Weening. Nice and Slow.

I wanted to breastfeed for at least 18 months. We ended up lasting over 19 months, on a very slow ween. Which was really pretty nice. At 12 months, he was feeding about 5 times a day. We went down one feeding per month, so that around 16 months he was feeding once a day, mornings only. He kept that until 18 months, and then we went to every day sometimes, every other day sometimes, every third day sometimes. I began realizing if I caught him at just the right level of waking up, still sleepy and not fully awake yet, he would nurse pretty well. I knew we could stop at any time. But why would we want to do that?
When it was over, it wasn't a big deal for either of us. Slow is the way to go in my opinion. But I hear it isn't always up to the mother, the baby decides when to stop. I got lucky.

Disposable Diapers. You Heard Me. Diaper Rash Info Too.

I've talked a lot about diapers in this blog, because we got away with almost never having to buy any. Until we went to California and bought inserts for Grovia. We still have some left over.
Then our little boy got a nasty rash this winter. The kind of nasty that you go to the doctor for. The doctor prescribed over the counter jock itch cream and a zinc cream. We had a tube of Butt Paste and bought the jock itch cream and used both. It didn't go away, so we went back to the doctor who sent us to the pediatric dermatologist. Sometimes I wonder if its totally an Iowa City thing that we get to go see specialists like "pediatric dermatologists".
The doc had us use the same things but in an opposite combination, and that seemed to help. And she recommended 12 hour disposable diapers for overnight.
I wasn't happy. She said just try it. Two things happened.
1. The rash went away and hasn't come back, at least not very much.
2. His overnight sleeping improved.
A third thing also happened. I became introduced into the world of buying diapers. These cost about $9 for 24! We are lucky enough to only have to buy them every 24 days, but yeesh, other people spend that kind of money every couple of days?! Seriously?!
Also, our baby has a habit of pooping early in the morning. Into the disposable. Bonus.
So, while I'm a strong supporter of cloth diapers for many, many reasons, I have learned that disposable overnighters are okay too.
As for the diaper rash? Whenever we see the little red spots, we use the jock itch cream and it clears right up.
When he doesn't have a rash, we use a homemade beeswax/olive oil/calendula salve that I made three jars of before he was born.  But we don't use that at all if a rash shows up.

Sinks and Wind, a Crazy Week

This all happened in one week:
My 1 1/2 year old discovered he could throw things in the kitchen sink by standing on his tippy toes and stretching his arm up and throwing the item over the counter. Then he started throwing everything he carried into the sink. We instantly recognized this as a bad thing and tried to get him to stop. He wouldn't have any of that.
Then I was washing dishes in a sink full of hot soapy water and he ran up and I saw something go "plop" into the water. I thought "hmmm, what was that?" So I reached down to find my cell phone in there. The brand new one. I grabbed a bag of rice (brown, which was all we had) and took the battery out and let it sit overnight. The end result was that the phone part still works but none of the side buttons do. No texting, no photos. I'm in the market for a new stupid phone.
Having a clean kitchen and being a little overwhelmed, later in the week I stopped at Papa Murphy's to get a pizza. I knew it was illegal to leave your child in the car in the parking lot even when you are just running in to pick up your order, so I took him, got the gigantic pizza, and carried it out to the car. I put the pizza on the hood of the car while I buckled him back into the car seat, then I went to get the pizza right as a wind gust came across and lifted the pizza up and flipped it upside down onto the parking lot! I stared at it for a moment, then flipped it back over to see the damage. They wrap those things in so much saran wrap, that it was mostly okay, there was just a small heap of zucchini and cheese on the parking lot. A nice man from the pizza place (they do have those big windows, you know) came and offered to make me a new one. We examined it and I thought it would be okay, but I agreed to let him take it in and "fix it up". He rearranged the ingredients and added more cheese and zucchini to it, which was awesome. The end result was a decent pizza with no complaints of gravel in any of the slices!

Discovering New "Foods"

Tonight, I found my son holding the cat food bowl. The new one. Two days ago he had the cat food bowl and when we tried to get it, he threw it and it broke. So tonight I asked him to give me the bowl, and he dumped the food out on the floor. I voiced my unhappy opinion to him. Then I started picking up the pieces of food and putting them back in the bowl, and he helped me. Sweet. Then he found a dried pile of cat puke and tried adding that to the bowl too. I don't blame him, cat puke does really resemble cat food. Anyway, I said yucky and we went and washed our hands. While I was washing my hands, he went back to the kitchen floor and found some more cat food to put in the bowl. Then he put some in his mouth. I went over to stop him and realized all the cat food he was putting in was on the mushy side, and in fact looked to be a lot more like more cat puke than more cat food. Again with the hand washing and cleaning up and lots of "yucky's".

Another thing for the list of firsts for the little boy!

Re-Name That Activity!

Others might call it:
My toddler tried to help me unpack the groceries causing the bag of steel cut oats to split open and oats spilled out all over the floor, then we tried to sweep it up and he "helped" which scattered oats even more all over the floor!

I call it:
Sensory activity opportunity!

That's how to be an optimistic parent.

Book Repair!

One of the many lessons I've learned as a new parent is how to repair children's books. In fact, I'm becoming so good at it, I'm starting to think I might have missed my calling as a book repairer at the library. If you are a librarian, you should read this. If only because I would feel like a prude coming into the Iowa City Public Library and telling the staff how to do their jobs. But I can do it on my blog, at least, so here goes:
1. Use packing tape
That's it. Any of those flip the flap books (like the Karen Katz books) will start to fall apart when your curious toddler becomes interactive with the book. I don't just speak from my own experience, I have checked these books out at the library and they had all been repaired.... with SCOTCH tape! That doesn't work. Packing tape does. I am now convinced that any fragile looking book should be secured before giving the baby the chance to rip it. This will both keep the book sturdy and not teach the kid that they can rip pages out of books! Fun!
I also repaired the whale's tail in The Grouchy Ladybug and it has never whipped better. In fact, I feel kind of bad for that poor ladybug.

Book Review: The Grouchy Ladybug

This 1977 book by Eric Carle is good for infants, better for toddlers, and probably even better for older kids too. My son was impartial until I read it one day and whipped the whale's tail back and forth with sound effects. Uh-oh, I hope I didn't ruin the ending....
Wikipedia will give you a summary of the story, but it ends with the grouchy ladybug being defeated by the whale's tail. My son loved that part so much, he started carrying the (gigantic) book to me and crawling into my lap so I would read it. (Awwww.) But I couldn't read it. He would skip to the tail and want me to whip it (with sound effects). Then he wanted to whip it. Then it got torn. Then it needed to be repaired.
In conclusion, this is a must read for kids of all ages! But first! Make that tail very sturdy. See my book repair blog on how to do that.

Toddler Mittens and Gloves? What are those?

At 1 1/2, my son loves to explore and has a lot of energy. And he gets sick of playing with the same old toys. So when it's not extremely cold, we take him outside as much as possible! Lately, it has been snowing on a regular basis. We tried sledding on the slight slope in our backyard. Turns out, a slight slope is perfect for a toddler! And he loves playing in the snow! What a great way to get him outdoors and burn off some energy. However, it seems we always return to the indoors because his hands are too cold.
Dealing with cold baby hands has been a problem for over a year now. (See a previous blog on the subject of buying mittens for infants)
We now have:
1. infant mittens that are insulated but too small and don't stay on
2. columbia mittens that are a little bigger but not well insulated
3. gloves for older kids that are way too big and also not insulated
4. socks, which stay on great but still get the hands wet
The current solution, if we want to stay outside longer than 15 minutes, is to take several pairs of socks, and maybe some mittens too, and every time they fall off or get wet, swap them out for a new pair. This means more laundry, because now you're out of socks for the poor kid.
So, here's a million dollar idea: INVENT GLOVES FOR TODDLERS THAT STAY ON AND DON'T GET WET. It really can't be that hard. I'd do it myself, but I'm busy working, being a mom and blogging.
On a side note, my 1 1/2 year old is big for his age. In addition to that, his hands are enormous for his age. So a pair of gloves that fit a 3 year old would probably fit him. Which means these gloves don't exist for 3 year olds either. And 3 year old should definately be out playing in the snow!