Hangout

For whatever reason, Skype doesn't work well with the Gualala internet connection, but Google Hangout does.  So we've switched over to doing a Hangout with Dave 3 nights a week.  (We don't usually do Monday nights because he's so tired from having arrived at 1am that morning that he goes to bed super early.)

It is most fun when Uncle joins in the fun!

At Christmas time we liked playing around with the reindeer antler icon things...tonight it rotated between dog, cat, angel halo, and devil horns.

It was particularly funny when Jennifer entered the picture.  She ended up with devil horns and Dave had the halo.  She was outside sanding down the wooden parts of a couch her parents shipped out to her...she's refinishing it for their new apartment.  I can't wait to see how it turns out!

CSA Adventures: Early Spring

In the middle of March I finally signed us up to receive a weekly produce basket from a CSA called Full Circle Farm. My labmate, Kobi, is one of the farmers. There are oodles of CSA farms around the Sacramento valley. I chose this one because it supports my labmate and two of my other labmates get their produce and always seem very happy with the variety.

The baskets are delivered to campus every Thursday afternoon, and it is just a short walk from my building to where they are located. I bring my own bag to carry home my produce goodies. It is like getting a present every time because you never know what you can expect to get. I love that!

It is also nice because I'm forced to try cooking and eating a variety of things that I wouldn't normally think to purchase at the store or farmers market. Not that I don't like certain foods (I actually love pretty much anything) but I tend to stick to what I like most. Fennel, for instance, isn't something I'd normally buy...or broccoli raab. But since they are sometimes included I always use them.

This CSA is particularly nice (from my short experience) because they make sure to include a variety of flavors during "boring" seasons like winter. Many people complain that their CSAs are stuffed full of kale week after week in the winter. But here in Davis LOTS of stuff can grow in the winter. And this farm includes goodies preserved from other seasons, too (dried fruits like tomatoes, apricots, prunes, and dried summer herbs like basil).

For the past few weeks I've been able to eat a big salad for lunch every day using the salad greens they give me. It is usually chalk-full of spicy arugula, which I simply LOVE. I make my salad with some dried fruit and chow mein noodles, plus vinagrette. Sometimes I'll include a can of mandarin oranges, half a can of tuna fish, and some capers. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Here are some other baskets we've gotten, full of greens, greens, greens: So far I haven't had a problem using up all the goodies in the basket before I get the next one. We make a lot of stir fry dinners:
I don't have a picture handy, but a favorite weekend lunch for us is sauteed greens with eggs cooked in little holes made amongst the greens.  If there isn't enough liquid in the pan when it is time to put the egg in, we'll just pour in a bit of water, stock, or apple juice so the egg has a little hot liquid around it.

And when the baskets are full of fresh spring herbs I turn them into pesto if I can't think of anything else to do with them.  My guess is that most people only think of basil when they think of "pesto" but you can grind up whatever aromatic thing you want with some garlic, nuts, oil, and possibly some cheese.  I've used various fennel and cilantro pestos in bread doughs, spread onto toast and topped with a fried egg, stirred into ramen soup...and even licked straight off the spoon.  Mmmmm, I do love me some fresh pesto.

This one was parsley, lemon zest, garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, salt, and pepper.



And this one was fennel tops, parsely, garlic, oil, and cheese.

Rumparooz: You Had Me At Gussets!

As you all know, we're a cloth diaper family. We launder them ourselves and use cloth wipes, too.

We started out using second-hand and gifted prefold diapers with Bummis velcro covers and Fuzzi Bunz pocket diapers that we simply used as covers (meaning we didn't stuff anything into the "pocket" of the diaper, we just set the folded prefold into the cover). We had 14 size small and about 60 size small prefolds that got us from newborn through 4 months (Eddie spit up constantly and many of the size small prefolds doubled as burping cloths). Then we moved on to using 12 size medium covers and 40 medium/regular prefolds until he was about a year old.

Prefolds are simply flat cotton cloth rectangles, with a thicker center part down the middle that is sewn together. The term "prefold" refers to the sewn together portion in the center; this is in contrast to regular flat cloth diapers that are not sewn together, requiring you to fold the center part yourself. These are less common and are much bigger.

The reason we used the pocket diapers as covers was because we wanted to use the covers a few times before having to wash them. In my opinion, pocket diapers are not worthwhile for the first six months of a baby's life. Until they start eating solids, their poop is unoffensive liquid. But, because they go all the time you will go through lots and lots of diapers.

Pocket diapers are designed to be put on the baby very much like a disposable. No pins, no Snappi. But because the absorbent part is placed inside the pocket, it means that the whole diaper (cover AND absorbent insert) gets dirty every time the baby pees or poops. So we simply placed the prefold on top of the pocket, just like you'd use a normal cover. Most of the time we could reuse the covers 3 times before they got too stinky from pee. If they got wet, we'd just hang it on the towel rod in the bathroom to dry out (baby pee is pretty unoffensive, too). Poopy ones were tossed into the pail immediately.

When he was a wee little baby we didn't use pins or a Snappi because the diaper covers did a good job of holding the prefold diaper in place. At about 3 months when he was skilled at wriggling and rolling around, we started using Snappi's to hold the cloth diaper in place under the cover.

The prefolds with a Snappi worked really well for us until Eddie could walk. This child moves SO much and SO fast that his diapers would literally fall out of the covers and down his legs! It was pretty amusing when they were only wet...but as you can imagine, having a poopy cloth diaper trailing behind him was gross. Plus it was getting REALLY difficult to get him diapered in the first place because he just wanted to get up and go!

We went online and looked for a "onesize" pocket diaper that could be adjusted to fit a child from newborn to potty training age. Snaps were important instead of velcro because we found that the velcro wore out too fast for us (especially since we wanted to use them for our future children AND we had plans to loan them out to friends to borrow).

Dave is a big fan of gussets because they greatly reduce blowouts. At this point, the only cloth pocket diaper with inner gussets are Rumparooz diapers. So we bought a pack of 12 in a variety of bold colors. (This was quite an investment--$300--and I saved all my extra money from a side job in order to buy them. But man-oh-man was it worth it!)

After 10 months of using them, the verdict is: WE LOVE THEM.

In case anyone is interested in how we use our pocket diapers, here's a play-by-play:

These are Rumparooz:This is the outside part. It is lying on top of a size small prefold diaper (we keep a clean one under Eddie's tush during changes to keep the changing pad cover clean):This is the fleece inside part that touches the baby's skin. It is much thicker than the fleece lining in Fuzzi Bunz and Bum Genius pocket diapers (the latter isn't even fleece so it is less absorbent):
Here's a disposable diapers so you can see the inner and outer gussets (I'm holding the inner one):And here's a play-by-play of how we diaper Eddie (my stuffed frog, Fiber, is filling in because Eddie was too busy to cooperate):

Hi Fiber!First, lay the kiddo down on the changing table:Next, grab a diaper (mine has a diaper liner already inside):Put it under the kiddo's rump:
Pull the liner up over the baby's crotch so if he poops it'll be "caught" by the liner:
The pull it up and snap it into place:Since this is a "onesize" diaper there are oodles of snaps so you can snap it to fit any size kiddo:And here you have a happy kiddo, ready to conquer the world!These diapers come with a variety of absorbent "insert" options. There are two sizes:The small contoured one is designed for newborns, to reduce the bulk between their little legs. As the baby grows, you can change to the larger, rectangular one. It has snaps on it so you can make it smaller. This is how we use it right now, because the doubled-over fabric is extra absorbent:You also have the option of using them both together for extra absorbency. This is a good idea if your baby is a heavy wetter, or you use cloth at night. We don't use cloth at night anymore (and have to use special nighttime disposables that are SUPER absorbent) because Eddie was blowing out every night.These diapers are great for a super active toddler like Eddie. I tried to take an "action" shot of him running around the house in a Rumparooz diaper but he was too fast for my camera. So this is the best picture I could get. He's currently 29 pounds, 34" tall, and 19 months old. This brand seems to run a little small, so I don't think he'd be able to wear them for another full year...but hopefully we'll be potty trained by then!And just in case that wasn't enough to convince YOU to try Rumparooz onesize diapers, maybe these matching doll diapers will. I had $5 in Kanga Care credit to use up so I bought the bubbles print one for Eddie's premie Cabbage Patch doll. With taxes, shipping, and the diaper it came out to less than $5! (See them here.)

How to Use Disposable Diaper Liners

I could never find a good online tutorial on using disposable/flushable diaper liners. So I figured I'd make one myself!

We have been using size large Bummis brand diaper liners for Eddie's cloth diapering since he began eating solid food. Once he got some real food into him, his poops got nasty and I was tired of scraping them into the toilet.
A roll of liners costs $9 here in Davis, but I'm sure they are cheaper online. It works out to $0.09 each, assuming you only use them once. However, you can use them more than once if:

• they were only peed on and
  
• you wash them with your diapers

That can bring the cost down by more than half!

But then I realized that you can also use washed disposable wipes as liners, too. Wipes are a good, inexpensive alternative to disposable liners. However, they are NOT flushable! So make sure you throw them away.

Flushable/disposable diaper liners are a thin, papery material that are designed to "catch" poop in a diaper. The idea is that the solid poop will collect on the liner so the parent simply gathers up the liner and tosses it into the garbage or the toilet. We don't flush them because we don't trust our house's old plumbing. Washed and dried disposable wipes are good liners, too, and are used exactly the same way. They are often a bit smaller so I have to stretch them out a bit to fit across the entire diaper. It isn't uncommon for them to have some holes throughout, but generally the "webbing" is enough to work.

Here is a picture of a washed diaper liner that was washed and dried (and stretched back out). You can see that there are some holes, but it will still work just fine!It might seem like one extra step in the already labor-intensive routine of using cloth diapers, but we've found that it is quick (and 100% worthwhile!) to simply fold them into the diapers before we put them away.

First, we stuff the inserts in to the pocket diapers. Then stack the flat/open diapers. Next we lay down a clean/dry diaper liner, fold the diaper in half, and stack it with the others.

Having all the diapers folded with a liner inside makes diapering super easy. I just grab one of the diapers and open it, making sure to unfold the liner at the same time. (My stuffed frog, Fiber, is filling in for a human baby here...)Put the whole thing under the kiddo's rump:
Pull the liner up over the baby's crotch so if he poops it'll be "caught" by the liner:
The pull the actual diaper up:Then snap it closed:Most of us know our baby's poop schedule, and would be inclined to only use a liner when you are sure he's going to poop. I've been duped too many times so I always include a liner. Since we wash and reuse them, it makes cloth diapering cheap AND easy.

The Beeman

A long time family friend of the Bower family sent us this book recently. It is about a little boy and his grandpa, who is a beekeeper. The illustrations are gorgeous, it is a cute story (practically tailored to Eddie and John), and the back has a nice summary of all the details of bees and honey making for older kids to learn from. The last page has an apple and honey muffin recipe, which of course I made since we just harvested honey and picked a bunch of apples (really it is just like zucchini or pumpkin bread, just using apples and honey instead of the other fruit and sugar, respectively).
If you're looking for a cute, educational, new book for your kiddos I recommend this one!