Mrs. Wigglebottom

21

2013-05-17T13:25:00.001-04:00

We asked Henry what his speech bubble should say this month.
He is really into trains right now.

This pregnancy has been rough and while Henry watched almost no TV at all before he turned 18 months old, he has had his fair share over the past few months.
He has fallen hard for Thomas.
That show is seriously strange and I can't believe how much it grabs his attention.
He knows all of the characters' names.

I do believe that I've mentioned here that I am not a fan of odd numbers.
The past two family updates have fallen on odd numbered months, which drives me crazy, but it was eased some by the fact that both Baby J 2.0 and Henry are 21 weeks/months.
Here's a little update on both of them.

Baby J 2.0:

We got to see this little guy (or girl--but for the record, my vote is boy) at our 20 week ultrasound.
He (or she) was sucking that little thumb.
I remember that Henry looked to be sucking his thumb in his 20 week ultrasound but the tech said, "No, they can't do that this early."

Well, this time there was no denying it.
You could see the sucking action of the mouth around the thumb.
It was so cute I could hardly stand it.

All along, I had told Christian that I kind of wanted to find out the gender this time.
He very strongly felt that we should not and kept saying, "You're being silly. You don't need to know. Come on! It will be so worth the wait!"
So, imagine my surprise when he showed up at the ultrasound appointment, sat down next to me in the waiting room and said, "Hey, I've been thinking and I want to find out."

What?
Just then, they called my name.

I felt panicked.
I was so caught off guard.
All along I wanted to but suddenly, I was trying to talk him out of it.
We went back and forth throughout the hour long ultrasound and the poor tech kept saying, "So, I'm confused. You do or you do not want to know?"

She was sort of pro-waiting to find out and we ended up settling on her writing it down for us and sealing it in an envelope so that we'd have a little more time to think about it.
After the ultrasound we went to see the doctor and when we left the office about an hour later, I asked Christian, "So, how are you feeling about that envelope in your hand?"
"No desire to open it," he said.
I totally agreed.

I know our friends think we are CRA-ZY.
We really just don't feel tempted now that we are past that moment in the ultrasound.
I was overjoyed to see the baby and have some of my fears eased since I was not feeling movement, and that was enough to fill me up for now.

I have a plan for the little envelope.
Last time, I bought clothes for both a girl and a boy, and that was really fun except that taking back the girl stuff was kind of hard, (and to be fair, I loved the boy stuff too so even if it had been the other way around, I still think it would have been hard).
This time, I plan to go to a couple of my favorite stores just a week or two before the due date and pick out some boy stuff and some girl stuff, then tell the person helping me that I am going to leave all of the clothes, my payment and the envelope with him or her and head to lunch.
When I return, they can have the clothes bagged up with the receipt inside (in a non-see through bag) and stapled.
He or she can hand me that bag and the re-sealed envelope and I will try my best not to read his or her facial expression.
I think it will be fun for everyone involved and that way I won't have any clothes to return.

Why do I think it's a boy?
Well...I just trust my instincts.
I was pretty sure Henry was a boy and, of course, he was.
The feeling is even stronger this time around.

I knew Henry was a boy once we picked his name because it just felt right and I kept involuntarily calling the baby "Henry".
It's the same story this time around.
We agree on a boy name and it feels just right to both of us and (just like the last pregnancy) we can't seem to reach an agreement on a girl name.

On one hand, I have been waaaaay more sick this pregnancy and I am just now starting to have a few days with no throwing up and no migraines at 22 weeks, so everybody says, "Oh, it must be a girl!"
BUT I have three different examples of friends who experienced much more severe sickness or complete opposite symptoms with their second pregnancies and all three of them have two boys, so I am not using that as a measure of anything.

Oh, and did I mention that Christian and I both think we saw some boy parts on accident during the ultrasound?

About the sickness...
Let me be clear:
I am thankful beyond thankful for this pregnancy and the hope of bringing another child into this world and into this family.
We REALLY wanted this and it didn't come as easily as the first time.
I am just surprised at how beat up I feel.
It's like every symptom that I ever had throughout the course of my fairly easy first pregnancy came back ten fold with this one, and all at the same time.

I was laying in bed the other night wondering, "What is wrong with my body?"
Sometimes I feel like it is just not managing this pregnancy the way that it should be.
But then, a thought came to me and I have been trying to reflect on it whenever I feel discouraged.

There is life being formed from nothing inside of me.
It is a complete and total miracle that no amount of science could ever fully explain to me.
Now that I know Henry, it is even more amazing.

So really, my first pregnancy should be the exception, not the rule.
How could the creation of life feel "easy"?
That was like a special period of grace or something.
I'm trying to ignore what my pregnancy app tells me about how great I should be feeling by now and just take every ache, every pain and every wave of nausea as a reminder of the complexity of creation.

Henry James Lately...

He is talking up a storm: lots of full sentences and "conversations" initiated by him.
The funniest things that come out of his mouth lately?
He occasionally calls me "Heather".
Every time you ask him a question, he says, "Well...".
He loves big words, like "delicious".
He has started talking in third person, referring to himself as "Henry"... I mean, "Hemry"... and pointing to himself proudly.
Oh, and this one: "Yes sir, Mommy!"

He loves to sing songs.
He mixes lyrics together into one big jumble that sounds something like this: "ABCB...Itsy bitsy...la la...pio pio...Jesus!" (clapping proudly).
He really loves to request songs and have me sing them.
He likes to dance and play the harmonica also.
He recently made up this hilarious "song" or rhythm that he "sings" in the car using my mom and my nieces' names (so random that he chose those two together).
It goes: "Mi-a (tongue click), Ro-bin (double tongue click), Mi-a (tongue click), Ro-bin (double tongue click)..."

His mannerisms are starting to look more and more grown up.
He does this new thing where he crosses his arms and rests his chin on them.
I couldn't quite get a picture of it, but my attempt left me with this picture:

Ahhhh! He looks so old!
What happened to that baby I used to tote around?

I desperately wanted to photoshop those sores off of his face but if I am being real, those have been a really big part of the past couple months.
They are a total mystery to us.
One showed up on his cheek a couple days after he cut his nose open when he fell off an indoor slide.
Over the next few days and weeks, more popped up.

After about five weeks of skin colored bumps showing up, scabbing, turning into little craters, then looking like they were going to heal completely...only to be back the next day, we finally gave in and took him to the doctor.
She treated him for an infection (similar to Impetigo), although she noted that it didn't seem quite like Impetigo since the sores stayed so tiny and weren't being spread to anyone else.

After ten days of very strong (and expensive) oral and topical antibiotics and a bleach bath, nothing had changed, so she referred us to a pediatric dermatologist.
The earliest appointment was about a month away.
Therefore, it's now been almost nine weeks of these mystery sores.
We will go to the dermatologist next week and I am praying she will have an answer that will involve full healing and no scarring.

I am so sick of explaining myself to everyone.
No, he doesn't have chicken pox.
No, we don't think it's a food allergy.
Yes, of course I have asked all of my friends, searched for answers online and taken him to a doctor.

For now, we are treating them with Neosporin, which seems to help (at least it makes his face greasy and harder for him to scratch/pick at them), but new ones continue to pop up.

In other news, we are starting to see small signs of the terrible twos with testing boundaries and dramatically "crying" (covering his eyes with his hands, falling to the ground and gently banging his head on the ground) when he doesn't like something, but for the most part he is still very agreeable.

This kid loves wearing sunglasses.

Loves it.
He wouldn't even take them off in a restaurant the other day.
My mom and I could not stop laughing.

The winter and early spring were long here.
Henry still loves reading more than anything else, as well as coloring and playing with his toys, so he can be entertained inside easily, but I was going crazy.

He loves it when we build him "tunnels" out of blankets, (that's train talk for forts).
He also likes to play hide and seek with his toys.
I hide something and tell him to look for it.

We have been working on spelling his name
He can almost do it.
He usually says "H...O...N...R...Y!"
We can't get him to turn that O into an E.

This was another fun idea from my friend Erin:

Fun for a short period of time anyway...
It always ends wildly with beans being thrown everywhere and me saying, "All done!"

Since the weather has been nicer lately, we have had lots of fun adventures and play dates outside.
Hallelujah!
(It's hard to feel nauseous when you're in the fresh air).

The zoo with Lucy, Hank and Quinn (not pictured):

Conner Prairie:
(I am so thankful my friend Laura introduced us to this place. It was so fun!)

He's saying, "Sheepy...baa!"

Sucking thumb in an animal barn.
Yum.

He kept calling that baby goat a bunny and jumping up and down saying, "Hop, hop!"

Backyard play dates:

Henry and Quinn look like twins...
except Henry has curly hair and a little more meat on his bones.
I put that size 12 months swimming suit on him and said, "It still fits!" but now that I see that muffin top...

At home, Henry still loves to draw with sidewalk chalk, (which means running down the sidewalk with a piece of chalk making single lines all over the place).

Jo-Jo always rolls in it and doesn't seem to understand that we are all laughing at him.

He learned to blow bubbles this month!

What a ham.
He JUST started requesting that I take his picture.
He will do something funny and say, "Picture, Mommy, picture!"
Then, when I hold up my phone or camera, he makes this ridiculous squinty fake smile:

After word, he runs up next to me to see the picture, exclaiming "Cute!"
He is so humble.

Dear Henry,

Last weekend was Mother's Day.

Daddy got up early with you and let me sleep in.

About an hour later you two came through the bedroom door with my breakfast.

Daddy placed the tray in my lap and you climbed up on the bed with me, exclaimed "Yummy!" and (even though you had already eaten your own breakfast) dug right in, grabbing a piece of bacon and smiling huge at me as you chomped on it.

You continued to eat my breakfast until Daddy took you to get me another surprise.

I heard your little bare feet coming back down the hallway and as you entered the room in your dinosaur pajamas, and time moved in slow motion.

You looked so tiny behind the wrapped silhouette of the camera bag you were carrying in to give to me and I desperately wished I had my camera in hand to capture the moment.

It was a beautiful reminder to me that you are still so little, despite your high percentiles on the doctor's growth chart, your huge vocabulary and all the new things you learn and do each day, which completely amaze me.

In fact, today you are the littlest that you will ever be again.

I cherish this time and these memories.

I am so proud and lucky to be your mommy.

I love you.

Click here to see a short video with clips from the past 6 months.

photography dump

2013-04-22T15:21:00.000-04:00

I have been so blessed to capture some photos of my beautiful friends over the past few months and I want to share a few.

_ _ _

The Soffietti Family

I had so much fun with Katie, Mark and their precious super model of a baby girl Bea on this cold winter day in late December.

Can you even believe this girl is for real?

Every picture I took of her was perfection.

Check out those icy blue eyes...

Ben and Kelsey

This cute couple wanted a couple engagement pictures so that they could get save the dates out.

The hand painted American flag on Ben's truck was perfect for their fourth of July weekend wedding, even though it was freezing cold out that day.

Here's the card I designed for them:

The Bailey Family

Archie wanted a few maternity photos to capture their family of three before their newest addition, (due tomorrow!), arrives.

She really wanted to try to get a shot of her hubby kissing her belly and her 2 year old on his shoulders kissing her after seeing something similar on Pinterest.

I had actually tried for this before during Colleen's maternity shoot.

It is totally dependent on the cooperation of the little one and lucky for us, Brennan was cheesin' it up!

Jack Turns One

It feels like this little guy just arrived on the planet and already he is one!

I feel like he is soooo much younger than Henry and in my head Henry just turned one, but really, this was a reminder that Henry is now closer to two.

(Getting teary eyed just typing that).

Our good friends Grant and Jamie are pretty preppy and Grant is a big golfer so it was only appropriate that the theme of Jack's first birthday party was "Hole in One".

Adorable!

Here's the little thank you card I designed for his momma.

I love that he is pointing at the camera, like "Thank YOU!"

_ _ _

I've already taken some pictures of two other families in the past couple weeks so I'm sure I'll be posting more pictures of pretty people soon...

i take back (almost) everything i said about cloth diapers

2013-04-20T13:56:00.000-04:00

It's been over a year since I wrote a whole series of posts on cloth diapering.

If there is one thing I learned since then it's that things change as babies grow.
So many of my opinions have changed since I wrote those posts, so I guess it's time for an update.

This whole cloth diapering thing has been all about trial and error for me.
I still believe in cloth diapering and adore all of our super cute diapers, but between the vomiting, migraines and utter exhaustion of the past few months, I have given in to disposables for the time being.
I was not keeping up with laundry (which was ultimately risking our diapers being ruined) and although Henry usually poops on the toilet, every time he managed to sneak a stealthy poop in his diaper, I was forced to spray it out (and try not to puke all over the diaper).
Christian convinced me that it was really not the end of the world to switch to disposables until I am feeling better (which I really thought would have happened by week 18 but so far no luck).

Anyway, this gives me the unique opportunity to have access to all of the diapers in our stash at one time to take pictures for this post.
It's as good of a time as any to give some updates and take back many of the things I said before, (including, "I will never go back to disposables").

Back then, I feel like I was too hard on Gro-Via.
I said that they were too narrow, left red marks on Henry and leaked often.
That may have been true then but I have grown to love our Gro-Via diapers and have even bought more!
As Henry grew, and especially after he started walking, his legs thinned out and the Gro-Via all in ones started fitting him great.
They are super trim, really cute and fit really well under clothes.
Also, he wets far less frequently now so leaks have not been a problem.

Maybe most importantly, I have grown to really appreciate cotton diapers, which Gro-Via are, (organic cotton in fact).
Cotton really is far easier to care for.
It washes easily and doesn't capture smells.

The only cons I see with Gro-Via at this point are that it is harder to clean #2 messes out of all the nooks and crannies in these diapers (so I try to predict when Henry is due and not use a Gro-Via if I think it's a possibility).
The all in ones take a long time to dry so I am temped to throw them in the dryer and (probably because I often throw them in the dryer) some of our diapers are starting to get holes but that hasn't affected the efficiency of the diaper.

I do not recommend Gro-Via's hook and loop option.
Ours have not worn well at all.
They are curled up, pilly and sad.

In other exciting news, Gro-Via started carrying stay dry soakers for their hybrid diapers.

I really like these.
Even though they aren't 100% cotton, I haven't had any issues with smells and they seem even more absorbent than plain cotton.

As shocked as I am that I have grown to love our Gro-Via's, I am even more shocked to report that Ragababes are no longer my favorite.
At least not the 2 steps.
In fact, I had to stop using the 2-steps all together.
These were my very favorite soakers when Henry was a baby and now they don't work for Him at all.
They leak every time in any shell.
I guess it started once he became mobile.
I think they are too narrow and I had never noticed this until a friend pointed it out, but Gro-Via hybrid soakers are waterproof on the underside.

Genius!
Ragababes absorb all the way through and then right into the fabric which lines the inside of the shell.

I really don't understand this design at all.
The point of hybrids is that the shell should be re-usable making it a more economical option.
Ragababe 2 steps are more expensive than their all in ones and I can almost never use mine more than once.

I am sure I will use these again for Baby J 2.0 (until he or she is mobile that is) because I know I used to love them for Henry.
It's just so funny how things change as kids grow.

The Ragababe all in ones are still amazing.

There is no denying the ease of use and absorbing power of those amazing diapers BUT
beware of stripping your Ragababes!

I followed the directions for stripping with Dawn as stated on Ragababe's website...
or so I thought.
It turns out that I had accidentally bought concentrated Dawn and 1/4 teaspoon caused major degradation of the suede cloth.
My favorite diaper now looks like this...

I cried.
Whatever.
I'm over it now and still use the diaper but just beware!

The good news is that Ragababes do seem much easier to get now then they were a year ago.
The easiest way to know when they will stock is to "like" their page on Facebook and if you don't get one during the stocking, fill out an overflow form.
I've had great luck with that...
but I didn't know it because I never checked my junk mail folder.
If you're waiting on a email from Ragababe, check your junk mail folder!

My new favorite diaper is the Tots Bots Easy Fit.

They are moderately priced, aren't hard to get, crazy trim, super cute (they have fun patterns too I just happen to have two solid colors), one size so they grow with your child, and I love the velcro (I don't even own any with snaps).
They are an all in one, (the flap comes out of the pocket during washing).

Here is one next to a Ragababe AIO (my formerly trimmest diaper) and keep in mind the Ragababe is sized where as the Tots Bots is one size:

That's really impressive!
And they are every bit as absorbent as the Ragababe Easy All in One (which is VERY).
I just learned that they have a newborn size, so I hope to get a few of those for our next little one.
Or maybe I will try to find a cloth diaper rental service that offers those...

For nighttime, Bum Genius 4.0 (pocket) diapers are still my very favorite (usually stuffed with 3 inserts).

I am so glad I got these cute Chelsea Perry prints before they stopped carrying them but now you can find them used for really cheap, so if you love them, go searching online!

My favorite hybrid diaper might be the Flip.

I love that it doesn't have cloth on the inside of the shell, just shiny PUL, so it can be wiped clean and reused.

The inserts are just microfiber flats.
The flip is extra nice because it has a stay dry side to put against baby's skin and the soakers are one size.
Just fold them to the correct size.

Let's talk some more about laundry.
Washing is the most frustrating and challenging part of cloth diapering.
By far.
It's tied to all the other frustrating things that can happen-rashes, smell issues, etc., and I have had my fair share of issues.
Like I said, I have grown to really appreciate cotton.
It is so much easier to wash than synthetic fibers.

I used Rockin' Green detergent first, but decided to switch after my smell issues weren't being resolved.
I tried Charlie's soap and things got worse.

I actually switched to Purel and then Tide because I kept hearing about people who had great luck with these and started wondering if maybe, just maybe, those all natural detergents just couldn't do the trick.

Well, guess what?

Every time I switched detergents, it helped the smells the first few washes, but they always came back.

And there is a reason that Tide and Purel aren't recommended.

They have additives and cause repelling.

Grrrrrr.

After lots of frustration, research, stripping and detergent switching, I learned some REALLY interesting, science based facts.
Check out this article for more, but here is what I now know:

First, invest in a water softener if possible: so far this hasn't been possible for us so I use a half cup of calgon water softener during the wash cycle because we have very hard water. Long term, a water softener will pay for itself because you will use less detergent and the wear on your clothes, dishes, skin, etc. will be so much less.

As far as wash routine...
1. Warm rinse first: the warm setting is the closest to the temperature at which the stains were produced, and therefore, is the best condition for them to come loose. Hot will set stains, cold will not loosen them as well.
2. Hot wash with proper detergent and agitation time: the harder the water, the more detergent you need. If your diapers don't smell clean, you need to use more. Also, I can't remember where I read it now, but I saw somewhere that in order to truly get diapers clean, they need 45 minutes of contact with detergent.
3 & 4. Warm rinse. Twice. (I actually started separating my cotton diapers from my synthetic fiber diapers since the cotton are lower maintenance and generally need less detergent and only one rinse.)

So, I'll use cotton for three days (cotton fitteds with covers at night), then I'll wash those and use synthetic fibers for three days.
(Not all of my diapers fit in these baskets).
This also forces me to use all of my diapers more regularly and not favor some, causing them to wear more quickly.

Turns out, the detergent probably wasn't my problem.
My washing machine was.
Know your washing machine.

I thought I was rinsing on warm but one day I felt the water and realized it was freezing cold.
Turns out no matter what temperature the water is set to, the rinse cycles on my machine are always automatically cold.
Also, the longest wash cycle on my machine is only 18 minutes long.
According to that 45 minute thing I read, 18 minutes is not long enough.

We are working toward getting a new machine but for now, picture me setting timers on my phone and running back to re-set the agitation cycle three times.
I also have to set my machine to short wash cycles instead of rinse cycles in order to use warm water.

While we are on the topic of laundry, let me change my stance on something I said last year...
Do not dry your wet bags!
I feel really silly when I think about it, but wet bags are lined in PUL and I knew not to dry my PUL diaper covers, so I should have known not to dry my wet bags, but I didn't.
And they got holes and started dripping smelly potty liquids on the floor.
Ewww!

In some ways this was good news for me because I was never in love with my Planet Wise or Itsy Ritzy wet bags.
They always seemed a little stinky.
I now LOVE and highly recommend Monkey Foot Design wet bags.

These are amazing at keeping smells out.
They are so much thicker than Itsy Ritzy or Planet Wise or any other wet bag I have ever felt.
I have an extra large one and want more!

Any other cloth diapering tips for me?