Since anyone reading this is currently using the internet, I'm sure you've seen the video published some time in the past 6 months (I think) of all the little girls using overly offensive language to make a valid, if not always well-received, point. The one line that stuck in my head the most was when one little girl said something along the lines of, "Stop calling me pretty, I'm a powerful young woman." I've been struggling with this idea because I regularly use "Pretty" or "Beautiful" as a term of endearment for my girls. All I could think was, "How can this be bad? I'm teaching my girls that I think they're beautiful no matter what."
I'm teaching my girls that I think they're beautiful.
I'm teaching my girls about beauty before I teach them about bravery or strength of character.
What I'm really teaching my girls is that beauty is the most important attribute a woman could possess.
This morning for the first time I realized this. I realized that I've been teaching my two-year-old that self-esteem should come from your appearance, not who you really are. I have been training my 17-month-old to believe that if she gets bad acne or survives some horrible accident with scars, she is worth less as a person.
I've read all the blog posts and articles and still didn't realize I was am part of the problem.
But now I know. Now is the time to change. Moving forward from this realization I feel I need to find new pseudonyms for my precious young women.
Strong girl. Kind girl. Honest girl.
This is one small change I can make which I hope will improve who they are as people, and who I am as a parent.
I have had a soft carrier since before Harper was born. We tried it a few times, but it's uncomfortable for me and she didn't like it much. I thought that maybe baby wearing just wasn't for us. Recently I've been looking into it more because with two babies who can't walk yet I'm sure it would make my life easier. Tonight I bought a Moby wrap from another mommy on base and when we got home I put it on and Harper immediately settled right into it. It was like she had been sitting in one of those all her life. And what a difference it was for me! It was more comfortable in absolutely every way than my old carrier with straps and buckles everywhere. It felt a little weird having Harper sit right on my baby (what's a word for huge bump?), but I'm looking forward to trying it out tomorrow when I'm trying to get things done around the house.
Today I also purchased 17 Alva diapers for an insanely low price from one of the fluff mommies on base. I threw them all in the wash for a quick run through and they're drying downstairs right now. I think I now have enough diapers to do both babies at the same time! I don't know how I feel about that... It's certainly a relief to know that one more thing for Kylie is taken care of, but that also means I might have to stop buying new diapers! What will I do with myself?! I guess I'll just have to start putting more of my energy into getting better at making diapers, so I'm still sort of getting new ones without spending all the money. Too bad the ones I make aren't nearly as cute as the ones I buy.
I got fluffy mail yesterday! My first two Alvas. They're super cheap so I'm going to use them for a week or so and if they work well for us I'm going to order several more and then we'll be just about set on diapers for this second baby. I now have a total of 6 pocket diapers!
That diaper I had just made last time I posted works really well for my purposes. It's really messy and it isn't ideal for using out and about, but it gets the job done when we're at home. It is easy to put on her without a cover, but fits inside them without too much struggling. Yesterday I made two more in the same shape but this time left the two layers separated in the back so the diaper can be stuffed like a pocket. I haven't tried it yet, I'm eager to see how well it works. My goal is to eventually make a diaper hefty enough to use at night so that all her cute Fuzzibunz can be saved for the daytime. I have one of them stuffed with two of the older Fuzzibunz minky inserts and an Econobum cover on Harper right now. I put a towel down in her bed in case it goes horribly wrong, but I'm feeling optimistic.
So I was just walking around downstairs turning all the lights off when I stepped on something long and sharp. I felt it penetrate my flesh and, thinking it was probably a thumb tack or sewing pin, I very carefully walked over to the couch to sit and examine the injury. I tenderly lifted my foot and discovered that I had actually stepped on an overlooked shard of blender (Rest in peace blender, you were my favorite small kitchen appliance.) and since it was an uneven wound it was bleeding much more than a straight in-and-out pin injury. It was then I happened to look at the nice, clean, light colored carpet in my living room. There was a steady trail of blood soaking into the fibers as I watched. I sat for a moment, assessing the problem. I decided that it wouldn't do much good to clean up all that blood while I was still bleeding, so I went to the kitchen to get the first aid kit. I looked under the sink and remembered that last month, when my dad and I were unpacking boxes, I decided that the upstairs bathroom would be a much more convenient place to keep the things to clean and bandage a gaping wound. Not wanting to have to wash the upstairs carpets also, I folded up a paper towel and put it in the bottom of my flip flop to soak up the blood while I walked up the stairs. I got to the bathroom, washed my foot, and applied a Shrek band aid to the still steadily flowing cut. I then turned to go back downstairs and clean the carpet when I noticed that about halfway up the stairs the paper towel must have become saturated because the trail of blood resumed, following me all the way to the bathroom door. I proceeded to spend the next half hour crawling around my house scrubbing all the blood stains, trying to make it look less like a crime scene. In case you didn't know, Formula 409 gets almost anything out of carpets- including blood.
Wow! I guess I kind of forgot about my blog for... you know... 7 months or so... Last time I posted was about two weeks before I conceived of Kylie Wren!! Yeah, I'm pregnant again.
A lot has happened in the past 7 months (obviously: see previous sentence) and now I'm getting back in the swing of house-wifey stuff. I spent five months living with my parents and my sister in a very small house. My idea that I would keep cloth diapering while I was there did not factor into account that there were four adults and a messy infant sharing one washer and dryer. So I pretty much switched over to sposies (<I have spent a lot of time the past few weeks on cloth diapering co-ops, blogs, and websites so I'm up on all the lingo now) for most of the time I was there. When we found out we were expecting again Duncan and I agreed it would be prudent for me to move back to AZ a few months early so I didn't have to drive across the country nine and a half months pregnant, or with TWO babies under a year old.
So now I'm back in Arizona in a beautiful, big, new house taking care of Harper and growing another person.
I'm pretty much filling all my time with cloth diapers. Between all the websites and Facebook groups, washing and folding, and trying different patterns for making my own inserts; I pretty much spend about three hours a day doing stuff not related to fluff. This morning I drafted my very own pattern from scratch so I'm excited to see how that works. I cut out two pieces in the shape of the pattern from an icky towel; then sewed an extra, smaller piece between the two layers "where it counts"; and finished it off with a strip of flannel down the middle to protect Harper's lady bits from the rougher terry cloth. It seems like it will be my most successful insert yet.
I've decided that this blog will focus mostly on my cloth diapering experiences, because that's what I'm focused on right now. When my personal focus changes I'm sure the focus of this blog will change accordingly. There will probably be some pregnancy and deployment stuff sprinkled in there too.
Harper's nap is over and so is this post. It will probably be less than seven months before I post again, but I won't make any promises.
It's been over a week since my last post and it's time to tell you more about our family.
We cloth diaper, mostly for the sake of money. Overnight we still use disposables to keep Harper more comfortable, and when we go out in the heat we use disposables. Hopefully when we move to New Hampshire it will be nice and cool outside so we won't need the disposables when we go out anymore. I'm just apprehensive about carrying a bag of poopy diapers around with me... I'm not sure if my diaper bag is big enough for that.
I prefer natural foods and products around the house, but honestly right now the pricetag is the first thing at which I look. At some point I really want to have a vegetable garden but at this point I know I'm not ready for that. Duncan has also recently expressed a desire to have laying hens in the future, which I'm all for-- as long as Duncan cleans out the hen house. While we're at it we should have several fruit trees and a dairy cow. And a guard cheetah. I really want a guard cheetah.
Duncan and I met in my cousin's church in New Hampshire. Our first date was on September 24th, 2009. He proposed to me in San Antonio, Texas, on May 1st, 2010. Two weeks after we found out we were having our first baby we had already picked a name for a girl and a name for a boy. In the hospital we almost changed our minds to naming her Harper Mykelti, but Harper is so gender neutral we wanted her middle name to be more femenine so we stayed with Harper Rose.
A few days ago I finally made the peach salsa I had been wanting to make for the past several weeks. I couldn't find a recipe I liked so I kind of combined a few to make my own:
Peach Salsa
4 not too hairy peaches, chopped
2 small jalepenos, diced
1/4 cup diced onion
somewhere around 1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp crushed mint
1 tsp ground ginger.
Mix everything together and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours before eating to let the flavors blend.
Thank you to the 33 people who viewed my first post! That's 31 more than I was expecting in the first day.
For the past seven days my husband has been going to work. Two of those days have been twelve hour shifts. Saturdays are supposed to be our stay home and be lazy/go grocery shopping days, but Duncan was gone from 7:30 am until 9:00 pm! And today, our religion's "day of rest" Duncan had to be at work at 9:00 am and we don't know what time he'll be home. I understand that he wouldn't be there if he wasn't needed, and I also know that I should be grateful that he has a steady job with good benefits in this economy, I just wish the Air Force would let me have part of his life right now. He'll only be with us for the first four months of our daughter's first year, I wish he could actually be with us.
Yesterday Harper was ten weeks old. It already feels like she's been a part of our family forever. She has her second round of immunizations, and she's already teething. Her dad will be away for eight months and he's going to miss so much. I know this is what I signed up for when I married a military man, but it didn't seem as serious when the deployment wasn't close upon us like it is now.
Can I just say that losing this baby weight is a whole lot harder than I thought it would be? I read about how breastfeeding drains a lot of calories so I figured I could pretty much just eat a normal amount and gradually fit into my normal human clothes without having to focus on it too much. I didn't realize, however, that I had grown accustomed to eating a normal amount for a pregnant woman, not the normal amount for a normal human. Two months later I'm still wearing maternity pants around the house and saving the one pair of jeans with a button which fit me for special occassions.
Hopefully that was the end of the complaining in this post.
While daddy is deployed, Harper and I will be moving back to New Hampshire to live with my parents. The huge plus side is that I will be saving a butt load of money on rent and I'll have plenty of help with Harper. The downside is that I'll be spending eight months living with my parents... I kid, I kid. It'll be great working on projects with my dad, visiting my mom while she's at work on slow days, and going on adventures with my big sister again. It'll just be a really huge challenge being away from Duncan for so long.
I'm hoping Harper turns out to have my gift for academia and Duncan's social skills. If she does I think she'll be all set. Duncan didn't do very well in school and I don't do very well in social settings. Together Duncan and I make a very competent person.
For today's recipe-type-thing: two nights ago I mixed together the ingredients for baked mac and cheese, poured it into the pan, covered it in pieces of cripy bacon, and baked it according to the directions. It. Was. AMAZING! Holy bacon and cheese heaven!
"You're wrong, Scary Man!"
You win if you know what ^that was from.
I would like to introduce you to me, Tabitha Wild. Tabitha Wild, meet the probably very few (if any) people reading your new blog. I have been an Air Force wife since March of 2011. Duncan and I just had our first baby this past July, 2012. Her name is Harper and she lights up our lives.
I wanted to create this blog, less in the hopes of amassing a vast following of people hanging on my every word, and more in the hopes of having somewhere to tell people about what's going on in my life right now- regardless of whether you actually care or not. My main goal in relation to you, my reader(s), is that you would find some humor or relatability (it's not a word but I think it should be) in one or more of the posts I create. I will also be posting any awesome recipes or helpful tips from which I think other people might benefit.
My husband is being deployed later this year so my goal right now for this blog, in relation to me, is to mark the passing of time and keep myself sane until Duncan returns next summer. I intend to use this blog as a journal of sorts so if you are completely uninterested in reading further, I am quite alright with having no readers other than my slightly (over)zealous mom. (Just kidding mom, I love you.)
I have only been out of high school a year, but since then I have lived in Arizona and have completely lost all concept of the passage of seasons. If you have never lived in Arizona, good choice. But let me explain further explain my previous statement: Arizona has two seasons; the two month season of winter(ish) where you may occasionally need a sweatshirt when you go outside, then there's the ten month season of holy-good-Lord-in-Heaven-thank-you-for-the-preview-of-hell-so-I'll-remember-for-the-rest-of-my-life-why-I-don't-want-to-go-there-when-I-die during which an hour spent outside results in the melting off of all your skin. Being born and raised in New Hampshire, moving to Arizona has been quite the shock.
If you've read this far: congratulations! You have successfully completed my first blog post. You may now go back to cyber-stalking strangers, googling your friends' names, watching youtube videos of cats getting into shenanigans, browsing Pinterest for recipes you will probably never make but which make you drool at the thought, or whatever it is you like to do on the computer.
