10 Months Update

I can't believe she's almost one. I have to constantly remind myself that my little baby is growing up. She's still a baby, but she can take on so much more than I think she's ready for. The truth of the matter is she grows and changes faster that I do--it's an inspiration really. I'm still stuck on my routine, the one I just settled into, the one where I feel like, "I get this!" She's ready for the next thing. "That was so two months ago, Mom." That's what she would say, if she was speaking actual words.

She isn't really, yet. She will stand in her crib and deliver orations with inflections that might impress both Lincoln and Douglas, raising her finger in the air to punctuate her thoughts. I just have no idea what she's saying.

She does have at least one word bright and clear. She knows who her daddy is, and she'll gladly point to him and declare his identity to whomever is in the room. This is a vast improvement over the days when she made similar declarations that she was fathered by the living room sofa or the television or a slice of cheese.

She has three teeth that have definitely arrived, and the second top tooth has just cut through. I feel for her here, the teeth are coming right after each other and the past few months seem to have brought bugs both caught and warded off. It's hard out there for a 10 month old. The sleep routine has definitely been disturbed, but each disruption seems to have a clear cause. Maybe we'll work more on helping her sleep through the night when she doesn't have several bones pushing their way through her gums.

She's figured out how to crawl on her knees, abandoning her secret mission belly crawl, and she'll pull up on anything vertical and some things that aren't, like a box, or her wooden block, or the floor. (In this case I guess you'd say she's pushing up.)

She eats what I eat, but she's still drinking formula which I try to avoid. I still worry that she'll choke on every new food I give her and she never does. A frightening portion of the food also ends up on the floor. I'm patient with this for now, some of this gravity stuff just can't be avoided.

Sometimes she finds it incredibly hilarious to drop things on the floor. If it's a toy, I no longer pick it up and if it's food it no longer gets replaced. She might have a lecture about the starving children of the world coming. For now, she's still a baby, unmoved by logic and rhetoric, but still damn cute.


Stats for this month:
Wt: 19 lbs 5.6 oz
Ht: 30 1/4" (she grew about three inches!)
HC: 45 cm

Another Disposable Alternative/Diaper Debate

My friend Christene told me about Nature Babycare Diapers as an alternative to other disposable diapers. They are also chlorine free, and well, here is the write-up from diapers.com:

Product features:

-Award winning premium performance Eco-Friendly Disposable Diaper

-Kinder and more gentle to your baby and the environment
-Breathable and chlorine free with natural based material, for natural protection.
-Ultra-thin construction gives a non bulky fit, enabling your baby to move around freely
-Consumer pack based on natural renewable material. No oil-based plastics!
-Winner of the 06-07 Silver Award for "Best Disposable Diaper", featured in Mother & Baby Magazine, a leading UK baby magazine

Features and Benefits of Nature babycare:
-Chlorine-free absorbent materials – does not contribute to dioxin pollution
-100 % compostable back sheet – NO plastic - reduce the greenhouse affect
-100 % compostable distribution layer – NO plastic - reduce the greenhouse affect
-100 % compostable consumer packaging – No plastic - reduce the greenhouse affect
-No latex, fragrance, or TBT (tributyl tin)

The use of compostable material based on renewable sources is reducing the green house effect.

I like 7th Generation products but I really didn't like their diapers, or the 365 diapers. The 7th Generation diapers aren't plastic free (I don't think the 365 are either), and they gave Sophie a diaper rash. Both are chlorine free, however. I really dig 7th Generation products in general, but not the diapers.

Another thing to consider is that even if a diaper is biodegradable, nothing degrades in landfills like they do in say, a compost heap. If 100 year old newspapers made of 100 percent biodegradable woodpulp have been found intact then a diaper would probably not fare much better. (Public Service Announcement: Do not compost poopy diapers. It is fine to compost wet diapers if they are biodegradable. Most disposable diapers are not biodegradable.)

I don't think this lets us off the hook to continue using Pampers however. There are still solutions to be found.

Maybe we can talk next post about the great cloth debate.

gDiapers: Starter Kit

Tutu Sharon bought us a gDiapers starter kit a few weeks ago, and we've been trying them out. I certainly like the environmental ideas behind gDiapers. I've been uncomfortable with the idea that disposable diapers may take 500 years to break down in a landfill (About 500 years ago Henry VIII was King of England, the Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo started painting the Sistine Chapel). At the same time, not having laundry in our building was making cloth diapers less of a possibility, and all the energy (and money) that a diaper service would require seemed to make cloth even less desirable.

gDiapers are cotton pants with a flushable insert that is chlorine and dioxin free and a snap in liner is waterproof and made of rayon (plastic free).

There is all sorts of information regarding the environmental impact of gDiapers on the website. So far they work, but I do recommend reading the manual because there are tricks to fitting the diapers and getting them to flush properly.

Croup!

Christmas night I distinctly heard Sophie bark. I stayed up most of the night with her either helping her sleep or watching her sleep and called the doctor the next morning. After a round of steam showers, humidifiers, juice, and infant Motrin, she was right on track again. She's been so healthy, then in the space of a few weeks she first threw up on me and then started barking. I'm glad this isn't the middle ages or poor Sophie would definitely have an exorcism coming.

I traveled alone with Sophie (so definitely not alone, but a sole parental unit) on the plane ride to and back from Texas. Even getting over a sickness she wanted to make friends with the entire plane. She's a very happy baby, which is mostly a blessing except when she won't sleep because she wants to stay up and party with all her new friends.

It was a very good Christmas. She loves all her aunts and uncles and grandparents (and still has one more to see next week).

She can also get her knees up under her on carpet now although she mostly still prefers to belly crawl like she's in boot camp on wood floors. The apartment seems smaller now. It's only a few seconds to "Come back Sophie" where it used to be at least half a minute.