Lily loves to sing the ABC song. She makes up a few of her own letters, but otherwise does really well. This afternoon while she was eating a snack from her beloved Learning Tower she started belting out “Wheels on the Bus” and then changed over to ABCs. She told me she was singing ABCs for GG (my Mom).
ABCs for GG from Christy Wiggins on Vimeo.
Rocks. Lily loves rocks.
Find more Wordless Wednesday fun at 5 Minutes for Mom and Wordless Wednesday.
I have been trying to figure out ways to clean our house with more natural cleansers. I have been using a spray of 50/50 white vinegar and water and it works pretty well, but it has no scrubbing power. While looking around the other day I found a recipe for homemade soft scrub and tried it last night. It was super easy to make and worked great.
This recipe is adapted from the recipe for Earth Paste in Clean House, Clean Planet by Karen Logan (page243). It is quick and easy to put together and effectively cleans the bath (hooray). Make this in small batches because it can dry out and harden when stored. This recipe makes enough for two to four uses. Keep any remaining mixture in an air tight container.
Ingredients
3/4 cup baking soda (slightly heaped)
1/4 cup castile soap (I use Dr. Bronners Peppermint)
1 Tablespoon water
1 Tablespoon vinegar
Method
In a bowl, combine the baking soda and castile soap. Add the water and stir with a fork.
Lastly, stir in the vinegar. The mixture will fizz a little. Stir to make a nice soft, paste-like, consistency. (This is important – the vinegar must go in last or else the scrub will be like sludge instead of a creamy paste.)
Scoop out the scrub with a sponge and start cleaning.
This scrub can also be used to clean the toilet.
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I love that there’s nothing scary in this. I realized that I left a little on the sink this morning and didn’t care because if Lil touches it, it won’t hurt her.
I love the smell of the Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint soap, but it was a little overwhelming when my head was in the bathtub that was covered it in. The smell dissipated pretty quickly. And it doesn’t take much to clean effectively, I used all of the above recipe to clean my sink and bathtub and I used WAY too much.
A few weeks ago we welcomed a good friend into the wonderful world of parenthood. I am so happy for them and wish them all the best in the world.
A few months back the excited Dad to be asked me if I had any baby info for them. I told him how I think breastfeeding is one of the best parenting decisions I ever made, I shared how easy making baby food was, how I love sharing my bed with my baby and how I love babywearing and cloth diapering. I meant to make a list of my favorite, most useful gear but neglected to do that until today.
You can go to almost any Mommyblog around and get their list of their favorite baby gear so this isn’t anything new, but these are my favorites.
Cloth diapers: bumGenius
Some of my Bum Genius diapers
Lily in a Bum Genius Flip diaper
Babywearing: Ergo
Us using the Ergo
Us using the ringsling
Swaddling: Miracle Blanket
The Aden and Anais blanket can be used for lots of things. Including swing cover.
I swear she loved being swaddled. She just wanted to be picked up and not photographed right this second. Again in her Aden and Anais blanket.
Breastfeeding: A good bra, a Boppy
There's a Boppy under that blanket.
Pouty Lil on her Boppy
Car Seat: Because Lil was so darn small even the head cushion that came with her car seat was useless so I looked around and found the Kiddopotamus Snuzzler from Amazon. I was so happy when we got it. It is nice and soft and kept Lil from rolling around in her seat. We also got her a Car seat swaddler
Sleeping in her seat with the Snuzzler
Swaddled and snuzzled
Bath time: Lil wasn’t a fan of getting a bath when she was little (do you see a pattern here? She wasn’t a fan of anything that wasn’t my arms). Because she wasn’t happy, she was very wiggly and I never felt comfortable giving her a bath in one of the hard plastic baby bath tubs. Amazon to the rescue again. I got her a Safer Bather Infant Bath Pad
Cool baby bath mat thingy
Baby Monitor:When I was filling out my baby registry I added a normal old school audio only baby monitor. People told us we’d want a video monitor, but I doubted it. I knew Lil was going to sleep in our room so I figured she’d be out of our sight for such short amounts of time that the expense of the video monitor was just too high and also it seemed silly. Did I really need to watch my kid sleep through a tiny monitor, I thought not. Boy was I wrong. I won a Summer Infant Handheld Color Video Monitor from Metropolitian Mama (I love Steph) and she told me that I’d love the monitor and Steph did not lie. I love the monitor and it is the greatest thing ever (or close to that). Because Lil is not the greatest sleeper, it is great to have the video monitor because I can tell if she’s really awake or just tossing and turning. With the audio monitor I’m sure I went in and woke her up at least a few times because I thought she was awake but was just turning or something.
I’m sure there were other things that I loved and kept me sane with a infant but these are the most important things. Tune in soon for part 2 for the baby things I hated and could have lived without.
Again, congratulations to Jesse, Jamison and Teagen. Much love!!
I paid for all of the items listed here except the monitor. Some of the links are for my Amazon Association and I guess if you buy something from the links I might get a penny or two.
Last week Lily was sitting and singing, rather than eating. She was strumming her fork like a guitar and saying something about “inside no more”. It took me a little while but I figured out that it was a Jason Mraz’s song from Sesame Street.
She sang this randomly all week. It was the cutest thing. I finally got a tiny bit caught on video. While catching the cute song I also got some really feisty bits of Lil’s everyday personality. She is so much fun.
Sorry it’s sideways.
Here’s the Jason Mraz version, just so you know where Lil was coming from.
