I just thought I'd take a second and discuss my daughter's habit of kicking me (a habit that I hope doesn't continue into adulthood). Every night when Angela and I lay down to sleep, as I'm nodding off Angela will cuddle up behind me. Not only is it great to fall asleep all comfy-like, but I recently have been getting the added bonus of feeling LBH kicking (sometimes HARD) against my back. It feels like a popcorn popper is going off in her belly, and I love it. It's adorable, and I find myself giggling as I fall asleep.
It makes me happy, and I just thougth I'd share.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Diapers, diapers and more diapers
With LBH coming in a short three months, I figure it's time to get serious about diapers. I know I do NOT want to use your standard one-use diaper like Pampers or Huggies, but I don't know much about cloth diapers. A few weeks ago, the Idaho Statesman ran an article on local cloth diaper businesses. Bingo! They did a handful of my research for me!
First, I wanted to find out how many diapers a baby will go through in a day to find out how many I'll need to buy. Maybe I'm naive, but I was honestly thinking a max of ten per day - on a bad day - would be about right. But then I found this website, and this website and this website, all which suggest far more - up to 20 diapers per day for a newborn (especially, it seems, in cloth diapers - evidently because you can tell sooner when your baby is wet). However, that number goes down as the child gets older. So, to come up with an average for the first two years, I'm going to pick 15 diapers per day.
Next, I needed to know how much 15 diapers a day would cost me for two years buying a leading brand. I picked Pampers - really for no reason other than I know it's a common, familiar, mainstream brand. From the first three pages of the website selling Pampers, I chose six boxes of diapers at random and figured out how much each individual diaper would cost. The cheapest I found was $0.20; the most expensive was $1.32. All six diaper prices averaged at $0.58 per diaper. At 15 diapers a day, that's $8.70 per day on diapers. Over two years, that comes to $6,351. Plus, and for me and Kelly this is a big plus, that means 10,950 diapers that we just threw into a landfill that took 7,227 cups of petroleum to produce and will take the next 500 years to fully decompose (I'll cite that info for you in a bit).
OK, now I look at cloth diapers. The first place I looked at in Boise is Nature's Own Diapers. This is a diaper service - they bring their customers 80 diapers per week every week and take the used diapers back to their facility for the laundering. That means I don't have to wash any diapers. Ever. Their price is $17.25 per week. At $17.25 per week, that's only $1,794 over the course of two years. That's a difference of $4,557. (Incidentally, if we use an average of 10 diapers per day over two years, Pampers still comes out at $4,234 for two years - still a savings of $2,440 over two years for cloth diapers).
In the beginning, with a newborn in cloth diapers and the baby peeing more often and me and Kelly getting used to the whole diaper-changing-pee-schedule-parenting thing, we may go through more than the originally allotted 80 diapers per week. I figure that during that time I can either wash some or use a more Earth-friendly version of disposable diapers, like the ones offered by Seventh Generation (which come out at about $.36 per diaper, or $3,942 for 15 diapers a day for two years). Or, I bet I could get more one week or have them change out my supply earlier than after one week in the beginning.
There was another option listed in the Idaho Statesman article called Monkey Bottoms, which carries far more than just diapers. On this site, they recommend starting with 36 diapers, which, they tell me, means I'll be washing diapers every two days (which sounds like a lot of work to me). In the newspaper article, the owner says it costs about $150-200 to get started with her product, and that the initial start-up will last for about six months, depending on the baby's size. So for comparison's sake, let's figure that I have to spend $200 on cloth diapers every six months for the first two years. That's only $800. However, then we have to figure in that I'm washing a load of diapers every two days. Then I have to add in cost for laundry detergent, water and the time it takes to wash that much laundry. Right now, I only wash about two to three loads per week. And sometimes even that seems overwhelming. I can't imagine multiplying that by four or five times a week.
And because I said I would cite my stats for petroleum, etc., here's a page on the benefits of using cloth diapers. And here's another one. And another one. And another one. (And while we're discussing diaper type benefits, I couldn't find any benefits to using disposable diapers on either the Pampers or the Huggies websites. I did, however, find this bland comparison site. And this one too.)
So, after reviewing all the information, it looks like Kelly and I should go by Nature's Own Diapers and ask some questions to get a better feel for the whole diapering process.
By the way, I was curious, so I did some more math. Here's what I found:
First, I wanted to find out how many diapers a baby will go through in a day to find out how many I'll need to buy. Maybe I'm naive, but I was honestly thinking a max of ten per day - on a bad day - would be about right. But then I found this website, and this website and this website, all which suggest far more - up to 20 diapers per day for a newborn (especially, it seems, in cloth diapers - evidently because you can tell sooner when your baby is wet). However, that number goes down as the child gets older. So, to come up with an average for the first two years, I'm going to pick 15 diapers per day.
Next, I needed to know how much 15 diapers a day would cost me for two years buying a leading brand. I picked Pampers - really for no reason other than I know it's a common, familiar, mainstream brand. From the first three pages of the website selling Pampers, I chose six boxes of diapers at random and figured out how much each individual diaper would cost. The cheapest I found was $0.20; the most expensive was $1.32. All six diaper prices averaged at $0.58 per diaper. At 15 diapers a day, that's $8.70 per day on diapers. Over two years, that comes to $6,351. Plus, and for me and Kelly this is a big plus, that means 10,950 diapers that we just threw into a landfill that took 7,227 cups of petroleum to produce and will take the next 500 years to fully decompose (I'll cite that info for you in a bit).
OK, now I look at cloth diapers. The first place I looked at in Boise is Nature's Own Diapers. This is a diaper service - they bring their customers 80 diapers per week every week and take the used diapers back to their facility for the laundering. That means I don't have to wash any diapers. Ever. Their price is $17.25 per week. At $17.25 per week, that's only $1,794 over the course of two years. That's a difference of $4,557. (Incidentally, if we use an average of 10 diapers per day over two years, Pampers still comes out at $4,234 for two years - still a savings of $2,440 over two years for cloth diapers).
In the beginning, with a newborn in cloth diapers and the baby peeing more often and me and Kelly getting used to the whole diaper-changing-pee-schedule-parenting thing, we may go through more than the originally allotted 80 diapers per week. I figure that during that time I can either wash some or use a more Earth-friendly version of disposable diapers, like the ones offered by Seventh Generation (which come out at about $.36 per diaper, or $3,942 for 15 diapers a day for two years). Or, I bet I could get more one week or have them change out my supply earlier than after one week in the beginning.
There was another option listed in the Idaho Statesman article called Monkey Bottoms, which carries far more than just diapers. On this site, they recommend starting with 36 diapers, which, they tell me, means I'll be washing diapers every two days (which sounds like a lot of work to me). In the newspaper article, the owner says it costs about $150-200 to get started with her product, and that the initial start-up will last for about six months, depending on the baby's size. So for comparison's sake, let's figure that I have to spend $200 on cloth diapers every six months for the first two years. That's only $800. However, then we have to figure in that I'm washing a load of diapers every two days. Then I have to add in cost for laundry detergent, water and the time it takes to wash that much laundry. Right now, I only wash about two to three loads per week. And sometimes even that seems overwhelming. I can't imagine multiplying that by four or five times a week.
And because I said I would cite my stats for petroleum, etc., here's a page on the benefits of using cloth diapers. And here's another one. And another one. And another one. (And while we're discussing diaper type benefits, I couldn't find any benefits to using disposable diapers on either the Pampers or the Huggies websites. I did, however, find this bland comparison site. And this one too.)
So, after reviewing all the information, it looks like Kelly and I should go by Nature's Own Diapers and ask some questions to get a better feel for the whole diapering process.
By the way, I was curious, so I did some more math. Here's what I found:
Huggies averaged at $0.36 per diaper, meaning $5.40 per day at 15 diapers each day, or $3,942 for two years.
Luv's averaged at $0.57 per diaper, meaning $8.55 per day at 15 diapers each day, or $6,241.50 for two years
Sunday, December 28, 2008
The nursery is painted!
The nursery got painted today! I have to say that in passive voice because if I said "We painted the nursery today," it would be a lie. Jen and Justin came over and painted with Kelly while I went to the grocery store and made everyone dinner so that I wasn't in the same room as the paint fumes. We used the good-for-the-environment, no-VOC paint, but still figured that being in the same room with the fresh scent wouldn't be condusive to creating the next Einstein.
Anyway, here's a picutre of the room as it looks now.
Due to bad lighting and the fact that we used Kelly's cell phone to take the picture, it looks all yellow/green and weird (our camera batteries are in need of recharging). In reality, it looks far more like this color:
I found this picture on line a while ago and we both liked the way the gray walls looked with the bright whites and yellows, so we tried to match it for our nursery.
I'm so excited to be working on the baby's room and to have it painted the perfect color! I feel just that much more ready to welcome her to the world! Thanks again to Jen and Justin for their awesome, awesome help today!
Anyway, here's a picutre of the room as it looks now.
Due to bad lighting and the fact that we used Kelly's cell phone to take the picture, it looks all yellow/green and weird (our camera batteries are in need of recharging). In reality, it looks far more like this color:
I found this picture on line a while ago and we both liked the way the gray walls looked with the bright whites and yellows, so we tried to match it for our nursery.
I'm so excited to be working on the baby's room and to have it painted the perfect color! I feel just that much more ready to welcome her to the world! Thanks again to Jen and Justin for their awesome, awesome help today!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Twenty-Five Week Pictures
I'm 26 weeks at this point, but these pictures were taken a few days ago. My computer wouldn't let me on the other day to post these, so they had to wait a few days.
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Sunday, December 21, 2008
Names
No, we don't have anything picked out just yet. We have a few names that we like, but we also figure that since we have three months we don't need to rush anything.
I put up a basket in my classroom for name suggestions because immediately after discovering I was having a girl, my students wanted to give me name suggestions. It created quite the classroom distraction, naming this baby, so I told them to put all their ideas on paper in the basket.
Here are a few of the names they put in as jokes:
Here are some of the serious names that we just didn't like:
Here are a few that we saved to take into consideration:
Some of the names on this last list were on the lists we've compiled on our own anyway, but some of them are new. None of these are our favorite names, which we're not revealing as of now, but once again, we still have a while to come to a decision.
I put up a basket in my classroom for name suggestions because immediately after discovering I was having a girl, my students wanted to give me name suggestions. It created quite the classroom distraction, naming this baby, so I told them to put all their ideas on paper in the basket.
Here are a few of the names they put in as jokes:
Tyler Durden
Pink
Jimi Hendrix
3.14
Steve
Pink Floyd
Axl Rose
Here are some of the serious names that we just didn't like:
Clover Zenith
Ava Madelyn
Emma
Judith
Sarah
Leah
Rebecca
Savannah
Bella Anne
Alexandria
Kaylee
Orchid
Here are a few that we saved to take into consideration:
Reese
Alice
Juliet
Lily
Josie
Elaine
Charlotte
Hope
April
Matilda
Some of the names on this last list were on the lists we've compiled on our own anyway, but some of them are new. None of these are our favorite names, which we're not revealing as of now, but once again, we still have a while to come to a decision.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Nursery
We have a goal - to get a lot of work done in the nursery over winter vacation. We'd like to at least get it cleaned out of all the other stuff that's currently in thre and get it painted. The room is currently a dark pea-green color, but I don't think either of us has been a huge fan of that since we put it in there a few years ago. We're planning to repaint the walls a steely-gray color - a lighter color than what's in there now - and use lots of yellow and white as accents. We already have a swatch of the paint on the wall and we really like it so far. We're hoping to get things in there a little more organized before we start accumulating too much baby stuff. We already have a couple of big bags full of things - and with Christmas and baby showers around the corner, we know we'll be collecting a lot more in coming weeks.
Speaking of baby things, I found a new website with some fun stuff on it: Arte Bebe. I just wish there were more shops like this in Boise to buy things at rather than only shopping at the more mainstream stores. I'm a little jealous of people who live in places that have more of a thriving local artist/local shop area - especially if it's an area where the local people don't feel like they have to only make stuff that looks like it could be sold in a main-stream box store, like a lot of locals here. I plan to go to the downtown market when I'm in Portland next month and see if I can't score some cool stuff for the nursery there.
Speaking of baby things, I found a new website with some fun stuff on it: Arte Bebe. I just wish there were more shops like this in Boise to buy things at rather than only shopping at the more mainstream stores. I'm a little jealous of people who live in places that have more of a thriving local artist/local shop area - especially if it's an area where the local people don't feel like they have to only make stuff that looks like it could be sold in a main-stream box store, like a lot of locals here. I plan to go to the downtown market when I'm in Portland next month and see if I can't score some cool stuff for the nursery there.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
It's a girl! (Revisited...Now with pictures!)
Yup, as far as we know it's still a girl...but now I have pictures to post from Thanksgiving this year when we opened the envelope and announced it to everyone!
First, we have Kelly carefully cutting open the envelope...
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and opening the envelope...
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First, we have Kelly carefully cutting open the envelope...
and opening the envelope...
then, after we'd both peeked, Kelly reached into his shirt pocket for the appropriate bubble gum cigar to toss to Denisha.
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This is me, Kelly and Denisha looking at the photos..JPG)
Adding to the photo-ogling, Oma..JPG)
And Oma shows Grandma and Great Aunt Tricia.
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I think there's some crying starting in this picture..JPG)
Yup, there's Grandma wiping tears..JPG)
We got just a moment to ourselves for our "It's a girl!" kiss!.JPG)
And then we both sat down to text friends and family who couldn't be with us this year to tell them the big news!.JPG)
Monday, December 8, 2008
Yup, I changed the look of the page. And my belly moves now.
I wanted to change it up to something that was perhaps a little easier to read and was a little less bulky than the old design. If you feel like revolting, let me know. I can always change it back.
Also...Last night, we sat in bed before going to sleep watching my belly move. LBH is finally big enough and strong enough that we can see her moving! I'm more and more excited to share her movements with more people, since we can feel her all over now and not just low in my abdomen. I was hoping that people would be able to feel her at Thanksgiving, but it just didn't happen. Now, though, people can feel her all the time. My little sister was the first one other than Kelly to feel her and since then my mom has also felt her. Last night, Kelly put his head on my belly and let her kick him in the face for a while. (I guess it's better when it's his idea and not when I'm trying to get him up in the morning.) I wish I knew what it was like for other moms - how much their babies moved - because this little girl moves all the time. I can even feel her moving when I'm standing up and a lot of women have told me that they couldn't feel their babies while they were standing for a long time - longer than just 23 weeks. And whenever our midwife has tried to listen to her heartbeat it takes forever to find her because she moves so much...and she caused similar problems at our ultrasound appointmet.
Also...Last night, we sat in bed before going to sleep watching my belly move. LBH is finally big enough and strong enough that we can see her moving! I'm more and more excited to share her movements with more people, since we can feel her all over now and not just low in my abdomen. I was hoping that people would be able to feel her at Thanksgiving, but it just didn't happen. Now, though, people can feel her all the time. My little sister was the first one other than Kelly to feel her and since then my mom has also felt her. Last night, Kelly put his head on my belly and let her kick him in the face for a while. (I guess it's better when it's his idea and not when I'm trying to get him up in the morning.) I wish I knew what it was like for other moms - how much their babies moved - because this little girl moves all the time. I can even feel her moving when I'm standing up and a lot of women have told me that they couldn't feel their babies while they were standing for a long time - longer than just 23 weeks. And whenever our midwife has tried to listen to her heartbeat it takes forever to find her because she moves so much...and she caused similar problems at our ultrasound appointmet.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Different Choices
That's what I'm going to have every morning now: different choices I went through all of my clothes today, putting all of my normal-person clothes away where I won't be tempted to try them on any more and filling my closet and drawers with maternity clothes. A friend gave me a bunch of stuff when I first told everyone I was pregnant, but it's only been coming out of the box one piece at a time as I get bigger. Well, I guess there's no delaying the necessary at this point. I kept telling myself through the process how fun it will be next summer when I can pull out all these old clothes and wear them again - how it will be like I have a new wardrobe again. I don't think I'm fully convinced yet.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Fun!
I'm starting to think more and more about the nursery, the farther I get from the mid-point of my pregnancy. And tonight in my reveries I decided to look on line for cool stuff and I found this wesite with all sorts of cool stuff. It's good to gather ideas.
As a bonus, while I'm sitting here on the computer, I'm actually watching my belly bounce around as LBH is tossing and turning inside of me!
As a bonus, while I'm sitting here on the computer, I'm actually watching my belly bounce around as LBH is tossing and turning inside of me!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Kicking Dad in the Face
Yesterday, Kelly was a pain to wake up, so I crawled up on the bed next to his head and put my belly against his face. I think he thought I was cuddling with him in some weird way until I said, "OK, LBH, kick Daddy in the face." I hoped it would work, since we can both feel her moving all over now, but she wasn't too mobile that early in the morning, I guess (maybe she's like her father in that way already).
Kelly didn't find this episode nearly as funny as I did, by the way.
Kelly didn't find this episode nearly as funny as I did, by the way.
Monday, December 1, 2008
It's a girl!
We're spreading the word fast about this little girl of ours. It's really exciting to share the news with so many people. I sent out an email to everyone at my school and by noon I had about twenty or so congratulatory emails in response. I also wrote it on the board for students to see when they came in the room. Many of them didn't take the time to read it, thought - they just walked in the room and asked. They were excited to find out too! By sixth period, news had spread fast enough that I didn't even have to say anything. And, of course, all my students want me to name the baby after them, so I've set up a basket in my room for name suggestions. I've even collected a few already. I told the kids that I'd bring them all home and go over them with Kelly and we may or may not choose one out of the basket - but that we would only entertain serious suggestions...as in, we're not naming her "Optimus Prime" like my first period class suggested and we're not naming her "Kevin" or "Jeff" just because they (some of my students) are disappointed that she's not a boy.
In other news, I've been having more back pain lately, which is awesome. And the more back pain I have, the more my sciatic nerve hurts - but only on the left side. I'll be walking normal and all of a sudden have a horrendous pain behind my left hip toward my back that lasts for about 1.3 seconds. It's not enough to stop me, but it is definitely enough to catch my attention. I've noticed that it's worse when I go a few days without working out and my midwife suggested that I try doing more yoga. I have to admit that I've fallen off the yoga bandwagon since becoming pregnant, but not because of the pregnancy - because of night classes. However, my class is over and I start tomorrow with a new class so hopefully that will help too. Kelly and I have been joking a lot lately about how many new little body problems I have these days.
In other other news, I thought I would mention something else about our registries that I forgot to mention yesterday. We didn't register for many clothes or toys because we know a) that we'll get plenty of each because they're too hard to pass up when you're in the buying mode and b) that a lot of things that we list on the registry - especially clothes - won't be there when people go shopping. Also, we still plan to get as much as we can from freecycle or from friends who are finished using things and are looking for a good home for their things. If we're gifted anything via those sources, we'll be removing things from our registries.
And just a note for anyone who didn't know - everything gets heavier when you have to lift it higher than your shoulders. And when you lift something higher than your shoulders, it requires the use of stomach muscles. Which move to new places when you're knocked up. It's weird to pick up something that you know isn't heavy and have a hard time with it because everything is in a different place than it was a few weeks ago. I don't have a hard time carrying most things of a decent size and weight (and actually I really enjoy carrying things because it allows me to prove to myself that I'm still physically able to do normal human activities) but there are some things that are surprisingly difficult any more.
In other news, I've been having more back pain lately, which is awesome. And the more back pain I have, the more my sciatic nerve hurts - but only on the left side. I'll be walking normal and all of a sudden have a horrendous pain behind my left hip toward my back that lasts for about 1.3 seconds. It's not enough to stop me, but it is definitely enough to catch my attention. I've noticed that it's worse when I go a few days without working out and my midwife suggested that I try doing more yoga. I have to admit that I've fallen off the yoga bandwagon since becoming pregnant, but not because of the pregnancy - because of night classes. However, my class is over and I start tomorrow with a new class so hopefully that will help too. Kelly and I have been joking a lot lately about how many new little body problems I have these days.
In other other news, I thought I would mention something else about our registries that I forgot to mention yesterday. We didn't register for many clothes or toys because we know a) that we'll get plenty of each because they're too hard to pass up when you're in the buying mode and b) that a lot of things that we list on the registry - especially clothes - won't be there when people go shopping. Also, we still plan to get as much as we can from freecycle or from friends who are finished using things and are looking for a good home for their things. If we're gifted anything via those sources, we'll be removing things from our registries.
And just a note for anyone who didn't know - everything gets heavier when you have to lift it higher than your shoulders. And when you lift something higher than your shoulders, it requires the use of stomach muscles. Which move to new places when you're knocked up. It's weird to pick up something that you know isn't heavy and have a hard time with it because everything is in a different place than it was a few weeks ago. I don't have a hard time carrying most things of a decent size and weight (and actually I really enjoy carrying things because it allows me to prove to myself that I'm still physically able to do normal human activities) but there are some things that are surprisingly difficult any more.
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