Washing Cloth Diapers

I've changed the way I prepare poopy diapers for the wash quite a bit. When I first started, I was really scrubbing out the dipaers with a scrub brush even when it was just the runny, mustardy breastmilk poo. And I think those first cloth diapers did take a toll for all my scrubbing and are wearing out faster.

When my older child started eating solids and the poo became clumpy, that was a really easy clean as the clumps came out into the toilet and left little on the diaper. No scrubbing necessary.

However, that changed and now it is not so clumpy and more like peanut butter, and my second child now has the breastmilk poo. This would mean a lot of scrubbing and I don't particularly like cleaning this with my hands. So you might say I've become lazy in this area, but I found that it works!

 I do absolutely nothing with the breastmilk poo. I put it directly into my diaper pail and wash it when it comes time. There is sometimes a bit of staining on the diaper, but that will happen whether you scrub or not. If I hang them out in the sun, that breastmilk poo staining comes right out. Mind you, with doing elimination communication with him, he doesn't often have poopy diapers.

With the solid foods poo, I take a wipe and scrape what I can into the toilet. I don't worry about getting it super well though. At times there is still quite a bit left on the diaper depending on how badly soiled it is. And I put the diaper directly into the diaper pail to sit until I wash them. The first time I tried this I was a bit concerned that I would find poo all along the inside of my washing machine, but actually I didn't. Sometimes if my child ate corn or grapes, I might find some skins on the side of a diaper, but they shake right off and were also adequately cleaned. And otherwise, they've come out really well through the wash. 

I got my diaper pails at the Superstore.

Whole Wheat Honey Sweetened Chocolate Chip Cookies

 I was really wanting to make some cookies, but all my recipes take sugar. (I'm completely out of sugar and am not eager to stock up again.) Sometimes I straight out substitute the sugar for honey, but it doesn't always turn out so perfectly. So I searched on the internet for some honey sweetened cookies and found these. They turned out amazing! You can find the original recipe here.

Drinking Water

Recommendations say you should drink 8 glasses of water each day, but I have never been a person to drink much water. I would rather have milk or juice than try to drink a glass of water. I have a cup or two of coffee everyday and usually a glass of milk and a smoothie and maybe some juice or tea, but I probably only drink a half glass of water in a day. And that totals my liquid intake. That's pretty sad especially considering I'm breastfeeding. 

Freezing Bagels

I really like bagels, but I don't have them too often. I've tried making them before, but they are really a lot of work- maybe even more than making doughnuts. Not only do you have to make/knead the dough, let it rise, shape them and let them rise again, but then you have to boil them and bake them- cooking them twice. So every once in a while, I will buy a bag of bagels which cost 3-4 dollars for only 6. That's even more than bread, and I can get a lot more slices in a bag of bread. But when I saw them selling for only 75 cents a bag, I stocked up. How do I keep so many bagels fresh to use later? I freeze them.

Rockiness

I love to go on walks and am always interested in all the strange things that are growing or some wierd insect or cool frog. We moved about a year ago and when we first were moving here, I thought all the rockiness was really ugly. But I've really changed my mind about that and have just found that it's a different kind of beauty. 

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Since I use cloth diapers, I actually go through quite a bit of laundry detergent to keep them clean. I had known others who made their own laundry detergent, but never tried it until today. It's actually really easy to make and doesn't take very many ingredients. My sister sent me her recipe on how she makes it and I also did my own research online to see what other people recommended. There are lots of different ways to do it.

Learning the Alphabet with Playdough

 I've been getting excited thinking about homeschooling. Obviously with my oldest being only 20 months, I may be getting a bit ahead of myself. But I decided that if he is capable of recognizing that a word that I say is associated with a physical item like "blanket" or "cookie" (which he is), then he would probably be able to begin associating a shape with a sound, such as the letter "a" with the sound it makes. I don't expect him to make leaps and bounds in reading, but I figure I can go ahead and be teaching him in play and whatever he happens to pick up is great.

Yesterday we did the letter "a" with play dough.