We have had a house cleaner come to our house once a month for awhile now and every time I'm amazed at how clean our house can get. Too bad we can't keep it that way for long. :(

With a toddler, a newborn, and three cats, this house looks chaotic if not tidied every day. So, most of the time, picking up is all we have time for. Dishes pile up for a couple of days before we get around to them and laundry piles up on the washer until we get enough to start a load. Cat hair is in everything!

For the past week I have been fighting a cold that's knocked me off my feet, so imagine how blessed and thankful I felt for our house cleaner when I returned home today to the fresh scent of newly polished floors, fluffy couch cushions that no longer had crumbs and cat hair scratching our legs, a shiny kitchen with no dishes in the sink, clean bathrooms without a single spot on the mirrors, tidy playroom, freshly vacuumed carpets everywhere, and perfectly made beds.

I love our house cleaner!

For Father's Day, I took the girls to the Picture People to get photos taken to surprise Paul and the Grandfathers. Both girls were surprisingly cooperative and we got a few cute shots.

We are reading a Disney Princesses book about Cinderella planning her wedding....

Abby: "Maybe I will try that someday."
Me: "Try what?"
Abby: "Getting married."
Me: "You want to TRY getting married?"
Abby: "Yeah, maybe I will get married to Prince Charming so I can spin in a dress."
Me: "You want to TRY getting married so you can spin in a wedding dress?!"
Abby: "Yes, hold flowers and spin in a dress."

Kayleigh had her 2nd well-baby checkup on Monday and she is doing beautifully. Almost 12 pounds!!! (As a comparison, Abby was barely 10 pounds at her 2 month well-baby.)

For physical development the doctor thinks she's close to that of a 4 month old. She holds her head up and sits with support pretty well. While the doctor laid her on her tummy to check her back, she pushed off with her legs and feet, creeping forward.

Kayleigh has plugged tear ducts and since Abby also had them, we knew what to do and have been massaging her tear ducts daily. However, Kayleigh did develop a mild eye infection so we have eye drops for her 3 times a day until the tears run clear. Her face is a bit red and dry due to irritation from the tears, but some lotion will help soothe her skin. The doctor even suggested diaper rash cream to help her face (A+D ointment).

She received 5 shots (Polio, DTap, Hib, Hep B, and Prevnar) and also took the oral Rotavirus vaccine. Turns out she's a pretty tough kid, crying a little during the shots, but as soon as the nurse put on a band-aid, she took a deep breath, let it out, and looked at me to say, "Nnnnn!" Then she turned towards the nurse and smiled at her! As if to say, "I know you were just doing your job and I forgive you for causing me the discomfort. "

Last Friday I had my 6-week postpartum checkup. Since I had to do a 2-hour 75-g glucose tolerance test to make sure my blood sugar levels have returned to normal, I brought Kayleigh along.

If you remember Kayleigh's birth story, you'll recall that her birth was very quick and easy. Apparently, that was an unusual labor and delivery and Kayleigh's arrival has been discussed by the doctors in that practice. In the elevator going up to my appointment, I bumped into the nurse who had sent me to the hospital after checking me that Tuesday morning and declared that I was 6 centimeters dilated and should be admitted. She told me my doctor was stunned that I would arrive later than her to the hospital even after being told how far along I was and that I checked in at 8 cm and NOT in labor!

Actually, the not being in labor part had been bothering me these past 6 weeks. I figured that being that far along when I checked in to the hospital I must have been in labor for awhile and just didn't recognize it, right? How dumb am I?! After every doctor telling me, "Oh, you'll KNOW when you go into labor," yet somehow they consider me "barely having made it to the hospital," I have been feeling rather obtuse these past few weeks.

So, I did ask Dr. Ashbeck the definition of labor. I learned that, in fact, I actually was NOT in labor when I checked into the hospital. Labor is defined as having both cervical changes plus regular contractions. I was definitely missing the latter. So, it wasn't until she broke my water that I was actually in labor.

That means my labor was officially 1 hour and 15 minutes! I think that's pretty cool.

Everything checked out fine. I have healed completely and my glucose test results were normal.

The doctor and I discussed birth control options. Since I am not quite ready for anything permanent yet I think the best options are mini-pill (progesterone only while I'm still nursing) or Mirena at this point.

Kayleigh is a very easy baby to care for and I am taking her to Stroller Strides to get some much-needed exercise. I am very fortunate to already be 2 pounds less than my pre-pregnancy weight, but would still like to lose 10 more pounds. So, I might as well take advantage of the extra calories burned by nursing and compound them by getting up and moving around more.

Right after Abigail was potty trained, I did a conservative calculation and figured that we had spent at least $1800 on disposable diapers for her. Now, Abby is a camel and for a very long time leading up to potty training she used only about 5 diapers a day!

After some research online and asking my friends who had used cloth on their kids, I realized that if we used cloth diapers, we could spend about $500 total and get a child from birth through potty training. That's a huge savings!

I wasn't completely sold on cloth, though, not liking the idea of toting around dirty diapers and handling mounds of soiled and wet laundry items every few days. There are so many different types of cloth diapers, from prefolds with covers to fitted and one-size All-In-Ones and Pocket diapers. Prefolds didn't appeal to me and AIOs were bulky and hard to launder. Pocket diapers sounded the most simple and cost effective for our needs, but most didn't fit newborns well, so we figured that we would still use disposables to start.

We changed our minds almost as soon as Kayleigh was born. She went through 60 disposables in her first 3 days of life and continues to prove ultra-sensitive to a dirty diaper! So, I started to look more earnestly into cloth with the hope of protecting our bank accounts.

I bought a dozen newborn prefolds, snappies to fasten them, and two Thirsties Duo Wraps to cover the prefolds. Half of the prefolds were being used as burp clothes because I wasn't really committing to cloth diapering yet at this point. A couple of weeks later, though, I found a store that had a mix-and-match sale on pocket diapers, so I picked up 5 to try - 1 Happy Heinys, 2 bumGenius 3.0, 1 Sweet Pea, and 1 Rumparooz G2.

Since Kayleigh was born fairly large, at 8 lbs 7 ozs, I thought she might be able to start fitting into the pocket diapers, so they got washed and tested. After a few uses, I realized I really liked them! These pocket diapers, once stuffed with the inserts, were as easy to use as disposables.

One thing we didn't like right off the bat was having to remove the inserts before putting them in the diaper pail and having to throw away the wipes separately, rather than just rolling it up in the diaper and tossing the whole package away. So, this was a bit of inconvenience we hadn't anticipated.

A few weeks later, we learned that disposable diaper wipes go through the laundry very well, so we just toss them along with the dirty diaper into the pail and collect/toss them when moving things to the dryer. With the inserts, we have often forgotten to take them out and they come out of the wash just fine. The Rumparooz, though, have a "poop scoop" in the back which makes it harder for the insert to come out in the wash as easily as the others, so I leave the tag of the insert near the opening so that I have something to grab easily and pull out part-way.

All 5 diapers were good, but we were blown away by the Rumparooz (RaR). They have an inner gusset and "poop scoop" (see diagram below) which catch EVERYTHING. These diapers ride lower and we were really hesitant at first, but even with the worst messes which would have no doubt been a blow-out in a disposable, nothing gets out of the RaRs. They come with a contoured newborn insert which makes the diaper fit very trimly and more comfortably on a small baby. This insert later becomes a doubler for the regular insert when the baby gets older or for night-time wear. They are adorable with solid and patterned prints, and the quality is unbeatable. We have had stitches pulling out of our bumGenius and Happy Heinys and the PUL starting to wear away where the velcro snags the material. Nothing like that with the RaRs and they all still look as good as the first day we got them. They also have a more velvety micro-fleece lining on the inside and the laundry tabs are a lot less scratchy than the other velcro fastened diapers. Last, but not least, the RaRs were created by a local mom here in Golden, CO! The only negative I have on the RaRs is that because of the many folds in the gussets, sometimes very, very messy diapers lead to residue left in the gussets and I end up throwing them back in the wash. This has happened only once in the last 2 months, though. Oh, and also, these were the most expensive of the diapers we tried.


The next one I like is the Sweet Pea because it has openings in the front and back, making stuffing after laundering very, very easy and quick. Also, there's absolutely no need to remove the inserts after use because they always come out of one of the openings during the wash. They come in snaps only and I love the adjustability of their snaps the best. Sweet Peas are made in Canada and come with both a cotton insert and a hemp insert. The hemp is super absorbent, but also most difficult to dry!

The Happy Heinys (HH) and bumGenius (bG) were only ok for us. Both just didn't fit Kayleigh as well as the Rumparooz. They are really wide between the legs and the panel in the front for fastening seems to be uncomfortable for her. The flaps for the pocket openings are so large that they hang out and I find myself stuffing the edges inside after I fasten the diaper on Kayleigh. Color has bled from both of my bumGenius diapers and have permanently stained the velcro tabs pink. Both have had stitches come loose. However, even though they're only ok, they still work just fine and are kept in our repertoire. A lot of people LOVE their HH or bG diapers, but they just don't work the best for us. (We have completely stopped using prefolds as Kayleigh outgrew the newborn prefolds, even though the covers and snappies would still work for probably several more months.)

With all of the diapers, I have found that I like snaps better than velcro. Snaps are so easy to use, especially once you have an idea where you need to snap to get the best fit. The RaRs and Sweet Peas are perfectly stretchy to provide an excellent fit with the snaps. Snaps don't snag anything in the laundry and you won't ever find bits of poo in them as you may with the velcro tabs. However, Paul likes the velcro a lot better because he finds them easier to use - just like disposables. As a result, we currently have 9 RaRs (5 velcro, 4 snaps), 2 bGs (both velcro), 1 HH (velcro), and 1 Sweet Pea (they only come in snaps).

With only 13 diapers in our stash, we are able to use cloth during the day and disposables at night and sometimes when we are out of the house, but we wash diapers almost every day. This arrangement works well for us and we will add to our stash slowly.

The Colorado sun is so perfect for getting stains out of these diapers. If I see the slightest stain on any of the inserts or diapers after a wash, I place the item by a window and a few minutes later (up to an hour) it will be bright white before I toss it into the dryer with everything else. Everything comes out of the dryer looking great!

Overall, I'm happy to be using cloth - they're definitely not much more work than disposables. I only wish they were less bulky so I can fit more than 3 in my diaper bag when we are out and about.

We're definitely reducing the amount of disposables we go through, so we are sticking with these pocket diapers.

Kayleigh started smiling at 4.5 weeks old. Her favorite person to smile at is my dad, who can just look at her and receive a big grin. The rest of us have to talk, sing, coo, and pull faces at her to maybe get a smirk.

Over the last week and a half we have spent a lot of time trying everything we can to produce a smile. It's been a lot of fun and is getting better as her smiles have become more frequent.

She is starting to stay awake a little more now, sleeping maybe only 16 hours a day, rather than 20. She is still proving to be a very laid-back, easy-going kid.

Eyebrows and eyelashes are starting to fill in. (I was shocked when she was born with both nearly indiscernible!)

She is holding her head up very well - up and steady for about 5-8 seconds at a time - and she loves being held upright to look at everything, which is also a sign that she is seeing more and more.

We don't know how much she weighs right now, but she has definitely grown quite a bit - length-wise and width-wise. To my utter delight, she has developed fantastic "pinch me" cheeks where if you look at her profile, you can't see her lips and can barely see the tip of her nose, as they are hidden behind chubby cheeks. I LOVE babies with ample cheeks! Abby sometimes greets Kayleigh in the afternoons during pick-up from daycare with a squeeze of those delicious cheeks. :)

I'm having a hard time believing that Kayleigh has been with us for a month now. Time flies when you're having fun...how true!

Kayleigh's what we're considering a textbook baby. All of those books you read about regarding what parents should do to get that perfect baby so that they may all survive until the first birthday used to irk me because I figured only 5% of it actually pertained to less than 1% of all babies. Things like sleeping through the night by 3 weeks old, feeding on a set schedule, (here's the kicker) falling asleep after being laid down awake, etc., have all been shockingly mastered by Kayleigh.

Ok, things aren't perfect, but close enough. Only a couple of little things make parenting Kayleigh a tad difficult. For one, Kayleigh is an eager feeder and still doesn't always latch on well, requiring adjustments, which irritate her because, well, she's an eager feeder. Despite her eagerness, though, she tends to fall asleep almost 5 minutes into a feed, so we have gotten a stack of tricks for keeping her awake. The most annoying one, which we save as a last resort is wetting her face with some water and blowing on it. As our pediatrician advised, "think of ways to make her cry." The most annoying little Kayleigh "thing" is that the slightest wet diaper causes her to scream her head off. We went through 60 diapers in her first 3 days of life. As a result, we have ventured into cloth diapering in an effort to save our bank accounts! (More on cloth diapering in a separate post.)

So, in the past month, I have been doing a modified version of the Chinese post-partum confinement known as "doing the month." (We're modifying the traditional rules because most of them are just ridiculous and impractical in the busy, modern world. Things like not washing your hair for 1 month or strict confinement for the month - not possible with all the doctor's appointments and family activities.) My mom has provided an endless amount of delicious food - mainly broths and porridge - which have contributed to aiding recovery. I have stayed away from "cold" foods and have pretty much stayed home or at least indoors to prevent exposure to germs (for Kayleigh) and from wind (for both Kayleigh and me). A theory behind doing the month stems from maintaining the hot-cold balance of the body. During pregnancy, with the excess blood circulation, the body is considered hot. After delivery, the body is cold due to the significant reduction in blood, so in order to restore balance, nourishment and physical exposure need to be hot. The concept of hot and cold doesn't necessarily imply temperature, though. For example, ginger root with the skin on it is considered a cold food, but without the skin, it is considered hot. A clementine orange is considered cold, yet a Sunkist naval orange is considered hot. I'm thankful that my mom is here to guide me, since there is no way I can keep any of this straight in my head! In the meantime, I'm consuming copious amounts of delicious 8 Treasure Porridge, fresh soy milk, soy beans and spareribs broth, and Pig's Feet and Peanuts Stew....yum!

Kayleigh is doing great health-wise. Both Abby and Paul came down with colds which have persisted through the last couple of weeks, but both Kayleigh and I have managed to avoid getting sick. Since her cord stump fell off at day 11, we have been bathing her about twice a week, but since the weather is so dry here, she has developed some annoying dandruff and flaky skin over the last couple of weeks. With all the dry skin/eczema problems we have had to deal with with Abby, we are trying our best to keep Kayleigh moisturized.

All in all, we have had no issues adjusting to the new addition to the family. She is such an easy- going, mellow baby that our activities have not been disrupted much at all.

I have been enjoying staying at home and do not miss work at all yet. It's been fantastic to be able to spend more time with Abby and she sure keeps me busy!

The above is a picture of Abby with Kayleigh. Every evening, she asks us to put Kayleigh in her Gymini so that she can play with her. Abby will dangle toys in front of Kayleigh's face or dance around her trying to get her to move her head around.

This picture reflects how I feel about the fact that my baby is growing up too, too fast!!

Abigail's daycare throws a Spring Fling every year to raise money for a couple of local charities. Families buy tickets to participate in various activities and enjoy a dinner served at the school. Activities include face-painting, gymnastics on the Fun Bus, a jumping castle, duck "hunting", and many sports and games.

For the past month, families from each classroom have helped to create gift baskets for a silent auction. Also, families were asked to donate cakes or other sweets for the cake walk. As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, Abby won one of these cakes!

These pictures of Abby and her cousin, Annette, were taken April 24th by Annette's mom. Annette's family came to Colorado for a wedding (Uncle Jim and Val's) and they stopped by our house in Castle Rock before we all drove up to Denver for the ceremony and reception.

These two girls have only met a couple of times and yet they seem like best friends. I love these photos of the two of them.