Posted by dana on Feb 22, 2008 in
Getting Started,
Joey-Bunz As my journey into the world of diapering continues, I am learning how to leverage the BabyKicks hemp inserts.
So far I have found that they make my stockpile of old all-in-ones work better, and if I fold one into a regular pre-fold, they help keep Prospector dry during nap time. Also, if he has an especially messy diaper that I would normally want to pre-rinse before throwing it into the washer, I can usually get away with rinsing the insert.
These inserts were originally designed to work closely with Fuzzi Bunz, but are also compatible with almost any other reusable diaper (many of the BabyKicks partners offer a great selection).
One of the BabyKicks families uses Joey-Bunz in their overnight disposable diaper- it draws the moisture away from the baby and helps her sleep through.
I went over to BabyKicks and had the good folks there explain the difference between the two types of Joey-Bunz.
The traditional Joey-Bunz is made of six layers of hemp/cotton jersey that are all sewn into one piece. It’s very slim and really absorbs well. I’ve used it in prefolds, all-in-ones, a disposable diaper, and once I threw it into a plastic diaper cover (kind of a new twist on the old rubber pants) when I was in a hurry. It worked well for each occasion.
The Premium Joey-Bunz looks like two traditional inserts sewn together at the top. The “towards the baby” surface is made of fleece. This fleece acts to draw moisture into the core of the insert and keep the baby’s skin dry. I have only started to try these, so I will keep you posted on how well they work and some good applications to use them.
Posted by dana on Feb 22, 2008 in
Education,
Kids' Activities,
Memories 
My father began a tradition recently- he sends the kids postcards. This may not seem like a big deal, but it has turned into something pretty neat. Panorama loves getting mail, and she loves hearing from family members that she doesn’t see very often.
Sometimes the postcards are from vacations or exotic locations, but even the seemingly mundane “Greetings from Scranton” type cards that are bought from gas stations for a quarter are extremely popular. He tends to buy three or four cards at a time, then instead of running around and finding a stamp, he’ll just send one or so a week once he gets home.
When one of these notes arrives in the mail, it gives us a chance to sit down on the couch before dinner and talk. We read the message, look at the picture and pull out the map, or open up Google Earth. As they get older, I’d like the kids to have a wall map that we can mark with dots or pins for places we’ve been, and cards we’ve received. (The subject of kids and geography is one I am going to spend more time on later, especially after reading this yesterday.)
Now, I need to laminate them with contact paper (so that both sides are visible) and bind them together into a simple book. I’d really like it if we could continue to flip through them and learn new things, as well as keeping a bit of a memory book of notes from people we love. How many examples of your grandparent’s handwriting do you have?
Other relatives have begun sending postcards, too. In addition to postcards that they buy, they’ve made some with their own photographs using online tools from the post office.
Posted by dana on Feb 20, 2008 in
Internet for Parents,
Photography 
When my daughter was born, we were so excited that we could send photographs through email later that day when my husband went home with the digital camera. (When my son was born a few months ago, relatives and friends had photos in their hands within a few minutes. I had set up a mailing list on my pocketpc and took a picture with its camera feature.)
Once we got home and settled with our first baby, the weaknesses of sharing photographs by email became apparent. First of all, you have to know everyone’s email address. My relatives seem to move and change emails all the time, and I am pretty bad about updating my contacts list. Another thing is that you have to resize your photos to be small enough to send, and pick and choose only a few. Even then, Aunt Susie who is still on dial up might have a problem getting your files. Also, you have to figure out which ones of your friends and family actually want to get pictures from you. Most relatives wouldn’t mind seeing the kid a few times a month, but a daily picture email would make their eyes roll. But then you get the grandparents who wouldn’t mind checking out new photos hourly if possible. I needed another solution.
Photo organizing and sharing services come in a few flavors. Some are geared primarily for sharing photographs, some are gear primarily towards making prints and photo products.
Over the next week or so, I will post some instructions on how to use three photo services: Picasa, Flickr and 
. All of these services are free (though both Google/Picasa and Flickr can be upgraded with extra features for a small fee.) I’ll give you the skinny on ease of use, sharing, privacy, features and my recommendations for which one might be right for you. Later on, I’ll talk about how to use blogs as a way to record your family stories and add photos from these services to your blog.
In brief, I like Flickr for sharing photographs and Shutterfly for making prints. We’ll talk about Flickr later, but the main reason I chose it is because when I started my personal photosharing, it was the only service in town that didn’t require a password for people to view my images. If I was starting it today, I would probably use Picasa.
Let’s start with Picasa. Picasa is a Google tool. Google tools are typically extremely easy to use and very intuitive. Picasa is different from most photo services in that there is a little program you need to download. The Picasa program is extremely handy, and even if you decide not to use the online tools, you’ll like having Picasa on your computer. I like using the online tools as well for ease of sharing and as a backup.
Click below to keep reading…
Read more…
Posted by dana on Feb 20, 2008 in
Uncategorized I’ve had a busy few weeks, and I’ve being using a lot of diapers. I keep putting off doing the laundry because I mean to do research on some of the best ways to wash cloth diapers… but then the can gets full and I get annoyed with myself and I wash the load in total washing ignorance.
And while my methodology may be flawed from a cloth diaper purist’s perspective, I can report that for the moment my diapers are coming out clean, intact and functional.
As I learn more I will post my findings here, but the moral of the story is don’t be intimidated by washing instructions. The important thing is to get started and get some cloth on your baby’s rear. Use your normal detergent- one that your baby doesn’t have a reaction to. I’ve been using a hot wash and a cold rinse. If I have the time, I do a presoak and an extra rinse.
More soon… (And if you have a method you like, post a comment here!)
Posted by dana on Feb 12, 2008 in
Pre-Folds,
Washing Diapers I made a critical miscalculation yesterday. I’ve been treating myself to one cup of half-caf Starbucks Breakfast Blend, but I was so tired and saw so much work on my horizon that in a moment of weakness, I broke into one of the valentine gift baskets I had bought for Panorama’s teachers and teethed the can of Verona.
By noon, I realized that I hadn’t eaten a stitch of food, but I had managed to drink 4 cups of liquid speed. I am surprised that Prospector wasn’t running around in full freak out mode along with me, bless his heart.
So I spent the day muttering to myself and trying to do deep breathing exercises. But I did manage to use a heap of pre-folded cloth diapers and I also experimented with different ways to make my All In One Kushies work better, including using Joey Bunz and Doublers.
So today I am washing. I’ve found some interesting resources on the web for washing aside from the BabyKicks Care Instructions. The Pin has some interesting information that I need to digest- such as soaking vs. not soaking, wet bucket vs. dry bucket and more…. Who knew there was such a body of knowledge? Today’s load will be Hot Wash with two Rinses.
Here is the info on washing from the Pin:
http://www.diaperpin.com/howto.asp#wetdry
Posted by dana on Feb 11, 2008 in
Baby Care Prospector has had a small “rough spot” on his forehead for a few months now. It was just a flake of dry skin, similar to maybe a patch of cradle cap. It would go away if you put lotion on it, but even when it hung around it wasn’t really noticeable nor ugly. Since I try to be a laid-back parent (Read: Lazy) I was ignoring it and letting it “run its course” like all of those other baby skin conditions.
Over Christmas, there was a parade of Aunts and Uncles and Grannies and Grampies at our house, and each one had something to say, ask or advise about this little rough spot. With each “What’s this?” or “Hmm, it’s changed since I’ve been here”, my dam of confidence weakened and the tide of insecurity rose until the floodgates could no longer hold and I found myself being carried away on a river of doubt all the way to Rite Aid where I purchased something called “Baby Eczema Cream” which seemed like a safe bet. I figured, it is designed for a baby. It says it’s for eczema. That little patch is probably just a little patch of baby eczema… right?
So I apply per the package directions… by bedtime that night this small dry patch had become a large, oozy patch that leaked clear drips. When he woke up the next morning, the whole right side of his face was broken out in rough, waxy little red bumps.
Click below to read more and see some pictures.
Read more…
Posted by dana on Feb 10, 2008 in
What Kids Say... I share my office with Panorama (Age 3.75) and Prospector (age 5 months).
Me: Pannie, what are you doing?
Pannie: Putting sunscreen lotion on my hand.
Me: Um… ok. Where did you get sunscreen?
Pannie: From my nose.
My daughter will be four next month and she is chomping at the bit to read. She is constantly arranging the magnetic alphabet letters on the fridge into nonsense words and asking me “What does this spell?” “Um, scterhhitmsmiff?”
She knows all of her letters, their sounds, and some really simple words like “cat”, “mom”, and “gymboree parisian poodle rainslicker.”
We have gotten into a routine of watching Super WHY! and Word World on PBS and doing the curriculum activities. She also enjoys Leap Frog DVDs and games, and we read all the time together. I was considering investing in one of the Hooked on Phonics
programs, but before dropping $50+ dollars, I decided to hit the Mom Forums over at www.babycenter.com and see if anyone had any suggestions or success stories.
One of the Moms recommended a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.
For about $15, I figured I had nothing to lose.
My copy should be here on or about Tuesday, February 13.
Once it gets here, I will keep you posted on our progress. With any luck, this won’t turn into “Drive Your Mama Crazy in 100 Easy Lessons”
Some Fun, Free Reading Resources:
Super WHY! Lesson Plans
Super WHY! Video Podcast on iTunes
Word World Activities
Reading Games at Starfall.com
Posted by dana on Feb 8, 2008 in
Internet for Parents When I first discovered blogs, I thought- “Wow. This is great. But man, I don’t have time to go through my bookmarks EVERY…. SINGLE… DAY… to keep up with my favorites.”
The good news… You don’t have to check out the individual sites to find out if something new has been posted. You can easily subscribe to a blogs “feed” and be notified when something is posted. Many other types of frequently updated web information also has a “feed”. For example, you can subscribe to feeds at places like www.cnn.com to get the updated headlines.
There are several ways to do this. Sometimes, the person who writes the blog runs the feed through a service that will send you an email. The BabyKicks Chronicle can be read this way. Just enter your email address in form that can be found on the right of every page.
Another way to read feeds is through a feedreader. There are many feedreaders out there. I read my feeds in my Google homepage.
My favorite for people new to blogs is a free service called Bloglines. You can sign up for your free account at www.bloglines.com. It is very easy to get started, but I’ve included a few screen captures and instructions below for folks that might be very new to the Internet and feed reading.
Click below to read the procedure.
Read more…
Posted by dana on Feb 4, 2008 in
Uncategorized Make life easier for guests in your home by taking a quick photo of your critical cabinets. Nothing is worse than blindly digging through every cabinet for a new can of formula with a screaming baby on your hip.
You can just snap the shot and mark up your photo with a pen after it prints, or you can use a simple photo editing program to add some call-outs (Corel PhotoPaint, for example). You can even use the Draw toolbar in Word to add annotation.
For my work documenting software, I use snagit (a free 30 day trial can be downloaded at www.snagit.com), so I have it handy. Make a few quick notes on the image and add some step -by-step next to the image or in your word processing software.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
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