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.

I have an idea

I'm not sure where Gehrig picked this phrase up, but he says it randomly and frequently. Today we were playing with his blocks and his little wooden "block train" (I'm not sure what else to call it--it's a train that has pegs that you can stack blocks on to make the different cars). Gehrig is very picky that the blue blocks go on the blue pegs, and the red ones go on the red pegs, but the last car has yellow pegs and there are only green blocks to go on it. He said, "Oh no, there's no green car." We've had this discussion many times, but he refuses to accept the fact that he's just going to have to put the green blocks on the yellow pegs. I was going to explain it yet again when he said, "I have an idea!" He began digging through his other blocks and pulling out green ones. "I build another car!" He declared.

On a different note, he's been very whiney lately when he wakes up from his nap (probably because he plays around in his bed for an hour and a half before he goes to sleep thus getting less than half of his normal nap), and he's been wanting lots of snuggles. It's very hard to tell him no, no matter what I'm doing, when he comes to me and says, "You wanna hold me, Mommy?"

A couple Gehrig tidbits

Since Logan was born, Gehrig's been obsessed with being a big boy and doing stuff "all by himself." He always says, "I did it all by myself!" The other day as I was sitting on the couch feeding Logan, Gehrig came running through the living room, slipped on the rug, and fell. He popped up and said, "I fell down all by myself, Mommy!"

I'm sure he has lots of friends at church, but the two I hear most about are Judson and Noah. I asked him what he had learned in church last Sunday. He thought for a minute and said, "Judson's boat." I said, "Judson's boat?" And he thought some more before saying, "Yes." He sat there thinking for another minute or so and said, "Judson...Noah..." "Oohh," I said, "Did you learn about Noah's boat?" His eyes lit up and he very decisively said, "Yes!"

Some randomness

Life has been pretty insane for the past seven weeks or so as I've been getting used to being a mother of two, but things finally seem to be settling down. Gehrig and I have both learned to be a little flexible with our routine, and Logan (who apparently takes after his daddy and is not a schedule person) is starting to get into somewhat of a routine. He no longer has to be held all the time or rocked to sleep--he's been doing pretty good at going to sleep in his bed. And he's been sleeping at least six hour stretches at night with only one feeding and then straight back to bed. I credit this to Babywise, of course!

They're also really easy to take out by myself too. Logan loves to sleep in his carrier or sling, and Gehrig is very obedient and holds my hand the whole time. I'm thankful for my good little boys!

Yesterday we had a pretty big storm here, and although Gehrig's never been scared of storms before, I was kinda worried the amazingly loud thunder might scare him this time. I didn't need to worry--as thunder shook the house, Gehrig was happily running around the living room, yelling, "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!" He did get a little frightened when the power went out, but then he enjoyed just sitting on the couch with me and watching the rain through our wonderful picture window. He obviously inherited his mommy's patience, though, because he kept saying, "We'll NEVER watch TV, Mommy!"

And Logan, my stinker-turned-angel, slept through the whole thing.

Will I really keep it up?

Well, the plan is to keep this blog updated with stuff going on in the boys lives. Gehrig is 27 months now and into so much stuff, I really should keep a record. Logan is six weeks and smiling occasionally, but that's pretty much it for now (besides being a stinker) so for a little while Gehrig will probably be the dominant character.

Having two kids is quite the adjustment (more so than I had expected), and it seems like Mike and I never get time for just the two of us. Yesterday I had the boys all ready for church, and Logan was strapped into his carseat in the living room when Mike and I happened to cross paths in the kitchen and paused for a hug. I heard Gehrig talking to Logan in the living room and thought I should probably check on them. Good thing I did. Gehrig had Logan's carseat flipped all the way back so Logan was completely upside down. He was messing with the straps on the bottom of the seat and saying, "I fix your seat for you, Logan." *sigh* I guess I probably shouldn't have let him see me adjusting the straps to fit our giant baby.

What Not to Wear

Well, this blog pretty much ended the day I started it, huh? I had big plans for it, but then work got crazy, and I just didn't have time. So...I'm back and hopefully will be keeping this up to date from now on.

Gehrig is now 13 and a half months. He is constantly into stuff. Belts and clothes are his favorite things to play with (lucky for him, his daddy leaves plenty laying around for him to get *grin*). Whatever he gets, he puts around his neck (of course, the best place for him to put stuff). He's usually not allowed in our room, but if he sees the door open, he makes a dash for it before we can close it. The other day I didn't notice he was in there until he came out. He just came strolling out:






















He keeps me busy!

My big thing now is cloth diapers. I've gone crazy for them! They're so cute and fun, and they save us so much money! I'm a big advocate. *smile*

Well, that's it for now. I might be posting again a little later because I actually found an article in a parenting magazine that I agree with. There's a first.

Until...
Liz