A crunchy minimalist’s guide to baby stuff – Part Six (the travel edition)

We are currently in the middle of an eleven-day on-the-other-side-of-the-country trip to look at a prospective job (thus the lack of much blogging).  Our entire little family came and we flew out here, which majorly limited the amount of luggage we could bring for the trip.  There were however, several things we made sure to pack that have made our time away from home significantly easier and I thought I’d share them here.

A quality umbrella stroller: In figuring out how we would navigate airports with our three large suitcases, two car seats, assorted carry-ons and two little ones, Aaron and I went back and forth as to what to do with Cedar.  We knew Genoa would be in the Boba, but we needed somewhere for Cedar to ride as we juggled everything and rushed through airports.  We have a hardframe backpack that he often rides in for long hikes, but Aaron (understandably) didn’t want to have to deal with wearing that while loading our luggage.  And we have a good jogging stroller that Cedar rides in for walks at home, but it would be much too bulky to travel with.  In the end, we decided to just buy an umbrella stroller.  There were many different choices on Amazon (our go-to place for buying baby stuff), ranging from about $15 in price to several hundred.   We didn’t want to spend a ridiculous amount on it, but we also wanted to make sure that we didn’t get a super cheap one that fell apart in the middle of a mad dash to make a flight connection.  So we opted for the middle ground and went with this one.  And wow.  It pretty much saved the day when we flew out here, staying strong and sturdy even after being loaded down with a growing little boy, the diaper bag, Cedar’s Thomas the Train backpack and my “purse” full of several books and my computer.   It’s lightweight,  navigates large crowds well and folds up quite compactly within seconds (yes, I know I sound like a commercial!).  In short, we love it and it has already made traveling with toddlers much, much easier.

Portable highchair: Back in CA, we have quite a small house, and now that Genoa is eating more solids at the table with us, I wanted to get her a highchair that would fit more easily around our table than the big, bulky one we were borrowing from my in-laws.   We got this one that attaches to a normal kitchen chair and it has worked great at home in the past couple months that we’ve had it.  But the best part is, it folds up very compactly so we can pack it and bring it along traveling — which we’ve already done several times.  Just fold it up at home, tuck it into your bag, and when you need it, pull it out, attach it to a chair, and you have a highchair!  All ready for your baby to smear with yoghurt, just like at home!

KidCo Peapod Plus: The place we’re staying for these eleven days only has a king bed in it.  We’re borrowing a friend’s Pack-N-Play for Genoa to nap in and start the night out in (she is in bed with us for most of the night), but needed a place for Cedar to sleep.  He still moves around a lot at night so a blanket on the floor wouldn’t work very well for this extended period of time since he’d probably roll off it and wake himself up repeatedly.  Thankfully, Aaron randomly came across the Peapod Plus online and decided that we should just get one for Cedar.  The Peapod Plus is a small, kid-sized pop-up tent with a blow-up air mattress that all folds down very compactly.  And it has worked great while we’ve been here — the novelty of the tent makes going to bed in a new place very fun, the little air mattress makes the hard floors much nicer to sleep on, and the sides of the tent help to contain our very mobile sleeper.  The Peapods are rather spendy, but both Aaron and I felt like it would definitely be worth it to have for all the traveling we know we’ll continue to do.

Nature Babycare disposable diapers: I normally cloth diaper at home, and also when we’re out and about.  Up until now, we’re also have been able to cloth diaper on our extended trips, but this time it wasn’t going to work out for several reasons.  So what to do instead?!  After talking it over on Facebook with several other cloth diapering mama friends, I decided to get some non-chemical disposable diapers and cover them with our Blueberry Coveralls to help keep in the leaks that disposable diapers are prone to.  After reading several reviews, I went with the Nature Babycare brand and I’ve loved them so far.  Chlorine-free and made mostly from tree pulp instead of plastic, I didn’t mind them being up against my baby’s skin around the clock.  They absorb really well and while still don’t completely contain big messy diapers, the Coveralls help with that.  And I really like that the Size Four I got for Genoa fits so well, but can also be used for Cedar in a pinch since all this travel seemed to throw off his potty-training a bit.  So while I still love and prefer using cloth, I’m glad to know that there’s a good disposable option out there that I can use for travel instances like this.

A crunchy minimalist’s guide to baby stuff:
Part One: 0-6 Months
Part Two: 6-12 Months
Part Three: An Addendum
Part Four: An Addendum to the Addendum
Part Five: The Boba Baby Carrier 

Graham Gardens’ winner and more fun giveaway stuff

Thanks to help from random.org, today I “drew” the winning number for the Graham Gardens’ BabyBird basket giveaway, and it was comment #23 from Carina!  Congratulations, Carina…enjoy your prize!

In the giveaway answers, the BugBar definitely got the most I-want-to-try-this mentions.  So for anyone wondering…it really does work!  We have one and while we have yet to try it in super-buggy conditions (just because we don’t normally get those here), it has worked very well in the general “we want to go outside, but the mosquitoes are out” conditions.  Aaron isn’t a huge fan of the smell (kind of a mix of peppermint and citronella), but as he admitted, most bug repellents don’t smell that great anyway!  And I love that it’s in bar form — so many bug repellents, natural or not, are in liquid form and are such a pain to apply to little ones.  But this goes on so easily!

In more giveaway news, I’m going to give you the insider scoop on something happening at YLCF next week!   On Tuesday, May 15th, we’re going to be hosting a giveaway for an amazing children’s CD called Rain For Roots: Big Stories for Little Ones.  I had the great privilege of being the reviewer and getting a pre-release copy, and let me tell you, it’s incredible!  The full album won’t be available until May 15th, but until then, you can download a FREE four-song preview.  It’s great music, even if you don’t have little ones, but hurry, since the free preview only lasts until the evening of May 14th.

Good for your baby’s tailfeathers (a giveaway!)

(Yes, it’s true…another giveaway!  After several years of no giveaways on this blog, we have two in as many weeks!  So if you haven’t already, make sure to enter the giveaway for the eBook Real Fast Food — it closes tonight at midnight.)

Before you’re a mama, you don’t often think about things like diaper cream.  You have no idea that diapers and their contents can become a frequent topic of thought and conversation.  But lo and behold, once you have a little one, it becomes a very important subject.  Especially if your baby has a tendency toward irritated skin and is prone to diaper rash.

Both of my babies struggle with that and even though using cloth diapers majorly cuts down on the irritants, they still regularly have some diaper rash pop up, especially when they start eating a lot of solids.  With Cedar (who actually doesn’t deal with this anymore since he’s now almost completely potty-trained…YAY!) I tried so many different diaper creams to try and help his little bum!  Straight coconut oil, different green salves, Burt’s Bees Baby Bee Diaper Ointment, Boudreaux’s Butt Paste…nothing seemed to work.  The oil-based creams didn’t really do much at all and the zinc-based ones helped a little, but could never totally kick it.  I didn’t want to resort to something that contained petroleum products and other chemicals since I definitely didn’t want that stuff on my baby’s skin, but I was getting desperate.  But then, so thankfully, I discovered Graham Garden’s Tailfeathers Zinc Cream.

At first, paying $16 for a five ounce tub of diaper cream seemed a little expensive for me, but I took the plunge and haven’t looked back since.  It is so worth every penny of that.  Tailfeathers Zinc Cream has kicked every single rash I put it on.  Plus all the ingredients are totally natural so I don’t need to worry about the fact that I slather it all over my babies’ sensitive parts.  And, one of my favourite features — it comes in a tub so you can get every last bit out (and control how much you use), something that never happens with the stuff that comes in a tube.

And now, for the best part, Graham Gardens has very generously offered to give one of my readers a scented BabyBird Gift Basket.  These lovely little baskets not only contain a tub of their amazing Zinc Cream, but also Graham Gardens’ BabyBird Powder, Body Oil and ButterBar.  All you need to do is visit their website, look around and then come back here and leave a comment telling us which Graham Gardens’ product appeals to you the most and why.  Giveaway closes on Wednesday, May 9th, at midnight PST.

(Disclosure: I received no compensation for writing this review.  All opinions expressed are my own.)

Real {Fast} Food review and giveaway

I love good food.  A lot.  And I love feeding my family food that tastes good and that is also good for them.  For us this is usually “real food” — i.e. food that is fresh and minimally processed.  This means using a lot of produce, good meats and dairy, healthy fats (like butter!) and whole grains.  It means trying to cook mostly from scratch.

Making and eating real food involves all these great things, but it also can involve something else. Time and lots of it.  And as a young mama to two little ones, that’s something I don’t have an overabundance of.  Enter Real {Fast} Food.  The eBook by my friend, Trina Holden.

Trina is another young mom who is passionate about feeding her family real, good food.  But since she has three little ones, she knows that it doesn’t work to spend oodles of time in the kitchen preparing meals.  So she wrote a book explaining all she has learned about making the most of your time in the kitchen and interspersed it with many yummy-sounding recipes.   She walks you through everything from menu planning to batch cooking to making your own mayonnaise and sour cream.  And along with recipes for everything from white lasagna to pineapple muffins, she also shows you how to make things like ranch dressing mix, whole wheat tortillas and vanilla ice cream to give you the tools to eliminate even more processed foods from your diet.

Real {Fast} Food is very informative and helpful, but I don’t “follow” everything in the book.  I don’t currently menu plan (though I can see it happening in the future) and we still occasionally eat white flour.  But that’s okay.  I’m doing what works for our family right now and adapting techniques and information to our situation.  And in her book, Trina recognizes that.  Unlike some other cookbooks I’ve read, there’s no condescending attitude of “you must cook exactly the way I do if you want to feed your family healthy food”.  Instead, Trina gives you the tools and recipes to help you prepare real food and then gives you the freedom to figure out how that will work for your family.

And the best part?  Making real food doesn’t have to take up half your day!  In other real food cookbooks I’ve read, the authors seem to assume that you have hours to spend in the kitchen preparing and cooking.  As a young mom, that’s doesn’t work for me since cooking is something I have to fit in between chasing toddlers and keeping my home.  And since Trina is in that place too, she understands and Real {Fast} Food is a clear reflection of that.

Real {Fast} Food is an essential for any young mom wanting to feed her family healthy food without spending all day in the kitchen.  It’s available on Kindle and Nook, but my copy is the PDF version that I printed out and put in a binder — that makes it much easier to reference with hands messy from cooking!

And Trina has graciously offered to give away a PDF copy of Real {Fast} Food to a Something Simple reader.  Just comment and answer the question: “What is one change (large or small) that you would like to make in your family’s diet?”  Giveaway ends Wednesday, May 2nd at midnight (PST).

Want to increase your chances at winning a copy?  Enter the other giveaways on the Real {Fast} Food Blog Tour:

- from Homemaker’s Challenge (ends April  26th)
- from Gretchen at From: the Little Pink House (ends April 30th)
- from Chantel at A Beautiful Song (ends May 1st)

Read more reviews of Real {Fast} Food:

- at the Young Ladies Christian Fellowship
- at Homemaker’s Challenge
- at Dandelion Haven
- at Life in the White House

And be sure to “like” the Real {Fast} Food Facebook page for great real food photos and tips.

In which I wax eloquent about my favourite clothing brand (and you get a coupon code)

Two springs ago, I was relatively newly postpartum for the first time, and rather disenchanted.  All the stories I had heard about women fitting into their pre-pregnancy clothes just a month after the baby was born were definitely not happening to me.  And despite the claim that nursing helps to just melt that baby weight off, it wasn’t working that well in my case.  Pushing a baby out had caused my hips to widen several sizes and I felt like none of my clothes fit anymore.  Having extensive curves was not something I had a lot of practice with and it took much longer to get used to than I thought it would.

It was during this time that I discovered texture clothingA blog I follow was doing a giveaway for one of texture’s famous “Comfy Skirts” and it looked exactly like something I would love.  A cute and flattering cut and drape, a versatile length and stretchy material…a newly curvy mama’s dream!  I entered the giveaway and waited with bated breath to see if I would win.  I’ll even admit that I daydreamed much about wearing that skirt if I won — yes, that’s a little excessive, but with the season I was in, the idea of a piece of clothing that was comfy and flattering was rather exciting.  Well, unfortunately I didn’t win…but my incredibly sweet husband told me to buy one anyway, with the coupon code included in the blog post.  I picked out a green one (surprise, surprise!), and once it arrived, it immediately became my favourite skirt.  I wore it all. the. time.   The comfy skirt description on the texture site mentions wearing the skirt for “5 days in a row”…they’re not kidding.  And as I found when pregnant with Genoa, it makes an amazing maternity skirt as well.

My green comfy still going strong at 38 weeks pregnant.

About a year later, I had a good bit of birthday money and my husband was “making” me spend it on myself.  And I knew exactly what to get.  Comfy skirts also come in longer lengths (about mid-calf on me) and after much debating over colours, I decided to order one in dijon.  And it gave my other comfy some competition for the favourite skirt ever award…in the end they decided to share the title.  In cooler weather I wore the longer one for days in a row and paired with warm boots it makes the perfect California winter skirt.

Other than the amazing cut, the great colours and the super comfortable waistband, the thing I love most about my comfy skirts is the material they’re made from.  I’ve tried several skirts of similar styles and really nothing compares.  Made from hemp and organic cotton, with a bit of lycra, the result is a thick and stretchy material that is, in a word, so comfy!  Unlike the thin and clingy fabric that similar skirts are made of, texture’s material is substantial enough that you don’t have to worry about it showing off everything you don’t want it to and it also gives the skirt a little bit of body and shape.

My latest acquisition from texture is made from the same material…their “Posh Pants”.  Despite my long-standing affinity for skirts, I do have a love for wide-leg pants.  Unfortunately, as anyone who shares that love can attest to, wide-leg pants are getting ridiculously hard to find.  And from the sounds of it, the staff at texture agrees since the posh pants are their “bold answer to the skinny jean movement”.  Yes!  And they definitely are very wide-leg…  After I got them in the mail, seeing their wideness in person kind of surprised me, but they quickly grew on me and now I love them.  So comfortable, and, in my opinion, they look much better than the typical yoga-type pants.  Something I would totally wear out and about (and have) and not feeling like I’m running around in my pajamas.

Gotta love photo shoots on a day that you need a shower and are sporting the double-chin look!

Texture only offers one inseam length for the Posh Pants, and it would be much too short on me.  But for only $10, they added an extra five inches for me and now my pants are long enough!  This is a big deal for me since I have such a hard time finding non-jean pants that aren’t several inches too short.  And unlike some I’ve seen, the alteration doesn’t look like someone just decided add some material to bottom of the pants.  I think that it just looks like some detailing on the pants and I’ve had other people say the same thing.

Well, now that I’ve rambled on and on and ON about texture’s clothing, I have some exciting news for you all!  Until April 6th, texture is offering a 20% discount to my readers.  Just enter the coupon code “simple20″ when you checkout. I hope you end up loving their clothes just as much as I do!

(Disclosure: In exchange for writing this review, I received one free item of clothing from texture.  All opinions expressed are my own.)

Brave

Five Minute Friday: Brave

(When I first heard this week’s word, the following direction is where my mind started go.  I went back and forth with myself about whether or not to write it out, and obviously I decided to go with it.  I really don’t want to use my blog as a place to rant, and I hope that the following doesn’t sound angry.  It’s not angry — but I want to present a side that’s not often seen.  So please take the following as such…thank you.)

GO

When people find out that both my babies were born at home, and that any future children we hope to have at home, the common reaction is: “Wow!  You’re brave!”  And often it’s followed by, “I could never do that.  I would want to be in a hospital in case anything happened.”

I can respect that, really.  A woman should birth wherever she is most comfortable and if that’s a hospital for you, then great.  However, even if it’s not what someone wants to portray, the attitude that comes across from that particular (common) comment is sometimes hard to deal with.  And that attitude is: you’re choosing to put your baby at risk, just so that you can be “brave”, etc.

Actually, that isn’t the case.  We choose to have our babies at home because, in our particular situation, my husband and I feel like it’s best for ALL of us.  Including the baby.  And it’s not something we’re blindly going into with no idea of the complications that can arise.  Our firstborn, Cedar, had several complications because he was born four weeks early, but our very competent midwife dealt with them and Cedar is now a healthy little boy.  Yes, we realize that not all complications turn out so well, but please trust that we’ve weighed all that and are not making this decision out of some macho complex.

Thank you.

STOP

A crunchy minimalist’s guide to baby stuff – Part Five (the Boba Baby Carrier)

(Despite my hopes that I would quit adding addendums to this “guide“, here is yet another one!  I guess this will just be an open-ended series then, since I’m sure there’s more helpful things that I will find as I continue my mothering journey.)

Boba Baby Carrier: Last fall I shared about how I finally got over my pride of only using wraps as baby carriers and how I had been blessed with the gift of an Ergo.  I loved my Ergo and was so thankful for its versatility and ease of use as a soft-structured carrier compared to a wrap (though I still do love my wraps for the newborn days).  However, as Genoa got bigger, it started to get rather uncomfortable to wear her sometimes as she loves to lean!  At about eight months old, the top of the Ergo came only to the middle of her back or so which meant that it was very easy for her to lean to one side to see what I was doing, to watch Cedar more easily, etc.  Having to constantly readjust my weight for that was getting rather annoying and uncomfortable.  But that aside, I still loved how easy the Ergo was to use so I didn’t want to go back to wrapping a lot instead.  A babywearing friend mentioned the Boba Carrier to me and while I had heard of it before (it’s made by the same company that used to make my beloved Sleepy Wrap, which is now called the Boba Wrap), I didn’t know much.  I read some about it and immediately wanted to try one…it sounded like the perfect carrier to me.  Along with the back of the carrier being two to three inches taller than other soft-structured carriers, it’s designed to specifically hug your baby to you…two things that would be huge helps with a leaner like Genoa!

Long story short, I was able to buy a Boba Carrier after I sold my Girasol Big Sur wrap (it didn’t end up working out for us in our hot CA weather).  And wow.  I love it!  Even more than my Ergo (which I have since passed onto a dear friend) — though I was very thankful for it in its season of helping me learn to love soft-structured carriers.  The Boba’s “unique design” that hugs your baby to you isn’t just marketing hype.  Even in the first fifteen minutes of wearing Genoa on my back in the Boba, I could tell that she seemed a lot more secure and didn’t lean nearly as much…score!  And another added plus that I have yet to try out is that the 3G model can convert into an infant carrier without any extra inserts, etc.  That was always one thing that bugged me about the Ergo.  Unless you bought their insert (or stuffed blankets inside), you couldn’t use it very well until the baby was about five or six months old.  And even though in general I like wraps for the early months, there are times when a faster option would be nice.  Additional things I love would be the adorable bird print, how easy the chest/back strap is to adjust, three different pockets for small things and the shoulder strap holders (to clip in a purse or diaper bag strap).  In my opinion, it’s pretty much the best baby carrier ever!

A crunchy minimalist’s guide to baby stuff:
Part One: 0-6 Months
Part Two: 6-12 Months
Part Three: An Addendum
Part Four: An Addendum to the Addendum
Part Six: The Travel Edition 

The idol on the bathroom counter

If you ever come to visit us, and use our bathroom, you’ll notice that we have two different soap dispensers next to the sink.  One contains Dr. Bronner’s lavender liquid soap, and the other, antibacterial SoftSoap. A little strange to have two, but those soap dispensers actually represent a big victory for me spiritually.  Let me explain…

After I got married, one of the many things I was very excited about was having my own house and keeping it the way I wanted to.  Between living in my parent’s house to regularly cleaning for several different families to working as a mother’s helper in two different places to living with my in-laws for awhile before getting married…I’d experienced my share of different households.  And in all of those, I saw things I liked and things I didn’t like.  And I came away with very decided opinions (and much anticipation) as to how I was going to run my own household.

One of the big things I wanted was to go all-natural in regard to cleaners, soaps, etc.  I was able to accomplish that pretty easily with cleaners (something that I’ve become even more adamant about now that I have littles).  With hand soap, we started out just using Dr. Bronner’s lavender liquid soap and I thought it was great.  However, my husband really likes SoftSoap and didn’t like Dr. Bronner’s as hand soap.  So he asked if I would mind if we got some antibacterial SoftSoap.  Of course, I said that would be fine, but inwardly a battle raged.  SoftSoap?!  Tops on the list of Triclosan criminals that to me epitomized the conventional way of cleaning  I wanted so badly to get away from. (Triclosan is the substance that kills germs in antibacterial soaps, lotions, etc. that, in short, is not very good for you.)  I felt like it would contaminate my perfect little “all-natural” home. Et cetera, et cetera.

But then I realized…I was being ridiculous (shocker!).  I mean, it’s soap!!  Yes, Triclosan isn’t a good thing to have much contact with, but so are many, many other things that we deal with every day.  Having antibacterial hand soap in our bathroom would not kill anyone, that’s for sure.  And yes, it supposedly “messes up” my perfect little all-natural-ness, but that’s a good thing.  Going green was obviously becoming an idol to me and so it actually needed to be messed up.  My pride over being so natural could end up hurting myself and my family much more than any amount of chemicals ever would.

So I calmed down and let go of it.  We compromised and he let me keep the dispenser of Dr. Bronner’s at the sink too (partly because, at the time, I was in the throes of morning sickness with Cedar, and the smell of SoftSoap [and a billion other things!] made me nauseous).  And every single time I fill our Mason jar dispenser with that antibacterial soap, or when I put another double package of it next to the quinoa in our Costco cart, I’m reminded again not to let my crunchiness become an idol or a source of pride.  While it’s good a thing to strive to care for my family in a natural way, idolatry and pride are much nastier “chemicals” by far.

A crunchy minimalist’s guide to baby stuff – Part Four (an addendum to the addendum)

Hopefully this will be the last addition to this series…you can only have so many addendums!  In the last part of this guide, I mentioned stuff that we’ve discovered since Genoa was born and yet this particular item slipped my mind.  I’m not sure how it could have since I use it pretty regularly, but I guess I’ll just blame it on mommy brain…

Nosefrida Snotsucker (Baby Nasal Aspirator) - I can’t remember where I first heard about this, but after I got over the initial grossness mental block, it sounded like a great idea!  I have always hated using bulb syringes to clear my babies’ noses and my babies have hated it even more.  And I never could get the hang of it very well either, so they were quite ineffective, but they were the only option I knew of to clear out those little noses.  But the Snotsucker is 100 times more effective!  Basically it’s a tube, with a filter in it, that you place up against the baby’s nose and suck those little boogers out.  Yes, it initially sounds disgusting, but with the filter and the length of the tube, there is really no way that your mouth would touch the snot.  And I was just blown away by how it works so well, every single time I’ve used it.  Genoa seems to get stuffy noses more than Cedar did (not from being sick…just from boogers), so she gets “desnufflized” pretty regularly.  After I drip some expressed breastmilk in her nose to soften everything, a couple sucks on the Nosefrida and everything is clear.  I love it!  Definitely something I think every mother should have…

A crunchy minimalist’s guide to baby stuff:
Part One: 0-6 Months
Part Two: 6-12 Months
Part Three: An Addendum
Part Five: The Boba Baby Carrier
Part Six: The Travel Edition 

On being a crunchy mama

Today I’m over at YLCF, talking about one of my passions…natural parenting!

My desire for homebirth stems from something I’ve been passionate about for a long time: doing things the natural way.  “Natural” can have many definitions, but for me it means doing things without unnecessary interventions and using things that are minimally processed and free of chemicals, etc.  In my late teen years, my tendency towards legalism caused me to take it to an unhealthy extreme, but since then, God has been breaking me of that bondage and teaching me balance in all things.  It’s still something I’m very passionate about, but I’m learning to not let that passion rule my life.

However, having babies brought this passion to a whole new level as I realized that the decisions my husband and I made were now affecting these little people on whose lives we had such an impact. It wasn’t just me any longer, and that caused me to look even closer at the decisions we were making in our lives, both consciously and without realizing it. Every day we make choices, even when we go along with the status quo, and I wanted those choices to be what was best for my children, even if it seemed a little weird.

Read the whole post here…

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