Wednesday 23 April 2008

In Honor of Earth Day - Little Green Radical



Yesterday, April 22nd, was Earth Day. Isabella celebrated by donning a super stylish eco-beanie cap and going out to enjoy the sunny day with Daddy, while Mama worked a couple of hours and worried that she wouldn't take anything from the bottle (which she barely did - but still, we persevere). Thanks to Kat for the cute hat!


And here is Isabella's interpretation of Madonna's Atlas pose from this month's Green issue of Vanity Fair. As you can see, my photography skills combined with the genius of my point-and-shoot camera give Annie Leibowitz a run for her money.

Thursday 17 April 2008

First Vaccinations - Two Months Old


Isabella got her first vaccinations yesterday. She slept through the whole visit - that is, right up until the nurse stuck her with two long needles that went a good 1/2 inch into each thigh. She awoke from her sound slumber to the surprise of shots and started to scream differently than I'd ever heard her scream before (and believe me, there are many variations!). For the rest of the day she went from smiley to weakly cranky with a low-grade fever. Our first fever! Not the greatest first experience in the world, but at least we were prepared with Infant's Tylenol which seemed to help. Today she has been very tranquil and sleepy, so I think her immune system is still working hard on taking in the vaccines.

For now, Pedro is working on bottle-feeding her so that I can work this weekend. I haven't talked about it much here, but we were lucky not to have had any nursing trouble - which was one of my greatest worries given that I have so many friends who weren't successful with it. But when it comes to taking a bottle, she fights it. It's been very difficult getting her to feed from it without a huge struggle. In fact, this post is going to be cut short because that struggle is getting louder...

Monday 14 April 2008

The Cloth Diaper Experience


I've had a lot of people recently asking me how it's going with the cloth diapers, so I thought I'd update everyone on that. We started using them about three days or so after Isabella was born and even though we have some Pampers and Tushies on stand-by we rarely use them unless we run out of the other ones. So now that we've got two month's use under the belt, I think it's safe to say we're hooked. Pedro and I both share in diaper duty and he's said more than once that he prefers the cloth to the disposable.

We've got three types of Tots Bots brand nappies - organic cotton, bamboo, and fleece (mostly made in the UK). They're all really easy to use and fasten either with velcro or a Snappi. Now that Isabella is a bit bigger, the diapers fit her really perfectly - and her little butt looks so cute in those fluffy things! I have about 25 diapers so we only need to run a full load every other day, and they dry quickly on the line (she goes through 7-10 a day at this stage). She hasn't had any nappy rash (touch wood) and we don't have to change her any more often than with a disposable due to the fabric types and their weaves. I got all kinds of cute waterproof covers for them too, so I'm excited for summer to finally get here so that we can show them off under her little dresses.

And lastly, we've now broken even on what I spent on the cloth diapers versus what I would have spent on Pampers up until this point (fancy cloth diapers have an expensive up-front cost). By the time Isabella is potty trained, we'll have saved well over a thousand bucks on diapers. What's more - they'll last for more than one baby :).

Sunday 6 April 2008

Latest Isabella Pictures








Hello to all. Due to some weird comments we've noticed in the last coupe of postings, we've decided to moderate the comments, so you can still post comments, we just have to approve them first before they get posted. So please, continue posting your comments. Enjoy the new pictures of Isabella.

Hola a todos. Ya que hemos notado algunos comentarios raros, hemos decidido comenzar a moderar los comentarios. Pueden seguir poniendo sus comentarios, la unica diferencia es que April y Yo los tenemos que aprovar antes de que sean puestos en el blog. Fuera de eso, disfruten las ultimas fotos de Isabella.