Phew...what a day!

This will be a short post. I just need to say how frustrated I am with our health insurance company. Long story short our premium jumped way WAY up when Hudson was born. I guess having 2 children does that. Anyway, we changed plans but stuck with the same company. They over charged us for the prorated amount for the old plan, and now they are trying to defend it. No! Just give us our money back already!

We don't even go to the doctor. We see a chiropractor which most insurances don't cover including ours. We would just get rid of health insurance all together...but...oh yeah, we can't because next year the federal goverment will "require" us to have it...This is all a big mess!

Anyway, I spent an hour and forty minutes on the phone with the company tonight, and the issue still didn't get resolved! And the whole time I had a screaming 2 month old and a very angry 2 year. Come on people, get it together. I shouldn't have to speak to 4 different people and be on hold for over a half an hour. :-( Not a good day!

Do You Ever Feel Like a Lazy Mom?

Sometimes there are just days I feel like a lazy mom. Unfortunately, I just went through what felt like months as one. A couple of months ago, Hunter was teething like crazy, and he just kept breaking out into rashes using the cloth diapers. I tried everything I could think of at the time, but the only thing that I could do to get them to go away was use rash cream paired with disposables. I was so upset! I didn't want to spend money on disposables when everything was going so well, and I was having a ton of fun using cloth. I made the switch hoping it would be temporary.

After a little while, I tried going back to cloth. The first couple days were great, but then those rashes started to come back plus my diapers were getting stinky. I figured the only thing I hadn't tried was stripping like crazy so I did that, and they were still producing rashes and stink. So I gave up. I know, can you believe I just said that!

As winter passed I was getting more and more irritated using and spending money on disposables. I hated the smell in my utility room (believe it or not, for me disposables smell lingers more), and I hated that I was hurting our planet. Even though I was using Seventh Generation diapers (better footprint), I still felt like it was unnecessary. The only thing I liked was saving a small amount of time on laundry (here enters the lazy).

Finally, it started to get warmer outside. I decided I was going to take Hunter backpacking this spring, summer, and fall. I got this awesome Kelty Kids baby backpack that I was so excited about. When I started doing that, I started feeling like I had been lazy all winter and maybe hadn't tried everything that I could have to make my cloth diapering experience successful.

So...I decided to try one last thing. We have really hard water so I had been using Rockin' Green Hard Rock detergent, and I loved it. BUT...I decided for the cloth diapers it wasn't quite enough. I started experimenting with adding some Calgon water softener to my diaper loads. WAHLAH! So far, the Calgon has been helping tremendously. We will see how it goes, but I have my fingers crossed that it will continue to do the trick!

I am so thankful that I didn't just give up totally. I wasn't able to breastfeed like I had wanted since Hunter couldn't breathe and swallow correctly, instead he would just end up chewing mommy up. So I felt that I really needed to hold on to something that I had wanted to do since pregnancy. I am so glad that this seems like it is going to work out for us from here on out. I needed it to feel successful with Hunter! (Although, I REALLY hope I can breastfeed with the next one!)

So hopefully the "lazyzilla" is gone.

Since it has been a while, I have posted lots of new pics of Hunter on the photo page. Lots of updating to do!

Our Sleeping Adventure

Hunter has been a great sleeper since he was born. Each time he would go down, he would be out for 2 to 3 hours which was nice. He sleeps 3 to 4 hours a night usually so I am used to getting up to feed him once or twice.

I am getting to the point where I really want to get him sleeping through the night. We are no longer in the stages where when he wakes in the middle of the night he is screaming for food. Now it is more like he makes noises long enough for me to know he won't go back to sleep without me, but the feeding is a lot slower and he kind of sleeps while he feeds. After the feeding, he is back in the crib quick and back to sleep. So, I thought maybe he could make the transition.

Usually he naps 3 to 4 times a day depending on how long the naps are. The last nap usually starts around 7:30 pm and ends around 10. He eats, plays, gets a diaper change and goes to bed around 11. He wakes around 2:30 am and again around 5:30. He is usually up for the day around 7 am.

Last night was our first night of my new experiment. Although I am tired today, I thought it went fairly well for the first night. Basically when he woke at 2:30 am, I rocked him back to sleep instead of giving him the bottle. He slept until 3:30 when I calmed him again. He made noises but no crying from 5:00 to 5:30. At 5:30 I finally fed him and put him back down. So basically he went 6.5 hours without eating. He was up again at 7.

My goal for tonight is to go all the way until 7 am without feeding him. Does anybody have any advice? I am hoping we can have him sleeping from 11 to 7 without a feeding (and without waking me lol) within a week.

9 Weeks Old

I thought I should post an update on Hunter since he is already 9 weeks old. It has gone by so fast. At 9 weeks, he has grown about 5 inches and weighs double his birthweight (14 pounds). He is completely out of his 0-3 month clothing. I can't believe how big he is.
Recently, he started opening his hands, grabbing for his bottle, making a high pitch "mommy I want my food" cry and sucking his fist. These firsts were so cute to witness. Since I didn't post an update before this, I should mention he has been smiling for a very long time. I believe he started between weeks 2 and 3. Now his smiles are accompanied by a wonderful set of cooing noises. When he really gets going, he lifts his chin, and his smile reaches ear to ear!

This is all so amazing, but it truly is going fast. I thought being at home with no work would slow the passage of time, but it hasn't. These years are going to go by in the blink of an eye.

IMPORTANT: SALE On and Update of bumGenius Deluxe 3.0 All In One Diaper

Yesterday I posted a review of the bumGenius Deluxe 3.0 All in One diaper. As I said in the review, I did not know how this diaper would perform for us in the medium or large sizes. One of my followers commented on the review, and we got to talking about this dipe via email. After speaking with her, I have decided to try the next sizes up, both medium and large hoping that the stuffing issues along with the awkward fit that follows double stuffing will disappear. She also let me know one important detail about these diapers: THEY ARE BEING DISCONTINUED!!

She kindly instructed me that Cotton Babies has them on sale right now for $9.95 a dipe. That is a $6 savings off the original price! If you are interested in this dipe, I would head over to Cotton Babies right now and buy some before it is too late (they have free shipping in U.S.). Normally I would shop at Kelly's Closet, but they did not have the same price on the diapers.

ENJOY!!