brain freeze

Me: I think I have freezer burn in my brain.
Ryan: [stare]
Me: . . . um, I mean . . . what's it called . . . brain freeze. Yeah, brain freeze.

I think that might explain why I'm having such a hard time doing Calculus in the evenings.

last year

A year ago today, we found out that we were going to have a boy. We had been den leaders in cub scouts for several months, so I was scared to death that I would someday have one of those in my house and have to deal with that all day long. It seemed like they were constantly wrestling, yelling, punching each other, bouncing off walls, and basically ignoring any attempts at restoring order. An hour a week of that was hard enough. Despite these fears, however, I did receive a feeling of peace that reassured me that I would be able to handle the challenges that I was about to face.

Now that white and black blob is a real person and is eight months old, and sometimes it's really hard, although not in the ways I expected. Kevin is active and curious and can be very determined, and I get really frustrated sometimes when he's crawling from power cords to my hair to the bathroom to the garbage (and yes, all of these must be tasted) and all I seem to be doing is chasing him around. But I didn't know that I was going to be blessed with such a sweet child. Every time I go to the store, I see people's faces light up because of his sweet smile. He has a talent for sharing light and joy with people. I wish I could describe it better. It's amazing to see people who aren't feeling particularly happy suddenly light up when they see him and then continue on their way with a smile on their faces. He's a good baby. He has a sweet temperament, and for the most part only complains if he really does need something. I'm grateful for the special relationship I share with him.

two things K figured out in the last couple of days

Yesterday I was washing Kevin's face after he ate, and he took the washcloth away from me and started playing peekaboo. I was a little surprised because I had been playing it with him a little bit but didn't think he cared much about it. He likes to hold the washcloth up in the air, and then he lowers it and smiles expectantly, waiting for us to say peekaboo. What a smarty! I guess he understands a lot more than I realize.

The other thing that's coming along is the ability to pick up things with the thumb and pointer finger. He likes to eat things that he can hold himself, but mostly it's been bigger things that he can hold in his fist like pieces of bread. But today I was giving him small squares of cooked carrots and he managed to pick up quite a few with his thumb and pointer finger and get them into his mouth. I was very impressed. Feeding time is a lot more messy lately. I'm trying not to stress about it.

"Are you one of those crafty people?"

I've been asked this several times, and my answer is no, definitely not. But then people find out that I can sew, and they say, "I think you really are one of those crafty people."

So this is what I consider to be "crafty":

• homemade cards made with ribbons and cute flowers and cute brads and cute cardstock
• cute scrapbook pages with things like nice cardstock and pretty/cute translucent paper and fun borders
• buckets or baskets of goodies with decorations like nice ribbon, cute notes written with glitter pens, and tissue paper
• cute invitations, like the ones that were made for our next Relief Society birthday dinner--the girl who made them cut out flower petal shapes, attached about six together with cute brads, and wrote a snippet of information about the dinner on each petal
• homemade headbands and flower clips
• homemade bracelets and necklaces
• anything that involves painting or stencils, especially plaques with nice sayings and fancy lettering
  

I don't do any of these. They don't interest me. I'm not really the sort of person that enjoys making cute stuff like this, or thinks to make them, and I hate the idea of spending any money on the supplies that are needed for it because I'm cheap. (This is why our wedding album [when I finally get time to make it] is going to be pictures glued to white cardstock and nothing else--because I'm tired of stressing about making it look fancy and buying the supplies I need to do so.) When I make things, it's usually because I need it or think it would be useful. The most recent things that I sewed were some washable changing pads and some cloth baby wipes. I thought they would be useful and didn't want to pay someone else to do it when I could make them myself for less, and in the dimensions I wanted. I admit I did put a little effort into making the changing pads cute. The cloth baby wipes are two layers of brown flannel with zig-zag stitching around the edges to prevent fraying--no craft there. Other than the changing pads and wipes, most of the things I've sewn were clothes for 4-H. I was in 4-H from second grade until the end of high school, and every year my grandma or my mom helped me with a sewing project. If people are impressed that I can sew in a straight line, they should know that I spent a good portion of my summers at a sewing machine, especially the years when I decided to make a suit and a formal (with Grandma's close guidance--I couldn't have figured out where to put the pieces without her). I wanted a nice black suit with a long coat, and I wanted a nice formal, plus I had watched all the older girls in my 4-H club make suits and formals and assumed that someday it would be my turn. I do enjoy sewing, and I do think I have some talent with it. I wish I wasn't so busy with school so I could sew more. And I hope we have a little girl someday so I can make her some cute jumpers. But I consider sewing to be under the category of sewing, not under the category of crafts, so that's why I don't answer yes when people ask if I'm one of those crafty people.

I don't mean to say that the crafts I listed aren't useful. We need people who can make nice invitations and cards, cute headbands, wall plaques, and such. Those are great talents, and I admire people who have good taste in those things and can do them. They're just not the talents I'm interested in developing right now. We should all be working to develop and use the talents that we have to bless others and make life enjoyable. Creative cards lift my spirit, and so do beautiful houses, gardens, and computer models.

One more post: 8 months old on St. Patrick's Day

Today Kevin is 2/3 of a year old. He's wearing green. And he had green beans for lunch. How's that for celebrating?

Forgive me if I proceed to write a long post all about Kevin. This blog is a way to motivate myself to keep a journal, so sometimes I write things just to get them recorded. Besides, I actually haven't blogged about Kevin much for a few weeks.

Kevin can move pretty fast now. He knows his way around the apartment. He loves the kitchen, the storage closet, the bathroom, and Mom and Dad's bedroom. It's getting harder and harder to keep up with him. I've given up on trying to do anything during the day that requires consolidated time, which doesn't happen when I'm constantly trying to keep him out of things he shouldn't have. And that's fine. He gets up into the crawling position and can do bridges (up on his hands and feet), but he hasn't quite figured out how to do a real crawl.

One of his latest interests is opening and shutting doors and cupboards. We're looking into methods of locking cupboard doors, because he knows exactly which cupboard has the extra grocery sacks. Actually, I'm starting to think a gate would be a good option. He can be entertained by a door for quite a while. A couple of times he's accidentally shut himself in a room by himself and then cried because he was scared (and then I couldn't get him out because he was crying right by the door). Poor kid.

Kevin has two tiny teeth growing in, and he thinks chewing on things is a fun game. We've given him some foods that require some chewing, and although at first he didn't appreciate that he actually had to put some work into eating, he really likes it now.

It's fun to listen to him talking. The things he says the most are Bababababababa and Mamamamamama (which I'm convinced means "I'm hungry"). He enjoys blowing raspberries too. He can also click his tongue, which can actually be quite an expressive gesture. Another thing that he's figured out how to do is to suck on his mouth, if that makes sense. He kind of sucks on his bottom lip and his tongue and makes a smacking noise. I was trying to get a video of him doing it this morning, but of course he stopped and sucked his thumb as soon as the camera was out.

Kevin can get over some obstacles, such as a pile of clothes or a pillow on the floor. This has started to develop into pulling himself into a standing position. He can do it with a short box or by using someone's back if we're lying on our sides on the floor.

Sometimes he likes to lie on his back and watch what his fingers can do.

He has a new smile where he wrinkles his nose, squints his eyes, and grins. He seems to be pretty aware that he's adorable when he does that. It makes me laugh every time.


A good chunk of his day is spent in his high chair eating. It takes longer to eat table food, especially when you're just learning how.


Kevin isn't really addicted to his thumb. He generally only sucks his thumb to get to sleep (which is probably why he slept through the night at such an early age). I guess someday we'll have to work with him to stop the thumb-sucking, but right now he needs the sleep (and so do I!) and there's not a lot I can do about it.

lots of posts today

For all of my fans who check my blog twenty times a day in the hopes that I've posted again.

I guess I'm in a blogging mood. If only I were in a Calculus II mood. Maybe then I could actually get caught up and possibly get a decent grade in the class.

the dropping-it-and-then-they-pick-it-up-and-we-do-it-again game

What baby doesn't love this game?

wrestling with Dad

my take on cloth diapering

I think I should explain before I begin that I am very wary of anything that sounds like extreme environmentalism. I do think it's a good idea to manage our resources wisely, and Ryan and I do a lot of basic things like recycling and trying not to waste food, paper, or power. But many people have gotten really extreme about environmental things, and I just don't feel good about that. When I read statistics that are supposed to make me feel guilty about the footprint I'm leaving on this earth, I feel confused and almost dark, which is not the same thing I feel when something motivates me to do something good. I do think God gave us the responsibility to take care of the earth as well as we can, but I also think that we need to remember what is said in D&C 104:7: "For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves." God gave us our agency so we could choose how we use this earth, but He prepared it, and He made the earth so that there would be plenty of all the things our mortal bodies would need. I think there are some people who have gotten so extreme in trying to save the planet that they start to convince themselves that it's a bad thing that humans are on the earth, and that is not true. The earth was specially prepared for us as a place for us to have bodies and learn and grow. We are the reason the earth was formed. So when we get so concerned about preserving the environment that we get distracted from those sacred truths, that's a problem.

That's why I was initially turned off from cloth diapering. Yes, people still do cloth diapering, and it's actually becoming quite trendy. I did some research into it to figure out what it would cost and what kind of work it would involve, and I discovered what Ryan and I call The Church of the Holy Cloth Diaper. It's doctrines include such "facts" (which may or may not be true--but I didn't see a lot of citation or good proof in the things I read) as: Each baby will add about two tons of diapers to the landfills (we calculated this and it actually seems about right), disposable diapers have all sorts of toxic and harmful ingredients that are bad for the environment and your baby's skin and lungs, the dirty diapers in landfills are polluting our groundwater, it takes several hundred years for a disposable diaper to decompose (don't know how they figured that one out), and so on. Like I said, I don't know if these things are true or not. It's probably a mixture of truth and falsehoods (made up, discovered from bad science, spread and distorted by word of mouth . . . who knows?). But I didn't like the feeling that all these people are trying to make good mothers feel guilty about something as minor as what they use to cover their babies' bottoms--there are so many other things that are infinitely more important in good mothering. Then I saw the prices for some of the cloth diapers that are available, and I decided that somebody is cheating people in the name of saving the environment. One BumGenius diaper is $17.95. Yes, they're really nice cloth diapers with everything built in and they will fit the baby all throughout their diapering days, but I'm still not sure if they're worth quite that much. And you can get other diapers that are even more expensive that are supposed to be even more "environmentally friendly." Maybe I'm just cheap, but that was my impression. So that was why at first I decided not to do cloth diapering--I felt that a lot of people were getting pretty extreme, and since that made me uncomfortable, I didn't want to support it or get involved. I'm not saying that it's wrong to use cloth diapers as a way to protect the environment--I'm saying that if you get so religious about it that you forget about doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ, then there's a problem.

By the way, washing and drying cloth diapers does take a lot of energy and water. It seems to me that it's hard to tell whether disposable diapers filling up landfills is better or worse than polluting the atmosphere and using lots of water.

That being said, we did ultimately decide to start using cloth diapers. But I am NOT a member of The Church of the Holy Cloth Diaper. We only did it to save money. We have been using cloth diapers for Kevin since mid-December. And I actually really like it. We calculated that about the time of Kevin's first birthday, the cloth diapers will have paid for themselves, and after that we will be making money. Plus, I don't have to haul sacks of dirty disposable diapers all the way to the dumpster (which is a bit of a distance from our apartment . . . yes, I'm lazy). I would much rather do a little laundry than be constantly carrying smelly sacks to the dumpster.

Speaking of "all that laundry," I don't think it's that bad. We wash diapers about every other day, so that's 3-4 times per week. I do a rinse cycle and then a regular wash cycle. It takes less than a minute to put the dirty diapers in the washing machine and start the rinse, 15 seconds to add soap and start the regular wash cycle, about a minute to transfer the diapers to the dryer and hang up the covers, and about five minutes to sort it all out and put it away after the dryer is finished. So I would guess I spend at the most half an hour per week washing diapers, and I haven't noticed the missing half hour. It's not like I have to stay there the whole time they're washing. Laundry isn't really a chore for me, though. I rather enjoy it. If I had to slap my diapers on rocks to wash them and then ring them out and hang them out on the line to dry, I would say no, it is definitely not worth it to do cloth diapering. I have no idea how the pioneer mothers did it. But with a washer and dryer to do it all for me, it's not so bad.

Yes, the soiled diapers are disgusting. It's hard to not touch dirty toilet water when you're dunking a dirty diaper. But I bought some rubber gloves for $0.82 and now it's not that bad. And the first rinse cycle in the washer gets off whatever doesn't come off easily. P.S. If you're worried about the smell, well, you have to deal with smelly diapers whether you do cloth or disposable diapers. I haven't smelled a difference.

Some people rave about how you get fewer diaper rashes with cloth. That hasn't been my experience. Maybe it's because I'm using prefolds instead of fancy BumGenius diapers (to save a couple hundred dollars). But we never saw the trace of a rash until we started using cloth. I think it's because disposable diapers are built to pull the moisture into the diaper and away from the baby's skin, and since prefolds are just cloth, they don't do that, so the moisture stays against Kevin's skin. I started using A&D (the kind with zinc oxide) before I put him to bed for the night, and that seems to keep the rashes away for the most part. As an experiment, I stopped using the A&D for a couple of days to see if a rash would appear, and he did get a rash (obviously, I would have to do more tests to make this a reliable experiment). I imagine it depends on the baby and a lot of different factors.

Oh, and in my experience, cloth diapers don't usually leak. With disposable diapers, we had to deal with at least one leak per day, and more than that when he was very small .

You really can save money by using cloth diapers, as long as you don't get too crazy with all the extras or try to collect all different kinds of diapers and if you're careful with shipping costs. There are things like wipe warmers, special cloth baby wipe solution (you can make your own for pennies), expensive "natural" detergents (you do have to be careful about which detergent you use because some cause buildup on the diapers, but there are cheap brands that work just fine), diaper doublers (again, you could probably make your own), and other things that might not really be necessary, although if they make life nicer for you then feel free to use them. You also have to factor in the cost of using the washer and dryer more often. Our energy and water are a flat rate, so the cost of those hasn't increased for us. I'd be interested to hear if it's still worthwhile from someone whose utilities depend on amount of usage. Here is a breakdown of what we have paid for diapers:

1. 36 premium size prefolds (factory seconds from clothdiaper.com): $57.03
   
2. Several flat diapers that my mom made but never used: $0 (or several hundred dollars if you count the plane trip : ) )
   
3. 4 Thirsties size 2 Duo diaper covers (bought from a local store, so no shipping costs involved): $54.95
   
4. 2 yards of flannel to make 25 two-layer cloth wipes: $8.07
5. Squirt bottle for squirting wipe solution on wipes: $1
6. Baby oil and baby wash for wipe solution: $0 (I got a lot of those at the baby shower)
   
7. Trash can for holding dirty diapers: $8.99
8. Rubber gloves: $0.82
9. Old pillowcase for wetbag: $0 (I'm going to make something better when I have the time, though.)
   

Total: $130.86. And we don't have to buy anything else for the duration of K's diapering days. We calculated that we would have spent $410 on diapers from the time we started cloth diapering to the time K is potty trained if we continued with disposables. This is assuming about five diapers a day and $0.15 per diaper (because we used Kroger brand, which is just as good as Huggies), for 18 more months. We also estimated that we would spend $180 more on baby wipes in the same time period because we went through three boxes of Kirkland baby wipes (about $20 per box) in about six months. So we would have spent almost $600 on diapers and wipes before K is toilet trained, which means we saved about $470. That estimate might be a little low. Other people might save more or less if they use more expensive disposable diapers or if they choose to use more expensive kinds of cloth diapers.

To explain what kind of diapers we use: Prefolds are basically several layers of cotton stitched together, with more layers in the middle than on the sides. Flat diapers are a big piece of cloth that you fold into a diaper shape--this actually isn't that hard, and sometimes I prefer flats because they are less bulky than prefolds, which means K can wear some of his older pairs of pants. The Thirsties diaper covers are kind of like the plastic pants of my babyhood, except they are made of nicer plastic that's not so rustly and they are shaped like a disposable diaper with elastic around the legs and velcro to fasten them. They come in two sizes and have snaps so that you can adjust the size as the baby grows, which means you only have to buy two sets of covers--one for when they're small, and one for when they're big. I don't use any pins. I just lay the diaper in the cover and fasten it with the velcro, tucking in any loose fabric from the cloth part when I'm done. The covers can usually be used several times before needing to be washed. The prefolds will definitely last for more than one child. I'm not sure about the covers. They might wear out. They are starting to pill a little bit at the legs.

Here's what K looks like in his cloth diapers:





Pretty cute, huh? I think cloth diapers are cuter than disposable diapers. I was never much of a fan of the v-shaped, saturated disposable diaper look. Kevin does look kind of like a pear sometimes when his clothes cover the diaper, though--they are a lot more bulky than disposable diapers.

Oh, and I have nothing against BumGenius diapers. The only reason we chose prefolds and covers was because it was a slightly cheaper option. BumGenius seem to be really great diapers.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my thoughts because they're a little different than what most people who write about it seem to think. There are a lot of good reasons to use cloth diapers, and there are also plenty of valid reasons to not use cloth diapers, and I wouldn't want anyone to think I don't respect them because of the kind of diaper they use.

What we did for my birthday

My birthday was on Monday. It was a nice day. Ryan had spring break this week, so we got to spend a lot of time at home as a family. For a couple of days I had had some kind of cold or sinus infection involving congestion, runny nose, and headaches, so after Kevin went down for his morning nap, I went back to bed and got some good quality rest. I felt a lot better when I woke up, and I decided to try to contact the person whose couch we were thinking of buying. We made arrangements to go see it in the afternoon. It was really nice, and we decided to buy it, as you saw in the post Ryan wrote on Monday. It's been great to have a couch. It's just so nice to have something comfortable to sit on besides a bed.

After we looked at the couch, we went to Costco, which was nearby, to get some tortillas and cheese and probably some other stuff. Then we went to Home Depot to get a new spigot/faucet thingy for our bathroom sink. A few weeks ago, ours was leaking, and the maintenance man replaced it with one that just had holes in a circle around the edge rather than a screen, which was driving us crazy because it took forever to get our toothbrushes wet or rinse our hands off. So we bought a new one that lets out a nice heavy stream of water. Yes, I guess comfort is more important than saving water to us. After Home Depot we went to Harris Teeter to see if the Buy Two, Get Three Free sale on ice cream was good. I wasn't too surprised to see that the price was raised to $5.39 per carton, which meant that even if you got the three free cartons the price would be over $2, which is more than I'm willing to pay. That's how it was last time too. I think I'll stop there, since many of my readers are already familiar with my woes of inflating ice cream prices. But we also bought some batteries and a ball for Kevin (the batteries were for me, not Kevin). He kicked and wiggled as soon as he saw the ball and has had a lot of fun with it, although unfortunately he's still more interested in power cords and hair and the sacks in the kitchen cupboard.

We came home and had tacos for dinner, and then Ryan went with someone in the ward (who owned a truck) to get the couch and bring it home. I went walking with some friends who live in our apartment complex. When I came back in, we had birthday lemon bars, made by Ryan. They were very good!

So I guess it was mostly a get-things-done-that-we've-been-intending-to-do day, but I like those days. And I love my birthday present. It was just the kind of couch I was looking for. You wouldn't believe the hideous couches that are advertised as "BEAUTIFUL antique sofa--$2000" on craigslist.

using powdered milk in everyday cooking

RT and I have been talking lately about how lots of people think of food storage as weird food that nobody would normally eat--like pickled watermelon rinds. My parents have always been good at using long-term food storage that normal people eat, so I guess I missed out on this misconception. I remember once when I was a teenager I was in Relief Society for some reason and a sister made an announcement about doing some dry-pack canning. She passed around a plastic bag with some weird brown crusty stuff in it. I will never know what it was, but it was not normal food. Someone in the room made a comment about how frustrating it was to have to throw away and replace your year's supply every year. I was so confused. Why would you store food you don't eat? Like I said, my parents just rotated through their food storage and used what they bought, so that was what I thought food storage was. (I was right, by the way.)

With that in mind, I would like to share with you how you can use powdered milk in everyday cooking. Where I live, milk is expensive, and using powdered milk has saved us some money (at least a dollar per gallon). It's very simple: when you have a recipe that calls for regular milk, use powdered milk. When I'm baking, I add the powder to the dry ingredients and the water to the wet ingredients. When I'm making a cream-based soup, I make several cups of powdered milk and use that instead of my store-bought milk. When I make a white sauce for macaroni and cheese or tuna noodle casserole, I use powdered milk. It's not a lot of work, and the food tastes just the same. We don't drink powdered milk or pour it on our cereal because we prefer store-bought milk for that. My point is, we're making normal food that we like, and we're still using our powdered milk. So if we need to get by using just powdered milk for a while, we may not be able to do everything with milk like we normally do--a lot of normal foods aren't going to work in an emergency--but we can still have many of our favorite recipes with milk. Doesn't that sound better than pulling out cans of weird brown crusty stuff?

Mikarose Giveaway

I just entered a giveaway for a $60 gift certificate to MikaRose. They have some really cute and modest dresses. I don't normally wear such cute clothes, so I might not recognize myself if I win and get a dress!

Here's the one I like:


If you want to enter the giveaway too, go to this post on Nurture Mama's blog and follow the instructions. Then keep reading her blog--it's a really nice one!

Our New Couch!

We got a new couch! (Well it's new for us, but still it's fairly new)It's microfiber and in this picture it looks brown/gray but it actually has a slight green color to it. We're happy that we have it. M is talking to her parents when they called to wish her a happy birthday! (Happy Birthday!) The couch is just what she wanted.

bad people/monsters in our house

Last night I had a dream about Gollum (from the Lord of the Rings). I don't remember much except that he was in my grandparents' old house and trying to bite me or strangle me or something and I had to keep biting his fingers to protect myself. At some point I woke up. It was about 3:00 in the morning. I knew perfectly well that all in the apartment was probably safe, but I still had to walk around the apartment and make sure there was no Gollum or other people with bad intentions hanging around, especially in my baby's bedroom. It makes me feel kind of silly, but it's like a natural instinct. If I wake up in the middle of the night I have to go check on K and peek behind the shower curtain to make sure nothing will hurt my family and K hasn't taken his last breath while I wasn't around. I can't get back to sleep unless I do it.

Coming through . . .

This morning I found a tiny sharp spot on K's gums. The doctor noticed the bulges a month and a half ago, and one of the teeth is just starting to poke through.

Bring on the steak.

Semester of Horror

I had to take my second calculus test yesterday. I was not ready and did not have enough time to memorize the formulas or practice enough problems. Normally I like to be well-prepared for my tests and I usually have a pretty good idea before I take the test if I am ready or not, and if I'm not prepared I can't think clearly, which means I make silly mistakes (90% of the time involving negative signs) and forget how to do problems. I do think I will pass the test, but I'm not going to get the grade that I know I could have earned if I had had more time.

On the way home after taking the test, I was thinking about the trials I am facing right now. I'm very much a perfectionist. I know that in the eternal scheme of things it won't matter much what grade I got in this class, but I tend to forget that. I felt as I drove home that this semester is a trial that I am experiencing because I have things to learn. One thing I need to learn is to look at things with an eternal perspective and place the highest value on the things that will ultimately matter most. I am learning to humbly recognize and be grateful for the gifts and blessings God has given me, and to recognize that without the Savior there would be no hope of salvation.

The most important thing I realized was that if I do nothing but complain every time I have some trial, I'm not going to get much out of my earth life. I came to earth to learn things that I couldn't have learned if I had remained a spirit, and it's necessary for me to have experiences that are hard for me so that I can progress. I looked up "endure" in the index of my triple combination, and many of the verses speak not just of enduring, but of enduring well, enduring faithfully, and enduring valiantly. That's how hard things make us better--because we try to be faithful, valiant, and happy even though something is hard. Then when we make it through the trial, we are better because we have developed and progressed spiritually.

It also occurred to me that it would be really good for me to give an account of all of my sufferings to someone in Haiti. Maybe then I would quit my whining. I am truly blessed to be able to attend school, to live in a nice apartment, to have a pantry full of food, to have plenty of clean water coming out of the tap, to be healthy, to have a wise and supportive husband and a sweet and beautiful son, and especially to have the gospel in my life.