Adventures in Cloth Diapering

We went for it.
We made the plunge, we are cloth diapering this baby.
I was a little nervous.
I have some amazing friends who cloth diaper who are showing us the ropes.


We are using Best Bottoms diapers as well as a few BumGenius Freetimes (for night time), and a couple work at home mom diapers. So far..... we love it. Seriously.
We ordered from Nicki's Diapers and they have been marvelous to work with, we have been ordering a few a month since January to build up our stash so that we could spread out our cost so that it wasn't one lump sum all at one time (thanks for the tip Lindy).
I also have a small collection of cloth wipes that we use, I figure if I am doing all the laundry anyways, what is a few wipes in the mix.

We didn't use cloth diapers while Lucy was in the NICU or the first couple days at home, we used up the ones that they gave us and as those were running out we use a newborn cloth diaper rental for the early days when she was still a bit too small for the ones that we owned. Not only are they ridiculously cute but we have other reasons as well......

My reasoning for wanting to do it:

• primarily it is environmentally - I just can't stand the idea of millions of diapers going in the waste when I have beautiful alternatives 
• I don't think I would be doing it if the cloth diapers were still the old school ones like my grandparents used (heck I doubt my grandparents used cloth but that were available when they were diapering my parents and aunts and uncles) - something about a squirming child and having to properly fold a diaper AND then stick pins into said diaper without poking a baby/toddler scares the daylights out of me - so we are going with the snap version of Best Bottoms
• Yes, I know some people still use the prefolds or flat diapers and use the safety pins/diaper pins, but it just isn't for me 
• Yes, I know the Best Bottoms are a little more expensive than the flats or prefolds, but frankly I don't care
• other reasons:
• I hear there are many health benefits for babies who use cloth (I am not anti disposable and we use disposable for sure when we are on vacation most likely because I can't quite fathom how I would make cloth diapers work on vacation - but who knows we'll see how it goes)
• financially - I can't lie the financial side of it did play a slight role in our decision making but wasn't the main reason
• low low reason - seriously how cute are babies in cloth diapers

I am sure as Lucy gets a bit bigger and starts eating real food the challenges to cloth diapering will change, but so far, we love it. The extra laundry really doesn't phase me and the amount of money we are saving as well as the amount of diapers we are keeping out of the landfill warms my heart.

Wine and Dine Half Marathon 2015

Lucy. How I love thee and always will.

She messed with my race schedule (as well as totally shifting my life in many ways). I wasn't able to run last summer like I had wanted to, I missed out on many of my favorite races and as motivation to get myself off the couch back into - I have convinced Marc to run a runDisney (his first and what will be his longest distance) race with me, we are going to be running the Wine and Dine this coming November, I have been talking about this race since I found out I was pregnant and realized that this sweet baby girl would wreck beautiful havoc on my race schedule (yes, there are far more important things in life, however, I do still love to run). Originally I was hoping to do the Tower of Terror 10 miler however, since they aren't running that race in 2015 it was off the list for this year, hard to run a race that isn't happening.

I am jazzed about the November race on several levels:

• I won't have to be putting on crap tons (yes, this is a technical distance) of miles on the treadmill in the winter months, I will get to train all summer/fall (where hopefully we will still be snow free come early November)
• Who doesn't love runDisney races?!
• My parents are coming along to hang out with Lucy while Marc and I run
• Who doesn't love Disney?!
• I am not as jazzed about the late evening time slot, however, I will adjust and be just fine - Suzi and I ran the Wine and Dine a few years ago and I MUCH prefer the before the crack of dawn time slot over the late evening time slot
• HOWEVER, I am WAYYY less nervous about running ridiculously late (okay not really ridiculously late for most people, just people like me who like to go to bed early) than I was before the Wine and Dine having done it before
• I love Disney. End Story.

365 DAYS from today I WILL be running the Wine and Dine Half Marathon..... let the countdown begin and the training continue!

Blackberry Salad Blanket

It is finished.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant I began thinking not of how I would decorate a nursery or what I wanted to buy rather my mind was immediately taken to what I wanted needed to crochet for this new life. I have made countless number of baby items, many for friends, and some for complete strangers. I have taken over 250 hats/boot sets to a near by local hospital and just shy of a dozen afghans to a local nursing home. There is something sacred for me in creating something with yarn, something so soft and tender, something to be wrapped in, to be held tight by, to be reminded of the ways in which we too were knit together. (However, I crochet and have zero knitting abilities and zero desire to gain said abilities)

I knew I would make a hat (or many a hat over the course of baby's life), booties (seriously, it doesn't get much cuter than crocheted booties), probably some other miscellaneous things, but I wanted to create a blanket for baby. Something that I could use with baby right away, not too big (I can make a huge one once baby is no longer a baby but more of a kid/teen/adult) but also not too small, that baby would outgrow in a matter of days. Here's hoping for a tall child who wants to play basketball with mom.

There was a strange set of pressure to create something for baby. I wanted it to be just right. I didn't want it to be pastel, I didn't want it to be too baby, but I didn't want it to scream grown up either. I didn't want to fly through it as if it took no time, I wanted there to be a little complexity (which once I got the hang of the pattern the only complexity was counting and remembering to switch colors), I wanted it to be unique, and nontraditional. I looked at patterns on ravelry for days, weeks really. I hemmed and hawed, I made test swatches, 14 of them to be exact. The 14th one won my heart. Blackberry Salad Baby Blanket from Moogly Blog got my final stamp of approval, Marc even liked it.

Then I had to pick yarn, seriously, this is a much harder task then it should be. I stood in the isles at Hobby Lobby, I felt yarn, I thought about experimenting with new yarn that I hadn't ever used, I thought about using fancy yarn, but in the end I came back to "I love this yarn" brand. Then I had to pick colors, "I love this yarn" comes in more colors than I ever imagined and my list of possibilities for color combinations felt nearly endless. I held the colors in my arms, I switched colors out, I added colors, I debated how many colors, I wrestled with my options.

Due to the ridiculousness of this winter this blanket was my winter project that followed my previous winter project (the large afghan for myself). I worked on it while we watched movies, while we drove places, while I sat in silence in prayed for the dear one who will be wrapped up tight in the blanket.

It is finished and I am getting anxious for the small one who will occupy this blanket.

Pregnancy

I figured after dropping the news in the last post that I am pregnant I should probably do a bit of an update. Baby Marshall is technically due on August 7, 2014, however I am not holding my breath that baby will actually agree, my fear is it will be the world's hottest summer on record and baby will hold out until an eviction notice is given and baby is forced out of the womb. Bring on the ice cream and the lake.

We found out we were pregnant back in December, actually on the same day that we closed on our new house. It was quite the surprise to us and not at all like we had planned, I feel like this is how these types of things generally work out. We are jazzed for sure.

A selfish downfall is my race schedule is pretty much non-existent for a while with baby coming in August. I still plan on running a couple 5ks but no halfs or even 10ks are on my calendar, which saddens me. I am not really certain I can bank on being able to run all that well this summer so attempting to do something more than a fun 5k sounds awful. Not to mention the treadmill makes me sick, literally. However, I have been swimming a TON of miles. New problem, maternity swim suits that are geared towards lap swimming rather than having your stomach hang out, they are few and far between and generally cost way more than I actually want to spend. Next year, I will be back running for sure. I have convinced Marc to run the Tower of Terror ten miler with me down in Disney world, not this October, but the following (yes, this seems ridiculously far off in the distance, however, I want a fun race on the calendar. I imagine registration will open up in February or so for the race). My parents, who took no arm twisting, agreed to come along on the trip so that someone can hang out with baby while we run.

I will also hopefully have Fargo 2015 under my belt (no commitment to distance yet, perhaps the 10k) and some fun summer runs. This summer is shot. Something about being seven through nine months pregnant and running sounds horrible.

I have been feeling less than ideal to put it mildy. Whoever named it morning sickness was lucky, I would have referred to it as all day and every day sickness and still going strong at this point (Yes, I am well aware it dies off for most people at 12 weeks, I am just extra "lucky" or something. No, the drugs don't do anything for it.) It sucks. I puke more than I care to admit and am at the point that I look at food and think "do I want to puke that back up" before eating it. Ridiculous.

We are excited for August for sure.
Bring on the world's hottest summer (which after this winter is next to impossible to imagine).


Any fun or exciting news in your world?
Life throwing you any curve balls lately?