cleanliness is next to godliness if you are bad at alphabetizing
My thoughts are a bit fragmented so I apologize if this is hard to follow. I'm skipping from one topic to another in my mind.
Today I tore the master bedroom apart, childproofed it, and cleaned it, which is a task that has been gazing reproachfully on my to-do list for longer than I care to admit. This was all in order to convert Pippa's crib from a crib to a toddler bed. So tonight will be her first night in a bed rather than a crib. I also did some, but not all, of my clearing out (packing summer stuff up, and weeding out some items we no longer want). I found a couple of pieces I had put away because they were too small, tried them on, and they fit now, which is great because I was running low on things that fit.
It ended up not taking as long as I feared it would. About four hours total I think? Maybe even a bit less. The Husband was watching Pip.
This was the third day in a row that it appeared that Pippa was going to skip her nap and go to sleep at 7ish. Unfortunately, she had a bit of a meltdown when I went to the bathroom. She had been playing quietly by herself so I thought I could go and have no problem, but even though I was only gone five minutes, she was howling at the baby gate for four of them, and had gotten herself so hysterical that she was hyperventilating. I took her over to the couch and nursed her to calm her down and she fell asleep. It was about 5pm and very unexpected. So I tucked her into bed and figured I'd do laundry and then make dinner.
Dinner was almost done around 6:15 and she woke up, screaming. Often times when she takes these kind of late, short naps they leave her mood worse than before so I wasn't terribly concerned. I picked her up and walked her around and showed her that the dinner was almost ready, then put her in the high chair. She just kept crying. I thought she might be hungry, so I offered her some cheese. She didn't want any. She had made what looked like an "EAT" sign through her tears so I thought she just wanted something other than cheese. I rushed to get dinner ready and gave her some.
She refused it completely, which is very unlike her. My nerves were pretty frayed from all this crying and I was a bit exasperated, for some reason still thinking that she was just being cranky. I started eating mine, thinking maybe she would calm down and start eating. She stopped crying, then started again. I started getting concerned that she was ill. I quickly shoved my quarter-eaten dinner and the rest of the dinner on the stove into the fridge and whisked her off for a diaper change, gloomily thinking that I would be nursing her all night.
She had a horrible ammonia burn diaper rash, I guess because she got left in that diaper too long because of the unexpected nap. I felt awful and terribly guilty that I hadn't changed her more often. Of course it could also be that I need to strip the diapers. I'm planning on keeping her in disposables until I can strip them, just in case that is it. Recently I increased the amount of soap I was using because there was a kind of very faint, musty, barnyard kind of smell in the diapers. It wasn't like a horrible stench, more like the kind of smell at a well-run petting zoo (and you had to put your nose right into the insert to smell it), but still, implying a certain amount of uncleanliness. Using more soap got rid of that smell, but now I've got ammonia issues. Ugh. HE washers are so terrible for cloth diapers.
Christine, you will be pleased to know that I when I was Googling around for ammonia ideas, your blog post was one of the ones that came up... haha. I was actually looking for suggestions for creams/baths/other treatments for the rash itself, but your post reminded me about bleaching the inserts, which is something I've never done.
So my plan for tomorrow is to do a normal wash of all the diapers (shells + inserts) with some extra rinses, then do a bleach wash of just the inserts, and see if that does the trick.
Anyway, back to tonight. The dinner was something that I thought she'd like: another ground beef orzo skillet--broccoli and mushroom this time. (I've just discovered the magic of one-pan orzo skillets. It's like the unprocessed, veggie-packed version of Hamburger Helper and is so easy to clean up after since all you have at the end to clean up is a cutting board, a knife, a pan, and a spatula, plus whatever plates you ate off of, of course.) So I thought that now that she had a clean disposable diaper on and had some time to calm down, she would want some. But no dice. I even had brought the dinner out to the living room so she could sit on the soft couch instead of the hard high chair in case that was it, but she refused to eat even one bite.
Usually I follow the school of child food philosophy which indicates that children can regulate their own intake so that if they refuse to eat, don't force them, but I was seriously concerned about having a night full of nursing, so I broke my rules about never making a meal for a kid just this once and opened up a granola bar for her, which is one of her favorite treats. She ate it, so I feel a bit better.
She didn't fall asleep until nine, so we'll see how tonight goes. I really wish this hadn't happened on the first night we're trying the toddler bed. It'll be hard to tell what's because the day was bad and what's because it's a new thing.
The other bad thing is that with all the cleaning I've been doing (yesterday I similarly overhauled the living room, pulling out all the furniture to sweep behind it), I think I've kicked up a lot of dust. I have been sneezing constantly and my nasal passages feel irritated. It feels good to have the living room and bedroom so clean, but I've slacked off a bit on the dining room and kitchen because of it, so I've got more major cleaning ahead of me. I'm actually hoping if I bat my eyelashes alluringly that I can take Pippa out somewhere Thursday or Friday and have The Husband do the kitchen, as that's my least favorite room to clean.
I would like to stand in my apartment on Saturday afternoon and say "Yes, this is a clean place alright." Just before a bunch of family comes over for dinner and board games. So... an hour of cleanliness is what I am asking for, I guess.
Today I tore the master bedroom apart, childproofed it, and cleaned it, which is a task that has been gazing reproachfully on my to-do list for longer than I care to admit. This was all in order to convert Pippa's crib from a crib to a toddler bed. So tonight will be her first night in a bed rather than a crib. I also did some, but not all, of my clearing out (packing summer stuff up, and weeding out some items we no longer want). I found a couple of pieces I had put away because they were too small, tried them on, and they fit now, which is great because I was running low on things that fit.
It ended up not taking as long as I feared it would. About four hours total I think? Maybe even a bit less. The Husband was watching Pip.
This was the third day in a row that it appeared that Pippa was going to skip her nap and go to sleep at 7ish. Unfortunately, she had a bit of a meltdown when I went to the bathroom. She had been playing quietly by herself so I thought I could go and have no problem, but even though I was only gone five minutes, she was howling at the baby gate for four of them, and had gotten herself so hysterical that she was hyperventilating. I took her over to the couch and nursed her to calm her down and she fell asleep. It was about 5pm and very unexpected. So I tucked her into bed and figured I'd do laundry and then make dinner.
Dinner was almost done around 6:15 and she woke up, screaming. Often times when she takes these kind of late, short naps they leave her mood worse than before so I wasn't terribly concerned. I picked her up and walked her around and showed her that the dinner was almost ready, then put her in the high chair. She just kept crying. I thought she might be hungry, so I offered her some cheese. She didn't want any. She had made what looked like an "EAT" sign through her tears so I thought she just wanted something other than cheese. I rushed to get dinner ready and gave her some.
She refused it completely, which is very unlike her. My nerves were pretty frayed from all this crying and I was a bit exasperated, for some reason still thinking that she was just being cranky. I started eating mine, thinking maybe she would calm down and start eating. She stopped crying, then started again. I started getting concerned that she was ill. I quickly shoved my quarter-eaten dinner and the rest of the dinner on the stove into the fridge and whisked her off for a diaper change, gloomily thinking that I would be nursing her all night.
She had a horrible ammonia burn diaper rash, I guess because she got left in that diaper too long because of the unexpected nap. I felt awful and terribly guilty that I hadn't changed her more often. Of course it could also be that I need to strip the diapers. I'm planning on keeping her in disposables until I can strip them, just in case that is it. Recently I increased the amount of soap I was using because there was a kind of very faint, musty, barnyard kind of smell in the diapers. It wasn't like a horrible stench, more like the kind of smell at a well-run petting zoo (and you had to put your nose right into the insert to smell it), but still, implying a certain amount of uncleanliness. Using more soap got rid of that smell, but now I've got ammonia issues. Ugh. HE washers are so terrible for cloth diapers.
Christine, you will be pleased to know that I when I was Googling around for ammonia ideas, your blog post was one of the ones that came up... haha. I was actually looking for suggestions for creams/baths/other treatments for the rash itself, but your post reminded me about bleaching the inserts, which is something I've never done.
So my plan for tomorrow is to do a normal wash of all the diapers (shells + inserts) with some extra rinses, then do a bleach wash of just the inserts, and see if that does the trick.
Anyway, back to tonight. The dinner was something that I thought she'd like: another ground beef orzo skillet--broccoli and mushroom this time. (I've just discovered the magic of one-pan orzo skillets. It's like the unprocessed, veggie-packed version of Hamburger Helper and is so easy to clean up after since all you have at the end to clean up is a cutting board, a knife, a pan, and a spatula, plus whatever plates you ate off of, of course.) So I thought that now that she had a clean disposable diaper on and had some time to calm down, she would want some. But no dice. I even had brought the dinner out to the living room so she could sit on the soft couch instead of the hard high chair in case that was it, but she refused to eat even one bite.
Usually I follow the school of child food philosophy which indicates that children can regulate their own intake so that if they refuse to eat, don't force them, but I was seriously concerned about having a night full of nursing, so I broke my rules about never making a meal for a kid just this once and opened up a granola bar for her, which is one of her favorite treats. She ate it, so I feel a bit better.
She didn't fall asleep until nine, so we'll see how tonight goes. I really wish this hadn't happened on the first night we're trying the toddler bed. It'll be hard to tell what's because the day was bad and what's because it's a new thing.
The other bad thing is that with all the cleaning I've been doing (yesterday I similarly overhauled the living room, pulling out all the furniture to sweep behind it), I think I've kicked up a lot of dust. I have been sneezing constantly and my nasal passages feel irritated. It feels good to have the living room and bedroom so clean, but I've slacked off a bit on the dining room and kitchen because of it, so I've got more major cleaning ahead of me. I'm actually hoping if I bat my eyelashes alluringly that I can take Pippa out somewhere Thursday or Friday and have The Husband do the kitchen, as that's my least favorite room to clean.
I would like to stand in my apartment on Saturday afternoon and say "Yes, this is a clean place alright." Just before a bunch of family comes over for dinner and board games. So... an hour of cleanliness is what I am asking for, I guess.