Poop happens!

Anyone who reads this blog knows just how passionate I am about cloth diapers.

Wow, that kind of reads funny doesn't it?

But it's true. I've shared many reasons why it's great to cloth diaper in multiple posts. That's partially how this whole blog got started!

I was talking to a friend recently who is trying to save money to stay home when her baby comes. I reminded her that cloth diapering is a HUGE way to save! Little Man is only two months old and our diapers have already paid for themselves. We've have a decent sized stash that extends from newborn diapers to what we expect will last until potty training and we've probably spent around $700...not all at one time of course. But that's a one time cost. Unlike disposables which will cost much more than that over time-and will not ever be able to be reused. 

But still, people are so turned off-even disgusted by using reusables!

To me it just seems like a no brainer-kids are so expensive. Why wouldn't you cut out one obvious cost?! 

And if you're wondering about the laundry and using more water and detergent and all that nonsense let me refer you back to this post.

We've been cloth diapering for two years and we have only seen a slight increase in our quarterly water bill. Since we bought a high efficiency washing machine it's even easier and better! The machine has a "my cycle" option where I was able to program my diaper laundry cycle. So I push the button once and it takes my diapers through the whole cycle! I love it! But even if you have a regular ol' washer it still isn't bad at all, which I walk you through in this post.

So  I would like to address-and also debunk-some of the most common arguments I hear against cloth diapering-

"I don't want to deal with poop!"

"EWWW, but what do you do with all the poop?"

"You wash them in your regular washing machine-the same one as your clothes? That's just gross!" 

To that I usually say something like this:

"So, when your child has a HUGE blowout (trust me, it WILL happen and it DOES happen-and guess what? Much more frequently in disposables than cloth!) or leaks onto you or their own clothes...or the changing pad, the floor, the carseat, etc.-what do you do? Do you throw out said clothes or other items? Or do you throw them in your regular washer-even with poop on them?!"

Seriously.

As a parent you will find yourself covered in bodily fluid more often than not. Just yesterday in fact, when I got home my shirt had spit up, blood, and ketchup on it. (My toddler got a fat lip while playing, hence the blood!) During the winter my little lady got the flu and threw up all over me-down my shirt and everywhere else several times. Guess where the clothes and sheets and towels went? Right in the wash! And A few days ago I came home with poop on my shirt! I had changed Little Miss before we left a Memorial Day party and the whole way home I smelled something gross and when I finally got home I realized it was on ME! And that shirt went into the wash. Because it's just poop. Get over it! Those are just things that happen when you are a parent.

So the moral of the story, and I guess this post is this-

If the ONLY reason you are not doing cloth is superficial-because you don't want to deal with poop then you should probably be rethinking having kids at all. Because poop just comes with the territory! And then get a better argument against using cloth if you plan on talking to me about it!

And don't complain that kids are so expensive either! Because they don't have to be! It's our society that forces us to think kids need a lot of stuff to be happy!

And if poop does scare you and you are already on your way to becoming a parent don't you worry...once that little angelic face smiles up at you, calls your name and runs into your arms or needs to be soothed when she bumps her lip-you won't care one little bit. Because they're worth it.

Love and Laughs,

Danielle

Homemade Almond Milk

At my house we love almond milk. Ever since my struggle to conceive and my diet change it's been a staple in our house. I won't go into all the reasons why I don't drink cow's milk anymore...you can google it if you really want to know the gross truth behind where it comes from and what's in it.

But I will say this-do any other mammals drink the milk of another mammal? Think about it-do monkeys drink dolphin milk? Elephants drinking lion milk? Cows drinking human milk...? So why do we need cow milk? Food for thought! It's another argument for why breast milk is so important but that's another post for another time! Our pediatrician even reiterated to us that as long as you are getting calcium from other healthy sources such as leafy greens, then no one ever actually needs cow's milk! Rice and coconut milk are other options, as is hemp milk, but since we don't have nut allergies to worry about, almond was the most affordable option. A lot of people think soy milk is a healthy alternative, but if you do your research you'll find that soy is especially dangerous to the body.

My Little Miss drinks almond milk daily and she loves it. We started giving it to her around her first birthday in lieu of cow's milk. I nursed her until she was 15 months old, only stopping because at three months pregnant it was hard on my body to nourish one baby while growing another! So I'm glad we started her on a milk alternative prior to weaning so she'd transition more easily.  She gets a sippy of milk with some kefir each morning  when she wakes up-it's the first thing she asks for. We recently started adding blended fruits and yogurt to make a breakfast smoothie. I sneak in some kale and flaxseed as well sometimes for an added healthy boost!

 

Almond milk from the store costs around the same as a gallon of dairy milk, so it's not too expensive, however there are still some added ingredients that after more research I wasn't crazy about us consuming on a daily basis-not to mention added sugars. Check out this article for some information about additives in commercial coconut and almond milks. 

Once I heard that, I truly wanted to find a better alternative. I had heard how easy it was to make my own almond milk at home, but I didn't think my blender would make it smooth enough. Then I discovered the nut milk bag purely by accident! I was looking for something to rinse and drain my quinoa in (have you ever tried to rinse quinoa in a strainer? It's nearly impossible!) and I found this cool product! At only $9.99 on Amazon I had to give it a try. Well it was totally worth it! Not only can I drain and rinse my quinoa much more easily, but I can make healthy, homemade almond milk at home as well! It also come in handy for straining the pulp out of my daughter's smoothies....she won't drink it if it has pulp. I blame Hubs for his weird aversion to any kind of pulp in his juice!

So I headed over to Pinterest and searched for homemade almond milk recipes and found this one. Seriously what did we do before Pinterest?! It's like, what did we do before Google?! But I digress.

For homemade nut milk you'll need some sort of food processor or blender. Recently we purchased a NutriBullet, a very reasonably priced alternative to a traditional juicer that does not take up a lot of space on your counter at all! And man does this thing BLEND! It makes things super smooth and liquefied in a minute or less! If you are in the "I really want a juicer but can't afford one" club then this little gadget is definitely a reasonable alternative. It worked quite nicely for making our milk. 

The first and most important step is to soak your almonds in a bowl of water overnight. This is very important as it makes the almonds soft enough to blend. Use a large bowl, 1 cup of almonds, and two cups of water. This is what our almonds looked like in the morning.


Drain your almonds and add them to the mixer of your choice. You also need to add the following:

• 6-8 cups water (you'll want to play around with this amount depending on how thin you want your milk to be)
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tbsp. honey
•  Optional: Cinnamon to taste 

The first time we tried it we didn't add cinnamon, but I have seen this in other recipes as something you can add. I added a little more vanilla because we usually buy the sweetended vanilla flavor, and I wanted our batch to taste close to what we're used to. 

 

 

After you've blended all of your ingredients (the recipe I followed said 3-5 minutes, but my NutriBullet worked in less than 2 minutes!) you need to drain the pulp out. We used a large Mason jar for our milk container. We placed the nut bag over the jar and poured the contents of the blender in slowly. We learned that it's best to put a bowl under your jar when doing this step in case of leaks or spills. Especially when you are working with a toddler! I really wish we had a FunPod because Little Miss loves helping in the kitchen, but I am always so worried about her falling. Here she is watching the pulp drain into the jar. She was very intrigued by this whole process!

 

Once the milk has been poured into the jar, squeeze the bag to get all the additional milk out. We ended up throwing away the pulp for now, which seemed like a waste to me. I am going to research uses for it...if anything I bet it would make good compost!  Once you have set your pulp aside, cover your container and give it a good shake to make sure all the ingredients are combined. Then keep it in the fridge and you are all set! I have read that it keeps in the fridge for about a week, but I bet ours will be gone before then! Following the recipe about we got a large Mason jar and a regular sized Mason jar's worth of milk. We used the full 8 cups of water.

 

So now I am sure you are wondering how it compares to the store bought stuff? Well for starters it is thinner, which like I said before you will want to play with the amount of water to change up the consistency depending on your liking. I like a thinner consistency so it was perfect for me. It was not as sweet as the store bought stuff, but since we don't tend to drink it straight anyway it didn't matter to me. Since we made it yesterday we have used it in our morning smoothies, and I put it in my morning oatmeal and quinoa this morning for breakfast. I tried it last night in cereal and it was perfect. Not too sweet and just the right consistency. And Little Miss did not notice a difference in taste at all. I think we have a winner here!

 

Go ahead and try it...you will be pleasantly surprised at how easy, affordable, and HEALTHY it is! 

 

Love and Laughs,

Danielle

Two Under Two

My life with a newborn and a toddler under two years old has been quite the whirlwind this past month. I still can't quite believe that my Little Man is already a month old! Where does the time go?!

Having two under two is busy-that's no joke. Thank heavens for having Hubs home. I honestly don't know what I would do if he wasn't here...how do people manage? Between recovering from my c-section, to only being able to do the stairs once a day, to nursing pretty much around the clock, he's been a total lifesaver. I will never ever take for granted the fact that we were able to get him paternity leave. Especially since there is a WHOLE LOT more laundry. And it's nice having family time too of course. 

People have been asking how it's going. Honestly it hasn't been too bad. Of course we are tired and of course it's draining but thankfully our only job has been to be parents. So right now we have man to man coverage on the little ones so we aren't quite outnumbered. Clearly the fact that we don't really have any other responsibilities helps out too. Ask me how it's going in a month when Hubs goes back to work! 

There are of course some challenges. 

The laundry is insane. I don't quite understand how adding one more little human into the mix adds so much more laundry? I feel like we are doing loads every day. Thank goodness for the new high efficiency washer! Having two in diapers is rough, but even though we're washing every other day instead of every 3-4 days I still wouldn't change a thing. Having to do an extra load here and there still beats spending loads of money on disposables and also contributing that much more garbage to a landfill. When Little Man was in sposies for the first few weeks I was sick over the amount of extra garbage...and the cost! 

Keeping our little house organized and uncluttered has been a challenge too. Our house is only 1100 square feet with two bedrooms and a playroom. The kids share a closet, and we don't have much storage so we've had to be creative. We only keep out what we need and we are constantly rotating out toys and clothes. We have shelves and shelves of bins stacked in the basement that we're trying to now be very diligent about keeping organized. So far so good. My craft and creativity center has moved from the dining room table to the basement which I'm excited about. Hubs cleared out a corner just for me and my arts and crafts.  Once I can do stairs I can't wait to work down there in the evenings. We've created an extra living space in the basement as well with a tv corner and futon. I'm sure the tortoises are excited for the company! 

Keeping toys in the playroom only has been important to us as well. We want Little Miss to understand that everything has a place and she is very quick to pick up on where things go. She is learning young that it's important to put things in their proper place and every night we put everything away together so she learns the value of her things. I truly believe children can learn and accept responsibility even at such a young age!

How else has life changed with two? Well for starters Little Miss isn't the center of the world anymore. And for the most part she is ok with that, which is a good thing! She's very helpful, throwing things in the laundry, trash, or diaper pail. Or this morning when she was able to go get the boppy for me. She really likes being a helper and retrieving things or putting them away. Most of the time. She's really been patient with the fact that sometimes she has to wait for mommy's attention. Nursing a hungry newborn leaves me confined to the couch much of the day so we try to do things together from there like read stories or sing songs. Baby wearing Little Man has helped too, because it leaves me hands free to play with her. Don't get me wrong, sometimes she gets sad that mama is busy, but thankfully Hubs can usually distract her. They've been having tons of fun with all of their daddy-daughter time! 

I'll tell you though, I forgot how much I LOVE having a snuggly newborn! It is so amazing to hold that little baby and realize that you made him!! I love the smell, the snuggles, the nursing-and this time around it seems even more fleeting. Now that I know how fast it goes I appreciate it all even more! I love my toddler and seeing her grow and change into a little mini adult, but there's just something about the newborn stage that is so incredibly amazing. 

My favorite part of it all is watching Little Miss with her new brother. She can't quite say his name so she just calls him Baby. It's quite adorable. She brings him his blankies or his lovies and rattles and things. She points to his eyes and nose and names them. She was very concerned about his umbilical cord stump, and still checks to make sure it's gone. And she even gives him a tiny little kiss on the forehead every once in awhile...which melts my heart every time. I'm so excited for them to be so close and to grow up knowing one another and being buds. My siblings are my best friends, and I can't wait for my littles to have a built in best bud! It's so important to me for them to have each other. It's the little things every day and knowing they have each other that make all the craziness that much more worthwhile to me! 

Love and laughs,

Danielle