Today is the last day to enter my Italian food giveaway! The competition closes at midnight EST. All the details are in this post!
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Oh the joys of having a newborn… and being the parents of two! There has been a lot of laughter and so much rejoicing these past 10 days, but there have also been some semi-sleepless nights and a realization that life will never quite be the same. Although I would never go back, I also am very tired and am not quite sure how I am going to survive once Elliott goes back to work on Friday! A blog reader shared this piece of wisdom with me today: “if the bums are clean and the bellies are full, it’s been a great day!” I’m going with that for now.
Here are a few other shots of life around our home these days:
We have been so blessed by some delicious meals from our friends after Gil was born. We told people that we like vegetarian and seafood dishes, and I’ve been amazed by our friends’ creativity and cookin’ skillz as they have put meal after meal on our table. Last week my friend Anna brought us a meal on our anniversary, and so she chose to bring one of our favorite meals of all time — chicken curry — and also brought a fancy tablecloth and long red candles. How sweet is that?!
I got this amazing package in the mail yesterday from a 16-year-old blog reader. She goes to my parents’ church and got my address so that she could send little baby boy Gil a hat she made for him! I was blown away. I love the colors and the style, don’t you? It’s going to get a lot of use over the years. Thank you so much, Kara!
I slipped out of the house for a few minutes today to do my weekly market shopping. The man at my favorite fruit and veggie truck broke into a huge smile when he saw me coming (sans gigantic belly) and gave me his enthusiastic best wishes for our new son. I loaded up on these blood oranges, which were just 40 cents a kilo!
To cloth diaper or not to cloth diaper… always the question. My friend Emily loaned me her newborn cloth diapers and covers so that we have all we need to get started whenever we’re ready. We cloth diapered Lena from 9 months until a few weeks ago (she has abruptly decided to potty train herself) and are enjoying a break from all the diaper laundry. I must say that these diapers are so stinkin’ cute compared to Pampers…
If you cloth diapered your baby, when did you start? Right away? After an adjustment period to a new baby? Any tips as I get started cloth diapering a newborn for the first time?
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If you’d like to see more pictures of life around here, you can find me on Instagram now. My username is beccagarber. See ya on the filtered side!
Gil’s hair is so precious! I am jealous of your inexpensive blood oranges. I just paid an arm and a leg for some because I love them so much. I would eat them all day long if I could!
Love Gil’s hair! And the comment about the fruit and veggie truck guy reminds me so much of ten years ago in Spain! That was one of my very fond memories.
And speaking of food, we are vegetarian, and I made a vegan lasagna last night that was so yummy! I was actually surprised by how good it was. I would make it for you if I lived in Sicily. :-)
I cloth-diapered Lilly, but I haven’t been able to find a routine that works with our front-loader for Wyatt. Rashes, stinks — basically all the bad rap that cloth-diapering gets that I never experienced before has been true in this case. :-(
Hi Joy, I don’t mean to be a creeper (especially since you don’t know me)! I had the same issues with stink and rashes from cleaning cloth diapers with a front loader over the summer. I think it was because the front loaders use less water, which is great for the environment and water bill, but not so good for getting everything out of dirty diapers :)
What finally worked to get the diapers back in working condition was rinsing all the diapers as hot as the washing machine could do 4 times in a row. That got them completely cleaned of the stink and build up. From there on, whenever I washed a load I had to do another warm/hot rinse after cleaning them to make sure all the detergent was out.
That first picture is too cute! And that hat is gorgeous :)
I love the covers! That’s so sweet your friend is letting you borrow her diapers. We used cloth on Adelle starting about 2 weeks after she was born. Honestly, cloth was pretty easy with a newborn. They just go through each diaper faster, just like they do with disposables. We just used the cloth diapers we had until we ran out, and then used disposables until the cloth ones were clean again. No stress, we just did what we could manage with all the sleep deprivation and such.
The only thing that is hard about cloth diapers and newborns is keeping track of output. If you’re concerned about how much he’s peeing, I would stick with disposables for now.
his face looks soo soft
Hi Becca!
Congratulations on being a mother of two! Gil looks adorable and I am sure Lena is a sweet big sister :) Having 2 kids is absolutely so much fun! I do remember being on an adrenaline high of excitement the first week Miah was born but then exhaustion kicked in and having 2 kids was tough. But it does get better and so much fun as you watch them interact, read to each other and play together :)
As for cloth diapering, I started both my kids when they were 2 weeks old. I actually think the newborn/infant stage is when cloth diapering is the best. I seem to have less explosions in cloth than in disposables during those early liquid months. Also they go through more diapers a day so I always feel like I am getting a better deal per day :) But it does mean laundry more often.
For those of you with front loaders, many of them have a sanitation cycle or you can up the soil level to high which will increase the water usage and the water temperature and the diapers come out clean.
Have a wonderful day Becca I am sure you are an amazing mom!
Jess
What a handsome little chap he is with that neat hair! And I think he will look dapper in that darling little hat.
I can almost smell his sweet just bathed baby aroma. What a beautiful photo! And that hair!
hello. :)
hum, cloth diapers, my mum tells me how he used them on me and I think I will do the same for my future children.
She used them on me straight after I was born, no need to introduce me to them. she says it better at avoiding rashes than synthetic ones, and when it comes to cleaning, she used to boil them once in a while besides the regular washing to kill any remaining germs. BUT that was back in the days, I’m not sure how it’s done nowadays.
as a baby that only used cloth diapers, I say it’s one of the best things for babies! haha :)
Little Gil is just adorable! I hope you can get some much needed rest, and that it goes well for you when your hubby goes back to work! I must admit…I am a bit jealous of those beautiful looking oranges too! There’s nothing like eating fresh picked oranges! As for the diaper question…When our kids were little, hardly anyone used cloth diapers. We looked into it, but the only option we had for covers, were those ugly, clear plastic pants, that smelled after a few uses. Not such an appealing thing. If we had the nice diaper covers like you show, maybe I’d reconsider!!
At about two weeks. We did prefolds with Bummi’s covers. I don’t have a lot of love for prefolds, I just found I got a lot of leg leaks.
I did love fitteds, much easier to do up snaps rathern than a snappi when you are tired!
When he got to about 12-13 lbs, we went to Bum Genuis.
that gift hat for Gil is beautiful! love it!
adding my voice to the chorus of blood orange envy. there’s just something about citrus fruit in winter, isn’t there? edible sunshine… even in ohio… in february.
With my first, I started with gdiapers at around 3 months, but was not a fan, so I switched to cloth at around 4 or 5 months. With my second, I used mostly disposable for at least a month (because I woulnd’t have have enough nb cloths to keep up with all of the changes) and then used maybe half and half for a while and switched to cloth after around a 2 or so months old. (That being said with total mom brain and so my timing might not be entirely accurate, but at least it is close.) :o)
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