I overcast the edges of my fabric on my flats so they wouldn’t unravel on me, then I stacked, sewed, trimmed, and finished the edges on my soakers, and finally with some of the scraps that weren’t big enough to be soakers, I sewed and finished some wipes. Overall, for 12 yards of fabric, I got quite a bit with very very little waste. I always feel like I’m throwing away money when I have a bunch of big-ish scraps, but since I don’t quilt and patchwork stuff makes my eyes bleed (the sewing it, not the finished product), I often keep pieces I never do anything with. I ended up with 12 flats, 29 4-piece-thick soakers, and close to a dozen wipes.

Ignore the OSB background. That’s the beginnings of my sewing table.

I got two yards of each of the 6 fabrics, and they’re all super cute. It’s hard to tell from the picture. I have 12 more yards waiting for me, though. 2 yards of blue fairy fabric, 3 yards of night sky fabric, and 5 yards of the cutest brown and pink patterned fabric that I’m not exactly sure how to describe! What I’ve got so far is good enough for day-to-day diapering of Mari, and once I’m done with the other half I should be able to add Raven in, too. Yay for flats!

First I ordered a bunch of animal prints (think cute little turtles, not leopard skin) from an online retailer who was having a sale. 12 yards, free shipping, oh yeah, baby! Then I did the math: I wanted 30″x30″ squares, after shrinkage. 1 yard is 36″ long, by however wide the fabric is, usually 44/45″ (or something close) for cotton flannel. And that’s before shrinkage. Which meant I was getting just ONE flat from each yard, plus enough material to make a decent soaker to lay in for nighttime and my older child. (I’m crazy enough to try this challenge for both of my diapered children. While moving. Did I mention I was moving?) So I’d just spent about $50 on a dozen diapers. That’s roughly $4.17 per diaper. This is still much cheaper than the pockets we were buying — the cheapest one I really like was the Kawaii, which is about $10, and my all-time fave pocket is Fuzzibunz One-Size, which is somewhere around $20. But for flats this seemed way overpriced. I looked around at flats on the web and I found I could get a dozen similarly sized birdseye flats, shipped, for about $2.96/diaper. Eeek. I realize flannel flats are usually a bit more than birdseye, but it still made me wince. I had way overpaid for something I then had to cut and finish the edges of. But it was done and at least the fabric was cuter than cute.

I knew I’d need at a minimum one more dozen flats, and I still wanted to pick my fabric. The designs on the flannel flats I’d seen were ok, but there was so little to choose from compared to the myriad different designs of flannel off the bolt. So I looked around online, but barring a good sale and no shipping which I might not have the time to wait for, it just wasn’t going to be cheap. I went to JoAnn Fabric nearby, but their flannel was no better. $5.99/yard! And the salespeople said it wasn’t due to go on sale anytime soon that they knew of. *sigh* As a last-ditch effort, I went to our local Wal-Mart, which does have a fabric section, however small. They had really cute flannel, 100% cotton… but it was still $4-5/yard. I despaired of even being able to do the challenge anymore. If I couldn’t diaper at least the youngest for a full day, there was no way to do it at all. I can’t wash and dry twice a day. The only local shop that sells cloth diapers didn’t have flats. (Heck, we’re lucky to have any local resource for cloth dipes at all!)

Then I saw clearance tags on the bottom shelf. $3/yard. The first few fabrics didn’t have quite a yard on the bolt, then a few were other fabrics that got put in the wrong place (or maybe that was the designated clearance section?), but then I saw a few. Just a few. They were cute, they were cheap… and they were 100% cotton. Hallelujah! I snatched them up like a starving man would food and stood guard over them at the cutting table. *giggle* I got 12 more yards from those three fabrics. Actually I think I got a little more… one of them had just slightly over 2 yards left on the bolt and he gave me all of it, but only charged me for 2. I think I got an extra soaker for free!

So for $38.16, or $3.18/diaper, I got an extra dozen, which means I’ll be able to diaper Mari for certain and possibly Raven during the challenge. Yay! When I actually manage to shrink, cut, and finish them all, I’ll post pictures. I’m so excited!

For simplicity, and to get her daddy on-board readily, I chose to go for pockets. Prefolds were ok, but if they hadn’t come with the covers, I wouldn’t have bothered after the first few I ordered. Trifolded, they didn’t catch poop, which meant we had to change the cover every time. That defeated the savings of having many prefolds and only a few covers. But folding them around baby was difficult once she got wiggly, and I couldn’t fold them ahead of time, so they took longer. (“Prefold” is a bit of a misnomer, in my opinion, since you still have to fold them to put them on baby. Padded flat might be better.) Pockets are pretty much disposables when it comes to change time. Just fasten and go. Yes, I have to stuff them, but by making the shell and the absorbent parts separate, washing is more effective and drying time is much shorter. It was the best of both worlds.

For some reason, though, the few flats I had were still my favorite. Andrew didn’t mind taking them off and dealing with them, but he wasn’t a fan of putting them on her. He could, just preferred not to. I respected his preference, and always made sure I used flats myself and left pockets for him. (They’re mine, all mine!!!! *giggle* Yeah, I didn’t mind so much.) But I never bought more flats because it seemed silly to buy them just for me. We used pockets for ease of travel, middle-of-the-night changes, alternate caregivers, and Andrew himself. It made sense to just use pockets, period. I do like them, don’t get me wrong! They’re fast and easy during the change, and I can stuff them while watching TV, so not really a big deal. Yes, they take longer to dry, and are a bit harder to wash thoroughly (I’ve had to wash them twice before when really soiled), but the good outweighs the bad by quite a bit. I’m happy enough with our choice.

But the flat love. *sigh* It just doesn’t go away. I love how they look on her — clean, classic lines — and honestly, I think they catch poop even better than the gussets on the pockets. So when I saw the Flats Challenge from Dirty Diaper Laundry, I jumped at the chance to buy more flats. And hey, part of the challenge is hand washing, so I’m not spending any extra in laundry. Hard to argue! I just wanted an excuse, but we won’t speak of that… So I entered an Interest Form, told Andrew I wanted to do it, and am now trying to figure out what kinds of flats I want to use. Yay! *happy dance*

Anyway, the point to this mini-story is I inherited her computer. It’s not a bad computer, it’s just not nearly new enough to run the more demanding programs. So it never really got set up or anything. Mom used it for business, which didn’t require anything but an Internet connection, MS Office, and a few other low-profile programs. It was perfect for her (read: cheap and easily ordered from Dell.com) but it wouldn’t do much I was interested in. We don’t even have an ethernet cable to hook it up to the Internet, for gods’ sake.

But then, as I chased my munchkins away from the computer for the 234027345722477th time, I had a brilliant idea. It can’t get online. It isn’t up to spec, and it sure as shit isn’t worth spending the money to make it that way. It has TONS of free space because Mom didn’t store much more than simple documents on it. If it crapped out tomorrow, I certainly wouldn’t cry over it. It’s perfect for my children! So I downloaded some old educational programs, procrastinated setting it up for a few weeks because I couldn’t find another power strip and I kept forgetting to get one at the store, finally got a power strip, set it all up, and installed the software. Other than the rather steep learning curve for Raven with the program’s interface, it was a huge hit. It literally kept them entertained for HOURS. I got things done around the house. I had five minutes to myself. I’m pretty sure I hit the parenting jackpot.

Then the “aw, crap” part hit. Four days into Parenting Heaven, the mouse stopped working. When I realized it was dead, I actually hung my head and mourned, just a little. Then I remembered I have spares of keyboards and mice from all the old computers, both those owned by Andrew and I (all of two) and those I inherited from my mother (a metric fuckton). I won’t lie, there was happy dancing involved. Except… I can’t find them. Any of them. I may have cried a little. On the inside. On the outside, there was much swearing and pulling of hair. So now I have to either dig through the crapload of stuff in the storage unit for a single, solitary mouse, or convince Andrew to buy a cheap-o mouse so I can go back to actually having peace and quiet on a regular basis. Hmmm, yeah, I wonder which of those will happen.

But my family is a family of black holes. I don’t say this to be amusing (well, yes I do, but it’s true too), I say this to present the facts of my situation… our budget is a joke. Between my snobbery, food allergies in myself and my youngest, food aversions in the others, and the food sink that is my boyfriend, believe me when I say planning a meal is a bitch in high heels stomping all over my head. Even when I make meals we can and will all eat, I have to cook like I’m feeding an army. A small one, but still. There are FIVE people in my home. FIVE. Not twenty. And THREE of them are children. We aren’t talking about the bottomless stomachs of teenagers, or even the growing bodies of pre-teens. The oldest is nearly 5, and after her is a nearly 4 year old, and bring up the rear is the very-nearly 1 year old. They don’t eat like preschoolers and a toddler, no, they eat like marathon runners. Even the baby can pack away more in a sitting than most school-aged children. You think I’m kidding? Exaggerating? (I’m laughing at you, just a little. Ok, a lot.)

My middle child has eating issues. These eating issues have led to her eating only soft, room-temp or colder foods. There are a variety of reasons why that I’m not going to get into, but suffice it to say it’s become so severe that she started losing weight because she refused to eat so much. I’ve learned that every bite counts with her and I can’t be so picky about “healthy” because I’m more worried about “survival.” Why do I mention all this? Because this child, this nearly-4-year-old child, has packed away an entire half gallon carton of ice cream in a day before, and I didn’t want to be flamed for only feeding her junk food. Hell, I’m just happy she got calories. Besides, it has ridiculous amounts of calcium, so shut up. But seriously. If I eat an entire half gallon of ice cream in a day, I get sick. She ate that on top of three bowls of angel hair noodles, two hot dogs, three yogurts, and a quart of milk doctored with carnation instant breakfast. (Side note, carnation instant breakfast has an impressive amount of vitamins and minerals. Seriously, read the label. It’s like vitamin central in a tasty tasty powder.)

My oldest can plow through enough veggies to stock a soup kitchen for an entire day, and that’s in one sitting. She has no eating issues — in fact, she will pretty much eat anything that isn’t bolted down. This child can take a salad bar of fruit and veggies and make them disappear in a half hour, then a half hour later is complaining she’s hungry. I would disbelieve her but I hear her stomach growling. Not to mention she’s only grown in height, not in weight, in almost a year and a half. I’m able to count her ribs and vertebrae very easily now and have started to wonder if she needs even more calories. It seems impossible, but I have no better explanation. Her doctor gave her a clean bill of health, so I’m not sure what else to think. But this child alone can eat our budget right out from under us!

And god help me, the baby’s in on it, too. Just today she’s polished off three waffles, four chicken tenders, a handful (my handful, not hers) of fries, two ounces of cheese, and whatever she’s nicked from her sisters. Which is not inconsiderable. She’s an accomplished little food thief. Plus she still nurses quite often. God only knows how much she’d eat if she didn’t nurse! I shudder to think… And she’s only 1, what happens when she’s 4-5? (Scratch that, I know what will happen. She’ll be yet another garbage disposal. Oh my god, save me…)

Soooo, how exactly do I cut my food costs down? I’ve cut out a lot of meat, as that was our biggest expense, but I can’t cut much more, and I already buy some of the cheapest cuts. I don’t want to cut the fruits and veggies any more — that’s our next biggest expense — because I value the nutrition of them over things like, say, starches. Not that starches don’t have their place, they do, but I’d rather my kids munch on pepper strips than pasta. I make my own bread, we buy in bulk, I shop the edges of the store more than the middle (where the more expensive packaged meals live), I’ve even given up buying anything organic anymore because we just plain can’t afford it. We’re already on WIC, which helps A LOT, but I can’t plant a garden (apartment, and no local community plots I can get to enough to tend them properly) and I can’t find a CSA in the area which has our most-used produce. Things like swiss chard and mustard greens and fennel sound interesting, but I’m a simple girl who uses potatoes, broccoli, and romaine. Oh, and my family is none too big on cabbage, and I can’t eat beans. Of any kind. Legumes make me puff up like a puffer fish who sucked a bit too hard on the nozzle of a compressed air can. Most budget meal plans include LOTS of beans. Why? Because they’re packed with protein, they’re filling, and they’re bloody cheap. Yeah, I know, I hate my allergies.

Besides coupons and shopping the ads, I have zero ideas. Literally, I’ve reached the end of my food budgeting rope. Anybody got any tips?

Today? Is not one of those days. It’s a normal day in Casa Loco, complete with screaming, whining, demands, injuries (this time it was me, go me!), and so forth. But as I sat down to write a massive rant, I realized what my mother tried telling me over and over when she was alive: “This, too, shall pass.” And it shall. Sure, more crazy may replace it, but at least my life will never be boring. I have beautiful, healthy kids. I have a man I love desperately. I have two new fuzzballs to love on. And while they may try to drive me nuts (short trip — literally, get in the car, get out of the car, cause I’m already there, baby!) they love me, and I love them.

And holy crapola, that was sappy! Eh, it happens. Moving on…

The two new fuzzballs? Azriel and Uriel, two kittens we adopted after walking out of Kroger a couple of weeks ago. Yes, we’re suckers. No, I don’t care. They’re cute, and I missed having cats around. They’re siblings; Azriel is a boy, and Uriel is a girl. No, I didn’t know this when we took them… the lady and I thought they were both boys, until I realized that the poofy on Uriel’s butt was a fur patch, not boy bits. Woops! Thankfully, they aren’t sexually mature yet, so we can wait until next month to get them fixed (you know, when we actually have money to spare) so that’s good. But yeah, major fail on my part. (Again, do I care? Not really! Are we sensing a theme yet?)

Azriel, the naughty boy on my laptop...

Uriel, my pretty girl...

Ignore the hideous couch and messy house. I have tried (in vain) to do away with both, but alas, I have been unsuccessful. Hopefully when we move at the beginning of next year, we can get rid of some of the clutter. (I laugh as I type this, because my man is a packrat. Those of you who live with packrats will understand. Those of you who do not… wanna trade?)

On top of new fuzzballs, Mari is starting to try to crawl. I say “try to” because she has more success moving backward than forward, and gets so excited when she manages to push up on all fours that she excitedly rocks herself right over. It’s quite funny, actually. Until she, like her mother, gets so frustrated at not being able to accomplish her goal that she starts screaming.  This is actually one reason I try to limit playing games that do not have excessive save points to a bare minimum. If I have to start ALL OVER one more FRICKEN TIME somebody’s gonna die. And I cannot promise they will be pixelated.

So all in all, life isn’t so bad. Sometimes you just need to step back to see it.

So I use the computer and the phone to stay in touch with the people I love and enjoy talking to. I watch TV and movies. My kids never go hungry because of technology, they are never left squandering in their own filth or anything. But everything I’ve read lately tells me I should “unplug” for their benefit. Um, ok… I spend most of my time each day taking care of Mari, the house, and the food needs of the family. What spare time I have is spent with Andrew, or relaxing away from the children because holysweetbabyjeebus I need a break! It’s not that I don’t interact with my kids, I do. But what the hell am I supposed to discuss with a 4 year old and a 3 year old who has developmental issues? If they want a conversation, I participate. I answer their questions. I make our interactions as instructive as I can so they can learn by doing. What else am I supposed to do?

Am I supposed to devote all my free time to structured learning? I don’t believe in that, anyway. Children are hardwired to learn, all I have to do is provide the opportunity and explanations when applicable. Andrea is extremely bright; she can count to twenty without prompting or assistance, she knows her colors and shapes, has nearly mastered the idea of hours and minutes on a digital clock, and is working on recognizing letters and words. All of this she learned through life, not sitting her down and doing flashcards or some shit. Everything is a learning experience.

The bologna she eats? Is a circle, and pink, and if she rolls it up can be eaten much easier than in a sheet. Shapes, colors, problem solving. If I tell her we need two red bell peppers and one yellow, she can get me exactly what I need. Why? Because she knows what bell peppers are, she knows her colors, and she knows how to count. Not just repeating a string of numbers, but actually counting. She could do this at just under three years old, too. She was counting a dozen yogurt cups on our shopping trips before most kids knew to put 1-2-3 in a sequence. And now she can count backwards, too. Is my time surfing the web really detrimental to her? She knows if she needs me, or wants to talk to me, she’s welcome to come find me. And I’m happy to make time for her, as long as it’s not something important she’s interrupting (like feeding her baby sister… that child can scream the roof off when she’s hungry!) or dangerous to take my attention away from.

I hold them, I cuddle them, I tell them stories and kiss their hurts away. Just because they aren’t strapped down to me every second of the day, am I really a bad mother? I think not. But maybe I’m wrong, who knows. Then again, if I strapped my munchkins down for more than a half hour, I’d be covered in claw marks where they tried frantically to get away! So maybe it’s just self-preservation, eh?

… and now I’m over it. So there.

I’m pouring the boob juice down Mari’s throat still — and will be for the foreseeable future, I hope (yay! free food!) — so that happy vodka tonic is a no-no right now. But I could really use it. Not because I want a crutch, but because I want a fucking vacation. A little mellow time to stop and collect myself instead of running headlong into each day with the Klingon war cry in my head, “It’s a good day to die!” Also? Star Trek: The Next Generation was pure awesome. Hands down the best in the entire franchise. Those who disagree — especially you “original series” Trekkies, can kiss my lily white — Ahem. Excuse my nerdy lapse. Moving on!

Why do I need a vacation, you ask? Ever taken care of three kids under 5? Yeeeeah, that pretty much says it all. Why go into the gory details? No one likes a complainer. Well, okay, let me just say two things: potty training sucks ass, and infant reflux sucks harder. ‘Nuff said.

On a different, though not much happier note, I’ve got a serious depression kicking me in the nads. Well, it would if I had nads. May is a bad, bad month. My late mother’s birthday was the 2nd, mother’s day is the 9th, and the anniversary of her death is the 11th. Can we skip May? Fo’ realz? I like June… my birthday’s in June. June is a good month. Anyone got a time-fast-forwardy thing? I’ll totally make out with you and do unspeakable things to you (for you?) if you just hop me right over this shit. Get back to me on that.

Now the happy stuff! One of my best friends (no, I will NOT say BFF, mostly because the trendy ninth-grader vibes would scar my vocal chords for all time… wait, fingertips? shit!) is preggo, the other best friend is graduating college (yay!), and I am all about the weight losin’. Most people hate diets with a vengeance. Me? I just want a sexy fucking body to rock out with. I’m in my prime, people. I want a little sexy in my life! Thus, diet = good thing. Now if only cheesecake would stop being so damned yummy… Mmmm, cheesecake…

Just kidding. Well, sort of. I gave birth to my third (and last) ankle biter this past Saturday. Mari (that’s short for Damara… I’ll tell the very funny name story later) is a happy, healthy baby who contentedly eats, sleeps, craps, pees, and cries, just like every other happy, healthy newborn. Thank god. She came about 3 weeks too early — we originally thought 4 weeks, but their “super accurate early ultrasound” was totally off. Score one for natural family planning, since I charted my conception at about 6 or 7 days before they did. (I have the very childish urge to stick my tongue out and chant, “nah nah nah nah nah nah.” Okay, so I acted on my urge. Shut up, no one asked you.)

For those with a love of details, she was born at 7:29 a.m. and was 7lbs 3oz and 20in long. God help me had she cooked 3 more weeks… I would have given birth to a behemoth. Of course, she would’ve fit right in with my other two behemoths, so y’know. So far all has gone well in the life of three hellions, but we’ll see how long that lasts!

Oh, and a small update. My older children have cavities out the wazoota, despite teeth brushing. The dentist blames it all on the (extremely watered down) juice we give them to drink. So we’ve switched them to only one cup of juice a day (full strength for regularity) with a good tooth scrubbing after, and only milk and water the rest of the day. We’ll see just how full of shit the dentist is, I suppose.

If you just got chills down your spine and actually felt sympathy for some random person over the Interwebz, congrats, you have kids. You’ve either taken those kids to the dentist (I’m so sorry) or you’ve contemplated it in horror, wondering just how long you can get away with not taking them. Possibly, you’re one of those people who was tortured by dentists as a kid, but you’re in the minority. Fact is, dentists rarely torture children without reason, and that reason is usually orthodontic procedures. Thankfully, my kids’ teeth are reasonably straight — thank you sweet baby jeebus — so I don’t really have to worry about this.

But taking a toddler to a doctor’s office, any doctor’s office, is hell. Invariably, they do something the kid isn’t comfortable with, and screaming/crying/whining/total fucking meltdown begins. And can you blame them? Someone they barely know is all up in their personal space, poking and prodding them. I’d be nervous and pissed too. It just gets sooooo much worse when the poking and prodding is around sharp little teeth while being held down and wrenched open. It’s about as invasive as a pelvic exam. If vaginas had teeth, gynos would be in big fucking trouble.

I’m trying not to dread this trip too much, and for my oldest, it might not be so bad. She likes doctors, and we’ve explained this is just a doctor who takes care of teeth, so she’s not really fearing it. But I have no idea how she’ll handle actually having someone’s fingers and tools in her mouth. I know she has cavities; getting those taken care of could require drastic measures, like industrial strength valium and some restraint straps. Andrea has some seriously sensitive teeth… just like me. But unfortunately, she wasn’t born with the ability to overlook tooth pain like I have. Or maybe she hasn’t developed it yet. Whatever. Either way, it’ll be a battle.

Raven is just… all around no. OMG, no. She freaks if the wrong person feeds her her yogurt. She’s developmentally behind, and doesn’t understand the doctor won’t hurt her, or that he’s not hurting her because he wants to, but because those cavities have to come out. (Actually, I’m not sure if she has cavities or just tartar buildup… I pray for the latter.) She doesn’t seem so sensitive in the teeth, but she doesn’t like her personal space invaded. She doesn’t like to be touched by strangers. She will bite, and I will warn the poor dentist of this long before he gets near her mouth. It’s going to be a battle of epic proportions, and quite frankly, I’m not sure we’ll win. She’s fucking stubborn.

Pray for me?