The end of a year

We are currently in North Dakota visiting family. The plan is/was for us to return on the 1st but it is blizzardy out and that isn't expected to change tomorrow so we will have to see what happens. I'm hoping I DON'T have an "exciting" story to report.

Both of our Christmases were great (expect pictures when we get back and have access to our camera cord) and we were able to spend lots of time relaxing and visiting family but Lucy and I haven't been home more than 12 hours since the 13th of December and I am ready to be in my own bed. Luckily Lucy think any space between Craig and I is her own bed so that makes things easier.

Like probably everyone else in the world, I've been thinking about the last year lately. It certainly was not what I expected. Some of the big events of the year, like buying a house and my mom getting sick, were not at all expected. Even the things I knew to expect, like Lucy's arrival, were still such big changes that I could not comprehend how they would really affect my life. This year really has been a roller coaster and I won't lie - I'm tired. But through it all, I can see God's hand guiding my life and leading me through. There are certainly things I could change if I had a magic wand, but I know He knows what he is doing, so I'll just keep going and see what the next year brings.

I don't have a big list of resolutions but there are things I would like this next year to hold. Seeing my family's reactions to my mom's illness has really reinforced what I want our family's priorities to be and I do think Craig and I are on the right track, we just need to stay there so my main resolution for the year is: to be intentional.

I want to be intention in how we live and not let time just pass me by. More than any other year, I think I am scared of what this year brings. I'm excited too, but also scared. I keep having to stop and hand those fears to God to deal with because I don't want to waste my time worrying about the future. Instead, I want to use my time this year to:

-grow closer to the Lord

-grow closer to Craig

-grow closer as a family

-work with Craig to train Lucy up "in the way she should go"

-turn our house into a home

I could get more specific about how to do all those, sharing ideas about daily devotionals and scheduling more date nights, a list of home improvement projects I want to accomplish and diet changes I want to make sure we are consistent about. I'm a planner so part of me really want to create an elaborate list of all the things I'm going to accomplish but I'm stopping myself. I do think there is a time for that but right now, where I am, where our family is, we don't need that.

We need to be flexible, but as long as I fix my eyes on the Lord and remember those 5 goals in our plans, even if they are a shorter term than my type-A personality would like, I think we will end up were we need to be at the end of the next year.

7 Months!

Dear Lucy,

What a fun month we have had. We've seen so much family and gone so many places - and we aren't quite done yet!

First time exploring snow!

You had a good first Christmas and got fun toys and books but still like playing with spoons the best. You love spoons! You especially love to wave them. But then, you like to wave everything. And if you aren't holding anything, you just wave your arm. We joke you must be practicing to be a tennis player or a conductor.

Sweatin' to the oldies. But I guess when you're only 7 months old, everything seems like an oldie!

Your arms are getting strong. You love to pull things off shelves and lift your body up on low ledges. You're still not quite ready to crawl but I'm enjoying your lack of mobility so no hurry! But one way you are getting ready is by kicking a lot. You kick your legs while we are holding you or while your playing on your tummy. It's especially fun to watch you kick along to music although it's considerable less so at night when you kick me while I'm sleeping. For some reason you always end up sleeping sideways so when daddy and I are finally ready to go to bed, you have hogged it all and we have to move you around to make room for ourselves.

You've started really enjoying peek-a-boo. I can give you a blanket or diaper and you pull it up and down over your face and start laughing. Or we play a variation where someone pops up from behind a chair or from around a corner. You love it!

With a bit of help you can drink from all sorts of glasses. Shot glasses are the easiest, mostly because there is less to spill!

I love how this month you have gotten the idea that you are a big kid now. You want do to what everyone else is doing, whether that is drinking from a glass or using a laptop. If you see someone else having fun with something, you want in on the action

This wasn't staged. I went into the other room and when I came back I caught you surfing the net all by yourself!

Your laugh has gotten very amusing lately. The last few weeks you have started smiling with your nose all wrinkled and when you laugh you might snort a time or two.

Believe it or not, that is a happy face!

But if you are only slightly laughing though, you do this hmm-hmm thing with your mouth closed. It's hard to describe but completely adorable - just like you. My monthly updates will never do justice to just how amazing my little girl is!

Monday's hero

I've actually been at my parent's a whole week, having arrived last Monday night. Or technically, very early Tuesday morning. It wasn't supposed to be that way but here is how Monday's schedule went down:

3:30pm - Leave for train station, Lucy naps.

4:15pm - Arrive at station, Lucy wakes up.

4:29pm - Board train. Estimated arrival time = 9:30pm

6:30pm - Change baby into pajamas and attempt to adapt bedtime routine to train.

7:00pm - Lucy is asleep.

7:45pm - Lucy woke up on train with bright fluorescent lights every 2 feet along the ceiling so she thinks it must be middle of the afternoon and after her nice "nap", she is now refreshed and ready to play again.

8:05pm - Train stops at station but doesn't start again.

8:10pm - Official Conductor Announcement: Train in front of ours is stopped. Wait for more news.

8:12pm - Call my brother to tell him not to leave to pick me up until I have more details. Lucy plays happily on my lap.

8:15pm - Official Conductor Announcement: Train in front of ours is derailed. We will probably be here for several hours. Wait for more details.

8:18pm - Call my dad to tell him bad news. Call interrupted by incredible puking baby.

8:25pm - Baby is now clean and changed back into pre-bedtime routine clothes and playing happily again. Lacking a change of clothes, I still smell like baby puke. Official Conductor Announcement: Buses have been sent to pick us up and take us to the train stations. Buses scheduled to arrive in approximately 2 hours but they will let us know if they will be late.

8:26pm - Call my dad again to plead for rescue.

9:00pm - Baby still awake. Have attempted to shield her from light by laying her under tray tables covered with jacket and receiving blankets. Decided not the throttle conductor when he walks by and comments on the "fun time I must be having building a fort."

9:30pm - Fort building efforts fail. Baby still awake.

10:00pm - Baby still awake.

10:30pm - Baby still awake. No buses yet but have been told they should be arriving "soon".

10:35pm - Dad arrives!

10:37pm - Lucy goes to sleep almost instantaneously once put in comfy car seat in quiet dark car.

12:25am - Arrive at parent's home. Lucy still sleeping away. Thank my dad hero for spending his evening driving 200 miles on his rescue mission. It was a rough night but it could have been so much worse.

Sanding Saga

Our most ambitious pre-move-in project in our new house has been to remove the carpets and refinish the underlying hardwood floors. I'd like to discuss how it has gone for us, from can-do optimism, to despair, to surrender (we hired some help). I was remiss in not taking pictures throughout the process (I kept forgetting the camera), so all I can give you is this post-carpet, pre-sanding photo. Later, after I discuss staining, I'll show an after photo.

You can see wear down the center of the photo, in the high traffic area. You can also see some yellowing of the wood.

I rented an orbital floor sander from the local rental place. All sanders I saw in how-to articles had 3 sanding discs on the bottom, but this had one big rectangular pad (the sander looked something like this). The rental place also gave me a bunch of sandpaper (of grits 20, 36, 60, 80, and 100), and said I would not have to pay for what I didn't use. Note: these sanders are quite heavy.

Before sanding, I shut the bedroom doors and put newspaper under them. I also taped over the outlets and hung a sheet of plastic between the dining room and kitchen. These measures were intended to keep dust out of these places. I also donned safety glasses, a dust mask, and ear plugs. Previously, I went over the floor a few times to make sure I removed all carpet staples and nails. We did not remove our baseboards prior to sanding.

I started sanding with 36-grit paper (smaller numbers mean coarser paper), sanding primarily with the grain of the wood, although the rotation of the sander means it goes across the grain half the time.. The first pass revealed a large number of 6" by 1" slight depressions in the floor, perpendicular to the grain of the wood. I thought these might be relics from a previous drum sanding job gone bad (note: besides the orbital that I rented, drum sanders are the other type available. These sand more effectively and efficiently, but in the hands of an amateur, these can cause damage to the floor due to excessive sanding). I also found some wide scratches that I had not noticed previously.  Apparently, floor finish can really hide some flaws in hardwood.

I had a heck of a time with these depressions. The sander had little effect on them. I tried using the 5" palm orbital sander I had on hand, but it also had little effect, as did sanding by hand. I also found that the area a couple inches out from the wall, all the way around the house, was similarly impervious to my efforts. I knew I needed to get the finish off of these spots, or they would stick out when I tried to stain the floor.

After doing two passes with the 36 paper (one at a 45 degree angle across the grain), two 60 passes, a 20 pass (I was desperate), another 36, and two 80 passes, I thought the floor was acceptable. The finer sandpapers are intended to remove the scratches put in the floor by the coarse paper, and give the floors a smooth, even finish (I should note here that I vacuumed the floor after each pass with a shop-vac to remove dust). I should also note that I generally used two sheets of sandpaper per pass, with each pass covering about 450 square feet. There appeared to be some color left in the wood, but I thought I had removed enough material that I could stain over what was left.

But then I rented the edger, and found out I was wrong. The edger is a foot-tall unit that uses one 7-8" sanding disc that is attached to the unit by a bolt. When operating it, only one side of the disc actually touches the floor. The edger, which spins at a high rate of speed, instantaneously reduced my edges to white bare wood, in stark contrast to the rest of the floor, and the numerous passes I made over it. I was tempted to use the edger to do the whole floor, but that would have taken days and killed my back.

So I decided to try a 3-disc edger, thinking that maybe the sander I had rented was the problem. Lowe's carries such a sander, so I rented theirs. Note: while the sander I first rented did a very poor job of picking up dust, despite having a vacuum attachment that is supposed to do just that, the Varathane from Lowe's does great in this regard. This sander worked well for about two minutes, then seemed to do nothing. It was as if the sandpaper only worked when brand new (it turns out this was the floor's fault, not the machine's). With this sander, I managed to feather the edges of the floor, so the contrast between the white edges and the light brown rest of the floor was not so stark. But it still didn't look right.

At the beginning of this process, we got a quote from a company to see what it would cost to have someone else do this job. The quote was quite high. But after renting the Varathane, we decided to get another quote, to see what it would cost just to drum sand it. I thought about renting a drum sander myself, but didn't really want to mess with one of those.

The quote we got wasn't too bad, and we wanted to get this done, so we bit the bullet and hired a local company to do it, and the floors ended up nice and white in short order. My ego was assuaged by the fact that the owner of the company confirmed that there was drum sander damage on the floor. He also said there was something weird with the finish on our floor, so he had to use more sandpaper than normal to get the job done. This made me feel good, because all the how-to's I read made sanding seem easy and straightforward, but that wasn't my experience.

That wraps up the sanding part of the job. Here are some links I found helpful.

Next, I will discuss staining, a much more successful endeavor.

In which I pick on people...not really

I think I've mentioned a time or two (hundred) that we are a bit "denominationally challenged" around here. Craig grew up Methodist, I grew up military chapel/Episcopalian but was confirmed Lutheran. As a couple we've attended Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist and non-denominational churches and we just had our little girl baptized as an Episcopalian - see what I mean?

I think this gives me a unique perspective and ability to good-naturedly poke fun and I hope this is taken that way, especially since we are currently attending a Baptist church so it's not like we are anti-Baptists in any way, but there are some thing about the more "evangelical" type churches that I just don't get.

They don't really do the liturgical year. They don't do creeds and repetitive prayer. I know there are reasons for that, some of which I agree with and others I don't. Fair enough.

Yet sometimes it seems if they want don't want their cake but they still want to eat it. Okay, now that I've messed up that saying, I'll try to explain.

At least in the three evangelical churches we've attended over the last few years, there seems to be a lot of repetition. We sing the same songs and the prayers sound surprisingly similar after a while. I personally have no problem with it, I like singing songs I know (and that those around me know :-) but it seems funny when in a conversation with someone from one of said churches begins to talk about the evils of vain, repetitive prayer. Why is someone else's repetitive prayer necessarily vain when your isn't? Every day I pray and thank God for the same things: Craig, Lucy, my parents, my siblings...you get the picture. That isn't the only thing I thank Him for and thanking Him isn't the only thing my prayers are made of but that is consistently a part of my prayers. But just because I say it every day doesn't mean it isn't going to be true tomorrow as well!

Lately I've been seeing another similar occurance popping up - the "Jesse tree" (I use quotes because it's called a Jesse Tree, but isn't actually a Jesse Tree). Most of the people I know who are doing a Jesse tree for the Christmas season belong to churches that don't follow the liturgical year. It strikes me as odd that they have rejected the liturgical year and the traditions that accompany it but then replace it with something else that seems to serve the same purpose.

Now, I have nothing against the Jesse Tree. I think it's great that parents want to involve their children in an daily time when they focus on God and His story but if you are going to do a devotional and activity as a way to purposely prepare your heart for the coming birth of Jesus, why not use the same symbols and physical represention that has been used for so many years? I wonder if it is because these parents didn't grow up doing an Advent wreath themselves and are unsure of what to do. Or perhaps they think Jesse Trees are good for kids while Advent wreaths are boring? I'm honestly not sure.

I love the Advent season. The waiting and preparing. The candles and devotionals. Having grown up with it, I didn't realize how much I missed it until December rolled around and no Advent appeared in our Baptist church. We did many different devotional books along with our wreath throughout the years, sometimes they were put together by our church, a couple years we read a historical fiction book based on the scriptures, sometimes we followed a different book of devotionals. It changed as we got older, then back again when my little brother was born :-) We took turns reading and lighting and blowing out the candles (the candles was the coveted job) and my mom spent quite a bit of time telling us to stop messing around with the wax. I think every single one of her nice Christmas tablecloths probably has at least one red or purple wax stain on it. I have such fond memories of Advent devotionals with my family and I'm excited about building new memories with Lucy as we continue on with the tradition. We may be the only family in our church doing so, and the only one without a Jesse tree, but that's okay with me.

Getting Along

A recent column in The Economist discusses some new research by social scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell. Putnam researches social capital, which describes the effects of connections (or lack thereof) between and within social networks, via surveys. This column discusses the authors' examination of religion and their conclusion that it is a unifying force in America.

This may sound surprising, given the religious discord we often see in the news. But the authors state that people who know members of other religions are more tolerant of them. They call this the "Aunt Susan" principle, stating that, often due to inter-religious marriages, many people have a relative of another faith.

I would like to look at one specific point that the Economist column brings up. It says that 9 of 10 of those surveyed think that people from other faiths can go to heaven. This is seen as a mark of tolerance, and the 1 in 10 who don't see it this way are called "inflexible."

Speaking solely for Christianity (although I gather Islam is the same), our doctrine says there's one path to heaven. Don't follow it, you don't get there. But this sounds harsh and unfair to a lot of people. I suspect that most of the 90% of people cited in the study are not deeply involved in their faith, and thus assume that any "good" person can go to heaven. Or else they believe that, no matter what the Bible says, people from other religions still believe in a God of some sort, so they're OK. Maybe they go to a non-denominational megachurch that focuses solely on the feel-good parts of Christianity.

What this story suggests, then, is that our society is better off if everyone is only casually religious. The Economist author states that, for the "inflexible" 10%, Aunt Susan "is not welcome in their company." He seems to assume that, if you don't think someone is headed for heaven, you dislike them. Ergo, devout people create divisions in, and are bad for, society.

If you are only interested in this from the societal aspect, maybe these findings make sense. But from a religious standpoint, the lack of knowledge/acceptance of basic doctrine is troubling.

But I would dispute the assumption that the devout dislike those that aren't going to heaven. Sure, there are people like that, but there are many others that have devoted their lives (or at least a good portion of their time and/or resources) to reach out to these people to try to improve their lives, in hopes that they will eventually end up in heaven. That sounds like good social capital to me.

Review coming soon

In what could probably be considered a case of putting the cart before the horse, I've been spending a bit of time looking at design blogs lately. Several times I've clicked on links and ended up at one of csnstores.com's multiple sites perusing rugs or lamps. That shouldn't be surprising considering they sell everything from pots and pans to pressure washers, toys to tv tables. One could even say they sell everything but the kitchen sink - except no, they sell those too.

So imagine my delight when we received an offer for $45 voucher to review any product from their site that we want! Now the only problem is deciding what to get. Unfortunately, we aren't quite ready to buy a kitchen sink but I do have several ideas. I've been wanting a toaster oven; our toaster has been on the brink for a while and I want to get rid of the microwave all together - two birds, one stone is always good. But they have a couple of cute lighting fixtures that would replace the obviously original-to-the-house hall light we have and we need a living room rug but Craig and I are having a hard time agreeing on what we want so that would probably take too long :-) I just don't know!

What would you buy if it were you?

Won't you be my neighbor?

Last night we attended a health food lecture at our church where Paul Nison talked about God's word and what it says about our health. I'm not ready to go 100% raw but he did bring up some things that were new to me and I'm curious to research more.

At the end of his talk my friend and soon to be neighbor, Jessica, gave her testimony about how changing her diet impacted her life. Check it out!

PS - I'm so excited that Lucy will have at least one little friend who has to eat the "weird" food her mom makes for her.

Someday

Growing up with a dad in the army and an "army wife" for a mom, I remember them going to a number of functions. There were "hail and farewells", conferences and my favorite, balls. I'm so glad they called them balls and not dances or reception; balls sounded so exotic and fancy to my 7 year old ears.

I would sit on the bed watching my mom get ready. She would be wearing a pretty dress, putting on her make-up and jewelry. Then the very last step would be perfume. Spraying a bit of Poison in the air, she would gracefully step through telling me this was the secret to smelling nice without being overpowering to anyone within three feet of you. Then she would spray some for me to walk through too. I had all sorts of ideas of what the balls must be like, most of which were probably a little overblown, but either way it was so exciting to see them head off and I couldn't wait until I got married and got to go on dates too.

Not that I minded being left with a babysitter. Babysitter came with special treats like popcorn, frozen pizza, games and movies and the opportunity to pick on my brothers with a less perceptive overseer (oh wait, that was supposed to be a secret). It was great fun.

This past Saturday night, Craig and I had a date night. I’m not ready to leave Lucy so we had to be creative. After putting her down, Craig threw a pizza in the oven, picked up the toys, oatmeal canister, pots and pans, and diapers turned burp rags that had been strewn all over the living room floor. I threw a load of diapers in the wash, took a shower and laid down a blanket and some pillows on the now picked-up floor. We sat with our dinner and had some great conversations. Then we snuggled up and watched a movie (eclipse - Craig is a good sport). We had to pause the movie once so I could go feed a baby back to sleep but it worked.

Someday date nights will change. The frozen pizza and movies will stay at the house but I will not. Someday I will get dressed up and spray perfume and Craig will come in to help me put on my necklace and give both his girls a kiss before sending the littler one off to look for the babysitter. Someday will come soon enough. But for now, I wouldn't change a thing.

Lucy's Favorite Things: Music

I didn't think we would start listening to children's music this early, but in a moment of desperation during one "witching hour," I threw on the only kid's cd I had. And miracles of miracles, it worked. She stopped crying and just laid there in my lap. We rocked and listened for probably 20 minutes. Since then, we have been listening to my "Lucy music" station on Pandora quite frequently. I must admit, most kids music is really really bad. Just because someone is under 10 doesn't mean that the only songs they are capable of listening are those about monkeys or counting or boogers. But I have found a few that I don't find completely objectionable.

The winner: Tom Chapin

I grew up listening to Tom Chapin. I heart him. I've even seen him in "concert" at least two times. One time was a children's performance at the University of Illinois back when my dad was a grad student there. We went early and had a snack at one of the little university snack bar places and after sitting there a few minutes, guess who came in, grabbed a bagel and sat down - Tom Chapin! (okay, you could probably see that coming). I thought he was like a rock star so I was in awe the whole time and wanted to get his autograph but my mom made us leave him alone so he could eat in peace. Keep in mind I was only 7-8 years old or I would have known real "rock stars" don't have to eat bagels from the cafeteria.

But back to the point, his songs are fun and catchy without being stupid. And they feature a reoccurring cast so if you ask anyone in my family to describe "Bruno" they would know he isn't a dweeb but he owns a Saint Bernard and that Shirley and Sue made a fortune on lemonade but still like to play on swing sets. As a testimony to their catchiness, when Craig's brother and sister came to visit, I had it one as background noise one afternoon. Later that day, I "caught" Chad singing one of them.

One caveat though, since they are about a wide variety of topics, sometimes songs come up that we, as a family, don't really agree with. Nothing R-rated or anything like that, just a line here or about how we came from sludge or one there about mother earth. When Lucy is old enough that it's an issue, we'll probably handle it the same way my parent's did, by talking about it or asking questions "He just said that we came from apes. Some people believe that but what does the bible say about where humans came from?". And other times we'll just skip that song. Craig already asks me to skip "My town is a salad bowl" since it bugs him and we probably won't be listening to "Not on the test" any time soon either. It is normally limited to just one, maybe two songs per cd so I'm willing to put up with it. But I know that is a person decision and I didn't want anyone buying his cd and scratching their heads trying to figure out why the blonde REPUBLICAN couple recommended it.

Classical ?

This I'm stuck on. I want to find a good classical cd to have on during down time, especially for 20-30 minutes before we start our bedtime routine and maybe before naps but I'm having a hard time finding a good one.

The normal classical cds have to much variety. We will be listening to a nice, calm, quiet song and I feel like it is just the right time to move towards bath and pjs when BOOM - Ode to Joy comes blaring on. Or their are too many "downer" songs. I know that it might seem minor, but I really would like happier tunes only please.

So I tried checking out a kid's classical cd from the library but it was awful. The song choices were okay but the way they made it a "kids" cd was to play it on what sounded like a toy piano. Very plinky and not a lot of harmony. Yuck.

I bought a baby lullaby 3 cd pack from Target (you know, the end cap that you can listen to with all the $10 cds on it) and the cd is just what I wanted but cheap quality so it is already skipping and having issues. I'm not really comfortable having Lucy's bedtime routine depend on a cd that I have to insert 4-5 times into my cd player before it will be recognized. Some people like living on the edge, but not me!

So anyone have a good classical baby cd? Or other kids songs they like?

Finally, some answers

It was never my intention to leave you waiting for answers for so long but we have been having some sleep issues around here and I'm afraid my brain isn't working so well. In fact, this week I had confused my calendar and had not one, not two, but three activities mistakenly scheduled for this week when they should have been next week. It's a really good thing I ran into a friend that happened to be going to those as well or I would have been driving here and there for nothing.

Anyway, on to the questions and answers:

Q) My biggest concern about the homebirth is that I'll be worried about the house (cleanliness, organization, decoration) instead of focusing on labor! In the hospital, I wasn't in charge of anything and I didn't have to wonder if there was going to be enough room. How did you turn off that part of your brain? Does it turn itself off?

A) In my experience, yes it does turn itself off.

When it came to organization, I worried too. Craig could never remember which drawer held onesies and which one held receiving blankets and what would happen if he mixed them up (hint: he'll open one and see the wrong items, then open the other and it will be okay :-) and he is always asking me where things are in the kitchen, what if he can't find something?

Previous to Lucy's birth I would have said I was a very neat person (well, I still am I just have a non self-napping baby so I'm having to let it go). And I did my fair share of nesting before labor but I had actually left a number of things to do to get ready for early labor, thinking as a first time mom I would be putsying around for a couple hours. That didn't happen so Craig had to scramble to put new sheets on the bed, gather up a few supplies we still needed, etc all by himself. I had even planned on cleaning up the bathroom (just wiping counters and stuff) but honestly, none of that mattered one bit. The one thing cleaning/organization I remember perfectly well about labor was when the midwife asked for the crockpot. I knew the answer but also knew I wouldn't be able to say it. But Craig did great with everything, even knowing where the crockpot was. I wouldn't make the mistake of leaving anything again but only because I wanted Craig with me instead of running around. I think most husbands know they have to be on the top of their game and will rise to the occasion.

Also, my midwife had visited the apartment several weeks earlier and seen the bedroom so even though I thought I would be spending time in the bath and on the bed, she knew how to set things up when I decided I like it better on the floor. Now, we didn't have a ton of space there, but I didn't really need it so even though all the homebirths I had read about happened in houses, don't think that apartments don't work too! (We did tell the neighbors that I was close to delivering so not to worry if they heard noises since one of my big worries was that they would hear my yelling and call the cops)

Q) Isn't it messy?

Yes and no. Birth is a bit messy, there is no getting around it. But that doesn't mean you are left with a yucky house afterwards. After the birth, my midwife wanted to hang around for a hour or so to make sure Lucy and I were doing okay and breastfeeding was getting off to a good start. While we napped, she cleaned up. She had put pads down everywhere so there was literally only one drop of blood on my cream-colored carpet and she got that out easily with hydrogen peroxide. By the time she left, the place looked better than when she got there!

And lastly, not really a homebirth question, but still a hippy mamma type one so I thought I'd add it in:

Q) What do you do with Lucy's diapers when you're in a public restroom? You can't really wash them right away like you can at home, so what do you do with the dirty liners?

This is changing. In the past, Lucy has been EBF (exclusively breast fed) and things were easy. All diapers could go straight into a wet bag. A wet bag is a waterproof, zippered bag that is fully washable so when it is emptied, it can go in the wash too. (I have a planet wise and highly recommend it). In a lot of places (on the train, for examples) I think it is actually easier than disposable because it is fully contained, I don't have to find a trash can.

Now that she is starting eat solids, it gets trickier. Wet diapers are the same but the "other" ones are a bit more work although there are options with how you handle that. You can do the old fashioned toilet dunk, buy or make a sprayer, or use flushable liners. I haven't actually done any of those yet, Lucy has only started having "different" diapers the last couple days and I just threw them in with my other ones. I will probably find out this afternoon when I wash them that I shouldn't have done that but I haven't had time (or access to a car) to go out lately. Tomorrow is Lucy's 6 month check up so I have to go to the city and I plan to stop and get some liners to use when we are out and about. They are thin but sturdy so you can pick them up and everything on them up and deposit it right into the toilet and the diaper is then fine to go in the wet bad. We will probably use these at my mom's house as well but tomorrow is our next scheduled Lowe's stop (we have to schedule them or we would go every day!) and I'll be having Craig pick up the supplies to make me a sprayer for the new house. Until we move in there, I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing.

To be honest, I am totally dreading this part of cloth diapers. It probably won't be as bad as I'm imagining but I've been spoiled with my EBF baby.