Homemade Oil Face Wash??

I love when you find a new blog and spend way too much time perusing their archives and then end up completely enamored with them! Umm... so I may have done that over at Naturally Knocked Up.

You see, a month or two ago I posted about using baking soda as shampoo. And while I still haven't run out of my current natural and locally made shampoo, I still plan to try the baking soda technique when I do. (On the plus side - two of my friends have tried it and love it!)

Well, the baking soda shampoo only got me to thinking that there must be other cool alternatives out there... but then I got lazy and didn't look for them. Until I found this post at Naturally Knocked Up. You can wash your face with sunflower oil and castor oil!

Not only is this a super cool natural solution... but it's cheap!! Just like the baking soda shampoo! I'll have to try it when my Burt's Bees face wash runs out (which I now know isn't as natural as it claims... but hey, I bought it so in order to not waste money, I'm finishing it!).

Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup

I have a confession to make. As much as I love cooking and baking, I'm yet to experiment with soup-making. It seems silly, really. It sounds so easy and is usually fairly simple. Well, this recipe may be what changes this trend! I'll definitely be heading to the store for some broccoli and cheddar cheese, despite my husband's lack of interest in soups!

Parenting Taboos

An amazing mama friend of mine recommended this TED talk to me. The talk is about parenting taboos. The things parents never feel are okay to talk about. They talk about 4 major taboos in some detail and why they actually should be part of our normal conversations about parenting. Just as a very brief summary, here are the four topics discussed in the talk:


1. It's okay not to fall in love with your baby at first sight. 
Oh the horrors! Imagine telling people you didn't feel an instant connection to your newborn child?! Yet it's okay to not fall in 'love at first sight' with your spouse. Why should it be so different with a child? Relationships take time to form! This is normal!

2. It's okay to feel lonely.
Most first time moms probably think it's going to be great to have a baby around all the time. You'll never be alone - how splendid! Umm... except that the baby can't talk, demands things from you at all hours of the day and night, and is, well, a baby. Remember how important time with friends was when you were a teenager? Why should that be any less important now? Any veteran mom will tell you to make sure you have other mom friends to spend time with!

3. It's okay to talk about miscarriage.
I feel pretty strongly about this one. When we were trying to conceive our child, I became a member of an online forum of women supporting each other through the process. So many of these women experienced miscarriage but never told anyone in their 'real life' about it. It's shocking to me that something so incredibly common is taboo to talk about. Consider how much more support women experiencing miscarriage would feel if they knew other people who had been through it!!

4. It's okay to be less happy overall when you have kids.
I'm pretty sure if you told someone you're less happy now that you have kids, they'd look at you like you're an alien life form or some kind of satanic parent. But it's completely realistic when you think about it! What did you enjoy doing with your free time before you had kids? Did you travel? Read a lot of books? Go skiing every winter? Did you play in a sports league or meet your best friends for coffee once a week? Well, if you suddenly don't have the time or money for those things because your kids needs take priority... wouldn't you say that overall that makes you a little less happy? It doesn't mean you don't love your kids - it just means you have less time for yourself!

Okay, I didn't expect to turn this post into a major rant - oops. But really, I think everyone should listen to this TED talk and start breaking these silly taboos!

Oh, and I should probably mention that the talk is called: Let's talk parenting taboos by Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman.

A Couple More Belly Shots!

Never before has it been fun to watch my waistline get bigger by the week! Check out my baby belly at 20 weeks and then 21 weeks! I think it looks rounder at 20 weeks and kinda pointy(?) at 21 weeks.

Sneak Peak!

Just a quick sneak peak of things to come...

Fluff!

Apparently fluff is slang for cloth diapers. Who knew?

We ventured out to our local baby goods store this past weekend because they were having a potentially awesome sale. I say potentially because you pick a piece of paper out of a basket at the till and only then do you discover how much of a sale it really is! There were discounts between 10 and 50% off in the basket, but, of course we picked the lowest one possible - the 10%. Still, it meant we got our very first two cloth diapers on sale!

Is it weird to be ridiculously excited about diapers? Because I am! I'm also pretty stoked that a friend of mine has ordered these super cheap cloth diapers from CozyKids! If they're good we'll totally load up on some because they're sooooo much cheaper than the usual pocket cloth diapers!

I've also already converted myself from all-in-one diapers to pocket diapers. The difference is that you have to stuff an insert into the pocket diapers. But really, for the price difference, it's silly to even care about that tiny extra step! I'll just try to make a habit of pre-stuffing them when I put the laundry away so that I don't have to do it mid-diaper change.

Eek! I can't wait to see my little baby-to-be in soft, colourful cloth diapers!

Vote!!

You now have less than two weeks to vote in the little poll thing-a-ma-jig we have going on. Look to the right of this blog post. Do you see it?? You can vote on what you predict the sex of our baby will be! We should know in a couple weeks, provided baby cooperates at the ultrasound!

So far your votes have been very entertaining! Keep 'em coming!

Elimination Communication

Elimination communication. Wow, now is that not a fancy way of saying potty training?

I've been doing some reading about the whole diaper-free baby phenomenon and I'm a little intrigued. It's definitely a great way to reduce laundry (since we'll be using cloth diapers) and it seems like it would make the transition to full on potty-trained a lot simpler. The official Diaper Free Baby web site is pretty encouraging. They even acknowledge that you can take on this challenge with differing levels of commitment. I think once the baby can sit up (or maybe earlier with me holding the baby upright?) we'll go the route of the 'Occasional EC-ers.' If it seems successful and I'm not adding stress to my life by doing so, we'll give the Part-Time EC-ing a go!

For now, I'm just pretty darn excited about how cute our little $5 Baby Bjorn potty is. Thank you craigslist!

ConKerr Cancer - Sew For a Good Cause!

I've been pretty slack about blogging lately. I don't have a good excuse, except a lack of inspiration. I still don't have much to write about, but I did come across this amazing charity and felt the need to share it. Basically, you sew kid-oriented pillow cases that are then shipped to your nearest children's hospital. I can't resist the urge to do something to brighten the day of at least one of the poor kiddos that spends day in and day out in a hospital. If you feel the same, check out ConKerr Cancer's web site!