Got the call in to the repairman, N headed off to work and E and I waited around for the repairman. Of course they never come soon enough when something like an AC needs fixing. So we wandered the house in minimal clothing and tried to keep things nice and dark to keep the hot summer sun out and the temperature inside down.

I had E in just a diaper all day, even at nap time. Turns out that was a mistake because she’s able to remove the Velcro diapers if she wants to and she did just that.

We came in the get her after her afternoon nap and there she was standing up in her crib totally naked, diaper wadded up in the corner and a urine soaked bed. We lucked out because it was just a urine mess.

Today was another story, when N and E got up this morning there was poosplosion all over the crib. Much like the vomitsplosion we had a few months back. Poor thing had her diaper still on (because she wasn’t sleeping naked and thus didn’t have access to unfastening her diaper) but lots of poop leaked out all over the bed, her arms, her doll, blankets, crib bumper and everything else in that crib.

Needless to say the morning started off with a bath and some bed stripping. A poop covered laundry doesn’t scare me though. Never thought I’d be saying that. Ha, ha.

Seriously though, cloth diaper laundering has taught me lots about how to treat various messes on linens. I don’t need no stinking stain removers or heavy duty detergents either.

Just rinsed all the poop covered stuff in cold water, specifically in a cold wash & an extra rinse with NO detergent in the washer. Then I did a hot wash with Planet Detergent (my cloth diaper detergent) and then took the stuff outside to dry and sanitize.

I know I say this all the time but it is amazing how effective the sun is at removing a majority of laundry stains. It doesn’t cost money and it can lower your energy bills by drying the laundry as well as bleaching out stains. I love harnessing the power of the sun to remove poop stains, blood stains and other food stains (like pasta sauce, berry stains and more). If you haven’t already tried “sunning-out” a laundry stain I’d encourage you to do so, it is amazing!

Some other homemade laundry ideas are:

Homemade bleach (that is safe and non-toxic)

Combine 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide with about 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, add to 15 cups of cool water. Mix and use int he wash as you would standard bleach. Can dilute further if you pan on soaking clothing in the beach or simply store in a cool, dry & darn location where it will keep for about four months.

Add Borax to the wash

Borax (Sodium Tetraborate) can be purchased at places like Walmart, a hardware store or even a local grocery store. It is a natural alternative to color-safe bleach, it naturally softens hard water and boosts the cleaning power of your existing detergent. It is also HE compatible and is an effective stain remover. Just add 1/2 cup to each wash.

What is your favorite laundry tip or your biggest laundry nemesis?

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Walking occasionally, when she’s occupying herself and only when there is a camera nowhere in sight. Her balance is quite good as she can stand on her own forever and even bend over (or squat down) to grab a dropped object without losing her balance.

Teething, I believe she’s getting her third set of top teeth. Still only has 2 bottom teeth.

Nursing like crazy, especially since the teething is happening. We nurse when I wake up, before naps, bedtime and on demand for comfort, skipped meals or teething pain relief.

Speaking of nursing… I just got an awesome nursing top that is used with your existing nursing bra from Undercover Mama and I love it! After over a year in just nursing tank tops the “girls” are beginning to need some wrangling.

While I have two nursing bras I seldom wear them because I don’t have many tops that are as nursing friendly as my nursing tank tops. The Undercover Mama nursing shirt is the best of both worlds. Works like a nursing tank top but combos with the support of your nursing bra. Yay! You know you wanna click on their site and check out the demo video. Cool product!

Everly is also eating everything. The only thing she’s not been introduced to at this point is honey. We’ve had peanut butter & jelly, cows milk in foods like yogurt, mac & cheese, ice cream and whipped cream. Also breads, meats, beans, grains, eggs, vegetables, fruits and the usual stuff are still going down without a hitch.

She did have a possible a reaction to her jelly last weekend. It was the first time she’s had high fructose corn syrup, we didn’t realized it until after the fact. She was super cranky, sleepless and inconsolable for about 24 hours afterward. Other than that no other issues with foods have come up.

She enjoys talking up a storm, even with real words! She’s had “dada” down pat forever and has mastered “hi”, “that” and “mama”. She’s also doing baby talk versions of “nana”, “cat”, “dog”, “danger” and “hello”. She’s more expressive with her body language and faces than she is with real words.

For example, she’s picked up on patting her chest when she has a cough or when a food piece goes down rough at meal time. This is what I would do to her when she was just learning to eat solids and had minor coughing fits. Now she pats her chest to show me when she’s got a throat tickle or a cough.

She’s also picked up on raking her hands down her face to express things, she does this for frustration sometimes. Another variation is, she will hide behind her hands if she’s trying to be cute or bashful. Here she is doing a silly smile that is exactly the same “eye” smile my brother, Gary, would do as a young boy.

The exploring of her body has begun, as in nose picking, trying to somersault, biting her toes, removing her own diaper…

Oh, about the biting. She’s not chomped down on me since I last told you but now she is biting various toys and objects in frustration. Like tonight in the tub she was trying to hang her cow loofa on the drain lever but couldn’t quite get it to stay. She was clearly frustrated and was whining when she just grabbed the toy, put it in her mouth and proceed to dramatically gnaw on it as if she was “getting it” for not doing what she wanted.

Kind of made me laugh and also feel a bit better about her tendency to chow down when frustrated.

She’s a big, smart girl and we are still in awe of how fast she’s grown up and how much she’s absorbed by just witnessing everyday life.

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If you are curious you can read the transcripts from the show here (I don’t want to link directly to the show because it only drives their traffic and makes them money of this bullshit).

Anyway, about 5 minutes in she starts going off about this poor breastfeeding mom she saw over the weekend. Super offensive stuff. Made my blood just boil and that was last night. Today I am still fuming but calm enough to draft a non-fu-stupid-bitch letter to send her way. Here is what I wrote:

I was listening to your morning show online and was deeply shocked and offended. It wasn’t because you had a differing opinion than me, because that is your right. I was appalled that in trying to express your opinion you were blatantly shaming and embarrassing that breastfeeding mom (and other breastfeeding mom’s) on public radio.

How judgmental and ignorant of you to publicly rant about a woman nursing her baby in public. Don’t you think it is classless and in poor taste to rant about your disgust on the radio where that poor mom probably heard it all? I sure do!

Our perspectives on things are often related to the choices we’ve made. Your point of view on public breastfeeding is definitely because you choose to not breastfeed but how dare you judge others and publicly criticize them on your radio show. In doing this you’ve just shown your ignorance on the topic and your nasty, judgmental, elitist personality.

I was also thinking, if it was such a huge deal to you why didn’t you speak with the woman right then and there or why didn’t you go to restaurant management? Is it because you knew it wouldn’t be acceptable to single her out or is it because you are a coward hiding behind your microphone?

I wonder how you would feel if people publicly criticized you, whispered, stared and made you feel ashamed for bottle feeding your daughter. If you had to hear “what a selfish mom to deny her developing baby the best nourishment available” or “coward” or “how disgusting” each time you were in public tending to the needs of your baby. You might start to understand how it feels if you had.

It is super snobby of you to look down your nose at women who choose to breastfeed in public. It is not realistic to expect a woman to always be nursing in private. Babies eat and are entitled to be able to eat in the same comfort as bottle fed babies, to expect anything different is discrimination and if the tables were turned I am sure you would be just as upset as the pro-breastfeeding moms are right now.

I wonder how many times you bottle fed your daughter in public… Why didn’t you feed her in the hot car or on the toilet like you expect breastfeeding mom’s to do? Don’t you know the use of a bottle or pacifier evokes the same disgusted reaction in pro-breastfeeding folks as does the sight of an nursing baby to those squeamish anti-breastfeeding folks?

How dare you impose your view of “poor taste” on us. I am sure you’ve noticed that many, many other people feel It is in poor taste that you uttered your anti-breastfeeding comments.

The sad thing is you probably never even stopped to think about how your words would impact that nursing mother and other nursing mothers all over the world. Furthermore, how your ignorant comments have impacted the well-being and health of future babies whose mothers won’t even consider breastfeeding because of the public scrutiny and judgments of people like you.

Way to go! Hope you succeeded in achieving your desired reaction with the radio show topic. You’ve made yourself and your company look bad, you’ve made women feel ashamed for doing what their bodies were made for, you’ve pissed off a whole lot of breastfeeding advocates and you’ve taken the best nutrition available from many babies with your ignorant and hurtful comments.

I sent my email off and don’t expect a response of any kind, especially since the radio station isn’t concerned about the overwhelmingly negative response they’ve already received on their facebook page. Wait, I stand corrected. They are removing comments and photos posted by those pro-breastfeeding users… Nice.

Anyway, it just makes me sick how rude, judgmental and self centered some people are. Especially when it comes to the needs of babies and children. I know so much has to do with society’s ignorance about breastfeeding but still, it pisses me off.

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Her McGrams and GJ (my parents) came out here for a visit and for the party. Lots of N’s work friends came to the party and the weather wasn’t totally miserable on party day.

What really surprised us is how well she did on party day. She picked up on the excitement of the day right when she got up that morning. All the hustle and bustle of having my family here and with setting up and prepping foods must have tipped her off to something “going on”.

When it was time for morning napping she couldn’t settle in for a rest. Then people started to arrive and she was a ham for being the center of attention. Every kid that came by was a boy, so she had lots of “boyfriends” to visit with.

We hung out in the house talking and letting the kids play (and escaping he oppressive heat). N grilled burgers and dogs, we also had slow cooked pulled BBQ pork that was so good.

Our chocolate fountain that was to be the refreshing and entertaining food item enjoyed before lunch never did it’s fountain thing. It did melt the chocolate and keep it melted, but no fountaining of chocolate happen. The means the fruit that was to go with the chocolate went untouched.

It’s all good though. After guests left we all snacked on the chocolate and fruit while the sun was setting and it was soooooo good.

Another thing that was surprising is how much stamina and energy miss E had. She did make it through present opening, though she didn’t quite open them all herself. She also had a great deal of fun toddling from person to person visiting and being a social butterfly.

When the time came for her cake we slipped her in her high chair and N did the honors of presenting the cake. She has watched me icing the cake for the last several days and her eyes just lit right up when she saw her daddy come outside holding the finished product.

Overall the cake turned out very nice. The cake was a cow spotted rubber ducky floating on a pond.

Everly was given the giant cow’s head to make a mess of. She ate all the frosting off the cake but didn’t touch the actual cake it’s self. We didn’t expect her to since she’s not a fan of the bread texture of stuff these days.

In preparation for her possible rejection of cake I made her a berry and banana trifle with N’s homemade whipped cream. She loved her trifle too.

Tomorrow I’ll share photos of the cake!

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Back in Flagstaff, Arizona we loved our natural food store but when we joined the local CSA we weren’t that impressed with the variety of the shares we got. The things we got were good, it was just the exact same thing each week for months. (Wondering what a CSA is? Read more here.) Our food came from kind of far even with the CSA and we really had a heck of a time finding affordable organic/ free range meat options in Arizona.

In Northern Arizona the only real option was to buy a share of an animal from a farmer (or the whole thing). You pay the farmer upfront, they feed and raise the animal, when times comes for slaughter you go pay the meat processor, pick up your meat and haul it back to your house to store and consume.

Here in Evansville we found a place that does a meat CSA (Stonewall Farms) and we totally signed up! We spotted their booth at a local community event and purchased a few steaks from them to enjoy. They were amazing steaks and we loved the idea of supporting them.

“All our animals have free range all day, every day and they receive no pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, animal by-products, or herbicides…not on the pasture and not in their feed. We believe that because they are giving their lives for us, we owe it to them to see they lead happy, healthy, stress-free lives.”

We are getting 20lbs of meat per month in a variety of cuts, chicken, pork and beef. We are also getting farm fresh eggs each month and a turkey in November. It averages out to about $5.80 per pound over the course of the entire year which is not a bad price for grass fed, hormone free meat. Especially considering the wide range of variety in the cuts and types of meat you get.

What is bad is that we just paid $10 a gallon for Organic Valley milk at the River City Food Co-op. It is the only place in town that carries this milk and after polling my facebook friends I now know we paid way more than they do. We want organic, hormone free cows milk. How is that so impossible to find? Strongly considering going the raw underground route because paying $20 for two gallons of milk is CRAZY!!

Anyway, it makes me happy that we are leaps and bounds closer to being more eco-friendly and healthy in our food choices now that we’ve found a good CSA meat source. Combined with our vegetable garden we’ve almost eliminated all the bad crap from our diet. Still looking for a viable milk solution and perhaps a better deodorant option because the deodorant we’ve been trying out leaves me smelling kind of off. Not total stinky armpit like, just not shower fresh. Be glad you are reading this and can’t smell me right now. Ha!

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When I was caffeinated and sort of alert I was showered with cards and gifts from my little family. Got a cute photo collage of  Everly’s first year of life, some Crocs to wear in the garden, two potted flowers in cute coffee cup planters, a very nice bird bath for the garden and a NEW, way-better-than-any-camera-I’ve-ever-owned, OLYMPUS camera! It takes pictures like this:

Also, we went out to a nice mother’s day brunch that was very relaxing and enjoyable until these random kids wandered over and began gawking at Everly and asking us a million questions. At first we humored them and weren’t to put off by their presence. I figured the had gotten bored at their table and wandered out to see the fish and be entertained for a few moments.

We very quickly realized they were just the loitering children of a staff member. They went from gawking at Everly to sitting at our table, eating with us and even begging that we take photos of them. Server after server asked “are they bugging you” in the beginning as if they knew the kids. Towards the end of our meal we were praying for some way to get those kids out of our hair, nobody asked if they were bugging us then so we just fled the place (Madeleine’s of Evansville) and will probably never return.

Turns out they were possibly the restaurant owners kids as the girl was named Madeleine as was the restaurant. Here they are including themselves in everything we did:

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind a little friendly interaction but there is a fine line between friendly and overbearing or intrusive. This was a mother’s day brunch that wasn’t exactly cheap so the random kid thing was a total killer of our special moment. Very disappointing.

As I sit and write this post there is peace and quiet. This is the first time in about a week that I’ve been able to say that. Little Miss has her 5th and is now cutting her 6th tooth. This is the longest and most cranky tooth-cutting we have gone though. It’s been about a week of fussy pants, even during the night!

Usually she’ll be fussy when awake but she’s always been able to sleep at night, she just wants more frequent nursing sessions. This time around she’s got total separation anxiety, to the point that she has to sleep in our bed with us. She’s still nursing non-stop for the tooth pain too. So we are practically holding her 24/7, I am a nursing machine and nobody is getting ANY sleep. It’s been about a week of this nonsense.

I’ve read about how babies experience this separation anxiety as the first birthday nears. We thought we had already been though it but in comparison I think we were wrong. What we went though earlier was nothing in compared to this. We will live thought it though, we always do. But if my blog posts suddenly stop you’ll know what did us in. Ha, ha.

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I already wash Everly’s cloth diapers so why not add a few cloth pads to the mix once a month? Everyone says they are sooo much more comfortable and heck they’d sure save money.

The average women goes through about $150 – $200 worth of menstrual products a year, every year for around 30-40 years – That’s over $6,000! from: http://labyrinth.net.au

Besides, one of the main arguments against disposables (pads, diapers, etc) is the environmental and health impacts. The bleaching of paper products is one major health issue that stands out for me. There is also the huge amount of resources it takes to produce these disposable products (cut trees for wood, water used turning the wood to pulp and then paper, etc).

Having a set of reusable pads sure would save money over time and it would also leave less of an environmental impact over the course of my life. I figured why not? It can’t hurt to try.

N wasn’t that thrilled, I know the idea seems a bit gross right? Wont there be unsightly stains, goopy chunks and all around vomit inducing stench? Most people would think so but the answer is absolutely not!

Let me use my cloth diapering experience to illustrate why: At any time I’ve got a few of urine soaked diapers (that sometimes have poop in them) waiting to be laundered in the diaper pail already.

Frequent washing (with my favorite all natural “cloth diaper safe” detergent, Planet) and hanging outside to dry is the best way to keep cloth diapering from being a gross experience.

You just flip the diaper inside out over the toilet so the solids fall off, the rest goes right in the wash. The right detergent rinses and dissolves the “pieces” and it all goes right down the drain. No stinky washer and no yucky remnants in the washer. People can’t believe this but I assure you it is true.

After washing if there are any unusual stains the bleaching effects of the sunshine will leave everything good as new. I know this too is hard to believe since we are all conditioned to think we need heavy duty stain removers for the laundry. Truthfully most mass-marketed laundry detergents cause more laundry problems than they fix. So, hanging your stained stuff outside in the sunshine to dry is great for removing stains and for saving on energy costs.

By the way, just last week I also learned that cloth diaper detergent and sunshine removes vomit mess from bedding and clothes. Even a white nightgown was stained orange from Everly’s mac & cheese puke but now it’s 100% stain free folks!

Basically any bodily function kind of stain or laundry mess can remedied by washing “cloth diaper style” like I described above and I put this to the test about two weeks ago with my new cloth pantyliners.

First thing I noticed with them was how darn soft and nice they felt. Very soft and comfortable unlike plasticky disposable pads. The next thing I noticed was the absence of my cramps and back pain. I didn’t even attribute this to the cloth pads until reading more about other women’s experiences making the switch to mama cloth.

Remember how I only got 6 pantyliners? That is all I needed for 5 days! My cycle was crazy light which isn’t characteristic for me so I was able to do my usual two loads of diaper/ pantyliner laundry over the course of the 5 days. Adding mama cloth didn’t impact my laundry routine at all.

The best part is the cute pads are still cute and stain free!

I am super impressed with cloth pads so I decided to grab four regular size cloth pads and a little mama cloth wetbag so I am all set now. I am totally making the switch for the long term. Now the only thing left to make the switch on is “family cloth”. That is another messy issue for pondering another day though.

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She just whined and refused to take bites of the jar food but when N offered her a bit of his pasta she was all over it. She eats so darn much too! She ate like half his pasta, poor guy.

I get that she’s becoming more independent and that she’s adventurous with foods but now that she’s eating what we are eating I am even more paranoid about all the bad stuff we are consuming.

Most meats have this solution injected in them, they come from animals that are factory farmed and fed things they aren’t meant to eat… Our vegetables and fruits are splattered with pesticides, dyes and waxes. Some are even genetically modified to make things easier for farmers and less natural for us.

Convenience foods are laden with preservatives, flavor enhancers and colors so that they keep on shelves longer and appeal to more consumers. Then there is the major issue of BPA leaching with canned goods and bottled items.

Our food industry (the majority of it) has become nothing more than a money making venture that is overrun with greed, short cuts and wrong choices. Rather than being concerned with health and nutrition we (farmers, manufacturers and consumers) are all more interested in our pocket books and now all we have is crap on the shelves.

Right now Everly eats organic, no GMI, no BPA, MSG free and preservative free baby foods… Those are much easier to come by because they aren’t too costly and I can order them online. Did I mention natural foods are hard to come by here?

Like most parents I want Everly to have the best, safest foods. I know that we aren’t eating the best stuff ourselves but we are already all contaminated and ruined by the toxins. She is not.

Now that she’s only wanting to eat what we do it seems we’ll need to be switching our entire diet and kitchen contents over or we are gonna have to make peace with the shit foods that fill the store shelves.

Curious to learn about the food industry, you know the stuff they don’t want you to know? Watch this documentary on PBS 4/22/2010 or record it.

Now for a little quiz and some reader interaction! Which of these quick lunchtime foods is best when you take a look at the ingredient lists? Why do you think so? Tell me what you think!

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We are enjoying our neighbors too (nobody’s dog craps on our front porch and nobody sprays vomit on our back patio or anything, can you believe it?). We really like our neighbors with the twin boys, it is a nice change from what we are used to… We’ve had one set of bad neighbors after another as some of you will probably remember. Here the tune is different.

Over the weekend we did much yard work. N is borrowed a mower from the neighbor since we still haven’t bought a mower (because we still haven’t received our home-buyers tax rebate money). Anyway, we got this letter from the HOA about how residents are responsible for mowing behind their fences and all the way down to the pond out back… So N mowed our area around the pond and he also did the neighbors area since he was letting us borrow his mower and all, plus he mowed our front yard earlier in the week.

We’ve got all sorts of stuff going in the garden too! Just got a solar powered lamp put up in our front yard since our street has no street lights and is quite dark at night. Also got more wood and fencing so N can finish up the fence, arbor and gate to the garden.

Now that we’ve got the rabbits out in the yard again and another cat has been voted out of the house… Wait! I didn’t tell you that did I?

Friday one of our cats, Jack was in the office. I heard his scratching the litter box and I looked over to see him peeing on the tile floor right in front of the box. Whodunit mystery solved! I asked N to confirm what I was seeing as I was nursing E on the couch in the living room. Sure enough, he peed on the floor right in plain sight of his owner.

So he was promptly moved outdoors again. This time he stayed out there. The first nigh was hard because he cried and scratched at our doors and windows. Last night after setting him up with a cozy box on top of the rabbit hutch he was quiet and stayed put all night long. So, yeah… Two cats are outside living now and I haven’t noticed pee or poop on the floor since the relocation of Jack.

Speaking of the garden. Here is what it looked like last summer right after we moved in and before heading off to have Tater:

This is how it’s shaping up now, a year later, thanks to the book All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space!
:

And now both our cameras and both our phones are dead so I can’t share anymore photos This mama needs a new phone and digital camera for mothers day. Hint, hint N! At least I have all the vegetables I could ever want in my backyard though!

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Some of you may recall me mentioning an exciting new site I was working on. It’s gone live and I am now working to build and grow it. I present to you ChirpCal.com

If you are on twitter you know that hashtag chats are a growing trend. People host them to create buzz and to give things away, others host and participate in them to chat about popular topics or to share experiences with others.

If you’ve ever tweeted with a hashtag (#) then you’ve been involved in a chat or “twitter party” of some sort. Following a twitter chat or party is as easy as searching that particular hashtag and following along with the real time conversation.

I’ve participated in many and have found them addicting and tons of fun. My favorite chat right now is the #bfcafe one that takes place on thursdays. The idea is for nursing mothers to come together to support one another, answer questions and sometimes businesses even donate prizes to be given away.

Anyway, there are a number of reoccurring chats that take place on twitter but keeping track of them is hard. Some are weekly, some monthly and some are occasional and non reoccurring.

How is a person supposed to keep up with all this activity and where can you go to find existing chats to participate in? That is where ChirpCal comes in to play.

The idea is that is will be a free calendar with user generated (and moderated) events listed by date, category and with event specific details all in one place. Eventually I’d love to have every scheduled chat listed on the calendar!

This will be a tremendous resource for everyone (both chat users and event promoters). It will also be a great resource for finding info about trending chat topics. Yay!

Problem is I can’t possibly research and catalog all the chats that are out there, especially with little Tater Tot motoring around and exploring everything she shouldn’t.

I want to offer a few free banner ad spots for ChirpCal.com in exchange for help building and growing the site. Don’t worry it will be easy!

I have 2 ad spots for the top 2 event contributors to the site and 1 for the person who drives the most traffic to the site. Please visit ChirpCal.com and read the specifics about how to enter yourself and spread the word about the new site okay? I am so excited!

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