I Will Apparently Color Splash Anything

Remember how I fell in love with my new phone and my new Color Splash app last week?  Well you'd think I'd be tired of it (or maybe you wouldn't think that at all) but I totally am not. I am colorsplashing everything in sight (read: in my phone) and despite how the receiving end of my text messages react, I've been feeling shamelessly un-annoying about it.

First I colorsplashed this dinosaur because let's face it, you can't have a dinosaur hatching in a bowl on your counter for four days and not be tempted to colorsplash it. (Sentences I never knew I'd write.)

Then I colorsplashed my daughter. You know, like you do. (Ask me how thrilled Marky was that I un-oranged his beloved tiger paw shirt.) (We do not un-orange the things that are supposed to be orange! We make things orange! All of the things! Orange!)

Then we colorsplashed the other daughter.  She chose a great outfit for the day and her wardrobe choice was only made better by colorsplashing.

Then I colorsplashed Another Nathan.  He had a little acci-doo yesterday (yes he's totally fine and it was just a slick road and slicked up breaks and a small fender bender and we're not even calling it any bad names, basically his car just has a boo boo) and I took a picture of him in the office of a body shop. And colorsplashed it because it was a blue mood.

And then I realized that if I am colorsplashing my best friend's worried moments, I might need to stop colorsplashing.

And that's the story of how I became less un-annoying about my new Color Splash app. Thanks for coming along on this journey with me.

Nathan in the Grass

For those of you who don't have a family best friend who's around occasionally with an extra set of hands and an extra camera, be jealous. My latest favorite from the files of Another Nathan's iphone:

your daily Nathan: by Another Nathan

I can't stop looking at this picture. I'm reminding myself to love this summer and love it hard, because come fall we will be a family with school kids (!) and somehow that feels like a whole new life season or something.  My time of mommying babies and toddlers is already ushering in a new era.

But for now, summer.

That Normal Thing Where You Want to Kill a Toy

To whichever grandparent decided that not only did the "no noisy toys please" rule not apply to them, but that it was meant to be broken with a toy that makes not just any annoying noise, but one that ... (wait for it) ... CRIES LIKE A BABY (because... every already-frazzled mom of three needs another crying baby around?) (cue Seth and Amy: REALLY?!) and gifted my middle child with a doll that yes indeed cries, and no I don't remember which grandparent you are (lucky for you, because, you know, justifiable homicide), I have just one question:

DO YOU HATE ME?*

I would write a graphic description of what it would sound and look like to feed the damn thing into the sink disposal and kill the cries slowly, but that kind of vivid description (and oh it would be VIVID) is likely to get me locked up in the looney bin for a long time, so I will just make a vague-ish reference here. That doll is toast.

And thank you for the lovely gift, it was so thoughtful of you to send a sweet package for your grandbabies! Ahem.

Love,
Erin

*Wait, don't answer that {cue sweet smile}

We Never Catch Them Sleeping Anymore

So when we do, we take pictures.

When I see them sleeping, they still look exactly like they did in my arms on the days they were born. Same mouths, same lashes, same perfect cheeks. I can't blink or it will turn them back into big kids. And they're definitely not big kids because they're still my tiny babies. And never more beautiful than when they're sleeping.  Well, maybe laughing. But sleeping is a close second. And right now this makes me want to freeze time.

Okay sappy mommy... out.

Saturday Miscellany

Some random (loosely related) updates from these parts:

Mark and I both got new phones last week. (That part's a coincidence actually.) They both have inward facing cameras which are probably intended for video chatting ("chatting" *ahem*) but for our purposes it mostly means I am perfecting the art of the cell phone self-pic.

Related warning: the rest of this post will have a few too many cell phone self-pics. Which some of you will like (the naggy types constantly telling me I don't post enough pictures of myself) and some of you will roll your eyes at, because apparently I am fifteen years old.

(Teenagers do that.  In case you didn't get that.)

I also got a haircut this week, but more important than that, I got it colored. It's now been re-brunetted because it had been getting redder and redder and I do not like that and I didn't know how bad it had gotten because some people are too "nice" to tell me, knowing how much I don't love the red, and were full of things like yeah it's a bit red but not too much and it's kind of pretty. Um, no. It wasn't. It was red. Well, ish. But far ish-ier than I wanted. (Stop questioning my use of ish-ier. You know exactly what I mean.)

But, no matter. It is brown now (did you know they put green in hair dye to counteract red? I mean, it makes sense but I never knew that. They call it "ash" but yeah, it's green) and because I am now brilliant at cell phone self-pics, I can show for-real before and after shots. (My mom will hate this because she doesn't love me as a brunette, but I'm into it so it's staying for a while.)

Trust me the before was redder in real life. And someone please tell me to stop taking pictures in my bathrooms. I have a whole house. Why the bathrooms?

We also went to Monkey Joe's this week, which I had never done before. It's a warehouse (well, a retail space) full of inflatable bouncy houses of varying degrees of fanciness. Another Nathan took Anneliese a few months back and she was mostly timid, but this time (after a fit of crying that involved me huffing and sweating my way through an inflatable maze, including hauling myself over slides and crushing Nathan's arm into a plasticky rugburn on one of them) they both were all about it. Anneliese bounced happily but avoided slides and tunnels, and except for the aforementioned slide/mommy rugburn fail, Nathan loved all of it.

remember when we thought his gross motor delays would hold him back?

And today I went to the grand re-opening of my gym which has been under renovation for a while, and after I worked out, I let the kids play in the bouncy house outside in the parking lot.  They were both old pros.

So, yeah. There's been a lot of bouncy houses in our world in the last twenty-four hours.

Which means naptimes have been mostly glorious and there has also been a fair amount of sitting by the pool. Which means I have been getting very freckly.  Which I used to hate (I have this nagging worry it makes me look like I have bad skin) but am starting to embrace as summery. (It took lots of Marky compliments. Fifteen years-ish worth.)

Oh! That reminds me! Kind of related to sitting by the pool, and kind of related to the new phones (see? this post isn't totally random), I have a new app that everyone else probably already knows about called Color Splash which allows you to do very cool things with color and black & white on your pics.

My brother will hate this because he is not into photo editing of any kind. He thinks it's cheating. I think he's boring. Haters gonna hate. (Can I say that? I just tried it out. I'm not sure it works on me.)

Anyway, Color Splash. Look at this pretty one Another Nathan did of me.  And this pretty one I did of him.

Yes, I know the one he did is better. But basically nothing feels more summery than a red and white striped beach towel, so I love this.

And I will stop writing now before I subject you to any more of my cell phone self-pics. Because, oh there are more. (You will stop judging me now.)

Bright Blue

This pic is from when Another Nathan and I were at Furman last month, in the stairwell of the library where we were going upstairs to find the window desk I did lots of studying in. Which sadly has been renovated away.

Anyway.

I know it's totally tacky to talk about how beautiful you think your children are, but these eyes. These eyes! They make me do things! They're blindingly pretty and are sirens singing to me I must be shared with the world sooooo prettyyyyy. Read: basically because *I* never get tired of these shining eyes, I assume the internet doesn't either.

Your daily Charlotte: bright blue

And if they look like this, in a stairwell, with just a regular iPhone camera sans photoshop... you know they're mind-blowing in real life. Trust me.

School's Out for Summer, Preschool's Out Forever

Well, for Nathan anyway.

The sweet child who I'm just getting used to as a preschooler (instead of a toddler or a baby) suddenly isn't even that anymore. He's had his last day of preschool. When he goes back in the fall he will be in kindergarten. It's almost more than I can process.

Nathan - first day and last day of 4's preschool
(consistent wardrobe much?)

And just for fun, because who doesn't like before & after pics, here's his first day ever of preschool (when he was two) and his last day, this week. Don't anyone tell me he looks anything less than exactly the same.

Oh and Anneliese is done for the summer too. We (well I) had a tearful last day of school, taking last-day pictures in front of the house and on the school steps, giving lots of hugs to teachers and preschool staff, celebrating with Anneliese for staying totally dry over the last month of Wednesdays, watching Nathan lead his class in for the closing chapel service.

My kids are growing up!

So now begins the looooooooong HOT stretch of home-all-day-every-day months. What are we going to do with all that time?

I see swimming in our future.

Happy summer.

Different Day, Same Dada

You know how there's always that kid who's a total ham in real life, smiling and giggling and chattering away, and then when the camera is on, the kid clams up and gets boring and quiet? Nathan was definitely that kid. Anneliese is sometimes that kid.

Charlotte is not that kid.

Every time Mark pulls out the camera, she is full of grins and squeals and DA DA!!

(What? I'm not jealous. Not me.)

Someday we will get her other two words on video (hi! -- well, ha like a good southern gal -- and nuh nuh which either means Nathan or Anneliese but definitely not mommy *sigh*) but it didn't happen today.  So for now, enjoy more of the same baby on the same floor saying the same word, in an even more delightful manner.

(And if you're over hearing her say dada, just watch how her beautiful eyes sparkle when she's happy. Worth the price of the camera alone.)


(If you can't see the video above, click here to watch it on YouTube.)

And with this redundant video, this is officially the mommyest mommyblogger post I have ever done.

Governor's Mansion Preschool Party

Nathan's end-of year class party was at the Governor's Mansion this year. Because... of course it was.

I should preface this by explaining that the governor's granddaughter is in Nathan's class, so having the party at there isn't that bizarre. (I spent some time going between whether it's really cool or really eyeroll-worthy, and I decided it's a healthy dose of both.)

It was a bit surreal to just pull up to the gate and tell them I was there for a... preschool party? And have them check our names on the list and buzz us on in. Usher us to park right outside the house, and tell us just go on in the front door when we're ready.

Whoa.

But we did, and it was beautiful inside and after we traipsed (and with three kids and bags and car seats, I do mean traipsed) through several fancy parlors, we were outside on a gorgeous porch and they had the lawn all set up with tables and play stuff for the kids. This is what it looks like when you have a preschool party at the governor's house:

Once we were there it was pretty down to earth. Basically the kids just raced around and played. They ate some fruit and crackers and chick fil a (and sushi for the grownups, obvs) and then did some group activities with a big parachute. Mostly standard fare for a preschool party.

Most surreal moment -- when I was herding kids around for a class picture, the governor talked to me about singing in choir! Also when we were leaving, she hugged Another Nathan and called him by name (I'm certain she recognized him from his visibility at church, regardless of nametag) and thanked us for coming. If she had only kissed Charlotte it would have been political perfection.

After we had traipsed back through the house and into the car, Anneliese had to pee.  OF COURSE SHE DID. So I walked back through the front door of the Governor's Mansion, asked about a bathroom, and (like anyone would) took a couple pictures once we were in there.

fancy ass paper towels in the bathroom!

And in some rooms on the way back out.

And right when I thought we were finally ready to go, I realized I had forgotten Nathan's water bottle (he had asked me to fill it up) in the fancy bathroom, so I went back through the front door of the Governor's Mansion (a normal thing to do at this point?) and went to collect it.

And took one more picture -- the main entryway to the house. This is what's behind the front door I traipsed in and out of a thousand times in one morning.

See? Regardless of the news recently, the great state of North Carolina does some things right. Thanks for the party, Governor Perdue!

Charlotte and Ashley

So I've made no secret of the fact that I have a pretty rockin' awesome sister. She's kind of an aunt extraordinaire actually. One of the best things about her is how she's been able to super bond to each of my kids.

Nathan, who made her an aunt. The first baby. For a while, the only baby. And Anneliese, her fellow free-spirited feisty lefty middle child who sometimes just needs to pout and have a hug. Kindred spirits, those two.

And even though she already has a nephew and a neice AND a baby of her own, she's managed to form a special bond with Charlotte too.

I can't tell you how much I love that.

She says maybe it's because her own baby is the same age as Charlotte, and it's exciting to watch them grow together.

newborn Charlotte and almost-born Liam

Or maybe it's because she's gotten to nurse Charlotte, making Liam not only her cousin but her milk-sibling (it's a thing, just go with it). A special bond forms so quickly when you become a life-giving source in a baby's life.

Or maybe she connects to Charlotte because she sees a little girl, the second of two sisters, gap toothed child who's always quick with a smile, and sees something of herself.

I don't really know.  But I do know I love my sister, and I love my youngest baby, and I'm glad they love each other.

Family Dinner, No Thank You

Can I be honest for a minute? I hate family dinners. Don't like 'em at all. There, I said it.

I know in theory it's supposed to be good family bonding time.  I know it encourages better eating.  I know that in the midst of everyone's busy schedules, sitting down to have a meal together is an important ritual habit to create.

I would love to be one of those families who sits down at a normal dinnertime-ish hour and eats a healthy meal, watching my kids happily gobble up chicken and green beans while chatting together, doing some Good Family Activity like naming the best things that happened to each of us that day.

But.

BUT.

When my family sits down together for dinner, it's at like 5:30 (remember our kids go to bed at 7) after a rush of cooking during post-naptime Moods (CAPITAL M MOODS) and the conversation that manifests is frankly terrible. We talk about nothing but... The Bites. Yes, bites. How many Nathan has had, how many more he will have, how many were big, how many were regular, how many had meat in them, and how many more again? OH MAH GAH. I absolutely cannot stand talking about the bites. Even when we ignore him, he talks about it.  Even when it's food he likes, he talks about it. He even gets Anneliese going about it, and she's a great eater. It shoots my nerves faster than almost anything else Nathan talks (well, whines) about. Oh, the bites. Please shut up about the bites. For the love of all that is good and holy in this world, enough. about. the bites.

Hi there stressful.

I hate it.

We do it sometimes, because Mark likes it. (I love him but I don't pretend to understand him.) But most of the time, we feed the kids... something (either what we're having, served earlier, or you know, breakfast for dinner is always a popular option) and yes we still have to talk about The Bites, but it's easier to manage when I know that after they go to bed I get to sit down and eat with Marky and have a real adult conversation too.

I spent a lot of time feeling guilty about my dislike of family dinners. But I realized (well, learned)... maybe I don't need do.  I mean, why do I feel guilty?  Is it my expectation that we do it? Well, no. It's a should that society or someone else has put on us (we all have those, I  promise). I feel guilty because They say we should do it. And who are They?  Why do I care about what They recommend I should do over what actually works for our family?  Because this doesn't.

Know what does work for us?

We have family bonding time during the days (remember how often Daddy is home, since he doesn't work a traditional schedule?) and it's not limited to just evenings and weekends.

We talk about our days' happy things every night when we pray at bedtime.

We work on getting meat/protein and other "difficult" foods into our kids at many lunches, when everyone is happier.

And far more than the adult conversation I crave when it comes to a meal with my husband, my children get lots and lots of conversation time with me during the day. Lots. And it's way better quality conversation than about the effing bites.

As the kids get older and are in school and have regularly scheduled activities, we'll change our dinner pattern as needed. We'll find what works for us at that point. But for now, I avoid family dinners.  Most of the time, actually.

And I don't really feel bad about it.

And that's my internet confessional for the day.

Genius Baby Strikes Again

Okay I promise not to become (even more of) one of those moms who gets all braggy whenever the kiddies do something that all kiddies do, yet mommies find mind-blowingly brilliant. Like walk. Or suck their thumbs. Or, in this case, write a sentence.

But y'all. My baby boy wrote a sentence.

I mean. That's impressive.

He can read and write a handful of words, even some long ones -- mostly his favorite ones he's asked how to spell a million times (like dinosaurs). But I have never seen him sound out words and put them on paper on his own, or put them together in a sentence. 

Oh lord I'm going to cry again just blogging about it. PROUD MOMMY, Y'ALL.

Anyway his preschool class's Curious George came home with us for the weekend; he has a notebook where the kids are supposed to dictate what they did with him so we parents can write it down and they (with the teacher's help) can share it with the class.  When I sat down to have Nathan dictate said summary, I saw that he had already taken it upon himself to write his own sentence.  The most beautiful sentence I've ever read.

The dinosaurs played with me Love Nathan.

I might burst from the sheer gigantic force of it. So proud. So, so proud.

Tiny Charlotte

Well. We had Charlotte's nine-month checkup this morning.

See how beautiful this tiny baby is? How perfect? Remember that.

your daily Charlotte

Because it turns out that at just under fourteen pounds, she is indeed tiny. Actually she has officially fallen off the growth chart.

Sound familiar? You might remember this happening once or twice before.

Yes, we probably could have started her on solids a bit earlier (but I'm still glad we didn't). Yes, I could do more to interest her in nursing the three times a day she's down to. Yes, her chart looks a little sad. But we (and her doctor) aren't really concerned, knowing that Nathan and Anneliese both followed similar curves plateaus between six months and a year and they're both just fine now. Our official plan is to shovel in as much as she'll eat, especially high-protein or calorie-dense food. And... well, not worry too much about it, having faith she'll curve back up like her brother and sister before her.

Also Charlotte is clearly thriving, a little behind on gross motor skills (predictable Goettsch baby what) but ahead socially and verbally. Overall she's doing just great.

Tiny and great.

Tuesday Tea

This morning Nathan's class had a Mother's Day tea party. The moms were instructed to bring our favorite teacup or mug for the party, and, um... yeah I don't somuch have one of those. (It was an even tossup between a paper cup from Starbucks or the beer stein I stole from Oktoberfest a decade ago, and I didn't think either of those would fly.) Also, in classic Erin fashion, I was the only one to show up in jeans, and one of the only ones who forgot to wear my fantastic sequin brooch Nathan made me.

Off to a great start, yes?

It actually ended up being kind of fun, despite my mom failings. I had a personalized placemat, and the distinct honor of sharing a plate of snacks with my dear son. Who was sitting in my lap. In a tiny preschool chair. Ahhh class parties.

The total theft of my own identity is now complete.

You can see my "favorite" mug there in the picture. Assuming favorite means only.

Nathan had answered a little survey about me. His answers weren't quite as off-the-wall as last year, except he was the only kid in his class to say I look prettiest at church (hellz yes we're holy) and the only one who, instead of saying he loved me or how great of a mom I am on mother's day, thought it was mostly important to tell me ... he wants to go to the zoo? Okay.

At least he didn't say I look prettiest in the shower like his friend Alex did about his mom. Yeah.

But the best part is his drawing of me.

With yellow hair (he totally thinks I'm still a blond!) and a ponytail.  Wearing a dress.  I mean, nothing could be more like me. Right?

Monday Miscellany

It's rainy and dreary outside and I'm in a weird mood. Probably too weird a mood to be writing a blog post, but I promised myself I'm going to stop waiting around until the "right" mood and moment strikes to do blog updates, and just do them... whenever. Like I used to.

So, hi there right now.

Um, yeah, so... Mother's Day was yesterday and I should be making polite and predictable murmurings about the blessings of children and how wonderful mommying is, but... do you need to read more of that today? Do I need to write more of that today? How about this -- I love my children; they're the best (and hardest) people in my lives. The sweetest part of my day yesterday was Nathan standing by my bed at oh-dark-thirty proudly presenting me with a preschool craft sequined brooch which I originally resisted actually wearing but then ended up leaving on the rest of the day because he was so happy seeing it on my dress. I decided that kid-made jewelry is a mommy rite of passage.

Hmmm. What else.


Today I'm wishing I were reading and typing in the sunshine instead of inside listening to the rain interspersed with kid noises through the monitors during alone time (we call it "alone time" instead of naptime, since I don't actually care if anyone naps), which feels decidedly less "alone" when I hear every body-slam into a new inflatable plastic disney chair in each bedroom (twitter consensus? exactly what I needed for mother's day, thanks mom) and resultant squeal or cry, depending on the landing. Time to turn off the monitors? But anyway I'm inside, wishing I were out. Capturing an Anneliese moment like this one.

my Monday does not look like this

In other news, I am becoming a full-fledged caffeine addict; some of my meds have a drowsy effect that lingers into the mornings and, well, grogginess kind of ruins everything, doesn't it.  So I am learning to make coffee at home.  In a coffeepot.  And maybe more than anything else I've done in the last decade, including getting married and having three children and chaperoning church youth and buying and selling and renovating homes, making coffee in a coffeepot is what makes me feel like a grownup.

And that's the type of miscellany brought to you by a weird Monday mood.

Nathan Apron

We've made several rounds of cupcakes in these parts lately, mostly for the youth choir girls. I posed a question to them in their facebook group and I thought I'd ask here too...

Two different Nathans, two different cupcake batches, two vastly different levels of baking success and productivity... one blue apron.

So who wears it best?

Cloth Diapers, Two Years In

Okay this will be a boring post unless you love cloth diapers (insert squeeee here) but I have gotten several emails asking how it's going and for more specific info so I thought I would do a little bloggity update.

Um, okay. I have been using cloth diapers for two years now.  A little more actually. Whoa. I have used them now on all baby ages from newborn to two and a half. And I have used them on multiple kids at once. I don't know everything, but I know what works for us, so... here's what I've got.

Still a yes on cloth diapering? Yes. I am not as excitedly googly-eyed about it as I was at the beginning, but I think that's because the newness has worn off and now it feels less like a hobby, and more like... life.  There are times (like after Charlotte was born, or right after we moved) where I used disposables at least half the time, and I'm okay with that. We now use cloth all the time except 1- when we travel (yes, you can do cloth on the road, we just choose not to), 2- if I get behind on laundry for a day or two (happens once a month-ish), and 3- at night (we just haven't found a good combination of cover/insert that doesn't leak for 12 hours of heavy wetting, and I've made peace with aborting the quest).

Best kind? I am still very sold on BumGenius 4.0 pockets. They grow with baby, they dry fast, they're cost-effective, they come in pretty colors (yes, the cute factor and diaper rainbow still matter to me). BG has also come out with a new all-in-one called the FreeTime which is better than their old all-in-ones because you don't have to buy a specific size; like the 4.0, it grows with baby. Also it dries fast like a pocket.  Basically these have everything the 4.0 has, but you don't have to stuff pockets after you do laundry. They're a stitch more expensive but if I were starting from scratch, I would probably build my stash out of mostly the FreeTime.

Two other all-in-ones I'd recommend are Tots Bots EasyFit and Ones&Twos. Like the FreeTime, they're both also one-size (adjustable to grow with baby) and they both have truly excellent velcro (I still prefer velcro, although I do understand why some moms are sold on the washability and durability of snaps -- but my BG velcro is hanging tough in the "good enough" category, which is fine with me). The TotsBots is a few bucks more, but one of the trimmest cloth diapers I've found. Both of these brands are worth owning a couple of, if nothing else for color variety. :)

Cloth on newborns? Totally doable. I did it with Charlotte about half-time (that's all the diapers I had).  Technically the BG 4.0's (and comparable one-size options) fit on newborns, but I'll be honest: it's really bulky. Under some clothes it works great, notsomuch on others. But hear this: the added bulk is totally worth preventing diaper blowouts. No disposable (because of the lack of elastic in the back) can contain newborn poops like a cloth diaper can. I promise.  If you don't want poop on you, start with cloth as young as possible. Seriously.

As far as type-specifics for newborns, one-size options should start fitting within the first month, but there are a number of "newborn" options available. I had two favorites. First the Tots Bots TinyFit, which is the Easyfit I mentioned above, but in a newborn size. These are tiny-tiny and worked right away on Charlotte, and were trim enough to hold her (tiny) newborn pees without leaking and still fitting under all her clothes without looking cray cray. My other newborn favorite was Happy Heinys mini one-size.  This is better than most newborn diapers, because it's tiny, but it also has some growability/size adjustment. These fit her for almost six months.

In my opinion the newborn cloth diapers were worth buying. I sold them for about the same price I paid for them (secondhand, on diaperswappers, yes there's totally a market for it). But if you can't get it up for buying or at least selling secondhand, it might not be worth it to buy newborn-specific diapers, unless they're the growable Happy Heinys mini ones.

two weeks old -- Charlotte's first cloth diaper!
(she loves it, I promise)

Ick factor? Look, if you have a kid, you're going to come in contact with pee and poop. It isn't exclusive to any diapering system. All will require wipes that sometimes don't seem big enough, and sheets and clothes that sometimes get leaked on. With disposables, you also have to account for the stinky mess permanently residing in your baby's bedroom wastebasket, oh and the aforementioned gross blowouts from the back of the diapers. And with cloth, the grossest part is rinsing off the poop into the potty (I have a diaper sprayer for that, which I only need to use about a third of the time -- most of the time it just dumps in, no rinsing required -- this will vary based on the baby's age and diet).  All diaper changes are gross. Make peace with it now and choose a handsoap you love and don't mind being well-acquainted with. Welcome to parenthood.

How many diapers? It depends on how many kids and how often you want to do laundry (see below).  For one kid, doing laundry every 3rd-ish day, I'd recommend about twenty. You could start with fewer (doing laundry more often) and build your stash up gradually with gifts and such.

Laundry? Okay, a little diaper math. I have two babies in diapers; Charlotte uses about five a day and Anneliese about one (remember they both sleep in disposables, and Anneliese now wears underwear except  for naptime), and about thirty-five diapers. So I do diaper laundry about once a week. They (who are "they?") say you shouldn't wait that long, but I do, and it's never a problem. I should probably do a smaller load twice a week, but... being honest, I usually don't get around to it. One of those things that will get better as I get my life back in order, which is still happening slowly. Anyway.

As diapers get dirty, I put them in  big wetbags (I have one in each of the girl's rooms, and one in each of two bathrooms). I like ones that zip close because it best contains the mess and (for the most part) the smell.  My favorites are Planet Wise which have a snap-handle to hook to closet doors or changing tables or shower curtain rods, etc.

To wash, I use only detergent I can buy at our normal grocery store, and here's how I wash them:
1- cold rinse cycle with a spash of bio-kleen bac-out (find it in the cleaning aisle)
2- hot wash extra-heavy cycle with  liquid costco-brand laundry detergent (yep), cold rinse
3- hot soak (my machine automatically follows this with a wash) with oxyclean, cold rinse, plus extra rinse
4- ten minutes on medium heat in dryer (to soften)
5- several hours outside in the sun (unless weather is bad) (or I'm too lazy to hang them)
If my diapers get stinky (as they do a few times a year) I do something called "stripping" -- my version of which involves washing all the inserts, then bleaching them, then doing about 8 rinse cycles to get rid of any buildup. There are special cloth diaper detergents and soakers you can buy to assist in stripping too, but I have only used them once. Bleach works just as well for me.

Where to buy? I have three favorite places.  The first is Diaper Junction, which does the best test-drive option on the market, for if you want to try out cloth without committing. The only cost is shipping, everything in the program is refundable for a full month. This was a lifesaver to me as I tried a bunch of different brands and sizes before settling on what worked.  I also like Abby's Lane which always has free shipping, always.  And then Kelly's Closet, which carries pretty much all the brands, has a huge variety in stock, and has excellent sales and promotions (lots of free diapers with purchase, etc).

And that's the story of how I cloth diaper.

To see another mom's perspective, read this post which my friend EMU wrote (for me) (kinda) (just sayin) (#namedrop) when I was considering switching to cloth.

Bibdana

To celebrate Charlotte's foray into real food (and by real I mean pureed vegetables in odd combinations, obvs), Another Nathan gifted her with two bibdanas for a stepped-up experience in food dribbling and crumb catching.

Your daily Charlotte: is it a bib? is it a bandana? it's a bibdana!

And they're pretty much so cute I can't stand it.

Fifteen Years of Love is Love

A note to our bloggity friends, from Mark and me --

Yesterday the two of us celebrated our relationship of (wait for it)... fifteen years. That's dangerously close to half our lives we've been together, including years of dating, being engaged, and now being married with a family.

To celebrate, we had a therapy appointment (hey, real is real) and went to dinner and reminisced about our early days together. And we also had a date at the polls.

We went together to vote against an amendment to our NC state constitution that would permanently define the only kind of valid relationship as a marriage between a man and a woman. No other types of relationships will get legal recognition in our state. Not common-law marriages, not unmarried couples, not currently existing legal civil unions and domestic partnerships. That all goes away.

And we just don't think that a relationship has to look exactly like ours to be real or valid or deserve equal rights under the law. Equal rights shouldn't be this complicated, and it shouldn't even be up for a vote.

Also, we believe that a constitutional amendment to discriminate instead of to protect is fundamentally wrong. Yes, it happens, especially with state constitutions, but it's not what a constitution was designed for.

We think arguments against same-sex relationships tend towards dangerous and overly reductive interpretations of scripture anyway, and aren't in keeping with our religious beliefs... but regardless of where people stand on the issue of same-sex marriage, mostly importantly, we don't believe that laws should be made for religious reasons in the first place.

Normally we're not very political in this here corner of the internet, but this is important enough for us to go on the record about, especially on the anniversary of our budding relationship turned married-with-kids.

Love is love, and God is love, and let freedom ring.

-- Mark and Erin. Since 1997. :)

Charlotte at Nine Months

Charlotte is nine months old today!

And, coincidentally, based on careful calendar-counting of 41 weeks gestation (minus the two "pregnant" weeks before she was actually in there), plus 41 weeks and a day since she was born... it's also her inside-out day!

That means she's officially been out here in the world longer than she was inside me.

WHAT.

(Cue predictable commentary about the impossibility of this, because her pregnancy was clearly forrrrrevvvvverrrr long, and also wasn't she born like ten minutes ago?)

signature gap-tooth grin

The best way I can describe Charlotte at nine months is on the verge.

On the verge of talking. We hear dada with some regularity, and once I swear I heard a mama but considering it hasn't happened since, I'm finally conceding it was an accident. We hear a ha! every time we see her or greet her, which we're pretty sure is hi. And in case anyone wasn't sure how to melt Mark's heart, a gap-toothed beautiful baby girl flailing her arms saying ha dada! will totally do it. True story.

On the verge of sitting. She's oh so close. If she's really in the mood she can hold herself up for a few seconds, but never long enough yet to get a picture. I give it a few weeks. Well, nine months and a few weeks. She's following in her siblings' delayed-gross-motor footsteps after all. But that's a post for another day. For now, she's less behind than they were (we think?) and the important thing is she is on the verge of sitting! As all mommies can attest, a whole world of photographable moments will come when this finally happens.

playing in big sister's room

On the verge of a growth spurt. We haven't had her nine month checkup yet, so we don't know if she's actually gained much since starting solids a few weeks ago, but to our eyes (the ones that matter), she is losing some of the lanky skinniness that has defined her for the last few months, and she's finally starting to fill out a little. Anyway she eats incredibly well (and incredibly much). I can feel the growth spurt coming.

On the verge of weaning. This one brings mixed feelings, so I don't want to write too much about it.  But now that Charlotte has food, she doesn't care as much about the boob. Sad but true. She still nurses 3-4 times a day, but it takes an effort to keep her focused on feeding instead of whatever her brother and sister are doing, or whoever else might be in the room talking. It's the opposite of Nathan and Anneliese who both resisted food somewhat (Nathan especially) (story of his life now that I think about it) in favor of nursing. With Charlotte, I'm going to keep going as long as I can, but I don't know if she'll even last the year I was hoping for, and almost certainly not longer.

On the verge of real personality (and by personality I mean opinions). In the past week or so, she has started to balk when we strap her in her car seat, put her in her crib before she's ready (oh baby girl, you will learn I don't care; it's naptime), or replace a toy she's holding with something safer (like an actual toy). She is starting to expect us to pick things up when she drops (read: throws) them. And she's just learning that if she giggles she will get all the attention. I sense a stirring of personality that is about to explode onto the scene. Brace yourself.  And stay tuned.

Yay for nine months, baby girl! I love you even more now than I did the day I found out you were in me (and believe me, that was already a lot). Happy inside out, little Charlotte.

Pinned Projects

So, like every other mom out there, I am a full-fledged pinterester these days. Actually I'm not like every other mom out there because y'all, I was on pinterest before pinterest was cool. I'm one of the ones who made pinterest cool. Yeah I said it. What up.

Also I'm not like the other pinteresty moms because I am not about to tell you about a bunch of stuff that I found "on pinterest" and completed with varying degrees of success. People. You don't find stuff ON pinterest. You find stuff VIA pinterest. Or, if you're a good pinterester, you find stuff elsewhere online and REMEMBER it via pinterest. Let's just be clear that all those pins actually link to someone else's original idea, mmkay?

That being said, here's a small sampling of stuff I pinned and then did.

*****
Waffle birthday cake. Make cake batter, cook in waffle iron, eat waffle-shaped birthday cake. Let the kids decorate their own with squeeze frosting and sprinkles. Even better topped with ice cream. Perfect for your peeps who love both waffles and birthday cake. (So... everyone.)

This was a hit.  It came across as crafty and fun when really it was way easier than a normal birthday cake.  Mark's birthday was a terrible horrible day for me where I failed at everything I attempted except this waffle birthday cake which was an unquestionable win.

*****
Rainbow fruit plate. I have never in my life made food that people thought was too pretty to eat, but at our Easter brunch, several people asked if it was okay to touch the fruit plates.  Um, yes. And thank you.

(I actually planned the whole brunch by pinning things. This was the only thing pretty enough to photograph. The rest of it was lovely too though. Just sayin.)

*****
Butterfly footprints. Okay so I pinned this kind of as a joke because my mom has a whole butterfly motif going on in her sunroom, including a larger-than-you'd-think stack of butterfly throw pillows (oh yes she does)... but then my sister decided we were actually crafty enough to do it, so it stopped being a joke and turned into us braving the art supply store and painting our children's feet (oh there were tears).

we're not neat crafters

varying degrees of foot-painting upset

four sets of grandbaby butterfly feet!

*****
Many-layered cake. I wanted a good fancyish (for me) cake for our friend David who spent New Years Eve (also his birthday) with us at the beach. I was inspired by some cakes I pinned, but ended up having to combine several recipes into one to make it how I wanted it for him. I made a chocolate cake and a red velvet cake, sliced them thin horizontally, and ended up with eight layers. Which I filled with a raspberry cheesecake mixture, then frosted with a chocolate raspberry ganache. Which, full disclosure, David himself had to help me with.

It was totally a legit cake for his first non-family birthday in years (ever?) if I do say so myself (and I do).

*****
So yeah. Pinterest. Find me if you want to see what else I aspire to do or buy. Or like to look at. And trust me, you do.

Scratch Me?

I frequently find myself sitting down with my firstborn, scratching his back* while he sits tucked into the crook of my knees. A special snuggly place we call the house.**

*I have become my mother
**And my father

And if it turns out his ever-growing desire for back scratching is as deep-seated as mine, then Nathan is turning into me.

And so it continues.