Day 1 of the 5th Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge - Why am I doing this?

The first time I ever folded a flat was at the young age of 10 years.  I had become an aunt, and a very willing one at that, who would do anything for my dearest nephew!  Maybe I already realised at that tender age that folding a flat perfectly can be very therapeutic, who knows?  But that was my (humble) introduction to cloth and somehow it just evolved from there that I would one day choose to use cloth with my own children.

When one of the ladies on our Facebook Page South African Cloth Nappy Users first spoke about the #flatschallenge I thought to myself "This could get interesting". I immediately read up about it and decided that I wanted to do it.  WHY?

1. Handwashing is the ultimate stain killer
Because I in any case handwash SOME of my diapers everyday (I'm a bit pedantic about stains and believe handwashing is the best stain killer!) so it would be interesting if I could keep it up for a week.

2. Sorting out contact dermatitis
My stash mostly consists of prefolds, terry squares and flannel flats, with a few nighttime solution cloth diapers, pretty pockets and AIO's thrown in for good measure.  My daugther recently started showing signs of sensitivity to several different types of cloth diapers (AND disposables), especially the elastic in the leg gussets, exposed fold-over elastic, exposed PUL, microsuede and bamboo fibers, which has now grown into a full-blown allergy with resultant contact dermatitis upon exposure.  It's at the point that we have to apply cortisone cream to get rid of the blisters on her skin where these fabrics / components gets into contact with her.  Thus this challenge could not have come at a better time.  No better way to clear up any rash than good old cotton flats!  I also had to make fleece soakers to overcome the problem of sensitivity to elastic (exposed or inside of casings) and PUL (polyurethane laminate - waterproof layer in modern cloth nappies / covers)

3. Overcoming the challenge of load shedding
This #flatschallenge would also allow me to be just a bit gentler on the planet by saving some electricity (and actually help me develop some strong arm muscles!).  If you're not living in South Africa, you possibly won't know about our load shedding problem.  We periodically have our electricity supply cut to lift the load off of the supplying power plants and generate / store more electricity for later.  This can wreak havoc if you have a BUNCH of diapers to wash! But if you're handwashing then this is no longer a problem.

4. Getting into practise for our holiday without a washing machine
We'll be going on our annual family holiday in 3 weeks' time and I won't have access to a washing machine at the holiday resort.  So this truly is a trial-run for then and to see how I cope.  Well, I actually have no other choice than to cope because my daughter is allergic to everything else.  Which means I can't take disposables on holiday to avoid diaper laundry.  But I don't mind because who doesn't like a cute big cloth bum baby?!

On Sunday night I moved out all the prefolds, replacing them with every.single.receiving blanket I own, as well as all the flats available in my house.  Included as waterproof covers are my fleece soakers and PUL covers (to go OVER the soakers as to prevent any further rash)

Snappi's, Terry Squares and Flannel Flats

Quickly drying the last of the diaper laundry to prepare for Day 1 of the #flatschallenge

Day 1 of this challenge saw me learning how to use the camper washer to save my precious hands, figuring out alternatives on effectively wringing out excess water from the flats and learning a new fold - the Jo-fold.  My husband even joined in on the fun by folding and fastening a flat onto our little girl - so proud of him!  I have also become acutely aware of just how much I use my washing machine for keeping up with diaper laundry, even though I tend to handwash a few diapers during the course of the day.  I have new-found respect for moms (and dads!) who have to make-do without a washing machine!  You ROCK!  Here follows a few pics of Day 1,

Starting the epic Camper Washer journey

And 100 plunges done = 1 wash cycle

Wringing out the flats by halfway hooking it onto the bath handle and twisting it.

The Jo-fold. SUCH and awesome fold and fit!

The Jo-fold even has a natural leg-gusset!

Daddy joining in on the folding fun!

Phew, I cannot believe I actually MADE it through my first day of the #flatschallenge.  What really kept me motivated was the fact that I had accountability partners - my Facebook Cloth Nappy User friends!  Which made me think, if I ever want to give up sugar, I should just start a challenge and get my Facebook friends to accept the challenge with me.  Accountability is KEY on Day 1!

Life returning to normal...for 3 weeks

Our third school term starts tomorrow and I'm a bag of mixed emotions.  You see, at the beginning of the second term I handed in my resignation. 

I want to be a full-time stay-at-home-mom.  This is something I never thought I would say, but hey, here I am!  And tomorrow marks the beginning of a 3 week return to school to tie all the loose ends together.  What a scary thought! My husband and I have been living on a combined income for the past 5 1/2 years!  We literally only had a single-income household for 5 months and then I started working as an OT.  So we're diving into this unknown financial abyss.  Not sure how that's going to work out for us.

However, I know that this is what I want for my child.  To have a mom that's always (well, mostly) available and to be able to organise our household so that my husband knows that when he comes home at night there'll at least be a cooked meal for dinner.  I can't promise a clean house or ironed washing whenever he needs it but at the very least I can attempt to be an emotionally and physically available mother to our child.  You see, I was privy enough to see my baby's first steps this holiday!  What a wonderful gift!  To share my baby's developmental milestones WITH her :-D

I will still be volunteering every now and again (to not completely lose my touch) but for the biggest part I'm going to discover this new world!  I'm sure there'll be days that I would want to pull my hair out at the mere sight of a house that needs tidying or dishes that have to be done.  But I hope to soon fall back into my maternity-leave routine (although my baby doesn't sleep NEARLY as much as she did back then!).

SOOOOO, because life is returning to normal tomorrow, I've:

• Packed everyone's lunches
• Packed the nappy bag
• Put out clothes for myself and my baby
• Put all my necessary paperwork for tomorrow together.

I have a HEAP of work to do when I get back to the office tomorrow, having to make sure that all my kids have the necessary treatment plans / home programmes to lessen the workload of my colleagues when I'm gone.

I'm excited and scared at the same time for what the future holds!  Only GOD knows how this will all pan out.  Thank YOU, GOD, for being in my past, present and FUTURE!

I wish all of you a wonderful third school term!

My little girl is 10 months old!!!!

Wait, I cannot believe it!!!!  Linmari is 10 months old?!?!?!?! Precious dear child of ours!

Her beautiful blue eyes continues to catch me off guard...  And those gorgeous, blonde curls!

During the past month she's

• Started to click her tongue like her uncle Gielie;
• Started waving goodbye (!!!!!)
• Started clapping her hands.
• Learnt how to (finally) climb into the shower cubicle ;-P
• Started to use "Mamma", "Pappa" and "Baba" more frequently.
• Had yet another middle ear infection.

She is a real chatterbox whom we love dearly!

That's all for now, more to follow on a day that I'm not quite so asleep in front of my laptop.

I wish you all a blessed week!

The size of a peach - 13 weeks 4 days

I am soooooo happy to announce that we FINALLY have a little one on the way!  After 18 months of trying - which means we were medically infertile.  It is beyond amazing to have seen this baby move around, wave and kick... WOW!  I am now 13 weeks 4 days along, with my expected due date being 6 August.


Spikkel at 11 weeks 4 days

  Here's an exciting thought, though - the baby is the size of a peach! About 3 inches from Crown to Rump.  So awesome!  We get to see the gynae again in 12 days' time, and we can't wait to see what our baby will look like by then.  And my husband is the best - he also becomes all emotional and overwhelmed by the thought that a part of him is growing inside of me.  He can barely wait until the baby's big enough and moving around for him to feel.  So precious!

I started feeling nauseous at 6 weeks (started with a metal-taste in my mouth), but I don't easily 'lose my food'.  That has only happened ONCE so far (apparently one should not eat eggs, mushrooms, cucumber and cheese as breakfast at 05h30 AM), and I hope to not repeat that episode.  Furthermore, I've been able to mostly control my weight gain, although I'm eating my husband into financial ruin!  Never knew I could be THIS hungry!  My clothes are now starting to sit tighter, and I am planning on making myself some maternity pants this weekend (yes, I know, then I should stop blogging now and actually just START already!).  My body has changed, but my husband has seen most of the changes, since I don't own such a thing as a full-length mirror, and most of the mornings I just check my face to make sure I've covered every square millimeter with sunblock (SPF 50+).  I was very tired initially, but now mostly go to bed early...only to be woken at 2 AM with the URGENT need to visit the loo (your kidneys, and thus bladder, work over-time!).  I've never been a fan of interrupted sleep - let's see whether this baby turns out to be a sleeper.

One of my friends gave birth to a beautiful girl this morning at 10h00 AM, and it was so special to receive multimedia text messages from her mom to keep me up to date with the process.  And suddenly I realised - that's ME in 6 months' time!  The big debate though, is whether or not to find out the gender of the baby.  My husband and I already made up our minds 2 years ago that we do not want to know the gender of our babies, because why spoil the surprise?  Some of my colleagues asked me this morning, while we were all busy gushing over the GORGEOUS new baby girl, if THIS does not make me want to find out our child's gender.  The answer?  NOPE, I LOOOOOVE SURPRISES!!!!

I am looking forward to that amazing surpirse at the end of this pregnancy, and how awesome to hear the doctor say "It's a boy / It's a girl"?!?!?  What could be more special than finding out the last part of the surprise when we also get to meet our baby for the first time? 

The other part of me also don't want my child to be stereotyped.  By this I mean the baby clothes and products one gets at one's baby shower.  As soon as there is a gender linked to the expected baby, people tend to fall into this loop of 'blue is for boys and pink is for girls'.  I prefer that if I do have a daughter she finds out a loooong time from now that such a colour as pink exists.  I think there are awesome colours out there, why limit my child to one?  Which means I'll be making (hahahahaha) baby and toddler clothes to ensure my girl / boy does not fall into the trap of pink=girl, blue=boy.  Oh, and on that - my boy should also preferably not know about the existence of pink until he's MUCH older!

Then what colour do you buy for a child clothes-wise when you don't know the gender?  All of my other favourite colours!  Avocado green, gray, beige, white, RED, orange, yellow, teal blue/green...  There is just so much more variety than blue, blue, blue, blue, pink, pink, pink, pink. And it also allowed us to be very creative whilst dreaming up our baby's nursery room.  Together with my husband, we've come up with an AWESOME colour scheme which will not only serve us well as a nursery, but also as a toddler's room and school-going child's room.

Just wanted to shout this out to the whole wide world - I AM PREGNANT!!!!!