We’re roughly seven weeks out from meeting this baby, and I am starting to get things squared away for his/her arrival. We’ve made good progress on the nursery. We have a list of things to buy. We’re talking up the new baby with Nora to help prepare her. And I’m working on figuring out the cloth diaper situation for baby #2.
In the last week, I’ve sold off a lot of Nora’s cloth diaper stash. With her, I only tried three brands of one-size pocket diapers—BumGenius 4.0, Fuzzibunz, and Blueberry. I never much cared for the Fuzzibunz, but we only had four of them so we kept them around for nighttime/last resort diapers. We had maybe four Blueberry, too, but after sticking with those for a while, I finally got frustrated enough with them—they never fit Nora right—that I sold them off. BumGenius was by far our favorite out of the three, so we built the majority of our stash with BumGenius and used them almost all of the time.
I still like BumGenius. But I kind of want to branch out a bit with baby #2. Maybe it makes me crazy, but I decided to de-stash and start with a mostly fresh supply of cloth diapers for the next baby. I was able to sell the old diapers to recoup some of the money that we spent on them back when Nora was a wee one. We kept a few, of course, but not enough—now I’m in a position where I have to re-stash. :)
In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m starting at square one. There are still so many options out there. Which ones do I want to try this time?
Thanks to a tip from my sister-in-law, I scored four Charlie Banana diapers on clearance at Target last weekend. They were only $8/piece! And so it begins.
I’ve heard great things about Rumparooz, so I’d like to get at least a couple of those this time around, but they are PRICEY, and I’ve also heard that they can be bulky, which is never a positive when you have a peanut baby like Nora was. Now, I obviously don’t know what this baby will be like, but at this point I’m preparing for another peanut since that’s all I know.
Then there are all of the “cheap” diapers that I keep hearing so many good things about. SunBaby, Alva, Kawaii. So many people love these diapers, but I am skeptical, because really? A good pocket diaper can be had for $5-8/piece??
My next challenge is the newborn stage. With Nora, we used disposables for the first two weeks or so, then started dabbling in cloth with prefolds and Thirsties covers until she was about eight weeks old, at which point we switched to the one-size pockets. As of right now, I’m holding onto the prefolds and covers, not knowing what we’ll do. I was never a huge fan of them, but I’m also not a fan of flying through 10-12 disposable diapers a day, so… we’ll do what we have to do.
But I find myself wondering if I should look into other newborn options. The teeny little sized AIOs, for instance. Or fitteds. But these all seem expensive for something that isn’t used for very long. But then again, maybe I can find some that are gently used—again, because they aren’t used for very long, so they can’t be that beat up. Or maybe I buy them new, but then I’m able to sell them used for nearly what I paid for them. Then, it doesn’t sound so crazy. But again, I’m overwhelmed with the options and don’t know what I’m looking for.
Anyway, all of this is my dilemma. So if there are any cloth diaper moms out there reading this, I’d love to have you weigh in. What were your favorite newborn solutions? Did they break the bank, or were you able to do it on a budget (either by buying used, or reselling afterward)? And for building your long-term stash… what brands are your favorites? I’m pretty sold on sticking with pockets of some kind, since that’s what we know, and we of course have daycare to consider. We need something easy for Mary to handle. Help!
(If you’d like to see my past cloth diaper posts, click here.)
One of the things on our DIY house projects list for before the baby is born was to redo the kid/guest bathroom. It wasn’t a huge undertaking, since the previous owners of our house gutted both full bathrooms within the last five years or so. There wasn’t anything horribly wrong with the bathroom, except that it was totally not our style. (I think you’ll see why.)
Anyway, I “broke ground” on this project just a few weeks after my appendicitis surgery in April. I think it all took about four weeks to do (utilizing just evenings and weekend naptimes), but then we had a few more weeks of pulling together the final details, too. And finally, it all came together… and I LOVE IT.
It was hard for me to get “after” photos of this room since it doesn’t get much natural light this time of year. When I took the before photos in April, the trees hadn’t all filled in yet, but now that all of the leaves are here, the window doesn’t get direct sunlight really ever. But I cranked up the ISO on my camera and made do. Ignore the “noise” in the photos. :)
Before we get to more “after” photos, let me show you what we were starting with. The previous homeowners were in their 50s or early 60s, but they had their taste was of people much older, if you ask me. They redid a lot of things in the house fairly recently—it’s just unfortunate that a lot of their choices were pretty ugly. OK, enough words… I’ll let the pictures do the talking:
The walls were a soft sage-y green, not terrible. But the vanity, although of good quality, was medium-oak colored. And I hate oak. The vanity top was creamy/beige… just like everything else in this bathroom. BOR-ING.
That brings us to this monstrosity:
If you’re me, your first reaction to seeing this was “WHAT IN THE HELL?!” This gigantic medicine cabinet/light fixture combination had.to.go.
The other big problem was that all of the fixtures were two-toned brass and shiny chrome. Gag.
My first order of business was to eradicate the oak. I decided to do this by painting the vanity. I found several tutorials for how to do so through Pinterest and Google. Not surprisingly, it was basically the same process as we followed when painting our kitchen cabinets. Degloss, sand, prime, paint. I can’t even remember how many coats I did now. I want to say it was only one coat of primer, but three coats of paint since it was such a dark color. Of course, I removed the doors and drawer fronts to prime and paint, and could only do one side at a time (then had to let it dry fully before flipping over), so… you can imagine how long that took! Thankfully it was only four small pieces, not the multitude of doors and drawer fronts like the kitchen. So in comparison to that, this seemed simple.
After the vanity was transformed, we ripped apart the rest of the bathroom. All of the chrome/brass fixtures were removed and thrown away. I patched and sanded all of the holes left behind, then painted the walls. We decided to stick with green, but a more earthy/nature-like green. We had already picked out the shower curtain and we were matching/coordinating the paint color with that, actually.
Then it was time for new everything. Fixtures—we decided to go with oil-rubbed bronze in here because it better fit with our overall color scheme. New medicine cabinet (I couldn’t give up the storage!), light fixture… and a granite vanity top. It wasn’t in our original plans to do a new vanity top, but once night when I was browsing Lowe’s website for fixtures, I came across their ready-made granite vanity tops and on a whim, we decided to upgrade. Dude, I’m so glad we did. This makes such a HUGE difference in this bathroom.
LOVE.IT.
We also did new knobs for the vanity, which came out really well, by the way. It’s amazing what a little quart of paint can do!
Haha, oops, please excuse the appearance of a PLUNGER. Seriously, no one can ever really see that nook back there, but of course, when I stand in the tub to take photos from this angle… there it is. Whoops. Whatever. This is real life, folks… not a Pottery Barn catalog! :) Continuing with that thought, you can see Nora’s little potty seat and hook, and step stool. It is a kids’ bathroom, after all.
Another problem I aimed to solve with this makeover was bath toy storage. The little pod things or hanging mesh bags that they design for bath toys were not cutting it anymore. Nora has too many. And we were just leaving them hanging out in the bottom of the tub after every bath. Not acceptable. Thankfully, I came across an awesome solution on Pinterest, and made it come to life in this shower:
WINNING! It’s amazing what a tension rod, a few plastic shower hooks, and three baskets can do, huh?
It felt really good to get this done, and it turned out better than I could have hoped for. This is one of my favorite makeover projects we’ve done, which is saying a lot in this house! This is one of those rooms that I just keep walking into just to look at it, because I can’t get over the transformation and how much I love how it all came together.
In the grand scheme of things, this was just a facelift. It was mostly just paint! But the fixtures (notice we even replaced the toilet handle!) really added up. The faucet alone = cha-ching! Whatever, it was all worth it. Nora loves it, too!
I called it.
At my 30-week appointment with my doctor a couple of weeks ago, I was told for the first time (this pregnancy) that I was measuring a little small. At the time, I was 30 weeks but measuring only 29 centimeters (you’re supposed to measure one centimeter per week you’re pregnant, so I was a centimeter behind). All of this is not an exact science, and it’s my understanding that some OBs don’t even measure bellies anymore, but it’s still a pretty common practice. In any case, my OB still uses it as an indication of the baby’s growth. And as I’ve mentioned before, the same thing happened to me with Nora’s pregnancy, and while she was smaller than average, she was still a perfectly healthy size—6 lbs., 10 oz.—at birth.
Anyway, after my last appointment, I said in my 30-week blog post that I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up in the ultrasound room for a growth ultrasound within the next few weeks. And that is exactly what is happening.
I had another appointment today, and I was measured again. This time, I was supposed to be measuring 32 centimeters, but I was only 29.75. So I didn’t even grow a full centimeter in two weeks, and I was supposed to grow at least two. Blah. I’m not at all surprised by this, but the gap is widening a little faster than I expected. Still, I’m not really worried. I know from my pregnancy with Nora that I “hide” my babies or “carry small” and all that jazz. But I go in for my growth ultrasound to check on things on Friday morning.
32 Weeks PregnantIt’s funny to hear that you’re “small” when you FEEL so large. I can’t breathe, people. There was one night last week when I really felt like I just could NOT fill my lungs with air. I told Michael it felt like someone was sitting on my chest—and to be fair, there probably was. ;) I can’t lie on my back anymore, at all. And when I get down on the floor, it’s really damn hard to get back up. And bending over? Oof.
I have not been letting my physical ailments become limitations, though. Why? Because I am nesting. I am definitely getting some of those psycho, “this-must-be-done-RIGHT-NOW” feelings. And although it makes me feel a little crazy, I am loving it. It is so satisfying to kick ass and take names with a big to-do list. I hope the urge to get things done continues to overpower the fatigue, aches, and pains. One of the things that just HAD to be done this past weekend? Power-washing the house and our back deck.
What, this isn’t on your list of things that need to be done before the baby is born? :) Well, it was on mine. And it involved a “power tool” of sorts, so… hell yes. Don’t mess with me.
The other thing on my list of things to attack this past weekend? The nursery. It had been the last unused room in our house. We used it for junk storage, really. There was just a whole lot of crap in there. We kept the door closed at all times, and actually very rarely had to even go in there. It had been largely untouched—all we had done when we moved in was ripped up the old nasty carpet, and removed the beaten-up closet doors.
This weekend, we managed to (mostly) clean it out. I also put two coats of primer on all of the trim, and got the first coat of paint on the walls, too. Woot woot! Of course, none of that is pictured here—these are all “before” photos. While I was painting, it all started becoming a lot more real to me that we will actually be bringing home another little person in a matter of weeks. I am painting for another baby.
Nora was amazingly cute with all of the activity going on in the room next to hers. We had the door open much of the weekend, and often times, when she’d walk by, she’d point and say, “Baby sleep in there!” She was also highly amused by just being in the room with me. She played with the bouncer, and even brought a doll in at one point, with a book, and said she was reading to the baby (really, she just sat there, flipping through the pages, “reading” to herself silently).
It is going to be so interesting to see how she handles it when we have a real baby around.
So, we are officially anticipating this baby’s arrival. Things are in motion. We’re getting stuff done.
Other than all of this, my only other comment/complaint for the time being is the peeing in the middle of the night. What.the.hell. On Saturday night, I was literally up to pee three times within the first hour I was in bed. And twice more after that. NOT COOL. I might try to start front-loading the majority of my water intake early in the day so that I get all of the peeing out of the way during the daytime, but I’m not convinced that will even work.
Oh, and after missing a week here and a week there with these posts, I just don’t know if I have it in me to do them any more often than biweekly. But we’ll see, maybe as I get further along and I have doctor’s appointments every week, I’ll be motivated to pick up the frequency. Until then, I’m just doing what I can do. :) In the meantime… new “baby pictures” on Friday!
If you missed the start of the Baby Pool, check it out and enter your guess! Also, if you entered but did not provide an e-mail address… please leave a comment below with the email address and I can add it to your entry. Otherwise, we won’t have a way to contact you if you win!
It’s about that time, folks. I’m just about 32 weeks pregnant and with only eight weeks to go until my due date, I figured we need to get the show on the road with the Heather Drive Baby Pool (part deux).
With Nora, I went through the trouble of finding a sponsor for a giveaway for the baby pool prize, but true to all things “second child,” I have not the time nor energy to do that sort of thing this time around. So I’ll just fork over some cash instead. The winner of the pool will receive a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com. I know it’s not much, but hey, I’m not asking much of you, either. :)
Who are you, baby? Ultrasound pics from 23 weeks pregnant
Interested in venturing a guess? Head on over to our Heather Drive Baby Pool page on Expectnet.com and enter your guesses for our baby’s sex, birth date and time, weight, and length. We’ll leave it open to new entries until 9:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 9, at which point the contest will be closed (I’ll be 36 weeks pregnant at that time). Then, all we do is wait for the baby to be born. Once that happens, I’ll enter the baby’s stats into the system, and Expectnet.com will determine a winner based on all of your entries.A couple of important things to note:
1) You do NOT need to register to enter a guess with Expectnet.com, so no worries. It is super simple! Enter on our Heather Drive Baby Pool page.
2) When you enter through Expectnet.com, YOU MUST ENTER A VALID E-MAIL ADDRESS in the “A phrase or two describing how you know the parents” field. Otherwise, we will have no way of validating who “Karen” or “Anne” is and will have no way of contacting you to let you know you have won.
3) If you are determined to be the winner, we will work with you directly through email to arrange your prize. The prize will be “paid” in the form of an e-gift certificate from Amazon.com.
4) Only one entry per person, please. Duplicate entries will be deleted.
5) Make sure to enter a guess for ALL of the fields (sex, birthday, time, weight, height). There are points awarded (or deducted) for every element, so if you skip a field, you will be hurting your chances at winning!
6) The contest is open to all, whether you live here in the U.S., or outside of it. My international readers are more than welcome to participate! :)
7) Again, all entries MUST be entered into the Expectnet.com system by Tuesday, July 9 at 9 p.m. EDT. The contest will be closed to entries at that time.
8) You’ll notice that Michael and I have entered our own guesses. We are just as clueless as all of you, so we thought it would be fun to venture guesses of our own. However, please rest assured that we are NOT eligible to win.
Questions? Please ask in the comments. Also, if you just HAVE to know whether I’m craving salty or sweet, which side I’m more likely to sleep on, etc., feel free to ask those types of things in the comments as well. ;) I’ll answer everything in the comments so everyone is privy to the same information!
A few basics: The due date is August 6. Nora was exactly one week early, born at 39 weeks. She weighed 6 lbs., 10 oz. and was 20 inches long. As for our own births, I was 10 days early (and weighed 7 lbs., 3 oz.), and Michael was born on his due date (not sure about his birth weight). Supposedly this stuff is supposed to help? HA!
We look forward to your participation and seeing all of the entries come rolling in. Happy guessing!
I’ve asked my dentist a few times about when I should plan to bring Nora in for her first appointment/cleaning. Each time, they told me to wait until she was three years old. When I was there last December, they mentioned that the next time I come in for my own appointment, I should bring Nora with me to see the office, watch me get my teeth cleaned, and just get a feel for the whole thing to help her be somewhat familiar with it before it was actually her turn.
Today was the day.
Nora has been really big into going to the doctor for several months now. She got a huge kick out of coming with me to one of my OB appointments, and was ridiculously excited about taking Tessa to the vet back in February. And when Michael took her to one of her six-month ENT checkups for the tubes in her ears? You would’ve thought he was taking her to someplace REALLY fun. So this morning, when I asked her if she wanted to come with me to the dentist—”the doctor for your teeth!”—I was not at all surprised to hear her enthusiastic, “YES!”
I’ve been going to the same dentist since I was six years old, so the receptionist and some of the hygienists (well, and the doctor, too) have literally watched me grow up. So I think it’s fun for them to see how I now have a child of my own. When I walked in with Nora, they were excited to actually meet her in person (they ask to see photos every time I’m in there)!
We went back to one of the rooms and the hygienist grabbed a little chair for Nora to sit in to watch. She put a “bib” on me and said to Nora, “Look, I’m putting a bib on your mommy. Do you still wear a bib?” Nora nodded intently. Then she started putting on her gloves and mask, and explained to Nora why she was wearing them. Nora watched her like a hawk with a little smile on her face. It was too cute.
I was pretty impressed that Nora actually stayed in (or at least near) the chair. While the hygienist was doing the scraping part, Nora alternated between watching quietly and playing with her Little People Cinderella and Prince Charming figures that she brought with her.
When the hygienist was ready to brush my teeth, she called Nora over and asked if she could be a big helper. Nora smiled and nodded and listened to the instructions. She came over and stood by the opposite side of my head, and the hygienist gave her an important job—holding the little thing of toothpaste.
You wouldn’t even believe how proud she was. Every time the hygienist said she needed more, Nora held up the toothpaste proudly so she could take another swipe. Adorable.
Nora watched closely as she polished my teeth, and again, the hygienist was great and explained what she was doing, how the brush was controlled by the foot pedal, etc. Once that was done, Nora returned to her yellow chair while the hygienist quickly flossed my teeth. The doctor came in to do a quick exam and then I was done!
Before I could get out of the chair, the hygienist asked Nora if she wanted to “take a ride” in the chair with mommy… or by herself. Of course, Miss Independent said, “by yourself!” so I hopped out and let her hop in.
Seriously, what happened to my baby? How is it possible for her to look so big, yet so small (in that big chair!) all at the same time? *sigh*
The hygienist told her she was going to recline the chair, and Nora leaned right back with it as it moved. My kid: she’s a pro. :)
Next, she showed her the bright light and shined it right on Nora’s mouth. If anything, I could see that being a problem next time. Nora kept turning her head and closing her eyes. I’ll have to remember to bring her sunglasses! :)
She did ask Nora to open her mouth so she could count her teeth, and she obeyed—for about five seconds. But the hygienist wasn’t actually touching her or counting anything, so it’s all good.
For being such a big helper and a good little “patient,” Nora got to pick out a prize from the prize bin. After much too much deliberation, she picked a little stretchy pink T-Rex dinosaur. Two minutes later, at the checkout desk, she proclaimed that she no longer liked it. Oh well. It was a mostly successful visit! ;)
Seriously, though, I was so happy with how the morning went. I think it was a great suggestion to bring her in with me to help get her familiar. Nora had a lot of fun—so much so that she was visibly disappointed when we left! I hope she’s as enthusiastic when we go back in December. I officially made her first appointment, at the same time as my next one. I’ll go, and then she’ll go right after me.
In the meantime, I have to try to train her to use “real” toothpaste… the kind that needs to be spit out! Right now, she still mostly just chews and/or sucks on her toothbrush. I help when she lets me, but of course, most of the time I get scolded and told, “By yourself!” (which really means “by myself”).
Parents: How old were your kids when you first took them to the dentist? How did it go? How do you teach them to effectively brush, and how to spit toothpaste out? Do you actually floss their teeth (and if so… howwwww??)?
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
