This Is Not The Blog You're Looking For

Jedi mind tricks aside for now as they do not appear to be effective on small children. I'll try that again when they are teenagers.

I wanted to write my review of the diapers we've been trying. They are GroVia All In One diapers as pictured below:

I purchased two of these diapers from an excellent local shop, The Changing Table. I was able to contact one of the lovely ladies who runs the shop and meet with her in person to look at the diapers before buying. I was very excited to bring my first cloth diapers home and test them out on my 16 month old. I prepped them three times before putting one on my son and he went to sleep in that diaper. He woke up nearly 12 hours later without a leak and I was sold.

These diapers are made with organic cotton, with a booster sewn in and an extra snap-in booster for older babies and toddlers. They snap to adjust fit, and snap on the sides to close. I purchased biodegradable flushable liners for my diapers so that when poop happens I simply lift the liner out of the diaper and flush it down the toilet. No dunking and swishing required, and the diaper goes in the laundry.

GroVia has excellent customer service and their diapers come with a one year warranty. The downside is that these diapers are on the expensive side, so if you are on a budget like me you can either buy one or two diapers at a time until you have your stock, or save up and purchase one of the packages of diapers. Right now if you buy the 12 pack of these diapers on GroVia's website you get 10% off and free shipping.

The upside is that these diapers have an excellent resale value, and I mean EXCELLENT. I was hard pressed to find any used diapers on swaps for less than $20, and they sell fast. I'm completely confident that when we no longer need our diapers they will still be in good condition and I'll be making most of my investment back.

From what I've read, these diapers are comparable to Bummis Tots Bots diapers and BumGenius All In Ones, if you're considering it, check out some how-to videos on YouTube and see which ones you'd prefer.

Cleanliness is Next To...

I guess I know why I'm such a naughty girl, then.

I hate housework. Loathe it. Have I mentioned that before? I like having a clean house, but I would lose my mind if all I did during my waking hours was clean, and trust me that is what would have to be done for my house to be clean.

I think that children learn best by example in this case. My kids are lazy, though and they have started telling me to clean up after them. If they weren't sick right now I'd be making a lesson in chores. My daughter knocked over a pile of towels that I had just folded right out of the dryer and told me to pick them up. Since she spent all night vomiting and hasn't been able to eat anything today I let it slide just by telling her that she can't talk to me like that and that she needed to learn to clean up her own messes.

I think I'm too nice. I'm really a screwed up little person. I apologize to other people when no apology is needed and my oldest has started doing this. I drop something and he tells me he's sorry. Whoops.

In being too nice I've made my children a little selfish. They are highly demanding and equally lazy. If they don't want to do something it usually means a tantrum. I take on chores that could and should be accomplished by my preschoolers. It adds more stress for me, but I honestly don't think to make them do it until later. It is just habit for me to vacuum up the cereal they've smashed into my rug, and pick up the laundry they scatter everywhere, and put their toys away, and pick up their trash...

When I was a kid my dad was very strict. He had some pretty insane rules that to this day I don't really understand. We couldn't make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich using the wheat bread, cold cuts couldn't go on white bread. We had to use half a slice of cheese per sandwich. Yes, half, as in open a slice of Kraft Singles and fold it in half and put the other half back in the refrigerator. I remember a lot of shouting from the kitchen when this rule wasn't followed. We also weren't allowed more than one hot thing a day, no more than one bowl of cereal, and things such as Pop-tarts were strictly for my parents to eat and carried heavy punishment if we got into them. My husband remembers these rules, back when we were dating he helped me buy a mini-refrigerator that was kept in my bedroom closed and stocked with my food. I went from a size 0 to a size 4 after six months of dating him. My dad was always very frustrated with how quickly food was eaten, he refused to spend more than $100 a month on groceries for a family of five (but always had the latest computer technology as soon as it came out) and when I'd say I was hungry he'd take me to the kitchen cupboard and show me that there was still a can of condensed tomato soup in there. When he said the cupboards had to be bare before he'd buy more food he meant it.

So, its no wonder that I go to great lengths to keep food in my house and have a love of cooking and baking. We spend around $400 a month for groceries for our family of soon to be six, and even that amount limits options a great deal. But I refuse to have the kind of rules I grew up with. My kids eat more than cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, hot pockets and kool-aid. I'm lucky to have a daughter who loves fresh lettuce, carrots, broccoli, grapes and apples and boys who love fresh apples, oranges, grapes and strawberries by the barrel. My kids aren't likely to be anemic or have people spread rumors that they have an eating disorder. My kids are healthy, and providing them healthy options is worth the price.

I mentioned my dad and his rules on food to expand on why I think I've been raising lazy kids. My dad also had another rule called Spotless Day. Every Saturday in my childhood for as long as I can remember was Spotless Day, and my brothers and I were absolutely not allowed to do anything but clean, and clean until my dad said we could stop. I don't remember ever seeing my parents clean. I DO remember my dad throwing dishes, laundry, his shoes, and his empty bottles of Sunkist against the wall. I was raised feeling like a slave. I'm sure my brothers felt like that too. I'm sure my dad thought he was teaching us responsibility or something, but he did more harm than good. The message he sent was clear: When you're the adult you can be lazy and do what you want and eat what you want and make your kids do the housework for you. I was a very organized teenager, and I still have some OCD tendencies about cleaning, but I allow more clutter than I should simply because I hate cleaning so much and I feel guilty expecting someone else to do it for me. I barely even ask my husband to clean. My "plan" was always to grow up, get married, have kids and happily take care of my little family. I guess I thought I'd like cleaning more if I was doing it out of love instead of because I was forced to.

There's my problem. I think that part of me is so terrified that I'll do something to make my kids resent me that I have trouble finding balance. There has to be balance in raising kids, and it is a very delicate one. If I constantly ride them, they are sure to resent me for it, but if I am always doing everything for them they will never learn how to take care of themselves and be responsible adults.

If my dad is one extreme, my mother is the other. She rarely leaves her bed, and it has been that way for as long as I can remember. But she is my dad's polar opposite. She wants to baby everyone where my dad wants to push. My two brothers still live at home getting a free ride because my parents don't agree on where to draw the line. One of my brothers doesn't even know how to drive. He never goes anywhere, his life is the internet. He's even more of a hermit than my bedridden mother. I feel sad for them. Sure, free room and board, free internet and satellite television, free meals, free pain pills from my mom...but no life. At least one brother has a job. Hell, he makes more money than my husband by nearly half and has very little he's responsible for that requires his income. It kind of pisses me off actually. I think some financial obligations would do him a world of good. But I digress like my usual rabbit trailing self...

I guess the good thing is that I recognize behaviors in myself that could be setting my kids up for disaster. The hard thing is correcting them. For instance, I still apologize for things all the time, and so does my son. I don't even realize I am doing it until I notice him do it. Then I feel terrible for making him feel like the world is on his little shoulders and like every mistake that happens in front of him is somehow his fault. In my case it might be a good idea to remove the word "sorry" from my vocabulary for a while. I can go with the more formal "I apologize," when it is needed and bite my cheek every time I start with a "I'm so---" We'll see how that goes.

The Diaper Bag Conundrum

I've gone through a lot of diaper bags in the last four years. My first was a matching set of Eddie Bauer bags -  the daily tote and the weekender bag. Next I opted for a similar option for my second child and only daughter and bought a large and small version of a black bag with pink lining, and even tried one of those diaper bags that is made to double as a purse. Third we were gifted a diaper bag from Sears and bought another Eddie Bauer bag that was somewhere between the size of the small tote and the weekend bag.

The worst of these bags was the one from Sears. It looked big enough to hold things but the design was poor and nothing fit in the pockets, and its only closure was magnetic so when the bag toppled over, the contents spilled out. Second worst were the black and pink bags I bought for my daughter. They had NO pockets, just big totes with zipper tops. I always had to dig for what I wanted and frequently lost pacifiers through a hole that resulted when I tried to wash the bag thanks to all the milk that spilled in the bottom of it.

The Eddie Bauer bags were all the best, but none were great in my book. They hold up fairly well to a washing machine and they have pockets and adjustable straps, but the accessories are limited and they have the look of a bag made for a daddy, not a mommy.

So now that I've decided to cloth diaper the search is on for a good diaper bag. I did a Google search for bags made for cloth diapering parents and found some amazing handmade bags with matching wet bags for the dirty diapers and matching changing pads too. They're great because the whole thing can be thrown in the washing machine and look the same as it did before being washed. The downside is, of course, the price. They start at around $60 and go up from there. Since I'm the kind of gal who struggles to pay more than $20 for any single item, I'm pretty sure the handmade cloth diapering bags aren't for me.

I'm afraid for what I'm looking for I'm going to have to lay down more cash than I'd like to. I have a long list of must-haves for my bag:

Must be large enough to fit enough diapers for a newborn and toddler, plus wipes, a wet bag for dirty diapers, a nursing cover, snack bags for 3-4 children, a bottle, sippy cup and possible juice boxes for the older two, a change of clothes for the newborn, a light receiving blanket, burp cloths, a changing pad, a pacifier pod, items to keep children entertained (teethers, toy cars, crayons) and preferably my phone, wallet and keys.

Must have a secure closure such as a zipper, no ties or magnetic closures.

Must be machine washable.

Must be small enough to not look like I packed my entire house up and carry it over my shoulder.

Must have an adjustable shoulder strap.

Must not look hideous!

Extras I would love: changing pad, wipes case, wet bag, pacifier pod, insulated bottle holder, hook for keys, external pockets and a million dollars. (Had to throw that last one in there.)

Have you seen a bag like that? Me neither. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage finding a diaper bag that holds items for four children and doesn't require me to also carry a purse.

My thoughts were interrupted by my daughter throwing up all over her bed, so since it has been two hours since I started this blog and I've been scrubbing a mattress, I'll leave it at that.

Back to Reality

I enjoyed my weekend. I usually do, provided we have limited to no plans and I get to sleep in. Saturday I helped with a garage sale and made a whopping six dollars. I spent the rest of the day in bed. Sunday morning I was greeted with coffee, soon followed by French toast made on brown sugar cinnamon bread. Yum. French toast is one of two things my husband can really cook. (The other thing is chicken fried rice.)

Instead of cut flowers I requested a plant, so we went to Lowes and I picked out an orchid. We were going to continue our outing with happy hour at Sonic and a trip to the mall but unfortunately my poor little 16 month old started projectile vomiting from his car seat. We think he was just overheated, he was fine after getting cleaned up and having a nap.

So instead of another family outing I went to the nearest salon and had a pedicure, then came home and we all attempted a nap followed by hours of lounging in my bedroom playing some good old fashioned Nintendo. When we finally got around to dinner I got chicken and broccoli, and after dinner the kids went to bed and my husband made me oatmeal raisin cookies and put in Avatar. He cheated and gave me a massage during the movie, but I'm not complaining.

Now we're back to reality. The kids and I slept in a bit because as usual they went to bed at 8 and weren't all asleep until after midnight. Two of them woke up crying at 3:30 but were easily calmed for a change. First thing I did this morning was walk outside to turn off the sprinkler; I think my husband and I are going to have a system where he turns it on when he leaves for work and I turn it off when I get up. Our poor hydrangeas prefer the morning waterings and I had been forgetting until the afternoon.

I'm debating a trip to the grocery store soon. We need to get groceries and I'm nearly out of laundry detergent, but I've got a "I want to be sleeping still" headache and it is supposed to reach 95 degrees outside today. By the time I get dressed and have all the kids ready it will be lunch time and I might melt if I get in a hot vehicle today.

I need to get a lot done this week because I don't have much longer that I can put things off. I'd love to have my entire house spotless when baby #4 is born because I always wind up spending my precious postpartum days cleaning when I should be resting. The first few days after giving birth I am both exhausted and full of adrenaline that makes it easy to forget sleep and fold laundry instead. My goal is one area of the house a week being deep cleaned while also maintaining the rest of the house. That should take seven weeks. We'll see if I can manage it.

Of course, I can't start doing much today unless I get out and get that laundry detergent...

The Countdown Begins

I got my weekly e-mail update from the What To Expect website letting me know I'm 30 weeks pregnant. This made me realize that if this baby follows the trend of my previous three he will be born in 7 or 8 weeks from now. Four paydays from now I'll probably have a newborn baby. Four paydays.

The four paydays is the part where I started really feeling a little stressed. There's so much to do here at home, lots of "little things" I need to buy, bags to prepare, a babysitter to locate for my other three kids.

Thankfully my list of absolute must-haves before the baby comes home isn't too long:

10-12 newborn cloth diapers
baby washcloths
wet bags to store diapers before washing
flushable inserts for the cloth diapers
extra laundry detergent and stain remover
paper plates and cups and plastic cutlery (so I don't have to do dishes right away)
easy fix meals and snacks
D batteries for the swing and bouncer, AA batteries for my breast pump (provided I can find it and it still works)
overlarge, lightweight blankets (double as nursing covers)
extra crib sheets and pack n play sheets
a Boppy pillow and covers
summer clothes for a newborn

I'm sure I'll think of more to add to that list, but those are the basic essentials to ensure I can be as much of a hermit as possible after bringing the new baby home. I think the most expensive thing will be the diapers, which is why I was hoping to find some to add to a baby registry. Unfortunately I don't expect to get much support from anyone about cloth diapering, and our usual gifts are packages of disposables. We'll probably use both.

Fortunately there are several things on my list I can pick up at my local Dollar Tree, and if I'm lucky I'll be able to sell some things at a garage sale this weekend. We have a ton of newborn boy clothes for a winter baby that I'm hoping I can turn into a decent stash of cloth diapers.

Now if this nesting will kick into full gear I can get my house clean. I hope.

Yes, Another Cranky Day

I have absolutely no, and I mean zero, patience today. None. Not a single bit.

Every little bit of cleaning I got done yesterday has been undone. Six, count them, six, loads of laundry, about half of which I had managed to fold has been trampled by kids who think it is funny to make me mad this way even though they are punished for it every time.

Every bit of food and drink I have provided has been thrown or spilled. I have heard "mom" every thirty seconds since I got up. The 16 month old has been hitting today, so the older two are screaming a lot and hitting too.

I put a sign on my front door that says my kids are sick and not to disturb because it is days like today when the neighbor boy and his grandmother will come asking to play. They never come on a day when my kids aren't screaming, my house is clean and everyone is dressed in something other than pajamas. I am not going to even bother getting out of my robe today, and yes I know it is almost lunchtime.

I'm mainly irritable because I am overtired and in pain almost from head to toe. Even 12 hours in bed for me only equates to about 5 hours of actual sleep. Every time something wakes me up it is another hour before I can go back to sleep, longer if I am awake because of a leg cramp or heartburn.

I had a bowl of cereal earlier. I don't know why I subject myself to that kind of pain. Every time I eat cereal and milk I have a severe toothache in the first bite that doesn't go away until I take the kind of painkillers that make me sleepy, and then it is just a dull throb until I eat or drink something again. Need another root canal, yes I do. What the dentists don't tell you when you go in for thousands of dollars of work is that you'll be back in a year when that tooth you got filled develops an abscess. They don't tell you that half the teeth you had work done on will need to be fixed again soon or that thanks to the teeth you had pulled the rest of your teeth have to work harder and thus decay faster.

If you haven't guessed, I have bad teeth. It goes all the way back to infancy and the photographic evidence I have that I was given Pepsi in my baby bottles. The first time I ever sat in a dentist's chair I was 17 years old and I was told I had significant decay in over half my teeth. I don't know what the point of going to that appointment even was because it isn't like anyone was going to pay for me to go back and get any of them fixed. No insurance anyway. My parents were strict about a lot of weird things like how many sandwiches we were allowed to eat in a day, but probably the strangest thing was that I am pretty sure all personal hygiene products had to be bought with my allowance. Regrettably I usually bought clothes or cosmetics and ignored the need for a toothbrush. My smile was falling apart, but it didn't hurt yet. Fast forward to the last five years or so when I've actually been fired from a job because I was bedridden from the pain. I got that lovely "We're letting you go," phone call when I was hopped up on painkillers and had a mouth full of gauze an hour after having my first extraction and pulpectomy. That hurt more thanks to the $700 cash it cost me.

In some ways you get used to a toothache, and the only time it really becomes unbearable is when you bite into something hot/cold/crunchy/hard/sticky and irritate an inflamed nerve. Which some days is basically every time you eat. Days like today make me wish I had all my teeth pulled, but then again who wants to be in dentures before the age of 30? I can't afford a root canal on every tooth, and there is certainly no way I could afford tooth implants. So what happens instead? I wind up making an emergency trip to the dentist when the pain becomes a constant and I beg them to pull the tooth because an extraction is the cheapest option even if it does cost me $400.

Bottom line, folks, is take care of your teeth. Buy your kids a toothbrush for goodness sake and force them to use it. Don't skip routine dental check-ups, they are much less money than root canals. Unless of course you want to know what it feels like to be in so much pain you are willing to shove the blade of an ice skate into your mouth to knock out the offending tooth. (Ever seen Castaway?)

So yeah, I'm cranky today. And tired. And pissed off in general with my past self for not buying a damn toothbrush.

Why Do I Even Bother?

I am seriously at a loss to understand how any mother out there keeps a clean house. Seriously. It is a real hit on my self esteem every time I walk into someone else's immaculate house and then come home to mine.

We have a lot of crap. That's probably part of it. People always seem to see us as that needy family that needs all of the junk that they couldn't sell in their last garage sale. We're the family that gets boxes of random expired cans of pie filling when someone else cleans out their pantry. We get hand-me-down clothes for our kids that are usually ratty and look like they were bought in 1970, not to mention that they don't fit. A visit to my husband's grandmother's house no matter how short always results in her shoving as much stuff on us as possible. The woman has even given my husband his grandpa's old underwear. Granted, the rest of the family tends to drop things off at grandma's house to give to us needy people. Part of being the black sheep and being married to someone who doesn't know how to control the info train means everyone and their dog knows every time we are low on money. They dare not actually help by sending money because, as I said, we are the black sheep and us heathens might spend their money on all that booze we're always drinking when we neglect our kids. We even get hand-me-downs as gifts, I suspect maybe because they worry that if they gave us something new we'd take it back to the store to exchange for something they wouldn't approve of us having.

We don't often have someone give us something new or useful. I always appreciate it when someone drops by and happens to have grabbed some dish detergent or baby shampoo at their last trip to the store, but I don't carry the same sentiment when we get expired food and items that look like they came out of the trash. To me it says a lot about what a person thinks of you if they use you as their own personal dumping spot for things they no longer want and expect you to be over the moon with their generosity. We're not so hard off that we can benefit from that expired pie filling any more than you could, and if you think the homeless need it shame on you. Throw away the outdated garbage, recycle the cans and donate the five cents to your local rescue mission if you really want to be helpful.

Of course I blame myself for being too nice when it comes to people like my husband's grandma pressing a box of grandpa's old clothes on us as we're trying to make an exit. At the time I'm thinking just take it and get the hell out of there and we can drop it by Goodwill later, but instead it sits in our car until we need the space, and then it comes in the house where the kids decide they want to play with the empty box. Then it winds up all over the floor and eventually in the laundry and the cycle begins again.

Between the mountain of laundry, broken toys and pantry full of things I can't make a meal out of I am overwhelmed. Every time I make a dent in one thing the others back up. My little natural disasters do their fair share to add to my stress. Every day my four year old argues with me over why he has to pick up the half eaten bowl of cereal that he left spilled on my floor, and during that argument my other kids are wreaking havoc somewhere else themselves.

I've considered buying those evil leashes you see attached to toddlers out in crowds. I'd use them at home and have them anchored into the wall to restrict my kids each to an area of three square feet. That'd probably be frowned upon, though.

As I write this my 16 month old is thrashing around and screaming at my feet because I have four times now removed him from digging in the garbage can. He had a solid two hour long tantrum this morning too, all I coul
d figure was that he wanted me to know that he hated anything and everything. Now he's screaming his displeasure that the netbook has a more prominent place on my lap than he does. He has gotten into a routine lately of waking at 2:00 in the morning just to scream. It makes me in part wish that pregnancy lasted a lot longer so I would have fully grown children before I had to be reminded again how annoying newborn babies are when you're getting two hours of sleep, but then the baby in my belly was laying on a nerve and I wasn't able to get back to sleep anyway so I decided he might as well be born when he's due.

I don't hate kids, I swear. I just need a break. Desperately. I need to get away from my kids AND out of my house and have someone else do the cooking and cleaning and take care of me for a change, and I very much need for my house to be clean when I wake up return from my dream vacation. I need to go a day without earsplitting screams, multiple requests for junk food, changing diapers, wiping noses, settling fights over toys, sticky fingerprints all over my things and an audience every time I use the bathroom. I'd like all of that without the judgement of other moms who have had the audacity to call me unfit. Not all of us have the sun shining out of our asses, some of us only feel that way with the aid of tequila and others would say that makes them better than us. Well they can bite me.

Now that I've wasted an hour writing an essentially useless blog and have one kid playing The Hamster Dance over and over while the other is poking his hamster with a stick, I think I'll log off for a while and save a hamster's life.