But what I'm really lacking is time.
The girl is, as I type, napping in her crib in her own room.
This is a small miracle (as she normally won't go to sleep anywhere but our bed), and I'm taking advantage of it to make a blog entry. I should be doing something productive, like cleaning, or planning for my post-contract life (assuming I don't find another job before this one is up), or washing diapers, or, or, or...
Let's just say that there's a long list of things I need to do.
Nothing pressing, except perhaps cleaning (I have plenty of clean diapers, planning can be done later, and so on and so forth). But I feel vaguely guilty about sitting here, well, wasting this time where I'm not trapped in the bed with her, wishing I could get up and do something other than stand sentinel over a sleeping child.
I'm adjusting to being a mother of a toddler now. Sort of. It still feels weird to see a little girl where my baby should be. And, oy, the walking and running!
On the plus side, the Toddler Chasing Weight Loss Program really does work.
Falling off the fluff wagon
So a very long time ago--almost a year now--when my child was stuck in Size 2 diapers (one of the sizes you can't get bulk) and we were keeping our budget belt very tight indeed so that I could stay at home as long as possible, we switched to using cloth diapers. I got some prefolds and some fitteds, and haunted the various consignment shops for covers, and for several months, this did us just fine. I spent hours lurking on Diaper Pin's boards, practiced my snappi technique, and developed strong opinions regarding the beauty of the bikini twist fold. I also developed a mild case of yearning to try out some of the fancier options available in diaperland.
Then came December.
In December, I went back to work. (Also of note: in December, the girl finally moved up to a size 3, which you can get in bulk, which we do for daycare.)
In December, I broke down and started buying some of the aforementioned fancy diapers. Now, there's a strong secondhand market for good quality pocket diapers and AIOs (all-in-ones), and a large section of that market is on eBay. Which I can access from work.
You can probably see where this is going.
By the time I determined I was through buying (at least for this size), I had enough of the fancy ones to last me a couple weeks. Sure, I would have occasional lapses (like when the BumGenius colors were released, and I pounced as soon as I woke up that morning, or when I decided we needed some velcro-based hemp diapers for night time, now that we had a squirmy toddler), but for the most part, I was very good about not buying diapers for several months.
Very good.
I even stopped lurking at the Pin, for clearly, I was through. No more diapers until next size up, if we're not potty trained by then.
The other day I was bored and at home and had nothing better to do than see what was new at the Pin.
Swaddlebees has come out with an AIO.
I bought two.
There's a reason why I called this place The Spendthrift's Progress, and not the Spendthrift's Sudden and Incredible Ability to Save Her Pennys.
(Why, yes, there were no posts for the month of June. June was a nightmare of daycare plagues. Let us speak of it no more.)
My breasts are going to hate me for this.
Just in time for the Memorial Day Weekend, the Scrapepenny household got hit hard by a stomach bug. Scrapepenny herself was struck down at work, thus removing any dignity she may have once possessed. As the girl was hit a full day before the rest of us, the boy was at home with her at the time, and Scrapepenny had to wait for a lull in his own personal pukefest before he could drive the 20 or so miles to her office and fetch her.
The household's current disinclination towards solids has lead to a remarkable relapse in the nursing department. The last 48 hours have been all boobie, all the time, with no signs of letting up. While at 13 months, we still nurse several times daily, the boob hasn't been a primary food source for months. Heck, we've even stopped with the reverse cycling. Still, they've been doing their level best to keep up with demand.
And holy mother of something, I am dreading the first day back and its ten hours of cold turkey no nursing.
Budget blahs and busy bees.
Toddlers, it turns out, are a much more time-consuming business than babies. Even when the toddler isn't quite to the actual toddling stage yet. Who knew? (Well, fine, anyone who has ever had them around. But there should still be some sort of advanced warning system. Maybe air raid sirens.)
We did, as I feared when I started working again, fall back into the old trap of failing to budget. Did I mention that? I probably did. It's easy to know better, hard to actually put that knowledge to good use. Cooking happens more rarely than it ought to, and while we're better at bringing our lunch to work than we were way back in the days Before Baby, it's still not happening every single day.
And, honestly, if we weren't paying so much for daycare, we'd be doing just fine. I mean, we're paying a new compact car a year for care. One of the nice ones. With actual options. We're not talking base model Kia here. Sadly, we're still at least a year and a half away from a slot in our preferred (cheaper and on campus) daycare.
We're not doing horribly, but we're not stashing anything into savings, and we really need to be doing that.
I keep saying we need to sit down and draw something up, but we've been too busy/tired/sick over the last month to do it.
Sigh.
This turning into a toddler thing is happening so quickly. More words, more will, and mood swings that leave a body with whiplash.
Right now, she's tearing Puffs Plus with Lotion into tiny pieces and protesting my refusal to let her eat the power cable for my laptop. She has what looks like a small army of molars invading her mouth, and the constant pain appears to be pushing any tantrum up to 11. I keep reminding myself that she has a finite number of teeth.
The things you find on the internet...
I've been bra shopping. Well, bra window-shopping. Well, okay, pointing and laughing at all the bras available in my size range so as to not cry, because damn, those are some seriously ugly pieces of clothing.
I have not, however, been looking at nursing bras, as the whole point of this bra quest is find Bras For Work. Well, not looking at them on purpose. The occasional nursing bra has crossed my path. Only one, however, has stood out, but my, does it ever stand out.
I'm so very glad I didn't know this bra existed when I was first stocking my nursing wardrobe. So very, very glad. Because I find it appalling, which means I also find it kind of appealing, which means it would have made its way into my wardrobe.
The
Goddess 1001: turning boobs into stimulating toys for the ultimate baby dining experience.
It brings new meaning to the
Buffy the Vampire Slayer quote about Happy Meals with legs. Or at least a new part of the anatomy...
In non-diaper news...
I've claimed since the girl was old enough to have a personality evident to people besides her parents that babies are really just tiny frat boys. This claim was based on several things, almost all of them related to breasts, drinking, and vomit.
The girl has just added more weight to the claim.
A few minutes ago, after we finished nursing, she reached around and grabbed my discarded bra.
Which she proceeded to put on her head.
While laughing as if it was the funniest thing EVER.
Frat boys.
Teeny-tiny frat boys.
Things I don't get about cloth diapers
Now that we've been cloth diapering for, oh, 8 or so months, I find that there are still some aspects of it that baffle the heck out of me:
- The popularity of snaps over aplix. Especially for older babies/toddlers. Who squirm. So you can't snap their diapers. Not without at least one person per flailing limb and possibly horse tranquilizers. Okay, so perhaps if you let them run around in just a diaper, they'll be more likely to pull it off if it uses aplix than if it uses snaps, but dude, that's what pants are for, and I don't see the point of a diaper that's harder to get off if it means you can't get the damn things on. Also? Snaps aren't all that much trimmer. No, seriously. They're not.
Yes, snaps are tougher and hold up better in the wash, but you know, I only have one kid. I only plan on having one kid. A moderate increase in diaper lifespan doesn't really matter to me, as I'm not saving these for future siblings. And even if I were, I'd still want aplix on everything, as the wear and tear of the wash has nothing on the wear and tear that comes from struggling to apply diaper to bottom when the bottom would rather be anywhere but the changing table.
Oh, and aplix diapers fit better. Especially if your weirdo baby is always mysteriously in-between snap settings.
- Prints. They leak, they wick, they're hidden under clothing unless you believe in underwear as outerwear for the under-twos, and yet, despite all of the above, despite the fact that my existing prints are in the back of the drawer for emergency use only, I've got a yearning to pick up a couple more of the damn things. I've spotted a Happy Heiny's on eBay that matches my mei tai...
- The sizing of certain brands of fleece and wool covers. Which were clearly designed for a baby with no body fat and lead for bones, seeing as my skinny little thing outgrew the size D (22-27 lbs) in the fleece ones before she hit 15 lbs and is a bit big for the size C (18-22 lbs) in the wool ones at her current whopping 17 lbs. These are two different brands I'm talking about, too. I'd understand it a bit better were it just the one.
I still love cloth diapering. I think that probably baffles me more than anything. I never pictured myself as the kind of person who'd find washing diapers to be a peaceful and soothing task she looks forward to for most of the week. Hell, in college, my mission was to have enough clothing so that I only had to do laundry once a quarter. And yet, here I am, contemplating making some sort of excuse to do a load tonight, even though there really aren't enough dirties to justify it...
It's a sickness.
I even get a little sad when I think about potty training, because then, no more diapers.
Wanted: One Brain
I swear, that's all I need. Just one.
So long as it's functional, of course.
After almost four months back in the work saddle, I think mine's gone off or been misplaced.
When I was, for all intents and purposes, a SAHM, I read a lot. Thick, meaty texts on the politics of breastfeeding, the economics of family, class and money in American society, blah blah blah.
When I started working again, my reading grew a little lighter. Terry Pratchett on the bus, maybe the occasional Neil Gaiman, or a nice Rucka thriller.
After a few weeks, it grew lighter still. A comic book here and there. Maybe a catalogue. Better still, a catalogue of comic books! Not that I'm keeping up with the ones I do buy.
It's hard to focus on anything deeper than
Moo, Baa, La La La these days, and that'd probably be hard, too, if I didn't have the damn thing memorized. Hell, even a good bodice ripper requires more effort than I'm willing to put forth.
I blame working.
I've felt myself sliding into stupidity since I started.
Sure, I FEEL more intellectually stimulated, but that's just because I'm around humans who know more than three words and aren't afraid to use them to shoot the poop. And I'm busy doing what I'm paid to do and doing it well, which makes me feel no end of clever about 60% of the time, but in reality probably takes less in the way of brainpower than budgeting and cooking did, and certainly takes less than parenting an active, curious baby.
Maybe it leaked out my ear.
My brain, that is.
The one I swear I used to have.
