This pregnancy progresses: 14 weeks, 24 weeks, 28 weeks, 32 weeks
32 weeks last time compared to this timeAlmost on the home stretch, I can say definitively that this pregnancy has been so much easier than the last one.
Showing posts with label There's an Organic Whole-Grain Bun in the Oven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label There's an Organic Whole-Grain Bun in the Oven. Show all posts
Monday, March 21, 2011
32 weeks: Better this time around
This pregnancy progresses: 14 weeks, 24 weeks, 28 weeks, 32 weeks32 weeks last time compared to this time
Friday, February 4, 2011
Belly shots
Here's a montage of belly shots from this pregnancy (top row) and my pregnancy with Eden (bottom row). Gestations are roughly 2 weeks, 13-14 weeks, and 24 weeks. I don't have quite the time and patience for lining up the time-progressive shots in the same place and the same outfit that I did now (you can see the reason for that in a couple of the top pictures), but I think you can get an idea for the growth involved.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Welcome to Eden Leah Sullenbrand!
10 lbs 2 oz
Born at home, in the water
at 4:57 am on June 29, 2009
after 2.5 hours of HARD labor!
Mom, dad, and baby are all doing well and resting comfortably!
Born at home, in the water
at 4:57 am on June 29, 2009
after 2.5 hours of HARD labor!
Mom, dad, and baby are all doing well and resting comfortably!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Smells Like Clean (Green) Spirit
Today was a nice quiet day. We got up and made our usual crepe buffet, hung out around the house for a bit, and then bundled up and walked to Home Depot to get the materials to make a diaper sprayer to hook up to the toilet.
Matt used these directions and it worked flawlessly. It cost us $27 and took Matt about 20 minutes to do, as opposed to $39.95 plus shipping for a prefab one. We've switched back to cloth toilet wipes (by popular demand--while it was originally my idea to do it, Matt requested to bring them back after I did away with them during my first-trimester nausea and vomiting; he volunteered to do all of the toilet wipe maintenance--and he has) and so until the baby comes and we have diapers to rinse, we can always use it for rinsing out those.
Our system for toilet wipes these days, in case anyone is interested, involves homemade flannel wipes (thanks, Matt!) and a Diaper Champ we got off Freecycle. It sits next to the toilet and has a few inches of water and homemade laundry detergent in it. It works great and there's absolutely no odor involved. Used wipes go easily in there; when we start to get low on cloth wipes, we dump them out, spray them off, and boil them (in a giant aluminum wok we've designated solely for this purpose) along with some vinegar and washing soda. We boil them for 20-30 minutes to take care of any germs, then we run them through a regular wash and dry cycle. They always come out fresh as can be. I'm imagining once our baby comes along, we'll do something similar with the diapers.
In terms of diapers, I'm guessing we'll wind up going with a mixture of inexpensive/homemade prefolds and pricier fitted all-in-one diapers. Prefolds are what you think of as a typical "cloth diaper" like you might also use as a dusting cloth or general cleaning rag. (At least my mom always did.) You can make your own from flannel receiving blankets, and we've already tried that out with decent success. In terms of fitted cloth diapers (which are basically shaped like a disposable), BumGenius seems infinitely popular because it's all-in-one (doesn't require wool or plastic pants over the diaper) and one-size-fits-all (while many other fitted diapers require buying multiple sizes as the baby gets bigger, and so to us that seems like a great diaper to start out with. Prefolds will also fit all different sizes of baby, but do require a cover (or "soaker" as they're sometimes known) to prevent leaks.
A lot of people have mentioned the "ew" factor of dealing with baby poop when you cloth diaper, but honestly, you deal with it no matter what kind of diapers you use, so I would rather roll up my sleeves and get comfortable than dip my toes in halfway with disposables. And I'm pretty sure that breastfed baby poop is pretty darn tame compared with what I dealt with day in and day out working for seven years at a nursing home. Not to mention the fact that we're currently cloth-wiping ourselves without any problems to speak of.
I know lots of people also like to argue that cloth isn't any better for the environment because of the water it takes to wash it, but studies arguing that have inevitably been funded by--guess who?--THE DISPOSABLE DIAPER INDUSTRY. And as this comprehensive article notes, if that argument held water, shouldn't we ALL be wearing nothing but disposable clothes? It also points out that washing cloth diapers at home (as opposed to through a commercial diaper service) uses the equivalent amount of water as flushing the toilet five or six times a day--basically, what a toilet-trained child or adult would use. Disposable diapers, on the other hand, take a ridiculous amount of water and a dangerous amount of dioxin and other chemicals to manufacture, and several of their ingredients are suspected carcinogens. Not to mention the fact that they hang around in landfills for several thousand years--something cloth diapers don't do. Disposable diapers also put human waste into landfills, rather than through sewage treatment, which is an environmental hazard in and of itself.
Given all that, and our general pioneer spirits, we're pretty excited to cloth diaper our baby.
Matt used these directions and it worked flawlessly. It cost us $27 and took Matt about 20 minutes to do, as opposed to $39.95 plus shipping for a prefab one. We've switched back to cloth toilet wipes (by popular demand--while it was originally my idea to do it, Matt requested to bring them back after I did away with them during my first-trimester nausea and vomiting; he volunteered to do all of the toilet wipe maintenance--and he has) and so until the baby comes and we have diapers to rinse, we can always use it for rinsing out those.
Our system for toilet wipes these days, in case anyone is interested, involves homemade flannel wipes (thanks, Matt!) and a Diaper Champ we got off Freecycle. It sits next to the toilet and has a few inches of water and homemade laundry detergent in it. It works great and there's absolutely no odor involved. Used wipes go easily in there; when we start to get low on cloth wipes, we dump them out, spray them off, and boil them (in a giant aluminum wok we've designated solely for this purpose) along with some vinegar and washing soda. We boil them for 20-30 minutes to take care of any germs, then we run them through a regular wash and dry cycle. They always come out fresh as can be. I'm imagining once our baby comes along, we'll do something similar with the diapers.
In terms of diapers, I'm guessing we'll wind up going with a mixture of inexpensive/homemade prefolds and pricier fitted all-in-one diapers. Prefolds are what you think of as a typical "cloth diaper" like you might also use as a dusting cloth or general cleaning rag. (At least my mom always did.) You can make your own from flannel receiving blankets, and we've already tried that out with decent success. In terms of fitted cloth diapers (which are basically shaped like a disposable), BumGenius seems infinitely popular because it's all-in-one (doesn't require wool or plastic pants over the diaper) and one-size-fits-all (while many other fitted diapers require buying multiple sizes as the baby gets bigger, and so to us that seems like a great diaper to start out with. Prefolds will also fit all different sizes of baby, but do require a cover (or "soaker" as they're sometimes known) to prevent leaks.
A lot of people have mentioned the "ew" factor of dealing with baby poop when you cloth diaper, but honestly, you deal with it no matter what kind of diapers you use, so I would rather roll up my sleeves and get comfortable than dip my toes in halfway with disposables. And I'm pretty sure that breastfed baby poop is pretty darn tame compared with what I dealt with day in and day out working for seven years at a nursing home. Not to mention the fact that we're currently cloth-wiping ourselves without any problems to speak of.
I know lots of people also like to argue that cloth isn't any better for the environment because of the water it takes to wash it, but studies arguing that have inevitably been funded by--guess who?--THE DISPOSABLE DIAPER INDUSTRY. And as this comprehensive article notes, if that argument held water, shouldn't we ALL be wearing nothing but disposable clothes? It also points out that washing cloth diapers at home (as opposed to through a commercial diaper service) uses the equivalent amount of water as flushing the toilet five or six times a day--basically, what a toilet-trained child or adult would use. Disposable diapers, on the other hand, take a ridiculous amount of water and a dangerous amount of dioxin and other chemicals to manufacture, and several of their ingredients are suspected carcinogens. Not to mention the fact that they hang around in landfills for several thousand years--something cloth diapers don't do. Disposable diapers also put human waste into landfills, rather than through sewage treatment, which is an environmental hazard in and of itself.
Given all that, and our general pioneer spirits, we're pretty excited to cloth diaper our baby.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Knitting Knews
Not only has this turned into this, courtesy of the world's fastest-learning knitter...
...but now, in the space of one evening, we've got this:
Which, as you can see, looks good on just about everybody. But technically, it's for the baby.
And I even helped a little: I made the pompom.
...but now, in the space of one evening, we've got this:
Which, as you can see, looks good on just about everybody. But technically, it's for the baby.
And I even helped a little: I made the pompom.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Pregnancy...Naturally
Over at our other blog, I've posted some of my thoughts about health and natural living during pregnancy. Check it out!
Friday, November 7, 2008
No Real News
I'm spending today finally making some headway on a paper I've been writing for weeks. I tend to do better during crunch time, which I guess is a relief because I was starting to worry I was never going to get it done.
Besides that, we don't have a lot to report. Fall in Virginia is beautiful as usual, I'm chugging away at school, Matt is working, and I'm in a fairly unexciting stage of pregnancy where, even if I am generating limbs and ears and organs at an impressive rate, I don't look pregnant and I don't feel pregnant and so business carries on much as usual. Although our baby does have two possessions so far: a shirt,
which we've admired for a long time and which Matt brought home for me the day after we found out I was pregnant; and a jogging stroller,
(don't mind what looks like poop on the wheel...or the fact that our apartment is in such a shambles that it looks like moving day)
something we'd remarked the other day would be nice, but something we were unlikely to actually pay for. Enter Freecycle: one was listed the very next day, and now it's ours. Living in an area as wealthy as this one has its advantages; people give or throw away nicer things than we'd ever consider buying! We're hoping that by starting early, we'll be able to get the majority of what we need for the first several months at least for free or really cheap. I understand this might seem a little premature, and even unwise to some, but when you really think about it, why should being hopeful about the healthy outcome of this or any pregnancy be seen as inviting bad luck? If anything, I think hope and optimism contribute to better outcomes, not the other way around.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Dinner Tonight
This delicious monstrosity.
If you thought that creamy and cheesy reigned in our house before, that was nothing compared to my new embrace of Dr Brewer's challenge to eat 80-100 grams of protein a day. More on the Brewer Diet later, but suffice it to say that you don't get a second chance to form your baby's brain and organs, and suffice it to say this is a challenge I'm embracing with zeal. You won't find me lamenting our kindergartener's test scores, wailing "If only I'd had another piece of cheese!" Not me. Not eating more, necessarily, but just a little differently. A couple of our other recent protein-packed dinners: clam chowder and sausage and mushroom strata. More on those later as well; pictures to come.
UPDATE: I was actually pretty disappointed with the mac 'n cheese! Pepper jack is a delightful slicing cheese, but it turned out rather bland in the melting. I did make a few substitutions--whole milk for cream, green pepper for red, wheat pasta for white, and yellow onion for red--but I don't think that would explain the total lack of flavor in the finished product. Even with liberal amounts of salt and pepper, and a wallop of chipotle paste, I still didn't think it was anything to write home about. It certainly LOOKED delicious enough--I've been anticipating it for weeks--but, eh. Wouldn't make it again.
If you thought that creamy and cheesy reigned in our house before, that was nothing compared to my new embrace of Dr Brewer's challenge to eat 80-100 grams of protein a day. More on the Brewer Diet later, but suffice it to say that you don't get a second chance to form your baby's brain and organs, and suffice it to say this is a challenge I'm embracing with zeal. You won't find me lamenting our kindergartener's test scores, wailing "If only I'd had another piece of cheese!" Not me. Not eating more, necessarily, but just a little differently. A couple of our other recent protein-packed dinners: clam chowder and sausage and mushroom strata. More on those later as well; pictures to come.
UPDATE: I was actually pretty disappointed with the mac 'n cheese! Pepper jack is a delightful slicing cheese, but it turned out rather bland in the melting. I did make a few substitutions--whole milk for cream, green pepper for red, wheat pasta for white, and yellow onion for red--but I don't think that would explain the total lack of flavor in the finished product. Even with liberal amounts of salt and pepper, and a wallop of chipotle paste, I still didn't think it was anything to write home about. It certainly LOOKED delicious enough--I've been anticipating it for weeks--but, eh. Wouldn't make it again.
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