WHY I Cloth Diaper

There are many, many benefits to cloth diapering your babies. I always wanted to cloth diaper, but my mom scared me away from it because she had tried it with my brother and so many leaking problems. Well, folks, as my mom learned, cloth diapering has come a long way since then. She hates when I put Blake in disposables; she can't figure out how to put them on (don't ask me, I know it's quite simple). Anyway, I'm no expert on the topic, but I have been cloth diapering for nearly 18 months, and I have researched the various options many times over. Here are a few reasons I'm so thankful that I chose to cloth diaper my babies:

1. Cloth diapering is so cute. How cute are those bright colors and patterns? There are so many options! Especially if money isn't an issue for you. (Some people kind of go crazy with cloth diapers and buy "exclusive patterns" for $50 a pop or more! It's insane to me, but that's their choice. Not mine, for sure.)

2. Cloth diapering is green. If you don't care about disposable diapers sitting in a landfill for 100,000 years (which you should, but that's another story), consider the fact that disposable diapers contain lots of harsh chemicals that you put on your baby's bum. Blake has never had a problem with diaper rash because of cloth diapering. Plus we never had problems with blow out poops!

3. Cloth diapering is economical. For Blake, we use Best Bottoms, which I love, but if I could do it over again, I would choose something even more economical. So Blake has 4 Best Bottom covers, 17 hemp inserts, and 3 overnight doubler inserts. This cost approximately $186. I also bought cloth wipes, which I think cost maybe $30. The only other thing needed is a wet bag. I spent more than needed on wet bags, but I have a small one (for small trips), a medium (for a day trip), and two large hanging wetbags (to keep all for laundry day). Those probably ran me $100 total. So we are talking about a little more than $300. When I'm done using these with my two children, I will be able to sell them and get some of my money back. How much have you spent on your disposable diapers and your wipes? More on how to do cloth diapering in the most economical way coming soon...

4. Cloth diapering is easier and less gross than you think. I do two small loads of diaper laundry per week. It is definitely worth doing a little more laundry for the money I have saved. I don't really touch poop any more than you do. I wipe the bum, and then use a wipe or toilet paper to nudge the poop off the diaper and into the toilet. When Blake's poop was runny in the early days,  I snapped the diapers just like you fold over a poopy disposable (we were using pocket diapers at the time), and I just unsnapped them and put it in the washer on laundry day.

I love cloth diapering, and I am so thankful that I have chosen to do it. We don't struggle to afford diapers, and we never have to run to the store because we are low on diapers. I will soon be cloth diapering two babies. You may say it's impossible to cloth diaper when you have two or more in diapers, but isn't it even more worth it when you consider the cost of buying disposables for multiple children? I would rather spend a little more time doing laundry in my life so that we have a little extra money to do something fun together and so I have a little less financial struggle!

You may be thinking, "But I work full time," or "But I don't have a washer/dryer." Neither of these are factors in my life, so I can't speak to that. You have to make the right decision for you and your family, but I think so many people don't even consider cloth diapering as an option. And it is an option that would benefit so many families who are currently struggling with finances! So give it a thought. Don't automatically think that it's gross or impossible or too expensive or time consuming.

a love song

You have changed me. From the moment I found out that you were growing inside of me, something changed. My body wasn't just about me anymore. When I felt you stirring and moving, I felt awestruck in a way that I have never experienced before. When I experienced aches and pains because you were getting big, I had to remind myself that you were going to be worth it. And you were. I waited a long time for you. You grew in my body and did not want to leave (and you are still attached to my hip!). I forced you out against your will and ended up with surgery. But you came out one way or another, and you cried a lot. You didn't sleep quite as much as a newborn was supposed to. And you continued to have sleeping issues for A LONG TIME. You made me more exhausted and more elated than I had ever been in my entire life.

I have seen beautiful things in this world in Paris, London, Rome, and Venice. But nothing compares to how beautiful you are. Your eyes are so bright and full of wonder. Your body is so tiny and cuddly. Your laugh is the most infectious thing. I wish I could bottle it up to reminisce on your graduation day and your wedding day. I wish I could bottle up your hugs and kisses to save for a day when you no longer want to be attached to my hip.

You have made my heart grow bigger. You have made me care about some things more and some things less. You have made me grow in respect for what I am capable of and what my body is capable of. Growing you and nourishing you with my breasts for the first 16 months of your life has been the most holy experience and has made me more in awe of God's design than ever before.

Seeing you run around the yard, putting puzzles together, climbing stairs all by yourself makes me realize time is moving too quickly. So I will let you nap on me until you get too impossibly heavy to accommodate.  I will welcome your distraction from my tasks so we can just enjoy giggling together. I will not be annoyed when you grab onto my leg when I am trying to do my Wii Fit exercise. I will not stress that you aren't talking yet because you are already growing up too quickly. I will not try to force you to "measure up" to the other kids your age because you move at your own pace, and you are your own person. I wouldn't want you to be anyone else. You beat to your own drum, just like your mom and dad.

Soon you will have a new brother or sister, and I will be busy taking care of the demands of a baby. But it will not lessen my love for you or my fierce desire to spend time with just you and me. It will never lessen, no matter how many "I hate you, Mom"s, "I am quitting college to be a musician"s, or "I don't want to raise my kids the same way you did"s that you may throw at me. This new brother or sister of yours might mean that we don't get quite as much time together just me and you. But you, along with your brother or sister, will be my most precious treasures, and I will always value you more than you may ever understand.

here we go again...

I found out after the MS Walk that... I was pregnant. I told TJ before we looked at the results, "Either we are pregnant now, or I'm going on birth control." We went back and forth so many times about whether the timing was "good" or not. Apparently, this is the time God chose for us. We had just started trying! But according to my last period, I was 8 weeks pregnant already. Which was awesome. So I called the doctor and made an appointment right away and, also, signed up for an ultrasound because we just wanted to make sure about the due date because I had taken pregnancy tests that turned out negative when they should have been positive.

At the ultrasound, this is what I saw:

The ultrasound tech said I was only 5 weeks along. Which was disappointing. But then she scared the crap out of me by saying I needed to get another ultrasound in two weeks to make sure IF there's still an embryo. Uhh... IF?! So for two weeks, I was a mess. And part of me thought, well, maybe God DOESN'T think now is the right timing for another baby... I tried to relax, though. I have always had irregular periods, so it made sense that I was not as far along. My due date went from December 7th to (by my calculations) December 31st. 

After two weeks, I went back and saw this:

There's a little peanut in there! What a relief! She measured me at 6 weeks and 6 days. Which set me back even further! Peanut's new due date is January 2nd. Seriously, little one?! Don't know you anything about the importance of tax credits? ;-)

I was reassured during my two week anxious waiting period because I was having terrible nausea! It was awful. But it has not been bad for the past few days, which is great. I'm also having a lot of aversions, so the foods I have been eating has not always been the healthiest. Sandwiches, pastas, cheese. But I'm going to try my hardest to be healthier this time around, including lots of exercise!

Baby has already run two 5ks! 

On a different note, we have sent postcards to TJ's family with the first picture on this post (the math equation) as an announcement that we were expecting, and we never heard from anyone. And we gave the postcards out to my family at Mother's Day, and there wasn't much response. This is incredibly difficult for us because there is a lot of unknown in our life right now. TJ is looking for a new job, and we are currently living at my Dad's house (with, most likely, no option to stay because there's no room for another baby here.) Is that why we haven't heard a response? Because people think we made the wrong decision? I don't know. But Little Peanut is coming, and we could use the support. And we would like to celebrate! We haven't had much chance to celebrate, between the anxiousness of whether the second ultrasound would show progress or not and the lack of support from family. My friends are really happy for us, which is great. But family support is a whole different ballgame.

Have we wondered whether now is a good time or not? Well, who defines good timing? God does. Not me. So ready or not, here we go again... 

the big race

At the beginning of this year, I asked my brother to sign up for Philly's Hot Chocolate 15k race. It took 10 weeks of training, which was ALL INDOORS due to the weather and having a baby. And no, I don't have a treadmill. I ran in place. Seriously, I could jog in place forever. But when it came time for the race, I felt pretty unprepared. And terrified. I barely slept the night before because my heart wouldn't stop pounding. It was my first night ever without Blake, and it just figures that I didn't get to take advantage of sleeping through the night!

My brother and I started the race at the very end of the last group. This group was called "walkers," so we quickly passed by everyone in our group. After two miles, my brother ditched me, and I was left to pace for myself. The first five/six miles were easy, and then it started to get more difficult. Each mile marker seemed to get further and further away.

By the time that the running got more difficult, I stopped passing people and started to keep pace with the same group of people. There was a pregnant woman, an older woman, and an overweight man, among others. In my despair at the perceived extended length of mile 7-8 and 8-9, I started to feel bad about myself that these people could keep pace with me. Why couldn't I run faster? I'm not pregnant, old, OR overweight! But you know what "difficulty" I have? A weak mind. In fact, I almost bought a shirt to wear for the race that said "mind over matter" because THAT is what my struggle is. I had to overcome my mind that so easily wanted to make excuses about why I couldn't run the race that day and why I needed to walk instead of run. I had to tell myself that even if I didn't love where I was right now, it was where I was. So I might as well give it my all so that I don't have any regrets afterward. For me, that meant no walking. Even if it meant I ran really slowly when I needed to. And I did it.

The funny thing is that everyone was released in groups, and like I said earlier, we started at the very end of the last group. So the group I ended up keeping pace with, the pregnant woman, the older woman, and the overweight man, may have actually started their race 10 minutes before me. So while my mind is wandering with self-deprecating thoughts, these other runners may have actually had 10 more minutes on their clock than I did. Maybe and maybe not. I don't know what they were overcoming by running in that race. I don't know their stories. But we all have one. And that's why running is so powerful. We ALL have obstacles to overcome in life, and running a race proves to us that we can overcome! The definition of victory will be different for everyone. My victory was overcoming my mind and running the entire race. I'm not necessarily in a hurry to do a race like this again, but to know that I can makes me feel so powerful. It's a great feeling.

Best part of the race? When I saw TJ on the side lines at about 9.1 miles, and he ran with me across the finish line, hand in hand. That's something I will remember for the rest of my life. 

(By the way, this is not meant to say that I think I'm better than pregnant, older, or overweight people. Mad props to these people for running 9.3 mile races! My point is that I'm not better than them, but I'm also not lesser.)

Regrowing Lettuce: A Letter To Mom

 Dear Mom Rieger,
You left a big hole in our world when you went to heaven a year ago. Dad still doesn't know what to do with himself. And we are left to navigate parenting without your valuable advice and encouragement. Life is not the same without you.

Since you left, you have gained three more beautiful grandbabies. I love to picture your face beaming as it would be to see them all together and hear about them growing. I can just hear you telling story after story about how your babies gave you just as many headaches and more.

You might not be here to give us advice and encouragement as we go through the trials of parenting and marriage, but we have already learned many lessons from you. Even though I didn't have the privilege of knowing you for very long, I think of you often and am challenged to live my life in a more positive way because of your example.

I want to be more like you in my marriage. You and Dad went through many trials, but you stuck with it and came out stronger in the end. Your love for each other was so apparent to everyone. YOU made Dad a better man.

I want to be more like you as a mother. I want to raise good children like you did. I want to give them the best that I can, and I want them to know that I am always just a phone call away.

I want to be more like you as a woman. Your mobility may have been taken away, but you kept your spirit. You were always positive, and you always remembered that no matter what, you were blessed. You must have lived in pain, but you never wanted us to know it, and you never focused on yourself.

You should know that you have left behind a legacy. You might not be here anymore, but we will never forget you, and your memory will live on in our lives and in the lives of our children. Our children will never know you, but they will grow up hearing about you. They will hear about how deeply you and Poppop loved each other and how you were such a caring mother and how you called yourself "blessed" in the midst of disability. And they, too, will want to be more like you.

You are the roots to our lettuce. We will keep on growing because of YOU. 

late 20's crisis

The biggest inner struggle of my life: jealousy. I thought I kicked my jealousy habit a while ago, but it has come back rearing its ugly green head lately. I'm not sure what exactly triggered it, but it is probably a combination of motherhood and late 20's-hood. I mean what the heck, when did I suddenly become 27 years old?! I never had much direction in life, so maybe that's how I ended up here without a job at 27 years old.  When I was in high school, I never knew what I wanted to do until senior year when I decided I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. (Something I saw on Bridget Jones' Diary. Thanks a lot, Colin Firth!) My English teacher told me to go to Lebanon Valley College and major in English, so that's what I did. Then during college, I decided that studying cases was super boring, but I never decided on a new career path. I didn't decide to intern with InterVarsity until a week or so before graduation! Anyway, that's just a little bit of my story that illustrates my point-- that I lack determination.

I love being a stay at home mom, and I think it is very important for the development of my kid(s) that I stay home when they're young. So why do I feel like I'm inferior to other moms who work? I wish I had a meaningful job that I cared about. Would I actually want to be away from Blake 40+ hours per week? No. But still, it would be nice to be a person with a career, to be able to identify myself as working as a ______ at _______ doing _____. And it seems like other moms have worked it out well that they can work part time and still mostly stay home with their kids and get the best of both worlds. Why not me? Oh right, I have a B.A. in English and French. That's very in demand stuff...

The other part of this lack of career thing is the not making money part. It would be nice to feel productive by bringing home $___ paychecks. I wish we had more money and could buy a house. I wish we didn't have to wait to have another baby until TJ finds another job. I wish I could afford to buy clothes that fit me. I wish I could afford to run lots of local races. 

In general, I thought that by my late 20's, I would have life a little more put together. Established jobs for my husband and me, a house, a baby that sleeps through the night. I would write it off and say that's just not what the real world is like... BUT why does it seem like everyone else has it together?! I see the moms at church fitting nicely in their clothing. And they have nice hair. They don't seem like they're exhausted. They participate in discussions in Sunday school, and they volunteer in the nursery or elsewhere at church. But my clothes are either too tight or too big or have holes. My hair is most likely thrown in a pony tail. AND I'M EXHAUSTED! But how the hell can I be so exhausted when I don't feel like I accomplish anything ever?!! 

Am I a horrible person to admit that I feel jealous of these women at church? Well, that's how I feel. I have an adorable 12 month old that fusses a lot and likes to scream at night. It's EXHAUSTING. And my husband is on the lookout for a new job. That's SCARY. So I guess the conditions of my life right now are a breeding ground for this very ugly sin called envy. I'm not proud of it, but it feels nice to say it out loud. 

So what do you think? Do the others have it all together? Or do we all just have times where we feel like we don't measure up to others?

(By the way, I've been wanting to write this blog entry for quite a while now. But I lacked determination to open up my laptop.)

breastfeeding woes

while it may be inappropriate to say the word nipple on facebook, this is my private blog, and i can say whatever i want. nipple. nipple. nipple. by the way, i am writing from my phone again, so there will be no capital letters in this entry.

ten months ago, i wrote that breast might not be best for me. but thankfully, this did not turn out to be true. blake and i enjoyed a wonderful breastfeeding relationship for six months. i loved breastfeeding so much and was so thankful that we had not had any issues.

then, in august i started to feel sharp pain when blake would eat. turns out, i got a yeast infection in my breast. we could not put blake in his cloth diapers because they rubbed his inner thigh, and the yeast liked to congregate there. with treatment, the infection seemed to go away, so i tried blake in his cloth diapers again. bam! the yeast came back with a vengence.

here we are, four months later still dealing with this awful infection. the treatment that worked before is not working now. the pain is unbearable, and my nipples hardly look like nipples anymore.

so the question has returned: is breast best for us now? or do i have to consider weaning blake? my mom says blake will be alright without my milk, but i might not be okay. it is hard for me to deal with this though because i'm a bit of a hippie, and i would like to continue breastfeeding for quite a while yet. it has been one of the most holy experiences of my life to sustain my baby with my body. i don't want to give it up, but for the sake of my health, this might be the best way to go. i am so heartbroken about it, but i have to kick this yeast, first and foremost! blake needs a healthy mom more than he needs momma's milk.