Yesterday was a big day for us, in several ways. Little things added together made it big, I suppose. Yesterday, we took Lily Bean out for her first, official baby photoshoot. Photographer: yours truly. I’ve been doing some photography work with various people before I got pregnant, one of whom was with Jaeden, our nephew (Peanut’s older brother) when he was about a year old. That was two years ago. Same setting: autumn fall leaves and such. The photos turned out so nicely that I swore I would try another shoot when I have a baby of my own.

Well, lo and behold, I got one now! Heh. On Friday, I went shopping for an “autumn outing” outfit for Lily Bean. Yesterday, I convinced Dave to go with me to the park down the block from where we live to take photos of Lily Bean with the fall leaves. It was a dry day, a little chilly, with low sun every now and then. Perfect lighting for an outdoors photoshoot!

All of the photos are posted in their own category set at my flickr photo site. Here are some of our favorite ones. They’re edited to enhance the fall leaves. She herself was not edited at all. She’s darn cute naturally! Yes, I’m a proud mama. Can you tell?

(Where’d The Lily go?!)

The photoshoot went wonderfully. She was such a good sport. Sometimes the sun was in her eyes and she didn’t cry at all. She just squinted. At first, I put her down on her tummy on a downward slope (what was I thinking?!), and the poor girl was trying to keep her head up but it was really very hard. Then later we went to the shade and I got some killer shots of her there. Not one cranky peep out of her. What a sweetheart.

Another thing that happened yesterday was that she officially outgrew her bassinet. Really, I knew the day had to come, but I thought I had at least another month left. I think I’ve just been in denial. It seems like she had a growth spurt in the last 3 days because last night, she barely had any room to move in her bassinet. Her head and her toes had maybe an inch left, and her arms couldn’t be stretched out on the sides anymore. Dave convinced me that we had to put her in her crib last night. We did, and it took a while for us to put her down, given the sudden, spontaneous new routine. She didn’t go to bed until 11pm. But, she slept soundly throughout the night and she was a trooper. Woke up happy as a clam. I had the baby monitor on my night stand and I checked in on her a few times throughout the night (I can’t help it!). I missed her so much, I miss her not being in the same room with us. But it’s good for her to be in her own room. Dave had to remind me that it’s a “good thing” that she’s growing so beautifully. I know, I know, but I miss my little girl close by!

First night in the crib:

Our little Lily Bean is a see-saw. What do I mean by that, you ask? Well, she can roll over, but she doesn’t think she can. We’ve seen her do it before, but she’s convinced herself that it’s very hard, so now she’s see-sawing from one side to the next. Sticks her cute cloth diaper bum up into the air, and tries to roll over bum-first. Then she flips back onto her tummy. It’s very cute.

She’s been seeing a lot of her Nana Sylv (Dave’s mom), and she loves spending time with The Nana. It’s good to have at least one grandparent in the picture on a regular basis, especially Nana. Nana is good for the Lily Bean. She’s going to have a great relationship with her.

Lily Bean’s latest and greatest task is being able to push her hand on our chest when we’re holding her, so that she can prop herself up a little more straight to look around the room in a more upright position. She’s depending less on us to hold her in a position she wants to be, and learning that she can do it herself for the most part. When she can’t, she yelps for help. Heh. Cutie pie.

She’s also reaching out for our faces and exploring our facial features. She likes touching my mouth and nose, and loves when I kiss her hand. It’s very cute.

“What is that silly face for, Daddy?”

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program with this ultra-cute video of the Lily Bean smiling, squeaking, squealing, and blowing bubbles.

We’ve been putting her in her crib for her day time naps, to prepare her for when she transfers to sleeping at night in it. She’s getting a little longer everyday, and soon she won’t fit in her bassinet anymore. *sniff* That will be a sad day for The Mama. I love having her in our room. I hear every noise she makes and I can easily get to her right away. Having her across the hall will be very hard to get used to.

She’s taking to the crib like a charm. She sleeps in it during her morning naps, and when she wakes up, she hardly makes a peep because she’s so interested in her new surrounding. We hear her talking to her herself from the living room, when she’s in her crib in her own room. It’s very cute. She’s slept in there for about 3 or 4 hours, max, during the day. Her night time sleeps are up to 10.5 hours now, give or take a few nights. They’re anywhere between 8 and 10.5 hours straight through.

We’re having issues with leakage again, with the gdiapers. So I’m working on that now. Seems that because she keeps growing, the way we put her diapers on has to keep changing. It’s a little annoying, but what can ya do? This is our first baby, so it’s trial and error throughout it all. I still wouldn’t give this up to go back to disposables. I enjoy knowing that we’re helping the planet with this baby. It makes me proud. Plus, it’s so good for her bum not to be filled with all those chemicals.

My sister-in-law, Kami (her husband, Dan, is Dave’s brother) gave birth to their second child yesterday, at 10:50am. We rushed to the hospital as soon as we could to meet Baby Peanut.

Kami and I had gotten pregnant together and while Lily Bean was dubbed “Baby Bean” in the womb, Kami’s was dubbed “Baby Peanut.” We figure it was cute to start out their lifelong cousin relationship with matching nicknames.

We’ve been very excited about their arrival, even more so (if possible) when we found out it was going to be a little girl as well! So, without further ado, here are photos of the momentous, infamous, long-awaited-for meeting between the Bean and the Peanut.

The two daddies with their two little girls

Kennedy (Peanut) weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz, much bigger than when Lily was born (6 lbs 10 oz). She’s going to probably be bigger than Lily Bean in no time at all, and Lily Bean had a 3-month-and-one-day head start!

Everyone was pretty proud. I took as many photos as I can of the day, knowing that the two girls will want to look at them when they’re much older. We’re hoping they would be the best of friends, if not at least close buddies. They won’t remember this meeting, but darn it, how many of you have evidence of your first meeting with your best friend, right?

Daddy with Lily Bean meeting Peanut (Kennedy Alexis) while Uncle Chris (another brother of Dave’s) held her.

For the most part, Lily Bean was oblivious to the meeting, and didn’t quite understand the gravity of the event. However, when she was near enough to see Peanut, she was interested in what this little creature was. She would stare and stare, especially when Peanut meowed out her cries. It looked like she was wondering, “What the heck is this little thing…?” I wonder if she understood what Peanut was saying when she was crying. Haha.

It’s been (close to) three months since Lily was born. The first month and a half, we used all the disposable diapers that we were given for as shower gifts. Plus, she didn’t fit into her gdiapers that we got for her yet at that time, since she was on the smaller and leaner side. We had to wait until she was almost 10 pounds before the gdiapers fit her.

It took about two weeks to get the flushable gdiapers to fit correctly without leaking or staining. It took another two weeks to see how we were going to deal with cleaning and laundry and soaking and hand washing and staining. At first, I was hand washing every single white liner when there were poo stains. That means, after every changing (which could be anywhere between every 2 to 4 hours), I was hand washing the liner. While I didn’t mind too much, this took a lot of time, used a lot of water, and eventually I noticed the liner material tearing off on the sides, which makes leaks even more probable. So I stopped doing that.

We enjoyed the gdiapers with flushables on its own for about a week and a half or so. I taught Dave to do it and we were both pretty confident. We finally found something that worked right for us. However, after realizing how many flushables we were having to buy every week (a new bag a week — about $15), I wanted to find a more economical and less time-consuming method to go. Flushables are completely biodegradable, earth-friendly, bum-friendly, clean, etc. However, the time it took to flush every flushable was starting to get annoying, and the money spent wasn’t saving us more than what we would’ve spent on regular disposables anyway. Plus, I didn’t find it “cleaner” than we had first imagined if we were to go straight to cloth diapers.

So I tried cloth diapers for a couple of days, using Thirsties diapers with hemp prefolds. While they worked well, had very minimal stains and no leakage at all, I didn’t enjoy having to change her about every hour or two. That seemed like a whole lot of changing to me.

So I went on a research rampage to see what other mothers are doing with the gdiapering system. We really like the concept and how it can go longer without changing, as well as keep her bum nice and rash-free (like the cloth system). I found out that mothers everywhere were using cloth inserts with their gdiapers!

So I looked it up, and lo and behold, Cottonwood Baby makes cotton inserts specifically for gdiapers! Now, we can have the best of both gdiapering and cloth diapering. This sounded fantastic. I decided to order a package and try it out. With the help of the owner, Anna, I perfected the cloth diapering system with a gdiaper in about a week. After several washes and drying, the cloth inserts worked perfectly, and leaks were very minimal. Plus, I could still change her every 4 hours, sometimes even longer, and she still wouldn’t get a rash or leak. Plus, it’s cleaner and less time consuming in the sense that I didn’t have to hand wash anything, and I didn’t have to take time away from Lily Bean by having to flush anything. It works like the cloth diapering system where I just throw the liner and the insert into a wet bag after every changing and then do a load of laundry every other day. It’s just an extra load of laundry, and really, that’s not so bad after all.

The left is a completed gdiaper system with insert: the gpants, with the white liner holding the cloth insert. The right is what the cloth insert actually looks like. Sometimes I use the organic hemp/cotton doubler underneath the insert for extra soaking power.

Now, for overnights, we’ve tried various things. Lily Bean sleeps anywhere between 8 to 9.5 hours every night, straight through, so you can imagine how wet and/or soiled her diaper is when she wakes up. We needed something that was comfortable for her as well as water-resistant and leak-proof. At first, doubling up the flushables in the gdiaper worked. It contained really wet pee and icky poop throughout the night. However, having a flushable in doubled with a “sushi-roll” flushable on top didn’t always work. It was about 50-50 for us, interestingly enough. Sometimes she woke up with her whole backside completely soiled and wet, through her clothes, her blankets, and finally down onto her bassinet. Poor baby.

So then I got a Thirsties all-in-one cloth diaper, as suggested by Erin. I believe she said that’s what she used for Corbin’s overnights. So I put a pre-fold in there, and tried it last night. PERFECT fit. She not only soaked the whole thing, but she also soiled it pretty badly, and there was absolutely no leakage. It contained the whole thing perfectly, and she was dry on the outside. No backside horror, no wet blankets, nothing. Plus, no rash. Here’s a picture of the all-in-one that we’re using. I got two, just enough for an every-other-day laundry doing, since they’re quite expensive. We don’t need them during the day since we change her pretty frequently with her regular gdiapers-with-inserts.

All in all, it’s a LOT cleaner than what we initially thought. We rarely have to touch pee or poop, and every leakage/stain has come out after every wash. (Dave is SO anti-bodily-fluids, it’s not even funny… and he likes this system we’re using, so if he can do it, anyone can.. haha!) We use Seventh Generation’s baby laundry detergent (also completely biodegradable, earth-friendly, hypo-allergenic), and that’s like, super-laundry-detergent. Method’s regular laundry detergent also works well. It gets out everything. Every changing is like using a new cloth insert altogether. There’s no evidence that the inserts were ever covered with poop or pee in the first place.

So now, we’ve perfected the whole system. I just got reusable wipes, and will be using them from now on instead of buying disposable wipes. In the long run, we’re saving a LOT of money, and we’ve completely eliminated trash altogether. Baby Lily Bean is an eco-friendly earth-loving baby, and I couldn’t be more proud!