Get out and meet people! I'm a huge homebody and despite my pretty gregarious personality, I actually hate meeting new people. When E. was a baby and toddler, it wasn't such a problem. All she needed was me and daddy! But now that she's older, play dates are starting to become THE thing to do, which means mama has to *gasp* talk to other parents who I might not already know. It's been hard, especially when I really have no idea who a kid's parents are and I have to make a phone call in order to get together (I haaaate making phone calls), but I've been doing it.

4. It's not a race. If you're a parent you probably already know this, but kids, especially the small ones, really feed off your energy. If you're stressed out and racing around, they're going to be very much out of sorts. It took me a while, but the mornings where I was more relaxed and took my time getting everybody ready for the day, the more likely we were to actually get out of the house and to school on time. If I was a crazy lady, pushing through things as quickly as I could, those were the mornings where everything went to hell, and we'd even had forgotten the hand basket.

5. You can say please...But you don't have to be a people pleaser. Well, E. could still use some work on her manners, as is the case for most five year olds, but I've given up on having one of those smiley, ever-so-sweet little girls. E. knows what she wants and is very confident in telling people. She'll tell you she really liked something or really didn't. No, she will not hug/kiss you if she doesn't want to (and I'm not going to make her). And while she will certainly wait politely for her turn for a piece of birthday cake, she'll certainly make the request for the one with the purple flower.

E. has a confidence about her that I never had, and I always felt like I was a pretty confident kid and then adult. While she does care, to an extent, about what people think, I don't think it's on the top of her mind, like it has been for me for much of my life. Having E. for a daughter has shown me to take joy in myself and to worry less about the opinions of others and that it's not always my job to make sure people are happy.

Something to Share...

So, back in September I submitted an essay to the parenting online magazine Rhythm of the Home (which is sadly "out of print," or whatever the internet version of that is). I love, love, love ROTH. Lots of sweet essays, recipes, and craft tutorials, all very Waldorf-y (it's actually mentioned in You Are Your Child's First Teacher) and zen and awesome. When found out they were accepting submissions for a large, holiday oriented Fall/Winter issue, I was stoked and wanted to submit something.

Here is the link to that something. Enjoy! :-)

The Day I Kicked My Daughter Out

There's a story I remember hearing a lot as a kid. It usually came up during one of those, "You don't know how easy you've got it," themed talks with my dad or my grandparents.

When my dad was a kid his mom was sick of him running around like a maniac in the house and she told him to go outside. Being a compliant little guy, he did without any fuss, but when he wanted to come back inside, the front door was locked. So was the back door. He knocked, rang the door bell, stood outside the windows and screamed, but inside he was not admitted. If I remained unimpressed by this regaling of childhood trauma character building, then the story ended with my dad crying on the steps...in the rain.

Now, some of you may read this and not quite believe that any mother would do this to her child, particularly with today's parenting sensibilities. But if you ever had the pleasure of knowing my grandmother, then you likely aren't surprised. Some aspects of the story might be exaggerated, but this is also the same woman who used to put my dad on a dog runner when he was a toddler so he could run around outside freely without drowning himself in the cow pound, so the locked door story doesn't seem quite out of character.

I can also sympathize a bit with my grandmother. Wild kid running around with a trail of chaos just behind them? What parent doesn't want boot the little hellion out the door and deadbolt it behind them? And while the circumstances that eventually led me to essentially kick E. out of the house one morning were a bit different than those previously mentioned, my sentiments, when you really get down to it, were right on par with my grandma's.

A little bit of outdoor time does a kid good.

I am not a terribly outdoorsy person. I think a lot of this has to do with being one of those wired people who has a difficult time "just being" (something to work on, right?) and so being outside becomes "boring" to me. But I wasn't always like this. Sure, I wasn't a huge outside person as a kid (I'd like to believe that some people are more inclined towards the outdoors than others), but I didn't have a hard time keeping busy once I was out there. There gardens to dig in, creeks to jump into, things to hunt for (though I was never really sure on what the "things" were), forts to build, and during the winter lots of sledding, snow balling, and snowman and snow fort building. I also had the benefit of living in an extremely kid-friendly neighborhood, and while my parents weren't ones to enforce outdoor time very strictly, I had friends whose parents did, so if I wanted to play with someone, I was going to be outside.

But let's fast forward to our little house here in Maine with my sweet little E. She also isn't naturally inclined to go outside. It's almost always my suggestion, and because I rarely want to go outside myself, I don't usually suggest it. But it's always in the back of my mind that she should be outside. And without the benefit of a gang of neighborhood kids to come drag her out, it's up to me to make sure she goes.

In the past, I've sent her out and gone out, too. In theory, this is a great thing. I certainly need more time outdoors as well. But then I'll get bored, or I'll have to attend to something else, or the baby will begin to fuss, and I'll have to go in. Though E. might be playing happily outside, as soon as I decide I need to be indoors, so does she. So, for a long time, our outdoor time had come in small fits and bursts.

Then something occurred to me. E. plays much better on her own. She's a fantastic independent player and can go on for hours, given the chance. I thought about all the outdoor play I had as a child, and while I remember much of it being with friends, virtually none of it was with my parents (who both mastered the skill of being such boring playmates I learned early on to not even ask). Why should things be so different for E.?

So here we were one morning and I looked outside. It was sunny, sort of, and it was reasonably warm (meaning, there wasn't a major risk of frostbite should you choose to venture out). I thought to myself, "Why isn't E. outside playing?" Instead, she was curled up on the couch for a post-breakfast T.V. show, still in her jammies. As soon as the show was done I asked her to go get some socks on, she was going outside.

Without divulging too much information that could later make myself or my daughter look pretty bad, let's just say there was a bit of a fuss, but eventually, E. was standing out of the porch, bundled in her snow things mumbling something about having a mean mama followed by plans to build an igloo. While very tempted to lock the door behind her, I didn't and I went back to whatever it was I had planned to do that morning. E. popped in a couple of times complaining of cold hands or a cold head (which were quickly remedied with the discovery - finally! - of the warmer fleece mittens and a warm scarf wrapped around the head), but all told she played outside that morning, by herself, for far longer than she usually did.

And so it begins. My goal is to have E. outside for at least a half hour every day. For those who are already outside kind of families, this might seem like a pretty paltry goal, but for our fairly housebound crew, it's a pretty big step in the right direction. All it's taken so far is a lot of patience on my part, "good" weather, and the faith that even though we're fairly short on outside play things, E. has the creativity and grit to figure out what do.

And then maybe she can tell me.