Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Poor thing...
She just does not want to go to sleep tonight! I'll probably have to take her to bed with me soon as she keeps waking up just enough to nurse, then falls back asleep only to wake up later to nurse. She's sleeping on the love seat in the living room which is where I have my laptop. John is already at work now, he left about an hour ago after checking the mail for me. No cloth diapers yet. I'll have to check the tracking to see where they are at. I had ordered a few pocket diapers for Natalie for overnights so we'll have to see how those work. It would be nice to not have to worry about finding disposable diapers over in South Korea, especially as we will have a washer in our apartment. We won't have a dryer though so that's going to make things kind of interesting.I have been trying to keep Natalie on a schedule now as far as bath time goes these days. I'm not able to give her a bath every day or even every other day because if she gets too many baths, she starts to dry out. So, she's scheduled for two a week, a Monday morning bath and a Friday night bath. I have this foaming bath stuff that she just loves and depending on what day it is, she either gets the cheerful orange bath or the calming lavender bath. I get them from the co-op in Madison for about $3 each and they last awhile since I don't use it all for one bath. Basically, it is baking soda, a few other things, and some essential oils. Smells nice and Natalie seems to enjoy it too.
Unfortunately, her bath days are nearing an end as I don't believe they will have a bath tub in our apartment in Korea. Showers are more commonplace especially full room showers. Should be interesting adjusting to all the differences between here and there. It makes me a little sad though because Natalie does like her baths. I may have to invest in an inflatable pool somehow before we go over there. She'll tolerate showers but as she enjoys "swimming" in the bathtub, baths for her are more fun.
So, she gets her bath with her foaming bath soda and I let her play and "swim" in there for a little. Soap right now, I'm trying to work on. I have some California Baby stuff I'm using but I also have some Aquifer stuff I'm using too as well as a bar of castile soap which doesn't seem to work up much of a lather unfortunately. Still trying to do more research on the body washes and soaps as I'm not totally sure about the stuff I'm using on her but at least it isn't Johnson and Johnson. That stuff, I have heard, is BAD so I'm trying to limit that at least. Hair washing now is a bit interesting. Shampoo dries her hair (even the stuff that is supposed to have conditioner in with it) so, what I have been using lately is just a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar diluted with water and that's only for the daytime bath, I don't use it on Fridays. It's actually the same thing I use in my hair only before I use that, I will wash my hair with 1/2 a tablespoon of baking soda diluted in water. This is my no-poo routine. Natalie's hair doesn't get greasy like mine does (at least it hasn't yet, hasn't had a chance to really be ruined by the overuse of shampoo and conditioner) so she only needs the apple cider vinegar. It rinses out nicely without leaving a smell and her hair has been very nice and shiny. It could stand a little bit of a hair cut though (a trim to even things up) but I'm too much of a chicken to do more than her bangs right now so I may have to drop the money to do that at some point before we leave the states.
Once she's all done, I do a final rinse with the shower, take her out, comb and braid her hair, put lotion/body butter on her, and then she's all done and ready to get dressed and maybe head out with her dad to the park to play. Of course, now that I have written this, I realize that I'll probably want to give her a bath on Thursday before taking her to the Le Leche League meeting. Ah well, it's not the first time the schedule has been changed though the only thing is is that she may still end up getting a bath Friday night as we're planning to have either pizza or lasagna for dinner that night. But maybe it will be okay so long as I don't use any soap on her that night. We'll see. I always have to make sure she doesn't start drying out and getting patches of dry spots which is a sign her eczema is coming back. Baby skin can be SO hard to care for at times.
Anyway, figure I should post some new pictures:
Here is Natalie wearing John's lettermen jacket from high school (I never got one, my mother felt they were too impractical--BOO!) but John still has his. It's huge on Natalie though, falls all the way to the ground. It still fits John though, just a little short in the sleeves now compared to when he was younger (though he says it was a bit bigger on him back then).
Here's John helping Natalie get a mitten on. I was trying clothes on her and she decided that she wanted to accessorize her outfit so that she was prepared for ANY season, I guess. She has the mittens and the scarf on but notice the beach hat and the sunglasses too. She's getting more into dressing up so I have a bunch of stuff in a drawer for her to go and put on if she wants. I may have to check out some costumes though at some point to give her even more things to try on and play around with.
The finishing touches. Notice the HAT that is on her left foot. And now, she has her purse and I think she even has a set of keys too. She's all dressed up and ready to go out on the town. Toddlers, what can I say?
| posted by Janeen at 11:25 PM
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Tami of BrooksGroth had this to say:
Wow, those pictures -- Natalie is getting to be such a big "little girl" ... the pics of her in the mix of summer and winter wear sure looks familiar, LOL. Nessa loves to do that stuff.
I should try some of your ides on switching away from Shampoo as we're trying to simplify as well as stay away from chemicals. I'm just happy I finally got Shawn to use more natural/organic/non-hazardous shampoo and body wash. :-)
For dry skin or to prevent it, use coconut oil! It's my fabulous new "cure all" LOL. Seriously, I've been using it a few months now and would NOT want to be without it. You can get really good cold pressed organic in the skin care products aisle of the co-op here or you can just use what you find in the cooking section of any grocery store (and of course you can order online as well). The cold-pressed does have more of the other good properties too (antibacterial and antimicrobial and more ... sure got rid of my itchy areas this summer). I also love it because it's solid at room temp (76 degrees) and liquid warmer than that so it's pretty easy to work with. Lots of people use it in their hair to as a conditioner. Google it. :-)
