Daddy love

The way things are

It's blessedly quiet in the house right now and all I can hear is the slosh of the cars on the soggy street below, punctuated by the scrape of the plow every now and then. It's March 24 and Sheilagh's brush has hit us with a vengeance. I don't really mind too much though. It's been a long and cold winter here, the same as much of the rest of Canada. But I am so used to spring coming late here that more snow is expected, really.

Brian left at 4 am this morning for a whirlwind trip to Montreal.. he is meeting up with some fellow Canadian glider experts. That means I am home with the kids on my own for 2 days, but we can handle it. 2 days doesn't seem so bad as I have already had 3 solo parenting runs ranging from 5 days to 9 days since John was born. It's a bit lonely in the evenings, that's the hardest part... when I want to talk to someone who can speak in clear English and can wash and dress themself. Ha! But tomorrow morning a friend is coming over for waffle breakfast so that will be fun.

There's so much to say, and I sometimes feel like I should actually write more on this blog instead of just posting big batches of pictures every now and then. But I don't always know what to say, or how to say it. Or feel like talking about things at all, really. Looking back since I very first started this blog 7 years ago, my posts certainly have changed. My time to sit and reflect and ponder life has gone from long uninterrupted coffee shop stints to snippets here and there when the kids are in the stroller or that sacred small window right now when they are both napping. And then sometimes it's all I can do to make myself a nice little coffee and finally check my e-mail. Bronwen has a fascination with sitting in front of the computer and pressing all sorts of buttons, so I try to not turn the computer on when she is awake anymore. My time is better spent doing things with the kids or stuff around the house than going online too much anyway. But that means sometimes when I do sit down at the computer I just want to read all my favourite blogs and don't end up with much time to write down my own thoughts.

Sleep is the most challenging thing for us these days. I do confess that Bronwen was such an excellent sleeper as a baby that I think I got a little too cocky about it. I do remember thinking, 'hey, having a baby isn't so hard... why is everyone so tired? Why don't they have time for anything?' when she was sleeping long stretches at a young age. Ha! I have since learned that far more babies wake up than sleep that long... and John is one of those babies that wakes on the frequent end of the scale.

I've stressed about it, I've googled possible answers and methods of 'curing' him of his wake-ups. In that research, I've come across some interesting thoughts by all sorts of people. Babies wake up and cry. It's just what they do. As adults sometimes we get impatient because we want babies to fit our schedules... go to bed early in the evening so we can finally have some time to ourselves, sleep all the way till morning so we can finally get some sleep too. Maybe wake up once in the wee hours, have a quick feed, and sleep some more. But it often doesn't work like that. People always ask how babies sleep."Is he a good sleeper? Does she sleep through the night?" and it becomes almost a point of pride (see my previous comment re: Bronwen's (previously good) sleeping habits. But kids are all just so different. They are little people after all.. and we're all certainly quite different ourselves.

Still, I sometimes get anxious in the evenings wondering how our nights will go. How often will John wake up? Will Bronwen be up too? For a few months now, the answers to these questions have been 'lots' and 'yes'.
We've tried to let John cry a bit more.. but it's a lot harder with more than one child because the older one wakes up. We've tried going in at his every fuss but then we are usually up out of bed every hour all night.. sometimes even more. We've tried 'plugging' him with the soother.. before I go to nurse him yet again. He's slept in our bed, we've slept in his room, he's slept in his crib in his own room. White noise, soothers, swaddling, special blankets...
And the bottom line of all of this? Just gotta love the little guy and ride it out. Do what works. When he's 18, he won't be needing his mum or dad at night anymore (or maybe he will? Haha!). He's sprouting two teeth right now and also gearing up for crawling, so that doesn't make things much easier for our little man.
I hate being tired, being grumpy at my husband and my toddler. Two is a tricky age and demands a lot of patience from the parents.... which I am frequently running short on. But I just need to pray for strength and patience.. and sometimes, just to get through the day. Or even just the afternoon.

My wise husband told me that I should find joy in the little things, and that it will help me keep going. And it does. A delicious cup of coffee.. the caffeine helps too of course. Homemade treats, a walk in the sunshine, a sunny playgroup with other moms. Hilarious moments with the two kids, they make me laugh. Belly giggles. These are the simple things that give me joy.

This post  describes a little bit how I feel sometimes. The author says it well. I've got to try to remember where my strength needs to come from when there's a toddler howling in the night again, a baby waking up immediately after that, and a day filled with tantrums and tears. Phew.

Thanks for reading, friends!

The wearing of the cloth

Bronwen at about 2 weeks old, modelling her 'clementine' coloured diaper...

The last few posts have been strings of newsy pictures.... meant to update everyone on our happenings in life lately.  I haven't really done a lot of writing, and one of my purposes of having this blog was to be able to write about whatever strikes my fancy. Not that it even has to be of interest to those reading... just whatever is on my mind.

I have a whole string of blogs that I read, despite trying to keep the list down to a minimum. I regularly go through and delete the ones off my 'blogroll' who no longer seem relevant, encouraging, interesting, or any of the above. But the truth of the matter is, I love to read about how other moms do things and those are some of my favourite ones! (besides 'real-life' good friends, of course :).

Lots of mothers seem to talk about how they do things, so I thought I would write a little blurb about cloth diapering. Because, honestly, I am really glad that we made the decision to use cloth diapers in our house! (this post may be very boring, but no one is forcing you to read it ;)

I would say that probably about 40% of the moms I know here in St. John's use cloth diapers. This surprises me still, because when I was pregnant with Bronwen and considering our diapering options, I didn't know anyone locally who used them. My primary inspirations were my 2 sister in laws, Krista and Janine. But since then, all sorts of cloth diapering mamas have been coming out of the woodwork!

Brian and I were on a trip to New Hampshire for one of his engineering conferences in summer 2011 when I made the definite decision to use cloth diapers. I had a lot of time on my hands, and so was wandering the streets of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I stumbled upon a cute little baby store, and they sold the cloth diapers I was interested in as a result of the limited amount of research I had already done- Flip diapers. The owner of the store was kind enough to have a long discussion with me about which diapers (and there are MANY different kinds) would be good for us based on the climate here, how much work I wanted to put into it, and the amount of money we wanted to spend.

I chose the Flip diapers because they are easy to use, well made, a good price, and cute! The cover is made of a waterproof material and is separate from the insert. The insert is made of microfibre, with a 'microsuede' side that faces the baby, so they don't have to feel all that wetness. When the baby pees, you just change the insert out for a new one. And when they poop, you only have to change the cover if it gets dirty (which happens a lot before the kid starts solids, but not much at all after they are eating solid foods). Cloth diapers have come a long way from the white-tea towel like diapers I remember my mum carefully folding for my brother and fastening with safety pins!

We just put the dirty diaper parts in a white plastic pail with a snap lid. It does stink when the pail is opened, understandably, but otherwise there is no smell. When the pail is full, it's time to do laundry! I currently only have to wash diapers about every 6 days, also because Bronwen is learning to use the toilet a little bit (that's a whole other post!). When she was younger, it was every 3 or 4 days. But the washing routine is relatively easy... rinse on cold, then wash warm, with special diaper detergent. The inserts go in the dryer (or outside in the summer) and the covers air dry. And you're done! I figured since we were washing diapers anyway we may as well use washcloths instead of wipes too, so they go in the same pail and are washed the same way. It doesn't bother me at all that we wash diapers in the same machine that we wash our clothes in. They are rinsed well first anyway in the rinse cycle, so I don't think it is really an issue.

And that's it! What do I like so much about cloth diapers? Well, I never have to buy diapers (except when we go on trips, so I don't have to wash them in other people's machines/ carry around the dirty ones). The initial set-up cost was $225, and I would have spent a lot more than that on disposable diapers by now! (a pack of 20-30 diapers is about $10, at least, depending on the brand). I have been keeping track of every time I do a load of diapers and we are well over 1000 diapers used by now (24 diapers for every load). So that is at least $500 worth of diapers for Bronwen's first year alone! We went on several trips last year so that means we used the cloth slightly less, and the diapers we used on these trips were often bought for us or a baby gift from when Bronwen was born). Cloth diapers can also be used for multiple children, meaning that the start-up costs are less and less! (depending on if you need to increase your diaper stash or not).

I like that our garbage can is not full of diapers and wipes. Disposable diapers get very stinky and heavy when they sit around. I also like that I don't have to put Bronwen into a sweaty disposable all the time. Some brands can hold a massive amount of waste, and it turns into a gel substance.. which gets sweaty and yucky feeling against the baby's skin. Who really knows what chemicals are in there as well to make that super absorbency possible!

Cloth diapers are also cute! They come in all sorts of fun colours (see below). They are easy to use once you get the hang of them, and the laundry part is really not so bad after all. To be honest, of course it would be less work overall to put disposables on your child, and I am not faulting those who do so! There are a lot of decisions when you are a parent and everyone has their reasons for their choices. But, the cloth diaper choice has been a good decision for us for the reasons listed above.

And there you have it, cloth diapers in a (sort of) nutshell. More parenting/ kid-related posts to come.. any ideas for me?

here are the diapers which we use...