Toddlers and Detergent

I enjoy reading (a few) Works for Me Wednesday posts, sponsered by Rocks in my Dryer. I've laughed at that name, but was a little taken aback to find blocks in my washer. I guess that is what happens when a toddler who loves to "put in" sees you putting dirty laundry into a hamper.

Has anyone tried Charlie's Soap? I had to try it when I read that they'd done a test using cotton prefolds to see if it built up over washings. I *think* I like it. You only use 1 TBSP per load, so my bag of 80 washings is smaller than a first grader's lunch sack. My diapers are softer than ever and my wash seems nice and clean. I think this would be a great detergent for an apartment dweller or elderly person because you need so little of it.

(For cloth diaper users.)
Unfortunately, diapers seem to be smelling like ammonia really quickly. I have changed my wash cycle from a hot wash with an additional detergent-free hot cycle to a hot wash with an additional detergent-free cold cycle, so that could change things. Also, the weather has been super-duper-hot and humid, which would also encourage the ammonia reaction. I also have been using the full 1 TBSP of detergent though I had previously used about 1/4 the recommended amount of detergent. 1/4 TBSP just seems like so little to me, I can't quite believe that it would actually clean anything! Any thoughts?

Mourning

I live on a busy street, so I ignored the sirens this morning despite their apparent proximity. I noticed them, because John did, and said, "Do you hear the fire truck?" We frequently have stopped traffic in front of our house; I'm surprised there aren't more rear end collisions.

When I went to get the mail around lunch time I noticed that soberly-dressed young men were around. Did any of my neighbors need a security clearance, I wondered?

I took John next door to return the key I'd been using to feed the cats while my neighbors were on vacation and learned the news. Their almost six-month-old daughter died last night, apparently of SIDS. The mother was holding her son, the daughter's twin, as her own mother told me the tragic news.

I cannot begin to comprehend. I cannot begin to understand. I came home, sat down in the arm chair to nurse my own son, and prayed to the God who does.

Cooking follow-up

The 3-meals in one night went really well yesterday. John napped late (and everytime I dropped a dish I prayed he would stay asleep because his room is right next to the kitchen) so he was only awake for about 5 minutes of the hour-long process last night.

The three meals took an hour total instead of the thirty minutes I had predicted. This was partially due to a last minute menu change when I realized I needed to use some chard so I made an onion-chard-potato fritatta (requiring onion and chard to be chopped and cooked) instead of a zucchini-potato fritatta for which all the ingredients were prepared.

I think I'll try to do this frequently in the future. I like cooking, but not everynight. I would do some things differently, though. I should have had an afternoon snack before starting because I hadn't eaten for four hours. I also should have read the recipes beforehand.

The pizza was great (we ate it last night). Tonight will be fritatta with bread and maybe I'll make some cottage cheese dip for the broccoli and zucchini we got in our boxed CSA share today. Still - no oven! Tomorrow will be squash custard. I'll cook this week's chard share to go with it on the stove, which will take about 10 minutes.

You know you're doing better when...

... your toddler brings you some dust he's collected and instead of moaning, "What a horrible housekeepr I am!" you get out the vacuum.

... your vacuum eats a toddler sock and instead of crying you say, "What good suction this vacuum has!"

Good baby, Part II

We went in for our second U/S on Tuesday because they couldn't see the spine properly at the first one. This time we had a more experienced technician who, it seemed, believed in "Aerobic U/S" - she had me flipping over and over again to try to get the baby to move. They can tell that there aren't any funny things growing out of the spine that shouldn't be there, but they have not been able to get a picture of the full spine. We'll talk with the midwife in July about whether to get another U/S done.

Dan was at the U/S with John. John did pretty well, although he *really* wanted to touch some buttons. As the technician tried and tried to no avail to get the baby to move out of her preferred position, the baby just kicked and pulled to stay in place.

"Is your son pretty mellow? He seems like a good boy," the technician said.

"Definitely."

"Good - because you're going to have your hands full with this one. This girl is stubborn!"

Why humidity is great and other musings

I haven't exactly been on top of the laundry lately - instead, the laundry has been on top of the floor, so when Dan went to put on a pair of pants he had balled up the night before and added a balled up shirt, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. "You aren't going to wear that!!! It's all wrinkled!" I said.

"No problem, with the humidity, it'll look nice by the time I leave."

It did. His co-workers probably think I iron his t-shirts.

We got back from camping/hiking on Saturday and I was totally bushed, but didn't sleep in the car. Dan napped when we got home but John would have nothing to do with napping (he'd slept in the car) so I stayed awake. I had a fun time camping but definitely need a better pad before going again. I woke up every 30-45 minutes all night. John did a great job falling to sleep and only woke up once during the night. He loved climbing on the rocks - if this trend continues, he'll be in gymnastics and rockclimbing by age 3.

Because of that bad night of sleep followed by a couple more, I've been pretty exhausted this week and have been having bad mood swings. I checked out a book about cooking ahead and think I'll cook two pizzas, a frittata, and a squash custard tonight as long as I've got the oven on. I cooked the zucchini and potatoes to go in the frittata on Wednesday afternoon while making that supper, so the prep time for what will easily be three-four meals plus leftovers today should be about 30 minutes tops.

As frustrating as this week was, though, I shouldn't complain. Many women are this exhausted all first trimester but, besides this week, I've felt extremely energetic. I still was able to get dinner on the table every night - though we tried to go out last night, the wait was going to be 40 minutes so we came home, cut up an apple and two leftover chicken breasts, added yoghurt-mayo-mustard sauce with walnuts and dried dates on it, and put all that over tons of lettuce. Add some of the morning's fresh bread, and we had finished eating before we would have been seated.

Last night John woke up at 5 am and I tried to nurse him, but my milk has dropped a lot and he tends to chew more than nurse now (can you say ouch???). He was frustrated and screaming every few minutes, so Dan got him up and gave him a cup of cow's milk. That calmed him down and he went back to sleep and slept in til 9:30 am!!! I even woke up on my own this morning instead of to baby hollering. Maybe now I'll be able to get out of my exhausted funk.

We're going camping!

Back tomorrow night! Maybe we'll go for longer later this summer if it goes well!

16 months

I guess John turned 16 months yesterday. What a fun age! I find myself continually surprised at what he is doing and laughing like crazy at his antics.

I bought John a set of 5 lacrosse balls last week and he enjoyed watching me toss two of them between my hands, so I asked Dan to show him juggling. Now John frequently brings me three balls, not at all deterred by the fact that one of them always ends up falling down. This morning, one fell in my room. I went to the kitchen to start making breakfast while John looked for it. I came back but couldn't see him and did a quick scan of the house. Where was that kid? A more thorough scan of the house revealed two little feet peeking out from under the quilt - he had sat down under the bed with the balls!

We have a puzzle of different types of cars and emergency vehicles. I've made up different noises for each of them, so John loves bringing me pieces so I'll make the noises. The motorcycle says, "Vroooom Vroooom." On Tuesday, John started making the motorcycle noise every time he picked it up - "ooom, ooom" - with his lower lip sticking out. It is so cute! As I was making dinner last night, he brought me his toy airplane (which has three large wheels) and pushed it along my leg while saying, "oooom, ooooom".

When we walk, I've always pointed out the trees (and there are many) so when John started pointing at things near trees, I assumed he was pointing at trees but that he had bad aim. This week it dawned on me that he has been pointing at animals or animal noises. Unfortunately, he seems to have picked up on the word "tree" and says "eee" while pointing at barking dogs, flying birds, playing squirrels, dancing butterflies, and the window if birds are chirping outside. Oh well - so much for veterinary school.

Good baby?

Amy’s frustration with being asked whether Leo was a “good baby” made me think about that designation - one that has frequently been used of John.

Many woman, old and young have told me that John is a “good baby.” I don’t think the opposite of a “good baby” is a “bad baby” but a “hard baby” or “difficult baby.”

Two general groups of women have made the comment about John - much older women, in their seventies and up, who have observed John for at least 45 minutes and women about my age who also have babies or toddlers.

I just got the comment a week and a half ago after John sat through a ninety-minute university tree tour without complaint. “What a good baby you have!” an older woman remarked. Good? I couldn’t have held him during the tour because my back was hurting a lot. If John had complained frequently during the tour, I would have simply gone home. Would that make him a “bad” baby? Certainly not. But more work? Yes.

Another older woman made the comment after observing me at the grocery store for forty-five minutes. (She was going through at about the same speed as me.) John was happy to play with bag of tortillas while I shopped.

Women my age make the comment, I think, in order to keep me from becoming proud. “You’re not a good parent, you just are lucky to have a good baby,” is what they are really saying.. The subtext, “Poor me, my baby is hard and you’re just lucky. That’s why I am exhausted, frustrated, and on birth control.”

“You have a good baby, that’s why you’re willing to have another one.” (Someone really said that.)

I appreciate the comments from older women about John being a good baby. I appreciate allowing John to be seen as pleasant by others. I do, however, think that I contribute at least a little bit to it. John has a sweet temperament, but he also gets really cranky when tired. I tried taking him to a formal banquet after a few days of travel once, and we both were miserable. No one there told me I had a good baby! Usually, however, I prioritize naps and that seems to keep him happy.

Despite John’s good temperament, I do not have much sympathy for people who complain about their babies’ crankiness (while telling me how lucky I am) and yet won’t change their lives enough to let their babies nap. Somehow, John’s good temperament makes me the brunt of many complaints - maybe because they know I’ll just be quiet and let them complain. Oh well.

A little sister for John!

Now to decide which girly project to do with the 10 oz of DK weight pink wool yarn I got for $1 at a garage sale...

:-)

Toddlers are... JOYFUL!!!

John ate applesauce, bananas with peanut butter, and milk for breakfast this morning. He ate the peanut butter by taking it off the banana and putting it into his mouth, a thoroughly messy affair. Afterwards, Dan gave him a shower and I got him dressed for the day.

As I was thanking Dan for giving him a shower, saying, "When a toddler eats peanut butter with his fingers, he NEEDS a shower," I heard a gleeful giggle from the next room.

There was John standing in the kitchen next to his high chair, peanut butter surrounding his mouth, giggling like crazy.

What happened was that when John had told me he was finished from breakfast, there was still one banana slice with peanut butter on his tray. I had put it down on my chair and had planned to clean it up later. John cleared his tray for me and was quite proud of himself. I knelt down and started giggling, too, at which point he gave me a big hug, making a clothing change necessary for me.

Toddlers are great!

When my country music station suddenly became hard rock a few weeks ago, I knew it was time to look for a new radio station. Surfing around, I found a local radio station (the type where the DJ says "Ummm..." every few sentences and programs sometimes start late because the DJ got stuck in a meeting at work) that has a wonderful variety of bluegrass, old country, and oldies from the twenties to sixties.

Today, however, the DJ played a number of news tracks from June 6, 1944. 4,000 boats and 11,000 planes crossed the Channel that morning. One paratrooper interviewed told the newsman, "I know my parachute is packed correctly because my mother checked it. She works in the factory in Connecticut."

Words cannot express my gratitude to that generation. May we also rise to the events which will face our generation.

Growing up and eating vegetables

John only nursed once today... One time. That's it. Wow. If someone had told me how fast he would go from not eating to eating everything back in February, I wouldn't have believed it.

John's sleeping now. We ran around the fields for two hours this afternoon while Dan played softball with his department. He ate a lot of rice and bok choy leaves from the stir fry I made tonight and then fell asleep quite easily. I guess that's what happens when you run around in the fresh air for two hours chasing crickets and funny colored spots of grass.

We're into the second week of CSA vegetables. We had a really, really, really dry spring, causing later plantings than normal all through the state, otherwise we'd probably be in the fourth week! We have a beautiful vase of flowers on the kitchen tables (the CSA has a cutting garden) as well and one quart out of five quarts of organic strawberries to go. I gave away two heads of lettuce because we got lettuced out last week. Four heads between two people in one week?

On Saturday, I make spanikopita (uses one pound of spinach), tonight, stir fry with bok choy. There's still a lot of broccoli, kale, collards, and sage (what on earth does one do with sage?), in addition to the lettuce I kept. I never thought I could eat this many greens, but one goal in joining a CSA was to increase our vegetable intake.

John loved the bok choy. I think he is a green vegetable baby. Don't ask me where he gets it from!

Sold!

They sold the house we live in yesterday.

The agent called on Tuesday to say that the walk-through would be on Wednesday. I rearranged the pantry on Tuesday so that it would be orderly and then did some deep cleaning Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I even mopped the kitchen (my most hated household task, though every time I do it I remember that it is fairly easy and quick). I felt like I was going on a job interview. I prayed most of the morning, as I mopped, that the new landlord would be a good landlord and would be moving in her/himself. (Who wants a bunch of college kids renting near you... oops - I was that college kid once!)

I kept humming the music I know my scriptures to - about how God will work all to good, even if He does have me and Dan wander around Princeton like Abraham in the desert (if we moved, this would be our fourth move in three years).

The agent and buyer came at 2:10 (about 40 minutes after John should have gone down for his nap). The buyer told me she has three sons, ages 8, 6, and 4 and that her boys are looking forward to having a back yard and that they all love babies. She went on to say that she was so glad the baby's room is in the front of the house because that means her boys can yell all they want while in the backyard. Wow!

The took down the For Sale sign yesterday evening.

I'm looking forward to getting to know my new neighbor. Now to continue praying for the new neighbor for the house next door.