Subscribe to My Mommy Diaries Subscribe to My Mommy Diaries's comments

For all you mommas out there, you know that those last few weeks waiting to go into labor is absolute TORTURE! Your feet are swelled and look more like something out of horror movie than what you once knew, your legs ache, your butt doesn’t fit into any of your pants, you don’t know if your stomach could get any bigger or tighter, your back feels like you have carried 10 children around all day, you can not get comfortable anywhere, sleeping is a joke, sex is impossible, and mentally you are so ticked off at everyone and everything you think you’d be better off alone in the world. And those are just some of the symptoms we have in the last trimester. I am tired of hearing about my size, tired of answering how many weeks I have left, and tired of sharing my body. Yet….I am not totally sure that I am mentally ready to give birth. Isn’t that just the craziest, most absurd, dramatic extreme?! We can be SO tired of being pregnant, yet SO NOT ready to have our babies! I remember feeling the exact same way with my second pregnancy. Noah had started feeding himself and just seemed so much easier than he had ever been and I was about to start all over again. I think of the car ride home from a random store one day, sobbing to my husband that I felt like the world’s most terrible mother because I didn’t know if I wanted to have another baby. Now mind you, I was 37 weeks pregnant so it was almost minutes away, there was no going back, but I had just started to have these thoughts and began to freak out…like seriously, lose it. And of course, the second she arrived I couldn’t possibly have loved something as much as I had loved her at that moment. My life was forever different, and I was madly in love with my Berkie! But as it all started to sink in, it was so overwhelming!

And once again I find myself in that place where physically I want this baby OUT, but mentally I am somewhat ok with him being in there another 9 months. Maybe most of it is because it’s hard to comprehend that I am about to have another child…a real child, as in a human. It will be here because of me…and my husband, can’t forget he played a role in all of this… It’s just hard to grasp. As I write this I find myself looking over at the bassinet and imagining a little bitty newborn wrapped all tight in a blanket sleeping and it stirs an excitement. It’s really about to happen again. There was no turning back the very second it happened, but there is certainly no turning back at this point. In just a couple of weeks our lives will be forever changed once again. Ahhh, Levi, I hope you are prepared for your family…we’re a bunch of doozies…. And I hope I am more prepared than I feel as this given moment. Lord, help me….


I will show you how to lanolize your wool is this post. It is super easy and kind of fun 🙂

First, you will need:

  • wool cover that needs to be lanolized
  • lanolin
  • baby wash or wool wash
  • a baby jar or small container that closes
  • something to wash the wool in that can contain water, you can use a sink with a stopper or a large bowl
  • a towel

Step 1: Fill your sink with a little bit of soap and LUKE warm water. You have to be careful not to shock your wool with extreme temperature changes. Add the wool and carefully swish it around.

Step2: Let your diaper soak for 10-30 minutes. The large time discrepancy is determined by how badly your wool needs to be washed. If it is poopy, you will want to let it soak for longer.

Step 3: Rinse your wool with LUKE warm water.

Step 4: Carefully squeeze out your water. Do NOT wring.

Step 5: Place a pea size amount of lanolin in a jar with SUPER HOT water. And shake the heck out of it. This will melt the lanolin and aid in coating the wool properly. Keep on shaking until it is all the way melted.

Step 6: Fill the sink with LUKE warm water. Pour the lanolin water into the sink.

Step 7: Add your wool and swish it around.

Step 8: Let your wool sit in the lanolin water for 10-30 minutes. (You can see the lanolin separating from the water already in the picture.)

Step 9: Remove your wool and gently press out water. Then place inside a towel and roll it.

Step 10: Allow to dry for about 24 hours.

Viola! You’re done. If you are only washing your wool, you can just do steps 1-4 and 10. 🙂


So I have been reading lately a lot about using wool as a waterproof diaper cover instead of some form of PUL. I am very excited from what I’ve read and wanted to share it with you guys! Let me begin by explaining how wool works.

Wool comes from sheep. Sheep naturally produce lanolin. When the two are mixed it repels water and is 100% breathable. However, even though wool acts as a waterproof cover, it actually absorbs moisture, up to 30%, on a microscopic level. It is truly incredible stuff. For centuries now, wool has been used to cover cloth diapers and has worked great.

In order to use wool, you have to prep it. It can not be washed like other diapers. It is SPECIAL! Yet, it is easy! You do not have to wash wool during every use. The natural lanolin in wool when on a sheep neutralizes urine. Bacteria can not grow on wool due to the lanolin because once mixed it produces a natural soap. How cool is all this?! The only care you truly need to give your wool is a hand washing every few weeks. Mostly if it gets poo poo on it, or it starts to smell strange. From what I am reading, it will never actually smell like a dirty diaper because of the lanolin. You really just need to wash it just to ”re-lanolize”.  My next post will have a “how to” on lanolizing 🙂

So, my journey will begin once the baby is here and I can’t wait. I ordered a cover called “longies”. They are pants that are made of wool. This is a fish pattern. This is the front.

This is the back.


Just recently I had my 24th birthday. The whole day I was thinking about my life. About how much I had accomplished and where the Lord had brought me. I am so blessed. I have an awesome, hard working husband that would do anything for me, 2 amazing,  healthy children who I love with all my heart, a great, supportive family, and so many materialistic blessings also. I thought about my life up until that day and then thought about how much more life I had to live. I will watch my kids grow and accomplish new things. I will get to experience joyous occasions with my husband as we grow older and closer together. There is still so much that life is going to bring my way. It was a great day and my husband made it incredible for me since we had went away, just the two of us for the weekend. I went to sleep happy.

I woke up not the same. The day after my birthday was a good friend of mine’s birthday. I had known her all throughout middle school and high school. And at one time we were very close. It’s strange how once you graduate high school or boys enter into the picture, how friendships dwindle. I remember seeing her a few times in stores shopping and casually saying hello and doing a 3 minute “catch up” of our lives. I had still always remembered her birthday because she, along with one other friend, was younger than me. I had started school early and was quite a bit younger than most of my friends, but she was one of the only ones that I could say I was older than. Silly looking back now how we would talk about it and make a big deal of it. I just remember always thinking of her around this time of year. I would smile thinking of the memories we had of seeing whose birthday feel on Labor day and getting excited because we always had a long weekend out of school on our birthdays.

This year was different when I thought about that day. Kristen committed suicide a little over a year ago. She was 22 years old when she died. I remember hearing the news and thinking, what could be going on in that girl’s world, that she felt the only way out was to end her life? It was heartbreaking! So young! This year while thinking of all my blessing I was distraught thinking of Kristen. She had so much life to live. So many things to experience still. She never had children or had gotten married. She had missed out on so much. It really makes me think of how you never know what people are going through. Later I had found out that she had lost her boyfriend in the battle against cancer. That may have be a deciding factor in her decision. Who knows? How many people around us are battling their own things and feel so helpless and depressed that we don’t even pick up on? How many people put a smile on their face and seem to have it together, yet inside they are crying out and are at their end? It’s truly something to think about.

I yearn for Kristen. Saddened by what she is missing, yet more aware of how we should be on the lookout when someone around us may be needing help. Sometimes it will be hard to see. But sometimes, maybe if we look deeply and care enough, we will see it.


So, my husband and I are going away this weekend for what we call our “birthdays/anniversary/last getaway before baby comes trip”. I am SO EXCITED! Boy do I need this! Today was a pretty good day with my kiddos I will admit, but while doing the laundry, thinking of dinner, cleaning the house, and listening to them bicker, I thought about how I was about to get 2.5 days of bliss. NO laundry, dishes, cleaning, or mommy-ing. I’ll just be sitting around with my husband in a cabin. Ah, bliss set in. I will be able to take a bath and not have to look at drawings on the bath tub wall (which most of the time I love, but it’s not all that romantic let’s face it). I will be able to eat a dinner with my husband and not have to take children to the potty 37 times while there (although, I will probably have to go about that many times by my pregnant self). There will be no fighting, screaming, crying or punishing. I will get to shop without either sanitizing a shopping cart or lugging a stinking double stroller around. I will not have to unload anything except lovely items bought in stores. It is going to be great!!!!

My mother will get to spend quality time with her grand babies!!! And I will get to spend quality time with my husband! Woooohooo!!!!!!


So I will admit today I have been in a very bad mood. It could be because I’m 7 months pregnant and it feels like it’s 200 degrees outside (even though it is a tad cooler than last week). It could be because my kids have seemed to have lost their minds today and forgotten every single rule that has ever been established. Or, maybe it is because I am just a little tired of people CONSTANTLY making comments about how “huge” I am. “You weren’t this big with the others?”, “How many are in there?”, “This one will probably be bigger than your others, huh?” Why is it that people (women especially) think they have the right to make comments about your size? They wouldn’t go up to a regular woman and say, “Geee, you weren’t this big 3 months ago…” or “Wow, how much weight have you gained since I saw you last?” So, why is it that a woman’s weight can be discussed when she’s pregnant. Just a few days ago a lady asked me “how many” I had inside me?! REALLY????? Let us clarify this, I was 109 before I got pregnant. I am now 30 weeks and weigh 128. I have gone up approximately 1 pant size since I got pregnant. So, if you think about it I have gained around 15 pounds in my STOMACH! Do you think that maybe I am going to look like there’s a growth in my stomach??? Ok, enough about people thinking I am fat.

Why is it that when you’re a little (ok, maybe a lot) testy, every single thing gets on your nerves? Every single moron out there comes into contact with you that day. They all seem to just come your way. While grocery shopping today I had to wait to get the kids a cookie, then I had to wait to get through the line (a good 15 minutes!), then again to get rain checks. I had to nicely inform the bag boy that YES indeed I was going to need “help” getting to the car since he placed ALL my groceries in the buggy without the children. I wanted to say, “No, dear, I have extra hands in my purse that will push this additional cart for me.” Poor guy….I got stuck going 40 mph on a road that was 55 mph all the way to my house. By the time I got home I was SICK of waiting on everything! I’m sure this just adds to my grouchy mood already lingering. It didn’t help that almost 5 minutes after I got my “humongous” pregnant self under Berkeley’s bottom bunk to put newly washed sheets on her bed she informed me that she peed 0n them. It didn’t help that Noah pulled every single book and dvd off the bookshelf, removed every piece of train track from the train table, or turned over the whole bucket of play kitchen food 10 minutes before guests were to arrive for dinner and I had a million things to finish. I will tell you what did help this terrible mood of mine though, my dear husband walking through the front door with a dozen roses in his hand. Thank you! This was the very best moment of the day!!!!

And tomorrow should be a little better because there’s a lovely event taking place called preschool. 🙂


I must say, my previous post explaining how excited I was that Noah was starting preschool was totally wrong…I cried all the way to the church to drop him off. At first I was ok. I was fine while getting him dressed, packing his bag, making his lunch, and getting him in the car. Then as I started to drive, I gazed into the mirror and watched him sitting in his car seat so much bigger than he was last year. I remembered when it was him inside my tummy long before this one. I reminisced on bringing him home from the hospital and giving him his first bath and cuddling with him as a newborn. All the memories of first steps, first words, first moments, flooded my mind… And when it hit, it sure hit hard. Tears started to flow and flow and flow and flow. I did my best to hold it together while dropping him off. He smiled at me and went running to his friends so I knew he would be fine, it was me that wasn’t fine. At some point I will be excited he is going (like I expected to be earlier this week) but at this point in the game, I am one emotional momma! WHY is it so hard watching them grow up? Why is it we want to keep them little and “belonging” to us as long as we can? UGH!


I am enjoying my children being little. I get quite depressed when I think of them growing up, but I do get a tad excited when I think of things being somewhat easier when they reach certain milestones. For instance, Noah and Berkeley can totally feed themselves. That is nice because I can put their food in front of them and they can eat. Simple, except for the messes that come along with it. Noah can get himself dressed and both of them can put their shoes on. Things are getting easier. Mostly. I was VERY excited when Berkeley took it upon herself to begin to potty train. That was the highlight of my mothering career. Now, they are both in underwear so (for once) I will only have ONE in diapers when this baby is born! Yea!! Although, there have been many joys of having two potty trained, there has been many sorrows…No one ever told me that once they were “trained”, there would be situations that needed to be addressed. First, being one of a family of all girls, I was not aware of the types of situations boys brought to the table. I MADE my husband deal with the whole “standing while peeing/aiming/shaking/etc” area because how the heck was I supposed to know all that?!?! And, even though he was properly taught (well I’m assuming it was “properly taught” because my husband can handle this just fine), I have yet to see this not be a MESS almost every time he uses the toilet. Noah is a dreamer, you see he will drift off to his own land quite often. I’m not sure exactly what he’s thinking most of the time, but it’s often that he falls into a trance and you lose him. This tends to happen precisely when concentration is needed to aim and pee. I have begun to daily clean areas of our toilet that I didn’t know existed… Another thing that I hadn’t thought of is the issue of wiping. Suddenly, this is a situation to be addressed. Let me tell you a story, one that just recently happened.

I was sitting on the couch folding laundry when I heard my precious ones in the bathroom. I recognize the noises, the roll of toilet paper being strung, the toilet flushing, the lid opening and closing. I knew exactly what they were doing. I yelled my warning for them to exit the room and continued to hear these warning signals. I yelled again and heard giggling. I yelled a third time and to my surprise, I heard my 2 year old reply, “No, Mom! I’m wiping brother’s butt!!!!” I think it took me a whole 2 seconds to get in that bathroom. Oh, I will forever have that picture in my mind. Without going into the kind of detail that may make some sick, I will say that both children needed a bath, the rug was heavily washed, and the WHOLE bathroom had to be wiped down with bleach. It is amazing how much of a mess a little poop, 2 toddlers, and maybe 5 minutes can do.

So, as you can see, having potty trained children is something I felt would be easy, however, I have been proven wrong. I guess it is safe to say that your children’s ability to grow up and do things on their own is not always easy! I will just have to endure these growing pains. One day those issues won’t be issues and I will probably be saddened by this (or at least this is what people say), so I will try to savor every moment and enjoy my little ones’ growing pains!


So my precious, Noah, is starting preschool this week. I struggled with sadness because my baby is getting older and this is a new chapter in our lives. YET, I am EXCITED! Excited because this means a break for me! Two days a week he will be gone for 6 hours! WHOOOO HOOOO!!!!! Now, don’t think I am an awful mother for shipping my child off and being happy about it. I will probably have a melt down the first day, and the second, and maybe up until the 3rd week. But it will be good for all of us. He’ll get a break from me and his sister and he’ll learn all sorts of great things (and not so great things because let’s face it, they always pick up those wonderful habits when around other “lovely” children). Overall, this will be a good thing. Really, it’s not going to be much different from his other Parent’s Day Out program, just a little longer. Which, means more time for me! 🙂


It’s the last day of breastfeeding week, so here’s one more fact to finish it up: Less than ONE percent of women have a true inability to produce milk.

So, if you’ve always heard, “It’s not possible to produce enough milk.” That is a wrong statement! If a women deals with low milk supply, she has many options to increase her supply. Even women who adopt babies have the ability to induce lactation to feed other babies or an adopted child of their own! 🙂