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It’s the end of the month and it’s time to make it known how I did on my 30 day New Year’s Resolution.  As you can tell by the title, I had mixed success.  I’m happy to report that I went an entire month without caffeine or ice cream!  I really had my doubts that I’d last a month without ice cream.  I went three weeks without sugar but ended up eating food that had sugar in it (you’d be surprised how many foods have sugar in them that you would never think did) and then gave in to the organic hot cocoa that The Daddy got from one of his students as part of a Christmas gift.  I only lasted two weeks without a glass of wine.  I know I said I was gonna jump back on the band wagon and go the rest of the time without but the wagon sped off so I ended up having a glass or two a week the last two weeks.  Still, not bad. 

To celebrate this morning I started my day with a large cup of coffee that kept me buzzing until noon (and I start my day early!)  And to end the day, I just finished a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.  Ahhhh…contentment.

But I think I’m gonna continue this because I do feel better.  Not that I’m not occasionally going to have a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, or a bit of ice cream (okay that really should have read a vat of ice cream!) but I’m not going to make it a daily habit.  Famous last words?  Naw, I don’t think so.  The resolution fit it’s purpose.  I needed to break some habits and I did.  Yay me!

While I’ve been on the “carcinogens in personal care products” kick the past couple of weeks, I checked out the contents of Princess Tater Tots baby wipes and decided that I was going to use reusable baby wipes.  Instead of spend money on them, I decided to make some out of old flannel receiving blankets that we’re not using any more.  So here’s how you do it:

Cut recieving blankets into 9 inch squares (or really whatever size you’d like…I just found that 9 inch squares gave me a big enough wipe without it being too big).  If you have a serge function on your machine (I don’t), you could just leave them “one-ply” and serge the edges. Or you could make them “two-ply” by putting them wrong sides together and serging them.  Since I don’t have that, here’s what I did to make them two-ply: 1) put two pieces material right sides together, 2) sew 3 1/2 sides together (leave large enough opening on the last side to flip the square right side out), 3) flip square right side out, 4) tuck open edges under (this can be a teeny bit tricky but I got the hang of it pretty quick), 5) top stitch all the way around the square.  Voila!  Wet them and stick them in the wipe warmer and your tot has a toasty, comfy baby wipe for their bottom!  And it’s not like they have to look perfect…they’re only wiping butts!

P.S.  I am THE LAST person I ever thought would be using reusable baby wipes and I DO have a stash of disposable wipes in case there is a completely heinous poo incident that I’m averse to using reusables for.  But, on the whole, it’s a pretty easy deal!

Today there was supposed to be a park play date at 10:15.  I didn’t RSVP because every time I do, it just doesn’t work out (see last post!).  So I figured we’d just wing it and see what happened.  I put the Princess down at the usual time and she talked to herself for a while as per usual.  She fell asleep a little earlier than usual and I started to hope against hope that we might actually make it!  So, I got on the Mommy Group web site to get directions just as she is waking up.  We’re looking good!  We’ve got a half hour to get her dressed, get out the door and get there!  I quickly navigate to the calendar, click on the event to get the directions and what do I see on the right side of the page but “This event has been cancelled”!  Aw crap!  I swear I’m not meant to make new friends.  The universe is conspiring against me!  Oh well…I guess I’m doomed to be Lonely Mommy.

On an unrelated note, I have been a bit MIA because I have been completely sucked in by The Office – Season Two.  It is hilarious!  It’s not a show that I’ve seen more than a few snippets of but I got completely hooked and was laughing my arse off!  Most of my spare moments have been spent watching the episodes, blooper reel, deleted scenes…you get the picture.  It’s been a bit all-consuming.  I’ve also been checking out the cloth diapering thing and bidding on some on ebay, which has been taking up the rest of my spare time! I’ve also made my own reusable diaper wipes out of old receiving blankets. It’s super-easy!  And if you give me a stick of gum, a tampon, and a paper clip I can get you out of almost any sticky situation you might be in! Just kidding.  I’d need a pair of tube socks, too.

Yes, I am a Mommy Group Reject.  No, they have not kicked me out yet but I fully expect that I will be getting that email soon!  Not really but I swear EVERY SINGLE FLIPPIN’ TIME I plan to go to a park play date or a group play date at someone’s house or a beach walk or, oh, ANYTHING Princess Tater Tot ends up napping right through the d*mn thing!  And this Mommy is not about to wake a sleeping baby unless it’s abso-friggin-lutely necessary.  For example, if the house is on fire.  And this has been going on for MONTHS!  Sometimes it’s because she has woken up in the middle of the night and didn’t go back down for a couple of hours so her naps are slightly askew.  Other times she just takes longer naps…for no apparent reason!  So now I know how to get her to take longer naps, at least.  All I have to do is plan to go to a Mommies Group event and voila!  I’ll have some extra time to myself!  Unfortunately, I’d really like to meet some more mothers with babies around The Tot’s age.  I guess I’m going to have to host a play date so I’ll already be there!  She can nap all she wants while The Mommy socializes!

Why go spend a fortune on developmental toys for Princess Tater Tot when bags, lids, boxes and the phone will do?  Not only is she more interested in these items than the expensive toys, but they work just as well. 

The phone teaches cause and effect (if I press this button, the phone beeps…or someone picks it up and starts talking to me without Mommy dialing) as well as communication skills (talking with The Grandma is a favorite).  I really hope that our next phone bill doesn’t have calls to China or some other far away place.  I did wrestle the phone back from her once and the little timer thingie was counting so she called somebody.  We’ll have to see who it was when we get the phone bill!

Bags allow her to explore wonderful crinkly sounds and textures.  Especially when they are full of stuff to go to the local thrift store.  Nice and cushy to hit and fall on!

Boxes are oh so much fun to crawl in and out of.  And they have great flaps to move up and down and up and down and up and down.  Oh!  And they slide really great on the carpet too!  So she can push them all over the house and back. 

Lids are fun because you can bang them on the tile or other toys and they make great big noises!  Why play with the fancy Leap Frog Bake-A-Shape shape sorter when you can rip the door off and chew/bang/slide it?  Seriously now, what fun is playing with the toy in a conventional way when you can be creative?

So I heard this report on National Public Radio the other day in passing on the way home from somewhere and it got me thinking and looking into the known carcinogens that are in every day cosmetics.  It’s scary!  And the FDA doesn’t regulate this stuff.  Nobody does.  Apparently there’s an industry committee that looks into some ingredients but there are many, many ingredients that aren’t tested and the effects of them are unknown on humans.  Or they’re known carcinogens that the industry has said are not harmful if absorbed through the skin.  It has since been found that they can be many times more harmful if absorbed through the skin.  The ones that caught my eye in particular are the “parabens” (methylparaben, propylparaben and others…anything with a “paraben” after it!) that act like estrogen in your body, increasing the growth of abnormal cells and, in particular, cancer cells.  Parabens have been found in breast cancer tumors and apparently the fatty tissue in breasts hangs on to it pretty good!  Parabens are also endocrine disruptors and, since I am hypothyroid, I don’t need any extra endocrine disruption, thank you very much!  Parabens are in shampoos, lotions, eye cream, foundation, eye shadow, facial powder.  Basically everything that I use!  So, I’m tossin’ everything out and finding new products without parabens.  And there are lots more chemicals that are harmful in our cosmetics…I just don’t have the energy to list them here!  Hey, maybe if I didn’t use products with those harmful chemicals in them, I’d have the energy!  Ha!  Here is a link , although it’s a couple of years old, it is pretty thorough and I used it as a starting point to learn about the different chemicals in cosmetics and some “alternative” companies that don’t use them.  It’s enough to make me want to go without makeup.  But that would be scary for everybody so I won’t subject y’all to that!  As it turns out, this is NOT the way to save money.  Apparently, it’s cheaper to put carcinogens on you!

It also got me thinking about the chemicals that Princess Tater Tot comes in contact with so I bought some different soap/shampoo and lotion for her but I haven’t decided what to do about wipes and diapers.  It’s just so hard to give up the convenience of disposables.  But, if the critics are to be believed, it’s pretty important to use reusable diapers and wipes not just for the environmental aspect but also for the health of your child.  I don’t want to be alarmist and reactionary but I worry that The Tater Tot is at risk for problems that we won’t see until later in life because of long-term exposure now.  So, my plan (at least for today) is to come up with ways to minimize the risk while not increasing the drama/inconvenience factor too much.  Things like start using washable cloth wipes for urine only diapers, trying cloth during the day but using one disposable for night time…things like that to decrease her exposure and to see if I can handle it!  I just don’t want it to feel like a villain if I can’t go all-natural all-the-time. But at the same time, my main concern is that my daughter is healthy.  So, I’ll do the best that I can.  What more can a Mommy do?

Today I finally got around to washing the sad, dejected looking cover of the rocking horse Princess Tater Tot inherited from her cousins.  It’s actually a Rocking Zebra with a great detachable cover that can be washed if you tie it into a pillow case.  Well, this Mommy has been too lazy to wash the cover since we brought it home…until today!  Until today, Mr. Zebra’s head has been hangin’ pretty low.  He’s still given a valiant effort to entertaining The Tot and she does like him quite a bit.  But he always looked a bit depressed.  So I got off my Mommy Butt and stuck that sucker in a pillow case.  Voila!  Happy Zebra!  No more dingy coat and lack luster tail!  And best of all, he held his head high.  I guess he just needed his head fluffed.  Maybe that’s what The Mommy needs, too…

Still on the wagon with the no sugar, caffeine or alcohol (minus the one glass of wine last Friday).  Of course I got a little crazy with the french fries when The Grandma took us out to lunch today but I gotta have some fun!

I’d really like to pinpoint the exact moment when “slather” and “spackle” became words that could adequately describe what I do in the morning to get my face ready for the day.  Not that it would change anything.  It would just be a small comfort to know when things changed.  Aw, who am I kidding?!  It wouldn’t make a bit of difference!  It just sounds better than “WHEN THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN AND HOW DO I GET RID OF IT?!”

“What in the heck do you “slather” and “spackle” on your face?” you ask.  Well, The Mommy’s routine is really quite simple.  1) Wash face with gentle, don’t-aggravate-the-adult-onset-make-me-feel-like-a-freakin-teenager-in-a-bad-way-acne soap 2) Slather with anti-aging, skin firming day/night/whenever cream and 3) Spackle with foundation, trying not to accentuate wrinkles that said anti-aging, skin firming cream is supposed to be erasing! The rest is pretty standard: eyeliner, mascara, deoderant, clothes.  But I’ll tell you, I am getting mighty tired of slathering and spackling.  And I don’t even wear that much make up!  There are days when, I swear, if I wouldn’t scare the public, I’d go without any make up at all.  But, if ya’ saw me without, you’d agree that’s not an option.  So I spackle.  It doesn’t help that the Princess woke up at 3:30 am and wouldn’t go back down until 5:00 and only sleeping on me in the recliner.  Luckily she doesn’t do that very often…

Today The Daddy had the day off for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so we decided to go to the park.  When we got there we made a bee line for the baby swings since the park was crowded and one had just opened up.  On our way there I see the following heinous interaction:

A lady and little girl start swinging a jump rope that is two jump ropes tied together.  Apparently they were tied too loosely because they came apart and the handle on one end whacks the head of a boy standing nearby.  Hard.  I’d say he was about 7 or 8 years old.  Maybe older.  We hear the beginnings of the wail that was about to come when I see the lady drop the jump rope like it was a hot potato, say “No more double jump rope” and walk a short distance to the swings to start a conversation with another mother.  No “Oh my God, is he okay?  I’m so sorry.”  Not even an acknowledgement that it happened!  I couldn’t tell if these women knew each other although their stuff was sitting fairly close together like they may.  Either way…Good Lord!  What the hell was she thinking? How rude was that to just walk away like nothing happened?  And what was she teaching the other kids on the playground?  That just because it was an accident and it was pretty obvious the kid wasn’t going to have to go to the hospital, that it’s okay to just walk away and not acknowledge that you WHACKED HIM ON THE HEAD!  The mother was crouched down rubbing the poor kid’s head and, I think, glaring at the woman for about 5 minutes.  I know I stared at her for a while just out of sheer incredulity!  I couldn’t look away.  It was odd, though because the mother didn’t say anything to the woman.  I can’t imagine why she wasn’t all up in that woman’s grill!  Kind of weird and disturbing how she just turned away and went on about her business after bonking this poor kid on the head…

So we kept our distance from Dangerous Mommy, pushed Princess Tater Tot on the swings and went down a slide or two but decided that walking was our best bet today.  It was just too crowded and loud.  So we took a nice walk around the park and went home to take a nap.  My exciting Mommy Life. 

Tip #1–Dishwasher unloading

I HATE unloading the dishwasher.  With the fire of a thousand suns.  Almost more than I hate cleaning the bathrooms.  The other day I heard a tip to make it go a little faster and easier: group all like utensils together (forks together, knives together, etc) and put them head down in the basket.  That way, when you go to unload you just have to grab the group of handles, pull ‘em out and stick ‘em in the drawer!

Tip #2–Putting pants on a squirmy baby

I came up with this one out of necessity.  You all may have already figured this one out but I thought I’d share it anyway!  When Princess Tater Tot is particularly squirmy I will put one leg of her pants on, run my arm up through the bottom of the other pant leg and out the waistband, grab her little foot and pull it through.  Voila!  Legs in pants!  Any tips on getting diapers or tops on squirmy babies would be greatly appreciated…

Tip #3–Keeping the bathroom from molding over

I got this one from the Flylady.  This one is so that you don’t have to kill yourself cleaning the bathroom from head to toe one weekend a month (or a year if you hate cleaning it as much as I do!).  Instead, you swipe your mirrors, counters and faucets after you finish getting ready for the day and swish your toilet brush around the toilet bowl to get rid of any scummies collecting there.  It really helps and it only takes a minute!  Another Flylady tip is that vinegar sprayed on soap scum will eat it right up!

Feel free to share your own tips…