The terrible ones?

Our little girl is growing up. There was a time when Daphne was most content in our arms, checking things out from an adult perspective, happy to be spending time with her two favourite people in the whole world. Naps were a time for cuddles and her constant waking up in the night was an indication of how much she couldn't bear to be without us. Who would have known that in a few shorts months, our once-attached baby would see Dave and me as a merely a means to an end. Who would have known that our little Daphne would become such a user and abuser (well, not really, but keep reading anyway).

"Oh mommy, mommy, please pick me up." her outstretched arms said, and even though I would have loved to oblige her and pick her up right then and there I was in a rush trying to get her lunch ready so we could get outside while the sun was still shining (a rarity in Vancouver at this time of year). So I ignored her and she went away for a minute. Then she came back, whining just enough to be noticed, but not enough to be annoying and her big brown eyes looked up at me and said "I really, really need you, mommy. More than you could ever know. Please pick me up." After a few minutes of this begging, when her whine was finally on the verge of being annoying I gave in and scooped her up into my arms. I gave her a hug big enough for a made-for-tv movie and she handed my heart to me on a platter.

Not two seconds into the hug I saw what Daphne really wanted. She didn't want me, or my awesome hug, she wanted the orange sitting on the counter and she was determined to do whatever she had to do to get to it. Once I realized what she was up to I put her down and tried to explain to her that if she was patient she would not only get the orange but the awesome lunch that I was preparing too. She looked at me, her eyes fixated on my every word and she proceeded to acknowledge what I was saying by interjecting the most sincere-sounding 'yesses' that any 17-month-old could possibly muster. Thinking that I had gotten through to her I went back to preparing her lunch, and Daphne, what did she do? Well, like any reasonable toddler she began to have a meltdown. Luckily, I've gotten so used to these 'episodes' that I've learned to ignore them and leave her be. She was fine within a minute and back to figuring out how to acquire the orange that'd been taunting her all morning. I can't remember if she got the orange in the end; sometimes she's successful and other times she gets so annoying that I end up hiding the object of desire only to find it days later, well past its prime.

So what's the moral of this story? For all you parents out there who think the terrible twos start at two, be warned: the power struggles can start early as the start of their second year and last long, so hang on tight!

For those of you worried that you'll lose your precious little baby, fear not. Daphne's still as cuddly as ever as long as it's on her terms. She's also a super duper good kisser, who's becoming quite adept at the closed-mouth-non-slobbery kiss; definite win.

In 3 hours...

It's 1:30 am and I'm up past my bedtime. It's been a while since I've written and I'm determined to see this post to the end. Once I'm done writing I'll make sure the living room is in order; I've already folded the laundry and Dave did the dishes, so I should be good unless I find a Daphne toy or two that's out of place. I'll brush my teeth, get my pajamas on, head into Daphne's room and make sure she's nicely tucked in. I'll then give Dave a hug and kiss goodnight, and within minutes I'll be cooking up some dreams good enough for HBO. In about three hours something amazing will happen. Daphne will stir and I will go get her and bring her back to our bed. I'll lay her down in between Dave and me at which point she'll roll towards me and grab my arm like it's a teddy bear. I'll be asleep again within minutes barely even remembering what just happened; Daphne will do the same. Dave will have barely stirred. An hour later I'll probably wake up to find Daphne even closer to me. She'll have shifted so that one of her legs is in Dave's face, and for reasons unknown he will not have noticed this particular disturbance. 

If I'm lucky, I'll be able to stay awake for the next little while. Sometime between 6:30 and 8 am Daphne will wake up, and if tomorrow is a repeat of today, before she even opens her eyes, she will say the word 'mama' and snuggle in towards me wearing a grin fit for a king. Moments later she'll wake up to see me smiling at her. She'll turn towards her daddy and see that he's up to greet her too. She'll then start chatting away, telling us what I can only assume is a word for word accounting of her dreams from the past night. If we're really lucky she'll be super cuddly and will spend a good while rolling between Dave and me, smothering us with hugs and kisses. If she's in a more playful mood she'll pull herself up, climb over me and make a mad dash for all the forbidden items on my night-side table. Dave will then take her, change her and feed her and I'll be one of the few privileged women in the world blessed with a husband who takes the 'morning shift' nine times out of ten, so that his night owl wife can catch up on her sleep. Usually at around 9 am, Daphne will make a run for our bedroom. She'll crawl down the hall, push the door open and stand up beside me chatting until I wake up. I'll pick her up, and hug and kiss her until she almost starts crying she's had enough! 

She's the best alarm clock in the world.

I love my little girl.

Amber Alert

Sometimes I think that writing a mom blog makes me come off as a know-it-all or as someone who thinks they're doing such a great job raising a child that they have to share their knowledge with the rest of the world. The truth of the matter is that I write this blog 'cause it gives my thoughts somewhere to go. I've never kept a journal, it's not my thing. I remember when I was studying at 'The Con' (The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto) I used to spend the hour before my lessons trying to remember what I'd practiced over the past week so that I could write it in my journal in case my trumpet teacher asked to look at it. Blogging is a little more my style as it gives me an outlet for my thoughts on certain topics versus just writing about how things are going in my day-to-day life. I also love doing online research, so blogging gives me an excuse to do so.

A couple months back I received a message from a friend asking me what my thoughts were on amber teething necklaces. She wrote me because she knew I wasn't a total hippie, but that I wasn't opposed to trying out hippie things as a parent. I was flattered that she asked my advice and a little embarrassed that I had no idea what an amber teething necklace was. So the online research began. I learned that amber teething necklaces aren't supposed to be used as chew toys for babies, but rather when the necklaces are worn, body heat causes them to release succinic acid which is a natural analgesic. I then searched mom forums high and wide to see what the consensus on the street was, and luckily it was mostly positive. I wrote my friend back, admitting my total lack of knowledge on the subject and suggested that for $20 they may be a decent option to try out.

Well fast-forward a couple weeks, I was researching cloth diaper detergents online when I found a store that had the brand I wanted for a great price. They also sold amber teething necklaces, and my cart was looking rather bare so I thought, 'why not!' So I placed my order and a few days later my little package arrived. It came just as we were about to head out on a walk with Daphne so I tore it out of the bag and put it on Daphne straight away. Now before we started using the amber teething necklace, Daphne was a gong show. Her teething pain seemed to be worse at night, especially around dinner time. It seemed to happen almost every other night when Dave or I'd be feeding Daphne and for what seemed like no reason at all she'd start crying uncontrollably. Usually after about 10 minutes of crying I'd think to stick my finger in her mouth and feel around for bumpy gums. Nine times out of ten, her gums either looked super white around where a tooth was coming in or we'd actually feel a little tooth that had just broken the surface. She would also wake up scream-crying several times a night, and again, nine times out of ten we figured out that it was as a result of teething pain.

We aren't super big on giving Daphne pain medication and Daphne's not super big on teething toys (unless a human finger counts as a teething toy) so the teething necklace seemed like a great alternative. And boy am I thankful for my friend who sought my advice, 'cause from the day I put the necklace on Daphne until today, her teething pain has all but vanished. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, maybe I should say that on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being Daphne's teething pain pre-necklace she's at a 3. Seriously. The only times she scream-cries now is when she's super scared of something or when she's experiencing stranger or separation anxiety. Mostly what happens now when she's teething is that she gets super clingy, and aside from the fact that clingy Daphne's moderately annoying, I'll take my hippie baby over little-miss-cries-a-lot any day!


Now, for you all you sceptics (that's the British spelling, in case you were skeptical) out there who need proof that these things work, sadly I can't offer you anything other than my word. What I can tell you is that I'm the queen of scepticism so I did try out a few experiments of my own. One thing that started to get annoying about the teething necklace was that Daphne would chew on it. She paid no attention to it for about the first month or so that she had it, but from about 10-11 months she went through this phase where she would chew on it mostly to get a rise out of Dave or me. During this phase we decided that whenever Daphne would chew on her necklace we'd take it away. It worked out well because I was super curious to see if her drop in fussiness was a result of her getting older or if it was because her teething pain had diminished. Well, every single time we took the teething necklace off, Daphne was back to her old self, fussing and waking up crying like it was her job. I was still a little sceptical though, so when we were in Toronto in April I was all too happy to give Daphne's teething necklace to one of her pals who was going through a tough teething spell. This experiment was two-fold: we'd not only see how Daphne did without her necklace for a whole week but we'd see if her friend's teething pain diminished. Now, I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but the week that Daphne was without her necklace she got her third non-vaccine related fever (the first two happened before the necklace). It lasted a few days and at the end of it she cut a couple teeth. She was fussier than usual but that could have been as a result of being around lots of different people all the time. I didn't get too much feedback on whether or not the necklace worked for Daphne's friend; his mother did send me a text message stating that she was a 'reluctant believer in the necklace' so take from that what you may. I think it helped him, but I'm not sure if his mom bought one for him so I'd be curious to hear how he's doing on the teething front.

Daphne's now at nine or ten teeth (I can't tell if her most recent cut is one really big tooth or if it's a combo). The more she gets the cuter she gets and I'm glad they're coming fairly quickly now 'cause as much as I love her teething necklace as a natural pain reliever, I really do think it makes her look like a hippie child. Not that I don't love hippies, but I would like to see her again without that thing around her neck. Oh, and I'm serious about loving to do online research, so if you need help getting info on anything baby-related or not, I'm your gal, seriously.

I'll take one order of Gob's chicken dance, please!

What's happened to me? I've literally turned into the world's biggest chicken. There was a time not so long ago when I'd be most happy testing the limits of my fear. Now, it seems that I can't cross the road without fearing for my life. Is this what happens when you become a mom? I don't remember reading it in the manual.

Before I got pregnant with Daphne I used to bike to work almost everyday (unless it was really pouring rain), then I had a bike accident. I was on my way to work, cruising down a hill when my lock detached from the bracket, fell off and got caught in my front wheel. It could have been really bad, there was a transit bus maybe 20 feet behind me but luckily the driver was able to drive around me as I took my head-over-the-handle-bars fall. At the time I was probably about a week pregnant with Daphne, and I didn't even know I was pregnant, yet for some reason my first thought was "What if I'm pregnant? Will the baby be okay?" It turns out I was, and fortunately she was just fine! Anyway, after the fall I was hesitant to get on my bike again, especially because a few weeks later I had confirmation that I was pregnant. There was no way I wanted to take any risks, even though I know many people who biked all nine months of their pregnancies without a hitch.

Because I wasn't biking I wanted to get some physical exercise in. I would walk one way to work some days, I started taking a prenatal yoga class and joined the old biddies at my gym for aquafit once a week. A few weeks into aquafit the gossip squad found out that I was pregnant. Most of the ladies were elated to find out, except for this one lady. She came up to me in the change room, said her congratulations and then proceeded to tell me that having a baby will make me worry like I've never worried before. She went on and on about how she always thought that the worry would go away, but that it gets worse and worse and now as an old lady she doesn't go a day without worrying about her son and his family. "Great", I thought. I'm already a worrier, if it's as bad a she says it is I'm screwed. Well, she was right; it's bad.

As you know, I started back at work a few weeks ago. For my first shift Dave and Daphne drove me in. Most other days I've taken the bus. I'd mentioned to Dave that I wanted to start biking again and he was kind enough to take my bike up the street and have it tuned up and ready to go for me (probably a good thing, since I was using the bike as a guide for how far I could get into the garage with the car without hitting anything). Once the bike was back, the excuses to get me out of biking to work started. One day it was because it looked like it was going to rain (I think there was one white cloud looming around). Another day it was because Daphne napped too long and I didn't have enough time to get ready and bike in. Another it was because I had a spare $2.50 in change lying around that needed to be spent for fear that coins were going to be taken out of circulation with no advance notice. Whatever the excuse, I'm sure I used it. Then one bright, sunny day, I was ready for work with over an hour to spare and I couldn't think of any possible excuse not to get on my bike so I did it, I biked in. And let me tell you, I was terrified! I hugged and kissed Dave and Daphne so much that I ended up with only 30 minutes to get to work. I said 'bye' to them like a soldier heading out to war and began my trek to work. I don't think I broke 5 km/hour I swear! I rode so slow that old people were passing me. Every time there was a change in the surface level of the road I would slow down to the point that my bike would start going backwards. The funniest part about this is that 99% of my commute uses separated bike lanes. And by separated bike lanes, I'm not talking about a little line of white paint, I'm talking about planters or concrete dividers. You'd have to be picked up by a tornado to land yourself into real traffic.

A cyclist's dream. Fully protected, double wide lanes.

And it doesn't stop with the biking. We went to the U.S. the other day to buy a bike carrier (of all things!) for Daphne. Once we made our purchase, we were on our way to Target to kill sometime before heading out for dinner. Dave had done all the driving to this point, so I offered to drive us there. It was my first time driving in the States which made me a little uneasy, but I wasn't scared enough to refrain from asking Dave to compliment how well I drove us out of the parking lot. Then I merged onto the freeway and that's when the little confidence I had went out the window. As I drove along the I-5 I was so terrified that I started having flashbacks to the first time I went on The Zipper (it was my first thrill ride, and I cried so much, and so loudly, that they had to stop the ride to let me off). I lasted one whole exit before I pulled over and gave the reins back to Dave.

I hope this goes away, and fast. It's one thing to be terrified because you're about to jump off a bridge while strapped to a giant elastic band; it's another thing to be scared of a crack in the pavement, while on a bike, in a separated bike lane. I also hope this goes away before Daphne can understand how much of a wimp I am. If I have any hope of being the 'cool' parent, I'm going to have to get comfortable jumping out of planes and killing spiders. At the very least, I'll have to resort to plan B, which means busting out Dave's middle school photos and tap-dancing videos (I'd rather not go there if I don't have to). Furthermore, if we want to have any hope of Daphne not being a total scaredy cat herself, Dave and I have to show absolutely zero fear, all the time. You've seen this girl with her peapod tent, she needs all the help she can get!

Pre-Daphne: Need I say more?

Post-Daphne: We've taken to wearing helmets indoors.

The Big One!

I haven't written in a while. I seem to have lost my night-owl self and it's really too bad. For the past few months we kind of fell into a routine: Daphne would go to bed, Dave and I would get a few hours together until he hit the sack and then I'd get a few hours of my own time until I decided to go to bed sometime in the wee hours of the morning. It worked out well because Dave would take the early morning shift with Daphne, then when it was time for him to go to work Daphne would come to bed with me for her morning nap, and once her morning nap was over I'd be up for the day. Then we went to Toronto and as any of you who've travelled with babies know, routines kinda go out the window. I was sure that once we returned I'd get back into the swing of things, but it just hasn't happened. The main reason is that I've gone back to work. I'm not working full time, but even still, I just can't stay up as late as I did before I went back. The other big reason that I haven't written is that Daphne turned one on Thursday! Yup, that's right, my little girl's growing up! I can't believe we made it and I can't believe how much a baby can change in such a relatively short amount of time. She went from being a useless blob to being a still useless, but super cute and entertaining toddler in just fifty-two weeks...insane!

Panini bar

To celebrate Daphne's big day, Dave and I decided to throw a little party for her. We invited a few friends over for some food and to hang out. For lunch we had a panini bar set up (thanks Martha Stewart for the awesome suggestion). I highly recommend busting one of these out at your next party, they're fairly easy to set up and make for some killer sandwiches! Daphne was super cute, and surprisingly un-cranky even though she cut her morning nap super short. The only time she really fussed was whenever I would try to put her party hat on her. She hated that thing with a passion! For those of you who've seen the 'peapod' video, she had a similar reaction to the party hat. We think it's 'cause of the ghetto elastic strap that those things come with, but it also could have been its extravagance, who really knows.

Trying out her birthday present.

Anyway, other than that, she did great. And by great I mean she was a super cute wallflower. She didn't really socialize, she just stood at the coffee table watching everyone. And by watching everyone, I mean she did an awesome job of eating her cardboard nesting blocks. She had no interest in opening presents, but really loved eating all her cards. Once all her presents were opened we moved onto the obligatory cake eating segment of the party. I'd made vanilla cupcakes with chocolate ganache frosting that spelled out "Happy 1st Daphne" and I also made some cupcakes in the shape of ducks (Daphne is our Daphne Duck after all).  We gave her the chocolate frosted cupcake as we thought it would make for better pictures. She mowed down on the cupcake and then she was more chill than we've every seen her before. Total sugar coma. She just sat there in her high chair, not wanting for anything. The bad mom in me wants to put her on a diet of cupcakes for the foreseeable future, but the more reasonable mom in me is going to make a goal of reserving cake and cupcakes for special occasions only. All in all, I think Daphne had a great first birthday. It would have been nice to have our families and close friends in town, but we are really thankful for the friends who were able to share her special day with us. Thanks, guys!

Parenting: One Step Closer to Unhappiness.

If there was a fly on the wall in my home today I think it would have stamped my ticket to hell faster than the devil himself. Some of the highlights that came out of my mouth today included:

"It's a good thing you're cute, otherwise I would have killed you by now."

"Dave, do you think there's something wrong with her? "

"Why can't you be like other babies?"

"She's both the reason why I want to live and why I want to live no more."

"I hate my life."

I know by now you're probably thinking that I'm the worst mom ever, and I probably am, but I'm willing to bet that I'm not the first or last mom to utter such horrible things about such an innocent little being. The truth of the matter is that being a parent is hard work. So hard in fact that unless you have kids, you can't grasp how life-altering the experience is. Having kids is something that many people work towards. We go to school, work on our careers, get married, gain some measure of financial stability and then have kids. It seems like a logical progression, right? Right. This is the way our society operates after all. The problem, however, is that by the time we get to the 'having kids' stage, we've been alive for a really long time. So long that we've grown accustomed to our lives. Dave and I dated for 6 years before getting married and then after being married for 3 years we had Daphne. That's 9 years of habits. 9 years of date nights, late nights, sleep-ins and spontaneous and awesome memories. We pretty much did whatever we wanted when we wanted. Then along came Daphne and it was all over.

I'll never forget the day I realized just how life-altering having a baby was. I was sitting in our glider, Daphne just a few days old lay asleep in my arms. Dave came into the room and I looked at him and started to cry. I think at first Dave thought I was crying because I was so happy, but then I said it: "I miss you." At that moment I realized that my life as I knew it was over and that the Dave I married and the Eve he married we no more. We were parents now. We were no longer Dave and Eve, but rather we were Dave, Eve and Daphne. Daphne would get all our time and attention. When people called they wouldn't ask how we were doing, they would ask how Daphne was doing. When people stopped us to talk on the street it wasn't because they thought we seemed like good people, it's cause they thought our baby was cute. We are now invisible, we no longer get the most presents under the Christmas tree or the first hug when we get off the airplane. We don't go out for fancy dinners anymore; instead we choose restaurants based on how baby-friendly they are and not how good the food is. We are servants to this little girl named Daphne and sadly, Daphne already knows that.

She's at that age where she's starting to learn that her actions cause reactions. The man in the waiting room at the doctor's office the other day summed it up the best. When talking about his 16 month old daughter and his 4 year old son he said that the daughter gathers attention negatively whereas his son gathers attention positively. In other words, the daughter is constantly misbehaving to be noticed whereas the son gets his attention by being well-behaved. Daphne is definitely like this man's daughter. She is happiest when she's being bad. And yes, 11 month olds can be bad! When she's not biting you, she's either throwing or spitting her food at you. Tossing her bottle over and over again to see how many times you'll pick it up. Yelling if you don't give her what she wants when she wants it and crying if she doesn't get her way. Daphne is going to be a kid capable of throwing the worst temper tantrums; my goal is to never let it go that far. Wish me luck!

In addition to being bad, Daphne is also very much attached to Dave and me. She started having separation anxiety when she was 5 months old and since then it's only gotten worse. Today for example, I couldn't go to the kitchen to fill her sippy cup without her freaking out (I'm talking about a distance of 10 feet where I'm still partially visible). She screamed bloody murder every time I got up to do something and when I was playing with her she couldn't just sit there or play on her tummy, she had to either be sitting in my lap or standing up at the coffee table practicing her transitions from it to me. Now don't get me wrong, I love playing with Daphne, but I also like being able to sit back and watch her learn on her own. I also like to talk on the phone or catch up on correspondence. If that makes me a bad mom, so be it.

So long story shot, Daphne was really annoying today. I was happy to receive my first issue of Parenting, The Early Years as in it they had an article on happiness. They quoted the cover title of an issue of last year's New York magazine: "I love my children. I hate my life." I looked this article up and it's a good read. The author talks about how many studies have found that parents are less happy than their childless counterparts. At first thought, you may think that the studies are wrong, but when you really sit down and think about it, maybe parents are less happy, on the surface at least. These studies measure happiness on a day-to-day basis, where the participants answer a series of questions that measure their level of happiness. Of course parents will come off being less happy, having kids is hard and kids are annoying, let's face it! Does that mean that we're actually less happy? I'm not sure. When I think back to today in a week's time I'm not going to remember that Daphne was super annoying and caused me to say and think such horrible things, I'm going to remember that we went to the beach and sat watching the dogs play at the dog park. I'm going to remember her nestling her head in my chest for what seemed like forever and just enjoying being outside in the beautiful Vancouver weather. I'm going to remember that when Dave and I put her to bed tonight, she learned that when she turns the last page of her story book we say 'The. End.' in time, no matter how fast or slow she turns the page. Studies can't measure memories and the positive memories I have of our little family far outweigh the negative experiences I seem to have on what seems to be an almost daily basis. Does that make sense?

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Is it me or are 21st century kids a little too privileged? Hear me out: Dave and I are at home and I'm on the interweb searching all things baby. I stumble across this mom blogger who's got a post about what she calls 'lovable lunches.' These things are amazing, she uses a lunch box called "Planet Box', which is essentially an overpriced bento box. Inside she'll have stuff like sandwiches, cheese, fruits and veggies, but what makes them awesome is that she uses cookie cutters to cut the different components into shapes based on a theme. The blog post that I came upon was about her daughter being a star, so her lovable lunch had a bunch of stuff cut up into little stars. It looks amazing and if you're smart about what you put into these lovable lunches they can be deceptively healthy!

As I'm looking at all these pictures of lovable lunches I start thinking to myself that I want one. Moreover, I want one 25 years ago when I was in primary school. How cool and awesome would that have been? The closest thing I ever got (and pretty much any other kid I went to school with got) was a Lunchables (sounds like a lovable but it's really not the same). Usually though, I had a deli meat sandwich, a Handi-snack, a piece of fruit and a juice box. If I was lucky it went into a tin lunch box, but most of the time I think my mom just threw my lunches into my knapsack.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about my mom and what she sent me to school with; this was what about 90% of kids I went to school with got. What I'm talking about is this: we live in an age with the greatest of expectations. Not only do we now have to send lunches that are pieces of art with our children to preschool but the lunches have to contain a modest amount of nitrate-free meat (if any at all), organic vegetables and fruits (or at least vegetables and fruits that aren't on the 'dirty dozen' list), high fibre, whole grains, alternative proteins and absolutely NOTHING that's been processed in any way, shape or form. Our kids need to be dressed in organic cotton or bamboo clothing and furthermore, said cotton or bamboo clothing should be made in a country with equitable working conditions. It's imperative that cloth diapers are used as soon as the baby's born, until he or she is potty trained and potty training must be completed by 6 months of age. The cleaning products we use have to be entirely plant-based and our toiletries should be paraben, sodium-laurel/laureth sulfate free and free of dyes and fragrances. When disciplining our children we have to be mindful about not being too easy or too hard and we should also teach them sign language, and at least 7 other languages on top of their native language by the time they're three. In order for them to be well rounded, they need to be enrolled in one team sport, one competitive solo sport, one arts discipline and they need to have 3.5 friends (one of whom needs to be of the opposite sex and one of whom needs to be of a different ethnic background).

Reading the paragraph above you may be thinking that I'm complaining about the expectations I've listed. Setting aside the obvious amount of hyperbole, I take these expectations very seriously. I would say I take them a little too seriously, and in part I think it's because I'm a first-time mom but mostly it's because I don't want Daphne to look at me in 25 years and say "Mom, how could you?". I don't want the guilt of knowing that there was better out there for Daphne and I just chose to ignore it. And when I say better, I'm not saying it from an economical standpoint, I'm saying it from the standpoint of someone who is informed vs. someone who could be informed but isn't.

My mom didn't know better and I'm not sure that she could have. She was a new immigrant to Canada. She had three kids in three years and she worked full time (as did my dad). My parents didn't have the money to send us to daycare or enroll us in fancy sports or activities. My mom didn't have the internet to look up the nutritional info on food (the Canadian government didn't even label food the way it does now until 2003). My mom was told to formula feed us by her doctors. When she was in labour with my oldest brother, she was given an epidural without her consent. When we were born we were rushed to a nursery instead of being given the valuable skin-to-skin time that's essential for the emotional and physical nourishment of a newborn child. I could go on and on about the way me and my brothers were raised (and probably many of you reading this post) versus the way our children are being raised today and really, honestly I don't think we have the right to look at our parents and ask "How could you?". Why? Because our parents did what at the time was the equivalent to what we're doing right now: providing the best for our children.

The problem is that 'the best' for our children is so much different now. We have to accept that we're in midst of an obesity epidemic, that our cancer and depression rates are on the rise and that more and more children are being diagnosed with ADHD and diabetes than ever before. What's even worse is that we have the ability to turn all of this around simply by educating ourselves yet so many people choose not to. We live in an age of information. We can get answers to almost anything in an instant. Twenty years ago, a trip to the library and hours of research wouldn't yield the same results that someone can find in ten minutes of Google searching. We can no longer use the excuse 'but I didn't know' because we COULD have known if we wanted to. From birth to retirement and beyond, we have the ability to research to our heart's content and find information on almost anything we can think of. Yeah, we have to be smart about it; we can't just type 'how to raise a baby' in the search bar, click on the first link and call it a day. We have to learn how to use the resources available to us and know their benefits and limitations. We also have to accept that if we don't take the initiative with our children today that things will only get worse. I'm not writing this to scare you, I'm writing this because I truly believe that we can all make a difference. From avoiding nitrates in deli meats to using baby products that are safer for our children, we can make small changes that have a huge impact. Yes, the expectations upon us are great, but the reward will be even greater: happier, healthier children.

I guess there's a first for everything. Until last week I don't think I knew what a blog party was, and up until a minute ago I didn't know how to add a banner to my blog. So thanks, 5 minutes for Mom, I owe you one!

Daphne @ 10 months

For those of you new to my relatively new blog, my name is Eve (pronounced Evvy) and I started this blog a few months ago as an outlet for all the things swimming around in my head at the end of my very long days as a new mom. A lot of the time I write about Daphne, my super cute and super fussy 11 month old but the main goal of my blog is to offer some insight on what it's like raising a child in the 21st century. I do think that things are a lot different now than they used to be (I'm pretty sure my mom wasn't up blogging while I was sound asleep at night) and I wanted to bring attention to the great expectations that are upon us new moms.

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to drop in as often as you'd like. I try to publish a post a week, but sometimes life (read: Daphne) gets in the way. If you have any suggestions on topics you'd like to have discussed or if you have any questions at all, please let me know.

Our little family, hanging out at Kits Beach in Vancouver.

If it doesn't kill you it'll only make you stronger.

There was the time Daphne was sitting on the couch playing AlphaBaby on our MacBook. She was typing (aka banging) away while Dave and I discussed something mundane. At some point Dave asked a question and I looked at him to answer. When I turned a moment later to look at Daphne she was gone. I'd registered a thud in my recent memory and deduced that the sound came from Daphne hitting the floor after falling off the couch. Luckily there was a little mat there that helped cushion her fall. Daphne didn't notice that she'd been a victim of gravity as not a single peep came out of her, just a cute smile as she waited for me to pick her up.

Then there was the time when Daphne was learning to stand by means other than Dave's or my hands for support. In order to help her get to some of the objects she desired on our coffee table I placed her facing me on my left hand side. I was prepared to grab her with my left arm if she started to tumble. At some point during another mundane conversation with Dave I diverted my attention from Daphne to empathize with his frustration at burning yet another batch of sweet potato fries for Daphne; those things do not bake well from frozen. This time I saw Daphne's descent begin but was powerless to help. I heard a much louder and harder sounding thud when her little head hit the ground, probably because of the hardwood floor that she hit. She cried this time, and I did too. Sadly for her my tears were on the inside; on the outside I mustered up the best smile I could and told her that she was just fine. She didn't believe me and I don't blame her.

The doozy though is this one: while I was checking email after her morning nap Daphne sat playing on the floor. She'd assumed her usual airplane position that's evolved enough to allow her a decent amount of mobility. At some point I looked down to see a look of puzzlement on her face, followed by a scream-cry. As I picked her up I couldn't help but notice the close proximity of the MacBook charger to her playspot. The end of the charger (the magnetic part that plugs into your Macbook) must have fallen off the laptop as I grabbed it to check my email. Of course this is what has to have happened: Daphne, a lover of all things technical, saw the cord fall and made a mad dash to it. Upon reaching the cord, she gave it a thorough inspection before placing the funky part into her mouth. Once said funky part touched either her tongue or lip she received a zap strong enough to cause her to remove the cord from her mouth and proceed to cry. A quick Google search suggested that I check the site of possible electrocution and look for tiny burns. We were negative on that front. I checked Daphne's cognitive skills by calling her name and seeing if she'd respond; we were good there. I then checked Daphne's fine motor skills by feeding her Cheerios and gross motor skills by getting her to stand; check, check. Finally I waited for Daphne to speak (if you can call it that) and she was just as incomprehensible as she normally is. Plan B was to check to see what type of harm the charger could actually do, so I did what any sane person would do: I licked it myself. I received a tiny shock -- so tiny, in fact, that I thought I could have maybe imagined the feeling. As Dave wasn't home I anxiously awaited his lunchtime phone call. When I answered I explained to Dave that his daughter was dead and that I killed her. He asked me who was making the screaming sounds in the background to which I replied "That's the ghost of your dead, electrocuted daughter." I then explained to him what happened, he assured me that everything was fine and told me he'd see me later. While on his bike ride home, Dave couldn't help but think 'she's going to make me lick the charger, I just know it.' When Dave got home, I kissed him hello, handed him his daughter and then took her back. I waited for him to take his shoes off before handing him the cord. "I knew it!" he said, "I knew you were going to make me lick the stupid charger." Knowing that I wouldn't take no for an answer, he cautiously licked the cord and then stupidly plugged it into the Macbook (he claims that he wiped it off, I don't believe him). Anyway, long story short we have an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar tomorrow to see whether we fried our battery or our charger. The funniest part is I'm not even sure if Daphne licked the cord to begin with. Oh, and Dave felt a zap too.

Ten months, two medium fails and one big one. According to my doctor I have one big one to go to catch up to the average number of 'big' accidents babies have by the time they're one. Yippee.

Phone-y advice.

Did I ever tell you about the first time I got heartburn? It was in the fall of 2004, Dave had just moved to Montreal to start his Masters degree and I was taking a year off school. I had scheduled a trumpet lesson with an old teacher and was very nervous about it. I was so nervous that I was about 15 minutes early (a feat for me, as I'm never early for anything!) As I sat there waiting for the lesson before mine to end I started experiencing this pain in my chest unlike anything I'd ever felt before. It was so bad that I had to get up and leave the building. I thought a walk outside would help and it did...a bit. A few minutes later I returned, felling a little better and ready for the lesson. When I got inside the classroom, my teacher asked me how I was. I jumped right in and explained my agonizing chest pain. My teacher laughed, said it was heartburn and told me to take some antacids. Hmmm. By the time the lesson was done, I'd forgotten that I was ever in pain and continued straight home. That night I went to bed, but before I could nod off, the pain came back. It was excruciating. It was so bad that I started googling 'chest pain as a symptom' to see if anything else fit the bill. What I found surprised me. According to my Google search based on the symptoms I'd typed in I was having heart attack. Being the hypochondriac that I am, I believed it. I grabbed the phone and called Telehealth Ontario. BIG MISTAKE. When the lady asked how she could help I started explaining my symptoms. Pain in my back, neck and shoulders that also radiates down my arm - an aside here, I have TMJ so when I'm stressed I clench my teeth and when I clench my teeth I get really bad headaches, accompanied by back, neck and shoulder pain that radiates down my arm. I may have overstated my symptoms as I wanted the lady on the phone to take my concern seriously. And seriously she did! Within minutes she was telling me to get to a hospital ASAP. And she didn't say it casually either, there was concern in her voice. So I got up, walked out to the doorway where I was greeted by my two roommates having a late-night snack. I explained to them what was going on. They looked at me, looked at each other and said "Go to bed." "What?" I exclaimed, "I can't go to bed, I might be having a heart attack. If I go to bed I could never wake up!" "You're not having a heart attack, you have heartburn. You'll go to bed, wake up and forget it ever happened. Trust me, I get heartburn all the time." After a few minutes of this banter, I realized that maybe I was overreacting and headed to bed. When I got up the next morning, I'd forgotten about the pain I'd been in the night before. I've since had heartburn a couple times and now know not to overreact.

With Daphne, it's a whole different ball game. You might recall a couple weeks ago when I said I would explain why my blog posts have been sparse as of late. Well, it all started with Daphne's very first trip to the ER. About a month ago now Daphne had her second round of vaccines. Like the first round, we expected that after a few hours Daphne would have a fever, so we made sure to keep a close eye on her. As I was getting her ready for bed I noticed that she felt a little warm so I took her temperature. She had a low-grade fever, nothing to be concerned about. I gave her a dose of acetaminophen to prevent the fever from spiking as she slept. About an hour and a half after I put her down she woke up screaming at the top of her lungs. Dave ran in to see what was the matter and discovered that her fever had spiked. I thought it was a bit strange as the acetaminophen should have prevented the fever from spiking. I thought to be on the safe side that I would call the nurses hotline to ask if that was normal.

During the day the city runs what's called the newborn hotline; it has a public health nurse who specializes in newborn care answering calls on a variety of topics. You can use this hotline until your kid's two, then you can call the regular provincial line. When I've called the newborn hotline they've been really good about addressing all my concerns and not overreacting and recommending a trip to the doctor or ER on every call. Instead, they offer practical advice and let you know of symptoms to look out for that may be cause for concern. This is NOT the case with the regular hotline. Like Telehealth Ontario the nurses tend to recommend a trip to the ER for almost all the people that call in. My guess is that it has something to do with liability and the provincial government not wanting to have to deal with legal suits against a service that they've set up to help the public. Unfortunately, lots of babies get sick at night, when the Newborn Hotline isn't in service. This results in worried parents calling the general line and being scared into taking their baby to the ER. This is exactly what happened to Dave and me.

It was so funny, I called and said exactly this to the lady: "So, when I checked my baby's temperature before bed it was about 100.4 (sorry for the fahrenheit, we bought our stupid thermometre in the States and it's too stubborn to switch back and forth from fahrenheit to celsius). I gave her a single dose of Tylenol and put her to bed. When she woke up just now she was scream-crying and had a fever of 102.5. I just wanted to check and see if it was normal for a fever to spike even after administering Tylenol." To this the lady replied with a question about Daphne's pain level. She gave me three options to choose from. Number one was mild pain: when crying, calms down instantly when comforted and is not really fussy at all. Number two was moderate pain: somewhat fussy and takes a little longer to calm down when crying. Number three was severe pain: inconsolable and very fussy. Okay, for those of you who read my blog or have met Daphne I bet you'd say that Daphne seems to be in moderate pain ALL THE TIME!!! The lady's description of moderate pain is Daphne in a nutshell. So naturally when asked and presented with my options I chose option number two. BIG MISTAKE. Not only did the nurse recommend taking her to the ER right away, but she said it with such concern. She made me feel like I'd be the world's worst mom if I didn't have her in the ER by the time she was onto her next call. So, to the ER we went.

When we arrived we were fortunate to choose to park in a spot that was being vacated by a very thoughtful man who gave us his parking stub. Our spot was prepaid for the whole night, which was nice 'cause we were about to spend 4 hours at BC Children's Hospital (which based on the rates for hospital parking equals about a year's worth of college tuition). I didn't really know what to expect when we got there, but I almost had a heart attack when I heard the coughing sounds coming out of the baby girl entering the ER just as we were. I tried really hard to keep Daphne out of harm's way and I started thinking that the guilt of bringing Daphne to this cesspool of disease was much worse than the guilt I'd be feeling had we not bothered to come. Then I started thinking of the guilt I'd feel if something was actually wrong with Daphne and I neglected to seek proper care and decided that coming the the ER was our only option. We waited a few hours in the waiting room. Daphne managed to sleep for about an hour which was nice (I had to baby squat her to sleep, which took me back as I haven't had to do that for months). We watched a lot of babies and toddlers come and go and at about 2 in the morning we were finally seen. The resident doctor we had was very nice. She did a quick assessment and left to get her attending. We gave Daphne a bottle (pictured below) and watching her drink it while wearing that itty bitty hospital gown was the cutest thing I've ever seen (almost cute enough to warrant the 3 hour wait). When the doctor returned they pretty much told us what we knew, that vaccines sometimes cause fevers and that all we could do was give her acetaminophen and wait. Before the doctor left I asked her if the hospital would mind terribly if I took Daphne's gown as a souvenir, to which she replied that "taking that hospital gown will not only beggar this hospital, but it will put an end to socialized healthcare in Canada". So I took the gown.

The moral of the story is this folks: NEVER call a nurses hotline unless you're prepared to donate a few hours of your life to your local hospital. Furthermore, if you have a child, only call the nurses hotline when you have an actual concern and not just a general question, that's what Google's for.

Oh, and to further explain my lack of blog writing as of late, it was this trip to the ER that caused me to lose just the right amount of sleep to weaken my immune system just enough to cause me to catch the worst cold I've EVER had. It's been a month since I got it and I'm still not 100%. Dave got the same evil cold and Daphne, miraculously, didn't get sick at all, go figure!

Phoning it in...

I've been part of the workforce since I turned 14 years old. It was the summer of 1994 and I was an LIT, a leader-in-training with the Scarborough Recreation, Parks and Culture department. I was proud of myself for landing this job, because it was one of very few jobs (other than newspaper delivery) that you could get under the age of 16 without working under the table. I loved my job, I learned a lot from it and it groomed me for my position as a full fledged leader. I spent the next few summers working for the Iron Butterflies camp, a camp for developmentally delayed children in wheelchairs. This was probably the most challenging and rewarding job I've had to date. I was there from 8-4, Monday to Friday and was responsible for everything from planning our daily curriculum, to changing and feeding campers, to acting as a liason between our campers and their parents or group homes. Sometimes I even had to step up and advocate for our campers if I felt they were being neglected or poorly cared for at their homes. All of this at the age of 16, and I wasn't alone. There was a whole group of us. We were the only camp in Scarborough that had an almost 1-1 ratio of staff/volunteers to campers. Even still, by the end of the day, we were all done. Toast. The only thing we could think of to burn off steam was to drink, and drink we did! We drank so much that by the time I got to university I was done with drinking for good (well, not for good, but ask anyone who went to school with me, Eve drinking was a momentous occasion).

Anyway, you may be wondering what this has to do with my being a mom and it goes something like this: from the day I entered the workforce, until the day I was pregnant with Daphne, I worked twelve jobs. Twelve jobs and I can honestly tell you that the number of times I called in sick was three, maybe four times. And better yet, those three or four times all happened in the two years leading up to the day I was pregnant with Daphne. I worked three summers at the Iron Butterflies camp, and for three summers, I showed up to work either physically exhausted from the previous day's work or hungover from partying too hard the night before. I would get 4-6 hours of sleep every night and somehow, I was able to do my job at a very high level while bringing smiles to our campers faces. I'm not writing this to brag, I'm writing this because for the life of me I can't figure out how I did it. How did I manage to not call in sick a single time? How did I not die of exhaustion? I chalk it all up to being young and man do I wish I was young now.

I took my pregnancy very seriously. I ate well, went to yoga and aquafit every week, took my prenatal vitamins and made sure to sing, talk, read and cuddle our little growing miracle. I even called in sick -- a lot; if I didn't feel 100% I was out. I wanted our baby to have the best chance from the start, and that meant I couldn't take any chances. I felt guilty calling in sick so much as it has never been a part of me. I wouldn't say that I'm the world's best employee, but one of my strengths is that I possess a very strong work ethic. I don't believe in calling in sick just for the sake of calling in sick. At least I didn't used to.

Boy do I wish that I coud just call in sick right now. Pick up the phone, hear Dave answer and say to him in my best faking-sick voice, "I'm really sorry, but I just can't make it in today. I've got this throat thing and I really don't want to risk making any of my co-workers sick". Man, would that be nice. I would kill for a day off. But I can't. Even if Dave were to take over all the chores and Daphne duties for the day, I wouldn't be able to turn off being a mom. Yeah, I suppose I could go to a spa for some R & R for a few hours, but what I'm talking about is sitting at home, on the couch, watching dvds of a series you've been meaning to watch for years, ordering in dinner and just lounging, for the whole day. Not a few hours, the whole day! Yeah, that'd be nice. I wish someone would have told me when I was fourteen to cherish those carefree days; heck, I wish I had listened when people told me to relax as much as possible before the baby came.

You know what else I wish? That someone would have told me that from the second you have a child your life as you know it is no more. There will never be a moment when I'm not worrying about Daphne and how she's doing. When I'm not thinking about how her day will unfold and what I can do to help her get through it without a hitch. As she gets older I'll worry about new things, like enrolling her in preschool and making sure that we're starting her off on the right foot. Then it'll be primary school and high school and then hopefully she'll leave. But that's when the real worrying will start. She won't call when she says she will and I'll worry that something's gone wrong. She'll meet a boy (or girl) who I'll worry isn't treating her well enough. Then she'll marry said boy (or girl) and have a baby and all the while I'll be worrying, but now not only about her, but about her family. The worry, it's overwhelming! But I guess in the end that's what makes me a mom and I'm glad that I have someone so freaking adorable to worry about 'cause she's awesome and I love her!

Great Excrementations - Part Two

This is the second in a two part post about cloth diapers. In the first post I addressed some common concerns about cloth diapering and this post will be more of a cloth diapering user guide.

Which cloth diaper to choose

One of the hardest parts about cloth diapering is figuring out what type of diapering system to use. There are so many options now that weren't even there a few years ago. Here's a list of the different types of cloth diapering systems available:

Prefolds are pretty much the most basic type of cloth diaper on the market today. Contrary to what their name says, these diapers are not pre-folded, they are a rectangular diaper that have a thicker section of fabric in the middle for optimum absorbency. They can be folded a number of ways to suit your baby and come in different sizes as well. They require the use of a water-resistant shell as they are usually made of unbleached cotton or other non-synthetic fabrics like hemp. Prefolds are pretty bulky (at least they are on Daphne) so they're not my first choice for daytime use, but we do use them at night 'cause they're super absorbent and leak a lot less.

When using prefolds you can put them on your baby and fasten them with these little rubber-teethed fasteners called "Snappis" (i.e. the modern safety pin) and apply the shell over top. You can also place a folded prefold into a shell and do it all up as one diaper.

Prefolds are the most affordable option by a long shot. There's a small learning curve with them as you'll need to figure out how to fold and fasten them, but for their price they can't be beat!

Fitted diapers closely resemble the shape of disposable diapers. They come in a variety of fabrics from organic cotton to hemp to bamboo and almost always do up with snaps. Like prefolds, fitted diapers require water-resistant shells. A benefit to both of these systems is that you can buy shells to accommodate your baby's size and body type.

Pocket diapers are my personal favourite. Like prefolds and fitted diapers, pocket diapers are a two-piece system. As the name implies, a pocket diapering system consists of a waterproof shell that is stuffed with an absorbent insert. These inserts are usually microfiber but hemp inserts are becoming more and more popular. What I love about these is that they're super easy to use and their absorbency is customizable depending on how many and what type of inserts you use. They are also great for your dryer as the shells do better line-dried (we dry ours on a rack inside). They usually do up with snaps or velcro (I haven't decided which I prefer).

All-in-one diapers are as close to disposable diapers as you can get. The shell and inner absorbent layer are sewn together to make one super easy to use diaper. As with all luxuries, these bad boys come with a pretty high price tag although they are still cheaper than disposables. If you want the convenience of an all-in-one without the price, consider a pocket diapering system. You can pre-stuff you pocket diapers so when it comes time to putting them on your baby, you only have one step to complete.

Hybrid diapers are probably the newest cloth diapering systems available. They are pretty much a prefold system, but you have the option of using a biodegradable insert with your shell. They are great for travelling and I suppose they're pretty good to the environment as the inserts are flushable and the shells can be thrown in with your regular laundry.

One-size diapers can be fitted, pocket or all-in-one diapers. These diapers are adjustable in size (usually using snaps) so that you can use them from birth to potty training. They are remarkably affordable as you don't need to buy more cloth diapers as your baby gets older. Like all cloth diapering systems, they are super high quality, but will probably need to have their elastics and/or snaps replaced if you're planning on using them for more than one child.

There is no one diapering system that is best; it all depends on you. If you recall from my previous post, the three major concerns with cloth diaper are cost, ease of use and environmental impact. An easy way to pick a system would be to identify which on of the three concerns matters most to you. For cost, prefolds are your best bet, followed by one-size diapers if you're okay with a higher upfront cost. For ease of use, pocket or all-in-ones are the way to go and for environmental concerns a hybrid system is probably best. Fitted diapers are kind of in no man's land, they're not super cheap, they aren't as easy to use as pockets or all-in-ones and they aren't as environmentally friendly as hybrids (keep in mind that all cloth diapers are environmentally friendly). Fitted diapers are, however, a great choice! They are usually made with really high quality fabrics (great for babies with sensitive skin), they are really absorbent and they fit great. Don't discount fitted diapers, many people swear by them.

Extras

There are few extras to consider for you baby's bottom, some regardless of whether or not you're using cloth diapers.

Cloth wipes. If you're not interested in switching to cloth diapers, have you considered at least using cloth wipes? They're way cheaper than buying the disposable wipes and you can control what chemicals you're wiping your baby with. The method that we love best is to use our wipes warmer (the one made for cloth wipes) as a water warmer (we make a wipes solution from a Canadian brand called Wipe Cubes by Monkey Doodlez). We don't presoak our wipes as we found they get that standing water stinkiness. Instead we keep the wipes next to the warmer and whenever we need to wipe we just dip the cloth wipe into the warm water. We wash our wipes with our diapers, but I guess you could throw them in with your laundry (assuming of course, that you've pre-rinsed the ones with poop on them).

Inserts/doublers are used to add extra absorbency to your diapers. Inserts are what come with your pocket diapers and additional ones can be purchased if needed. Doublers are pretty much the same thing, but may come in different sizes and shapes (this is all brand specific). Usually additional inserts or doublers are used at night when you need extra absorbency or for any other time when you know there's going to be a long stretch before the next diaper change opportunity.

Liners are generally used as diaper protectors and are highly recommended if you have a formula fed baby or have started your baby on solids. They are a thin rectangular piece of biodegradable fabric that's flushable or you can buy reusable fleece ones as well. They are placed on top of the diaper to serve as the first point of contact for poop. They make disposing of it very handy. Just pick up the liner, drop it into the toilet and flush. Conversely, you can shake the poop off of your reusable liner. They're great because they greatly reduce stains (Daphne's 9 months now and she doesn't have a single stain on her diapers).

Diaper creams tend to cause cloth diapers to wick (at least the fleece ones) making them less absorbent. We rarely need to use diaper cream as cloth diapers are fantastic at keeping babies' bottoms looking and feeling great! If you don't believe me, ask the ER nurse who helped us out a couple nights ago. She asked if we used cloth diapers all the time, and when we told her we did, she said "Her bottom looks great!" This is not to say that Daphne (or any other cloth diapered baby for that matter) never gets diaper rash, she does, but it's usually not as bad and goes away fairly quickly. When we do need something to put on her we use a Canadian diaper salve called Bum Bum Balm. It works great, is all natural and doesn't contain any ingredients that affect the effectiveness of cloth diapers.

Caring for cloth diapers

When using cloth you also need to decide if you want to use a wet or dry storage system (for dirty diapers that is). We chose to use dry as it seemed easier and less stinky than a wet system (I hate the smell of standing water). Anyway, with a wet pail system, you would put your diapers into a pail that is filled with water and let them presoak until laundry day. With a dry pail system, you put your diapers into a dry pail or wet bag (a waterproof, zippered bag) or both (we put our wet bag into a pail that has a lid to cut down on the smell). Once laundry day comes you would presoak your diapers in the washer. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, I think this one boils down to personal preference.

As for washing cloth diapers, it's pretty straightforward. You would run a rinse/presoak cycle on your washer with cold water. Then you would wash your diapers using hot water. Once the wash cycle is done, you can either line dry or machine dry everything. If you're using diapers with shells, line drying those will prolong their lifespan. If you happen to get stains on your diapers, a commonly suggested solution is to leave them in the sun to bleach out (we haven't had any stains yet, so I can't comment on the effectiveness of this method).

Finally, it's over!


So that's it, folks! It took me longer to write this than I expected (my next post will explain why), but I hope you've found the information somewhat useful. If you have any questions at all, feel free to leave a note and I'll answer to the best of my knowledge.

TTFN.

Great Excrementations

As I mentioned last week, this week's blog post is going to be about cloth diapers. I wanted to write about cloth diapers not because I'm determined to convert every disposable diaper user to cloth, but because I think there's a lot of misinformation out there, and frankly, a lot of fear about cloth diapering. I can't really tell you why I chose to use cloth diapers, I guess it's just something I'd always been open to and when I started researching cloth diapers I couldn't find anything to sway me to disposables. There are three common concerns people bring up about cloth diapering: cost, ease of use and environmental.  I'll address each one separately and then next week I'll write up a guide on the different options there are for cloth diapering.

Cost

This one's a no-brainer. Cloth diapers are way cheaper than disposables. Over the course of three years, disposable diapers and accessories will run you just over $3000. The most expensive cloth diapering system, plus the cost of accessories and the cost of home laundering will cost you around $1700. Keep in mind that that's for the most expensive cloth diapering system. I have spent a total of about $700 on cloth diapers that will last Daphne through all her diaper years and that includes superfluous purchases and impulse buys. If money isn't a concern, you can use a cloth diapering service, they deliver, pick-up and wash your diapers for you and they end up costing about as much or a little more than disposables. They're the most environmentally friendly option for sure.

Another issue people have is that cloth diapering comes with a high upfront cost vs. disposables. This is true; however, you don't have to buy all your diapers at once and you can plan ahead and make purchases monthly or weekly during your pregnancy. If you already have a baby or are really tight on cash, an inexpensive way to get into cloth diapering is to look on places like craigslist, where people sell new and used cloth diapers all the time and they're usually really well cared for so you don't have to worry about sanitation issues or excessive wear. I got the steal of the century when I found 20 bumGenius diapers for $80 - all I had to do was replace the elastics (thanks, Peggy!)

Ease of use

Also a no-brainer, cloth diapers are just as easy to use as disposables. Unless you're using the same cloth diapers your parents used on you, there are no safety pins required. Most of them go on just like disposables and they don't leak any more or less than disposables (no diaper is 100 % leak-proof).

As for laundering, it'll take you more time to get dressed, go out and buy disposables than it will to do a load of cloth diapers. For me, the most annoying thing about doing laundry is the folding, and there's very little folding (if any) required when using cloth. You just pop your diapers in the wash, run a rinse cycle, run a wash cycle and then dry, that's it.

But what about the poop? I know you're thinking it. There are a few ways to tackle this. For exclusively breast-fed babies, you don't need to do anything, you can wash your poopy diapers along with your wet ones as breast-fed poop is completely water-soluble. Once your baby is on solids or is formula-fed you can buy disposable liners that allow you to just drop the poop into the toilet and flush. You can do this with reusable liners too; just be sure to hold onto the liner when dropping your baby's latest creation. Some people use these diaper sprayers as they bypass the need for liners. We have one but Dave hasn't gotten around to installing it yet, so I can't comment on it's ease of use. (That's a hint, Dave!)

I really can't stress enough how easy these things are. And keep in mind that this is coming from me, the queen of laziness. If I* can do it, anyone can, trust me*.


*read: Dave
*ibid

Environmental

I have a secret to tell you: when it comes to decisions the environment rarely enters my train of thought. I know, shoot me now, but it's true. I very rarely make choices because they help the environment, yet most of my decisions result in me being quite environmentally friendly, does that make sense? What I'm getting at is you don't have to be a tree-hugger to know that most of the time the most environmentally friendly choice is also the best choice for a number of other reasons too. Cloth diapers are a perfect example of this. I chose them primarily because of cost - we're poor, so we needed a cheap solution. I also think they're way cuter than disposables and for me, aesthetics are important (funny coming from someone whose daily look consists of track pants, a t-shirt, frizzy hair and a no make-up face, but hey, I don't have to look at me, you* do*). Those two reasons helped me make a decision that benefited the environment, I call that a pretty awesome bonus!


*read: Dave
*does

Most people who argue against the use of cloth diapers will inevitably say "Yeah, but are they really better for the environment? You are using a lot of extra water and energy to clean them." Here's how I see it: The earth is 70 % water, I don't know what percentage of land we're using for landfills, but what I do know is that our biggest landfill is in the Pacific Ocean. When you factor in the fact that disposable diapers are our third largest source of waste, I have a sneaking suspicion that disposables are doing more harm to our water and aquatic life than doing 2-3 extra loads of laundry/week. The manufacturing alone of disposable diapers uses way more water and energy than the production of cloth diapers. When you consider that most people have upgraded to energy efficient washers and dryers cloth diapers definitely use less energy than disposables, and contribute way less to our already crowded landfills. Plus, with each subsequent child you'd be able to reuse the same cloth diapers, which is definitely better for the environment. Remember: reduce, reuse, recycle!

There are many other reasons why cloth diapers are better for the environment and your baby; a quick google search will yield plenty of results. I could go on, however this post is intended to provide a basic understanding of cloth diapers and is not a tome on the environmental impact of disposable diapers vs. cloth.

That's about it for now. If this post has piqued your interest in the world of cloth diapering be sure to check in next week for some more info. Otherwise, I'll be back with some sort of silly Daphne post in a couple weeks...she's bound to get into a little trouble between now and then, right?

Teething sucks!

That's all you're getting this week. Next week, cloth diapers: pretty exciting stuff so stay tuned...

Suck it, Aqua-mom!

Last Friday I took Daphne to her third swim class. I was really looking forward to it 'cause she'd had a nap right before. The problem with the class is that it starts at 9 am which is right around the time Daphne joins me for her morning nap (and my sleep in!) We managed to get her down for a 20 minute catnap at 8 so I was pretty confident that she would be a little more interested in the class and a little less tired and freaked out this time. And I was right. She had a blast. Too bad I didn't. Here's what happened:

We arrived for the class at around five to nine with just enough time for me to take off the million layers that adorn Daphne whenever we go out and for me to get my swimsuit on. The family change room was pretty much empty save for a mom, her baby boy and the boy's grandmother. I sat Daphne down on the giant multi-baby change table and began to get her undressed. The grandmother of the boy was taking a bunch of pictures of him as he appeared to have just learned how to sit. The boy's mom looked at Daphne and said to her son 'Sweetie, do you see the little baby?' and proceeded to make quite a few comments to get him interested in the 'young baby' to his right. Finally I looked up at her and jokingly said 'I bet that Daphne's actually older than your guy, she's just really small.' To which the mom replied 'Really?' To which I replied 'Yeah, I bet you can't even guess how old she is.' So she guessed what I will grant her was a very educated guess. Daphne had to be between 5 and 7 months based solely on the fact that she was sitting. Five months may be jumping the gun on sitting so my guess is that's how she got to her guess of 6 months. Actually, I think she said 'no more than 6 months'. I informed her that Daphne was in fact 8 months to which she replied 'Oh...it's just that she doesn't act like an 8 month old." EXCUSE ME? 'It's just that she doesn't act like an 8 month old.' Okay, so please tell me that I'm right in being offended by this comment! I mean, fine, tell me that my baby looks young but to look at her for all of a minute and repeatedly (yes, she said it more than once) tell me that she's not acting her age is a huge insult. Who died and made you a specialist on infant behaviour? The last time I checked she was a first-time mom too, so I have no idea what she's basing this observation on. Did she expect Daphne to be dressing herself at 8 months? Did she think that because Daphne was being a quiet, well-behaved baby that she had to be younger than she was? Or maybe, just maybe, was she basing it all on the fact that Daphne wasn't reciting the alphabet yet? Yup, that's got to be it. All 8 month olds can recite the alphabet, it's a fact. The really talented ones can even read and spell and some of them (the ones who've mastered crawling, walking and running) can ride bikes. Man, I can't believe how far behind Daphne is. We're screwed.

But in all seriousness, what this lady said really irked me. It also made me stress out, unnecessarily. I got home and all I could hear was her comment and being the over-reactor that I am, I started to actually believe that there was something wrong with Daphne. I got all stressed out because she's shown very little interest in crawling or walking. I forgot to acknowledge that fact she's got really great fine motor skills and is chatty to boot. Yeah, she seems to be reaching her gross motor skill milestones a little later than some babies, but she's not by any means out of the range of normal. Her size does add to my stress, but she seems happy and healthy and neither the doctor nor the pediatrician seem to be concerned. Why then, did I let this happen? Why did I let what someone else said get to me? Why are parents so interested in comparing their babies? My guess is that all parents want the best for their children and most parents want their children to be the best. I think that a lot of us take our babies' development personally. Why is so-and-so's baby crawling and Daphne isn't? Did I do something wrong? Should I have given her an hour more of tummy time every day? Maybe, maybe not. The truth of the matter is that all babies are different, some are quicker than others. It doesn't make your baby or my baby better, it just shows us that we're all as unique as they say we are. All we can do is be there to support our babies as they learn to navigate this crazy world and stay positive. The last thing anyone needs is negativity, especially babies; they're way too perceptive and a lot smarter than most of us give them credit for. Daphne's also a Taurus, which means she's stubborn and would rather learn at her own pace, something that I have to constantly remind myself of as us Aries like to lead and take charge. Look at me all sounding like an astrologist, but it's true. As much fun as it is to manipulate Daphne into a crawling position, something tells me that it's all for naught. Daphne will get there when she's good and ready to and I'm not going to let anyone make me second-guess just how awesome she is ever again. Or so I hope.

Oh, and to the aqua-mom who made the comment: instead of casting judgement why not offer some positive reinforcement to other new moms like yourself? We're all as insecure as you are, and could use the support. Besides, you'll need it in 40 years when Daphne's prime minister and your son's getting her coffee. Snap!

Daphne, five months, reading up on foreign policy.

First is the worst, second is the best...

Some things in life are a given. We are born. We breathe. We eat. We drink. We sleep. And we all love Dave more than Eve. It's true, for some reason (or rather, many) everyone tends to prefer Dave to me. He's funnier, smarter, less annoying, cuter and all around nicer than I am. I've come to accept this. I've come to accept the fact that everyone tells me how lucky I am to have Dave yet he rarely hears the words 'You're so lucky to have Eve.' I understand that although this is the case, Dave appreciates me and knows that he's very lucky to have me too.

Daphne sharing her first smile with dad

One thing that I was certain of when I married Dave was that when we had kids they too would love him more than me. Maybe "love's" not the right word, maybe we should stick with "like" -- it's a little more fitting. Yes, our kids will definitely like Dave more than me. I mean he's really awesome at being that silly/funny/cool guy that kids can't get enough of. I've seen it on the times we've spent with our nephews and I now see it with Daphne. Don't get me wrong, Daphne loves me and I'm pretty sure she even likes me, but when her and Dave get going there's no mistaking that she definitely likes Dave more. She cries when he leaves the room or when he enters it and doesn't pick her up right away (even if I'm holding her at the time) and when he gets home from work and she hears his voice her face lights up as if it's Christmas morning. Sometimes she's so excited to see him that she falls over, it's the cutest thing ever. She also laughs with him a lot more than she laughs with me (which is fine by me as long as I can hear her laughing 'cause it's also the cutest thing ever). Anyway, you get the point, Daphne loves Dave, big deal. Well here's what the big deal is, at least for me. The whole time that I've known that I would be second place to Dave only one thing has kept me going: I get to be the mom. I get to be Daphne's mom and any subsequent children we have, I'll be their mom too. Moms are the ones who spend all their time making sure that their families are happy and healthy. That worry more than any one person should. Moms are caring and nurturing, loving and kind. Moms aren't always the most fun and sometimes they can seem pretty mean, but one thing that separates a mom from everyone else is the way they are able to comfort their children. I don't know what it is that gives moms this special ability, but there's something almost magical about the healing properties of a mother's embrace. It's this bond between mother and child that makes me okay with the fact that I will almost always be second place. Yes, Dave is the best father in the world (it's a fact), who will come up with some pretty imaginative ways to cure Daphne's ouchies, but when push comes to shove, I know deep down that on those rare occasions where Daphne needs to feel extra secure it's me that she'll come to, and I'll be waiting there with open arms. How do I know this? Because it happened just the other day.

Dave, Daphne and I took a little trip south to Whidbey Island (this amazing little place on the pacific coast of Washington state).  We had planned to pick up Dave's new french horn, do some shopping and possibly spend the night in a hotel (depending on how much we had to declare!) We were a little bit concerned about how the 2 1/2 hour drive would be as Daphne's not the hugest fan of her car seat right now. She was doing alright until just after we crossed the border into the US. She started to get a bit fussy, but she wasn't crying, she was just whimpering (which is very unlike Daphne). Anyway, I felt her head and it felt HOT, like fever hot. I then kicked myself 'cause the last thing I saw before we left home was our instant read thermometer and I decided not to pack it 'cause I figured the chances of her coming down with something in the next twelve hours was unlikely. I guess I was wrong. Anyway, being a mom (and a hypochondriac) I started thinking of all the horrible things that could be wrong with Daphne and being Mrs. Frugal I started thinking that I really didn't want to have to deal with insurance claims and the cost of having Daphne treated in the US should anything be really wrong. So I had Dave stop at the Walgreens where I bought not one, but two thermometers and some infant Tylenol. We took her temperature and it was high, like freak out high, so of course I freaked out! I almost made Dave turn the car around, but we were now only 30 minutes from our destination, so we gave Daphne some Tylenol and decided to see how things were when we stopped. Luckily, by the time we got to Whidbey Island Daphne's fever had dropped down to mild, so we felt okay finishing off the trip.

We had planned to go to this place called Toby's Tavern in Coupeville for lunch. They were supposed to have the best mussels ever so I was pretty stoked. We parked the car and headed in and we were greeted by a waitress who looked at us and said 'no minors' and forced us to leave.  Bummer, I hadn't realized that an infant was considered a 'minor' in that respect. I was pretty upset as I had my heart set on having mussels but luckily we stumbled upon this place called Mosquito Fleet Chili and decided to check it out. I'm not kidding you when I say that this was the best lunch I've ever had, it was awesome. I had the grilled cheese and tomato bisque and Dave had a yummy salmon and asparagus quiche with the best clam chowder in the world. Anyway, I digress. It was here at Mosquito Fleet Chili that my dream came true. Our little Daphne, who's normally loud and obnoxious (yes, 8 month olds can be obnoxious) was quiet and subdued. Her cheeks were flushed and she kept fidgeting while Dave held her. I offered to hold her when his chowder came and she sat there in my arms and laid her head down to rest on my shoulders. At that moment in time, the only thing that made Daphne feel better was me. Her mom. I held her for as long as she would let me and I squeezed her as gently as I could and cherished the moment and how special it was, for I knew that even though this was one of many, my job is to ensure that my little girl has as few of these moments as possible.