I’m in L-O-V-E…

…with cloth diapers! Truly, they are much, much, MUCH different than I had pictured in my head, and everything that I “knew” about them was 100% wrong. I’m so glad that I gave them a try! Now I just wish that I could use them all of the time…

I showed off his cute butt the other day but in case you need another dose, here’s how cute he is in his cloth-covered bum:



You know that I was looking for options to avoid nighttime leaking with a heavy wetter. I tried the overnight diapers with mixed results. They leak about 50% of the time when I use them. But the cloth diapers? They haven’t leaked one single time in 6 nights.

Six nights.

No leaks.

That’s pure heaven for this momma.

Not that it means that he’s sleeping through the night – FAR from it! – but at least he’s not waking up ticked off because he’s all wet and I have to strip the screaming baby and the bedding at 2am. He’s apparently waking up to have a “party” in his bed…but that’s a whole other story.

Back to my new-found love for cloth. I really do like using the cloth diapers at night. Now, I will be honest here and tell you that I have yet to have to truly clean up a mess in them because it comes off as soon as he wakes up (it’s full!) so what I do clean is just pee, not poop. And if my day care was cloth-friendly (not something that I was interested in at the time when I searched for our day care) I would seriously consider switching all the way. But they’re not. And I love my day care…so we’ll be a mixed diapering family, I suppose. We’ll cloth diaper at night (and possibly on the weekends if I get some more diapers) for sure and use disposables during the day.

So being new to the cloth scene, I immediately started researching some accessories that I would need. Mainly a wet bag for when we’re out and about and a larger one (or a liner) as a place to put them at the house. I saw some cute stuff. And then decided that I could make my own. I went shopping on my lunch hour, went home and put the kid to bed then got to work on my idea and came up with this loveliness:





Isn’t it just perfect for a little guy? I love the old cars! The tutorial was fairly easy to follow, but there were a few moments when I scratched my head…and I’m still working out the kinks of making the hanging one for the laundry room door…but this one is perfect for now. Perfect for my diaper bag. Perfect for the laundry room floor. Just perfect.

I even went all fancy and lined it with PUL so that it's truly waterproof…



I think that it’s just as nice as one that I could have bought online at a diapering retailer or etsy. Too cute. I’ll post some pictures of the bigger one in action once I get it finished. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow night. Heck, it might even be one night next week…having a husband playing softball one night a week means having one night a week when I don’t have to “pretend” not to be crafting something! Score for both of us!

What do you think? Too cute? (Yes, I understand that I’m fishing for compliments...LOL!)

Sleepless Nights Lead to Drunken Dressing…

This is just a public service warning to all readers. This is NOT a test. This can actually happen to you…be warned.

So I mentioned the other day that Jax has thrush. And that I wasn’t sleeping. Yeah, not a fun end of the week and weekend for me. Monday morning wasn’t any better…and Tuesday pretty much sucked. But the angels smiled down on me Tuesday and cleared up the majority of the Thrush and my baby boy slept that night.

For the first time in almost a week.

Yes, you read that right. Tuesday night was the first night since last Thursday night that I’ve slept for more than an hour at a time. I’ll kiss the feet of whatever Saint helped me out…seriously. Surely there’s a Saint for Mothers of Young Children? Anyone heard of that?? If there’s not one, then let’s find someone and appoint them…or however that works, let’s make it happen.

Anyway, back to my public service warning.

If you are operating on less than 3 hours of sleep (for the fourth night in a row) then you should maybe, just maybe, take a few extra minutes in the morning as you’re getting ready. Especially during the dressing portion of your morning. That extra minute or two just might save you a world of embarrassment later on during the day. Sure, my embarrassment was for me and my eyes only, but that’s just a fluke. It could have been worse.

Here’s what happened. I rolled out of bed on Tuesday morning, just barely coherent. I was beyond exhausted…tired of life, tired of one sick/fussy baby in particular, and really tired of being the favored parent. It’s not all that it’s cracked up to be, trust me. (I speak from experience. Twice.) I immediately jumped in the shower before the little jerk sweetheart could wake up and demand my attention and managed to get through the showering/brushing teeth process in peace. Amazed at my good luck, I snuck out of the bathroom to find my clothes and rushed back into the bathroom to get dressed.

It would be nice if I was less honest here and I told you that I got dressed in the dark bedroom. That would give me more of an excuse. But I can’t lie. I got dressed in the brightly lit bathroom. But I was still very sleep deprived.

I had black pants, a cutesy top and of course, my bra and underwear. Everything went onto my body in a hurry because I still needed to dry my hair, and if I could also manage to do that without waking the little man…it would really be my lucky day!  Color me shocked when all goes according to plan. He sleeps until I actually have two free hands to get him out of bed with and a few minutes to devote to his every whim and fancy.

Let’s fast forward to the afternoon: fix breakfast, take baby to day care, drop big kid off a elementary school, fight traffic, get to work, work on several things and nothing at all at the same time, go to lunch with hubby and come back from lunch.

Whew! Exciting day, huh? Well, sometime around the middle of the afternoon I had to go to the little girl’s room. Yes, I had already been several times throughout the day. No, I didn’t notice anything amiss during the other visits. And I really can’t tell you why this visit was different. Either way, this time when I was in the restroom, I happened to look down (because where else do you look while you’re in the restroom?) and noticed something odd about my underwear.

Yes, it was mine.

No, it wasn’t from the dirty pile.

But…oh wait…yep, it’s on inside out.

Hmmm…what to do now? Change it and flip it right side out after wearing it the wrong way all day long? Or just leave it alone because the work day is almost over anyway and then you’ll be at home…and who really cares if your panties are on inside out at home?

What to take a guess at my course of action? Well, knowing what you know about my energy level on Tuesday I think that you’d be safe to assume that I left those puppies just like they were. They weren’t hurting anything. And you couldn’t tell from the outside of my clothes that my panties were on inside out. Only I knew. And now all of you.

Because we can all use a good laugh every now and then. Go ahead, you can laugh at me. I did, that’s for sure!

I mean, who puts their panties on inside out except for drunk, college girls? Apparently moms who aren’t getting any sleep do! Or better yet – who doesn’t notice until almost 3 o’clock in the afternoon? It’s not like I hadn’t gone to the bathroom 3 or 4 other times that day…I had…and I didn’t notice.

Yeah. That’s when you know you’re tired. That’s when it might be a good idea to try to go to bed a few minutes earlier. Or to wear some ear plugs. Or to suggest to the husband that it’s HIS night on baby duty…any of those options will help you get your panties on correctly the next day.

Then again, I didn’t do any of those things Tuesday night. But you can bet money that I took an extra 30 seconds Wednesday morning to make sure that I had them on right side out this time!! LOL!

What crazy thing have you done when you were going through a sleepy phase? Surely I’m not the only one to have a “wardrobe malfunction” or make cereal with coffee instead of milk or something equally as funny…share with us and we’ll all have a laugh!

New Layouts...

I haven't shared any new scrapbook layouts recently, but I HAVE been working on them despite my lack of sharing!  Here are some of the layouts that I did for our family albums last month...

I've got to "get cracking" on this month's layouts...I have already made one (maybe two, if I decide that I like it) for Jax, but I have NO pictures of the other kiddos!  Does that make me a bad mom?  Maybe that just makes me a Mom with her hands full...LOL!