Sad But Sweet

Adelaide was crying because Matt had to leave for work.
She and Titus were watching him leave at window.

I don't know why Titus was crying.

And We're Off

This post is a little late. The fact is, Titus and Adelaide have been walking for two or three weeks now. Even though they have been wobbling around for a while, they are just now starting to perfect their walking.  

It is kind of hard to say who walked first. Adelaide practiced walking for over a month. She would let go, take a step or two, and then plop down. Titus on the other hand didn’t practice at all, one day he just let go and walked.  

Since they have started walking, I have had many people tell me “now the fun starts.” I completely agree, though, probably not the way they meant it.  Most people see walking babies as babies ready to get into trouble. Yes, I know now that Titus and Adelaide are walking and the possibilities of trouble have multiplied. However, the pros far out way the cons in my mind.  Instead of carrying one baby to the car, and then the other, they can now walk there by themselves.  If I am in the kitchen I can just call them, and they will come on their own. I do not need to make two trips to the living room. So, yes, I am going to find this stage of life more fun.

Hand Picked 1/30

Designer Baby Only Please - "Sometimes I wonder if the baby I'm carrying could have a birth defect. I declined the alfa fetoprotein testing offered to me to determine if my baby could have a chromosome defect. And at the ripe old age of 37, I am sure some may see that as irresponsible. But whether my baby has a defect or not (assuming that I trusted the results of this test, which I don't) would not change the outcome of my pregnancy. Therefore my husband and I decided that for us, the test was pointless. However, there may come a day that this testing is mandatory for all pregnant women. Why?"

Can Coupons Be Used Responsibly?- This article urges us to look more at the big picture that couponing has.

RSVP....No Really, Do It- Stacy over at Stacy Make Cents gives good insight into showing courtesy to others by RSVPing

Cloth Wipes

Cloth diapers with disposable wipes makes little sense to me.  You clean off your baby, throw the diaper in a bag till wash day, and since you can’t flush wipes, you then throw a disposable wipe in the trash can. Obviously dirty baby wipes make for a stinky trash can. Who wants to be hit in the face with poop smell every time they throw something away? I know I don’t. Also, we don’t have garbage pick up here on campus so we have to take the trash to the dumpster. We aren’t always able to drive the trash to the dumpster right away so sometimes we have a couple of bags of trash sitting in the house till we can get to there. So trash bags filled with dirty wipes is not the best option.

The obvious solution to this problem- Use cloth wipes and wipe solution. 

This is so much easier than using the cloth diaper, disposable wipe combo. When changing a baby, I spray a cloth wipe with wipe solution,  wipe them down with the cloth wipe, put it in the diaper and stick in my bag till wash day.  No stinky trash. 

The wipe solution is cheap and easy to make. You only need 4 things. Baby oil, baby wash or shampoo, a spay bottle and water.

Even if you don’t have these things on hand, it is still cheaper to buy everything than it is to buy wipes. A bottle 20oz of Baby oil is 2.47 at Walmart. A 28oz bottle of baby wash is $4.97 at Walmart. It costs us $1.87 for 100 wipes. We use about 15 wipes a day. So a pack of disposable wipes lasts us a little over a week. It is much more economical for us to use the cloth wipes than it is to buy wipes. You can use any sort of soft cloth for your wipes. I had about 30 unused wash cloths that I had gotten from my baby showers. I decided to use those as my wipes.

Here are the directions for making the wipe solution

1/8 cup baby wash or shampoo. 

1/8 cup baby oil

1/2 cup water

Put all of these ingredients in a spray bottle.

Shake the bottle before each use.

Spray the wipe. 

Wipe the baby.

Put a clean diaper on.

Enjoy the cuteness.

Cutie- Pa- Tutie

Back To Normal...Sort Of

Since Christmas everything has been crazy. We traveled between Harrisonburg, VA and Baltimore, MD for two weeks right after Christmas. When we got back, Matt started his final semester of classes. Durning that week I got the flu (or at least that is my guess) and had it for a week. Then Matt’s mom came to visit this past weekend (she was bringing all the extra Christmas presents we couldn’t fit in our little car).  

Today was our first day back to normal. Or at least that was the plan.  The day started out fine, but right around the first nap of the day (9:00 am) things started going down hill.  I laid both babies down, and got in the shower. When I got out Adelaide was asleep, but Titus was crying. Normally they both lay down and go to sleep within 5 minutes. I figured something was bothering Titus and went in to check on him. The culprit was a poopy diaper. So I changed him, rocked him for a minute, and laid him back down.  He wasn’t too happy about being laid back down. He finally fell asleep around 10:00 am. By this time, Adelaide was awake from her morning nap. So the rest of the day was all mixed up.  

When the second nap of the day came (1:00pm) Adelaide went right to sleep, and Titus refused to take his nap again. This time there was no dirty diaper, just a strong willed baby. Eventually I just brought Titus downstairs and figured I would try giving him a nap around 4:00.

Trying to salvage some of the day and do something fun, I took the babies out for a walk in their new wagon that they got for Christmas.  Titus and Adelaide really enjoyed it. The fact that they can sit facing each other makes it more exciting for them.  They reach out and touch each other’s hands.  It is extremely cute.

When we got back to the house around 3:30,  Titus finally laid down for his nap. 

Even though the day didn’t go as I planned, it still turned out good. Titus was well behaved despite his lack of sleep, and I was able to get everything done that I wanted to.  I guess a day doesn't have to be "normal" to be good.

Hand Picked

These are some articles I have found. I thought I would share them here on the blog. Just click on the links to read more.

The Death of Pretty- "Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence.  I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is.  But some things were different in the back then.  First and foremost, many beautiful women, whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence and virtue.  And that combination of beauty and innocence is what I define as pretty."


What Women Need- "A few decades ago some people got a bad idea. Or perhaps the bad idea got them, and shook and confused them till the right ideas came to look strange. We might trace it to the Supreme Court’sRoe v. Wade decision in January 1973, but even that document grew out of prior ideas. It didn’t stand alone, and it cannot be combated alone. I’d like to explore three interlocking, mutually supporting bad ideas that sprouted during that era, and then look at some ideas about how to fix things."


Exchanging the Natural for the Unnatural- This is a good article about how society views natural parts of life, and changes them into something unnatural.

Babies Of The Cloth

Recently I have been posting about ways that we are saving money. Such as, homemade laundry detergent, and homemade dish washing detergent. Another way we have recently started saving money, is cloth diapering. Now before everyone wrinkles their noses, you must know that cloth diapering has come a long way since pre-folded white diapers that you use safety pins to hold on and cover with rubber pants. They do still make these, and I did use them until I noticed that the babies’ bottoms did not take well to them.  Since I wanted to save the money that cloth diapers allow, I checked out the new fangled cloth diapers they make. I finally decided to use JustSimplyBaby Cloth diapers http://www.justsimplybaby.com. JustSimplyBaby offers one size fits all diapers. This means your baby can wear them from the time they are born, till the time they potty train. They allow this because they snap into different sizes. 

Also, no rubber pants are needed. The diapers are completely waterproof. 

As for the cost, they are a little pricey to start out. We paid $9.00 per diaper. I know this seems like a lot of money for a diaper, but do the math. Titus and Adelaide combined, go through about 12 diapers a day. The disposable diapers we use costs around $0.11 each.  So $0.11 x 12 diapers a day x one month (31 days) = $40.00 a month for diapers.  With this math, 4 cloth diapers have already paid for themselves. Since cloth diapers are reusable, when we have another baby, we won’t have to buy diapers. Giving us extra savings.

Another thing that cloth diapers bring to the table is the cuteness factor. I would never purchase them for this reason, but it is a nice perk.  Just look how cute Titus and Adelaide are sporting their new diapers.