Leeks

We just got back from a big day celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary, going to the theater.  The musical was good, yea yea, let me tell you about the pizza we ate before the show. It was from Lucky Pie downtown, a sort of sexy cool little pizza place.  The pizza was called Freak A Leek.  It had leek, goat cheese, mozzarella, and bacon on a thin crust.  Wow, leeks.  Who knew.  And leeks with goat cheese was magic.  I took really small bites to make it last longer, while I looked at Joseph sitting across from me and considered knocking him out and hiding his slumped body under the table while I devoured his slices.  I am already plotting another trip there...maybe I can use my upcoming birthday to get close to that leek pie again.


I found a baby tunnel at the Goodwill last week.  Now that P can crawl we busted it out.  She hasn't crawled through it, but likes to sit at one end and peer through at you on the other.  Both cats also like the tunnel.

I love how in the above picture you can see Perrin in the background craned around in her highchair watching the cats.  She is thrilled just watching them lay curled up motionless on the couch, so Puck getting ready to attack Simon in the tunnel is riveting business. 


Merry sent us some great books for Perrin the other day.  The series is called...

We have Baby mix me a drink, Baby make me breakfast, Baby get me some lovin', and Baby do my banking.  I would also appreciate a Baby clean my house tutorial for Perrin, so if anyone sees that one..., as there is a funny smell emanating from somewhere in our kitchen. 

Speaking of funny smelling, I captured a great Perrin "I just smelled a fart" face...because we are classy ladies like that. 

 

Made a ring sling!

I like baby carriers.  The problem is that you can't find one that is ideal for nearly every circumstance unless you buy the Ergo, which costs over $100, which I can only surmise must be made of unicorn tears and distilled puppy breath.  We have the Moby wrap, which I love because it is very comfortable to wear and seems to be very comfortable for Perrin.

It spreads the baby's weight out over your shoulders and back really well.  But because it is just a piece of fabric, it is very long.  It's not that it takes much time to put it on, it is that you don't want to be putting it on in the parking lot or other place where the ground is dirty because the material drags all over it as you put it on.  Secondly, it takes just enough maneuvering to get the baby into it, that you don't want to be getting them in and out much. 

Because of this, I wanted a quick on and off / in and out carrier that I could use if we were just walking to the mailbox, or running a quick errand from the car.  So I got a Munchkin Jellybean Sling a while back.  It is a sling with out a tail--it's more like a tube and is not adjustable.  It was my first sling experience and I bought it before I knew ring slings existed.

 

It was alright, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, unless thrift is your first priority.  It doesn't cup the shoulder well, but so the weight distribution is not comfortable.  And since Joseph is much taller than me, it can't fit both of us.

I started reading about ring slings on-line and was immediately grumbling about my uninformed purchase of the Munchkin sling.  This type of sling is useful because it is of adjustable size and fit, cups the shoulder and has a tail that can be used as a nursing cover, or to shelter baby from sun or rain.  However, the ring slings cost too much for me to justify buying one (usually between $50 and $90) since I already technically had a sling.  Soooo...I made one!  (Thank you mom for buying me my sewing machine years ago!  I love it!)  

I found a tutorial on the blog, Life More Simply, for a two sided sling.  Most ring slings seem to be made of one piece of fabric, but I liked the look of two thinner pieces of material sewn together, so that the sides are different colors.   

 

For the rings, I ordered from SlingRings.com, which was cheap, and cheaper the more you buy.  So of course I start thinking, I can make slings and sell them!!  I did accidentally buy two sets of rings, because when I purchased, I entered that I wanted two rings, not thinking that they automatically come in pairs.  Now there is an extra set of bronze rings sitting sadly on the shelf, not holding a baby or doing anything useful.  Maybe I will make a one layer summer sling out of some nice linen...yeees.  

It wasn't difficult to make this sling.  I thought all the fabric would be difficult to wrangle and sew onto the rings, but it was fine.  My sling is 32.5 inches wide.  I bought 2.5 yards of each material, so the length is just a bit less than that.  It makes for a really long tail, but I wanted Joseph to be able to get his big man shoulders into it.  

To be inclusive in our baby carrier discussion I should say we also have a Baby Bjorn from the 2nd hand store and recently got a baby backpack, the Osprey Poco model.  As for the Bjorn, it is really quick and easy to put on and to get baby situated in.  Joseph really likes it for this ease of use and because Perrin can face forward to see the world better.  For me, it isn't very comfortable on my back and shoulders.  

Our Osprey backpack is awesome.  It is nice to wear and nice for her.  It is easy to put her in and take her out, and is fit adjustable, so it fits Joseph at 6ft 3in and me at 5ft 4in.  Has numerous small pockets and one really big opening in the bottom where you can fit diaper change stuff, a blanket, food...  There is a built in sunshade and a rain fly that comes separately.  Seriously, we love this thing.

 

 (Blogger has suddenly chosen to only let me write centered????)  As for my next DIY project, I have a felt flower decoration in the works.  Felt flowers are stupid easy and fun to make, a good Perrin nap time endeavor for me.  For my decoration, I found a flat wooden bird form that I want to cover in flowers to hang in the living room so I can finally take down our red Christmas berries wreath.  That poor wall just looks so sad and serious with nothing on it...

Almost forgot, our final Perrin carrying solution...

This isn't so good outside, as she feels all the bumps and going down steps gets tricky, but it works pretty well right after the laundry has been folded.  I recommend it.

Cloth diapering and stubbornnes, related...not necessarily.

Since about 2 months old we have been cloth diapering Perrin. We decided to do it before she was born for a couple of reasons. First, because it saves a lot of money over time, and second, for environmental reasons. When I was pregnant it would come up in conversation with people that we were going to cloth diaper. Almost always, they would give me this sweet pitying look that said, they knew just how that was going to go down.  Then they would go one to tell you of someone they knew who tried cloth diapers for awhile, only to give up--just as I would.

It turns out that we are still using cloth, and it really isn't that hard. Of course, I am not working outside the home, so that does play a role in giving me the time to wash diapers every other day and then stuff them with the inserts at night.  At first I thought I might continue with cloth even if it was a pain out of sheer stubbornness, just because everyone seemed to think I would quit.  I have been pleased to realize that I am not doing it out of stubbornness; I kind of like it. Washing and stuffing the liners back in the clean multicolored shells feels like this comforting ritual; you know, because women are just naturally passionate about cleaning, like in those commercials where it looks like the women wants to make love to her disinfecting counter-top cleanser.  Aaaanyway, the point is, it just isn't as hard or time consuming as you might think.  

Here is a quick little run down of cloth diapering in case you are curious how it works or might want to try it on the tiny butt in your family.  

- First you have to choose which ones you want...this is the hardest part.  There are more brands out there than you can imagine unless you have already waded into that world in the last handful of years.  I did tons of research, but sort of ultimately picked the same ones my brother and sister-in-law were going to use for their daughter who is very close in age to ours.  ...tired of diaper research, they are smart people, lets follow suit...  We are using Bum Genius 4.0, which seems to have been a good choice.  Thank you Jodi and Dan!

  
These close with hook and loop (like Velcro) and have a pocket that an absorbent insert goes into.  Also, the size is adjustable, so you don't have to keep buying new ones as your baby grows, which is good because they cost about $18 for each shell (comes with 2 inserts, one small, one larger). 

Generally cloth diapers need to be changed every two hours during the day, ...then it just depends one how often you plan on washing them in order to decide how many to buy...starting with a supply around 20 worked for us. 

-  I have 1 diaper pail for cloth and one lidded trash bin for used wipes and the occasional disposable diaper.  Plus a small plastic bin on top the table to toss the dirty diaper in until I can spray it off in the toilet or just pull out the liner and shove both parts in the diaper pail.

- I wash diapers every other day.  You have to use cloth diaper safe detergent (as well as diaper rash creams); what makes them safe is that they don't have ingredients that cause the diaper to start repelling urine, mostly animal derived substances, and they rinse completely out without leaving residue that can irritate the baby's bottom.

- You want to use a hot wash cycle to sanitize, and running an extra rinse cycle is a good idea to make sure all the detergent is rinsed out really well.  Then the diaper shells need to air dry, but the inserts can be put in the dryer.

There isn't much else to it.  They have come a long way since the white squares of cloth with pins in the sides that our grandmas remember. 

ZEN MOMENT WITH PERRIN..."Oooooo, tassels."