Baking bread and Baby bums

So recently Merlin and I have started making our own breads. Aside from the obvious benefits of saving money and not buying bread with all kinds of preservatives in it, it's actually been really fun. We started out by making old dough and from there we've made all sorts of things from plain white bread, to biscuits, to pizza dough. Plus we've been having a lot of fun making the bread itself, and testing out different things in our bread. We just finished the last of what Merlin calls the marble bread, which was delicious btw. It had all-spice and nutmeg in it and was the perfect bread for sandwiches. The house always smells so great lately because of this too. Ahh there seems to be so many pluses I really can't figure out why we never tried it sooner. Or why most people wouldn't even think of it. If you are on a budget, I would definitely recommend baking your own bread, it's a lot more satisfying eating something you put work into as well.

Another exciting thing going on in our house right now is I just received a sample of  cloth diapers in the mail to try out for my business. So far I looove them. I mean aside from being super cute, they are some of the most absorbent diapers I've ever tried. They are called Tetro diapers, and they are from Poland. To see the diapers I'm talking about, click here.
Speaking of diapers, I must admit, I never thought in a million years I would be excited about them. I mean, I knew having a baby meant dealing with diapers, but getting excited about diapers and actually enjoying putting them on my daughter is a whole different ball game. And I assure you, I did not enjoy diapering when we were using disposables.
If you've never considered using cloth diapers, or don't even have a kid, I really suggest at least thinking about it. It makes dealing with baby poo, which is inevitable, a lot easier. How did we start using cloth diapers? I started using cloth diapers when Lily was two months old. I am an avid poster on the forums on Nexopia.com where there is a little community of mom and mom/baby based forums. And a couple of the moms were always talking about the benefits of their array cloth diapers and their Gdiapers. At first I kind of scoffed them off with the other moms, thinking I didn't want to add even more work to our daily routine. But after a couple really, really bad poop explosions that ruined two outfits, and one particularly bad diaper rash, I started to think about all things those moms were talking about. I first started researching the Gdiapers, and those were the first ones we bought. They never really worked for us and we almost gave up on cloth diapers because we kept having problems. So tried to scour through the tons of information out there, and while there is sooo much on cloth diapers, really you'd be surprised, I couldn't figure out what any of it meant. It was just REALLY confusing and foreign to me.
But because of  the terrible rash that Lily had, I was determined that cloth was the way to get rid of it. So I went out and spent $150 on some cloth diapers, and kind of felt my own way around it. Which led me to wanting to help others out with the transition. Also through my research, I found out just how much money I was literally throwing away into the garbage! I mean really when you think about it, Pampers are super expensive for something you're just going to be throwing away. As you can see, for us, it wasn't a matter of saving the environment or being tree-hugging hippies (though that is defs a bonus) it was a matter of health and savings. Now we have that much more money we can use to better our lives and our babies, and she doesn't have a bleeding bum from such a bad rash. And to be completely honest with you, cloth diapering has been no more work than disposables and like I said, now I enjoy diaper changes.
So, I may be a tree-hugging, save the whales crunchy mom now, but I definitely didn't start out that way. I think that everyone just needs to be a little more open-minded when re-learning something. Cloth diapers are something that can be a good thing for anyone who tries them or wants to try them. It seems so silly how something so little as a diaper could spark so much debate and discussion.
Boy the parenting world is so totally different from the post-teenage world I once lived in. But I wouldn't change it for the world.