A Little Understanding

Before Logan was born, everyone asked me if I was ready or if I was worried, but I quickly answered that I didn't think I'd have any problems adjusting to two kids. I'd been babysitting my whole life and had worked in daycare for over six years; I figured adding another baby to our house would be no problem. Hah! Little did I know.

Adjusting to having two little boys is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Nearly every day I just felt like collapsing in a heap of tears--I was so torn between the two of them that I felt like the worst mother in the world. I felt bad for Gehrig because he no longer had all of my attention, but then I also felt bad for Logan because he would never have all my attention like Gehrig did. I just wanted to be able to curl up and cuddle with my baby, but I couldn't 'cause I had Gehrig to chase. It really didn't help that Mike was working all the time. Even when he was home I felt like I didn't get to see him because Logan spent all day screaming.

One thing that really helped was knowing that what I was going through was normal. My mom and my brother called me numerous times to check on me 'cause they remembered how rough that transition was for them. Their understanding made me feel so much better. And then one night, as I was doing my devotions while rocking a fussy Logan, I discovered that God understood too. I just happened to be reading Isaiah 40, and as I read verse 11, I almost started crying.

"He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young."

I'm so glad I have a God who understands how hard being a young mother is and Who gently leads me when I really need Him to.

Learning a Language

I remember that for years when I was growing up, my parents tried to get us kids to learn Chinese. We had numerous teachers with numerous approaches, but we never seemed to learn to say anything other than "I want a hamburger." So I can personally attest to how hard it is to learn a language--yet do we even realize how smart one- and two-year-olds are for learning English, possibly the hardest language of all?

I read in a book (I don't remember which one, but I think it was for a class) that we constantly correct children for saying things like "taked" instead of "took", but do we even stop to think how smart it was of them to realize that you put a "d" on the end of a word to make it past tense? Or to realize they needed to use past tense at all? Once you think of it like that, it's pretty amazing what two-year-olds know.

So the other day when Gehrig ran up to me and said, "I doed it, Mommy!" I said, "You did it? Good job!" But I was thinking, boy, what a genius.

Gehrig Snippets v.1

As I was hurrying to get the boys in the car to go to church tonight, I managed to accidentally scratch Gehrig's back with my keys. He, of course, acted like I'd mortally wounded him. I apologized profusely, and he finally settled down. He turned his sad eyes on me and said, "You have to be gentle with me, Mommy. Please don't hurt me anymore."

Gehrig has always loved baths (Logan is the complete opposite), and he'd stay in there playing all day if I'd let him. This evening he was splashing around, playing with his toys, and his rubber ducky floated towards him. He got down so he was eye-to-eye with it and said, "Hey Ducky, I'm Gehrig. You're cute."

I know there's more, but I just can't think of them right now...

A cool giveaway on a cool blog

I just found this cool blog Penniless Parenting. It fits right in with my love of saving money--plus she's having a giveaway sponsored by Sew Crafty Baby, one of my favorite cloth diaper sites. The giveaway is for a Bumgenius 4.0--a diaper I have yet to try but am very eager to. The new colors are so cute! So check out her giveaway!

My Cloth Diaper Addiction

If you know me, you know I'm absolutely addicted to cloth diapers. As my mom says, I never do anything halfway. If I like something, I become obsessed. Through the years I've been obsessed with numerous things: ER, skating, Roswell, and yoyos to name a few. However, cloth diapers do seem to be a strange thing to be addicted too--even I realize that when I take a step back. The strange thing is you will rarely find someone who uses cloth diapers that isn't addicted to them. Weird.

Logan has only been in two disposable diapers since he was three weeks old (I had to wait that long for his umbilical cord to fall completely off since I hadn't invested in more than one newborn diaper). I'm loving using them on him for a few reasons. Number one being the money! He goes through diapers so fast, we'd be spending at least $20-$30 a week on diapers. That much more money can go towards paying Logan off. :) Another reason I love them is that they never leak. I used disposables with Gehrig until he was a year old, and when he was Logan's age, his diapers leaked constantly. I was always getting him out of bed soaking wet or changing his clothes because his dirty diaper leaked all over them. Logan has not had one dirty diaper leak, and he's had very few wet diapers leak (it's either because I waited too long to change him or the diaper itself wasn't good). And lastly I absolutely adore them because they're so cute! I'm totally enjoying Logan being little enough to go out in just his cute diaper and a shirt.

While taking a break from potty training, we've gone back to cloth with Gehrig too. Though, sadly, not completely. I don't have any nighttime diapers for him right now, and we've also been using disposables for church. But I've decided I'm not going to buy any more disposables at all. I've ordered some Thirsties AIOs for Gehrig for nights (I LOVE Thirsties!), and I'm gonna start sending him to church in cloth. We're getting back to potty training tomorrow anyway, so hopefully he'll just be wearing underwear before too much longer.

So with a two-month-old and a two-year-old in cloth, here's my run-down of my favorite diapers.

For Logan:
- Bumgenius Bamboo fitteds are wonderfully trim and absorbent. Unfortunately they've been discontinued. :(
- Thirsties covers do not leak at all! And the sized ones run big which is great for my boys. Logan's small covers still fit great and have room for him to grow.
- Bumgenius All-In-Ones stuffed with a Pish Posh Applesauce doubler are our nighttime solution right now. Logan, the supersoaker, can go all night in that with no leaks. Unfortunately he's outgrowing the small ones we have. I can't afford more BG AIOs, but I did find a good deal on some Thirsties AIOs. I'm hoping I like them as well.

For Gehrig:
- Fuzzibunz perfect size pockets fit great and never leak or wick. Gehrig is wearing both mediums and larges so they have a wide range too. And they're super trim. I'd have these for my whole stash if I could afford them.

Can I brag a little?

I think I just have the best, smartest boys ever. Logan has turned into a little angel--he's been sleeping through the night since he was seven weeks old, he goes to sleep in his pack and play with no screaming (most of the time), and he will now just lie on the couch for quite awhile when he's awake. He's like a completely different baby from the one who screamed every time I set him down and had to be rocked until he was deeply asleep before I could lay him down. Yay! Here's my adorable chunky monkey:




Gehrig is somewhat of a stinker, but he's amazingly smart. We've been working on his alphabet, and he's doing very well for a two-year-old. He can now identify nearly half of the letters, and can almost completely sing the alphabet song. Of course, his rendition goes like this: "A, B, C, D, E, ET, G, Q, R, S, T, U, B, W, X, Y, N, Z." He also loves to sing "Twinkle Wittle Tar" and "Jesus" (Jesus Loves Me). He's rather shy about singing--he does not get that from my side of the family! I'm trying to get him to sing more often so he'll be able to sing in the children's choir at church next year.

He's still watching more TV than I would like, but we've managed to cut it down now that Logan's not so needy. His two favorite shows are Dora the Explorer ("Dora Splora") and Ni Hao Kai Lan (I highly approve of this one, of course--nothing like hearing your two-year-old say, "Ai-ya!"). He loves to act out Dora, and will frequently assign Mike and I different roles. His favorite scene to act out is the Swiper the Fox scene (since it's basically the same in every episode). He's gotten in trouble for taking things he knows he's not supposed to touch, and when I tell him to put them down, he throws them, yelling, "You're too late! You'll never find it now!" To which I'm supposed to reply, "Aw, man!" like Boots.
So, all of that to lead up to this story: I've been trying to work on obeying right away with him. He tends to take his time when I tell him to do something, and if I'm in a hurry, I'll usually just do it for him. Of course he will then freak out, "I wanted to do it!" So I tell him, "If you want to do it, you need to obey right away." Last night Logan was screaming as I was trying to get Gehrig out of the bath. I kept telling him to pull the stopper out, but he kept dawdling so finally I just pulled it out. Of course he cried the whole time I was getting him dressed, and he kept saying over and over, "I wanted to pull the thingy out!" And I kept trying to explain in different words why he didn't get to--in case he just wasn't understanding. Finally I said, "You were too late, Gehrig." Suddenly the tears were gone and a grin spread across his face as he exclaimed, "Aw, man!"

Here's my handsome stinker:



These wonderful pictures were taken by my friend Meredith at Black Oak Photography.