The Long Morning

R had a rough morning today. I woke her up ten minutes early. She was snuggled under her quilt, refusing to be roused from her dreams. After a quick breakfast of oatmeal, I loaded her into the car and made the long drive to the doctor's offices at St. Mary's Hospital, where she was born.

We go to this place every two weeks. I set R up in a chair with a portable DVD player and let her zone out to Winnie the Pooh or Peter Pan while the docs ask me a million questions and review my insulin dosages. We're usually only there for an hour, but today was different. Today, Daddy showed up. Today, we were there for three hours. Today, we got to know that we are having R's little sister.



I have been looking forward to this ultrasound for so long. I knew it was a girl, I just knew it. This pregnancy is different than R's-- it's so much easier on me-- but still, the thought of "girl" rang clear and true in my mind, where "boy" didn't seem to fit. I had the same certainty with R.

The ultrasound tech left the room to confer with the doctor, and Senpai and I immediately whipped our phones out to send messages to family. R was getting antsy. She had no interest in her movies, was tired of being told to sit, and wanted nothing more than to be up on the exam table with Mommy.

My doctor came in and ran a second ultrasound to verify some results. A bit of calcium plaque was found in baby's heart, and she explained to me how that can be a Downs Syndrome marker, but there were no other signs of Downs, and otherwise healthy babies are born with it, too. I'm not worried.

We finally left the office after having been there for three long hours. R was out of sorts. She hadn't had the least bit of fun the entire morning, and had been told numerous times that she couldn't climb up on Mommy. Poor little lady. Senpai and I drove our separate cars to an Indian food buffet for lunch. R usually loves Indian food, but today she had no appetite. Senpai and I were reminded of her colic days when one of us had to hold her while the other one could eat, and then we'd switch off. Except there was no switching off today: the cupcake only had eyes for Mommy. I completely understood. She's used to having me available 24/7. She says "Up!" and I pick her up. She wants to climb on me and I let her climb on me. Today I was unavailable to her, and it was too much for her to bear. I didn't mind holding her during lunch, but it made things a little difficult that she couldn't decide what position she wanted to be in. A squirmy 20 mos old in one's lap does not make for easy eating.

Senpai went back to work after lunch, and R and I made the long drive back home. She had just fallen asleep when Oma called. "Poppy?" She sounded incredulous, "Poppy? What about Sage or Lavendar?" I had to chuckle to myself. Sage was our boy name. (If you don't know yet, R is Rosemary.) "I guess I'll just have to get used to it," she finished. Yup. :-D

One Week to Disney

There were so many accidents yesterday.

Getting tired of potty training posts yet? Sorry, it's all that's on my mind, therefore all I have to talk about. I gave Senpai a full play-by-play of what happened this morning when he called from work. I'm sure he was thrilled to hear about the minutia that accompanies getting a 20 month-old girl to stop wetting herself.

Yesterday almost had me putting R back in diapers today. There were so many accidents last night. She didn't want to sit on the potty when we'd tell her it was time, and she wouldn't signal that she had to go. This morning I enforced, "If you don't sit on the potty when Mommy asks you to, you have to wear a diaper." I watch her fluid intake. I have a pretty good idea of when she'll have to pee. For her to not sit on the potty when I know she's going to go, that now automatically means diaper. And she HATES wearing her diapers, which makes it a very good incentive. :-)

It's working so far this morning. I had to put a diaper on her once due to her unwillingness to sit on the potty first thing when she got up (I know her bladder is empty first thing in the morning because she goes in her diaper at night, but I'm looking ahead to when she won't be peeing in her sleep). When I went to the bathroom, she followed me in. I asked her if she wanted to sit on the potty now, and she did not refuse. Nothing happened, but I put her in training pants afterwards, simply because she had been a good girl for sitting on the potty when Mommy asked her to. Since I've put the fear of diapers in her this morning, she's signaled twice that she had to go, and each time gave results.

I don't know what will happen this afternoon. For some reason-- probably because I don't watch her as closely after Senpai comes home-- afternoons always yield accidents. Maybe I'll ask Senpai to cook dinner tonight and see if we can get better results.

We are flying to Disney World in one week. Hear that? ONE WEEK. What a way to put pressure on a mama. If I were sane, I would not be potty training my child in such a limited time span. But R is leading the way here. She is the one choosing training pants over diapers, and (usually) signals that she has to pee. Don't worry about poop. I haven't mentioned it before, but she hasn't been pooping in her diapers for months. So this is all her idea, and I'm just going along, trying to limit the number of wet underpants on the way. I'm so worried about the trip, though. If I have to put her in disposable diapers, maybe she won't hate them as much as her cloth ones, and maybe that will cause her to regress. If that does happen, it's quite possible that she'll go back to potty training mode once we get back home and try to put the cloth diapers on her again, but who knows. There are so many possibilities, so many projected outcomes, that I don't know which one to expect. And I certainly have no idea what to pack for the trip. Pull-ups? Training pants and Flip covers? Special training pants with a hidden PUL liner (Tinkle Time Trainers)? Everything?

Mommy has a lot to think about.

UPDATE: Today was accident free! We did need to put a diaper on her during dinner due to potty avoidance (and she peed in it), but I did not mop up any puddles today! I wonder how Storytime will go tomorrow... Do I dare take her out in just a Tinkle Time Trainer? Umm, I may not be that bold yet.

Potty Club

I know I need to reign myself in, but I'm so excited that R is taking closer and closer steps to being potty trained. Life around here is slowly morphing into something better as old patterns are being disrupted and new rituals creep in. She wears Gerber training pants at home during the day. No more daytime diapers unless we leave the house, and even that paradigm is starting to shift.

We drove to Storytime this morning-- Senpai (off from work), R, and I-- and I took R to the bathroom as soon as we arrived. Her diaper was still dry. She sat on the toilet but nothing happened, so I put her back in her diaper. At the end of Storytime, I saw her fidget with her pants. I should've taken her to the bathroom right away, but she was in the middle of coloring, and I decided to wait. I had told myself before leaving the house this morning that we would do potty trips before and after car rides, but before I knew it, we were in the car heading home and I had completely forgotten about my rule. Not surprisingly, her diaper was wet when we got home.

She peed on the big potty before lunch (that's another rule: potty before meals), and kept her panties dry throughout the meal. When it was time to go upstairs for her nap, she didn't want to sit on the potty (the last rule of Potty Club: potty before and after sleep), and she didn't want to put a diaper on either. I fastened a Flip cover with a stay-dry insert over her training pants. She took an hour to fall asleep. In that period, I tried putting her on the Bjorn potty that now resides in her bedroom. She sat on the potty for all of 5 seconds without doing anything, but I was thrilled that her diaper covered training pants were still dry.

To recap, but mostly to remind myself, the three rules of Potty Club are:
1. Do not talk about Potty Club.
2. Do not talk about Potty Club.
3. New babies go first.

No wait, it's more like this:
1. Potty before and after car rides.
2. Potty before meals.
3. Potty before and after sleep.


If I can remember to keep to these rules, R can be a dry-pantsed toddler. From there, it's only a matter of time before she'll start to initiate potty trips herself. I'm so excited! I'm really curious to know if her diaper will be dry when she wakes up from her nap. I highly doubt it, but, man, that would be awesome if it is! Yeah, reign your excitement in, Mommy.

Cloth Diapers: Cheaper Than You Think!

This post was supposed to be entered in a contest to win 12 free bumGenius diapers, but I delayed making the charts and adding the photos that were required, and I didn't meet the deadline. Everything was already written though, so I figured I might as well post it anyway. I hope this answers some common questions about the cost of cloth diapering. If you still have questions I didn't touch on, please leave a comment and I will do my best to answer them!


They're So Expensive....
It may seem like it. Up front, cloth diapers will cost you more than those huge packs of disposables that your friends and family will dump on you at your baby shower. I knew early on that I would be a cloth diapering momma, and I actually had to INSIST to my shower guests to please not buy me any disposable wipes or diapers. But you know what? If each of your shower guests gifts you with one cloth diaper (only a $20 or so investment on their part), that could be an amazing start to your collection!

I think I received around 7 diapers as gifts. I have 24 now (maybe... it's hard to count the exact number when some are always in the dirty bin). 24 - 7 = 17 FuzziBunz that I actually paid for. The going price for FuzziBunz One Size diapers is $19.95 per diaper. $19.95 x 17 = $339.15 (before tax). When you consider diapering a baby for two to three years, $339.15 is NOTHING. Wal-Mart's Parent's Choice diaper is $0.15 per diaper. If babies use approximately 8 diapers a day (That's being conservative. Newborns use many more, and you can't forget sick days), that's $438 a year, using the cheapest of the cheap disposables, and who knows how well THEY'LL absorb your baby's pee or block blowouts (I make no guarantees).

Who says you have to pay $339.15 for cloth anyway? That's using a popular brand with lots of bells and whistles, and buying them new (you can buy used cloth diapers on diaperswappers.com!). How does $200 sound? $200 is entirely possible when you choose the Econobum or Flip diapering systems. I bought a couple Flips and their disposable inserts for when we go on trips and they could not be easier to use, and are just as reliable as my trusted FuzziBunz. And remember, the cost is $200 TOTAL. The $438 I mentioned before was cheap disposables for ONE YEAR. You're a lucky parent if your baby only needs diapers for one year! Plus, I imagine that most parents want something better than "Parent's Choice" diapers, am I right? A pack of 222 Pampers will cost $48.49 when bought at Target. Enter that into our equation of 8 diapers a day for a year equals a whopping $637.80 a YEAR! How many parents do you know who buy their diapers from Target? Diaper a baby at that cost for three years and you are very close to spending $2,000, my friend. Cloth diapers look a lot cheaper now, don't they?


But... the Laundry!
I know, I was initially disgusted by the idea of throwing poop and pee in the washing machine, too. But even with disposables, your washing machine will not be immune to receiving loads of soiled clothes. When you have a baby, it all comes with the territory. As far as how many loads you have to do, that's entirely up to you. I wash every day and a half, mostly because I like having a big cushion of clean diapers between washes, and also because that's when my diaper pail fills up. If I wanted to, I could get another diaper pail and stretch my collection to wash every two and a half days. Or I could increase my collection to further lengthen the time between washings! For now, a day and a half is just fine for me, but you see that it doesn't have to be so often.

Whether you sign up for a cloth diaper service to wash all of your diapers, or whether you do it at home, I can't deny that you will be paying those extra charges on top of what you paid for your diapers. I can't speak for diaper services since I don't use one, but I'll reveal what it costs me to wash my diapers at home: $13 per month. The difference in my water bill from washing diapers every other day is $10. Once again, if you wash less often, that amount will be less. As far as the power used to run the washer and dryer... I have no idea. I make use of the "budget billing" option on my power bill where the company charges me the same amount every month regardless of what my actual usage was for the month, and then that amount gets recalculated twice yearly to keep up with my usage (we have an old, drafty house, and that prevents us from paying $300 a month to stay warm in the winter). Want to use less power? If you have enough diapers to do so, run up a clothesline and dry them naturally. What about detergent, you ask? I use a $9 box of Planet detergent every three months. That brings my total to $13 a month to wash diapers. O M G, that's $156 a year!! Haha, that's still chump change compared to disposables.


Potty Train Sooner!
I was hoping (and it's happening), that cloth diapers would help R potty train sooner than disposables. You hear of most disposable-diapered kids potty training around 3 years old; Huggies wants you buying those Pull-ups! I've sat R on the potty since she was 12 months old, and now, at 21 months, she's starting to "get it." She FEELS the wetness next to her skin and pulls at her diaper. Yay! Just in time before her sibling arrives. I won't lie, I've been hesitant to have two in cloth diapers, mostly because our stash is just big enough for one baby. I didn't want to have to buy MORE diapers when R wouldn't be in them for too much longer and we aren't having any more babies after #2. My goal is to have a seamless transition: R starts wearing training pants before baby is born, and baby gets all the diapers. Fingers crossed!


Recycle for the Next Kid!
What if you have two kids, two years apart? That's a probable 5 years of diapers. Do I need to run that through the calculations for using disposables? I shudder at the thought. Let's instead run our cloth diaper calculations (I'm excited about this!). Say you spent $339.15 on your collection, same as I did. Say you spend $13 a month on washing, same as I do. You don't have to buy any more diapers because you already have what you need for your next child. Guess what? It costs a little over $1,000 to cloth diaper with those parameters for FIVE YEARS. Remember how much it cost to put one baby in Pampers for three years? Imagine buying diapers for another kid on top of what you were buying for the firstborn, and lengthen that time. Doesn't look pretty, does it?


In conclusion, I am so happy I chose to cloth diaper R, and I'm thrilled to reuse my stash for my next baby. I'm even more happy to eventually sell my collection on diaperswappers.com. Ever heard of disposables making money for you? Haha! Too funny!

She Looks Like a Diabetic

Part of being a Mom (especially a pregnant Mom) is taking care of yourself. This is very important. It's also easier said than done. I just took a break from writing this to leave a message for my massage therapist; CHECK! The dilemma I am currently experiencing concerns my diabetes, of course. I see the Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) doctors every two weeks, and even scan and e-mail my blood sugar logs to them in the off week. I skip snacks for them, I poke my fingers ten times a day for them, and it's still not enough. "We can't sense any trends in these readings. Can you check your sugars more often? Can you do readings at 10pm, midnight, 3am, and 5am? How about a midday basal check?" I do what they ask because I have to. I can't think about how it's too much, all too much to do and keep track of. Daddy and Rosemary read their bedtime stories and I have to leave the room to check my number. I keep an eye on Rosemary eating pizza while leaning precariously off the side of the picnic bench at the birthday party, but my hands are occupied with the glucose meter. If I could, I would scream. As if it would make any difference.

My frustration also stems from the fact that I need to start Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) therapy. Minimed, the makers of the insulin pump I currently use, have a CGM system that is integrated with an insulin pump. They also have a CGM that is independent of a pump. My doctors don't like the Minimed CGM's though, because they are too prone to user error. And while it would be wonderful to have an integrated CGM pump, I can't get a new insulin pump until 3-4 months from now. Baby is due in 5 months. There is another manufacturer called Dexcom who makes CGM's, and my doctors like those ones, but it would be a separate device I would have to lug around in addition to my pump. My pockets will be bulging with a cell phone, insulin pump, and CGM device. Forget about wearing skirts, workout pants, or anything without pockets. Finally, on a very vain note, I'll have to start sticking my stomach again. I'm a bellydancer. I have a nice tummy (usually) that I like showing off. I used to stick my insulin pump infusion sets into my stomach, but I've since moved to my glutes. CGM sensors have only been tested and approved to work on the abdomen. Imagine me, post-baby, dancing on stage with this glaring on my stomach:


Image taken from Dexcom website.

And of course the audience won't care, it's not like I'm a professional dancer. But it's distracting. Who can think "Wow, what a lovely dance," when instead they're wondering, "What the heck is that thing?" Is that vain? Or am I just trying to retain some sense of self that is not glaringly, intrinsically wrapped around diabetes?

I'm letting this bother me too much. There's nothing I can do but smile and nod. Yes, I'll prick my fingers a bajillion times a day. Yes, I'll add another dangly thing off my body and carry around its separate monitor. No, I won't care.

I'm such a bad liar.

21 months and 5 months

R is 21 months old

She has a bread fetish. Today she snuck into the cabinet where we keep the bread, almost knocked over some glass dishes, but emerged victorious with a bag of hamburger buns. She then squeezed them up to her nose and took a deep breath, multiple times. Baby likes to huff bread.



She speaks amazing paragraphs of gibberish. I can't even replicate the sounds that come out of her lips. "Gibl gibl gibl gibl!" is as close as I can get in print. She'll say "bye" sometimes when we leave a store, but her words and use thereof are unpredictable. This morning when I wanted to change her out of her nighttime diaper, she avoided me, playing, until she finally realized that the diaper felt uncomfortable. She suddenly squatted as if trying to get away from the diaper, and said, "It is weh...T." That's a delayed but very strong T sound at the end there. The girl amazes me whenever she busts out sentences like that.

I made a dedicated effort towards potty training last week. We stayed home most of the time, R spent her waking hours in training pants, and, while I got better at catching her accidents, she has made no progress in telling me when she has to go. Storytime started back up this week, and R is back in diapers for the most part. Even while wearing the diapers, I know when she is peeing, but she still won't tell me. So I ask, "Do you have to go potty? Peepee or poopoo on the potty?" and I wait for one of these days when she will say yes.


5 months

I can't believe that there's only 5 months left in this pregnancy. I'm only 15 weeks pregnant-- which is nothing in the long run-- but counting down until the due date gives me 5 months to go. It seems so short. R's pregnancy felt like it would last forever, and then it didn't because she came early, but this pregnancy feels like it's going by so quick. Have I really been pregnant for 4 months already?

I'm still seeing the doctors every 2 weeks. I see them next week on Senpai's 30th birthday. I was really wishing they would do the ultrasound that day, but I asked and they insisted that we wait until I'm 18 weeks pregnant. Can't wait to find out if this baby is the little girl that I think she is, or a boy waiting to surprise me. I also can't wait to see more than just a little blob on the screen. We have one ultrasound pic already, taken at 6 weeks, and I haven't bothered to scan it yet because it doesn't look like anything. Show me my baby. I can't feel it move yet. Every two weeks I am reassured by hearing the heartbeats over the monitor, but I need more connection to this entity hidden inside me.