Better late than never

When my children were babies, I did the research and I knew that cloth diapers were healthier and better for the environment. But when there is a newborn baby in the house, disposable diapers are just so much more convenient. I wanted to spend all my extra time catching up on sleep, not doing laundry. I did have a set of cloth diapers, but they were only used as burp rags.

Fast forward four years from when my youngest was born, and I have found a use for those old cloth diapers! My son has been potty trained for a year now, but he still has occasional night time accidents. As such, we have kept him in the pull-up style diapers at night, every night. They can be reused a couple of times if there was no accident, but they get a bit fuzzy after that. Pull-ups cost much more than diapers, even if you buy the generic brands, so I was anxious to find an alternative.

So I came up with a homemade pull-up. I take a cloth diaper and fold it over to make a thick strip. Then I have him hold it on himself, covering from under the belly button on down between the legs, while I help pull up his regular underwear on top. Then he wears a pair of plastic over-pants, topped of with the pajama pants. So far, this has worked quite well, and the clean up isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

If he wakes with wetness, we soak the items in a bucket filled with water and a splash of bleach. I swirl it around for a minute, then dump the water. Then I rinse everything with plain water, wring out, and hang it to dry. When they are dry, I put them in the hamper to be washed at the end of the week with the rest of the laundry.

Autumn in Eureka Springs

Aaahhh, the cooler, beautiful days of autumn are here. This is by far my favorite season, especially in Eureka. The leaves are absolutely stunning, there is a wonderful smell in the crisp mountain air, and the best part is that the fall lasts a really long time here. This is the perfect time for walking and hiking because the insects are dying off, as well as the humidity. My family tries to walk or bicycle as much as we can, and not just for hobby, but to run errands as well.

The trouble with our town is that there are no sidewalks, except for downtown. The sidewalks downtown are somewhat difficult to manage because they are 100+ year old limestone, which is slick and uneven. When we moved here, our son was a year old so we walked with him in a stroller. After a couple of tries taking a regular stroller on the downtown sidewalks, we went online to get something more appropriate. We picked a lightweight jogging stroller with inflatable bicycle-style wheels and have determined that jogging strollers are the only way to travel with a baby or toddler in Eureka Springs.

My son has since outgrown the stroller, and we sold it for a good price at our latest garage sale. I am impressed at what troopers our children are when we walk, even on steep terrain. They don't complain unless we walk more than 2 miles, and if we stop for a drink and a snack, they are good to go another mile or so. Another fun and earth-friendly game is to bring garbage bags along and see who can find the most trash and recyclables along the way. This teaches kids a good lesson on the trouble with littering and how important it is to do our part for the community.

Don't touch that!

One of the biggest challenges of having small children is keeping the house safe for them. Everything must be out of reach and you never know what they will get into. Case in point: the entertainment center. We put all of our components in a large armoire and when the doors are closed, the kids can't touch anything. But when the doors are open, the TV as well as the DVD player and VCR are within reach and the kids are attracted to those buttons like a moth to a flame.

Another option is to use a tv mount which actually hangs the TV from the ceiling or a wall. Then shelves could be mounted nearby to place the other components. In addition to keeping everything out of the kids' reach, lots of floor space would be cleared this way.

As time goes by

My oldest and dearest friend just had a little baby girl one month ago and she sent out the baby announcements, which I received yesterday to my great delight. The baby is adorable. She had told me that her daughter looked like her husband and she was right! Usually all newborns look kind of the same, but her little girl really does look like her daddy already. And their son looks like his mommy, so they have a really cute family.

I wish one of my children looked like my husband. So far, both my son and daughter are basically clones of me, but at least my son has his daddy's eye color. It's kind of difficult to tell, I guess, since my husband and I have the same color hair and some of our features are very similar. It is so enjoyable to watch how our children grow and change with each passing year and the anticipation of how they will look as adults and how their personalities will develop.

I am an aunt!

My sister-in-law had her first baby girl on April 12, so I am officially an aunt. Unfortunately, since we live in Arkansas and they live in Colorado, it will be awhile until we can meet her in person. We will see if we can manage a trip sometime late in the summer. I have another dear friend who is also expecting a daughter in July, so we want to meet her as well!

All these babies! Kind of makes me feel sad that I probably won't get to experience the joy of pregnancy and childbirth again. But then I think of all the traveling and experiences we are looking forward to when the kids get older - and if we had another baby, we'd just have to start all over and wait that much longer. Eureka Springs is not too "baby friendly" with its cracked and crooked limestone sidewalks and steep terrain. It is impossible to push a stroller anywhere downtown. We used the baby backpack carrier last year and that worked well, but with a 2-year old it is very tiring on the wearer's back.

Oh well, I will just have to look forward to more nieces, nephews, and grandchildren...