gDiapers

As my friend from this blog one-ups us all by skipping the mauling crowd at Target on Black Friday while she sits home and sews beautiful aprons for her friends this Christmas (I imagine her sitting by the fire in hand knitted wool socks while her content 16mo old reads quietly at her feet... in a rocking chair), I thought of how my family's own carbon footprint was affecting this planet. I only thought of that for a minute, and then I thought more about our savings account (who am I kidding, there isn't one) and finally bit the bullet and bought these cloth diapers for Sunnylee: www.gdiapers.com This same friend is the one who convinced me to cloth to begin with; she cloth diapers her one year old every few days, or whenever they stay home, or when its convenient for her. That schedule sounds very manageable to me. It cuts down on how often she has to buy disposables.

I am discovering cloth diapers with my friend, from this blog, who actually turned me on to this brand, gDiapers, awhile ago; she researched cloth for her upcoming arrival who is due this month. Since my own Baby #2 is on its way soon, and with that has already started with me purchasing two different sized disposable diapers, it kills me to spend so much $$ on something we just throw away when I am home most of my life right now, & in close proximity to the washing machine. One of my jobs as a stay-at-home-mom, a mom who's business degree shouldn't just be put on hold for years and years, is to save this family money. I do this in a million brilliant ways :) & this is the beginning of a new way. I am not against 'sposies, as disposables are cutely called on mommy-blogs, and will continue to use them when the Gligs are on the go. And when babysitters are... in our lives. One day. When we find one. Where is she?

I am testing out Sunnylee before the next Glig arrives. Since we know Sunny pretty well, and we know her diapering schedule very well, then the transition should be easy. And if we like cloth, then we can easily cloth baby #2 as well. When that time comes. gDiapers are in transit right now to the Glig House. We cant wait to put these cute diapies on Sunny.

Bad Parenting

Baby Glig #2 is entering its 21st week of existence this week. We had a huge ultrasound last Thursday where every organ is accounted for and each limb is measured. Seeing this baby kick and squirm on the monitor for 45 minutes makes the entire pregnancy and all its consequences more real.

The ultrasound tech said the baby was in a perfect position for every 'photo' she needed, so when I got a call the next day that they needed more pictures of the baby's spine, I was pretty anxious. It stems from Sunnylee's 20 week ultrasound- they couldnt get a good angle of her heart and told me so AT the appointment and I scheduled to come back again. But since the Tech said she got every photo, and a good one it seemed, I thought the worst. When I talked to my Dr though they reassured me they expect the best from the Tech's and the spine photos were not the best. Basically, I was paying for these photos and hadnt got my money's worth. So without hesitations, I am going back to the Dr today for a few more photos of the spine. The baby's perfect tiny little spine.

A Sunnylee catastrophe:
I dont want to admit an event like this, but hey, I learned from it, and more importantly, Jason learned even more! After Sunny's bath last night, we pajama'd her and commenced to rush into the dining room (with Jason's parent's on Skype) where Jason was opening his birthday presents. Sunny was interested for about a minute then decided to ride around on her ladybug pushie thing. We could hear her scooting up and down the hallway.

Then I heard a loud crash in the bathtub and I thought she'd thrown her ladybug into the tub- her favorite thing to do if we leave the bathroom door open is to throw random objects into her tub. I'd even forgotten to let the water out of the tub, so I was thinking of this ladybug (which was quite expensive and not waterproof) floating around in her tub now.... I sent Jason off to rescue it at once, with Sunnylee crying in the background. She cries whenever she throws her toys out of reach, which makes me wonder why she would throw it in the first place....? One year olds...

SO- Sunny's crying, Jason's blundering from room to room looking for the commotion (ok, didnt we JUST hear the bathtub-crashing noise? Did he not hear that?), then I hear him yelling and carrying on and water splashing. I investigate and there she is- standing in the middle of the bathroom now, soaking wet from head to toe, in her nightclothes. Crying. I bundle her up once he undresses her as he explains in pure freak-out mode, that he found her on her back, in the tub, with her nose and mouth barely surfacing above the water. Sunny does this "turtle" pose as I call it, where anytime she falls down she gracefully turns to her back until rescued. And thats what she did. She wont try to get up on her own though! You have to rescue her.
All night Jason talked about how, "If the water had been a little deeper," and other scary thoughts, but everything is fine now. I wasnt, and am still not, too worried- I am very safe with Sunny. Baby gates are up, doors are all shut, no bathroom accessibility, etc (ok, except for maybe last night, when we got distracted from all the Skype/birthday ruckus). I am not thinking about future traumatic events like this occuring often because they wont- we're baby-proofed over here and I keep it that way when I'm with Sunny...
But Jason and I did learn the following:

1. Not to let distractions keep you from keeping the babies safe.
2.a. The door to the bathroom should actually be shut after every pee, every bath because life isnt always "That'll never happen to us, what are the chances?" (2.b---and as the mother, my suggestions are not nagging or off-the-wall theories I've heard on 20/20 last night- thats what Jase learned).
3. The water should be let out each night (he blamed this on himself, when really I was the one who gave Sunny a bath that night... I corrected him, didnt want him to feel too guilty).
4. And babies, who you've invested 9mo "making" inside, 16mo raising on the outside, could all be over in less than a minute. Something that would affect you for as long as you lived.

And that is a scary lesson.

So... how was everyone's weekend?   ;)

Christmas Cards

I plan to gift these free holiday cards to my mom- there are 50 of them! (do we even know 50 families to send these to?) Shutterfly, for anyone who doesnt know, is an excellent resource for most of your photo-printing and photo-gift giving needs. We here at the Glig house make photo books of special events and send them to other Glig's across the world, as they cannot be here for all of our special events. I only do my printing of regular snapshots online as well. I gather up all my photos from the past few months (I just did this last week! I had to skip the Hawaii/Wedding photos, since who has the time to go through all those thousands of pictures???) and send them off to the printers! Shutterfly Fed'Exs them to you in snip-snappy time and then there you are, with hundreds of perfect prints to now organize in terms of how many months your child is... This ain't how your momma did it, but it sure is easy.

Here are a few samples of what Shutterfly has to offer this season:
· Christmas cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards
· photo cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery
· holiday cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

Ciao!

Food and Cold Weather

Sunny thinks wearing my grandma's watch on

her foot is funny, or where its supposed to be.

Week 19- Baby ? is moving, kicking, zapping me of energy at times, and poking out enough that strangers are regularly mentioning our newest Glig. THIS stage is nice. Anything before 5mo is just ______. 5mo to the end its real, it feels real, and everyone else knows its real!

My dad and Jason are building a deck at our house. We've made a lot of progress which makes me think we'll actually see it out to the end, and in time to still enjoy the cooler season.

Sunny loves to help:

When the slightest cool breeze blew through Sebastian I ran out and bought a giant silo of plain 'ole oatmeal like my mom used to make. Its cooked on the stove with milk then served- Sunny's with honey, mine with brown sugar. Yum yum, anyone else feed there little ones oatmeal in the morning? Sunnylee LOVES it, its her most favorite breakie right now:

Speaking of warm toasty meals, how much chili was made for dinner over the weekend? Jason whipped up a batch Sunday night that we're still eating (as of Tuesday!). What makes it different- its made with buffalo mince instead of beef. I'd like to say how different it was, but it tastes the same. Sunny loves to eat chili, just how it is, but this bowl of chili I rinsed off with water in a strainer first since we made it extra spicy. If I HAVE to give Sunny fast-food, then its usually Wendy's chili. She likes beans!

I've only realized last night why its essential to go out for dinners sometimes- not only do I not have to cook, which is obvious to me, I also dont have to clean up. No rice covering the floor, no dishes piled in the sink since the dishwasher is still full of clean dishes.... We went out last night [to avoid those cleaning-up tasks] to our newest fav sushi place. Sunny eats well at this restaurant, and if you have a little one then you know what I mean. Some places just dont cater to babies! As Jason and I ate miso soup, the waitress brought Sunny her own bowl of rice with soup mixed in. She devoured edemame, opening them herself to find the beans inside. After a full 45 minutes of eating, our plates had been cleared away, except for Sunny's. She was still scarfing rice. And beans. And random fruit that had come on our plate. Sushi joints= great for babies. Not always the first place you think of (I usually think of mexican places- everything is similar and smushed together in different ways, perfect for babies!).

I sent this picture to my sis-in-law-to-be, Amanda, and told her to show it to my brother Matt. Apparently Matt eats edemame whole (or did one time and thats all it took!), unknowing that there is a bean inside that you eat! I told Amanda that even Sunnylee knows there's a prize inside this pod:

Sunnylee's two favorites: the always popular Lambie and her baby

(popular for 5 months now- she received it for her birthday). She signs "Baby" now and says it clearly. She even pokes my tummy and says "baby" but she does that to Jason too so... I told her Jason has a Beer Baby in his tummy so she was right.

I keep this cabinet empty since I got tired of cleaning

Tupperware off the kitchen floor 23x a day.

When I couldnt find Sunnylee,

I looked here and this is what I saw:

Hay Bale Gardening

I guess its Week 19... who's counting? :) I have a hay bale garden- filled with yummy vegetable plants that are presently threatening us with 15 ripening green tomatoes at once. I painsakingly water, stake, and... well thats all I do really because this garden is the easiest! I got the idea from this site, so I cant take all the credit. Basically I bought 6 hay bales from the feed store, the kind of hay that is in large rectangle-cubes (I know that is the wrong description but what is a 3-dimensional rectangle called?) that horses eat. Got that?

Then I bought already established vegetables plants from Home Depot since my attempt to grow seeds made me feel like I had to give up my Green Thumb membership. Stuffed the plants right into the top of the hay, then viola! Instant garden, no bending over to take care of, no weeds, super easy. I DID have to get the bales 'ready', something I learned from this site. Anyways, my point of all this was to say I found dirt on sale at Walmart over the weekend so cheap that I almost updated my FB account exclaiming how grown up I felt over my excitement over dirt. I didnt put it on FB, but it was a great deal: bags of Organic Choice Miracle Grow for $1. For the benefit of my garden, vegetables and flowers and everything, I bought all Walmart offered. Then spread it all over the tops of my hay bales to insure they were recieving nutrients as the hay doesnt offer any. Just something I felt like they needed. And my point of all THAT, was to say something incredible happened after I spread Organic Miracle Grow dirt... Incredible in a disgusting way, in a way made me wish I'd never gone to Walmart that day. There is serious 'organic' stuff in this dirt because it caused a fungus to grow on 2 of my plants that scared the &#%#& out of me when I saw it. Jason and I poked it with a stick, ready to run, imagining a swarm of somethings to fly out. When nothing did, I did what any of you would've done, I Googled it. I Googled "Orange puffy fungus" and found a plethora of sites dedicated to this fungus they so accurately and scientificaly call "Dog Vomit Fungus". Can you picture what I've seen now? Google it, I dont even want to put the sites on here. G-r-o-s-sness. From what I've read, its harmless and.... you just deal with it (its even gone now, the next day, since I didnt water my plants [and they are bone dry]-- which I am now scared to do). Anyone wanna come over and eat a fresh salad at my place? On a happy note, I can feel the baby kick for sure now. Its been a few weeks of tapping inside, but now it is confirmed, there is a moving thing alive inside of me.