Diaper Stash for Baby Number 3

Well as most of you know we are expecting our third. She is due this summer. I am nesting and trying to prepare for her arrival, but with two toddlers it is not easy. So far this is the cloth diaper stash for her as an infant. I intend to use gdiapers (with disposable inserts) or disposables for the first few weeks due to the messy tar-like bowel movements that infants have and then I will start in with cloth. I am excited and nervous to cloth diaper an infant. I have only cloth diapered toddlers and I still feel like a beginner at that. Newborns and infants are a little different to diaper so I am not sure if I have all that I need yet, but I hoping by the time she arrives we will be set.
Here is the breakdown of what we have so far
The Stack
10 infant prefolds (I will probably use these with the g diaper pants as inserts)
10 infant Chinese Prefolds (inserts for g diapers)
8 homemade inserts for gdiapers



In the basket (from left to right)
11 gdiaper covers (most are cream or orange, but there is also 1 red, 1 pink striped and 1 brown)
6 Fuzibunz pocket diapers size small in pink, lavender and white (a good friend gave us these to use since her daughter is done with that size)
2 Sassy pants pocket diapers in small/medium (brand new)
2 Swaddlebees size small stuffable pocket diapers
1 fitted newborn diaper
11 Sassy Pants all in one diapers (these are mostly boyish in color since I bought them from a mom on Craigslist that had a boy)

As you can see we are off to a good start, but with changing a newborn about a dozen times a day I am not sure if this is going to do it. I am hoping to be able to get some more diapers in the next several weeks so we can really be prepared. I have some one size diapers for the other kids that I can always throw into the little girls pile if need be. We will see.

I hope you are enjoying the sunshine and the extra long weekend. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Jen D.

Sunshine and Retail Therapy

Well I had intended to type this out early, but the night got away from me.

Today was actually a semi-good day. I am still not feeling great about being pregnant another ten weeks and life sure is not where I want it to be, but things went a little better today. It is amazing what some sunshine and a little retail therapy can do for your mood. We spend the better part of the day outside. The family went to a nearby outdoor mall and walked around. It was so nice to be out in the fresh air and son. I also got a late incredibly indulgent, Mother’s Day present. I have not bought anything for myself like that outside of the iphone (which I saved money from both Christmas and my birthday for, plus waited for four months to get) for more than a year. I am still feeling a little guilty for it, since I know with a third baby on the way things are going to be tight for a while, but at the same time it is not something that will go to waist or that I won’t use. I probably just didn’t need to indulge in such an extravagant one. Since my hubby was with me and said to do it…I threw caution to the wind and gave into the impulse.

I have wanted a new Coach bag for quite some time. I find that when I do make quality purchases on something like a purse, I end up getting a lot more use and value out of it. The Coach that I purchased four years ago as a graduation from my master’s program for myself I still use. In fact I am having it sent back to the company to fix some of the stitching on it. It is a great purse and I am sure I will go back to it at some point. I know it was not necessary, but at the same time it is something I will get a lot of use out of and probably have for quite some time. Plus, this one is a quite a bit larger than my old one. I have been saying for a few years now that I need a large purse now that I have kids. Now it still is no huge purse where I can fit everything in it and the kitchen sink, but it is a nice medium size, instead of what I had before which was on the smaller size.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend. I am delighted that I finished two weeks of daily posts on the blog. I will continue to try to post frequently, but may not quite daily. Happy Weekend!
Jen D.

Organization: Craft Room

So today’s post is on organization. I consider myself somewhere in the middle. In my brain I am very organized and I rehearse all of these different scenarios. I type lists, keep records, but when it comes down to it I am not as organized as I want to be or my brain thinks I should be.

For example, I really struggle in my office with organization. I have a lot of craft stuff for scrapbooking, cardmaking and some sewing stuff. The problem is I have no closed storage and I have no place to really spread out to make scrapbook pages, cards or a craft project. I love to look at how others have organized their spaces, but when it comes down to it I don’t have the extra resources to devote to new closed organization or a lot of new furniture. In a perfect would I would have built ins in my office and plenty of work space within those built ins. There would be closed storage and a little open storage. Everything would have a place. Obviously, it is not a perfect world.

My hubby was planning on getting me some sort of second desk so I could have a computer workspace and a place for my crafts. I would love this and be very grateful for it. It would solve one of my big problems with organizing my office; however, I still have the issue of no closed storage. The funny thing is I struggle with this in my work space at school as well. I have no closed storage there either and my closet of a classroom is not much bigger than my office at home. I affectionately refer to it as a trailer. I don’t mean to be condescending to anyone, but it really is not fit for a classroom of any kind. Ideally, I am hoping to be placed in a regular classroom next year, but with how things work out for me I am not too hopeful.

Being that I struggle with the same problem of lack of closed storage at both work and home I have been brainstorming ideas for how to solve the problem without spending a lot if any money. This is not easy, but I was thinking of making a curtain and hanging it with a tension rod over on the top of the shelf so that you couldn’t see what actually being stored in the shelf. This would be fairly in expensive because tension rods are only a few dollars and have fabric that I can use. I actually already have the curtains for my office and they match perfectly. Another thing I could use is some decorative tacks that I already own to hang the curtain. The negatives to this idea are: I would have to hold it up and would not be able to pull it back when looking for something the shelves. My other thought the curtain may make it look even messier than it does without the curtain because it will look like I am hiding something, which hey I am.

Has anyone had this problem before and if you have, did you find a solution? I am open to suggestions. Once I figure it out I will post pictures. The first picture below is of my open storage office, when I first moved into it. Notice how clean it isn't even organized then. The other photos are of rooms that I like. I wish I could give credit to these websites for their photos, but I have saved them in my inspiration room file and I don’t know where I got them. There are a lot of others that I just love, but they were saved on my other computer and I didn't have the energy to hunt of them. Maybe I will post those inspiration pics tomorrow. I apologize to anyone whose photo I am using. I am not trying to steal the credit for your creativity.



Enjoy your weekend.
Jen D.

Another Cloth Diaper Post

I ordered some brand new diapers from the Swaddlebees outlet store yesterday. I am so excited. These are sized diapers, but the cool thing is they are stuffable AIO’s. I purchased a few off of Craigslist on Monday and then I found some seconds on sale at the Swaddlebees outlet store for a great price so I purchased those. It is amazing how excited a person can get about diapers. I never thought that I would get so much joy out of cloth diapering and out of trying different ones, but I do.


Lately, I have been drooling over these beauties. The first few pictures are from this etsy site. Now I don’t usually like fitted diapers, but I have heard some good things from other cd’ers about fitted diapers. I have not had a lot of luck with them so far because my kids seem to be heavy wetters. I am still interested in trying these though. The second group of photos is called Little Fancy Pants. I really want to order some of these for this baby girl I am carrying. I just love the floral prints. They remind of good mama’s, but they seem to be a little cheaper than the beloved Good Mama’s. I have yet to try a Good Mama diaper. I want to, but I just can’t bring myself to pay that much for one diaper. This is especially the case since cloth diapering is supposed to be saving me money and it will, but not until I stop buying new fluff when I find it at a great deal. I have been very frugal about it so far, but since I am also trying to get some sort of stash for this new little baby together it is probably not saving much if any money yet.


With that said, cloth diapering sure is saving me a lot a trash. I only use disposables at night on my kids when I work and then at the sitters house. So I am maybe tossing between two and four diapers a day three days a week and the other days I am cloth diapering so I don’t have any garbage from those. It is fabulous. My husband has even commented about the smell of our laundry room being less stinky now that I am cloth diapering. I do wash the cloth diapers every other day so they really don’t have much time to get too stinky. It is funny how I don’t putting and folding our other laundry, but I have no problems folding and putting away the cloth diapers. 

Do you cloth diaper and want to share your experiences? Please post a comment. I love to read about how others CD and their experiences.

Jen D.

Borrowed Book on Parenting

As you can see from my posts lately, I am losing the battle of the wills with my three year old, especially when it comes to potty training. Well today at work a colleague of mine recommended this book (Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy by Louise Bates Ames, PhD and Frances L. Ilg, MD) to me and actually let me borrow her copy. It is not a new book and was originally published back in the seventies, but I read a few reviews from today’s parents that say it is worth the read. So I am going to start reading it tonight. I have always subscribed to the Love and Logic approach, with natural consequences, etc. However, that is not really working for me with my spirited daughter, especially in the area of potty training. I am looking for some real solutions, strategies, whatever I can that I can try to help me parent and not lose my mind. I apologize for the short post. I am just exhausted. A certain person has been keeping me up with snoring. I get up to go use the bathroom several times a night, but then I can’t seem to fall back asleep because of the snoring. Ugh, the joys of being pregnant.

Doctor's Appointment

I am thinking I will post two posts tomorrow to make up for this not so great post that I am posting now. I am trying to get a post done everyday, but it is not easy.

I had my doctor's appointment today. Things seem to be going well with the little girl inside me. She is measuring perfect and I got my glucose test back and it was negative. I am however slightly anemic, but I would rather be a little low on iron than be diabetic. I am so glad that I don't have to go through the ordeal of having the three hour test. Unfortunately, being anemic means I will need to start taking an iron supplement (hence the picture of pills). Not fun, but better than a special diet for GD. On a not so great note, the new practice that my doctor is with will not even give me the option of a VBAC. To add insult to injury they won't even consider scheduling my mandated c-section anytime before 39 weeks without an amnio and I have no input into the date. My doctor just submits a request to scheduling and that is it no input from either of us. This is a real bummer since I have the same due date with this new little baby that I had with little a. Plus I was really hoping to have her birthday be at least a week earlier than his. Now it looks like unless she decides she will be born on a different day that I may even end up going the full 40 weeks. I think I may resort to inducing my own labor if that is to happen. I am so done with being pregnant now as it is. I can't even wrap my mind around having to go full term. Ugh! I just keep saying this too shall pass, but now it will be a little longer than I had hoped it would be. I have never been accused of being lucky and I definitely know why. Plus with little a I spent the majority of my summer just waiting for him to arrive. I was really hoping to not repeat that this summer. Plus being pregnant in the summer is miserable (plus I am already a terrible pregnant), especially without AC. There is nothing I can do at this point. I am learning that I have very little control over anything in this life. Well hopefully your Tuesday was not as disappointing as mine.

Hodge Podge Post

Well today was a much better day than either this Saturday or Sunday. I can’t believe I am posting this, but I seem to be transparent on this blog and so why start being something different now.


I pretty much lost it on Saturday. Big A went poop in her pants again and I just couldn’t deal. I felt the world closing in on me. I had a huge breakdown. Obviously, if I am okay blogging about it now I survived and I am okay. The picture is of me crying in my car, parked in my garage. I was going to go somewhere, but I couldn’t think of anywhere to go and I knew that in my emotional state I shouldn’t be driving, so I just stayed in my car. I called my mom and cried for a while on her shoulder. I got some potty training advice from her and then both my aunt and uncle. I wish that I could say that helped, but it didn’t. I was pretty shook up. The poopy pants incident was just the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. I have been feeling pretty horrible lately. As I have mentioned before pregnancy just doesn’t agree with me. Well in the car I tried to pull it together so I could go upstairs and face the rest of the night and my so called life. I had posted on Facebook that “I wished there was a place where you could exchange lives.” This was before I got in my car. In the car I was trying to delete that status from my phone, but was unable to. I am still learning how to use my phone. Anyways, playing with my phone was a good distraction and I took this self-portrait in the mirror of my car with the phone. I am a mess. You can see my make up is all smeared and I have black circles around my eyes. I prayed, listened to some praise and worship music and tried to pull myself together. I am hoping that I will feel better about my life and myself one day soon, but until then I guess I will just have to fake it until I make it.

Sunday was just like any other day around our home. I cooked, cleaned, took care of the kids, went to church. You never would have known it was Mother’s Day if you were just peaking in the window. I was bummed about it at first, but I am sure there are a lot of us out there that had similar experiences. I love my kids and I am glad to be their mom, even if it is a very disrespected, never ending, all consuming job. My poor hubby was having a bad day with his own stuff so he was unable to physically do anything to help out. I am starting to accept that life is just hard sometimes.


So today was a much better day. I don’t teach on Mondays so I took Big A and little a to a coffee shop with a friend and her kids. It is a coffee shop that has play area with a paid babysitter that watches your kids. It was my first time going there. It was a lot of fun and my friend and I got to chat and hang out. My kids didn’t stay in the area the whole time, but it was fine. Big A didn’t have any potty accidents so we went to a fancy grocery store afterward our play date and she got to push a cart all of her own. She was so happy. It was very cute. She did pretty well on peeing in the toilet today, but those BM’s are something else. I pray that she just gets it soon.

Before meeting my friend I went and met a lady selling some diapers on Craigslist. I ended up getting some new fluff for the little girl due this summer. I am so excited about these. They are stuffable AIO diapers made by Blueberry and Swaddlebees. I have two Blueberry diapers that I just love already and Blueberry/Swaddlebees is the same company. I can’t wait to try them out. A few of them should fit Big A right now so I might try them on her stuffed for overnight on Thursday. I am washing diapers now. I won’t cloth diaper again this week until Thursday night. I don’t tend use them when I am working. It is just too much for me. I am looking forward to the summer when I can cloth diaper almost a hundred percent. Adding great diapers to my stash always makes me smile and getting a good deal on them is even better.

Well I am doing pretty good on my postings. Now I just have to plan for the rest of the week when I am busy working. Tomorrow, I have a doctor’s appointment and get to see how the little mover and shaker inside me is doing. I will try to post an update either tomorrow or on Wednesday. Have a great week.

Jen D.