7 quick takes vol. 4

Linking up at Conversion Diary

1. Tomorrow is my birthday!.  The last couple of years I’ve tried to make my birthday a bit of an adventure (see here and here), but this year I just want to not have to cook or do dishes.  If someone washed my floors for me, I think it would be the best birthday ever.  I want to go out to eat at a new restaurant in Cayo, and I have been looking forward to it for weeks.  Not really because of the restaurant, but for the chance to go out sans kiddos and not have to think about what is for dinner.  I do believe this officially makes me feel old.

2. Miss M is in a stage where she wants to be held on my shoulder at ALL times.  I am loving it, because for a while I thought that I would never have a chance to be a mom to a new baby.  There isn’t much sweeter then a little baby asleep on your shoulder.  On the other hand—well that hand is full of baby.  So not much is getting done around here.  I am grateful for a phone + internet,  and am spending way too much time sitting on the couch holding Miss M and browsing Pinterest.

3.  I am failing cloth diapers.  I think I got sucked into the “cloth diapers are soooo easy” spiel given by countless mommy blogs and forgot that I live in a third world country and nothing is as easy here as it is in the States.   Here are my realities A) any water pressure we have is due to gravity.  Our toilet does not have enough pressure to use a diaper sprayer, which means cleaning dirty diapers by dunking them in the toilet water (GROSS) or taking them outside and rinsing them off at our outside sink (impractical while home alone with a baby and 2 year old). B) we do not have hot water. Thus I can’t do boiling hot pre-wash sanitation super cycles, or whatever it is that mamas in the States swear by to get the diapers clean.  Nor do I have access to special cloth diaper detergent. C) I do not have a drier, everything is line dried.  When it rains for a week straight (this is the tropics, it happens) all laundry ceases to be washed.  So I am dealing with diapers that stink a little even when they are clean, and I’m not ok with that.  Also, I tried soaking the dirty diapers overnight in my washer and holy cow I totally should have known better (I once soaked dried beans overnight and woke up to a nice bubbly fermented concoction).  It took about 4 wash cycles before every piece of clothing washed stopped smelling like the time you went to the beach and put a bunch of seashells in a bag and then found the bag a week later and opened it up…. Yeah. 

4.  A few months ago I read the book Happiness At Home, which was meh and not really recommendation material.  However, it did get me thinking about what would make my house more pleasant.  And the answer was…. bunting.  It makes me happy.  I started in January, and every month I try to make a new kind and hang it somewhere.  This month I did a mini version on a wreath and I love it.

5.  We have horses, and they are nosy.  One may have given Miss M’s hair a little nibble.

6.  Fun fact—this horse was born red

 here he is a couple years ago.  

Now he is totally gray.  He was named Blaise for his white forehead blaze, but now you can hardly see it.

7.  gratuitous cute baby picture.

subtitle:  burping is bliss