Talk about mistletoe!

Boy, I have fun with headlines.

I'd like to say that when I repeatedly mumbled "Jesus Christ" while making these dough footprint ornaments, it was because I was remembering the true meaning of Christmas. But it was because I was covered in flour, my child was crying because he put the dough in his mouth and didn't like the taste, and I couldn't get a good hand print (which is why it became a foot print). But all in all, they came out pretty good--a little large, but they still pass for an ornament. Plus, they have that homemade feel, which I always enjoy.

My husband and I decided that every year, we'd make an ornament for our son until he became old enough to make his own. Last year, I stitched his initials onto a felt ornament that I made, and when my super crafty friend sent me the link to this project, I got inspired for this year's ornament. Making this ornament became extra special when my husband remembered a hand print ornament he made in preschool. He dug it up, and now we have a father/son set.

The recipe can be found at Under the Table and Dreaming. I halved the recipe and still got three footprints out of it, so make a little at first and add more later if you need to. Mine needed to go in the oven for a little longer than recommended, and when they were cool, I sprayed them with an acrylic coating so that the cat would stop trying to eat them.

Crappy weather = Homemade finger paints

Now that the weather has gotten too cold to sit in the sand box for an hour at a time, 'tis the season to explore indoor activities that can keep my curious tot occupied for more than 10 minutes. He loves rifling through the paper recycling, crawling after the cats, and pulling all of his books off of the shelf, but sometimes he needs a novel activity.

Working full-time, staying at home, and everything in between: Part Deux

The New Mama Diaries continues its exploration of women's working statuses and how they feel behind the scenes. Today, we talk to a mama friend of mine, Teri, a stay-at-home mom who just moved to a new city to be closer to her husband's work. Although she loves that everything she needs is within a 10-minute drive, she struggles with feeling disconnected.

1.  What prompted your decision to work or stay at home?

I was let go from my job about two weeks before I got pregnant. I was looking for a job, but I didn’t get any call backs or interviews.  I started to show and I thought "No one will hire a pregnant lady who will need maternity leave in a few months." My unemployment would cover the bills for a while, but wouldn’t last forever. So, we decided that I would be a stay-at-home mom.

Cloth diapers versus disposable diapers: The scoop on the poop

I wanted to give my readers a solid answer to the question, “Which is better, cloth diapers or disposables?” Alas, after much research, I'm sorry to say, there is none. Like this presidential election, one choice does not outshine the other. Rather, you have to pick the lesser of the two evils: Do you want to use enough water to fill two Olympic size swimming pools or send nearly 5,000 diapers per child into the landfill? Tough decision, but some facts with a wee bit (see what I did there?) of experience might help steer deciding parents into the path that is right for them. When deciding which type of diaper to use, four factors usually come into play: environmental impact, health, personal effort, and cost. 

Environmental impact: Most people have the cloth versus disposable debate for ecological reasons, so let’s tackle that first. According to National Geographic’s Human Footprint project, it takes 715 pounds of plastics and 5.65 barrels of crude oil, and four trees to make one human’s lifetime supply of diapers (thanks, Saudi Arabia!). According to “The Poop on Eco-Friendly Diapers,” published by Wired, disposable diapers make up 3.4 tons of waste, or 2.1% of U.S. garbage. And they don’t biodegrade—at least very well, not even natural disposables. According to the Real Diaper Industry Association (yes, it really is a thing), it can take up to 500 years for a disposable diaper to decompose.

Working full time, staying at home, and everything in between

Personally, I think Gen X and Gen Y moms have a unique set of factors influencing their decisions to work or stay at home with their kids. Many of our grandmothers didn't work, but many of our mothers did--not just because they had to to make ends meet, but because they wanted to. Women weren't limited to being teachers or secretaries anymore; they could be whatever they wanted, so they did, and boy have we kicked ass out there.

But the sagging economy and the modern societal expectation that women should work outside of the home have made it difficult for many women who want to stay at home with their children to do so.

Now, don't get me wrong--I wouldn't go back in time and reverse the women's movement that fueled said ass kicking. I'd be pretty pissed if I was expected to stay at home to stitch samplers and make preserves. Women fought to be equals in the workforce, and now we are (for the most part, anyway). The problem is that as we have taken on more responsibility in the workplace, our home responsibilities haven't decreased, and there just isn't enough time or energy for all of it.

What to do with all that poo: The trilogy

Now that I've been at this cloth diapering thing for almost 15 months, I've had a chance to give various products a good wringing through the washer, so to speak. I haven't tried them once or twice--I've really put them to the test with everything from "Did he really drink three cups of water today?" pees to "He just ate an entire pear!" poops. We've been through all four seasons and have grown from newborn to 18 month clothes, so we have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't.

An unfocused post about everything I've read in the last two days

I'm not even PMS-ing, but I have spent far too much time crying between last night and this morning. Last night, I read this article from the June issue of Real Simple about Ann Lee Hussey's mission to immunize children in third-world countries from preventable diseases such as polio. Hussey's own struggles as a polio victim pulled at my heart strings, but I didn't start bawling until I read about Uma, a polio victim in Nigeria who had to crawl around on all fours to get around.

Fee-lings, nothing more than fee-eelings

The random and frequent crying spells stopped three weeks after my son was born, but as a human governed by the endocrine system, the mama feelings never stop. One thing I learned after 10 years in weekly therapy (thanks Mom!) is that they are all valid and natural, even the ones that make you feel like a horrible human being.

Here, I provide a little tour of some of the feelings I’ve experienced over the past few months (defining the term 'feelings' broadly):

Baby proofing a raised brick hearth

I can't blame all of my baby proofing challenges on having an old home (built in 1890), but some I can. For example, because of the layout of our home, which involves four doors leading to the kitchen and two stair cases (not including the basement stairs), we need SEVEN baby gates. Some of our doorknobs aren't knobs at all, but lift latches that stick out right at a toddler's eye level. One staircase doesn't have a banister for the last five steps. Oy.

But there is one baby proofing challenge that isn't isolated to an old home: a raised brick hearth. Please see giant hazard below:

For the past eight months, we have padded the hearth with my pregnancy body pillow and every throw pillow we could get our hands on, but because the living room is the baby's primary play area, we wanted a better solution. We finally decided on turning the hearth into a padded bench that would serve the purpose of cushioning any falls while also offering a cozy place for little bums to sit.

Best solution for removing vomit stains

My son doesn't throw up often, but when he does, he's inevitably eaten something colorful, like strawberries, carrots, or the worst, avocado. Avocados are delicious, creamy, and delightful going down, but if they come back up, just throw out the bib or onesie and call it a loss. It must be the combination of fat and oxidization that causes such a nasty stain.  Most recently, my son overate at dinner and vomited in his crib while he was trying to fall asleep. The sheets, his sleep sack, his PJs, and the mattress cover were covered in his dinner, which included about a third of an avocado.

After washing everything once, it still smelled, and the stains were prominent. I washed them again. The smell improved, but the stains were still there. I soaked them overnight in Oxyclean. No use. I added Borax to the wash. Nothing. After laundering four times (but never putting them through the dryer), I was hopeless that these items would be recovered. That was until I had dinner with one of my nearest and dearest mama friends, and the topic of stain removal came up. She suggested a stain removing concoction that got blood out of one of her pillows and yellow armpit stains out of her friend's husband's undershirts.

Shopping for daycare (hell)

I haven’t forgotten you. I’ve been stuck in a tornado of shopping for a day care, planning a birthday party, and baby-proofing our home. Somehow I made it out alive--probably with a little less hair than I had before. All of it has been physically and emotionally exhausting. Shopping for a new day care and coming to grips with the fact that my baby isn’t a baby anymore has called for more than one double chocolate cookie. Another time, I’ll delve into first birthday party planning and baby proofing (we got super creative). But right now, I’ll focus on the task of shopping for a new day care.

A super duper shmooper good friend of mine is a stay-at-home mom, and the moment I told her I was pregnant, she offered to take care of the baby so I could work. When my son turned three month old, he started going to her house two afternoons a week, and later, two full days. With clasped hands, we hunkered down through the tempest called nap training together. She kept my breast milk in her freezer, cleaned poop and puke, and tolerated “fussy time.” Her soon-to-be three-year-old entertained my son endlessly, and now my son lights up like a Christmas tree they are together. But alas, nothing lasts forever, and it was time to move on.

Practical projects for the crafty mama

As a crafty mama, I've been having a blast making all sorts of fun stuff for my little tyke, some of which I share below. I'm also a practical mama--everything must be useful and durable (you won't see my baby wearing a delicate, lacy bonnet or clothes he can't get dirty), so each project here meets those qualifications. Let's start with my favorite:

I got the pattern for these baby slippers from New Conceptions. They are super easy to make and only require three seams. I've made a pair of fleece slippers (left) and a pair of flannel (right). The last seam, which goes around the sole, is tricky, as you have to line up multiple layers of fabric, but the end product is so worth it. The best part? Baby has a tough time pulling these suckers off (my son is a ninja when it comes to pulling off his socks). An alternative pattern, which I haven't tried yet but is next on my list, is for adorable kimono slippers.

By hook or by Nook, get your hands on the right pregnancy book

The moment I found out I was pregnant, my first thought after “Holy shit, I’m going to have a baby--EEEK!” was “I need a book about pregnancy!” I wanted an authoritative yet not condescending companion to guide me through each stage of my pregnancy. The book should be able to answer the bulk of my questions so that I wasn’t calling my doctor every other day but not give me so much detail that I would lose sleep worrying about unlikely scenarios. My goal was to educate myself so that I didn’t worry about every little pinch and poke, and also so that I knew what to ask my physician during my appointments. As far as I could tell, there was no perfect book, so I ended up with four books, all of which supplemented each other. 



If you’re a book nerd like me and are looking for a good read while you put up your swollen feet, here are my thoughts on some good (and some mediocre) titles:

Down the yellow brick road of breast milk donation

After my little guy switched to amino acid formula due to his multiple protein allergies, I had over 200 ounces (about 6.5 quarts) of breast milk sitting in my freezer, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Over the months, I had painstakingly pumped and saved my breast milk to feed him during the two days a week he goes to the baby sitter’s house and for any other occasion that might separate us during a feeding. I also pumped because I overproduced milk, which I later learned was probably because I was pumping too much (more on that vicious cycle later). In the back of my head, I had hoped that even when I weaned Baby from the breast, he could still receive breast milk for several weeks, but alas, we all know how that story ended.

I wanted some good to come from all the late night pumping, tedious washing of parts, and time spent with the awkward bugle horns suctioned to my chest, so I started looking into breast milk donation. I first checked out Helping Hands Milk Bank (http://www.helpinghandsbank.com), a national milk bank, but ended up abandoning that endeavor. Do I want to help premature infants? Sure I do. Do I want to help support the Susan G. Komen for the Cure effort. Absolutely. Do I want to go through a multi-phase process that feels like the equivalent of taking the SATs? Not really. Call me a bad person not following through, but here’s what you have to do to donate:

Survival tips for the home-sweet-homebound

I’m a freelance writer and editor, which means that I make all of my money sitting at a desk in my home office.  I’m also a stay-at-home mom. In short, I get the best of both worlds. I have the privilege of changing all of the diapers and making goofy faces all day at my adoring peanut while maintaining my career in publishing. I work part-time, and I can control the amount of work on my plate, so I will be the first to say I am pretty darn lucky. But balancing these two huge responsibilities is quite a feat, and I’m still getting used to it. 


Even before I had my son, I knew that I wanted to work, but I also wanted to be at home. Thankfully, I chose a career that lets me do both. However, staying at home with the baby and working from home means that some days I don’t cross the threshold of the front door, and the only conversations I have are with a six-month-old who just pooped his pants. 



To keep my sanity, I live by the following eight rules:

Not all baby carriers are created equal

Over the past six months, I’ve had the opportunity to try out three different baby carriers. I started carrying baby when he was around 12 weeks, and it gave me a great sense of freedom. Instead of feeling stuck to the couch with a baby sleeping on my chest, I could wear him and do some simple household chores. After having limited mobility after a C-section, folding underwear was practically a thrill for me. I enjoy the closeness of wearing baby and being able to kiss the top of his head whenever I so please. I also find that in public, strangers are much less likely to touch your baby when he is nestled in between your boobs than when he is in a stroller or car seat. Rather, they can admire from afar, and that is A-okay with me.

I’ve rated the carriers using your basic A-F scale with A being the highest rating and F sucking bad.