This is totally off topic from what I have focused this blog about, but here it goes anyway. I hate being pregnant. And more than that, I hate being pregnant when I have a child that is still not mobile on their own. We have 4 kids currently in our family. The oldest two are my step-kiddos, but they are just as much my kids as my own are... I am raising them. I care for them. They are forever mine. My two kiddos were supposed to be it, but SURPRISE! We are having another one in just a few weeks time.
I am not one that can see the joys of pregnancy through the storm. I swell. I get sick. I have horrible back and hip pains. And after my deliver in May of 2012, I have a stretched pelvic bone that has decided to add oh so many fun complications and pains. This pregnancy I have also had a form of sciatica. Sciatica is where the nerve bundle that hangs below your tailbone becomes pinched or irritated in someway. What this means for me is very painful contractions that don't do anything but drop me to my knees... Oh, and while they are at it my legs go to sleep. Super fun stuff.
Now I have reached the end of this pregnancy and pretty much anytime from here on out I will be able to have this baby. Good news on that front, but the bad news is I know I still have a couple weeks left of this. I can't wait to be done.
I just needed to vent about that... I know there are a lot of people that would gladly trade places with me. I know there are people that try and struggle to even have one child. My heart truly breaks for them. However, it doesn't change how much pregnancy truly can suck. Especially when you get to have pretty much every complication except hypertension (which would end the pregnancy much much sooner).
Like I said earlier, my husband and I were done having kids after the birth of my second son in May 2012. We were happy with 3 boys and a girl. We had enough space in our 3 bedroom house to accommodate everyone and we were happy. We did everything in our power to prevent pregnancy. But God had other plans for us... We are part of the .1% that everything failed for. People find it humorous, and from the outside, I know I would be chuckling along with them. But in my shoes, all I wanted to do was scream and throw a fit. This was not my plan. Because of my personal beliefs and morals, I knew I would be having another child. People tried to encourage me telling me that I must finally be having my girl that I have wanted so badly... Big fail there! Another boy is joining our family.
I will love him and cherish him as I already do. He is one very stubborn little guy and I am excited to meet him. At the same time, my husband and I are now having to take on the daunting task of finding a new home that will fit our growing family's needs. With a total of 5 kids ranging from baby to 10 years old... we need much more space than we have... That being said, we live in a rural area and don't have very many options. We have worked very hard over the last 5 years to get our current home as green as possible. Replacing windows, insulation, the HVAC system and water heater... Bought new Energy Star appliances and have our house running like a champ. That being said, because of where we live... we aren't going to get to walk into our new house having those things done. We will be starting over again.
Searching for houses is frustrating. Raising our family in a house that is too small for our needs is frustrating. The financial decisions we have to make are daunting. And at the end of the day, I am more afraid than not that we are going to end up in a worse spot than we are in now.
So my focus has had to shift from switching to a natural lifestyle and exterminating chemicals to finding better housing options for our family. Doing all this while very, very pregnant is just about to drive me over the wall. I already have an eye twitch, might be checking into the funny farm later this week....
Friday, May 31, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Uggg! But making progress...
Since I last posted, I have been in and out of false labor. Frustrating and annoying as it is, it is good to know that baby is happy and healthy. I ended up having to take part of today off to get some more tests done and deal with this false labor issue. So while I am waiting for the all clear from the doctor, I decided to try to be productive. Maybe I should have decided to be a slob in retrospect, but the damage is done and productive it is.
In our efforts to go green, I have decided to switch detergents. Something that is probably a little more exciting to me than it should be... So before I started using it, I decided to "strip" my machine of residue from the old detergent. Since I have an HE front load machine, I pulled the little drawer for liquid soap out and much to my dismay I found detergent that had solidified under the drawer and just nasty gunk everywhere inside the compartment. It was nasty and horrid and I didn't know what to do except start cleaning. Luckily, I still had some left over paper towels and I spent the better part of an hour cleaning out the little drawer compartment. I have no idea what caused the build up in the first place, but my best guess is that it has everything to do with hard water. Frustrated and grossed out doesn't begin to cover it but I cleaned it up took the drawer to my kitchen sink to soak and started the cleaning cycle. About the time that I pressed start, my husband said, "Doesn't the water spray through the drawer into the machine?" Almost on the cue of the word "spray" water goes everywhere. Husband dives toward the machine and holds his hand there until he can get the machine stopped. At this point in time....all I can do is laugh. So we grab the drawer, run the cleaning cycle and now the drawer is soaking again.
I typically consider my self to be an intelligent person, but in my sleep deprived very pregnant state... I evidently am not thinking things very far through. At least I didn't make a bigger mess and I think it answers the question of why detergent has been leaking down the front of my machine for awhile. At one point it stopped, but it started up again. Lucky for me.... all the new detergent is powder so I will just throw it in the drum and continue with my day. Now I will only be using the drawer for bleach and vinegar, so the issue shouldn't ever happen again. But just in case you have a HE front load machine.... now you know to pull the drawer out every once in awhile and make sure you don't have gunk everywhere. You live, you learn!!!
In our efforts to go green, I have decided to switch detergents. Something that is probably a little more exciting to me than it should be... So before I started using it, I decided to "strip" my machine of residue from the old detergent. Since I have an HE front load machine, I pulled the little drawer for liquid soap out and much to my dismay I found detergent that had solidified under the drawer and just nasty gunk everywhere inside the compartment. It was nasty and horrid and I didn't know what to do except start cleaning. Luckily, I still had some left over paper towels and I spent the better part of an hour cleaning out the little drawer compartment. I have no idea what caused the build up in the first place, but my best guess is that it has everything to do with hard water. Frustrated and grossed out doesn't begin to cover it but I cleaned it up took the drawer to my kitchen sink to soak and started the cleaning cycle. About the time that I pressed start, my husband said, "Doesn't the water spray through the drawer into the machine?" Almost on the cue of the word "spray" water goes everywhere. Husband dives toward the machine and holds his hand there until he can get the machine stopped. At this point in time....all I can do is laugh. So we grab the drawer, run the cleaning cycle and now the drawer is soaking again.
I typically consider my self to be an intelligent person, but in my sleep deprived very pregnant state... I evidently am not thinking things very far through. At least I didn't make a bigger mess and I think it answers the question of why detergent has been leaking down the front of my machine for awhile. At one point it stopped, but it started up again. Lucky for me.... all the new detergent is powder so I will just throw it in the drum and continue with my day. Now I will only be using the drawer for bleach and vinegar, so the issue shouldn't ever happen again. But just in case you have a HE front load machine.... now you know to pull the drawer out every once in awhile and make sure you don't have gunk everywhere. You live, you learn!!!
Friday, May 3, 2013
You are doing WHAT?!?!? Modern Cloth Diapering...
When I say cloth diapers... I bet you think about a mom from the 1950s with diaper pins and plastic covers. And if that is what cloth diapering was all about, I would NOT have jumped on the band wagon. With soon to be 5 kids in our house I need fast easy and simple. Any kind of diaper pin is just not going to cut it... I have to be quick. My youngest two will only be 13 months apart. I have to be fast in whatever I do.. When I was first approached about cloth diapering with my oldest son (now 4), it was perceived convenience that made me say no... I mean, how easy is it to take a diaper off and throw it away? I was young(er) and didn't want to do anything different. My first baby, my first son... he should have the best of everything! Looking back, the best for him would have been cloth all the way.... He had such significant skin issues that we couldn't use any of the major brands of disposables. It was a nightmare, but I was right and I was going to do it the "normal" way. We found one brand that didn't cause as many issues and stuck with that brand only.
Now, with my second son... Cost of disposables was making me more and more upset and with a third baby looming on the horizon the cost was only climbing. It seems like every time I went to the store because we needed diapers, I was paying out the nose for something that was going to end up in the trash. We started seeing some of the same skin issues with him and I got frustrated... There had to be a better way. Luckily, I have an amazing friend that cloth diapered her kids and she convinced me to borrow some diapers and just try it. So I did. I figured it couldn't be worse than what we were using.
Our first trial of cloth diapers gave us a run for our money. I put my son in the first diaper, he was very confused, looked down at the diaper and tried to figure out why this was so different. After a couple minutes he was happy and moved on to vacating his bowels.. Gross, I know, but it is part of diapering. My son, who was 10 months old at the time was already in size 5 disposables. He is a huge chunk! We have had issues with poopy diapers and boy did he show us what the cloth diapers could do. My husband was the lucky winner of that first diaper change with cloth. He wasn't totally against cloth, but he wasn't sold on the idea either. So him getting the first poopy was quite the ordeal. Long story short, the cloth diaper held everything in and we didn't have a massive messy blowout which we had become so used to. My husband was floored. He took the diaper off and the clean up was so much faster because the diaper held everything and not as much was on our son. So that being said... my husband became an instant convert. He came out of the nursery saying I can't believe it... I just can't believe it. Now the worst part of cloth (for me) is dumping the poop in the toilet. Basically, when you have a poopy, you dump the poo and flush. Then you put the diaper in a wet bag and that is where is stays until you go to do laundry.
Right now we are using a normal trash can for our pail. I use what are called pocket diapers and so when I go down to wash them, I just take the whole thing down with me, pull the inserts from the diaper and throw them in the machine. I started with pockets and that is what I know the best. There are several different types of cloth diapering and when you are starting out it is very overwhelming. Fitteds, prefolds, AIO, AI2, and the list goes on and on and on... I am sticking with the pockets because I have the inserts for them and I don't want to have 7 different kinds of diapers to confuse everyone that comes to my house to watch my kids! This picture shows a pretty good representation of what I use daily. The riser snaps make it smaller. This is a pocket or a One Size (OS) diaper. I don't use insert snaps which you can see at the lower middle, but I know moms that swear by the snap in inserts. I am sure this looks complicated, but it really isn't. You put this cloth diaper on the same way you put on a disposable. Bring the tabs around and snap. The tabs will allow you to overlap to adjust for skinnier babies. That is why you see so many snaps on one side and only three on the other.
Now, with my second son... Cost of disposables was making me more and more upset and with a third baby looming on the horizon the cost was only climbing. It seems like every time I went to the store because we needed diapers, I was paying out the nose for something that was going to end up in the trash. We started seeing some of the same skin issues with him and I got frustrated... There had to be a better way. Luckily, I have an amazing friend that cloth diapered her kids and she convinced me to borrow some diapers and just try it. So I did. I figured it couldn't be worse than what we were using.
Our first trial of cloth diapers gave us a run for our money. I put my son in the first diaper, he was very confused, looked down at the diaper and tried to figure out why this was so different. After a couple minutes he was happy and moved on to vacating his bowels.. Gross, I know, but it is part of diapering. My son, who was 10 months old at the time was already in size 5 disposables. He is a huge chunk! We have had issues with poopy diapers and boy did he show us what the cloth diapers could do. My husband was the lucky winner of that first diaper change with cloth. He wasn't totally against cloth, but he wasn't sold on the idea either. So him getting the first poopy was quite the ordeal. Long story short, the cloth diaper held everything in and we didn't have a massive messy blowout which we had become so used to. My husband was floored. He took the diaper off and the clean up was so much faster because the diaper held everything and not as much was on our son. So that being said... my husband became an instant convert. He came out of the nursery saying I can't believe it... I just can't believe it. Now the worst part of cloth (for me) is dumping the poop in the toilet. Basically, when you have a poopy, you dump the poo and flush. Then you put the diaper in a wet bag and that is where is stays until you go to do laundry.
Right now we are using a normal trash can for our pail. I use what are called pocket diapers and so when I go down to wash them, I just take the whole thing down with me, pull the inserts from the diaper and throw them in the machine. I started with pockets and that is what I know the best. There are several different types of cloth diapering and when you are starting out it is very overwhelming. Fitteds, prefolds, AIO, AI2, and the list goes on and on and on... I am sticking with the pockets because I have the inserts for them and I don't want to have 7 different kinds of diapers to confuse everyone that comes to my house to watch my kids! This picture shows a pretty good representation of what I use daily. The riser snaps make it smaller. This is a pocket or a One Size (OS) diaper. I don't use insert snaps which you can see at the lower middle, but I know moms that swear by the snap in inserts. I am sure this looks complicated, but it really isn't. You put this cloth diaper on the same way you put on a disposable. Bring the tabs around and snap. The tabs will allow you to overlap to adjust for skinnier babies. That is why you see so many snaps on one side and only three on the other.
Now the inside is super simple for my pocket diapers. I put an insert in the pocket and away we go. I put my inserts as I am putting the clean diapers away. That way I always have one ready to go. This particular diaper has Velcro tabs, and they are available, I just don't use them since I am not a huge fan of Velcro anything. It is merely a personal preference.
And since I keep mentioning inserts...this is what an insert looks like. There are primarily three different types of materials inserts can be made out of... Microfiber (MF), Bamboo, and Hemp. I have all three, and I typically avoid the microfiber ones. My favorite inserts are hemp. They are quite pricey, but are the best at holding liquid. We use them overnight and if we are going to be in the car for awhile. Bamboo is the next step down both in price and effectiveness. I don't notice a huge difference between bamboo and hemp but I do think there is a difference. Microfiber I am not a big fan of.. With microfiber, we typically have to use 2 inserts and I think they make the diapers bulky.
That is a very basic overview to modern cloth diapering. I will be writing more and being more specific as time goes on. I am still experimenting with what I think works best, but I encourage anyone with questions to email me at meangreenmommie@gmail.com! I have converted several people already in the few months we have been doing it and I am more than happy to answer any questions I can! If I don't know the answer, I probably know someone who does!
Day One
Yesterday was day one or ground zero in our efforts to move from being total consumers to living a greener life. I want to say that this change is going to be easy and convenient. It's not. And it is costing us some money up front... More than we really want to spend, but in the long run we are going to start saving far more than what I have spend thus far.
I started with a very selfish goal. To save money. My husband and I are fast approaching the arrival of the 5th child in our family. We have to find creative ways to cut costs and make ends meet. With the addition of baby number 5, we knew we were going to have 2 in diapers for at least a year. That is a lot of money going out each month just for diapers, so I made the decision to switch to cloth. We have been using a combination of cloth and disposables for a few weeks now and fully switched over to cloth this past week when I got a shipment of the rest of the diapers we would need to get us through 2 days. I have gotten a lot of funny looks from my other mama friends, but I truly believe this is the right move for our family. It has taken our diaper budget from around $80 a month, to nil. I have put in about $300 so far buying used diapers, but that is more than enough diapers for us to get through 2 days.
So I started with my cloth diaper conversion and I have fallen in love with cloth. I am kicking myself for not doing this all along. I am literally keeping over 2 tons of waste out of our local landfill. I will save well over $2000 by the time it is all said and done. AND, cloth diapers are way more fun to buy than disposables.
Cloth Diapers made me start questioning all of our other choices.... Why are we using paper towels? Why am I still using diaper wipes and not cloth wipes? About every choice I had made in the last 10 years was called into question... I started doing research into the products that we use on a day to day basis. I was appalled. My oldest son has pretty severe skin issues. I thought I had done everything I could to help him. We use special soap, detergent, etc. I didn't stop to think. I also have very sensitive skin and things like Pledge or Endust bother me while I am cleaning. I am constantly washing my hands and using a sugar scrub after to get the chemicals off. So now, my husband and I have made the decision that we are going to get all the non-natural chemicals out of our house and start a completely new lifestyle. Yesterday was the day that we finally started to pull the trigger on all of this... Today we are purging our house and tomorrow I will set aside most of the day to making homemade products.
I am doing this for so many reasons I have lost count now.. I think it will be better for our family. It will cost us significantly less than traditional cleaning products, and everything I am finding in research suggests that cleaning naturally will actually boost my kids immune systems. I have been called a granola flake, a hippie and a tree hugger... Well if that is what you think, hooray for you! But as a mother, I want to do what I think is the absolute best for my family. I am excited about the change over... My family and close friends and starting to be converted to my line of thinking... And I know that I am going to be reducing our families carbon footprint by a significant amount.
I started with a very selfish goal. To save money. My husband and I are fast approaching the arrival of the 5th child in our family. We have to find creative ways to cut costs and make ends meet. With the addition of baby number 5, we knew we were going to have 2 in diapers for at least a year. That is a lot of money going out each month just for diapers, so I made the decision to switch to cloth. We have been using a combination of cloth and disposables for a few weeks now and fully switched over to cloth this past week when I got a shipment of the rest of the diapers we would need to get us through 2 days. I have gotten a lot of funny looks from my other mama friends, but I truly believe this is the right move for our family. It has taken our diaper budget from around $80 a month, to nil. I have put in about $300 so far buying used diapers, but that is more than enough diapers for us to get through 2 days.
So I started with my cloth diaper conversion and I have fallen in love with cloth. I am kicking myself for not doing this all along. I am literally keeping over 2 tons of waste out of our local landfill. I will save well over $2000 by the time it is all said and done. AND, cloth diapers are way more fun to buy than disposables.
Cloth Diapers made me start questioning all of our other choices.... Why are we using paper towels? Why am I still using diaper wipes and not cloth wipes? About every choice I had made in the last 10 years was called into question... I started doing research into the products that we use on a day to day basis. I was appalled. My oldest son has pretty severe skin issues. I thought I had done everything I could to help him. We use special soap, detergent, etc. I didn't stop to think. I also have very sensitive skin and things like Pledge or Endust bother me while I am cleaning. I am constantly washing my hands and using a sugar scrub after to get the chemicals off. So now, my husband and I have made the decision that we are going to get all the non-natural chemicals out of our house and start a completely new lifestyle. Yesterday was the day that we finally started to pull the trigger on all of this... Today we are purging our house and tomorrow I will set aside most of the day to making homemade products.
I am doing this for so many reasons I have lost count now.. I think it will be better for our family. It will cost us significantly less than traditional cleaning products, and everything I am finding in research suggests that cleaning naturally will actually boost my kids immune systems. I have been called a granola flake, a hippie and a tree hugger... Well if that is what you think, hooray for you! But as a mother, I want to do what I think is the absolute best for my family. I am excited about the change over... My family and close friends and starting to be converted to my line of thinking... And I know that I am going to be reducing our families carbon footprint by a significant amount.
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