Birthday Weekend:)

I had a great birthday weekend.  I got to go to one of my friend's weddings, and another friend from high school church did some amazing photography of baby Alice.  I've only gotten to see 7 or 8 of them so far, but they are all wonderful.  It's something I would never be able to do on my own, I'm amazed at her skill, and what she is able to capture with her camera.  (This was my birthday present from my dad this year).  My mom is making me a wet bag (for the diapers), and some soil for the tomato plants I'm trying to grow, I'm hoping they don't drown in the Monsoon going on outside.  I can't wait to post the pictures, but it'll be a little while more I think.  Tomorrow is my orientation for an externship I'm doing, I'm going to have to take Alice with me, b/c Elliott still hasn't worked out with his work whether or not he is allowed to use the day care center.

I'm starting to miss having Kasi around, i'd gotten used to having one of my girl friends around all of the time, and it'd be nice to hang out with her when I'm not all stressed out.  All of my high school church friends and I are getting together to go to the lake this weekend, I haven't been together with them all since high school!  I can't wait.

A post about Cloth:)

This is the vanilla, snap diaper

The butternut ?  I can't remember it's name, but I love its bright color, I looked it up, it's the mandarin

This is my favorite diaper of all, the wildflower! (I'm pretty sure that's its name)

Elliott and I decided when we first got pregnant that we would be cloth diapering our LO.  We do not have a ton of extra cash lying around, and it doesn't add excess waste to our landfills.  The search began for the perfect diaper.  We eventually narrowed it down to choosing between bumgenius and grobaby (grovia now).  Elliott loved the AI2 design, he thought it was silly and wasteful to wash a shell everytime she just peed in the diaper, aka, he didn't want the extra laundry. 

I realized while going through my pictures that I have hardly any of her in her fluffy adorableness.  This situation will be remedied once I have recovered from the post final coma that I have been in.  We just got some of the AIOs after the latest sale, and I am in love with them!!!!  I'm hoping that the daycare she will have to go to next year will use them, but we will see.  I don't want to have to pay for diapers in addition to the expenses of daycare. 

Kasi likes our cloth too:)  (She's our nanny if you are unaware).  I believe her favorite diapers are the wildflower and the AIOs (they are so easy and trim to use!).  We use the AIO and the vanilla snap for our nighttime diaper, we haven't had any leaks in a few weeks, and she stays in it for about 12 hours.  My smart little baby can take off the velcro and the disposables, let's just say it's not what you want to wake up to in the middle of the night.

With our skinny baby the excess bulk of her cloth makes her clothes actually stay on her body, when she wears disposables (my mom prefers them, I'm working on her though, hopefully she won't buy more once she runs out of her current box), her pants have to be rolled to fit.  Alice had actually moved to the second snap in the grobaby diapers, but she is back to the smallest size on both the grobaby, and our newer grovia diapers.  I think she is thinning out as she walks more.  She has some pockets that are much bulkier though, and they give her this huge fluffy bum, which I love to death, but I really like how trim her grovias are.  I easily see these diapers making it through potty training, and another LO, since she hasn't even moved up to the second snap now.

I will say if I had it to do again, I would have only gotten snaps, those diapers look like new still, while the velcro ones kinda' look picked over...  When we bought them, I don't think the pretty colors were available in snap form though.  I've also discovered Grovia has tons of sales throughout the year, and I could have stocked up more during some of them and had more of the adorable prints that are now available.  I'm still stalking the airplane diaper, maybe someday I can convince Elliott of the need for it..

I think I have an "Easy Baby"

Currently Alice is running back and forth between our bedroom and her room.  Her room is currently set up as my office, both are very baby proofed, so I know I don't have to worry until she starts being quiet.  She is singing though, so I know whe isn't doing something that requires a lot of concentration.  Burbur just ran in here with a shoe, Alice was fast on her heels to get it back.    I love watching her play and grow into such a smart, sweet little one.   

She is letting me hang out on the bed, opps, she got quiet...  she had found the box where we keep her hangers, no biggie.  Now she just figured out how to dump out her box of blocks.   Our house needs cleaned desperately, but I think it may have to wait until tomorrow, I washed all the dishes, but it really needs deep cleaned, it's such a nasty day though that I don't want to move.  I like to clean with all the windows open and the sun streaming in. 

they were sitting next to each other and looking adorable, of course as I took the picture they both took off.  Lauren actually has very pretty green eyes

At graduation in her princess dress!

running down the hallway in her shorties!

Bedtime with Dada

she loves to eat!

These two play together all the time, Alice even pokes poor Burburs eyes, and she just takes it

The only thing Alice likes to do that is really a problem is grab my computer cords!  and type on the computer, and rip up paper.  I'm sure you can see why it is too hard to study with her around now.  If I could get her to understand there was absolutely no touching the computer, life would be so much easier!

Now she just got mad at burbur (I think burbur was nibbling her toes, which sometimes makes her giggle, and sometimes mad.)  i think Alice felt bad about it though because she tried to give Burbur these nail clippers that she had taken away from her a few minutes ago.

At the end of this she found my thermos bottle that I put some juice in, she is thrilled and rapidly drinking it down.

SUMMERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell I'm just the tiniest bit excited?  I'm finished with my last block exam of the year, and I did so much better on it than all of the other ones.  I think the key was no neuro, the best biochem teacher in the school writing most of the questions, and Physio having endocrine as a part of it.  We also had tons of practice problems that were actually representative of the test.....  isn't it weird how when that happens, that everyone does so much better?  I love my Medical School class, everyone seems to genuinely care about each other, maybe one day I'll learn all of their names.......  That would require more people to come to school each day though.  Apparently next year our schedule is only allowed to have 17 hours of lecture in it at the most, this makes us lose ICM week, but I think it'd be worth it, if we get each afternoon off, like we are supposed to have.

I went out to eat with a great group of friends tonight, it was a delicious hibachi place, so tasty and so much fun.  I get into this funny conversation with a friend, she remembers nursing at 18 mos old.....  I plan on continuing with Alice until she is 2, and then slowly weaning her off.  Which should be easy since that will be 3rd year, and she will probably forget my name during the surgery rotation (I already want to do that one first).   I'm continuitng my goal to educate my fellow medical students about breastfeeding. 

Here are the current misconceptions I have heard:

 When they can eat food they should stop:  I hope this will be remedied during some class, or rotation, but babies start food around 6 mos, we started Alice off on table food, I think steak was her second food, or maybe brocolli was...  not sure.  The AAP recommends babies be fed until at least 1 yr, the WHO recommends at least 2.  I think the world wide average is actually 3 or 4. 


They are too old when they can ask for it.....  Babies ask for it the second they are born, they make this uh, hu, uh, hu sound.  It sounds completely different from a cry, At a LLL I heard every baby under 2 mos make the same sounds to get fed.  Instant happiness.  At one year, Alice makes a sign for milk, and requests num, num.  She loves to eat, and everything is num-num to her, including the rocks outside, which she calls, YUM!  I certainly do not think a 1 year old is too old to be nursing.

The random things we have learned about in school tell us just how important having a healthy gut flora is to the digestion of food, we don't want all those..  firmicuites?  Right?  You can tell just how much I learned during C and K's crazy method of biochem instruction.  Basically those type of bacteria break food down so it is absorbed by the gut more readily, and actually contributes to obesity.  They have tried fecal transplants in rats, and it has been successful at establishing a healthy gut flora.  I wonder how many people would be willing to do this........

The other one is the way people think nursing here takes tons of time.... 
I'm going to bet they have never tried to put a screaming baby to bed at 3 am when they have a quiz at 8 am the next day.  I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get the rest I need to succeed and give Alice a better life.  This does not include letting her scream herself to sleep.  Though if I sleep in a different room, it takes her a while to wake Elliott up and she will put herself back to sleep about 50% of the time.

I'm so glad that it is summer time, and that I get to enjoy  my lovely, sweet and precious daughter.