Charlie's soap

I recently had the chance to use some Charlie’s liquid laundry soap and their Oxygen Bleach. I mostly used it on diapers and on the girls’ clothes. I make my own laundry soap usually, but wanted to try something store bought. I LOVE the Oxygen Bleach! It does a great job on the diapers. With two girls (2&1/2 and 10 months) in cloth diapers, things get stinky around here pretty quick. The Oxygen Bleach does better than anything else I’ve tried on stinky diapers. I put two tablespoons of it in the wash and let the diapers soak before the wash cycle. It really did a great job!

I will probably stick with my homemade soap because it works just as well, and it’s cheaper (though I really liked the Charlie’s liquid a lot). However, I will probably switch from Oxy Clean to the Charlie’s Oxygen Bleach because it is truly superior and a little bit goes a long way!!

Pump and dump: Pouring liquid gold down the drain

We have been suffering from seasonal allergies and sinus junk in my house for a good 3 weeks and I finally had to break down and go to a walk-in clinic on Tuesday night because on top of a pounding head and intense sinus pressure (nothing new for me). I also started having severe pain in my left ear. We're talking ice pick to the ear drum kind of pain.

I saw a nurse practitioner at the walk in clinic that told me I had an ear infection and a sinus infection (as I suspected) and wrote me a prescription for a Z-pack. He then informed me that I would have to quit nursing my 9 month old because the antibiotic crosses in the breast milk and it could cause a reaction or resistance in the baby. I begged for something else and he told me he would tell me the same thing no matter which antibiotic he prescribed. I was on the verge of tears when I left the office.

When I got in the car, I immediately called a family friend, who is a nurse and has worked as a lactation consultant, and cried on her shoulder. After talking and going over our options, she instructed me to talk to the pharmacist about it and see what he said. When I talked to him, he acted like it was a low risk and it would “probably be okay”, but to watch her for signs of digestive distress or other reactions.

The lactation consultant and I decided it was probably okay to nurse at night, but just to be safe I am giving her milk from my freezer stash (Hey, that is what it’s there for). In order to keep my supply up, I have to pump and dump. Yesterday alone I dumped over 10 oz! I may have shed a tear over it.

I’ve gotten some judgment over it, with people telling me it is totally unnecessary to pump and dump, but in all honesty I’d rather be safe than sorry. Chris, Zoey and I are all allergic to different antibiotics, so I don’t want to cause any issues with my baby if I can help it.

I’m not ready or willing to end our breast feeding relationship, yet, and more importantly, neither is the baby. She has a hard time taking a bottle from me and it breaks my heart a little each time I have to give her one.

These couple of weeks won’t be easy, but I’m just going to do the best I can.

What is the big deal with Disney princesses?

I’m not sure why Disney Princesses are getting such a bad reputation these days. Sure, some of them aren’t modestly dressed (I’m looking at you, Jasmine), but some of them love to read (Belle) or are great warriors (Mulan) or fight for their own rights to NOT marry (Merida). I’m not saying these princesses need to be our daughters’ only role models, but to ban Disney Princesses from my household is just too extreme for me. I am all for Disney making more empowered, self-reliant princesses, including princesses with a more realistic body and not so much cleavage showing.

My oldest daughter loves Beauty and the Beast and Tangled, but she also loves Iron Man, Hulk, Bible class, singing “Jesus Loves Me”, reading, wearing Mommy’s shoes, playing outside and many other things. We don’t let Belle or Rapunzel take over her life. She is a little girl and little girls like princesses.

I think responsibility for who our kids look up to falls on us as parents and each parent should make decisions for themselves. If you don’t want princesses in your house, that is fine with me. If I never spent any time with my children and only let them watch Disney movies, then sure, they might become obsessed with princesses. We do a lot of things besides watch movies and play dress-up. Children need to be well-rounded and that is part of our job as parents. Nobody freaks out over boys watching super heroes, afraid they will be obsessed with learning to fly and being disappointed when they don’t have supersonic speed. They are kids. Let them enjoy fantasy for a while.

My little princess in her Halloween costume (made by myself and my mother-in-law).

Like cheerios in a highchair

A fellow mom gave me some truly uplifting words the other day. I was feeling bad for going to work that morning (more so than usual) because Zoey cried and begged me not to leave her. I was talking about how hard it was and my friend (and fellow mom) began to tell me what a great job I do as a mother. She told me that I must be doing the “mom thing” right. She said that as a preschool worker she had seen kids that hated going home at night. She praised me for being a good mother and it truly made me feel better. When I thanked her for her kind words she said, “This mom thing is a hard gig! We gotta stick together like Cheerios on a high chair.” I love that quote!

We are all doing the best we can. It’s so easy to look at Mary Jane down the street and say, “She doesn’t nurse” or “She got an epidural” or “She posted a picture of her kid eating a McDonald’s chicken nugget!” and we don’t always stop so see the whole picture. Maybe she tried to nurse and couldn’t (or just didn’t want to), maybe her birth plan was different than yours or her pain was greater than yours was, maybe she spent all day running errands or was sick and just wanted to feed her kids a quick dinner. Maybe that working mom that you look down on is working so that she can give her kids a better life and a better future.

We should be “sticking together like cheerios in a high chair.” Motherhood is a sisterhood. Sometimes it gets lonely. You have a baby and your friends give you space and then you drift apart. Let’s work on building each other up and cheering each other on! You know how nice it is when someone says or does something nice for you, so why not spread that around? Let’s work on our relationships with fellow moms! It’s time to be Cheerios!

So you want to go on a road trip?

So you want to go on a road trip? Well, my little family has been on a couple of road trips over the past couple of weeks and they have gone better than I expected because I really prepared a lot for it.

I kept an eye on sales at Walmart and Target and got some Color Wonder supplies, crayons, note pads and stickers. We also got a portable DVD player on sale at Best Buy and took all our Disney movies (Thanks Trey). Lots of Kum & Go stations have Redbox kiosks, so we were even able to rent a DVD or two. A cooler full of drinks and snacks was Daddy’s brilliant idea!

We made frequent stops to stretch legs, go to the bathroom and to nurse the baby. We stopped at a couple of free local attractions along the way to run off a little energy and tried to find kid friendly places to eat (Steak N Shake and Chick-fil-A top the list). We may not be making the best drive time, but sometimes slow and steady wins the race.

St Louis

My family and I recently came back from a trip to St Louis to meet up with a fellow "Baby Lady" for the first time. We got there late Friday night and when we met for the first time; it wasn’t awkward at all! We ran up to each other and hugged like old friends. My husband and kids were up in our room, but her husband witnessed our giddy embrace with rolled eyes. We got settled into our rooms at the Hyatt with an awesome view of the arch (Thank you Priceline.com) and rested up for a fun-filled weekend!

On Saturday morning, we headed to the local zoo (free admission) and spent the better half of the day wandering around looking at all the animals. For a free zoo (we did have to pay for parking), it was incredible! We took turns pushing babies in the strollers and teased each other for our bad stroller driving. One child may or may not have tried to climb a short fence to an animal enclosure… good thing it wasn’t the lions!

That evening we headed down to the arch to let the kids run around before dinner and they had a blast together!

We went to dinner at Angelo’s Taverna and it was delicious! Great wait staff, huge portions, good prices and delicious food. If you are ever in town, you should stop by. We had so much food that we couldn’t finish it all and we had to get dessert to go (hey, it’s vacation)!

Sunday morning we got up and loaded our cars up to leave the hotel, went and had breakfast at Denny’s and then headed to The Magic House! It was $9.50 a person and worth every red cent. We were there for 4 hours and didn’t see about a third of what they had to offer. What a neat place for kids and adults to play! They really do have tons of fun things to do and we could have easily been there all day.

They had a whole little town type of thing set up with a grocery store, bank, electric company, fishing pond, ice cream stand, car shop, library and a hospital nursery. It was so neat!

Zoey LOVED the water table!

Even the babies had fun together in the little baby play area!

What mother doesn’t dream of her child becoming president at least once? They have an Oval Office so you can see for yourself how cool they will look behind that desk. I’ll be making election buttons soon 

It truly was an awesome trip! I wish it had been longer, one weekend wasn’t long enough with such a fun family. Our oldest still talks about her friends and asks for them by name! It really felt like we had been friends for years and not just Internet friends that were meeting for the first time!

Fall project

Well, it looks like fall is here…

Wait, it’s still in the 80s here in Arkansas!! Oh well, the calendar says it’s fall and pumpkin spice everything is out; so I am saying it’s here.

I decided to do a fun fall project with Zoey! I went to Wal-mart and got some of the decorative plastic pumpkins they have for $.97 and some kids craft paint. I dressed her in an old shirt, covered the table and let her paint! I only let her use one color at a time so we could do it again if we wanted to. Two-year-olds don’t know to not mix paint colors.

I chose plastic pumpkins because they last longer so I can keep them forever and compare each year; and so we can give them as gifts to family.

This project was obviously followed by a bubble bath. We don’t mind getting messy in our house!

The big one is for us and the little ones are for grandparents. She is so proud of them!