24 Weeks

At 24 Weeks:

* I am feeling pretty good minus some back pains

* I am measuring right on track and gaining weight as I should

* I am feeling more and more activity as The Bean continues to explore it's living space

* I am not looking forward to the glucose test in a few weeks

* I am enjoying my prenatal yoga classes

* I am starting to get excited about decorating the nursery

* I am ready for week 25

Inspiration

I am a farm girl. I raised sheep. I drove tractors. I get dirty. When I was searching for a bedding set for The Bean's nursery I wasn't really sure what I would want other than something gender neutral since we plan to have more children and want to use the nursery items for all our children. When I came across this vintage-inspired bedding set by Bean Sprout.I fell in love with it. I don't necessarily want to have everything matchy-matchy in the room, but I want to stick with a vintage farm theme. Very vintage farmhouse I guess you could label it. Here are some of my current inspirations.

The prints are from an Etsy seller, Rachelle Levingston, and I love them so much! Now I need to decide which ones will adore the walls. The rest of the items are vintage items or repurposed items.

To me, this theme isn't gender specific at all - although I have had some opposition to my point of view. I hope that my child, whether boy or girl, learns to have a love of animals, the outdoors, and agriculture. I pray that my child will respect and understand the work that farmers and others in the related fields do for all of us. I hope that my child will want to work in the garden with me, to use their hands in the earth, and to create something wonderful.

And I hope that he or she likes to get good and dirty just like me.

The Choices We Make

I had a few comments and questions asked after I posted about cloth diapers. After reflecting on it, I decided to write a little bit about our decision to cloth diaper.

Cloth diapers are the choice for us, but they certainly aren’t the only way to diaper a baby. As someone who has chosen to cloth diaper I often get a lot of strange looks, opposition from others, and lots and lots of questions. And while I could choose to be snobby about cloth diapers vs. disposables, especially to those who right away write me off as some crazy hippie who doesn't know what I am getting into, I've decided that the best thing to do is to educate those around me about why we choose to cloth diaper.

Generally I find that people respond so much better when they learn why you do something as opposed to being told that they need to make a change. I know I certainly don't like being told why my choices are wrong, especially without evidence and by those who have never tried my choice - sort of like when my dad said he hates spinach artichoke dip at the restaurant and I said well did you ever try it and he hadn't, and then after I convinced him to try it, he ended up eating almost half of it. But I digress...

Cloth diapering is a decision we made as a family for very specific reasons. If people are cloth diapering for the novelty of it (which I could see happen since some of this stuff is just so gosh darn cute!) they may feel less committed to full time. For us, we want cloth diapering to be just another part of our life. There is no thinking about it and constantly wondering if we should just go buy a box of disposables, it just is. Kind of like wearing underwear everyday - we don't question it, we just do it!

Again, I understand that it may not work for everyone but this is the decision we've made. I've heard a lot of "oh you'll still need some disposable diapers," "what about when you are not at home?" and "you should still have disposables for traveling." I see where people would have those concerns, however with today's cloth diapering systems, all of those reasons for keeping around disposables are no longer valid. Resorting to using disposables for convenience just isn’t an option for us.

The main reasons we decided to use cloth are as follows:

• Healthier option for our baby
• Better option for the environment
• Kinder to our budget
• Makes the most sense to us given that we plan to have more children

In my quest to educate others, I plan to follow up this post with posts focusing on each of the reasons that led us to our decision to choose cloth. It's not my goal to convert every person in the world to cloth diapering. As I said, I realize it's not the choice for everyone, but I want to educate others as to why it is our choice. If that creates some converts along the way as my friends' stories have converted me, then so be it.

And of course I realize that all of this is coming from a mother-to-be who has not yet placed a single cloth diaper on a baby. However I hope you will take this as an opportunity to follow along in our journey and see how it turns out instead of dismissing my commentary all together.

Mission: 52 in 52

Project #2: Tree Frog Knits Holster Longies


Longies in "Holster" by Sarah of Tree Frog Knits (now partnered with Western Sky Knits).

Projects in Progress

I am pretty sure I average five projects on the needles at a time. Right now I think I am up to six. Guess this is an extension of my ability to multitask. Now if only I could find a way to create a few more arms and hands I could get so many more projects done!

Above is the sweater I am working on for a dear friend in Sublime Baby Cashmerino Silk DK yarn. Below is the yarn that I am using for a blanket for The Bean. I'm using a pretty light blue organic cotton yarn by Lion Brand.

We've Got Ourselves A Spaghetti Squash

22 Weeks

At 22 weeks I am being told that The Bean is nearly a pound and about 11 inches long, the length of a spaghetti squash. As long as the baby keeps growing to look like a newborn and not a vegetable, I am totally okay with the comparison.

The downside of looking more pregnant: My belly is becoming a hand magnet but luckily not too many unwanted touchings yet. Most people tell me they want to touch but won't - which is amazing since most people are lacking the concept of personal space.

The upside of looking more pregnant: I have twice been told to "go ahead" instead of having to wait in line in the ladies room. Ah benefits.

Chick-A-Dee Knits In Action: Meet Kara

Chick-A-Dee Kara sporting a Cozy Ear Flap Hat in Western Sky Knits Love of Chocolate on sequoia worsted. I love that this hat matches her winter coat so perfectly! Such wonderful yarn to knit as always.

Fluffy Mail

Our decision to cloth diaper has led to getting the most wonderful fluffy mail ever! We got our order of sustainablebabyish diapers in the mail and let me tell you, I cannot wait to put these on The Bean. We ordered some of the snapless-multi contrasts and also have some organic bamboo fleece fitteds on the way. I have heard terrific things about these diapers, especially for nighttime. The fitteds will get the trial run first since they are sized and are XS (~5-11 lbs) and the snapless-multi are one size (OS) and probably won't start fitting until around 10 lbs. Eventually I'll post pictures of the rest of The Bean's stash but for now, feel free to drool over this squishy goodness.