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altarflameI am tired of the world being built only for families of 1-(MAYBE)3 children.
Something that irritates me to NO END is the ridiculous maximum occupancy laws this county has...for instance, did you know that we would not legally be allowed to move into a 3 bedroom apartment in Dade County, with 4 kids? A couple of years ago we looked into it. Five people is the maximum for a 3 bedroom apartment. That's not even two per bedroom, and it made no difference to them that I was talking about a bunch of tiny children. We've been living, all 7 of us, in two bedrooms here. We sleep with Jake and Elise, which would have been the case regardless of how much space we had, and then Ananda and Aaron are in bunk beds with Isaac in a toddler bed, in the other room. The idea that it might be ILLEGAL is beyond ridiculous to me. Especially when we have a big living room, an office, a kitchen, a big dining room, this computer area, front porch, back patio, yards, the bathroom, the laundry room is even big - I mean there is a ton of central living area here and I often spend a couple of minutes finding someone! I really think it's just that the world is no longer accustomed to what was common place a generation ago - really, I doubt our grandparents all had 8 bedroom houses for their six kids, you know?
Registration forms for a zoo membership or AWANA or birthdays at the ice cream parlor on your discount card or ANY-DAMN-THING, have 2-3 lines for kids' names. The family forms for nurseries at churches don't even have enough space. Dental insurance apps for Grant's jobs don't have enough room for "all of us".
You can buy tshirts with customized people on them - up to five, including parents!
You can buy new age wood carvings of families - with one or two kids in them.
Nobody at any of the dealerships we've been looking at knows anything about conversion vans, which after all have to be converted because nobody just MANUFACTURES passenger vans to seat 9 or more people.
Stores and companies routinely give away "Family Vacations" good for four people.
I am over it.
You know what I love? I love it when we're at BJ's shopping and they have double-wide carts that have attached bench seating, such that FOUR kids can be in it at once strapped in, being pushed along.
Also, www.litteearthangels.com - which is a Christian, hippie, natural living, attachment parenting website with great service - has shirts that say "I am one of many blessings" and it shows abstract figures - two big ones with their arms around a circle of five small ones.
Oh oh - I told you about the Gymboree order. You must want to see pictures of everything I've ordered for Elise, right? I mean...baby girl clothes, come on, who can resist?
Patchwork apron dress made by single sahm on ebay(modeled on her daughter):
One other ebay thing:
From Tiny Birds Organics:
This adorable dress!!!
And one of these dress tops,
But in the purple flowered fabric option.
Cotton Overalls.
The pink one.
pajamas
Also, longies from llamajama:
I love making her longies, but she's currently outgrown all the homemade ones and I have a ton of projects going on at once, yarn-wise - I'm working on a tote bag for my sister, and have grand plans for lots of kid sweaters at Christmastime that I'll need to work on all year until then. And a dress idea for Elise that will take me forever in thin cotton yarn. It just isn't practical to take on right now, she'll be potty trained before I'm done.
She's also getting these squeaky sandals, which I think she will find hilarious - I can already picture it:
And some more of this, which I sorely miss from Isaac and Jake's babyhoods but have not been able to foot the bill for more of since the last bottle broke:
AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaand 6 more of these, to round out my stash of fuzzi bunz and go under those beautiful longies:
Brand new Under the Nile diapers are the softest thing EVER. All the ones we have here already - the ones we HAVEN'T thrown away - are full of holes with the elastic shot and the velcro no longer attached - not even fit to give away. But, they were used for Isaac, Jake and Elise, so I still think they are pretty good quality. Especially for the money, and how absorbent they are.
Something that irritates me to NO END is the ridiculous maximum occupancy laws this county has...for instance, did you know that we would not legally be allowed to move into a 3 bedroom apartment in Dade County, with 4 kids? A couple of years ago we looked into it. Five people is the maximum for a 3 bedroom apartment. That's not even two per bedroom, and it made no difference to them that I was talking about a bunch of tiny children. We've been living, all 7 of us, in two bedrooms here. We sleep with Jake and Elise, which would have been the case regardless of how much space we had, and then Ananda and Aaron are in bunk beds with Isaac in a toddler bed, in the other room. The idea that it might be ILLEGAL is beyond ridiculous to me. Especially when we have a big living room, an office, a kitchen, a big dining room, this computer area, front porch, back patio, yards, the bathroom, the laundry room is even big - I mean there is a ton of central living area here and I often spend a couple of minutes finding someone! I really think it's just that the world is no longer accustomed to what was common place a generation ago - really, I doubt our grandparents all had 8 bedroom houses for their six kids, you know?
Registration forms for a zoo membership or AWANA or birthdays at the ice cream parlor on your discount card or ANY-DAMN-THING, have 2-3 lines for kids' names. The family forms for nurseries at churches don't even have enough space. Dental insurance apps for Grant's jobs don't have enough room for "all of us".
You can buy tshirts with customized people on them - up to five, including parents!
You can buy new age wood carvings of families - with one or two kids in them.
Nobody at any of the dealerships we've been looking at knows anything about conversion vans, which after all have to be converted because nobody just MANUFACTURES passenger vans to seat 9 or more people.
Stores and companies routinely give away "Family Vacations" good for four people.
I am over it.
You know what I love? I love it when we're at BJ's shopping and they have double-wide carts that have attached bench seating, such that FOUR kids can be in it at once strapped in, being pushed along.
Also, www.litteearthangels.com - which is a Christian, hippie, natural living, attachment parenting website with great service - has shirts that say "I am one of many blessings" and it shows abstract figures - two big ones with their arms around a circle of five small ones.
Oh oh - I told you about the Gymboree order. You must want to see pictures of everything I've ordered for Elise, right? I mean...baby girl clothes, come on, who can resist?
Patchwork apron dress made by single sahm on ebay(modeled on her daughter):
One other ebay thing:
From Tiny Birds Organics:
This adorable dress!!!
And one of these dress tops,
But in the purple flowered fabric option.
Cotton Overalls.
The pink one.
pajamas
Also, longies from llamajama:
I love making her longies, but she's currently outgrown all the homemade ones and I have a ton of projects going on at once, yarn-wise - I'm working on a tote bag for my sister, and have grand plans for lots of kid sweaters at Christmastime that I'll need to work on all year until then. And a dress idea for Elise that will take me forever in thin cotton yarn. It just isn't practical to take on right now, she'll be potty trained before I'm done.
She's also getting these squeaky sandals, which I think she will find hilarious - I can already picture it:
And some more of this, which I sorely miss from Isaac and Jake's babyhoods but have not been able to foot the bill for more of since the last bottle broke:
AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaand 6 more of these, to round out my stash of fuzzi bunz and go under those beautiful longies:
Brand new Under the Nile diapers are the softest thing EVER. All the ones we have here already - the ones we HAVEN'T thrown away - are full of holes with the elastic shot and the velcro no longer attached - not even fit to give away. But, they were used for Isaac, Jake and Elise, so I still think they are pretty good quality. Especially for the money, and how absorbent they are.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 07:41 pm (UTC)I was really lucky and got about 40 prefolds from another woman on Freecycle. Those were more than enough for the basic diapers... I think I probably could have gotten by with 30, no problem, washing every other day. For the first two months or so, though, he was too small for them, so we used some of the thin cotton diapers that are sold more widely in mainstream stores. I honestly don't know the brand, but they are one big sheet of thin cotton that you fold up.
I have used the same four snappies for two years--they hold up really well! One did get lost, though, and another was eaten by one of our dogs. (!!)
For covers, I have made do with 5 of each size of Bummis Whisper Wraps. I tried the fancier Imse Vimse covers for one size, the ones with the extra moisture band in the leg, and while they were much nicer in the first three months, they did not hold up nearly as well to washing, and the waterproofing started to fail pretty badly early on. The Bummis did much better, and only the ones that he was in for over a year started to leak.
While 5 covers was possible to work with, if I'd had the money I would definitely have gotten at least 8. Babies get the runs a lot. Enough said. ;-) There were plenty of times I had to do a wash load well before the pail filled up. And sometimes it would sneak up on me and I wouldn't have enough covers.
Oh, and for a diaper pail, I just used a five-gallon plastic bucket with a lid, no water. I'd soak the diapers in cold water (in the washer) for 20 min before washing, then do a hot load with a 1/4 of the recommended laundry soap for the size of load, since diapers lose their absorbency with too much detergent. I have gotten by with line-drying (we don't have a dryer).
I'd be interested to see what other people say, though, since I have very little experience with other brands, since we didn't have the money for trial and error. I was very determined to cloth diaper, and wouldn't have done differently, but every time I see how much disposables cost in the store I get a chance to feel thankful that we didn't have to go that route!