This Yellow Brick Road

Saying Goodbye To Some I'll Nevers

In regards to parenting there are several things I've said that I'd never do, and for the most part I've stuck to them, however I've also learned that sometimes the "I'll never"'s need to go right out the window in order to preserve sanity.

One of mine was "I'll never let Corbe.n watch T.V. until he's much older". Then we went to visit his Momo (my MIL) and she was playing Yo Gabba Gabba for my nephew. Corb.en's little face lit up and he was immediately so into that show, laughing, and dancing all over the place. It made my husband and I so happy to see him so full of joy. Momo got him a Yo Gabba Gabba DVD set and now we let him watch it about once a week. I honestly don't feel bad about it, even though the characters are totally weird, because they teach some really good lessons and I've yet to see him so in to something.

My 2nd "I'll never" to go out the window was "I'll never let Corb.en use my phone for entertainment". I was too worried about the radiation and I just don't want him dependent on electronics for entertainment. Well, now we've moved and we're only an hour from family. We are lucky enough to make trips often to see them, but they aren't always pleasant drives with a toddler. I just remembered about the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Apptivity Case. It's a case that you can put your iPhone in that protects it from drool and other nastiness, prevents the home button from being pressed, and gives your child a large area to grasp and hold. We scooped one up immediately and the only thing I have to say is hello happy road-trips! I call this thing "The Lifesaver"! We downloaded episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba and on our last trip to visit family Corb.en was quiet and happy the entire drive. It was SOOOOO wonderful. I do feel a small pang of guilt, but the happiness I felt from a peaceful drive overshadows that.

Hello Friend!

Cloth Diaper Problem Solving: Hard Water & Funk

We recently moved from an area with no water problems to an area with extremely hard water. Yaaay (yes that is sarcasm). It has been such a pain with everything from dishes to our cloth diapers. We started getting stains, then a strong ammonia smell that burned your eyes when we were washing the diapers, then progressed to getting that lovely ammonia smell right after he urinated in the diapers. Woowee! His diaper pail smelled RIPE!

After taking it as long as I could, I finally wised up and decided we needed to switch to a new detergent. We were previously using bumGenius detergent and had recently tried Country Save. FYI, both worked great, but I preferred BG. Anyways, with the hard water issues we switched to Rockin' Green's Hard Rock detergent. It's specially formulated for hard water. I did the overnight soak like they recommended and immediately noticed an improvement. The stains were gone and the diapers didn't smell like ammonia as soon as he urinated. However, they would build up a really strong ammonia smell after being in the diaper pail for a day. Not cool. I did a diaper strip (I'll detail that below) and then a regular wash routine and I've been good to go ever since. Thank goodness! Cloth diaper issues can be so frustrating, but it's such an awesome feeling once you solve the problem. I'm pretty pleased! I think that doing just the overnight soak routine with the Rockin' Green would have been enough had I attempted to solve the problem earlier on. I had forgotten about the symptoms of hard water and it took me a minute to get with the program. I'm so happy to be back with good smelling diapers!

Diaper stripping- This can be done whenever you have detergent or "funk" buildup in your diapers. Here's how I do it.... Run a hot wash cycle with detergent. I then move my diaper shells to the dryer and leave just the inserts in the wash. I add 1 tbs dawn original dishwashing soap (the blue stuff) and 1/4 bleach (some people omit the bleach, but this is what works best for me) and do a regular wash cycle. I then do 4-6 rinse cycles with warm water or until suds can no longer be seen. Then I dry everything together.

I Have A Secret

Sooo.... there's a reason that I haven't really been blogging for a few weeks. It's because I have a big fat secret that I've been trying to keep in.

Can you guess what it is? Okay, I'll tell you.....I'm pregnant! The Lord blessed us just a few weeks after the miscarriage. It's been such a scary time! I'm currently 6w4d, which is 1 day away from when I started bleeding last time. Part of me was wanting to hold things in a little while longer, but since I got to see my precious baby bean with a heart beat of 120 on ultrasound today, I decided to let you guys in on my secret. I've told my immediate family, but we're going to wait a few more weeks before telling everyone else. I really appreciated all of the love and prayers we received during the miscarriage and would love if you could pray for a strong, healthy baby this time. I've been feeling really nauseated and "morning" sickness is getting worse (trying to spare you the details), so I'm taking that as a great sign! Oh and I'm due June 21st!

The ultrasound picture from today wasn't the best as you can just see a little tiny baby, but I'll post another one from my next ultrasound in 2 weeks! YAY!

True Story

This morning I was trying to distract Corbe.n while I was sneaking bites of cereal in his mouth (if it isn't fruit, eggs, toast, or yogurt in the morning he doesn't want anything to do with it)... anyways... I was distracting him so I was asked him where a tree was and he pointed out the window, I asked him where a bird was and he pointed out the window, I asked him where a hippo was and he pointed to me. HAHAHA! Thanks kiddo. I guess I set myself up for that one being that there was no hippo in sight, but it was still pretty funny.

I can't believe I haven't blogged in 2 weeks! There's just been SO much going on! A big update post is coming soon.

Growing So Fast

Every single day Corbe.n is doing something new and I feel like I need to document what he's up to, so I never forget how amazing this age is. I'm sure I'll have to come back and add in the things I've forgotten. Let me say in advance that I apologize for the crappy iPhone pictures.

He can now make the appropriate sounds when you ask him "what does a dog say" and "what does a lion say". It's absolutely precious and I want to get it on video so bad, but he has a melt down every time he sees my phone because he wants to play with it.

I have no idea where he learned this one... He has a peekaboo flap book and one page has a penguin and says "peekaboo, flap flap flap, can you flap like penguins do". This week out of nowhere he started flapping his arms after I read him the last part. Amazing.

He can point to his nose, belly, and belly button (his obsession) when you ask him where they are.

He dances when you say "dance dance". It's the cutest dance ever. We call him Happy Feet. He also spins in circles when you say "spin".

He can say tickle, yummy, hi, daddy, mama, baba, out, this, what's that, dog, and thank you. Of course he repeats a lot of words we say too.

Every time we go outside for walks he points at every single tree and says "this?" or "what's that?". Please learn the word tree Co.rben, lol.

He's learning how to blow kisses.

He was going through a period of not wanting to eat and it was SO frustrating. That's when I figured out that he wants to feed himself with the fork or spoon. So now I load the food on the utensil and he grabs it and feeds it to himself. He's SO proud too and gets a big smile every time he does it. He will eat off of a plate now. He also is starting to hate his highchair, but we found he'll eat in a regular chair. I need to get a booster seat pronto!

This was a messy "feed yourself" experiment.

He's about to sprout tooth #5 and #6. Yowzer!

This week he seems to think that his nap should just be 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Not cool buddy!

When standing up he has started bending over and resting on his head (think yoga position downward dog) and then he'll take off running on his hands and feet. Hilarious!

He wants to have his shoes on all the time. He'll bring them to you and whine until you put them on him.

Well buddy you already have shoes on, sooo I'm not quite sure what to do here.

He loves to put his block or Lego container on his head. He looks like space boy, lol.

Don't worry he can take it off super easily.

He's constantly pretending to talk on the phone. This is one of my favorite things.

What you can't talk on your silverware? It's the newest technology.

He speaks his baby alien language all day long and really thinks he's saying important things.

He brings me his block container to open for him. It warms my heart.

When he sees something he wants he points to it and says "this!".

When I'm sitting on the floor he'll sit in my lap when I ask him to or when he wants me to put on his shoes or read him a book.

He loves to run from me when he knows I'm trying to get him for a diaper change or something.

He loves to have his teeth brushed and will come running if you ask him if he wants to brush his teeth.

When I say "back massage" he starts pounding on my back.

He understands so many things that we say. It blows my mind.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!