Mason - Year 3

Mason - three months ago you turned three years old.  I am a little late getting your birthday journal done because these past few months have included selling the home we brought you home from the hospital to getting you a home in California closer to family.  You continue to grow in body and mind, it is truly astounding.  I still have moments where I look at you and think, "Wow, that is my son."  It's hard to even believe that not so long ago, you were in my tummy and now I can hardly wrangle the little boy that you have become!

You still have your mommy's looks; the blue eyes, the lighter hair.  We have the same crazy laugh and we often do it for no reason except to make each other smile.  You have your Daddy's brain.  You are brilliant and often outsmart us.  You use your wit to your advantage and it can sometimes get you into trouble.  You have most of your books on your shelf memorized - and there are about 50 of them.  No joke.  You are so smart, my little man.

You surprise us daily.  Either with your endless amounts of energy, or your ability to use a $20 word like 'insufferable' correctly.  We have no idea where you even heard that word.  You dance with so much enthusiasm that I couldn't replicate it if I wanted to.  We somehow need to learn how to take some of your energy, bottle it, sell it, and become millionaires - no one can keep up with you.

You like to sing.  You sing songs from school to yourself or even make up songs all on your own.  I have listened to you on your baby monitor singing while you lay in bed.  Sometimes you do it for more than 20 minutes.

You can eat like a full grown man.  It makes me afraid of what our grocery bill will look like when you actually are one.  Some mornings, you'll scarf down 8 mini muffins and 3 pancakes.  I have to assure people that you really do eat because you are so lean.  You still aren't a fan of meat but you love your carbs.  You eat the mushrooms out of your pasta first and would dump parmesan cheese on everything if we let you.  You drink orange juice like you haven't had fluids in weeks.

You like to help.  I assign you the 'table captain' every night so that you can set the table.  You are meticulous and things have to be done in the order that you want.  Every napkin has to be folded a certain way and no one is allowed to help you - those are your rules, not ours.  When I cook, you want to pour the ingredients.  When I do laundry, you want to add the detergent and clean the lint trap.  I hope that you always have a helpful heart.

You are affectionate.  If we leave the room, you'll come running after us because, "I just have to give you a hug!"  I take advantage of every opportunity that you want to cuddle, or hug, or give me a kiss.  I know that you'll one day be too old for all of that mushy stuff and it'll be a day that comes too soon.

Mason - I look at you with such joy, such love, that I can't even contain myself sometimes.  Mommy and Daddy love you.

Mason - Year 2

Two years old.  Wow!  Congratulations, Mason!  You have made it... all the way to TWO!

In the last year you have transformed so quickly, it's difficult to keep track of your accomplishments and how much you've grown.  Your dad and I are both so proud of you and continue to be so in love with you.  When you were a baby, it was hard to imagine that things could get any better, but my boy, you have blown us away.  You are so smart and energetic, so kind and polite, so funny and inventive.  Sometimes it's entertaining trying to figure out where you get it from.

About you:

You thrive on a schedule.  Your internal alarm clock wakes you around 6 a.m. every morning.  Your routine is to get up, get changed and head to the kitchen for a snack and some milk.  You have lunch every day at the same time, dinner at the same time, bath at the same time and all following the same steps along the way.

You are very independent.  In the last few months, you have decided that you want to try doing more things on your own which includes buckling your car seat and booster chair.  You aren't afraid to ask for help, although you do say, "help you?" when you are asking for assistance instead of saying, "help me."  You want to open and close the car doors by yourself even though they are way too heavy for you.  You think that you help open the garage door by pushing it up and pulling it down.

You like to talk.  Your daycare teachers recently told me that you are more of an observer in school and that you are quiet.  That was shocking news to your dad and I as we have always noticed that you are quite the talker!  You frequently have conversations either with us, yourself, your books, or the characters on television shows.  I wanted to keep track of your vocabulary but you learn so quickly that it was impossible for me to stay on top of it.

You are so smart.  You can count to thirteen, you know all of your colors, and you sing along with the alphabet song.  You like to read books.  You often choose four or five every night for us to read together before you go to bed.  You can name all of the animals in your book about the ocean and most of the animals in your farm book including mimicking the sound they make.  You use sign language to say 'more' and you use the terms water, agua, juice, and milk interchangeably.

You are polite.  You like to say 'hi' and 'bye' to everyone as we pass by them.  You know to say 'please' when you ask for something and say 'thank you' when someone does something for you.  When I announce that dinner is ready, you come running and say, "Ooooh, dinner!  Thank you Momma," as you climb in your chair.

You get in to everything.  Every part of our home has been child-proofed, but that does not mean Mason-proof.  You know where to find the magnets to open our magnet locks, you can jimmy the baby gates open and closed, you can pop open the straps that close up the craft drawer in the living room.  When you get into your crafts, you like to spread the supplies around the entire living room and put stickers on most everything.  You still like to climb the cat tree and you dump over the dirty laundry basket on a regular basis.  You enjoy flushing the toilet and waving, "Bye bye poo poo!" even when there's nothing to flush.  You climb in the bathtub fully clothed to draw on the walls with your water markers.

You like to eat.  Your favorites are anything pasta.  You like chow mein and macaroni and cheese.  You can use a fork but choose to use your hands most of the time.  You have not mastered table manners yet.  My purse and my car have become extensions of our pantry- often housing cheetos, nutrigrain bars, and fruit snacks just in case you ask for "more snack" while signing for "more."  You like to share with us and you often feel that what is on our plate or in our glass looks better than what you have, even if it's the exact same thing.

You love your family.
Your favorite part of the day is when your dad comes home.  You run out to the garage and help him out of his car.  You frequently lunge at him for a hug so swiftly that I almost lose grasp of you.

You still cuddle with me on the couch although it's becoming less frequent.  Just last night, you were settled in among a bunch of pillows with one on your lap.  You pat the pillow for me to lay down and when I did, you pet my hair so sweetly.  I want to always remember that.

You still love your kitty siblings.  Asha just passed away a few months ago and you still ask, "Where's Sasha?"  You call Misty, "Sissy." Xerox is "Rox."  And Rascal is "Rocko."  You are very gentle with them when they allow you to pet them and all of them are your best friend when you are eating because you love to share.

We love you more.  We love you more and more every day.  We love you on the days that you are a sweetheart.  We love you on the days that you are not a sweetheart.  You challenge our patience when you are just being a toddler.  You challenge our hearts when we don't think we can possibly love you any more than we already do.

You have been such a blessing to us.  Happy Birthday Mason Boo.  We love you.

Adventures in Cloth Diapering

Here is my follow up post to my personal breastfeeding story. Before Mason, I knew very little about diapering options.  Had you asked me three years ago, I wouldn't have even known that there were options outside of using disposables!  It wasn't until I read about cloth diapers on one of my favorite blogs (Young House Love) that I even knew that they still existed and how awesome of a solution they could be!

When we got pregnant, I talked to Thomas about exploring the option of using cloth diapers so that we could prevent emptying our bank account for disposables.  I knew what brand I would want to buy (Bum Genius) and the fact that I would be home with Mason for at least his first year (until we started him with twice weekly daycare), it seemed like an option that we should really explore.  It all came down to this: the baby shower.  I had several friends acquire so many diapers at showers that were thrown for them that they didn't even end up having to buy diapers for almost their entire first year!  I thought that if we could get that lucky with gifts that I wouldn't want to spend the extra dough on cloth diapers on top of that.  Well, while we did get many many generous gifts- diapers weren't really one of them.  We did get enough to cover our first few newborn months but it wasn't enough to make sticking to disposables worth it for us.  And so, we went with cloth.

I shopped around online to make sure that I got the best possible price.  I started out with buying a bundle of 12 velcro diapers for $215.  It's a hard hit on your bank account at first- but when you consider what you would be spending over time with disposables, it made it easier to swallow (hmm, maybe saying easier to handle would be less gross when talking about diapers).  Mason started out on disposables when he was a newborn and stayed in those until he was about 2-3 months and was finally chunky enough to fit the smallest size of the Bum Genius.  They do make newborn cloth diapers- but I didn't read as much positive things about those (regarding fit, clean up, etc) and we had gotten enough newborn size disposables to last us for a while.  After getting into the swing of things I bought another bundle of 6 snap diapers (which cost $110) thinking that I might like them more than the velcro which can wear out over time.


With the cloth diapers, all that we had to do was purchase the diapers (duh) totaling $325, a toilet sprayer (an attachment that hooks onto your toilet tank to spray out the #2's) for around $40 and a wet bag from Planet Wise for $19 (to store the dirty diapers before they go in the wash).  Since all that we were disposing of in the nursery were the dirty wipes, we just got a small trash can with a lid (we empty the trash nightly- so it doesn't get stinky in there).

Our extra expenses do include disposable diapers though.  I don't know about anybody else in their cloth diaper escapades but we experienced a lot more leaking when it came to overnight usage.  After a few mornings with a soaking wet baby, pajamas, and crib we switched to disposables at night.  I don't know- maybe our kid pees a lot.  But we made the switch to nightly disposables without much damage to our wallets.  After all, one disposable per night equals maybe, just maybe one small bag of diapers per month for about $10 (I shop until I get the best possible deal).

In total we spent:
$325 on diapers
$40 on toilet sprayer
$19 for wet bag 
$99 for disposables (month 3-12)
Total: $483.00 (roughly)


Our main motivation for going the cloth route was solely for budgets sake.  We're not crazy green people- although we recycle and use some eco-friendly products we aren't super green or anything- which is why we opted out of using cloth wipes.  Disposable wipes aren't going to break the bank and the idea of the cloth wipes was just too yucky for us.  I draw the line at spraying poop into the toilet, thank you!

 With cloth diapers does come some extra laundry though.  Initially when I only had 12 diapers, I was washing every day and the load wasn't full.  I bought the extra diapers so that I wouldn't have to wash as frequently (maybe every 2-3 days) and so that when I did wash, it was a full load.  Despite the extra laundry we did not notice an increase in our water bill.  Once the baby comes into play, you're doing extra laundry anyhow.  Pre-baby I could get away with doing laundry every other week.  Now with the kid, we all have a lot more dirty laundry!  I'm lucky if I can go thru half of the week without three loads!

Another downside to the velcro diapers is how easy it is for Mason to pull it off- from outside of his clothes.  Since our boy has started walking, he has really gotten into the habit of pulling the velcro (especially on the the more worn out diapers) while he is fully clothed.  There have been multiple occasion where we go to change the boy and the diaper is just sort of hanging off of him.  So while the velcro diapers are easier to put on him when he's being squirmy (which is almost always), the snap diapers are more difficult for him to pull off of himself.  He has yet to yank one of the snap diapers off *knock on wood.

Now, here we are one year into our cloth diaper experience and I can definitely say that this will be something that we carry over with the next child- hopefully with the same diapers!  The snap diapers are all definitely in great shape to be used until Mason gets to potty training.  The velcro ones, while easier to get onto a very squirmy child, wear out easier.  At this point, I have only had one diaper that I have had to retire due to velcro losing it's velco-ness (that's totally a word).  So, I might have to buy more diapers for the next kid (and different fun colors should we have a girl next time around) but we're still way outside of the red when it comes to diaper expenses!

Overall, I calculated that we would have spent roughly $1,200 for disposable diapers alone in this last year!  That's a savings of over $700.  Yes, please!

389 Days

389 days.  Three.hundred.eighty.nine.days.  That is how long my breastfeeding journey was.  That's 2,680+ feedings = 30 days straight = 737+ hours = 44,271 minutes.  Yeah, I kept track.  Cause I'm cool like that.

I went in to the idea of breastfeeding very casually.  I was very we'll-see-how-it-goes about my whole pregnancy/parenting experience.  I just had general guidelines that I wanted to follow but didn't have any hard feelings if things deviated from the plan.  Because as much as I would like to think so, I'm not really in charge of the whole pregnancy-baby-breastfeeding thing.  My body and baby will do what they want to do.   Trust me, if I was in charge, I would have skipped over the whole gaining 70+ pounds, swelling like crazy, and stretch mark thing.  I was not the boss.  Motherhood was just my job and *toot my own horn here* I rock at it.

Initially, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to successfully breastfeed.  I think that's a big reason why I didn't go into it with my heart set on it.  I prefer to go into things with low-expectations so that I'm only pleasantly surprised when things go my way.  Thomas calls it pessimism, I call it realistic.  What's more, both my mom and my sister had a very difficult time with breastfeeding and inevitably had to go with formula.  I was afraid that this was just something that Morris women had trouble with.  But when my little monster was born last year, I knew that I at least wanted to try breastfeeding for several reasons.

1) The whole- it's good for the baby thing.  With a doctor for a husband, it was a no-brainer for him that breastfeeding was a must.  And while I agreed with him, I also didn't see a problem with using formula.  After all, I was a formula fed baby and I'm healthy, educated, and happy.

2) I'm home anyway.  There are so many moms out there that do not have the luxury of being at home with their babies.  I am very lucky that I am a work-at-home-stay-at-home mom.  Until my boy was crawling he was being held in one arm while I typed away with the other.  I could take breaks whenever I needed to change a diaper, take a shower while he napped (which unfortunately was rare), and nurse whenever and however often the kid requested.  I know a lot of moms that nurse for a few months before switching to formula or go straight to formula because they go back to work.  I thought that if I could do it, I would be crazy not to try to take advantage of the opportunity.

3) Saving mucho dinero.  Despite what many people may think- we do not have a lot of money.  Being married to a doctor does not equal having an awesome bank account- especially when said doctor is a resident and comes with student loans.  Like, a lot of them.  Don't get me wrong, we're not living like we did in college anymore.  We don't eat ramen every night and have crates for furniture (although we probably would if it were up to Thomas),  but we have a very strict budget.  With a mortgage, car payment (newly acquired for the need for a mommy-mobile), student loans, putting money in savings, etc we didn't have a lot of room in our budget for $70+ week for formula.  I could have made it work- but my stubborn self wasn't sure that I wanted to.  Saving money was probably the biggest perk for me which is why we also opted for cloth diapers (more on that here).

Luckily, when the little sprout came- there were no major problems.  I did experience a few initial frustrating nights in the hospital.  After all, I was a beginner and so was Mason.  He got 'frenzied' which resulted in lots of tears and frustration- on both sides.  Fortunately for us, after my milk came in after about a week, we were both pros.

Along with breastfeeding full-time came other issues: engorgment, clogged ducts, limiting my time to myself, having to excuse myself to feed the kid in private, etc.  I spent lots of nights in a hot bath trying to alleviate pain from clogged ducts- those were not my favorite but were a common occurrence, especially when the boy was going thru a growth spurt.  I also had a kid that was easily distracted.  He demanded a quiet space free of covers which meant that I always had to nurse in private at home or excuse myself so that I could nurse in the backseat of our car.  I saw a woman at Target the other day who had a baby strapped to her chest nursing while she was shopping.  I was so jealous!  When Mase wanted to eat, I had to stop everything that I was doing and maybe get back to it later.

Other perks of breastfeeding:

1) I was allowed to eat!  I didn't have any pressure to get back to my pre-baby body.  While I did hit over 212 pounds (I stopped weighing myself after that), I didn't have anyone pushing me to lose the weight except for myself and even I just sort of went with it.  Breastfeeding meant no extreme diets because I needed to get in enough calories to make quality milk.  What's awesome, is that even though I wasn't being super careful about what I was eating- I was still losing.  It took me almost 10 months to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight- but I believe that '9 months on -  9 months off' is a healthy guideline that worked for me.

2) Bonding time.  I loved our time together.  I had a special spot in our bedroom that became our designated eating space.  I had my big comfy chair, a Boppy, and that was it.  Mason could eat and I could relax.  That was really my only time in my day where I could unwind.

Now that our breastfeeding journey is over- a whole new world has opened up for us.  While I will miss having those moments with my boy, I am so very grateful that I was able to do it.