Look What I Can Do!

Nails

As I play piano for church today, all I can hear are the voices of all four of my piano teachers telling me that I should have cut my fingernails.

Sarah and I went to the best zoo on the planet this week with her boy cousins. It rained in the afternoon, but we were able to run between the buildings and had a great time.

We're working on figuring out how to get naps in during the day ago that she doesn't get over tired. She still sleeps great at night!

I Can't Believe I Bought a Used Diaper

Yesterday I drove my Subaru to Whole Foods, took out my reusable grocery bags, and "wore" my cloth-diaper-clad baby through the store.  I seem to fit a very specific market niche.

I'm not going to go into great detail regarding our specific cloth diaper plan, because there are plenty of resources online devoted to that, but here are a few notes from our experience.

Benefits of Cloth:

• Fewer diaper rashes
• Fewer blowouts
• Less expensive lifetime costs
• Cute
• Less waste to landfill

Detriments of Cloth:

• Large upfront costs
• More laundry
• Bulky, will probably move up in clothes sizes 2-4 weeks earlier than otherwise necessary

We had a combination of Buttons, Flip, and Alva diapers.  The Buttons are my favorite, and the Alva are easiest for on-the-go because they are a different style.  They were working out great during the day, but once Sarah started sleeping longer at night, she was wetting through the diapers, even when I put in additional padding.  I did some research online, and the main suggestion was to switch to a different style, called a fitted diaper.  Basically, instead of just a strip of absorbent material, the entire diaper is absorbent, and then it requires a plastic cover over it, which we already had with the Buttons and Flip diapers.  Since fitted diapers are expensive (see detriments above), and I wasn't entirely convinced it would work, I decided to buy a used diaper from Baby Junk, a boutique store that has a consignment section in the back.  Bottom line, it was gross sorting through used diapers, but I found one that worked out, we tried it for a few weeks, and I bought two new ones that arrived this week.  Now when she wakes up at night I just feed her and she goes right back to sleep, without needing a diaper change.

In other news, Sarah got an infection that we are treating like pink eye this week, so she has her first antibiotic.  It doesn't seem to affect her at all and is clearing up just fine.  Yet another benefit of not returning to work - we didn't have to figure out how to juggle getting her to the doctor.

Alva Dinosaur Minky Pocket Diaper

Sleeping

Smiling

Stretching

The United States has the Worst Parental Leave Policy in the World

Ok, so it's actually tied with Papua New Guinea for the worst.  Either Estonia or Sweden wins the award for best policy.

Sarah is twelve weeks old, which means that if I had kept my job, I would be returning tomorrow if I wanted to stay employed.  The Family and Medical Leave Act stipulates that each parent may take 12 weeks off and be guaranteed to still have their job.  While many [white collar] jobs offer some of these weeks as paid, there is no legal necessity for it.

Here are some countries that I knew had better policies:

• France - 16 weeks paid at 70% of wages for mothers PLUS 2 weeks paid for fathers PLUS three years paid at a flat rate for either parent.
• Germany - 14 weeks paid at 100% of wages for mothers PLUS one year paid at 67% for either parent PLUS two more years unpaid for either parent
• Canada - 15 weeks paid at 55% of wages (more for low income households) for mothers PLUS 35 weeks paid at 55% (more for low income) for either parent

Here are some countries that I didn't expect to have a better policy:

• Syria - 50 days paid at 70% of wages for mothers
• North Korea - 240 days (2 months before birth and six month afterwards) for mothers; unsure how much is paid
• Iran - 6 months paid at 100% of wages for mothers
• Ethiopia - 13 weeks paid at 100% of wages for mothers PLUS 1 week unpaid for fathers

I don't know what the correct answer is here, it just doesn't seem right to be at the bottom of the pack.  I know that plenty of parents work and raise their children well; it would just be nice to have more flexibility in the decision.  Matthew and I made the decision we think is best for our family and I do love my new job.  I'm especially glad I don't need to wake up at 6 AM tomorrow and make myself look presentable enough to worry about the price of Class III milk.

Now here's a picture of Sarah with her church friends to soften this rant.

Prairie Hills Baby Boom!

Unless otherwise linked, source of all information came from Wikipedia.

Another interesting view of worldwide policies.