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testing my template from Creative Worker Bee

...cloth diaper tribute...

Cloth diapers: for some, not for others. It is true that there is some extra work that goes into cloth diapering, it is also true that there is huge savings from using them. We decided to cloth diaper with our wee one right off the bat. Now, we had a large hand me down stash from my sister in law and I know that helped with the choice. Cloth can be daunting at first because it is a large initial investment and the expectation of more work on top of the hard work babies already are. I can say though that, even with going through stages and long holiday travels when we used paper diapers, we have spent less than a quarter of what averages say you will spend on diapers in a year (the average is $800/ year click here for more fun facts and here for a really good price break down of both options).

Anyway, then a friend of mine had her new baby get a chemical burn from a well known, trusted, and probably totally safe brand of diapers and I just felt like it was a good choice environmentally, physically, and monetarily for us. Let me be clear, we use paper at night and whenever else we feel it will be easier and I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with paper diapers, we just felt better about cloth and it fit into our lifestyle.

So here are my tips on cloth:

1. Prefolds: We use prefolds, partly because that is what my sister in law used. They aren't quite as easy as the All in ones (AIO) but for us they have proven to be softer and more absorbent and we can travel with just the insides and use the same outer shell all day (unless there is a large poo explosion). We have Imse Vimse prefolds (about 20), the ones on the linked website are a newer style than we have but very similar (ours don't snap). We were given a bunch of Bummis Whisper covers (about 8) which work great, I supplemented with Thirsties Duo covers (about 6 in the smaller size and 6 in the larger size). We used this system for about a year and still use it and like it a lot. When the wee one was smaller we had to do some creative folding of the prefolds but around a year they fit just right.

2. AIO: When wee one was about a year we bought a lot of 5 used fuzzi buns one size AIO diapers. I have three main notes on this: my husband loves them because they are easier, they are lower profile which is nice under baby leggings ;), AND they leak more. People that use them a lot love them, I really like them, but I have to change her more frequently than my prefolds.

3. Storage: We have a diaper pail with a carbon filter, I don't know if it really does anything but we don't have any bad smells and we do laundry about every five days. We rotate between two planet wise pail liners and even have the handy dandy BunGenius diaper sprayer. All you have to do is toss the used diaper into the pail (spraying off messy ones), sprinkle some borax on top (this may help control the smell too), and move on.

4. Washing: There are lots of different opinions and ideas out there about washing that are great. I think some things have to do with what kind of water you have (soft vs. hard). We use Charlies Soap which is one of the recommended brands, it is a little pricey but you only use half a scoop for diapers so it lasts a long time. Our process is to dump the diapers and liner into the machine and do a warm water rinse (they used to recommend cold water but now some say warm water works stains out better), then you switch to hot water and wash with half a scoop of soap. Then we do another hot water rinse. Then, we dry the inserts and prefolds on hot and hang the pail liner, covers and AIO outsides to dry. We haven't had a problem with staining but I hear drying them in the sunlight bleaches out even stubborn stains.I also let them soak overnight on the wash cycle with a little baby oxy if I let it go more than five days between washes.

5. Stripping and Ammonia Problems: Sometimes the ammonia builds up, I didn't know about stripping diapers and after a year I noticed a strong ammonia smell as soon as a clean diaper got wet, and then the wee one got some diaper rashes which was very out of character. I tried vinegar and baking soda which I think worked but then tried a couple squirts of Dawn original dish soap and washed them about three times (until there were no suds left in the rinse cycle) and the diapers came out super soft and clean feeling.

Amazon is my go to for everything, haha. I have the Amazon mom account and the shipping is fast, free and they have any weird thing you may be looking for!

Here are a couple other blogs that I think have helpful information:

Viva Cindy
Lazy Mom

the secret garden...

Well crap... I totally forgot about the blogging this for a couple weeks... anyway, spring is-a-coming here in Atlanta and Sean and I are starting the task of dusting off, cutting back and replanting our little garden. These pictures are from last year and I will update when we finish this year, but our patio garden is 100% what sold us when buying our townhouse. It is big and spacious with a large magnolia shading half of it and a professional landscaping job that the people who lived here before us footed the bill for. We mostly just try to tend to it and have made some small changes like planting three gardenia bushes (my dad's favorite), some dwarf mondo glass between pavers (which is the most sturdy plant I have ever met), some flowers here and there and my beloved pot garden (not the kind you may be thinking of). The pot garden always starts off looking like the photo above but by the end of our long summers looks overgrown and wild which I love. Sean and I have a similar theory of gardening which works out for us in that we never blame the other person for the death of our plants. It is survival of the fittest at casa Delaney, and once planted if the greenery can't survive mostly on its own merits and the natural rainfall there is a good chance it wasn't meant to be in our garden to begin with. So anyway, happy spring; enjoy growth, new beginnings, and a fresh start, and I hope it rains on you all enough to keep you thriving just like our little garden :)

Our gardenia that always reminds me of both my dad and my sister-in-law who wore a gardenia in here hair for her wedding.

The pot garden is getting updated this year, so stay tuned!

...alliance theatre for the very young...

 

Thanks to my friend Lettie and Norah's friend (Lettie's son) Jackson we found this Atlanta toddler treasure: The Alliance Theatre for the Very Young. Norah was one of the younger kids there but was mesmerized the entire 45 minute show.

 When we arrived this (very tall) man was snoozing in bed and all the children were given pillows to go sit down with. There was a cute little intro where a (very small) woman peeked out over the covers and then she and a fairy ballerina worked to wake the giant man up. He spoke English and the small woman spoke a combined language of gibberish and Japanese; this seemed to equalize the language barrier with the no so verbal toddlers. 

The show was filled with dance, bubbles, song, music, grown interaction, and whimsical props. I had a smile on the entire time and so did Norah and the other kids. It was so worth the time and ticket price and I would highly recommend it to Atlanta families with little ones- thanks Lettie and Jackson!

...Barça...

Sean, Norah and I traveled to Barcelona this past summer with my mom to have a mini Grogan family reunion.  We were missing a couple members but I was great to spend time with my brother Oliver, sister-in-law Carla, nephew Carver (who had spent the last school year in Turkmenistan and had not met Norah yet!); and my uncle Jeff; Aunt Cathy and her beau Doug.  The header photo is in Parque Güell which was certainly one of my favorite places.

 

Talk about a one man band!

Human Statue- he was so still it was amazing.

Mostly we ate, drank sangria, and wandered the city.  Norah enjoyed the crusty white bread and the ample attention from Carver, Carla and her Nannan!

She also crawled around numerous beautiful old cathedrals (holy dirty baby ;) Including Sagrada Familia which was more stunning in person that I could have imagined.  The color of the sained glass was mesmerizing.

Poor bebe only really got one good nap a day, in the morning we kept her out and she took cat naps on our shoulders, and in the afternoon we always tried to get back to our apartamento so she could take a good long snooze.  We loved the baby bjorn crib for all the travel we have done!  We got it used on ebay for a good deal.

We also ventured out of the city (armed with chocolate croissants) to visit Montserrat which is a monastery built into a mountain just outside of Barcelona.  It was a long day but so worth it.

Norah never got a full nap this day- she was a trooper and passed out cold on the train ride hone!  We traveled only with a linen Maya wrap which worked well and was lite and cool to travel with.  Again, this was a consignment store find for us- but totally worth purchasing full price in my opinion since we do use it a ton.  My back got tired but luckily I had people to share the load- and we were walking around sun up to sun down so I think I would have been tired regardless of what carrier I was using.

Beautiful Carla and the best 6 year old nephew/cousin a girl could ask for, Carver!

Sean and I went out the second to last night for a nice dinner at Els Quatre Gats which was a historical lesson as well as a tasty dinner.  Picasso like to hang out there, no big deal or anything.  It also featured in one of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind which was a little thrill for me.

Our walk home every night from in or around Las Ramblas (which was super touristy but a good landmark from which to explore).

I am fairly certain I am missing some awesome details (like how Sean almost got jumped while with the baby, the amazing coffee, etc) but overall we had a blast, loved the city and it was a great first trip with Norah!  A piece of our corazón is definitely in Barça!

Norah did get sick right when we got back to Pittsburgh but had lots of arms to snuggle in and got over it fast- thanks Uncle Oliver, Aunt Carla and Nannan!!

...goal setting...

Goal setting is a funny thing. I, for one, set about a million "goals" a day, but the number of those "goals" that actually come to fruition is embarrassingly small. Am I just a total loser or is there something more to this? The thing about goals if that without a clear and distinct plan for accomplishing them, they never in fact become a goal; they are stuck in dreamland. It is like making cookie batter but never baking them... or something like that... maybe more like deciding you want cookies but never buying the ingredients and then just waiting by the oven expecting chocolate chip goodness to spring forth from its gas fired loins... yeah maybe more like that.

Anyway, after having a baby I found that, while I enjoyed my time with her and couldn't imagine life without her, I mostly felt a little lost, totally overwhelmed, and wildly unmotivated. I have an adjunct faculty position teaching things I enjoy talking about, was offered an amazing opportunity to illustrate a children's book, and get to spend a lot of time with my little one and yet I didn't feel like I was getting anything done, and I was feeling paralyzed to move forward with any new projects. 

After a wonderful visit from some of the most amazing and motivating friends from warmer dryer climes (Hi Auntie Mellow and Uncle Guny;), I felt like I needed to sit down, re-center and find something small that would recharge my motivation. I don't need to do everything, or really anything deeply meaningful, I just need to do something!

So here is my very first tiny step, I am going to update this dutsy old blog at least once a week on Sundays.  I hope to be able to update you on exciting possibilities on the yoga front, tasty foods, and probably some baby stuff- haha-  Happy Sunday!

Vietnam

vietnam...

Our trip to Vietnam was amazing and challenging, most disappointing was when we lost our camera- sooooo... many of these photos are sourced from the internets based on what we did while we were there.  Hanoi was bustling and... well seasoned ;).  This was exacerbated by my raging morning sickness (I had just entered my second trimester) and being a person that doesn't eat wheat because of intestinal fussiness all I could fathom eating most of the time was french bread and cheese- pobrecita!  I did try the pho and bun and loved it- and many other things that I imagine I would enjoy under normal circumstances like fried snakeskin, sauteed silkworms (Sean's favorite), sweet potato and prawn fritters, chicken feet (ack), and lots of other interesting tid-bits.  I think our favorite activity was the cooking class we took.  They took us to the open air market before we went into the kitchen and it was incredible.  There were ladies sitting cross-legged on rustic looking tables with raw slaughtered mean laid out around them... seriously.  They did two slaughters a day and the meat was incredibly fresh.  There was honestly no odor in the market- and I was the nauseous pregnant lady to find any and all questionable scents- it was seemingly the cleanest freshest place we visited.

Hanoi market:

Photo Credit: David Brewer

 Photo Credit: Gus and Jess

Photo Credit: Pikelet & Pie

Hanoi Cooking Centre:

Photo Credit: Hanoi Cooking Centre

The traffic in Hanoi was incredible- it was like the Seinfeld frogger episode... We visited lots of sites here including the Hanoi Hilton where Vietnamese people were imprisoned by the french before the American were imprisoned there during the Vietnam War (including John McCain).  It is now a museum and was super interesting to read the history of the Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese perspective- talk about a reality shift.

We also stood in a massive line to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausuleum with hundreds of very small school children.

I visited the art museum by myself after Sean left to fly to China and loved it- it was so NOT climate controlled- the art was ooooold and sort of rotting in some places.  I took myself to lunch at KOTO which is a restaurant that works quadruple-time to get kids off the streets, educate them on working in hospitality, and employ them in the restaurant.  I loved it there.

Hanoi:

Photo Credit: Chris Anderson

Hanoi Hilton:

Photo Credit: Hawkins

Photo Credit: Willettsworld

Ho Chi Minh Mausuleum:

Original Photos

Hanoi Fine Art Museum:

Photo Credit: Travel Blog Land

KOTO:

Photo Credit: Wanderlust

Halong Bay, where to start... We had totally idyllic ideas of that this place would be like- built from pictures like the ones below.  We took a bus out there which stops midway at a rest station that is run by an orphanage of sorts that was started to house and care for children born after the Vietnam War with varying degrees of birth defects from the chemicals used in warfare that could not be cared for by their parents in villages across the country.  I had never considered this part of what war leaves behind and it was very sobering for me.  The people that lived there made arts and crafts that they sold to the passing tourists and we bought a needlepoint type picture for Norah's room.  When we arrived we were shown to our junk boat which seemed to be a regular boat retrofitted to look like a junk boat.  We cruised around and everywhere we went there were at least five other boats in the near vicinity and copious amounts of garbage floating in the water.  It was a pretty amazing site regardless and the spires of rock jutting out of the water were inhuman.

Halong Bay:

Photo Credit: Vietnam Tour

Photo Credit: MiKuZandvoort


We ventured out of Hanoi by taxi one afternoon to do something we had read about on the internet- pick a venomous snake to eat, drink the bile from the liver, and... drink the blood and still beating heart... why not!  The taxi driver dropped us right at the door of the restaurant he wanted us to go to and managed to get the message across that we should not leave the restaurant until we were done and then they should get us a taxi to take us right back to Hanoi... this was somewhat unsettling but we were on a mission.  The people in the restaurant spoke zero English and we had quite the adventure haggling for a snake, figuring out how to eat the million dishes they brought to us which was supposedly our snake prepared a multitude of different ways, and getting back out the door.  We choose a smallish snake and they whacked it on the head, slit its little body and drained its blood right there.  Did I mention I was queasy on this trip?  They poured the blood into two shots of rice wine, and then they proceeded to remove the heart and liver.  The heart was presented to Sean and he was to put it into his shot and drink it down.  Then they gave us two more shots and poured the green bile from the liver into them.  Sean was my champion and drank ALL FOUR shots- I wasn't sure my prego bally could handle it and we didn't want to appear rude.  We then mowed through as much snake pieces as we could- Sean again taking the lead and eating way more than he wanted to because I was turning more and more green the more they brought out!

Snake feast in Zermat:

Original Photos

Phew- I think that just about covers it- Sean and I separated in Vietnam and he went on to China for his MBA program and I came home.  We loved the adventure and I made him promise our next vacation would be a little more cushy and relaxed ;)