Soap Detergent

Ian has developed a rash and I have been having trouble getting the diapers clean. Usually they sun out really easy and lately the stains won't go away... So I decided to research about the soap. I purchase TIDE this time which is not the usual one... Well I was right, Tide is one of the worst soaps for diapers... here is a link to the list of safe soaps:

http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm

First Fleece Soaker

Actually, the first fleece soaker that I made didn't come out right. I didn't read the directions and I cut the fabric wrong. The fleece fabric only stretches one way and if you cut it wrong it won't stretch.

This is my second attempt, also made some mistakes but it is still wearable. At lest I got a lot of this fabric so I a going to try again.  I am a little afraid because I am not very good at sewing so part of it is getting good at sewing first, or in the process. I love this fleece soaker and I can't wait to make more...

Este pantaloncito de flanela se lo hice a Ian como covertura del pañal, es el primero que hago con la máquina de coser. Apenas estoy aprendiendo entonces heché a perder 2. Por lo menos compré bastante tela... No son difíciles de hacer, lo que pasa es que soy muy chapa con la máquina de coser... Lucre !!!!!!!!! ayuda !!!!!!

Soaker fever...

We got this new shorties on the mail yesterday. They are from Woolie Bottoms. Ther are made out of a recycled sweater. I love it! I got the soaker fever again...

So I immediately casted on for another pair of shorties this time made by me. I am using the Tiny Birds pattern.

But... I needed some instant gratification... so I bought some fleece and downloaded Katrina's pattern for a fleece soaker. 

I can't wait to finish them! It is starting to get really hot here and I would rather use soakers than plastic covers.

Cloth diaper review by Marlene

(left to right: Sugar Plum, Good Mama, ME Sandy, MEOS - Mother Easy One Size)

I have a small stash of diapers (only 16). I wash them every day. It doesn't bother me to do so, because I don't like to have too many dirty diapers accumulated anyways. I have tried several brands of diapers, not all of course because nowadays there are so many... but I wanted to review the ones I have tried.

KISSALUVS: This are the best fitted diapers for newborns in the size 0. However, I did not like the low rise fit when the baby gets bigger (size 1 and 2), also I the fabric gets soaked really fast. I had several of these in size 1 and got rid of them.

 

BUMGENIUS: I got the 2.0 version and did not like that they laundry directions were very different from my fitted diapers and I had to wash them separately. Plus they kept leaking on me, maybe in part because I do use diaper rash cream and they say you can't use diaper rash cream with these... I thought that was crazy, my baby's skin is more important to me than the diaper... so yeah, I am going to use diaper rash cream! Also I found it very annoying to have to velcro them in the back one by one when there were going be washed to avoid the velcro from sticking to the material. What a pain. I don't have time for that. However, a lot of people love these diapers in big part because they are cute looking and they don't need a cover, that is, they are all-in-one diapers. Also, did I mention these diapers leaked like crazy, oh yeah I did... and these were the bulkiest of all. 

SUGAR PLUM: These are velour diapers, I got them because I felt in love with the Good Mamas but wanted to try a less expensive velour diaper. This ones are only $19 or so. The material is stiffer and thicker than the Good Mamas, but they absorb a lot! I love them. The only flaw is the elastic. I have two of these and the elastic gave up on both diapers after a few months of use, on the back and on the legs. However, they are still going strong. They are not one size, but mine are large and they have lasted for a long time. 

ONE SIZE MOTHER EASY: I have 8 of these, they are good diapers, I like the fact that they don't stained as much if you get the ones with the liner. They were OK for a while but when my son got older he started to soak them too fast so I added an organic cotton insert. They work fine now and I like the fact that they are one size so my son can grow into them. 

MOTHER EASY SANDYS: I like the material better than the OSME, these have more material, I use the insert from ME and they absorb more than the other ones. However, this are not one size. But is OK because it has two snaps placement and I like that I can adjust the leg as well.

GOOD MAMAs: This is one the most expensive diaper there is but they are worth it, specially if you plan to use the diaper with several children. They are one size so they go from birth to toddler. the material is very soft and absorbent. This is the only one that can manage to be called a night diaper. However, they are very bulky.

CHINESE PREFOLDS: I wish I had tried them at first. I got chinese prefolds after all of the other diapers. The only flaw is that you need to wash them like a hundred times for them to get nice and fluffy. Biggest advantage of these diapers is that THEY ARE NOT BULKY so you don't have to go a size bigger on the clothing to accommodate the diaper space. They are the most absorbent of all. In fact, these are the only ones I use at night, I put two together and they can go all night for up to 10 hours, of course the night set up is very bulky but I don't care. I do buy big PJ's. During the day I like to use them when I want the clothing to fit nice and slim. 

IF I WERE TO BUY MY DIAPER STASH AGAIN, AFTER EVERYTHING I KNOW NOW, THAT I HAVE BEEN CLOTH DIAPERING FOR ONE YEAR I WOULD ONLY BUY....

TADA!

C H I N E S E   P R E F O L D S (not in picture) + Snappi 

They are super cheap, so you won't worry to get them stained, they do their job better than any other diaper and... they are slim! They are the winners!!!

My favorite cover is: MOTHER EASY Airflow, never got a leak with this, ever!!!! and of course wool covers. 

How do I make my diaper lotion? I use burp clothes instead of disposable wipes. I make my diaper lotion to spray on them using water, a drizzle of Pure Castle Soap from Trader Joe's and a few drops of Pure Tea Tree Oil. Both are very antiseptic and the tea tree oil give is a great smell. I love this lotion and I even use it as a hand sanitizer instead of the alcohol gel. 

Thinking about moving the baby to another room...

I have been reading about night time parenting in Dr. Sears' website (the only one I trust), there is some great advice, I might still try to move the crib to another room, or just use the crib more because almost every time baby and I sleep together in my bed and I wake up all sore from sleeping in nursing positions. He sometimes wakes up every hour and it is exhausting, that only happens when I forget to give him his tylenol medicine for teething, before going to bed, so it I think that is why. With the medicine he sleeps up to 3 hours the longest stretch and then every 2 hours he feeds. It has been a year of this and I am getting tired of it... It does not seem to get better... So that is why I started researching about sleeping... After giving many suggestions that might help, he constantly reminds people of the fact that you are still to be a parent at night, that is just the way it is, and I love this quote:

"Babies will wean and someday they will sleep through the night. This high maintenance stage of nighttime parenting will pass. The time in your arms, at your breast, and in your bed is a relatively short while in the life of a baby, yet the memories of love and availability last forever."

We made more shirts!!! / Hicimos mas camisetas!

We made more shirts. This time we made a Star Wars one, i-Carly, Lizzie McGuire and another Power Puff Girls shirt. I wish I had used a white shirt for the i-Carly one, it does not really look good over pink. Also, I didn't quite follow the directions for the back of the Star Wars shirt and I messed up the lettering. But overall I am very happy and so is R. 

The shirts were only $3 and cents at Michael's and the quality is really good. 

Hicimos más camisetas con transferencias y la plancha, hicimos una de Star Wars, una de Lizzie McGuire, i-Carly, y otra de las Power Puff Girls. Quedaron muy bien y a R le encantan. Las camisetas solo me costaron como $3 así que al final salió cada una como en $6. Super barato!

12 month check up / Cita del año

Good news: 

22 pounds and 30" long, for a steady 50% percentile. 

Not so good news: 

According to the doctor and my description of Ian's recent behaviors we are starting the "terrible two's" one year earlier :-(

Here is what he is doing:

He refuses to take naps and wants to be active all the time, exploring, etc.

He tantrums when we don't let him play with the computer or don't do what he wants.

He shakes his head "no".

Pulls EVERYTHING out of drawers and shelves.

She said it's going to hard, but I am just thanking God he is so smart and social little boy! Even though I feel exhausted most of the time... She thinks Ian is very smart judging by they way he interacts with his environment, but that he probably be a strong will type of personality. Great! just want I needed, another strong willed child!

She also gave me great advices, for the nap taking refusal to take him into a quiet room several times a day to lay down or rock him on a chair to try to get him to rest a little bit. And for night time to start giving him a "comfort item" like a blanket or a teddy for going to bed with the purpose of providing a transition item in the future. He rights now wakes up every two hours to nurse a little and goes back to sleep, this is not a hunger issue since he barely nurses it is just using the breast feeding as a way to go back to sleep when he wakes up. We all have deeper periods of sleep and lighter periods at night, so the idea is to provide an soothing item that can eventually replace the breast feeding. How come no one ever told me about this one before? I think it is a great idea!  

Buenas noticias, Ian pesó 22 libras y midió 30 pulgadas. Todo consistente con el promedio de 50%. Le conté a la pediatra todo lo que está haciendo y basado en eso, me dijo que él está entrando prematuramente en la etapa de los dos años. Esto son los cambios en su comportamiento: Se está reusando a tomar siestas durante el día, quiere andar explorando constantemente, me saca TODO de las gavetas, se enoja si no lo dejo jugar con la computadora y me hace un berrinche, y dice "no" con la cabeza cuando no quiere algo. También me dijo que seguramente va a ser un niño muy inteligente pero de voluntad firme y que seguramente será una etapa un poco dura... Felicidades! Es muy bueno pero también... agotador... pero Gracias a Dios!

One year milestones

Here with sister M, my baby turned one last weekend. He is wearing the shirt she gave him. (It's supposed to be a famous painting called "The caged bird") We had a great time eating cake just the family and grandma J. 

These are some milestones we have achieved at 12 months:

* Says da-da and ma-ma 

* Can walk holding furniture and walls

* Shake his head "no", specially when I offer him food :-( 

* Recognizes and loves everyone in the family and absolutely adores sister R. 

* Can turn the light on and off

Here are some very important milestones we still need to reach:

* Walking w/o holding anything

* Eating solids!!!! (yeah, this one is huge and so far he hates baby food)

* Sleeping through the night (please do it... sweetheart)

Tomorrow we will get a check up and I can't wait to know his weight and size, he seems huge to me... so at least the lack of solids is not really affecting him...

He did not have a clue what was going on on his birthday party. LOL So funny...

Este domingo pasado Ian cumplió un añito. Aquí está con su hermana M que le regalo la camiseta que lleva puesta, se supone que es una pintura famosa que se llama "el pájaro enjaulado". Ya se para agarrándose de los muebles, y dice da-da y ma-ma. Lo malo es que todavía no come comida, toda me la rechaza y dice que no con la cabeza, es gracioso pero a la vez me frustra un poco. También espero que duerma toda la noche pronto porque ya no aguanto las trasnochadas... Sin embargo le doy gracias a Dios de que está tan lindo,  tan gordito y tan saludable, mañana lo llevo a pesar a ver cuánto pesa...

Pobrecito mi chiquito no tenía ni idea de qué era lo que estaba pasando, JA JA JA

Power Puff girls shirt

R loves the Power Puff girls. I like getting her clothes with her favorite characters or shows... (I know... I spoil her...) but we could not find a PP girls shirt, so I found this iron ons at EBAy, she had a blast watching me make the shirt and she loved the fact that it was instant gratification... She said "I guess making shirts is way more easier than making dolls..." LOL 

Las Vegas was fun

We had so much in Las Vegas. We took lots of pictures. I post them in my Facebook page. Here are some of them. 

Do you know this feeling?

I haven't post for a while in part because we went on vacation but also because I messed up our router and I couldn't use the internet much. What happened is somehow my network became open and as I was trying to make it secure I created two networks which made the router really slow practically unusable. So, here I come very brave and self confident, with my all my computer sales person background behind, and try to fix  the problem by reseting the router. Sounded easy right? Wrong! The router went dead and no one could even see the networks anymore, great! Ever since then (about 2 weeks) I haven been visiting every single forum there is looking for a fix, I tried what they said and follow different post; turn off, turn on, wait 30 sec, turn off again, wait again, now turn on... I was going crazy and today I was ready to purchase a new router. I said to myself, this time I would buy the best router I can get, a MAC router (I love MAC). As I was researching for routers, I realized I paid $140 for the one I have, only a few months ago... So I thought: "If I could only fix this piece of c... cucumber" I could use the money to buy me a new digital camera... mmmm tempting....

So, I went to the LYNKYS support page thinking I would even pay a couple of twenties to get phone support. I found a live chat and started to tell them my problem. They told me what to do. I was not very hopeful, it was a bunch of more turn-on and off and wait directions, a bit different than the ones I had already tried... But still did, voila, I FIXED THE ROUTER !!!! I am so exited I could kiss that lady that gave me the directions... LOL 

I am so glad I didn't throw it away after all... 

Now I can start looking at cameras... Woohoo! The camera thing is all Zack's fault (Zack is my daughter's boyfriend), he came the other day and took some amazing pictures of Ian with his super duper $1,000 digital camera, when I saw the pictures he took, I made a sad face, sight, look at my humble CANNON Powershot A590 ($130), and almost threw it away right there on the spot... LOL Not seriously, I want to be abel to take great pictures of the baby so I am looking at different options.

Of course, I can't afford a $1,000 camera, but there are some awesome one out there for $250 or $300. I leaning towards Panasonic Lumix, I have read great reviews and my best friend had one she came to visit and I completely salivated over all the features it has... the quality of the zoom also was amazing... She was able to take the most fantastic pictures from the plane.

We will see now that I fixed the router... I might just be able to sell mine on Ebay and get a new one... Wooo hooo!

Bad News...

We have really bad news, we lost Lula on Friday at the Market Place... R cried the whole evening... She was really into a comic book that I got her to encourage her reading and she dropped the doll in the parking lot. I think I will make another one, this time we will probably just leave it at home. We are going on a family vacation the whole next week, so I will have plenty of car knitting time. I have many things I want to knit so I will probably bring a sock project too. 

Remember the sock disaster? I frogged that sock and started all over again. I just turned the heel and will be done soon. I will post a picture of it when it is finished. 

It will be so nice to get away for a while... I can't wait!

I told Martha I would take on her loosing weight challenge... but I decided I better not. It is very tempting but I just want to go on vacation and relax. I don't want to worry about my weight right now. I do love the idea of having "accountability friends" for loosing weight online, it is a great supporting/encouraging idea. So I am going to post my weight and photo, but I will do it on my own pace, no hurries... In the mean time I will be cheering everyone doing the challenge. Go ladies!!!   

Malas noticias! perdimos a Lula en el parqueo del Market Place el viernes pasado. R estaba tan triste, no paraba de llorar... dice que la dejó caer por estar leyendo unas tiras cómicas que le compré. Creo que voy a tratar de hacerle otra especialmente porque nos vamos mañana de vacaciones a las Vegas y voy a tener mucho tiempo para tejer en el carro. También voy a terminar las medias que comencé, mejor dicho las que estoy arreglando del otro día que quedaron grandes, las deshice y ya casi termino la primera, en cuanto la termine pongo una foto. 

Pensé en aceptar el reto de unas amigas por el internet de perder peso en dos meses, a ver quién pierde más, pero la verdad es que ahorita solo quiero relajarme, difrutar las vacaciones y no preocuparme por eso, voy a poner mi foto y el peso aquí en mi blog pero sin ponerme un plazo, simplemente voy a intentar hacerlo a mi propio ritmo... Me parece que es una fabulosa idea apoyarse por este medio para perder peso, la idea es que todos los miércoles pongas una foto de la váscula en tu blog para ver si has perdido peso... la que pierda más peso en dos meses se gana un premio... Qué lindo y qué motivante, poder inspirarse de esa manera para perder peso! 

Lula and underwear ready! / La muñeca esta lista!

LULA DOLL

from "And so to bed..." by Lucinda Guy

Made with: Rowan Cotton

Started on: February 26, 2009

Finished on: April 29, 2009

I loved this project! It makes me want to make more toys. I want to make the owl in this book as well. The directions were easy, and most of all R absolutely loves it! In fact she has been carrying it around even before the underwear was finished. Now, of course, I most start working on the dress and shoes...

Me encantó este proyecto, a R le encanta, de hecho desde hace días anda con la muñeca para arriba y para abajo aunque no la había terminado. Ahora tengo que empezar a trabajar en los zapatos y el vestido... ya que mi jefa es muy exigente...

Socks finished! / Terminé las medias de papi

ROCKIN' STRAT MEN'S SOCKS

by Whimsical Kniting Designs

Yarn: Schachenmayer Cotton

Yarn source: Elann

Started: 9/16/2008

Finished: 3/28/2009

It only took 7 months... wow! I finally finished my dad's socks. I am a bit upset that I had so much yarn left over because I would have love to make the leg longer. In fact I am not even sure my dad would wear socks this short. He is kind of picky. But that is the problem when knit socks cuff-down, it is almost impossible to guess how long can you make the leg with exactly half the amount of yarn you have. I did calculate a big margin because I wanted to make sure I was able to finish the second sock and I did not wanted to risk it. I think I could have made the leg at least 1" or 2 " longer. Oh well, I just hope my dad likes them!

Solo me tomó 7 meses terminar estas medias... wow! Por fin las terminé. Estoy un poco molesta de que me sobró bastante lana. Hice las medias cortas de pierna por miedo a que no me alcanzara y al final mas bien me sobró... pero bueno, mejor que sobre y no que falte. Lo importante es que a papi le gusten y que las use. No se si le vayan a gustar tan cortas, ojalá que sí. Escogí esta lana porque es fresca (de algodón) y además los colores son perfectos para usar con jeans que es lo que a él mas le gusta usar. 

Lula is almost ready... / Ya casi está lista Lula

I am so socked that R is loving this doll so much. She helped me stuff it and now I am working on her underwear. As soon as I wake up, R comes and ask me to start working on the doll project. Wow! talking about pressure... Kids really know how to bug you when they want something... On the other hand I love the fact that she is so exited. It is so nice to work when you know you have such an enthusiastic recipient.

No puedo creer que R esté tan emocionada con esta muñeca. Ella me ayudó a rellenarla y no me deja en paz para que la termine. Que jefa mas exigente! Por otro lado me gusta que esté tan emocionada porque me motiva a terminarle su muñeca.