Monthly Archives: January 2014

Eating for Two

So a post on cooking from a woman might not seem like “breaking roles”, but it is in our relationship. It was decided very early on that Mark owns the kitchen, probably about the same time that I tried to help him cook something and he ended up hugging me while laughing maniacally.

While you’re supposedly “eating for two” when pregnant, I don’t feel that my eating habits changed that much until after Emily was born and I was nursing. Mark claims that all I was doing at the end was pointing to my mouth and grunting, but I’m pretty sure that’s an exaggeration. Being home on maternity leave, I’ve actually had time to eat decent breakfasts, but I’ve found Mark doesn’t really appreciate it when I wake him up just to ask him to make me food. Thus began the great experiment involving forays into the kitchen for things other than beverages. This is actually a big deal- I’ve been known to melt butter lids and silicone oven mitts (bet you didn’t know that was possible), which resulted in Mark forbidding me from touching his Calphalon.

Armed with my trusty pots from Mark’s college days and frying pans from IKEA, I’ve actually been doing pretty well with breakfast foods (my favorite meal of the day). Once upon a time in Home Ec, I learned to make waffles and pancakes, but that’s just way too many dishes, so I’ve been eating a lot of eggs and toast. Eggs also have the advantage of being a protein, which means I last longer before pestering Mark to feed me lunch. I’ve made hard boiled eggs before, which are about as easy as it gets, but for some reason I end up wanting to eat more of them due to the tiny portion size. Alton Brown’s Unscrambled Eggs are pretty fool-proof, so that’s the method I use for scrambling, but when I want to go for quick and easy, fried eggs are where it’s at. I’ve been eating a LOT of fried eggs with my toast. I like my eggs a bit more done than over easy, which is still hit or miss. When Mark told me to branch out, I decided to be adventurous and learn to poach them… I think he meant to make something other than eggs, but oh well.

Being that Alton Brown is my culinary hero, I decided to follow his recipe, which calls for poaching one egg at a time. My very first attempt was flawless, and I went on to round two. I discovered that first one was beginner’s luck, and, half a dozen attempts later, have yet to duplicate it. Mark even went so far as to buying me a poaching pod, which only helps slightly. The egg maintains a nice shape, but it seems near impossible to have the white cooked properly without overcooking the yoke. My experiment with cooking is drawing to a close, though- I expect that once I go back to work on Tuesday, I’ll be back to donuts and bagels.

Beginner's Luck (left) and Attempt 2 (right)

Beginner’s Luck (left) and Attempt 2 (right)

On Diaper Sprayers (when you start a title with ‘On’ you sound schmarter)

Everyone poops, babies more than most. I forget which nurse, lactation consultant, pediatrician, parent, friend, or random stranger on the street told us that some breastfed babies may poop with every feeding or up to every other day. I’m fairly sure my dear sweet Emily poops every time she sneezes, smiles, blinks, yawns, or grunts like she’s passing a stone (okay the grunting is kind of entertaining, even if a bit on the nose with what’s going on).

If you use disposable diapers, I imagine your thoughts on baby poop end when tossing the little present into the ever ravenous maw of the Diaper Genie and praying that this isn’t the one that breaks the miracle machine, unleashing smells no mortal was meant to smell.

If you’re cloth diapering, like us, I’m sure you’ve become intimately familiar with your child’s bio waste unloading procedures. I have to say that a diaper sprayer attached to a toilet is without a doubt the single greatest baby related item we have in our household. Forget the Sleep Sheep (sorry Linda) or the Mamma Roo (4Moms you need to get on making one of those for adults), this lowly sprayer hanging silently and dutifully off the side of our toilet is just short of getting written into our will.

Initially, I had planned on dusting off my DIY hat and jiggering one together myself. Please see my other post for that experience. That post coming next week.

We (well, I bought and Katie wasn’t present to stop me) picked up the Bum Genius Diaper Sprayer from a local cloth diaper store (Fluff Envy in Elgin IL). While I ended up paying full retail price, I’m happy it went to a local business rather than a large chain. This thing is amazing and sprays out Emily’s diapers like a fire hose. I actually have to be careful not turn the valve up too high, otherwise I could power wash all the walls in the bathroom in a flash.

Compared to washing diapers out in the sink, a sprayer is quicker, easier, and honestly, I seem to get a fair bit less poop on me. Also, as a monumental victory for men everywhere, Katie does not mind that the toilet seat tends to be left up, because she found it a hassle (yes, I said SHE found it a hassle) to lift the seat and spray the diapers…

KATIE SAYS: “I’m in there more often to spray a diaper than use the bathroom myself and that is the difference.”

I think she just does not want to admit men have been right for centuries, or as long as there have been lift up toilet seats. In related news, we’re on the same page for installing a wall urinal with some clips to hold a diaper, so we can spray and forget it. Let’s be honest if I had a urinal in the bathroom, I’d be happy to super glue the toilet seat down and never think about it again.

I should probably talk about the actual diaper sprayer, which I do RIGHT HERE! Which I’ll write up when I’m less tired

Newborn Diaper Rental

You may have noticed I said in a previous post that one-size (OS) diapers start to fit at 8-10 lbs and wondered what we did before then. Using cloth on a newborn is a whole different ballgame. They’re just so itty bitty! There are pretty much three options- use disposables for a month or two, buy a stash of diapers that are the newborn size, or do a rental. Remembering that we’re admittedly cheap, we basically approached it from a financial perspective, and our initial plan was to use disposables until she fit in OS. I’ve heard that you can do a pretty cheap newborn stash using covers and prefolds or flats, but since we were new to cloth, we weren’t quite ready to start with that level of effort.

MARK SAYS: “We’re cheap and lazy”

But that was when I discovered the rental option. A bunch of cloth diaper stores do them, but we found one for a steal from Itsy Bitsy Bums (IBB in the rest of this post). I looked at a lot of sites’ rental programs, and no one else really comes close on cost, though IBB only has one option for the type of diapers. You could either choose to rent brand new diapers for $295 or used diapers for $195, and keep them for 3 months. Once returned, you either get a $125 refund or $155 store credit for those OS diapers you’d need later. So $40 plus return shipping would diaper our daughter for 3 months. When I looked online, I found you could get a package of 234 Pampers for $47, so as long as we used at least that many changes, we’d break even. I talked to Mark about the change in plans, and ordered the rental when I was about 37 weeks… a little past the 4 weeks in advance they ask for. Then Emily came early, and we of course hadn’t received the rental yet. The customer service at IBB was great, though, and it shipped within a few days of me emailing.

The rental includes 4 Thirsties Duo Wrap covers (with velcro) and 25 Kissaluvs cotton fitteds (snaps). The amount worked pretty well for doing laundry every other day- you alternate between covers unless they get dirty, and just change the fitted inside. The system is pretty friendly for those new to cloth. No need to learn how to do an origami fold or deal with Snappies at 3 am. They fit well when we first got them, but we discovered the problem with snap closures is that sometimes the baby is between snaps. We solved that by occasionally using a Snappi to close the fitted, which looked a little funny, but worked ok. It took a little while to get used to the fact that the fitted would get completely soaked, front and back, inside and outside, but the cover is waterproof so as long as we put it on snugly, we didn’t get leaks. Fitteds were also great at containing runny newborn poop.

Unfortunately, Emily is turning out to be a tall and skinny little girl, and started to outgrow the rise in the fitteds pretty quickly. By 7 weeks, they barely fit, and she was soaking them fast enough that I tried not to leave them on for more than an hour and a half. (Thanks to my baby tracking app, I know we’d gone through over 275 changes, so we did make it past the break even point.) Since we’ll probably have the same issue with any younger siblings, doing a rental next time is TBD. It was certainly worthwhile for a parent with a newborn who has never used cloth, though. The Thirsties covers at least still worked, and we had purchased a few OS diapers that were supposed to fit earlier by that point which helped tide us over.

We did have a few snags ordering our OS replacements. After doing more research and deciding what to spend our credit on, I placed an order in the middle of December, assuming we’d have them by Christmas. We had an assortment of snafus- my sleep-deprived brain ordered the wrong size on the one sized diaper cover I was going to try (luckily I caught it before the order shipped), then they were out of the print I wanted, plus my back up, for the correct size, and the USPS 2 day delivery turned into 4, on top of all of the non-business days for the holidays. While I was frustrated and impatient by the time the diapers arrived on Jan 2 (impatient to get diapers- who’d have thought?), I can’t really fault IBB. Holidays are pretty crazy for retail, and since my earlier experience with them was positive, I’d still shop with them again for brands that aren’t carried by our local store.

Take Mommy to Work Day

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Emily in her car seat

All set in the magic seat

Mommy’s been acting kinda crazy lately. She hadn’t put me in that magic seat that takes me to new places recently and keeps talking about something called weather. Daddy seemed distracted this morning and not really interested in playing. After getting clean pants and second breakfast, Mommy put me in that seat that moves back and forth in the living room. It’s ok, I guess, but gets boring. I’d much rather cuddle. After a couple minutes, Mommy got me out and put me in the magic seat. Yay, an adventure! I’m so happy, I pee. I wish I could figure out how to tell her my pants are wet. It’s uncomfortable, but I’ll try to suck it up. She’ll figure it out, right?

Nope, she took me to the white box in that cold room and left me alone. I can hear a voice that sounds like her, so I cry so she’ll come back. She doesn’t, and we start moving. Ok, this is not cool. Maybe she can’t hear me. I’ll cry louder to get her attention. I keep hearing her voice. My pants are really wet. This is awful. I wish I could figure out how to poop on command. Or even just how to make the poop noise. Mommy always changes me when she hears that. Oh, oh, we’re stopping now! Mommy’s back, and she took me out of the magic seat! Argh, she keeps putting her boob in my face. Seriously, I just ate. I’ll keep crying. She’s smart, she’ll get it. Now she’s standing up and swaying in this cold place. I’m wrapped up, though, and at least it’s new, so I guess it’s ok. I like swaying. Ok, now she’s sitting back down and trying to feed me. Again. Why isn’t she getting it? Alright, I guess I could have a little snack. Snacktime makes me sleepy… wait, she’s putting me back in the magic seat!! No, Mommy! I better really scream. Mommy pulls out her red toy and I hear Daddy’s voice. I can’t see him, but I cry really loud so he can hear me, too. Mommy looks like she might cry. Don’t cry, Mommy! Maybe Daddy will tell her I need new pants. She takes me out of the seat and we cuddle. At least she’s trying. I love cuddles. We need a better system, though.

Oh, I think she got it! She’s laying me down in her lap and taking off my tights! I’m so proud of her. I give her a giant smile to encourage her. (I think adults need encouragement. They seem so much happier if I humor them with smiles.) Yes! She figured it out! Mommy’s so smart. I’m so happy! Now that I have clean pants, I’m ready for our adventure! She puts me back in the magic seat and I doze off.

When I wake up, we’re in a new room with boxes on the ceiling. That’s new. I don’t remember seeing boxes on the ceiling before. There are a bunch of people I don’t know, and Mommy lets some of them hold me. One of them seems really interested in what I have to say, and we talk awhile. Then I show everyone how I can do backbends. They tell Mommy how cute I am. I’m pretty sure she knows. It’s kind of obvious. I’m starting to get hungry again, so I stick out my tongue a few times. Mommy seems to understand that one, and we go somewhere else so I can eat without people demanding my attention. Then Mommy talks to some more people. I’m bored. The ceiling is more interesting. It has boxes. And lights. No ceiling fans, though. I like ceiling fans. Man, all these people are exhausting…

When I wake up, Mommy changes me, and we leave. Back to the magic seat! I’m so happy, I pee.

The End?

Adventures in the Life of a Working Mother: Part 1

With the new year, I’m starting to think about my upcoming return to the working world. I’m sure I’ll miss my daughter terribly, but that’s actually not my first concern. My more immediate worry: How to get out the door. Our office has a fairly flexible start time; I just need to be at my desk by 9:30 am. Prior to being pregnant, my goal was to get to work by 8:30, which sometimes translated into 9. After two and a half months at home, I’m still usually in pajamas at 10. Ok, ok, I’m in pajamas all day as often as not. This led to my decision that we should spend the month of January getting our morning routine down. I figured we’d start with a realistic goal, and move the time back each week…

Week 1: Be fully dressed and ready to walk out the door at 9:30 (not that I’d actually be going anywhere).

Day 1: Emily 1, Mom 0. I set my alarm. I woke up when it went off. Emily didn’t. I should probably note here that she sleeps with on me. We sleep in a recliner in her room. I never intended to cosleep, I know you’re not supposed to, but the dirty little secret is that most moms I know do at the beginning. We’ve tried putting her in her Rock-n-Play, in her swing, in her Pack-n-Play, and in her crib. If we’re lucky, she gets 15 minutes of sleep before screaming. Anyway, I digress. I didn’t really want to wake a sleeping baby, so I turned off the alarm. She started stirring by around 9 am, and I thought, “I may still be able to make it.” Emily opened her eyes, closed them again, smiled, and continued sleeping. Five minutes later, she did it again. She finally woke up around 9:15. I fed her, and handed her off to Mark at 9:30, noting that she needed a diaper, and started getting ready. While I wasn’t ready to walk out the door at 9:30, I had at least given her to Dad by then. Not horrible for our first try, but clearly, we need some practice at this, so I’m glad we have a few weeks!

I had originally thought about actually leaving the house at the designated time to also give Mark some practice at parenting solo, but today happened to have a high of -13 with a windchill of North Pole. There’s no way I was going to walk to the mailbox to mail thank you notes from Christmas, let alone walk across parking lots when I don’t have to. So once I escaped the clutches of cuteness, I went downstairs to make myself a real breakfast and start on schoolwork since my class started this week. All the while, I hear Mark talking to Emily, knowing I’d overhear… “Wait until I tell your mom you punched me in the face/drooled all over me/clawed a hole in my chest.” My response of “I’m not here” was met with a video call. This little experiment is not going well.

To be continued…