SortaCrunchy

Good stuff

I have thought and pondered for the past 24 hours on a clever, witty post title for today. You can see about how well my brain is operating right now!

Anyway, these are thirteen things that make me happy these days:

1) My Avent Isis breast pump

2) Lansinoh ultra thin breast/nursing pads (yeah, the wool ones didn't work out as well as I had hoped)

3) Lansinoh cleanse and condition wipes for the breastfed baby

4) Mei Tai Baby

5) Ultimate Swaddling Blanket (pink mod circles!)

6) Short hair

7) Halloween costumes

8) Pink (the color, not the singer . . . although I am sure she is quite lovely, too)

9) The Tyra Banks show (never watched it until I was up with AJ and found our local Fox station shows last week's episodes at three a.m. She's great company at that hour!)

10) Best nursing bra ever

11) Mums (fall!)

12) My artist

13) Baby smiles

Don't forget to come by tomorrow for the return of Bit O' Crunchy giveaway!

Labels: Thursday Thirteen

And so she made some lists . . .

Seth Godin recently wrote that "the mistake most blogs and books make: they are about the writer, not the reader."

Last month, I shared with you that I try to keep my audience in mind as I write and post here at SortaCrunchy.

But today I am going to be selfish and post some totally me-centered stuff just because I big fat want to. So feel free to skim on by if you feel so led, but I do want to say I am posting this publicly because I welcome advice and feedback and suggestions!

We are now staring down the barrel of less than one month until Little Sister's delivery. (Scheduled c-section date is September 5th.) As I panicked mulled this over yesterday, I found it very theraputic to make some lists. Helps me feel a little more, oh I don't know, centered? In control? It at leasts organizes my thoughts and helps me break free of this pervasive sense of denial which hounds me . . . denial that in less than one short calendar month, the SortaCrunchy family will be a Party of Four.

Humor me.

TO DO:

* wash and sort all of Little Sister's diapers
* figure out some kind of organizing solution for the cloth diapers that are slowly taking over the nursery (D's and LS's combined)
* find all the parts to my trusty hand pump and figure out what parts need to be replaced
* make appointment with our pediatrician to go over delayed vax schedule
* go over birth plan choices with my OB and clarify what hospital procedures will allow for (Can I have one arm unstrapped to hold her for a minute after she is delivered? Can she be with me in recovery? these kinds of things . . .)
* write thank you notes from LS's shower
* wash newborn clothes
* get a haircut
* pack hospital bag

TO BUY:

* more infant prefolds and small covers
* button-front pj's for Mama for the hospital and home
* at least one more decent nursing bra
* Lansinoh
* breast pads - cloth or disposable? Would love to hear feedback on what worked for you!
* more post-partum pads
* snacks for the hospital bag
* Mei Tai? Which one? I am to the point of having anxiety dreams over this one. Of course, I want an uber-cool, uber-chic BabyHawk, but the Budget Mistress within is balking at the price tag. But a Mei Tai will definitely take us through toddlerhood, isn't it worth the investment? But couldn't I find a fully functional Mei Tai for less somewhere? And so goes the circles of debate in my mind. DEFINITELY open to feedback on this one, mamas!

And so that's that. For now. Thanks for bearing with my all about Megan indulgence.

Labels: baby

Follow-up chat on mama cloth

Great comments from yesterday, mamas!

Nichole mentioned trying to get the hang of cloth diapering before she took the plunge into mama cloth, but I have to say that in my experience the learning curve with cloth pads is much less steep than the one with cloth diapers. With cloth diapering, there are so many choices and systems - it's all very overwhelming in the beginning. Or it was for me anyway!

There are a few basic decisions to be made with mama cloth: what sort of waterproof material do you want it backed with (PUL? Wool? Heavy fleece?), what length would you like for the pad to be, wings or no wings, one snap or two . . . So yes, some decisions to be made. But really, that's the fun part! With disposable pads and tampons, your customization choices are limited to light, medium, or heavy flow. One of the gorgeous things about mama cloth is that you get to pick what works for you and your unique body and preferences.

Trust me when I say that caring for cloth pads is basically fool-proof! You can soak them or not, dry them in the dryer or not (well, unless you use wool backing - then you won't want to dry them in the dryer), treat staining or don't. It's really no big deal.

For anyone who is even slightly intrigued, I highly suggest you order yourself some liners and just see what you think. They generally run about $6 each, so if you hate it, you aren't out that much. I'm sure there is some way you could recycle its use around the house, and I am going to stop short of listing some of the inappropriate ideas that just came to my mind. :)

Two of my fave mama cloth makers are Daisy Girl Designs and Go With The Flo. Daisy Girl makes an amazing thong pad, probably my very favorites in my stash. I have to warn you these are pretty tricky to get a hold of, but you can find some if you know where/how to look. Robin at Go With The Flo is an outstanding seamstress and uses scrumptious materials. I love her mini-pads the best.

Noah mentioned Luna Pads, and although I haven't tried these, they are certainly a well-established and popular maker of mama cloth. And finally, Homemade Mama is an extremely popular WAHM maker of cloth pads who shares lots of good information on her site. I am hoping to be able to add at least one, if not two, of her Ultimate II Pads for postpartum use.

If and when some of ya'll decide to give it a try, please do let me know. I would love to hear your experiences - good and bad!

READ THE ORIGINAL POST COMPLETE WITH ALL COMMENTS HERE!

Let's talk mama cloth

(By means of preface, if I have somehow garnered any male readers, or if you are a man and have stumbled across this post by accident, I want to prepare you now for what promises to be a candid discussion of feminine hygiene. It has been my experience that most men would rather slam their pinkie finger in the car door than to take part in any conversation that includes the words "period," "tampon," "pads," or even "postpartum," so please do consider yourselves warned and feel free to click away immediately. Won't hurt my feelings one bit.)

With that said, let's commence.

Within the realm of natural family living, there is a fun little term that will generally spark delight in the hearts of all crunchy and sortacrunchy mamas - fluffy mail. What is fluffy mail? Simply, it's mail that contains items that are soft and squeezable rather than flat and texturally undelightful. In the context of natural living products, fluffy mail most often refers to baby carriers (the kind one uses to wear the baby), cloth diapers, or mama cloth (also known as cloth menstrual pads). And it is that last category of fluffy mail that I want to talk about today because yesterday, Mama got some fluffy mail of her own:

These little pretties are the custom postpartum pads I ordered from RCD Boutique - a Hyena Cart vendor who hails from Canada and makes and sells all manor of crunchy goodies. (I want to pause and say Rosie was a dream to work with - excellent communication, perfect sewing, amazing turnaround time. Big thumbs-up for this WAHM!)

Now might be a good time to tell you that as recently as a year ago, I had fairly well determined that although I loved many aspects of natural living, there were some lines I was just not going to cross. Using cloth pads ranked high on my Thanks, But No Thanks list of changes I couldn't (wouldn't) make. I am ashamed to say this, but I have never been one of those women who fully embraces the magic and mystery of the monthly cycle. I want to be. Really, I do. But mostly I see that time of the month as a fairly big inconvenience and therefore want to take care of it in the most convenient way possible. The thought of purchasing - and using! - cloth items actually made me a bit queasy.

And yet . . .

I found myself drawn to the mama cloth forums on the cloth diapering boards I frequent, and the more I read from mamas who were happy - enthusiastic even! - having made the switch to cloth pads, the more intrigued I became. Here's a little confession for ya'll: Though my first period arrived when I was in the sixth grade, I didn't use a tampon for the first time until the summer before I started college. Since that time, the only, only, time I used pads was when I was postpartum with D. I loathe disposable pads with all that is within me, and I think this was a major hurdle in my thinking as I contemplated switching to cloth pads. Plus, there is the "ick" factor. Although tampons aren't totally ick-free, at least when you're done with one, you're done.

Eventually my curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to start small. A few pantyliners - that's it. Imagine my astonishment when I found I was actually looking forward to the end of my period so I could use these sweet little things that were gorgeously, luxuriously soft and gentle. Honestly, is there a realm of the women's body more deserving of luxury? Seriously!

And the "ick" factor? You know what? It's not that bad! (I suppose you might want to remember that I am not bothered by the ick factor of cloth diapering, either, so I guess it's all relative.) But honestly, caring for my mama cloth is no big deal. There are several options, but I personally like to soak mine in cold water and then just wash them in my regular laundry. They can be thrown in with your diaper laundry as well. And the soaking water makes a great drink for your plants!

As I skimmed around the web, I found this great article at Wikipedia that explains the details far better than I could, and I highly recommend perusing it to find out more.

So back to my fluffy mail . . . I took a few side-by-side shots to further illustrate why I am so excited to have some mama cloth to get through my upcoming postpartum weeks. This picture shows how much more aesthetically alluring mama cloth is as compared to your average disposable pad:Now really, who could argue the pretty factor? This was just one choice of a plethora Rosie at RCD offers. The possibilities are endless. The side that is showing is the side that will face away from my body. Let's take a look at the insides:I'm sure each of you are familiar with the inside of a disposable pad - that plasticky netting that covers layers of paper (and chemicals) and is surrounded by fantastically painful adhesive. Good times. What you may not have experienced is the amazingly soft feel of silky microfleece against your skin. Inside a cloth pad are layers of some sort of textile (cotton, hemp, etc) that do the work of absorption - no chemicals here! And you can choose from several options to make the whole pad leak-proof. I like my pads to have wings, so rather than frustrating and irritating adhesive, my pads have simple snaps that help the pad to stay in place. You can also find contour (no wing) pads if that is your preference.

Finally, when was the last time you opened a pack of Always and discovered a thank you note from the company?

I look forward to hearing from ya'll on this and welcome questions and comments!

READ THE ORIGINAL POST COMPLETE WITH ALL COMMENTS HERE!