New Experiences

I will freely admit that I am still getting the hang of this stay-at-home mom stuff. Some days are great, other days are really tough - I'm still learning to take the good with the bad and not allow a few bumps in the road to wear me down. I am thankful each and every day to be at home with Abby and Zach - I love to be the recipient of smiles, kisser of boo-boos, and wiper of butts. Since Zach turned 6 months old today (his monthly update post will be up after his check-up on March 5th), I am reminded of how fast each season of a child's life passes, and I am trying to remind myself to enjoy where my children are at, as opposed to always looking ahead to where I want them to be.

Perhaps this attitude of appreciating where my children are at this exact moment is why I am so incredibly excited about two new experiences that I will be able to have with Zach. After much discussion and research, Carey and I have decided to make Zachary's baby food and switch him to cloth diapers. This is something that we had wanted to do with Abby, but the fact that she was in daycare prevented us from doing either. (Not that store-bought baby food or disposable diapers did her any harm - Abby is one of the smartest, sweetest, biggest kids I know!)

Thanks to a generous gift from my Aunt Teresa, we were able to purchase the supplies that we needed to make Zachary's baby food. I already own an immersion blender, so I purchased a steamer, food mill, slicer, storage containers, and freezer food trays (thanks to a super sale at Babies R Us!). I also borrowed a great book from the library, The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet, which has lots of great information and recipes. I'm very excited to get our baby food operation off the ground and running. As I said, Abby ate store-bought baby food and she is absolutely fine, so it's not that I think it's dangerous or unhealthy. I just want to make my own food for Zach, and I think these tools are going to make it very easy for me.

My other project is cloth diapers. I'm very thankful for some great advice that I received from Katie Arnold (you can read about her life as a wife and mommy of two little boys on her blog) and also from an amazing book by cloth-diaper guru Kelly Wels - Changing Diapers: The Hip Mom's Guide to Modern Cloth Diapering. There is so much information available about cloth diapering that I was overwhelmed, but thanks to Katie and Kelly, I placed my first order and cannot wait to get cloth on that little butt!

I decided to go with "trial packs" of several different types of diapers to figure out which ones I like and which ones will work the best for Zach. (I'll admit it: I'm addicted already. Between the different brands, styles, and colors, I think I might enjoy this more than shopping for myself!) The different brands I purchased are (clockwise from top left): Flip, FuzziBunz, econobum, Bummis, Happy Heinys, itti bitti, gDiapers, and bumGenius. There is definitely a lot of variety, between pocket diapers, snap-in-ones, and traditional prefolds, but I like the idea of different types of diapers meeting our needs. For example, the Flip system is a diaper cover that can be used with stay-dry, organic, or disposable inserts, the last insert being a great option for traveling. In my mind, our best case scenario is that we like each of these brands of diapers and end up with a very diverse stash of dipes. Our worst case scenario would be that one (or more) of these brands don't work for us, in which case I would rather be out the $30-$40 I paid for a trial pack than the $200+ that would be required for a full supply of diapers.

I have to wash all of the diapers and inserts a few times before we can begin using them on Zach, so I imagine we'll probably roll out the operation sometime next week. I can't wait to see which diapers work for us and how cute Zach's little tush will be in the rainbow of colors!