Mom Blog Work

We've got our family bed to ourselves again. Rey has been successfully sleeping for at least part of the night in his little toddler bed, in his new super hero room that he shares with his big brother.

Tonight, I'm able to hang out in our bedroom, working on stuff, watching TV, alone and quiet. I'm sure this sounds dreamy, but I have to say that I'm sort of bummed. My babies are getting so big - sleeping all by themselves! This king-sized bed feels like an ocean right now. I'm not sure I'm ready for both of them to be so independent.

Rey starts one-day-a-week preschool in a few weeks. Alex will be in his last year of preschool. Time is going so fast; I feel like I go to sleep with toddlers and wake up with teenagers.

So, tomorrow, when Rey asks to be held ("Mama, I want you hold me!"), or Alex asks for extra snuggles, I'm going to soak it all up. Soon enough, "I want you hold me!" will turn into "Moooom, can I borrow the car today??"

My family recently took a not-so-like-us walk in the woods the other day. We just aren't hiking, walk in the woods, sort of people but we randomly ventured out the other day. Holding hands and checking things out, we flipped over fern leaves to gawk at all the spores underneath, we petted moss and avidly avoided spider webs. And then we came to a large tree with crazy growth ringing the trunk.

I got down at Margeaux's level and mentioned what a "great place for fairies" the ring of growth would be. She leaned in and we poked at the plants and moss and chatted about what the fairies might do and where they would play. And then we moved on to the next thing. A few days later she mentioned it to me in the car, "Remember the fairy tree we saw?"

Later that day I was running our conversation and the fairy tree through my brain and wondering about the difference between make-believe and pretend play with our children. Should I be fueling that make-believe side of her imagination with fairies? I happen to think it's good for them and I enjoy that kind of imaginative play, personally. I spent plenty of time in that world as a child. I had imaginary friends when I was young and Margeaux does too. "Dada and my son and my daughter" is a phrase she'll throw out when she's weaving a crazy story full of silliness and adventure. Those are her three imaginary friends. We've never squashed the idea of "Dada" sitting with us at dinner, ringing the doorbell at the house or joining us on trips. They are becoming less common so maybe she is outgrowing the phase.

I think the difference between imaginary play and pretend play is that some adults just don't get it. And some kids just don't play along with the same interest. Pretend play is easy - you have props like a play kitchen or a pot and you're cooking dinner. You have a baby doll and pretend to take care of it. But the imaginary play is one step further in the imagination spectrum to me. Is it a comfort zone thing that adults don't jump in and imagine as much with children as they do pretend play? Is it the knowledge that it will all fade away as she gets bigger along with the fairies, Santa and the Easter Bunny?

I know studies tend to explain imaginary play in a positive light and it's certainly age appropriate for my daughter at 3.5yp. I guess what I wonder is if I should not only join in but also ignite the little spark it takes to launch her into a world of fairies and make believe. Right now I say why not? (Besides, who else will want to make fairy houses with me?)

Happy Friday the 13th! Here is the good stuff we spotted out on the web this week:

We've got our very own Facebook page now - check it out and come socialize with us!

There's an article on The Consumerist about children under 2 being required to have their own seat on a plane. As semi-frequent family fliers we both waffle back on forth on this with our little ones. The cost, the convenience, the safety...what do you think?

Homemade by Jill has an entire set of Alphabet Flashcards up on her site for free!

I like the "create a mind map" step in the article on setting goals and taking action over at A Beautiful Ripple Effect. Nice visual breakdown of the steps needed to reach a goal.

We love Lifehacker and our iphones that means an article titled "Lifehacker Pack for iPhone: Our List of the Best iphone Apps" has to be good.

Great response on Real Simple to an article in the NY Times about life on the "Work-Spend Treadmill" - buying things to make ourselves feel happy vs experiencing life. The two of us spent a lot of time talking about the same article and appreciate Real Simple's take on it from a family perspective.

It's supposed to be hot the next few days up here in the Pacific Northwest. Time to get that last bit of summer heat in. Have a great weekend!

I'm feeling the cloth diaper itch again. No, not that kind of itch. The itch to switch back to cloth. I have diaper commitment issues. I like to dabble - a little cloth here, a gDiaper here, disposables there.

We part-time cloth diapered Margeaux from about 11months-18months using mainly Bum Genius pocket diapers and gDiapers. We were doing cloth only part times (evenings, nights and weekends) since she was in daycare and we didn't want to be pushy about cloth with our fabulous daycare. When cloth diapering part-time you don't have enough diapers for a regular load and, for us, they tended to sit longer than they should. Because of this we had trouble with build-up and getting them clean. It took lots of different attempts to strip them and finally one terrible rash and we tucked them away for good.

With Brady we started off in cloth prefolds using a cloth diaper service. The service was great! Convenient even and no issues with washing! But cloth diapering a newborn means quick growth and he was quickly outgrowing the small size but too little for the next size up. It felt like we were stuffing him in too tight and we bailed and canceled after 3.5 months. Then it was straight to the Target disposables.

There is, of course, the whole environment thing with disposables that makes me feel guilty and disgusted. Not to mention the cost which is crazy when you add it up - even if you're buying the store brand like we do. And the chemical thing makes me cringe. All of those are great reasons to use cloth. But, come on, there's another reason - they're so freak'n cute! Who can resist those bright colors and prints?!

I pulled my stash of soft blue, green and yellow Bum Genius one-size dipes out the other day. I am secretly plotting (don't tell my husband - I don't think I can convince him again) to strip them next week and at least snap a few pictures of Mr. B running around in the sun with a big ole cloth diaper bum. I can't resist!

Happy Friday! Here are some goodies I found on the web this week:

How to be Insanely Productive and Still Keep Smiling over at Zen Habits is inspiring. Check it out to pump up your motivation.

I'm a sucker for cute play food. More so than my kids are. Oh Dee Doh featured the new Ikea Duktig Play Food line and it looks super cute! Can't wait to see it in person.

Loved the article about "practicing random acts of mom-kindness" at thehappiestmom.com. The last bullet about giving the mom with the kid throwing a fit in the middle of the aisle at target a helping hand or a kind word because "another time you might be the 'mean mom' with the 'bratty kid' hoping desperately that everyone around you knows that you really aren't usually so grumpy and your child usually isn't so scream-y" stood out to me. There's a lot of judging and branding in the momosphere - - think what it would be like if we all banded together instead.

If you've ever dragged your Pump In Style bag to the office day after day you'll be able to relate to the Huffington Post article "This Sucks - Breast Pumping at work". The article actually made me feel sad and angry. I definitely can relate to the "don't rock the boat" feelings. Coming back to work is a bit isolating, especially if you're the only pumping mama. My company actually made big strides in accommodating pumping moms between the birth of my first and second babies. The first round I was in a weird storage closet with windows that was used as an office by a male office coordinator. With the second baby there were more of us and we had a designated "mother's room". While the door didn't actually lock it was comfy and functional. I'm so glad to see it getting better around here and hope it's happening in other companies.

Ironically, I bookmarked "How to Find Time to Learn Something New or Tackle a Passion Project" over at Lifehacker but haven't managed to get all the way through it yet. Maybe this weekend.

Have a good one!