Tunes vs Tomes...

The Studio is almost done and Hubby and I are (imagine this,) tired of spending money. It gets old: take the plastic out of the wallet and swipe, then watch as the money you have saved gradually disappears. Granted, we saved the money to build The Studio, and we do not live beyond our means, but it wears on us, and so now I have a dilemma.

I am debating which high tech appliance to buy: the Kindle or an I Pod. This debate has gotten me to question things about my values, who I have become, and who I will be because I don't really want to buy both (no matter how cheap the Kindles are getting!) Here's the pros and cons of each:

I Pod Nano: I did have an I Pod Shuffle, which I loved, but it won't turn on and play anymore. It decided to do this on a 6 hour trip without warning, leaving me high and dry. The reasons to get one include that it plays in the car and I can download podcasts to it, (not to mention audio books,) and I could also take it running with me. It has been mentioned that my phone can do these things too. Yes, but the battery life would be greatly compromised, and it is heavy. Hubby also mentioned that he still has not looked at the Shuffle yet to see if it is truly dead. I argue that the police don't call him instead of the coroner for a reason, but I digress.

Kindle: I read a lot... when I can. The books I read can get heavy, and I need to be able to nurse and read. Also, I can get a lot of books on a Kindle and tote it around. During school, I can be reading 2-3 books a week, so any help would be appreciated. Someone mentioned that some readers can be used as Ipods, which would help the decision making process, though I wouldn't go jogging with a Kindle, but do I need music when I jog?

Let me know what you think!

Toddler Time

It's been a while since posting partially because my computer got stolen from school (long story,) and since summer started, I have not gotten as many breaks as I do while teaching; considering how many breaks teachers get, this says a lot. I figured before a new post, an update would help:

The Studio: Hubby finished The Studio... sort of. It is almost ready for final inspection, it has studio equipment in it, and I am starting to see him a little more often. Now we have shifted our focus to making the house more baby proof, hence...

Daughter: She started walking at around 11 months, running at 12. She is everywhere and into everything. I seem to remember Mom telling me repeatedly, "Stop digging!" and now I understand her frustration. What used to take me an hour takes about 3 times as long because everything I do, she can undo in less time. The recycling has been our biggest battle so far. I spend an hour or so on the kitchen while she is strewing her toys across the den, and while I pick up her toys, she goes through the recycling by picking things out and tossing them over her shoulder. Wow. But it has been nice to be able to set her down, and I love the hugs and kisses. She is beginning to sleep in her own bed, and her babble is getting more and more adult-like and less baby... granted it sounds more like a foreign language than English, but she's getting there. We joke that she bypassed English and went straight for Japanese... maybe that means she will be good at the piano???

Projects: Knitting has been slow. I have not sewn anything in months. I have, however, assembled more IKEA furniture alone in the past month than I have in my entire life. Storage in The Studio was a must and I when I can help Hubby, I do.

Reading: I finally read The Little Prince; while it was enlightening, I'm not sure about it being enjoyable. I understand how perhaps reading it in French would be more understandable, but this is not a kid's book. Kids are literal thinkers until the frontal cortex has developed, hence adulthood, and granted some kids develop faster, these kids are usually more sensitive. Just watching Disney's Winny the Pooh brought tears to my eyes, and when I was little, I never made it through I Love You Forever or The Giving Tree, and I could not grasp the concept that Puff the Magic Dragon was not real, and it was okay that he was going to be lonely. Sometimes kid's books are meant for adults, (Can I reference The Giver, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, or anything by Dahl, anyone?) and the adult concepts can be, ironically, to let adults detach themselves from their childhoods. I cannot see how these books can provide anything helpful to children, but I do see how they can be helpful to the adult writers.
With that said, I want to know whether the author intended the prince to be killed by the snake, if the Prince was supposed to be a metaphor, a mirage, or to be taken literally, and if the snake was supposed to be an archetypal symbol for knowledge. It's kinda bugging me. Mainly the question about if the Prince was supposed to die and the author just could not handle the truth...

I'm currently reading Astros Polyp, which I've had to set down because life has been hectic. It's good. The artistry is amazing, the story is spot on, and the philosophical edge is wonderful. The beginning put me off last year, with his apartment building burning down and all, but this year I have gotten better at distancing myself from the story enough to make it through half of the book. With that said, I see Hubby in Astros and I'm very concerned about a certain Little Prince, but that's another story.

I hope all is well with everyone, and I plan to post more regularly.

Diaper Fun

When I was about to have my daughter, I knew that I wanted to use cloth diapers so I went through a diaper service. This worked out well, except that it was expensive and the company randomly went under without telling us, leaving us with dirty diapers and no idea what happened. I knew that I at least needed to wash the diapers I had and, low and behold, washing my own diapers was not that difficult once I got over the ick factor, so since October, I have been washing my own diapers and it has worked well for us.

One of my friends is pregnant and has been excited about these new-fangled all-in-one cloth diapers, and I was skeptical. With my prefolds, I just kept reusing the plastic pants and changing the diaper part. My life was already so easy with the Snappy - why would I need a cloth diaper that I would need to change the entire diaper? Wouldn't that make laundry that much more difficult? Also, there are some brands that have way too many snaps on them. How on earth would I know which snap attached to which, for what purpose, and what if the snap came undone? Then there was the whole poop factor, which I did not know how an all-in-one would react to. This wonderful, amazing friend let me borrow her stash of large diapers (she won't need them for a while and they were already bought used,) for me to try, and I LOVE them.

First of all, though I do have to wash the outer layer most every time I change her, it really isn't any more than the regular prefold and sometimes when it is just pee, the liner can be removed and the diaper is still good. How? This fabric is amazing. The first time I put her in these diapers, I kept checking to see if she was wet. She never was, so I thought, "Great. The time I put a nice diaper on her, she refuses to pee." I finally changed her anyway, and the insert was sopping wet but the diaper was completely dry.

The snaps are still a bit of a problem. She wiggles way too much for me to buy a diaper that grows with her because I can barely get the four attached before she starts flipping, so though I like the Wonderoos and Happy Heinys' open slot to load the insert, I won't be buying this style. I will say, however, that not every diaper has snaps. The Bum Genius is really good about a few snaps to adjust the rise and Velcro around the waist, and Happy Heinys has a style that really fits her well with Velcro.

The poop ended up being a reason to get these diapers. Because the material wicks the moisture away, cleaning these diapers was a dream. Well, at least compared to washing a prefold.

There are some drawbacks:
1. Bottom Creams: I think everything can be solved using Boudreaux's Butt Paste, but it stains and has Zinc Oxide. Zinc Oxide limits the absorption of the diapers, and nobody wants to see a brown stain on a diaper - even if it is from the cream. The good news is that most babies in cloth diapers don't get diaper rash very often, but last week she got a pretty bad one from some paper diapers and we had to use the Butt Paste. If anybody knows of some cream that doesn't have Zinc Oxide, we would love to know it!
2. Out and About: Generally speaking, we don't go very far for very long, but one of the drawbacks to a non-disposable diaper is that they don't get thrown away. You do need bags to carry a potentially poopy diaper around.
3. Heavy Wetters: Her sitter tries her best to keep her diapered in the cloth, but my daughter pees constantly in the morning making it very difficult to keep reusing these diapers. What I usually do is keep a prefold in the diaper instead of the insert, or just use my pre-folds in the morning, and put the nice diapers on later.
4. Traveling, Baby-Sitters, or any change of a routine: As passionate as I am about saving the environment one diaper at a time, others are not quite there or their housing situations are not used to babies, much less a cloth diapered baby. I think these could potentially end up solving this dilemma, but we will see.

I found a magazine that had a really good article about diaper options; here's a link:

http://www.mothering.com/green-living/diapering-naturally

My husband wondered what was in it for my friend - here we are shamelessly using her diapers. I hope to compensate this friend of mine eventually with my wealth of prefolds and all the new diapers I will buy because by the time her daughter gets to be my daughter's age, I won't need them anymore.

Peas in a pod

My daughter's growing like a weed.

This is especially an appropriate comment since the moment I finished the 2 year sweater, I have not felt like knitting very much, and my garden has appreciated this. I went to Home Depot just wanting to pick up some mint and Purple Hearts, and found out that they did not have either so I got Oregano, Basil, and Thyme.

I then got the idea to nix the birdbath idea (hubby is thrilled,) and put in a butterfly garden instead (hubby is not so thrilled.) I have this garden that is in an awkward space, but I think I finally figured out what it likes after seeing so many plants die in it. This garden has been the place where flowers go to die, not flourish, so I am going to take pictures soon just in case my calculations are wrong.

I finally found some mint at Whole Foods, but they did not have anything butterfly related, so I went to Shoal Creek Gardener today and I have quite a haul of plants. They are all of local variety, and I like the yards that I have seen them planted in. Especially exciting is how the dog is completely uninterested in this garden. She has been the scourge of many a plant in the past.

So, what does my daughter have to do with any of this? She has had to 'help' me plant all of it. While we were at Shoal Creek today, she surveyed everything very thoughtfully, and tasted at least one of the plants on the way home. In the yard, she has done everything she can to eat anything on the ground. I have had to drop the shovel, get the leaves out of her mouth, then hurry up and plant the next plant before she does it again. Hubby is no help since he has been working on the stairs to the studio. Who knew gardening could be so exciting?

But, as determined as that child is to eat the weeds, I am determined to plant these flowers.

(I wonder where she gets the determination from anyway...)

Has anyone seen my pants?

You don't know the meaning of fear until you wake up in the morning realizing that at some point in the night before, you have lost your pajama pants.

I have always had a problem with sleep walking, sleep talking - pretty much sleep-everything more exciting than what I do when I am awake. Mom remembers a time that when I sleep-cooked ramen noodles in the middle of the night. How does she know it was me? I cleaned the pot. I also sleep-ate the noodles, which was pretty impressive because it was my little brother who liked to eat them - not me.

I'm not saying that I am a heavy sleeper, either. I am notoriously easy to wake up. I heard a mousetrap go off in the middle of the night under the house, and I couldn't sleep thinking about the rat in the trap. I cannot sleep through thunderstorms, and when my cat goes to do his business in the middle of the night, I wake up. In fact, before the dog came around, the cat made a pretty handy security system; any time someone or something was in the back yard, he would paw the back window making a swishing noise. Once, in the middle of the night, this happened, and I got up to look out the back window to see this blinding white light moving across my back yard and almost screamed, until I realized what it was: my neighbors at the time had a cat with an inner ear problem (it was deaf and had a bad sense of balance,) so it would go to the wrong house and meow really loud until they retrieved the cat. Since a storm had blown down half a tree and, consequently, part of the fence, the cat was at our back door. The white specter was not a ghost as I had imagined it, but was my neighbor, butt naked, walking across my yard getting his cat, and I did not have my glasses on. I was not woken by the cat, mainly because I had gotten used to that noise, but I digress.

So, last night I went to bed thinking that the pants to the pajamas I was wearing were shorter than I remembered, so I know I was wearing them. Then, this morning I realized that I was no longer wearing pants. It's also laundry day, so I was wearing the special-occasion undies that, if you're married, you know what I mean.

Probably more frightening is that I have been looking for them all morning and still can't find them. Hubby says that I didn't wear them after all since there are no other signs that anything unusual happened in the house, but because I KNOW I had them on and they are not in the dresser, the fact that nothing in the house is amiss only makes me more concerned.

(If you see a cat with an inner ear problem dragging them somewhere, let me know.)

The end of the 2 year sweater...

The time is almost here when I will take the 2 year sweater into my hands, sew up all the loose ends, put it proudly into water and block the cursed thing into shape for my husband.

To understand the caliber of work this sweater has taken, you must understand the process.

It took me at least 6 months to come up with the yarn and the perfect pattern that my husband would agree to. The yarn was relatively easy, considering I had picked it out for a sweater to make myself until I realized that if I got pregnant, I would not be able to try it on. Why not make hubby a sweater?

Because hubbies are difficult to knit for, that's why.

Finally, I took him to my favorite knit shop that was filled with plenty of patterns to choose from, but all he wanted was the most basic, boring pattern in the entire store. I bought it and began the project with gusto, but soon realized what a daunting task all of those stitches would be. (8 stitches per inch gauge) It soon got set aside while I began quilting, working at the library, and teaching... and then I got pregnant.

While pregnant, I got carpal tunnel making the needles harder to use than ever, so I got down to the arm holes and stopped. After the pregnancy, my hands still didn't cooperate, so I waited until October to pick up the sweater again to finish by Christmas (yet again,) but my daughter had other plans for me and my time. Who said that nursing a baby allotted for plenty of knitting time??? After Christmas, I swore that by Valentines Day it would be done and he would have at least another month to wear it before it got hot again.

For perfect timing, I am on my last inch on the last sleeve and it's around 80 degrees outside. I had to rip out the bottom of the sweater 3 times, (the last time I could not do it but thanks to my sister, it looks great,) the sleeves are a little disproportional, and I have learned, thanks to this sweater, that I twist every single stitch I make. Now my albatross is about to be cut free with that last stitch, and I will commemorate this with much chocolate and rejoicing.

Last week I wanted to show it off to my students. They wondered if someone could actually wear it, so I put it on to show that, yes, it did have arms in the right place and the hole for the neck would fit.

"You look like you are the type of woman who eats cat food on Sundays."

"Yeah, it would go perfectly with a pair of sweatpants."

Let's just say that the hubby had better wear it with slacks, jeans, sweatpants, and whatever else he will wear because after two years of this sweater, he will not be allowed to take it off.

My next project?

Fixing my stitch and starting on a sweater - this time it's for me.

French Connection

I am trying to learn French again. I tried in Elementary School, I tried again in college after a failed attempt at Spanish, and now I am trying again with the help of a friend's books and some books I found at Half Price Books last weekend. I am dedicated to this now, partially because this is my third attempt, and partially because I am going to go to Paris sometime in my lifetime.

So far, not so good.

I have tried reading children's books in French and so far, I really think I need to work on my vocabulary. I tried to figure things out by what things sounded like they should mean since my French Dictionary was at work, but that proved to be a silly idea. Freud would have all sorts of ideas about my psyche if he heard what I thought these children's books were saying, so I have gone with a more basic approach.

I tried a French Verbs Flip Book which has all sorts of verbs, arranged in alphabetical order, in a handy, conjugated order. Sounds perfect, right? Well, I have gotten through the "A"s, and my retention has not been that good. I know now, though, that if someone uses a verb in French that begins with an "A", they could be destroying something, coming close to something, giving something, or playing the accordion. Then again, they might be using a word not in my handy flip book, and I would still be out of luck.

I am not going to give up, though. I figure that if I study my French every time I nurse my daughter, I will probably become an expert by the time I raise enough money to go to Paris.

(Speaking and understanding spoken French, however...)