little feet, big sky

It’s the middle of October and I’m in a bit of a knitting panic. I had wanted to gift hand knitted items for the holidays to many, many friends and family and I just don’t think I’m going to be able to do as many as I’d like. :-(

The weather turned here suddenly over the weekend. I was up in the middle of the night and the winds were howling around and I realized it was fall already. It was chilly and I shivered a bit that night, being too lazy to go downstairs to get another comforter. The next day, some conversation with the spouse yielded the discovery that the heating isn’t turning on. Joy.

I’ve been bundling up myself and Spice and am feeling the need for warmer clothing for her. Yes, we live in sunny, warm Hollywood, CA. But our house is in the hills and shaded by lots of trees and is older and badly insulated. The downstairs living room, kitchen and guest room are all quite cold and when it’s windy outside, you can actually feel the draft like a whisper of a breeze indoors! All of this is just to point out why thick woolen soakers on Spice is not such a crazy idea…

Since I crochet faster than I knit, against rationality, I bought Victoria Schiffen’s Dragonfly Longie pattern to whip up some longies. I did because I had started a pair of knitted longies off the top of my head in super bulky Burly Spun, learned how to do short rows on fly only to realize that I didn’t understand the general butt shape I needed. For some reason, crochet just makes so much more structural sense to my brain, so anything I crochet first makes more sense when knitted later. So I bought the pattern and felt instantly foolish because if I’d just sat down with a cup of tea and a sketch book, I could have figured it out myself and saved myself $12. *sigh*

(Hmm.. Harley is leaning against my cold feet. Warm cat. Maybe I could make cat bed slippers somehow, to always keep a warm cat on my feet…)

Anyhow, the longies turned out pretty nice. She suggests a #7 hook, which I do not have. I have three G/6’s and four H/8’s, but not a single #7? Odd. I used the #8 and it’s a little ‘holey’ for my liking, but that could be because I used Lion Brand Fisherman, which always runs a little thin for worsted weight. I’ll be trying the next one with Cascade 220 and a G/6. I also strayed from the pattern in a very impatient-me type of way. The bulk of the pattern is worked in the round by joining each round with a slip stitch, chaining one and starting the next round. For some reason, I hate doing this and prefer to work in one long spiral, so I did that for the legs and the hips/waist. You can only really tell from the back, where the spiral starts near the center butt piece, and at the “end” where the fpdc/bpdc ribbing starts. I can’t tell at all on the legs. I haven’t decided yet if the convenience is worth the look; from other people’s pictures, the joined rounds result in what looks like a seam running up from the middle of the butt, which I think I find equally unappealing. I haven’t quite decided yet. :-)

These longies are super fast, but it’s still pushing my other on-the-needles projects out..

• Tan cable scarf in Cascade 220. about 70% done and holding.
• Kitty Pi in orange varigated Bernat Felting. For Irix, and also about 70%. Needs felting.
• Wristwarmers in Brown Sheep’s Handpaint Originals. %80. Not sure why I’m just not finishing these yet!
• Grey dog sweater in Lion Brand’s Jiffy. Just needs to be seamed and a neckline added… note my use of the word “just”. Again.

What’s awful is that this pushed out the other projects I wanted to do by Christmas.

• Kitty Pi in grey for Harley. Using Brown Sheep Burly Spun.
• A shawl for my mother’s friend Dorathy.
• Socks for me in Colinette’s Jitterbug.
• Red hat for the spouse. I’ve been promising this for, like 3 years.
• Scarf for the spouse. I picked up the yarn for it, Garnstudio’s DROPS Alapaca in Goteborg maybe 2 years ago. *sigh* See a pattern here?
• A cute hat/scarf/mitten set for my nephew.
• A red and black scarf for my cousin.

This on top of Spice and household-y things and trying to get sorted for traveling over Christmas. Eek!

I’m still using cloth diapers on Spice, but only at home and during the day. I was getting frustrated with lugging a small suitcase with me when we would go out and felt she slept more soundly at night in disposables. (Though lately, she can nap for hours in a cloth diaper, so I might go back to using them at night, too.)

The recent challenge is that she’s starting to outgrow her current cloth prefolds. I usually do a bikini twist or newspaper fold and secure it with a Thirsties wrap-style cover. I’ve started knitting my own covers, though, and I’d need to snappi the prefold in place.. but Spice is a little too big to snappi them on anymore. I went online to look up the next size prefold and got a little distracted by the pretty fitted diapers. I think I could appreciate them more now, considering all the runny breastmilk poop. The downside is that they’re so expensive at about $13/each, compared to prefolds at $1-2/each. Thankfully, they’re fun and easy to make and are an excellent way to use up the tons of cheap flannel receiving blankets we had lying around.

DiaperJungle has an excellent page of free and $$ diaper and cover patterns, including Ottobre’s PDF pattern. I mainly followed Dianna’s How to Sew a Fitted Cloth diaper post, which was perfect since my sewing skills generally suck. :-)

I used old flannel receiving blankets for the outside. Most of ours were Target Dwell Studio ones, which make for cute modern-ish diapers. I used old flannel pillowcases and sheets for the against-the-skin fabric, and old Ikea cotton ones for the inside fabric that you stitch the soaker pad onto. For soaker pads, I used these Gerber prefolds I had picked up at Target before I knew any better. They were lousy as diapers for so many reasons. I used them as burp cloths at first and after the fishy breastmilk incident, I promptly forgot about them in a drawer. I trifolded them and cut them to fit, then stitched the trifold lengthwise to the right width. Oh, and SewShoppe sells diapering Aplix.

The end result was pretty neat – simple aplix-closing fitted diapers. I can leave off the wrap for more breathability, use a wool wrap for a little wetness protection, or use a Thirsties for completely dry. They’re on the generous side, so I imagine they’ll last a few months. And considering the first few have used up fabric around the house, they’re practically free.

Ugh. I don’t know where I went wrong.

I’ve been blogging for years and I’ve never stooped so low. I’ve been looking back on past entries and am sickened. I used to write from the heart, write what I really thought and felt and screw all that didn’t like what I had to say. What is this drivel? I’ve been wasting my time (and yours) with this trash – these useless bits of words. *sigh* This isn’t real writing. This is crap.

I’m tired. Emotionally, I’m tired. Physically, I wonder how it’s possible to be tired and wired at the same time. Which means this is perfect time for quality writing. And more devil-may-care.

If my laptop doesn’t die.. *stealing power cord from spouse’s open laptop*

First, let me debunk some of the crap I’ve been writing. Then I’ll get on to where I am now.

Cloth diapering: Still the easiest part of babyhood. The downside is that it’s hard to get her to sleep long in cloth diapers. I’ve tried pocket diapers, all-in-ones (AIO) and suedecloth “socks” to all help “wick moisture away from the skin”, which it does, but just not in the creepy, chemically efficient way a disposable would. So I’ve started using ’sposies at night. And I’ve packed the mini diaper bag with them. I sill feel a little residual guilt over it, but oh, well. I have a much better relationship with Spice when she sleeps 8 hours through and I’m well-rested the next morning, rather than ready to throw her out the window.

Breastfeeding: The second easiest part. But that’s because I’m one of the lucky few that has had zero problems with sore nipples or low supply. Pure blind luck, maybe helped along by the good birth experience bit. If I’d had problems, I’d be running for the formula as fast as the next mom. Well, almost as fast.

PPD: I’ve never felt crazier in my life. Seriously. I wanted to get myself committed about three weeks in, but I didn’t know how to go about it. Do you need to commit some crazy act for them to lock you up, or can you just walk in and say, “Hey, got a room?” Does the act need to be harmful in some way, or would they accept me lying on the bedroom floor for a week as having lost marbles? The herbs I’ve been on have helped tremendously and time.. time has helped, too. Still, I feel a little unstable, like all it takes is some bad news to plunge me back down a bit.

Sex: The spouse and I stupidly tried a month ago. It hurt like bejeezus. Now, we seem to be having trouble finding the time.

10 a.m.
Me: Wanna have sex tonight?
Him: *grinning* No one would argue with that.

10 p.m.
Me: I’m going to bed.
Him: *fallen asleep on the couch*

Everything else: Having a baby isn’t easy. No shocking revelations here. You just have to bear it as much as possible and take solace in the Grand Lie: it gets easier. See, this needs to be rephrased to be accurate: it gets easier… and it gets harder, too. All the stuff that was hard before, figuring out to to bathe them, create a non-leaky diaper, feed them, get them to sleep – all that gets easier. But then more challenges crop up just as you’re getting into the swing of things, like figuring out to entertain them because they now spend more time awake where they’re not hungry/tired/wet. Oh, well. Babies grow.

The big thing now is that I’m lonely. While we know friends with kids, I don’t know anyone with babies. And even our friends are more the “Hey, wanna come over and grill” type rather than the “Oh, god, I really need to vent right now” kind. *sigh* And I desperately want one of the latter, preferably with a 2-month-old. I’ve joined a couple of meetup.com groups, but part of me is too tired/scared to go out. The last time I went out with Spice was two weeks ago and if she got cranky/fussy while we were out, I started to go bats. The past week, we’ve stayed home and I feel more stable, so I’m reluctant to start going out with her again. I know it’s just like getting back up on the bike after you’ve fallen, but… bleah.

Now that we’re caught up, bullshit-free, let’s move on to what’s up now.

I hate family. I’m on the fence about never talking to family again. I made the stupid mistake of mixing family with money again and wholeheartedly encouraged the spouse that we should lend my sister several thousand smackaroos, as she and her spouse are going through a financial crisis and were possibly going to lose their house. Stupid, stupid me. I should really have done my homework, as usual, because it turns out that they’re more in the hole than I thought. As in, owning the babysitter a couple of thousand(!) and having borrowed from other family members, too. This is the kind of hole where you have to let them hit the bottom and help them back up when they bounce. *sigh* I’m more upset at the principle, since we’re doing okay right now. She had promised to make regular payments on it, even a few hundred a month, and her recent email reply was about how they hadn’t paid anything yet, and “please don’t send monthly statements as that will stress me out”. WTF. The spouse is taking it well, which leaves me even more shamed and horrified.

In the middle of all this, my mother has her own problems and with her health rapidly failing her, it’s suddenly looking like not such a bad option for her to take a few months off on disability and get her health back up. She needs to keep working a few more years to retire, but maybe a three-month break now would help her physically recover from all the stress she’s dealing with from work. I talked to the spouse and we agreed that, if she did, it would be ok/good for her to stay here for a couple of months with us. She could take time off, spend time with Spice, drive over to see my sister, etc. When she’s ready to work again, she could job-hunt from here, close to the city or the valley. She had previously commented that my sister’s place was a bit chaotic, with all their pets. Yesterday morning, I offer this to her. She says she’ll think about it.

Imagine my shock, and outrage, when I talk to her in the afternoon and she tells me that she’s talked to my sister and she’s thinking she’s going to rent a room from them and stay there. Again, let me restate: WTF. She says the money will help them (we were offering free room & board, in case that wasn’t obvious) and I can’t help but point out that it would be pouring more money down the drain, in their current state. She says she knows, but that she needs to try and help them. I was upset/angry enough to just get off the phone at that point, but later, when the spouse was on the phone with her, he mentioned yet again what was obvious to us: with her $80K+ salary, she could help them more by staying (with us) rent-free for a while, and using what she’d be paying them in rent to pay off her last remaining debts. Then she’d have thousands to throw at them. Ugh. And yes, part of me is just upset that she would rather live with my nutty sister than me. I swear, it’s like I’m a green space monster to her.

Of course, there’s more back-story, but this is the abridged version. Add into it juicy extras, like how how my sister thinks her hitting/kicking three-year-old is autistic and somehow thought getting a new dog would help and you have a full-blown soap opera. I’m sure we’ll get into it later. In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out how to turn off the phone in iPhone, and wondering how long I can ignore their calls before I have to talk to them and explain how fucking crazy I think we all are. Maybe we could get a family discount at the looney bin.

As happy as I am with cloth diapering, there’s been something that’s bugged me for weeks. I finally found a solution to the problem though…

The easiest way to cloth diaper with a wrap is to fold the prefold into thirds and lay it into a diaper wrap. Unfortunately, this method also often results in a poopy wrap. Poopy wraps mean they have to be washed and dried, and since I’m a lazy one, this means with the next load of diapers, though more enterprising moms could easily hand wash and line dry them. The most poop-proof solution is to secure the prefold with pins or a snappi and then secure the wrap. I don’t remember a single poopy wrap while using this method. However, the downside is the extra step needed in pinning or snappi-ing, especially when in a rush, in the middle of the night in an almost dark room, or in the back seat of a car on a wriggly baby. :-) I tried the trifold-layed-in-wrap for just these situations, but they seemed to make the problem worse; it’s incredibly frustrating to have a messy, leaky poopy wrap to clean up and put away when you’re on the road.

A few days ago, I tried a new fold: the bikini twist. I thought it seemed really flimsy when I first looked at it, but it works great! You simply lay the baby on the prefold, bring the front up between their legs, twist it 180 degrees and voila! I keep the wraps & prefolds ready to go, so that I can slip them under her bum at the same time and just close the wrap to secure without pins or snappis. The twist forms a “poop pocket” in back that keeps the poop in the prefold about 90% of the time, which is pretty good, and the twist in front fits trimmer between the legs with more absorbency than a newspaper fold.

I wish I’d thought of this ages ago! :-)

So the gDiapers with cloth inserts didn’t really work out for Spice. In fact, the gDiapers themselves haven’t really worked out, sadly. They’re okay for wet ones and super trim, but leak consistently with poopy breastfed blowouts. The worst part is the cleaning; toss the insert, either handwash the liner and wait for it to dry, or wash it with cloth diapers and have it be out of commission until the next load. God forbid it leaks, ad then you have the cover out for wash, too. None of which sounds impossible for the average cloth-diapering parent, until you factor in that you should have about 4-6 covers on hand and that they cost about $12 – $18 each… about the same or more than a quality cloth diaper cover! (A bumGenius one-size AIO is $18.)

I now have a great stash of Thirsties and Litewraps which are working out fantastically. I have a ton of gDiaper inserts left over, so I cheat and line a cloth diaper with one at night for better absorbency. I noticed that lots of people trifold the prefold and just lay it in the wrap, but this ALWAYS ends up in a poopy wrap for us, so I do a newspaper fold and snappi, then put the wrap on. If I’m good with my folding, I only have to wash a cover every 2 days. :-) Maybe later today I’ll try a jellyroll fold. I have two steel stepcans next to the changing area, a small one for the gDiaper trash and a large one for the cloth diapers. We have a large stash of cloth wipes, a wipes warmer and use Kissaluv’s Diaper Lotion Potion, with good results. Cloth is just so much easier! Spice hates being wet, so frequent changes happen anyway.

If you’re thinking of trying cloth diapers, I can’t stress enough the need to try out different brands of wraps, pocket dipes and AIOs. For example, Bummis are really well reviewed everywhere, but I hated them; they felt plastic-y on the outside and the velco was rough and dug into Spice’s legs. The Proraps were almost as bad and just felt cheap. On the flipside,Imse Vimse is the softest one I have and the Litewraps second. Getting one of each let me try them and figure out which to get more of. I also wouldn’t recommend buying up sizes in advance. The bumGenius 3.0 (one size) we have worked great when her poop was tiny, but it’s leaked twice with blowouts, so it’s at the bottom of the stash right now. I’ll try it more as her pooping schedule lightens up later. My sister gave us some Kushies she had never used, but those also leak a little on blowouts. I’m learning not to trust anything that doesn’t have a leg gusset!

Okay, so we’ve been partly doing the cloth thing for a week now, and I must say the easiest part is the washing. (Right now, at least, since breastmilk poop doesn’t need to be scraped off first.) The hardest/most frustrating part is trying to find a damn diaper cover! I had started with 4 newborn-sized Dappis, but I f&%king hate them! They make Spice look like she’s wearing parachute pants, they’re inches loose around the legs, the plastic-y bit feels awfully sweaty, she hates me for pulling up something on her, and just UGH!

I’ve knitted/crocheted two soakers and two of Little Turtle Knits ribby wraps. The soakers might be big enough to go over the infant indian prefolds we’re using, but after using the Dappis, the pull-up style on a newborn with changes every two hours is so not for me. The two wraps are cute, but too small to fit the bulkier infant prefold on her. *sigh* So annoying. BTW, I got both chinese prefold and indian prefolds and I like the indian prefolds much better. They’re softer and feel generally nicer than the chinese prefolds, and the not-white color appeals to me somehow.

I’ve ordered a few more things from Cotton Babies, like flannel wipes and wipes solution, but I also ordered a Bummis Super Brite to try it out. I’m desperate for a diaper cover that works, looks cute and doesn’t make her look like she has a rump the size of the Grand Canyon. Which usually means that I’ll just have to make it myself. I’m working on the Tickle Turdle wrap, and hoping that the newborn size will fit over the the infant-sized prefolds.

In the meantime, with only the Dappis-from-hell and waiting on the Cotton Babies order, we’ve paused in the cloth diapering saga. We’ve been going through the pack of Tushies disposables I picked up as “emergency backup” and I can say with confidence that I truly hate disposables. The Tushies are the best, IMHO, for one reason only: that they don’t have SAP, the super-absorbent stuff. They suck in that they’re still disposables, which means they’re crazy wasteful and creepy in just how much they still manage to absorb and look dry. Spice’s runny breastmilk poop looks almost dry sometimes, and that’s even with prompt changing. Add to this that their “convenience factor” is ruined by the terrible One-Chance-Only! tape closures and I really, really hate them.

So, I’m trying to use them up as quickly as possible, which is easy with a change every two hours, and I know that I’ll probably only go back to disposables when I’m truly desperate one day. In the meantime, I’ve also been trying out the gDiapers, which are really nice and easy to use. Their downside is that they have SAP in them, and that we don’t trust our pipes to flush anything unusual down them. Their upside is that you can use cloth with them! There are lots of parents successfully using cloth prefolds or inserts in them, as a cloth diapering system. Woohoo! I added two dozen preemie-sized indian prefolds to my Cotton Babies order so I can try it out. :-) The gDiapers look so trim and cute on Spice’s little behind, so being able to use cloth at home and grab a flush-able/compost-able/disposable insert for going out seems like a really efficient compromise. Here’s to hoping it works!

Oh, I also have two bumGenius 3.0. These are by far the Bentleys of cloth diapering. They were super-easy for even the spouse to put on and take off, and washed up with the rest of the prefolds like a dream. Their downside is the hefty price. At about $18 a pop, they’re disgustingly expensive next to prefolds. Considering that the 3.0’s are one-size and grow to fit, I’ll probably invest in a few more down the road for caregivers, going out, etc., but will probably keep them on-hand more for occasional use and swaying public opinion.

If you have any suggestions for good diaper covers, please, please comment and let me know! :-) (Especially any quick-to-knit/crochet patterns!)