Merry Christmas (and a bit of housekeeping)
We're gone, even as you read this post! (Isn't time-delayed post publishing a beautiful thing?) One entire week (8 or 9 days, actually) of vacation. Much needed, and much anticipated.
While we are gone, I will be taking a hiatus from my beloved blog. Though I love, love, love to write it and keep up with all of you, every once in a while I need a true break where I can just rest, relax, and be refreshed, ready to jump back in to writing once again with new ideas and excitement.
Before I go, a few things worth mentioning:
1) I completely stripped my cloth diapers and tried using them again. Within a week, same problem. The rash was back. It became unbearable, so we went back to disposables, and it was gone again within days. Ugh. I'm buying training pants, and will probably begin in the New Year. So sad, but hey, maybe he'll be trained early? A mom can hope, right? 🙂
2) I bought Josh Groban's "Noel" last night, and it's wonderful. Thanks Allison, for the suggestion (and thanks to all of you– it was such a hard decision to make)!
3) Sorry I couldn't get to the immunity boosters or the sling giveaway… in the New Year, I promise!
4) We turned on the heat in our house last weekend, when the snow started and the temperature dipped below zero (we hit -17 with wind chill). Enough was enough. We're a bit warmer now. 🙂
5) I had a wonderful birthday dinner with my husband last night, and a birthday lunch with a few girlfriends today!
6) I am probably still going to try couponing again, though I haven't put any effort into preparing to do so, as of yet. So we'll see.
7) Someone mentioned my ebook just recently. Ebook? What ebook? You mean that thing I've been trying to get finished for the last 8 months? Oh, that one! It is actually almost done, and my husband and I are hoping to complete it over the Christmas break and have it up on my site sometime in January. I feel like I've said something like this before, but I promise it's really closer to being published than ever before!
8) This one is important. Even if you skipped the rest, stop here!
I am looking for guest posters, one per week for all of January. Any takers? If you're interested, please email me at keeperofthehome (at) canada (dot) com. I'm looking for posts on nutrition, natural living, mothering young ones, home educating, going green, frugality, etc. If you already have an idea of what you would write on, please let me know that in the email. Thanks so much!
And I think that's it!
I hope you have a blessed time with your families, celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior!
Come, let us adore Him.
(Image from art.com)
Merry Christmas, Stephanie. Thanks so much for cultivating this ministry of yours. Many wishes for many blessings in the new year!
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Hi there,
I am commenting on your cloth diaper dilemma. My son (18 months) uses bumGeniuses. We have had to strip them twice now. The first time because I washed them incorrectly and they would not hold fluid any more. The second time because of diaper rashes. I was using my homemade laundry detergent, which no I can’t. The only detergents that seems to work with them and not give him a rash are Sun (Free and Clear) or Purex (Free and Clear). Beyond that, everything either puts a build up on the diaper or gives him a rash. If you have to go disposables you could consider gDiapers, but they are no less expensive. When my son gets a rash I use baby washcloths in the diaper (to protect them from build up) and put straight zinc oxide on it (not rash cream as there is a bunch of other stuff in those) and it clears it up right away. Also, Huggies wipes caused his bottom to break out. I make my own wipes with washcloths and a homemade wipe solution (water, his baby shampoo, and tea tree oil). Hope some of this helps. If not, I am interested to read about early potty training. I considered it myself, but was trying to get used to everything else a new mommy has to learn. He likes to play with his potty chair right now, which we leave out by the toilet, and he sits on it after his bath. Every now and then he pees at that time. I am hoping this will help with the coming transition. I enjoy your blog. Thanks for doing it. Have a wonderful Christmas.
Have a good Christmas! I hope the rash thing stays away once you go to cloth training pants and then underwear…we are still struggling but it appears that the rash is NOT a yeast rash after all. It appears my DD just has super sensitive skin (like me). Its so wierd though as she wears underwear now. I feel your frustration…hugs to you.
Enjoy your break!
Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday! I am a December birthday too! Isn’t it fun?
God Bless!
Mine is more of a please help me comment…
I’ve always thought I was a pretty decent, healty, semi-granola-y mama, but I’m finding myself stumped lately.
I have a 3 year old and can’t seem to think beyond the old peanut butter and jelly for lunch.
And for my 1 year old, I’m stumped for car snacks. Tomorrow we’re leaving for Nana and Papa’s again, I’m just not sure what to feed her in the car. Most of my healthy snack ideas just aren’t portable.
Ideas???
If you figure out what the cause of the rash is, then let me know!!! We have been dealing with the exact same thing. Sometimes the rash has gotten so bad that she’s gotten impetigo and had to get antibiotic ointment. All I could figure is that maybe Isabella’s diet has changed since she’s eating more variety these days. She’s been in disposables for the last month, but then she gets the rash every time we switch back to cloth. I’ve even tried boiling the pocket inserts to make sure there was no bacteria on there. I’m at wits end because I have loved using cloth, and it kills me to use so much on disposables! I’ve tried stripping the diapers, and we use Charlie’s soap, which is supposed to rinse completely. So I just don’t know. Keep us posted on how your diaper dilemma works out!
Ok, I will definitely keep you all updated on the diaper rash situation. Thanks for the comments and suggestions!
Lee, I’ll answer your question in a post in January, ok? 🙂
And Merry Christmas, all!
Hi Everyone:
My husband came up with a mixture for the diaper rash while we were using cloth diapers on our first child.
Mis 1/4 witch hazel with 3/4 alo vera gel. At each diaper change gently shake and apply. This works overnight. We were spending hundreds of dollars for dr. visits and prescriptions before we came up with this. — Good luck
Merry Christmas!
Have a wonderful vacation!
Hope you had a blessed Christmas, Stephanie! I’d be interested in doing a post on all natural reduced sugar/carbohydrate baking, if you need someone to cover this topic.
Both of my older children had issues with diaper rash. It wasn’t until my second was two before I read about enzymes in detergent and how they can eat a child’s skin and cause bad rash. I stripped my diapers and started using Country Save detergent (available through Azure Standard). Now, with my third, we haven’t had a rash yet!
The additives in detergents can be really terrible to babies’ skin. I’ve had best luck with the Country Save, but other mamas have had good luck with Charlie’s Soap, too. I used Charlie’s before, but it didn’t get my diapers very clean.
I am interested in your post on immunity and your views on the difference between homeopathy and herbal remedies. I visited the Boiron website after reading about it on your post. I recently ordered some items from
http://www.childlife.net/?q=home
the ChildLife Echinacea and ChildLife First Defense which are more herbal and thought I should add some homeopathy, too.
I had the same issue with cloth diapers. With my youngest two children cloth diapers gave them a horrible rash. I washed them in everything from dreft, to 7th generation to Tide to tea tree oil. Nothing worked. We had to go with disposable also.