Cal and Eve's Sleepover take 2!

Kyrie and Evelyn came to stay again from January 20th through January 27th. As always we had a blast. Cal and Eve are interacting with each other more and more each time we get them together. We took them to the skate place twice and to the mall to play. We even had a mock birthday party for them and they had pumpkin harvest spice cake (yummy!).Evelyn wore Calvin's cloth diapers while she was here. I must say I enjoyed having two in cloth for a week. Kyrie had planned to stay longer but she had a doctor's appointment the 28th so she had to go home early. Can't wait to get together again soon :). Calvin also started standing alone while they were here. I think he is trying to keep up with Evelyn.

Calvin is now fascinated with nipples. Evelyn was pretty confused when he poked hers LOL

Kyrie and I had a good time skating while the babies hung out in the play area

Hanging out at the Skate Place playing with spoons

Ready for bathtime

Eating their birthday cake. They LOVED it!

Yummy cake

OMG om nom nom!

Unconditional Parenting Chapters 1-4

After lurking the attachment parenting board on babycenter for quite awhile I kept seeing the book Unconditional Parenting mentioned in responses on nearly every topic. I decided it sounded like a very interesting read and I bought it as soon as I had a chance. When I first started reading it I must admit I was a little wary. Chapter 2 was particularly difficult for me to understand and I actually put the book down for quite some time before finally picking it up again and starting from the beginning today. Four chapters in and this book is totally blowing my mind, but in a good way. I have been against physical punishment for a long time but this book is making me realize that many other forms of punishment and even rewards can be harmful. It is definitely against the mainstream thinking when it comes to parenting but after getting this far into the book it is starting to make a lot of sense. I am excited to continue reading and evaluating this book.

Just another reason why I attachment parent

I was reading my babycenter attachment parenting board when I came across a post that really made me feel good about the choices I am making with parenting. The person who started the thread posted this link http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=110126/OklahomaState. It is a dad's memory of his son that passed away in an accident recently. This is part of the story 

He can picture it so clearly. Every night, after being placed in his crib, Little Nate would hop right out and curl into bed with his mother and father. If they told him no, Nate would cry, and Zane and Ann would cave in and let him stay. Zane had been told by friends that this was a bad precedent to set, that toddlers need to learn to separate from their parents at some point. So one night, he let Little Nate stay up until about 10 p.m., got him good and tired and laid him down in his crib. And in case the kid climbed out, Zane locked the master bedroom door.

The next morning, he woke up, thinking, wow, it worked. Then he looked over at his door and noticed a tiny hand underneath. Nate had again escaped the crib and fallen asleep trying to reach through the bottom of the door. All Zane could see was five baby fingers. God, he felt awful. So that's the memory that keeps flooding back to him, that's the one that still makes him break down, even now.

Because he'd do anything to have one more night with Nate.

Reading this literally made me feel sick to my stomach. Society pressures us into forcing our babies to grow up and be independent when WE decide they need to not when THEY are ready. I am going to enjoy every moment of co-sleeping and snuggle time that I have with Calvin. I never want to look back and wish I hadn't forced him to sleep alone. Because someday, when that time comes, I'll wish for just one more night with him.

Birthday party drama :(

So I thought that things had cooled down between my mom and dad. Yes they can't stand each other but they had both been being pretty civil (besides the times dad gets drunk and acts like an ass). So I wanted to throw a first birthday party for Cal but we don't have money right now so I wanted to do it as cheaply as possible. I figured dad could probably get the trumpet room for free so I texted Shelly's phone and asked if dad would be able to help me out. BIG MISTAKE! He decided that he and Shelly were going to pay for everything and told me that he would only do it if my mom couldn't come. Thinking I didn't really have another option since I didn't have the money to have it elsewhere I told him ok. I figured I could have a separate party with my mom and the walmart people. Well after arguing with Shelly over her issues (she constantly says things about us hating her and stuff) dad said we would talk about it later. I didn't hear from him for awhile. I figured he was mad about me getting snippy with Shelly.

I talked to mom and she offered to pay for a party for Cal. And she told me I could invite anyone I wanted. Perfect! So I had Debbie talk to Ron on Friday and booked a party at The Skate Place for the day after Cal's birthday. Wouldn't you know it, got a text yesterday from Shelly: 


 "what are you doing for Cal's birthday?"
"We're having it at the skate place. But I still want to do something with you, dad, shonna and marissa"
"When? Can we come?" 
"Feb 17th 4:30-6:30 and I would love if you would come. But my mom is going to be there so if you will be uncomfortable I'd understand. We can just do something separate" 
"Good you have your mom dont try to get close too much drama"
So I'm sitting there thinking wow...if you would use punctuation maybe that would make sense.
"I don't understand what you mean"
"Have a good party see you spring or summer maybe"
So now she totally pissed me off. If this was the first time she'd pulled out the pity me card I would have just dealt with it but she does this every time I talk to her. Made me really mad because if she couldn't put on her big girl panties for one day and come to his party she could at least agree to do something separate. So I had had enough and I sent back "No, forget it. Don't text me anymore." 
And I threw my phone down a flight of stairs and went and had a nice cry and got my anger out by cleaning my bedroom. Looked at my phone a few hours later and she had sent "I wont ever again" 
Had a missed call from my dad and a final message from Shelly that said "you still have your dad dont ever contact shonna again"
I sent back "No, if you are going to be like this I want nothing to do with dad. And that is Shonna's decision not yours. Leave me alone."


I hate drama. Totally ridiculous.

Diaper Sewing Success!!

I have been really wanting to sew my own cloth diapers for quite awhile now. I had even bought some fabric. I just didn't know where to begin. So I found this http://www.kamsnaps.com/How-to-Turn-a-Prefold-into-a-Fitted-Diaper-42.html and decided it seemed pretty simple. It was a long process but I think I did great for a first try! I can't wait to try to sew more!

It's been forever since I updated so I figured I better get busy.

December 5th was the Ozzy concert we had so looked forward to. We had planned on stopping in Akron and dropping Calvin off with Debbie. So when Kyrie and I decided that we would like to have a mommy and baby sleepover it seemed like perfect timing :). We left here around noon and using Norm's fabulous GPS (I will NEVER go far without this thing again! So awesome!) we made it to Poland and Kyrie's house in about 2 hours.   I was very nervous since Kyrie and I had only met in person once before. I was worried that we wouldn't have anything to talk about or something. Turns out I was worried for nothing! John sat in the back with the babies and he, Kyrie, and I chatted on the hour drive to Akron. Cal and Eve were super interested as to why there was another baby next to their seats. They kept looking around the sides of their carseats at each other. It was very cute. When we go to Akron Debbie met us at her house and we did our xmas gift exchanges between Eve and Cal and Kyrie and I. Eve got Cal a toy truck that he loves and Kyrie got me a blue keyquest key tree ornament :). Before we knew it, it was time to leave for the Ozzy concert! Kyrie hung out with Debbie and they went with the babies to Wasabi while John and I headed for Cleveland. The Ozzy concert was awesome. But I'll save that for another post.

After the concert we returned to Debbie's house. Debbie, Kyrie, Eve, and Cal were sleeping so we quietly went to bed. Calvin woke up at about 2am though and wouldn't go back to sleep so we took him and went to waffle house and walmart so he wouldn't wake everyone up. He still wouldn't sleep when we got back and Evelyn was awake so John and I were very tired the rest of the day. After Debbie's observation she had to do for one of her classes we headed home.

We spent the next few days having tons of fun. Cal and Eve had a ton of fun playing together. They shared food, fought over spoons, laughed and played. We took lots of adorable pictures. After days of fun we had to take Kyrie and Eve home. The snow was threatening to get pretty bad in Poland and we didn't want to have to drive in too bad of weather. We stopped at Olive Garden in Canton on the way and Kyrie seemed to enjoy it. When we got to Kyrie's house we went inside for awhile and I fed Cal some baby food. Then we took Cal and Eve out and let them experience the snow. Eve didn't mind it but Cal hated it and he cried.

We had tons of fun together and we are planning on getting together again January 20th.