Are clothes really necessary?

We've started wearing less clothes. To be more precise, we're going through less clothes each day.

See, what happened is...a few days ago, our dryer decided it was done heating the clothes as it dries them. And it also decided it's not going to time the dry cycles, either - the clothes just tumble for all eternity, or until someone decides to get them out. Cold and, usually, still wet.

So until we decide whether to try and fix the dryer (again) or get a new one, I've been hanging all our laundry outside until it's pretty dry, and then bringing it in to tumble in the (cold) dryer for 20 or 30 minutes. All this makes the laundry seem like, well, much more of a big deal. No longer is matching socks the most annoying part of doing the laundry. Oh, no. Hanging each sock with a clothespin and then taking each one back down is more time consuming by far. Then I get to match them. Hence the tightening of the rules on clothes-wearing. If it doesn't stink or look too dirty, it's not dirty enough to wash!

But I will admit I am getting a certain bizarre satisfaction out of hanging clothes. As far as backyards go, there is nothing homier than a clothesline full of laundry blowing in the breeze. So while I definitely feel the additional time being used on this task, I am - for now - enjoying the quaintness. Which is probably not a real word, but you get my drift. But, I'm sure my days of happy clothespinning are numbered. In another day or two, I'll probably be completely sick of it and begging for a new dryer!

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Here's my diaper load (minus the covers and pocket diapers*, which I always hang inside, anyway, so I didn't bother bringing them out). Even after tumbling in the dryer for half an hour or so at the end, these diapers were still pretty stiff, so that's a bummer. One of my favorite things about cotton diapers is how soft they are - and line drying seems to take away that element. Oh well, it works for now. (Don't look too closely or you will notice the older son trying to clothespin the baby's ear...)

I had to leave a "hole" near the bottom of the slide!

Drake loves to help hang laundry and take it down again. (Again, I'm sure this is because it's a novelty...if it were a daily chore he'd probably avoid it like the plague!)

Monkey see, monkey do!

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* Pocket diapers - cloth diapers with a waterproof fabric on the outside and usually a polyester "stay-dry" fabric inside, designed with an opening in the back to "stuff" the diaper with desired absorbancy. These are often used at night, when a LOT of absorbancy is required. For more cloth diaper info, see my Diaper Pin link on the sidebar or click here for their diaper dictionary.

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P.S. - Sorry most of these pics aren't "clickable" - I didn't do it right when loading them, but it can't be corrected without starting over...and that's NOT gonna happen!

Diaper model

I'm taking a break from housework...and yes, I totally realize that it's 10:55pm, but after kids and husband are in bed is really the ideal time for me to get stuff done when I have something to plow through. And tonight I do. It's a mountain of papers and miscellaneous stuff on the desk. It's definitely a "hot spot" at our house. (Ever heard of FlyLady? I'm a fan...but that's for another post, another day!)

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Anyway, like I said, I'm taking a break to post the ducky diaper modeling pictures that I promised. (I'm sure I'm the only one here enjoying this...the rest of you were hoping I'd forget!)

With some help from Daddy, Levi struts his stuff on the runway...

Thanks for humoring me. Now, wasn't that fun?!

My other hobby (well, one of them)...

...besides blogging, that is! Tonight I've been sewing. A little stress-reliever for me! I finished another fitted diaper that I started last night or the night before, I can't remember. Anyway, it's not for Levi, but for my friend Cherie's daughter. I'm doing a small stash of these cute little ducky/bubble flannel ones for her, and I really like how they're turning out. Cherie bought the fabric - isn't it adorable? I modified (a lot actually) a free pattern I found online, and I think I've finally got it just how I like it. Hopefully they'll fit little Adelyn as well as they fit Levi, my "model." (I just have to add here that before our favorite Alaskans moved in June, Cherie made six, yes six, oh-so-cute newborn fitteds as her first sewing project - well, first in a long time anyway, and they turned out really nice. I wish I had taken a picture of them, but I forgot to.)

So anyway, Cherie and I have both decided we're getting disillusioned with Aplix (the Velcro of the diaper world) for a number of reasons, so I got some plastic snap tape to try as closures for these. I have high hopes for it, as it's very similar to the snap tape in a very durable boughten all-in-one diaper I've been using for a long time. Metal snap tape is just not heavy-duty enough for the rigors of home diaper-washing; we've learned this from experience. The prongs are too short and the snaps rust and fall out. And I don't have a snap press (yet anyway!) to add resin snaps one at a time. So, like I said, I have high hopes for this snap tape.

I don't use fitted diapers myself - well, for Levi! You know what I mean! - but many mamas love them. They are awfully cute, I have to say! Especially when made with print fabric. And functional - hold it all in nicely!

I took some pictures so you can see how they're turning out. Sorry if I'm putting you to sleep. I know that few of my readers are as obsessed with sewing cloth diapers as I am! Probably just one. (Hi Dawn!) So here are the pictures. I'll try and remember to take one of Levi modeling for you tomorrow. They're even cuter on a baby!

Here ya go:

Heidi likes to be near me. Like, all the time. She seemed only slightly irritated that the diaper I was making was ruffling her fur. Certainly not irritated enough to move off my sewing table!

All done! It's a bit stiff now, but just picture it much softer and fluffier after a few washings...

Here's the inside - I "recycled" a really thin, blue prefold (provided by Cherie) for the inner layer. (There's also a pad of 6 layers of flannel and 4 layers of birdseye between the flannel outer and the prefold inner. Yes, these take awhile to dry, but they're very absorbant.)

This is the snap tape that I was talking about...you can kind of see it in this picture. It looks like it will be snug and durable. I guess we'll find out after a few months of wear!

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Okay...yes, I know that there have been no pictures of my kiddos for, what, like almost a week?? And many of you read this blog solely for the pictures of the boys. So I'm sorry. My next post won't disappoint you. I promise to post pictures of my children, not just words and/or pictures of diapers! (As beautiful as cloth diapers are.......)

Levi at 17 months

I just had to start off with this picture because I think it's hilarious...and I'm in the mood for some hilarity after the past four days. With that said, I wanted to fill you all in on some tidbits about Levi. I am fully aware that this will be the second post in a row (that relates to the kids) about only Levi. But rest assured, Drake is still alive and well, and full of his own antics which I will blog about soon.

Levi is really a different child - different than Drake was and different than most other babies I know. At 17 months, he is clever and charming and full of life. However, he does not walk or talk yet, aside from his exuberant "da-DA! da-DA!" every evening when Adam walks in the door, and "dah" (often accompanied by a sign) for pretty much everything else. Once in awhile, I hear "ma-ma-ma-ma" or "no-no-no-no" but those are pretty rare. Oh yeah, we sometimes get "t-k-t-k-t-k-t-k" (tickle, tickle) accompanied by tickles, too! But that's about it. Levi does not like to read books and really does not like to have his teeth brushed! He really likes baths, and he loves shoes. Loves! He is enthralled with the kitchen garbage can; to his mother's dismay, he loves to "put things in." Sigh. We have found shoes, toys, and other similar items in the garbage can. Even if he's not putting something in, I sometimes find him gazing curiously down into the trash. I need to be more diligent about putting up the baby gates to the kitchen while he is awake!

AND keeping the bathroom door closed. Here's why. Objects also get put into the toilet. But he is more particular about which items go in the toilet - they need to be bathroom-type items. We've found the entire roll of toilet paper unrolled and half of it in the toilet. Also, stray leftover tubes have been known to be found floating. I've come in to see him busily swishing the toilet brush around in there (yeah, it's definitely up and away, now!) and here's a good one - diapers! We use cloth diapers, and he's witnessed plenty of times how the "solids" get shaken off into the toilet. So the other day, I had a stack of clean, folded diapers in the living room that just hadn't made it up to the boys' bedroom yet...and I find Levi in the bathroom shoving something under the lid of the toilet. Hmmm...what could be in there? Two clean (well, used-to-be-clean) diapers are floating in the toilet bowl! He had found them in the living room and crawled with one in each hand into the bathroom to "dump" them for me! Eager to help, are ya? When this boy is older, I am seriously putting him to work.

Even without speaking, his wheels are definitely turning, and he can follow the directions I give him when asked to do something, like "come here" or "stand up" or "sit down in the tub" or "put it away" or "give it to me, please." He knows the rules, too, although that doesn't mean he consistently follows them, of course. We're working on that. Right now one of our big obedience issues with him is not throwing food on the floor. To show us that he is through eating, he starts pitching food - and his cup - over the edge of his tray, and even faster when he sees me about to put a stop to it. We have been really working on this lately, and he doesn't do it much anymore if someone is watching him. Instead, he dangles the cup or piece of food over the side and pretends to throw it - but doesn't let go - and gauges the reaction of the watchful adult. Is it worth it? He knows he will get two thumps on his fingers if he lets go, but he really, really wants to. Thankfully, he's been making the right choice more and more frequently, so I've stopped fantasizing about having a dog in the house to clean up under the highchair.

Yeah, this is getting long. But keep reading. You can do it - just a few more paragraphs! And there are more pictures coming up...

So I mentioned something about signing. We've been teaching sign language to Levi since he was under a year old, and he's been catching on very well, especially recently. So even though he doesn't speak, he can actually communicate a lot of what he wants or what he's thinking about to us, which seems to alleviate some frustration for him. Here's a list of (I think) all the signs that Levi has been doing consistently on his own: eat, drink, milk/nurse, more, please, cat, dog, fish, bird, shoes, hat, gentle. Here are some that he does occasionally or is just learning: airplane, thank you, deer/elk, cracker, squirrel, juice, swing, horse, book. I may have missed one or two...but I think that's it. It's been fun! I found a cool website called ASL Pro that has a very extensive video dictionary of ASL (American Sign Language) signs. So now I can learn pretty much any sign I want to teach Levi, and I can watch someone do it on a video clip! So I'm excited about that. He is really picking them up quickly now, and I'm eager to teach him as many as he can learn, because it's nice to be able to "talk" with him. (We started signs with Drake, but it kind of fizzled out when he learned to talk - which was pretty early - so he never learned very many.) Anyway, it's been gratifying to be able to communicate with Levi on a somewhat normal 17-month level, even though he's not speaking yet.

Now, here is what I actually set out to post this evening - some pictures of my non-book-loving baby actually loving a book! Yeah, wow! He is so not into books, like at all, but he fell in love with this particular one a couple of days ago, and now he finds it and brings it to me and signs "please, please, please" with a big smile, until I read it about 15 times. And then when I finally stop, he has a meltdown. So besides reading "Hello, duck. Swim, duck, swim! Hello, rabbit. Hop, rabbit, hop!" again and again, we've also been working on the sign for "book"...and so now he sometimes signs "book, please" instead of just "please".


Here's Mr. Levi with his favorite book, Swim, Duck, Swim.

He loves it so much he likes to kiss all the animals. What a sweet boy. Mama loves you, Bucky!

Playground!

This morning, the boys and I met some MOPS friends at a local playground. This particular playground is in the middle of a shopping center parking lot! Half of the playground has regular play equipment, and the other half has a splash pad on it. Drake is one of those kids who is slow to "warm up" to some things, and water parks are one of those things. He never did warm up to the idea of playing at the splash pad today, so we stayed on the "dry" side of the playground. It was so hot, though...even I wanted to make a couple of dashes through the water! (Notice that the boys were strippin' by the end! Believe me - I would have, too, if I could. Those darn indecent exposure laws!)

Drake the climber

Levi wants to be a big boy, too!

Crawling over to the slide

Now, if he could only figure out how to get up there!

On the climbing wall...

...and climbing up!

A hot and sweaty baby! Eventually Levi was stripped down to his diaper and crawling around. I actually had a lady I didn't know come and ask me about cloth diapering! So that was kinda cool. :)

One last climb up for Big Bro before it was time to go home for lunch - and a nap for the cranky, smaller one! ;)

So all in all it was a pretty fun morning. We're having our MOPS family picnic for the summer this coming Saturday, so I'll be seeing these ladies/kiddos again soon, plus the daddies. There is this one particular mom who has a baby 2 weeks younger than Levi, and she has always seemed to relish in "kid competition" with me. And of course, with Levi still not walking at almost 17 months, there's no contest here! I feel bad because I cringed when I saw her today. It didn't take much small talk before she commented, "Wow, he's STILL not walking? He's sure taking his time, isn't he?" So what am I supposed to say to that? I agreed that he was indeed taking his time, and assured her that he was just on his own little time table - all children are different - and that I wasn't too concerned about his development. Her son is like Drake when he was a baby, and was one of those early walkers, like before his first birthday, so he's of course running circles around us.

Sigh. Seeing the two of them next to each other put this little seed of doubt in my mind. Is Levi really okay, like I've truly believed until this point? But 18 months seems to be the cutoff before the doctors start getting alarmed and writing referrals to who-knows-where. Come on, Levi. A month to go...let's get to walkin' already! ;) But seriously, I must remind myself that even when I'm unsure, God has it all under control. A beloved pastor we had at our last assignment used to encourage us to wonder, "What is God up to?" And when you look at it from that perspective, any problem or trial can look like an adventure instead of a concern.