A Fluffy Vacation

With some trepidation, we decided to attempt cloth diapering away from home on our Florida vacation this week. I looked up everything I could about successfully using cloth diapers on vacation and gave it a go. Here are some steps I found to making it work.
1. It is important to remember you do not want dirty diapers sitting in the diaper pail waiting to be washed for a week while you are gone. Gathering tips from other blogs, I decided to put Mina to bed in disposables so I could quickly wash the last load of diapers before we left. Since we were leaving the house at 4:30 am and it was already midnight when the wash was done, I took a nap while the diapers were in the dryer then got up to finish packing them. I used disposables until we got through airport security.
2. I didn't have room to pack all of Mina's diapers but needed most of them so I wouldn't have to wash every day. I ended up bringing about 15 prefolds with 7 covers, 3 pockets with 6 inserts, one fitted and a wool cover. This was enough to allow me to wash every other day, I also brought several wipes, fleece liners, a wetbag and my pail liner which works as a stand-alone wetbag.
3. When we got to Ben's parents house, I turned a short bookshelf into a changing station by placing a folded towel on top and rolling the side in to help keep Mina from rolling off. I arranged the various diapers on the top shelf. Instant changing table!
4. We thought cloth diapering on our trip would be manageable since we had easy access to a washer and dryer. I brought a sample pack of Ecosprout soap (very happy with it) as well as some soap nuts which are what we usually use. I missed having my clothesline but doing laundry every other day actually wasn't too inconvenient. I tried to plan the vacation so Mina would have "recovery days" in between our adventures so this made it easy to do laundry while she was relaxing.
5. Show off that cute fluffy bum. Mina wore a lot of adorable dresses this trip and it is always fun to talk about her diapers, especially if I made them.

Did I mention we got an adorable My Swim Baby swim diaper and matching rash guard and sun hat in Wilma the Whale?

Mina Travels

Early Wednesday morning, the Schwanda family left for Florida to visit family and friends. I was a little nervous about travelling with a five-month old, so nervous that I actually packed early. I am normally a last-minute packing professional, but this time I started lining up outfits and toys three days in advance. This way I could constantly add things as I thought of what we needed. While taking care of a baby, it is much easier to pack a little at a time since I have to be ready in case Mina wakes up early from a nap or spits up all over her play yard. While  packing, I was also combatting the beginning of a heat wave in DC. It was in the upper 90s outside and we don't have AC. So upstairs, where all the clothes I needed to pack were, was quite toasty. This also made packing all at once a challenge. Little by little the bags were packed and I reviewed lists in my head several times to make sure I had everything. So far I haven't thought of anything I forgot which may be a record. With the packing complete, the next challenge was the plane trip.
The flight from DC to Florida is a pleasant two hours, a perfect length for a baby's first flight. Unfortunately, our flight departed at 7am. We planned to leave the house no later than 4:45 so we could catch the 5:15 train from the metro where are car is parked (parking in the multi-day spots at metro costs $5 for the entire trip, much better than airport parking). I was hoping we could get Mina changed and dressed quickly and she would fall back asleep in the car and continue to sleep until we got on the plane since she doesn't normally get up until 9:30. But getting up early was too exciting for her and we had no such luck. Ben took her through the airport in the carrier and she was almost asleep when we reached the front of security and had to remove her from the carrier. So I ended up feeding her while we waited at the gate instead of on the plane as I had planned. They started boarding sooner than expected and we didn't get to board early as a family with a small child since I wanted to make sure Mina had a fresh diaper before she got on the plane. But we still got to board and we had a row of two seats to ourselves.
Mina seemed really excited and tried to fight sleep but shortly after take-off, sleep won over both baby and daddy. I even heard the stewardesses talking about how sweet she was. She slept almost until our descent into Orlando. She started talking then, but was still content and happy. It was a great plane trip.

All tuckered out

Now that we are here, Mina is loving all the attention from her Grandma and Grandpa, Aunts and Uncles. My back and arms are loving not having to hold her very often. Later this week, I will try to update you on how we are using her cloth diapers away from home but we will be busy. We have a wedding to go to, Disney World, the beach... all sorts of fun things.

Cleaning Day!

I am trying to clean the house really well before we leave for Florida next week. We have friends visiting shortly after we get back and I would rather fruit flies didn't set up camp while we are away. Today, I started with the bathroom.
Cloth diapering Mina has led me to look at other ways I can easily be more eco-friendly and save money. Surprisingly, these two things often go together which is awesome! I now do almost all my cleaning with just vinegar and baking soda. I made an all-purpose cleaner that is one part vinegar to three parts water. I added a few drops of lavender oil to combat the vinegar smell. It works great on floors, counter, sinks and even mirrors. Since I added the lavender, it makes the bathroom smell lovely too. to clean the toilet, I sprinkle baking soda around the bowl, then pour some vinegar into the water. I let that sit while I do some other cleaning then it is easy scrubbing with the toilet brush. For the tub, I sprinkle baking soda all around and then scrub with a vinegar-soaked rag. It takes a little more elbow grease then a bleach-based cleaner but it gets the tub shiny, white and beautiful. The best part is I don't have to worry what chemicals I might be mixing together or inhaling. This is a lot more important to me now with a baby around as she is more sensitive than me.
This way of cleaning is also much nicer on my wallet. Baking soda and white vinegar are super cheap. My one-gallon jug of vinegar cost around $2.00. I don't think I could get any other cleaner for that price. I still keep one disinfecting spray and bleach on hand for the really germ-y things (raw meat, mold, etc.) but vinegar easily handles most jobs. I think vinegar is actually a disinfectant too but it doesn't kill everything and needs to be fairly concentrated. I figured it was easier to have another cleaner just for occasional use than worry about whether things were actually getting clean.
Now that my bathroom is looking lovely, I can move onto bigger and better things - the kitchen! Maybe I will finally get rid of these crazy fruit flies. I've already taken some steps like dumping the compost out after every meal, taking the trash out daily, and generally keeping things clean. I just don't want to leave for over a week if there are any still in the kitchen.

Another Month...

Yesterday marked Mina's 5-month birthday, and what a month it has been. At the beginning of month five, Mina got round two of vaccinations (not fun) and then had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa (very fun). She celebrated her first 4th of July this month (and Canada Day) and helped Daddy celebrate his first Father's Day. It has been a month of many firsts, in fact. Here are some of Mina's new favorite activities.

• Sitting in her high chair and eating solid food! She just has a small portion each day and her favorite so far seems to be Spinach and Rutababga (Surprise)
• Rolling off the activity mat and onto the carpet as soon as our backs are turned (Don't blink, don't even blink!)
• Pulling on Mommy's hair and Daddy's mustache
• "Reading" soft books
• Chewing and/or sucking on everything, especially sunglasses and magazines
• Trying to use Daddy's computer
• Sitting up without help for a couple seconds then diving to the side or front
• Laughing for no reason

It is so exciting to see how much Mina grows in just a month. It is another exciting month ahead, too. A week from now, Mina will experience her first plane trip. While we are in Florida Mina will go to a wedding, Disney World, and the beach. She will also meet a lot of new people. I hope it all goes well. I really like Mina at five months. She is unbelievably cute, so much fun and not quite as dependent on me as she started out. 

Smaller on the Inside

For the most part, I love the little rowhouse we are renting. We have two bedrooms, a small office/closet and a basement. On the first floor we have a nice-size living and dining room. Then there is the kitchen. It is about the size of a small hallway, countertops included. The counter on the left side is about half the width of a normal counter top and underneath the cabinets. It also has no electrical outlets so it is really only useful for housing the spice rack and occasionally some dirty dishes. The counter on the right is a normal width but half of its length is taken up by the sink which is usually full with dishes since we have no dishwasher. Of the remaining half of that counter, two-thirds is occupied by the dish drying rack which is almost always full. If I push the drying rack partway over the sink, I have just enough room to fit my Kitchenaid mixer.
This weekend I made a lemon cheesecake for a party and decided to put candied lemon peel on top. I also made blueberry basil lemonade inspired by Sweetgreen. All this in a miniature kitchen was a recipe for disaster, especially when persistent fruit flies decided to join the party. But somehow, bothe the lemonade and cheesecake turned out great and there were no casualties. I did have to use the overflow space of my dining room table to juice lemons and roll out cheesecake crust. I also had to put the candied lemons in front of the fan all day since the humidity inside was killing them (old house = no ac). The biggest secret to making a small space work is staying on top of the dishes. It would be really easy to just keep piling dishes in the sink and go on baking and try to deal with the dishes later. But that usually results in an unusable sink and dirty dishes taking up chunks of that precious counter space. I also try to clear away anything I'm not working on at the moment. It either goes in the fridge or on the dining table. I've had a tiny kitchen for so long now, I'm kind of used to it.
I still dream of having a big kitchen. If I could, I would just turn our dining room into a kitchen expansion. This dream kitchen has a marble island for rolling doughs and a butcher-block counter I can chop directly on. It has a five-burner gas stove and an electric oven. If I'm really luck it also has a separate brick oven for pizza and bread but I try not to get carried away. A dishwasher (other than myself) would be nice, too. My last kitchen was the size of a closet, this one's a hallway. Maybe next time I'll get lucky and have something kitchen-sized. A girl can dream, right? I have now realized that the kitchen is probably the most important room in the house to me so next time we look for a place to live, that will be priority number one. Air Conditioning would be nice too.

Just so we end on a happy note, here are some things I love about our house: cute, brick, nice front porch and back deck, sizable yard for the city, lots of storage space in the basement, really nice neighbors, radiators are more efficient and less expensive for heating in winter.