projects of the moment

There is a series of sleeping-Daniel photos on his flickr album this week.

This is what I've been working on over the last couple of days:



When David's sister Becky was down a couple weeks ago, she let me try her Mei Tai carrier with Daniel. It rocked, so I made one; it's a baby carrier you can wear on your front or back, and the straps just tie around your waist and shoulders. I think it's Japanese. Daniel is okay with it, but he'd like a bit more wiggle room, so I'm going to make a second one that allows the bottom part to scrunch up so his legs can stick out more. The top part (where it curves) supports his head at the moment, and can be folded back later.

Also, I got tired of having to chunk cloth diapers in one pail and disposable wipes in a different one, so I made some cloth wipes out of flannel squares. They're a little more work than disposables; you have to (well, I choose to) dampen them and then stack them in an old Huggies wipes box for convenience later. But, they work well, and they're cute, and they're easier to use with cloth diapers. I think it would work to just put them in the wipes box straight out of the washer, skipping the drying and re-dampening steps. Clever.

cloth diapering and a video

This was Daniel's last day in his little plaid shirt and corduroy pants. He's too tall for it now...



He weighed in this morning at 15 pounds (our little chunk!), and last Wednesday he both rolled over and slept half the night for the first time. I say half the night; it was six hours, which is almost a full night really.

I just bought the next size of diapers also. We use Fuzzi Bunz and they're brilliant; so much better than traditional cloth, and even (in my opinion) nicer to use than disposables. They're soft and colorful and not at all gross to change (as diapers go) because you don't ever have to touch the contents. I have 12 and do a load of diapers about every day, sometimes every other day; for the next size, I bought 20 to cut back on that.

They're not cheap to buy; new, they run $18.95 apiece, plus a $3.99 insert per diaper. But, if you don't mind buying second-quality (and especially if you sew and can fix any small defects yourself) you can get good deals on those; just google "fuzzi bunz seconds". I caught a sale at kellyscloset.com and picked up two packages of 10 for $10 each, and then bought the inserts on sale somewhere else for $2 each. Mom, be proud of your bargain-hunting daughter.

Overall, we spend about as much on these as we would on disposables (counting wash water, but not electricity for the dryer because we use a clothesline)--so right now we just break even, but will start saving from the second baby on. Given my experiences with these, though, I'd use them even if they wouldn't save us money later--they're that nice.

new tricks

Daniel's trying hard to figure out this rolling over business. (Photo on his Flickr album.) He's in my lap right now having a very important conversation, punctuated by his other new trick of blowing raspberries. It's very cute. He blew his very first raspberry two days ago in the middle of a wedding.

Also, I made a new shirt.

just bein a baby

Nothing exciting here, except he's really cute. =)