My Totally-Super-Awesome-Too-Cool-for-Poo Diapers…

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Okay, so they’re meant for poo… but they’re totally too cool!

This is my second to final design for my diapers.

The back of the diaper

The front without the flaps over it.

The diaper open... Aka...where the yuckies go.

This is the diaper with the front closed.

So, as some of you might know, my sewing machine broke. It went kaput. And I pretty much almost cried. Gah. I love my sewing machine. Heck, I just love sewing.

The worst part was that I had been trying to find time to finish sewing up my diapers for my kids for almost two weeks, and when I sit down, it won’t work. Blah. I kind of knew it was coming though because it had been having a few issues before that. We’re going to take it in for an estimate on how much it will cost to repair it, but if it’s too much, I doubt we’ll end up fixing it. We can’t afford to!

Thankfully, my grandma is letting me borrow her sewing machine. And a really nice lady I met, might have one that I can have. Which would be awesome! I’m not picky at all as long as it works, right?

Anyways, I’m off to go make up more diapers for my kiddos! Get them done!

My life as of late..

Filed Under BebeBreeze, Breastfeeding, Danny, sewing | 1 Comment

I know. I haven’t updated in quite a while… Sorry about that guys. I guess I’ve just been really busy. This will be short though…

I had my first birth as a doula. It was the most amazing experience ever. I started getting teary eyed when the little guy was born! And Mama S did AMAZING. She was a real champ through the entire thing, and she just did amazing. I’m so proud of her! She seriously did amazing. She really inspired me. I hope that one day, if I get a VBAC, then I’m able to do as incredibly as she did with her labor and birth.

I finally made some of my nice waterproof all in one cloth diapers for Danny. So far, I’ve got 3 made. They take me about an hour each to make. They look hella good too! And they’re sooooo soft! I love the bamboo velour.

november 054

I finally started pumping again. Between the craziness of moving, and then getting sick and then getting my appendix out, things got pretty crazy. I need to refill all of the bottles we emptied when I was sick, and then I’ll start pumping more milk to donate.

Danny started on baby food two days ago. I wanted to delay it until he was closer to a year, but he’s ready for it, so I can’t hold him back. He’s only getting 1-2 jars of baby food mixed with rice a day and the rest is still boobs. I’m making sure to pump when he eats food though, to keep my supply up. He was just getting SOOO cranky at night. Really bad. He’d drain me flat and then cry and cry and cry. And even if we gave him bottles of the frozen milk, he still wasn’t happy. So, he’s liking having something solid in his tummy. I’m still breastfeeding him the majority of the time and will continue to do so until he’s at least one, and then he’ll be allowed to self-wean whenever he chooses.

I have baby fever lately. All my friends are pregnant, and it’s depressing me. I really, really, really want another baby. But at the same time, I also know that I don’t want another baby right now. I really don’t want one right now. Danny’s still small and I’m enjoying him, but I can’t help but get jealous of all my pregnant friends, and Dan sure dosen’t help it when he rents these pregnancy and birth related movies and makes me watch them with him! Ahh! Oh well. I want to wait until Danny’s at least two.

Other than that, I’m really not doing much of anything lately. Just spending time with my two three favorite kids. What? Dan counts as a kid!!!

Mood: Accomplished! :D

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Yay for being productive. Yay for being awesome.

Tonight, we bought stuff to make chicken parmesan. And it turned out AMAZING! It was freaking delicious. It was a cooperative effort between Chelsea and I. Dan helped a little, but he’d like to lead you to believe he deserves more credit than he does!!!

Then, I worked on a carrier. I started it yesterday and it was kind of exciting because it’s a new design…sort of. Same design, just a different look and layout. It turned out really well and I REALLY like it!

I love my latest carrier!

So, I finished that up, and listed it on my site. I even went through and added secondary photos to all of the listings, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while! I even got the sling listed, and edited some of the other listings! The boutique is definitely looking good! That’s for sure!

And then I got on my blog and fixed up some pages! If you click on the “BebeBreeze” page, it’s got the link to my boutique. Or you can simply click here. It’s been a work in progress for a while, but it’s finally getting to the point, I’m comfortable showing it to people!

Then, I published my milk babies page. I’ve been meaning to do that for a while too! I’ve had the draft saved on here for a few months, just haven’t gotten around to doing it, you know? And getting all the photos together for it and everything… but it’s up now. Which is, awesome! I’ll be updating it as I donate more!

Anyways, if you can’t tell from my tone, I’m feeling a whole lot better. Really motivated and determined to get stuff done!

Resolve to a Difficult Day

Filed Under Breastfeeding, Danny, Family, Love, Maddi, friends, sewing | 4 Comments

So, yesterday was terrible. Like, on-the-verge-of-tears-and-tempted-to-go-hide-under-a-rock-forget-my-name-and-never-come-out kind of terrible.

I don’t really know what started it. I just remember, I started getting stressed right before Dan left for work. I was cleaning up the kitchen, and Maddi kept getting under my feet, even though I kept telling her to go to the living room. After trying to hold a conversation with Dan, and repeatedly telling Maddi to go to the living room because she was making me trip all over her, I got really mad and I yelled at her. I felt really bad afterward, because she cried and looks down like she was scared and upset.

The house was really messy. I get really depressed and down in the dumps anytime the house is too messy or disorganized or sloppy looking. I don’t know why. I just know that if it’s too messy, it’s a one-way ticket to a crappy day for me. So, I spent most of my day cleaning.

I wanted to work on schoolwork, but when I went to log on to the system, it was down and it said it wouldn’t be back up until Wednesday morning.

I put Maddi down for her nap, and as usual, she started crying and pitching a fit. I forgot to give her the herbal stuff we use (Tranquil Child by Oregon Harvest) to help her calm down and mellow out before bed. The effects are similar to sleepy-time tea… It’s not drugs or anything, just some stuff to help her mellow out, peppermint and chamomile. Anyways, I forgot to give it to her.

Anyways, while Maddi was in bed, Danny was crying and fussing like crazy. I think he’s starting to teethe. I’m not sure, but he’s had a lot of fits recently, where nothing makes him happy. He just screams. Cuddles don’t work. Boobs don’t work. Baths don’t work. Chewing on a spoon that we put in the freezer ahead of time seemed to help for a little bit, but that was short lived. I gave him some ice cold water in a bottle. He seems to enjoy the cold water, but again, only short lived relief. So, he was SCREAMING for almost four hours. Not just crying. Not just fussing, but screaming.

There’s two things I hate about when he cries like that. The first, is that it breaks my heart to hear him scream like he’s in pain and hurting. I usually end up with watery eyes and about to cry when I hear him like that and I can’t fix it. I hate it when my baby is in pain. I love him too much to see him hurting like that. The second, is that it makes me feel like crap. It makes me feel like I’m a failure of a mom. My baby is miserable and unhappy, and I can’t fix it. It makes me feel like it’s all my fault which is depressing. I hate feeling like that.

I want to be a good mom. I really do. But I feel like lately, no matter what I do, nothing is right and I’m not a good mom. I want to be, and I’m willing to learn, but where am I supposed to learn from? I never really had any kind of stable or consistent parenting growing up. Everything I do with my kids comes from here and there, and this and that. It’s all a guessing game. I don’t like making my kids into guinea pigs. I don’t like having to test out different disciplines on them, and feel like I still have no clue what I’m doing.

I really want to get this parenting program called “Love & Logic.” It’s supposed to be really good. I’ve read a lot of good reviews on it and I’ve heard a lot of my own friends and family rave about it. I really want to get it. It’s just a matter of saving up the money for it. It’s not too terribly expensive ($70) but I don’t have $70, you know? So… It is a lot when you don’t have it. I just know I’m not happy with how discipline is in our house, and I don’t like how she reacts to our disciplinary measures. I feel like it’s going nowhere, and there has to be a better way… I just haven’t found it yet.

Anyways, back to the story. Danny was still screaming, and I just put him back in his rocker because I was about ready to start crying myself. Sometimes, you just get to a point you feel like you can’t handle it, and that’s when you just put them down somewhere safe and let them cry. Nothing I was doing was working or even helping, and you can only do so much before it starts to wear on you. So, I put him down and went to get Maddi up from her nap.

I step into the bedroom and before I even look at her, I can smell it. Her diaper is on the floor (surprisingly, clean, nothing in it.) and there’s poop smeared from one end of the crib to the other. Globs and streaks of nasty, stinky, raunchy poop. I know this sounds bad, but given a choice between the two, I’d choose Danny poop any day because Maddi’s is just disgusting and horrible. I started crying. This is the third time she’s done this since we moved into the house. It’s a pain to clean, and having to lean over the crib to clean it after having abdominal surgery isn’t an easy task.

I picked her up out of the crib, took her straight to the bathroom and gave her a cold shower. It wasn’t really cold. More like slightly under lukewarm. She hates showers as it is, and I figured, if it’s not comfortable for her, she might learn from it. She CANNOT keep doing this and I CANNOT handle the continuation of her doing this. Thankfully this time, most of the poop was spread all over the mat that comes out of the bottom of the crib. I made her help clean it. Of course, I had to go over it after, but I made sure she got to lean over, scrub it and smell it while she cleaned. She cried the whole time, but she has to learn she can’t do things like that! Poop is NOT the same thing as paint and I’m sorry, I know it’s my job as Mom, but I do NOT want to keep cleaning up her shit!!! LITERALLY!

Throught this whole shower, scrubbing and crying thing… Danny is still screaming. Maddi then refused to eat, and I just said forget it, and put her right back in bed. If she couldn’t behave, I wasn’t about to deal with it when I was so stressed and upset.

I finally got Danny to calm down enough to nurse. Which was good, because it seemed to really relax him. He went to sleep. I tried to put him back in his rocker, but anytime I moved him away from my boob, he started to whimper, so I just let him snuggle with me.

Dan came home. He brought some of those yummy Van der Kamp fish filets and a bunch of madrin oranges. Kind of cheered me up. I cooked the fish, and some peas, and got Maddi up out of bed so she could see Daddy. I felt bad for just putting her in bed, but I needed a breather.

We all ate dinner together. It was nice, and relaxing. It felt good. She even ate all her vegetables with very little coaxing. We had to help a little, but she did it! She even babbled at us during dinner, talked a little, and we let her have some of Dan’s chocolate soy milk and a mini 3 musketeers candy bar after dinner. We put Maddi back in bed, and she didn’t put up too much of a fight (after all, it was really late).

Dan had brought home a movie. “The Ugly Truth.” I liked it. We watched it together. Had a sweet night. Cuddled up together afterwards. Then, Danny woke up, and I laid down and fed him. He snuggled up on me, and just nursed and cuddled almost the entire night. Normally, he dosen’t just snuggle up. He’ll try to play or move around a ton, but not this time. He passed out on my boob.

That’s one thing I love. When he falls asleep on me like that. It just makes everything okay. No matter how bad my day is, when he snuggles up on me and just lays there with me, quiet and close, it makes everything feel to much better.

It was a hard day. I won’t lie. I cried a lot. It sounds stupid, especially since all the things that went so wrong might seem trivial, but it was a really rough day.

Then, this morning, I got to sleep in. Courtesy of my amazing husband. And then, instead of getting up in a bad mood, I decided today would be a good day.

I tried logging onto the school’s system but their outage was extended until Friday. At first it kind of upset me, but I decided, it’d just have to be okay. I went in the kitchen and made waffles for my little girl and my husband. We had brunch together as a family and just hung out together until Dan had to go to work.

I spent the day with my kids. I cleaned up the house. I got some laundry done. I picked up Chelsea from school and she came over and spent some time with us. We mad dinner. Salmon, cheesy mashed potatoes, corn and brownies. Chelsea and I made some of the mocha frappuccinos for Dan. We watched Ice Age 3. Then, we took Chelsea home, and when we got back, I sewed a few sets of nursing pads and experimented with some designs and different ways of sewing them, and I finally settled on one.

I took some photos and even added the listings to my online boutique. Speaking of which, I have been working on setting it up. For anyone who wants to take a peek at what the boutique page looks like, click here. I’ve been working on it. It’s not done, but it’s getting closer to being ready.

I think… What I’ve gathered from this… is that sometimes, it’s really easy to get worked up and wrapped up in the unimportant things that don’t really matter. Sometimes the people causing you stress and upsetting you so much, are the same people who can make you feel better and melt that stress away. And sometimes, you just have to decide you’re going to have a good day, or at least a better day, and hold yourself to it.

Yesterday, was complete and utter hell… But it got better towards the end. And today might not have been perfect, but it was better. I found some positivity in it, and that’s something special. Something to be proud of. Yesterday, there was no light at the end of the tunnel… But last night, I realized there was… I was just going down a hill, and for a moment, couldn’t see the light. But it’s still there. And I’m going to be okay.

Craftiness Ala Sammi!

Filed Under Danny, photos, sewing | 2 Comments

Purple side of the reversible sling!

The floral side of the reversible sling. Danny's not Metro. Just my model.

Danny's kickass new gown!

Aren’t I crafty? I made all of these today! MWAHAHA! I shall take the world over with my craftiness!

Sorry! I just feel uber proud of myself here! I’m so used to my projects NOT turning out, you know?

Diaper Cover…

Filed Under Danny, Health, photos, sewing | 5 Comments

For the meantime, I don’t have money to make some nice all-in-one diapers, so I hit Joann’s, and they had this waterproof tablecloth material (almost feels leather like) with some kind of felt on the inside, marked down from $10 to $6, plus 50% off and another 10% off!

So I got it pretty cheap. I only got a yard, and I think I can get maybe 3 (but definitely two) covers out of it.

Until I have enough money to make some all-in-ones, then I’m going to just use the trifolds inside of the covers I made.