my four year old is me.... this is what my parents threatened me with

• They are all laughing at me.... My parents, probably my sisters basically anyone who knew me as a child.
  
  
  My middle daughter is terrible, she's adorable i will give you that and her voice is not as gratting as mine was im sure but she is basically me as a child.
  
  
  
  As a child I was horrid. I was super loving, but I was a tyrant. Rebelled against any order. Apparently my voice could be heard within a twelve mile radius when i was upset. I did destructive things all the time especially if my parents told me not too. here i will list a few examples so you can get an idea of how terrible i was:
  
  As a child 6 and under
  
  
• I would peel the wall paper off my walls on purpose immediately after told and threatened not too.


• I would wake up and pee the bed, gross i know but as a child i didnt seem to mind lying in my own urine.
  
• to get back at my parents during time outs, i would climb under my bed and have a nice little pee.
  
• I hit, screamed, and tortured anyone in my way


• And i chronically whined.... And i would persistently ask for what I wanted.... Im sure this was the worst

Now there was much more terrible things I did but I thought this list would give you an example of just what my parents had to put up with. Basically as a child if you crossed me i punished you. my favorite weapon just happened to be pee.

So as a child and more so as an adolescent my parents would joke wth me and tell others basically what goes around comes around and I would get what i gave.


So when I had my first daughter and she was an angel. Even at six when she comes home with the super terrible i know everything six year old attitude she is not hard to get through too. When i give her a consequence she just pouts.

I had thought my parents were wrong though. My first daughter was an angel and my second baby smiled all the time.

Even at 9 months when my quiet smiling baby started yelling at me i didnt see the resembalance to me. Because from 18 months to two and half she went back to being sweet and kind and loving. Slowly though i see me in her and I fear for my sanity.

For example they coloured on my walls. I mean they coloured murals on like eight walls. Im going to figure out how to add pictures and give you all a laugh!

I made them wash them off. I was terribly stern I was a terribly mean mommy. Bria seemed to learn her lesson. She has coloured on the walls since but she has kept them small and hidden.... Mia punished me almost immediately for the wall incident and my harshness. She coloured my brand new chaise with marker....

Now when I say she is me.... its her reasoning skills and negotiating persistence that reminds me of me. It is exhausting. And funny. when she is naughty and she often is, she says things that I remember saying and I can see her train of thought like it is my own. The fact that she is so like me makes parenting her impossible... well almost. I cannot keep a straight face in the midst of one her episodes.

Panic Often sets in when i look at my gorgeous clever trouble maker and i think of my life as a teen..... and this is what my parents threatened me with.....

My House Smells like vomit

There is not a clean room in my house. uhg I can't stand it. and so what am i doing.... escaping to my computer lying to my husband saying i have to work.

This is not work..... well i guess sort of is, I make diapers for a living and this chronicles my diaper life.

I have just put a load of diapers in the wash and i only did that because I had to.

My Baby has being so sick. I mean sick ! She is six months old and i have never had a sick baby before. She started teething on tuesday night so that was a pretty sleepless night.... then she got sick on weds. nite. And when I say sick I mean "is it possible for that much stuff to come out of a little baby" kind of sick. More then once she covered me from head to toe in baby upchuck. we didnt sleep on wensday either..... On thursday she vomited so much she obstructed her airway. I took her to the hospital. the nurses helpline was going to make me call 911 but seriously i live closer then the ambulance.....well sort of. We didnt sleep on thusday nite either....... friday I was a zombie. my house smelled rancid.

I was drunk on exhaustion. we ate pizza. I hadn't being eating because i was to tired to make something. Pizza was good. we left all our dishes on the table. we left our clothes on the floor, toys were everywhere.

I went to bed early friday night. I expected the exhaustion drunkedness to let me fall asleep right away..... Oh my god...... I cant eefing sleep..... the baby is asleep, dennis is asleep, the girls are asleep and i cant sleep. I tried counting sheep. Yeah i did. I know its from a mattress commercial or whatever but i tried anyways.....I'm still not asleep. I look at the clock its just about 12:00 and all i can think about is trying to force myself to sleep. who knows how long i have..... before " she" starts again.

Yup I just referred to my precious gorgeous baby girl as "she". I havent slept. Im blaming my poor baby..... you try three days with no sleep and tell me how you handle it! I sleep.

baby wakes up at 3:45 whine crying.... I ignore.... dennis doesn't... God i love him! at 4:30 she is still whine crying. dennis and me are both up now.... nothing is working... 5:00 still whine crying.... dennis says " oh god just go to sleep" I say "I'm Trying" He laughs.

I decide to give "the brain damage giving, everyone gets bad emails about the danger of numbing the toungue and choking to death, poison BABY ORALGEL " and for those of you who are against it I did my own home studies and not once did my toungue go so numb I choked on it.... I also give her some tylenol.

By six she is sleeping and by six oh one I am too. I sleep and so does den till 9:30 our older girls have being up eating wagon wheels for a couple hours.

When she wakes at ten I drag my lazy butt out of bed. I pick her up and have a snuggle. Even when she is sleep sweaty, puke covered, and a full cloth diaper full of pee , she smell precious and perfect. Im nuzzling her when i see something coming out of her ear. I look and it is full on infected I can see puss (god that word is gross) coming out of her ear. Great I was suppose to bring her to the emergency today and now im going to have to.

Now let me tell you I was not looking forward to a saturday visit to the emergency department. The wait is terrible.... always like fifteen or more people waiting to see a doctor and i was going to have to hold my baby on my lap so random germ infested people wouldn't feel the need to touch her hands and her face. I am prepared I put on my moby wrap and swaddle my baby put her in facing me the only visible part of her is her face and people wont touch her when her face is so close to me.

Now dont get me wrong... Im not a germa phobe anymore.... but the hospital is a breeding ground for mrsa and staph bacterias not to mention people who go there arent there because they r healthy.

I go in baby is quiet crying she is taking it all in. Quietly letting people assess her. They send us out into the waiting room to wait.... not a priority. I sit with her and after a minute she is use to the waiting room she starts to whine cry. Someone stops and says how cute she is and touches her face..gross. Then after a minute of whinecrying she starts to really cry.... The people in the waiting room look at me with a mixture of pity and am I really going to have to listen to this for the next two hours.

Here comes the nurse. he says " can reg and aaaah tinsley follow me."

I think what we just got here. OH well they put me in the kid room. Baby keeps crying. I try to calm her I try to make her laugh. But all I get is a laugh cry and it sounds kind of creepy so I hold her and let her cry. I hear the doctor, he says" no no I will see them after" I will take care of the babe first"

What really.... it's a full house in the er... I just saw the ambulance bring in someone I saw three beds full at least and someone in the cast room and I get to see the doctor first..... Baby is still wailing. Doctor says to me " i will just wash my hands and we will see what we can do for you baby"

He comes in and listens to her chest. She screams the entire time. I tell him about the puss ( the word just grosses me out) he has a look and says "wow I cant even see her drum she is really infected." Hands me a prescription gives her some motrin and i am on my way out... As Im thanking the doctor tinsley falls asleep so quickly we both look down. She is so peaceful. So sweet. Had she being doing this ten minutes ago i would still be waiting in the waiting room instead im joyfully leaving. Woohoo thank you tinsley for being unbareable!!!!!

She sleeps I sleep.

Now it is monday one full day from the last time she was ill. My house is still a disaster. It is gross. I should be doing something but im not. Im on my computer, d- virusing the kids computer while siting with mine on my lap pretending to work hoping my husband will wash the floors.....

no Farm for this gal

of course i didn't actually have the guts to ask dennis for a sheep. This is not my first time down the barnyard pet road. and let me tell you no one is ever on my side.... well amanda usually is.



About a year or so ago I was positive I needed a cow. seriously I needed a cow. when I say I like to do things myself i'm talking everything.. the cow started actually with amanda telling me I should read the little house on the prairie books. yeah sounds juvenile i know but man are they interesting. Well during the story it descrbes how "ma" makes cheese, get this....gag.. with the stomach of a milk fed calf. I had never thought of cheese being a home made thing before. Sooo I totally got into looking up how to make cheese and where to get supplies from and get this I ordered special plant based enzymes for curding up the cheese. Yay not killing baby cows at this house! So I can hardly wait to make some cheese as soon as my stuff arrives I get down to making some mozzarella.



mmmmm. It is good. wow and easy. So I make a few more bathches. mozza is easy its a fresh cheese ... no aging. But around my forth batch something goes wrong my curds look like crappy tiny flakes of feta. and it wont melt to mozzarella. a waste. my next batch same thing.



Of course i go to my trusty computer and find out its the over sterilation of the milk companies messing with my curd. Well I cant just call up island farms and tell them to turn it down a notch so i put a facebook call out for anybody with some home pasterized milk. haha what a joke.. im the most granola out of anyone i know..... I would be the one to have a cow and milk it. Yeah I should have a cow and milk it. What a great idea. I mean Dennis is always talking about getting acrerage. Why have land if your not going to use it. So i run it by my trusty always on board hubby.. he says great idea.

woohoo butter time!

then he says " don't cows make the most milk in summer." "yeah" i say. "well we're never home in the summer"

hmmm he is right. were chronic summertime vacationers. may to sept im not around. but i mean im talking a glorious farm with chickens cows ponds and whatever else you put on a hobby farm, oh yeah and a duck definetly want a duck. who needs to vacation when you have a wicked farm. plus the farms im looking at cost a pretty penny so we totally wont have money to vacation, or buy cheese. so it will be a good thing that i can make my own!!!

so now in the present time, months later I dont live on a farm.. no cow no chickens no pond no flipping duck. As it turns out i kind of like having a bit of cash and it was a high price to pay to make a little cheese at home...

so not to put me through the whole excitement of getting a farm to the reality that it just wont happen I put the sheep out of my head pretty quickly... besides im a crappy knitter!

can i have a sheep dennis

So in the 50's wool "longies" or shorties" were soakers. pants shorts or diaper wraps to cover your babies cloth diapers. well now is the new age of wool. apparently wool is the all time bulletproof diaper cover.

Now those of you who know me know im totally into making my own stuff. Im not about to spen fifty dollars on a diaper cover.

So i research wool..... wikihow is amazing...how-to is not bad.... its dinner time my kids r hungry and im glued to the computer screen figuring out ways to make wool diaper covers. den says the kids r hungry and i say make some kd. I hear bria say not again no i dont want kraft dinner. You know you've being serving to much KD when a six year old refuses!!!

I get up ...reluctantly... and scan my cupboard and freezers. poor dennis he is craving red meat and i 've being serving chicken for a week. I decide i could make bacon mushroom carbonara and a apple fig salad and be back to the computer in no time.... I admit it I have a Problem.

Sitting down for dinner... rule at my house we always sit together for dinner.... this rule is so fricking lame i could be researching the best way to use recycled material to make diaper covers instead im watching my six year old make lettuce wraps with carbonara. gag.

I shovel food down super fast. Im done, when your done you can leave the table. aaaaahhhh back at my computer..... all the imformation i could possibly need with a few strokes of my fingertips.

So research tells me how to make wool longies out of old sweaters...... I have ridiculous size closet... ive worked in a clothing store for ten years I ve actually made my husband convert a bedroom into a walk in closet. So of course i must have some old wool sweaters buried in there. I start going through the labels.... can you believe it the only sweater i have that has any wool in it is a vest and its only 13 percent. i have litterally spent thousands of dollars on clothes made out of viscose and acrylic..... I should read labels when i buy more often.

haha an idea strikes me.... the hospital auxillary....our towns version of a thrift store. Of course i can find old wool sweaters there. It will be rich resource for my diaper needs! So i have the great idea of going with three kids in tow. when i say great idea i mean the total opposite. the store is full of crabby people searching for bargains... who knew this place was such a happening place. I go to a rack of womans sweaters.... nothing... nothing...100 % cashmere wool... hmm pink... im gonna try....nothin nothing nothing nothin....HOLY I seriously can't believe i cant find one lambs wool sweater. this blows.... mens section ... not even a sweater section... well thats fine i want girly things anyways.... plus size oooh whats this yup its a totally ugly boiled lambs wool swearter. i dont care im gonna make it work. i bring my two pitiful finds up to the casheer she says fifteen dollars. HUh fifteen dollars for two used sweaters. I dont say this out loud but i think it.. i also think crap i have to cut sew and make mistakes 30 more dollars i could have had someone make them for me.


I make them and they blow. uber ugly. oh well... time and money not well wasted.

So im at the fall fair. lots of cute things. but this one station really catches my eyes three ladies... sheep skins, bags of dirty wool, those spinning machines ,"like from sleeping beauty", ladies knitting. I can knit. i've knitted before not well but i'd get better.

Now this is how my brain works.

I dont think of buying the wool already spun. I dont think about buying the unspun wool. i think i should buy a sheep. harvest my own wool... ive done it on farmville...looked easy enough to me. spin it dye it and knit it into soaker. of course i can do this... now one problem occurs to me.

how do i ask my husband..."can i have a sheep dennis"

want to cloth diaper your newborn..

So Some times i feel like i should help let a mom cheat.... I make diapers. It's my buisness. its how i make moula to feed my brood. but you need money too. lots of moms want to cloth their baby right from birth.... and this is a good choice. the earth loves you for it! But Lots of those moms waste they're money and a lot of time doing laundry. A newborn will go #2 like every five minutes..... so if you have some fancy all in ones or pockets designed for newborn you will need twelve to get you through the day. And thats expensive and a lot of laundry. by the time your babe is two months he or she will have chunked up enough to fit in a size medium.... or one of my BUMBAROO diapers 10lbs. to potty time dipes. Most medium dipes will be good till 18 months, if not longer. Thats when to invest your moula in a fancy diaper.

The solution is to buy two small covers. and stuff them.... I cheat at this too.

You know you've being there. you change your precious babes bum and seconds after you're done they let out a little wet fart..... it's not much but if you leave it they're your babe will probably rash, you change them its one more sposie or cloth dipe to take care of. so this is how i cheat.... I fold a 12X10 peice of flannel in three, this absorbs moisture, over that i put three layers of fleece. measurement is like 4 " X 10" . When the little one does the squirt thing you just remove one layer of fleece, which i usually use to clean them up with. This method will cut your full dipe changes to like 4 - five a day. the covers can be quickly washed and dried if needed and a whole day of changes adds up to about the same size as one all- in one diaper..... and three days of material also adds up to the cost of an all in one!


My babe is about 6 months now but i have to admit i always use this method in the morning... I will put a clean all-in-two on her but i also put a layer of fleece because it never fails she always goes about 15 minutes after her first change of the day!!!!!

Crayons on My Dipes

I hate crayons!!!!!

I mean I hate them! and at this point i hate Crayola who has the audacity to claim they r washable.

Ten diapers aswell as baby blankets and these amazing sheets that i have definetly paid tooo much money for are covered in turquoise and fushia crayons. My dryer is coated.

This is the second day of being pissed off. Usually i dont last that long but it is not @#$%ing washable.

When i take them out and sit on the kitchen floor and tell my 6 and four year to gather all the crayons in the house and put them in the garbage. My six year is shocked.... why would her art loving mom who hangs all her gorgeous pictures of the same three princess on her bedroom wall, command with such authority to get those horrible crayons out of my house.

I calmly explain that for the second time crayons have made it into the dryer and destroyed things... "B" says (thats my six year olds nick name. " can I see"

I show her and she asks "whats the prob mom" she says they look great and theyre you're favorite colours. SHe says I always use them all the time to make your pictures.... In my head im thinking that little brat just confessed to being the irresponsible crayon holder. Im terrible. Im super terrible. Im holding my six year old responsible for my laundry mishaps. I feel like shouting in my frustrations... the sheet cost 90 dollars... its not a gorgeous soft feeling green its a meely of crayon colour turq, fushia, and what ever those two colours make when they are mixed together!!!!!!!!!

Deep breathe. maybe a few more....what time is it? 11:15.... I should be making lunch but instead im torturing my kids by making them throw out the crayons themselves... I take pity on them or maybe on myself 'the whining is terrible'. "go away mommy will do it and i will get you pencil crayons they make better pictures anyways"

I saw on martha stewart an iron and a paper towel will get it out. I grab a diaper and start. I place the iron down and pull it up "yes" the paper towel has colour on it!!! this is working!!! I look at the dipe itself it doesnt look different.... just more of this ironing will do the trick......( this is where i decide im crazy) I have completely ignored my over priced sheet to fix something that gets crapped in!
If you were wondering it doesnt matter if you iron the dipe for a half an hour the dipe stays stained and you get a colourful useless papertowel. Thats a half an hour i will never get back!!!!

My next idea is to boil the wax out..... i put a few dipes in a big pot of water and boil them. to waste time while this is happening i decide to go to the dryer and clean it..... Its hard.... I turn on the dryer to loosen the horrible wax. I get some off this way... but not enough to put anything in there safely..... I try good old baking soda. nope it doesnt work.... Oh my god im going to have to use the horrible magic eraser " you know the one im talking about.... you've probably gotten the emails telling you that it will burn your skin to the bones or kill your dog " yup Im gonna need that kind of cleaner on the dryer.....I get it out glove free.... im living on the wild side and scrub.... with very little results.... stupid horrible crayons and magic eraser!! Magic nothing!!!

I hate mr. clean now too.

The boiling doesnt work!!!!

Am I Moving Backwards

Im a serious cloth diaperer now..... But i have found a sposie diaper that doesn't burn my babes butt. They're brown and chlorine free and if we only use one and then cloth she is fine. I had to buy them because we were going camping in the rain and the possibility of me running out of clean dry diapers was to great to risk.

My husband is loving the ease of disposables.... im not sure why. i feel like the process is about the same:

1. lay baby down
2. take dirty dipe off
3. wipe
4. put clean dipe on
5. Now here is the difference on cloth you walk to one of the two pails i have and slip the dipe in to be washed .... or you take the dipe off and go to the garbage.

what i feel is the benefit of cloth is we can go weeks if not longer with out going to the dump. Also we never have to clean up dirty diapers off the lawn that the neigbors dog has torn apart eaten and regurgitated....yup its gross.

cloth we have to do laundry... we have to! this is good for me because i hate laundry this makes sure at least some things in our house get clean.

But am i getting to into cloth diapering...I started off with a two peice cloth diaper system. the diaper then the cover.... then i went for the cadilac all in one.... then i went to the all in two which is like an all in one but you stuff it with a soaker and they dry super fast. Now these are all amazingdiapers but now im making these really cute covers and im using receiving blankies and the orgami fold with a fleece liner. this is a complicated three peice system and im loving it..... so am i moving backwards????