Practical & Conscientious Parenting
Zach
Zach is a soon-to-be father who joyfully works from home creating things for the web and his family. In addition to spending hours in front of a computer, he likes playing mandolin, stirring up delectable vegan cuisine, and being outside. He wants to be a grown up when he grows up.
Home page: http://zbrustudios.com
Posts by Zach
Parental Multitasking Cloud
15 years
I read an article at Wired.com recently about how multitasking muddles the brain (full article). Studies have shown that people who frequently multitask do poorer on test that require their full attention. Well, I’m starting to feel the affects of the parental multitasking cloud that I’ve been walking in for the past 7 weeks. Everywhere I go, I feel like I’m showing up half-dressed and late.
Even at home, I find myself walking urgently up to my computer, pausing while I try to remember what I needed to do so urgently, then remembering that I was really walking over to get my shoes because I need to go outside and turn the sprinkler on, but I remembered I wanted to look for sound protection ear muffs for Edie, which I had already decided I would look for after I started the sprinkler, but I then forgot that I had decided to do sprinkler then internet, which is why I’m standing in front of the computer.
It’s like I have about a 10 second window on either side of :now: that my brain can take in and process. Anything further away than that takes extreme concentration. Tonight when we were getting ready for bed, I changed Edie’s diaper and put her in bed with Ashley to nurse. Then I turned around and saw the container we keep our baby wipes in and thought “Oh, no! I forgot to use a wipe!” Which, of course, wasn’t true. It had just been more than 10 seconds since I had changed Edie’s diaper, so I had forgotten.
Stay at Home Dad
15 years
We just got back from a trip to Oregon to visit our families and friends. The trip was a lot of fun, if a little whirl-windy, and we managed to see just about everyone. Most people wanted to know what our plans were, with Ashley being in medical school and all.
Ashley and I have talked a lot about what the next year is going to look like for us. Ashley is taking this fall off to be at home with Edith, and she’ll start back part time in the spring. This time next year, she’ll be a full time med student again. Since most of my work is done at home, my schedule is going to be a little more fluid. I’m going to try to work as much as I can this fall to get my business at a steady level. In the spring, I’ll have to adjust my hours down a little bit, and come next fall, I don’t know how things will look. It all depends on how all of us feel.
Anyway, the thing is I noticed a weird reaction in myself as I would explain this to people. I’m really excited about being a stay at home dad. I’m going to love it. But some part of me feels a little guilty about it. As much as I try to celebrate gender equality, I grew up with the mentality that a man should do everything he can to provide for his family. So maybe it’s because we don’t have a lot of money to begin with, and I feel like I should be working more anyway.
There was a way I wasn’t comfortable telling people that I’m going to be a stay at home dad. Stay at home moms have done a great job informing people of the importance of their work. But as a dad, I felt like I needed to be doing more. I was really glad that I have my web work that I could tell people I would continue doing. And it shouldn’t matter. There’s a good chance I’ll be too busy when Ashley’s back in school full time. What I don’t like is that I’m somehow pressuring myself already to do more, to be a super dad. But I don’t want to miss Edie’s first years out of guilt or some perceived male responsibility.
So that’s my work for the fall. I’m celebrating and anticipating being a stay at home dad.
Terry Fleece Diaper Doublers
15 years
by Zach
in Creative Projects
When we told people that we wanted to use cloth diapers, we got a lot of support, and also a lot more props than we deserve. I think, especially with older generations, that people think about desperately trying to safely pin a diaper on a wriggling little bottom. But with the amazing diapers that people have come out with these days, it’s really not hard at all. And fortunately for me, Anne had already done a lot of the research and trial & error with Mehalia, so we had a great resource for any questions we had.
So far, everything is going great with Edie in cloth diapers. We’ve had a couple of blowouts, mainly because she’s just so tiny still and it’s hard to get the diaper covers around her legs. One of the best things in our diaper collection has been our terry fleece doublers. They really wick away moisture and keep Edie dry. And they were really easy to make.
We had a couple of doublers that Anne had given us that we used as a template. The fabric store we went to only had a couple of bad colors of terry cloth, so we bought a yard of white terry and dyed it ourselves using iDye. And there are so many cool cotton fleece prints these days, we just picked out two that we really liked and bought half a yard of each.
The sewing was a snap, though it would have been even snappier if we owned a serger sewing machine (which we seriously contemplated buying). But not owning a serger, I learned how to use a finishing stitch that I didn’t even realize our sewing machine had. Ashley traced the outline of the doubler we had on the fleece, and loosely pinned it to the terry cloth. She sewed a straight stitch about half an inch to the inside of the line she drew, and then she cut along the line. She was a little nervous about doing the finishing, so that’s where I stepped in. There were places where I got a little too close to the edge, but all in all they turned out great, and we love having so many of them. It was really a lot easier than I thought to do a project I used to think was only possible with a serger.
Angel Baby Bottom Balm
15 years
A friend of ours gave us a container of Angel Baby Bottom Balm at our baby shower, and we love it. We took it to the hospital with us, but we didn’t use it right away. I had never seen meconium before, and frankly, I was surprised at just how sticky and tar-like it was. We had a tough time cleaning Edie up the first couple of diapers, and then Ashley decided to put it the Angel Baby Bottom Balm on her, and wow! What a difference. She was a ton easier to wipe clean. Now that she’s moved on to breast milk poop, it’s not as tricky to get her cleaned up, but we’re still using it off and on to help keep her from getting too chapped. We haven’t had much in the way of diaper rash (the fleece doublers we’re using help keep her really dry), but when Edie does get a little red, this balm does the trick.