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Practical & Conscientious Parenting
Homemade Playdough
15 years
I thought I had missed my chance for a treasured childhood memory, having never made playdough with Mehalia. Tonight I needed to make some for my preschool class, so I invited her to help. She was of course delighted, as she always is whenever there is mixing and pouring to be done.
The recipe we used was 4 cups each flour and water, 1 cup salt, and 4 tbls. oil. It was supposed to have 1/2 c. cream of tarter too, which I didn’t have, and then saw that I could substitute 1/4 c. each baking powder and baking soda. We’re in the middle of moving, and despite my attempts to clearly label boxes with detailed contents, I couldn’t find those ingredients either.
So we did without – it appears to be fine. It was so awesome to see, and smell, the gooey glop turn into playdough before my eyes. (After mixing the ingredients in a big pot, we just heated it up on low, stirring often until it thickened.) It didn’t make nearly as much as I thought it would, so I ended up making a second batch, this time doubled. It was so warm and soft when it finished. I’m really happy I finally tackled one of the things I considered an essential element of childhood.
PS – By the next morning, the second batch had “melted” into a sticky mess, so maybe those missing ingredients were important after all. I tried adding sand since I was using it to make shell prints, but it just got even grosser. Oh well, the treasured memory remains in the creation process, and I’m sure we’ll need some again at some point so I’ll get to perfect my recipe.
Favorite Kids Books – part one
15 years
One of my favorite parts of being a parent is finding new stories to share. At Bug’s baby shower, it was so much fun to see the books that the family and friends love and are wanting to share.
These have been a few of my favorites so far:
Why is the Sky Blue ~ I shared this with Mehalia on our first day of homeschooling as a reminder to myself that I am learning just as much from her as she is from me.
Somewhere in the Ocean & Somewhere in the Garden ~ A sweet mix of science, math, poetry, and music.
A Hat for Ivan & The Sneeches ~ On the importance of being yourself.
Rabbit’s Bedtime & Five Little Kittens ~ Two perfectly balanced days.
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.