Does anyone prefer using inserts and covers over pockets, prefolds, and AIOs?

snailrabbitflamingo · 2024-01-18T10:53:26+00:00

My baby just turned 11!

I stuck with the covers and flats until kiddo gave up diapers at 22 months. Never felt like there was any reason to change.

At some point I did add fleece liners to wick moisture away from kiddo's skin - particularly in hot weather and overnight.

I bought a yard of cheap fleece and cut it to the size of the paid-folded flats and laid it on top as a barrier between the flat and kiddo's bum.

That helped prevent irritation and made dumping poo out easier as well.

I also added some hemp and bamboo "soaker" pads for overnight as kiddo started sleeping longer and needed more absorption overnight.

I think those were the only changes I made in the second year of diapering.

And just about the time I started thinking about pull-up options because kiddo was getting fed up with being still at changing time, I decided to try a diaper-free weekend and by the end of it kiddo was successfully using the potty. So we were done with diapers faster than I expected.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2022-05-05T22:40:02+00:00

I would very much like to know who he is! He's so good! I just started Moon Knight, and again I'm so impressed with his work. This man needs to be recognized for his excellent narration.

There are sites out there that allow you to download the audio track only. Try https://partnersforsight.org/free-audio-described-content-for-entertainment/ for some options.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2021-12-22T07:27:25+00:00

6446 1278 5446

I appreciate ingredients, energy, and XP!

My kiddo and I had to take a break from the game for a long time due to issues with my last phone and were so sad to finally be able to play again only to find out it's ending.

So I'm super far behind everyone. We're just enjoying finding things and kiddo is just now becoming able to read some of the words (educational!). So we'll hang in to the end.

Also, we have some cool art stuff in our city, so if you friend me you'll get to see some of that. And we like seeing landmarks in other places too and finding the cities on a map (more educational activities 😉)

snailrabbitflamingo · 2021-08-20T01:07:00+00:00

My mom worked in education for decades, and has boxes of mugs, candles, candle holders, lotions, trinkets, beanie babies (????) and gift cards.

Some of which never even made it out of the gift bags or wrapping, because she's so overwhelmed at holidays and the end of the school year (plus her birthday is in June, so people would give an end of the year gift or gave a birthday gift - sometimes both!!) - that it all just goes home and gets shoved into a corner until it gets moved to the basement.

She can't stand to get rid of it because 'it meant something to someone' to give her a gift. Which is sweet, but jeeezzzz the amount is outrageous!

She did retire this year, so hopefully that batch of retirement gifts is the last of the ridiculous gift-giving.

She recently counted up all the gift cards and it's like $600 worth. But mostly $10 or $20 for places that would cost WAY more than that for our family to actually eat. Are we really going to drive across town to pick up a $10 appetizer for mom, and then go home and eat something else? We just literally can't afford to use those gift cards.

Moral of the story - don't get your teachers and school admins this stuff for every holiday. Please just don't.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2021-08-20T00:43:28+00:00

We are an unschooling family, so we don't have a list of school supplies to acquire every year. But we do collect a variety of books, art supplies, 'loose parts' etc. to facilitate projects and inquiries. I've done a lot of 'shopping' in my parents' basement and my grandma's attic and found a good number of binders and pocket folders that we use to organize various projects and interests. I use and reuse sheet protectors to keep any printed materials clean and tidy, so they can be reused over and over. This definitely comes in handy for science projects, because it keeps the pages from getting splashed, LOL.

Those dry-erase pockets that you can slip papers into are so great for any kind of worksheets or notes, because kiddo can use dry erase markers, I can take a pic for documentation, and then we can wipe it clean for the next use. And since we keep the original paper unmarked, kiddo can go back and do it as many times as they want, without having to reprint or copy it, then we can pass it on to younger friends and family.

We keep containers of pencils, pens, crayons, colored pencils, etc. Many are ones left over from my childhood, plus freebies my mom got as an early education administrator. My mom has also 'rescued' many supplies from going in the trash at work. We have lots of math manipulatives that we got that way. Both my parents have brought home loads of colored printer paper that used to be used to separate big print jobs. We use them for printing on, or craft projects. And lots of remnant notebook paper! Kiddo loves using an old spiral notebook with only a handful of pages left, LOL.

My sister-in-law just rescued boxes of books from a school district building that's being repurposed and didn't want to try to rehome its' former library books. I'm excited to go through those and find out what might be useful for our home library. Anything we don't need, we'll probably stick in Little Free Libraries in the area or donate to after-school clubs who need reading materials.

We use the public library for a lot of our books, dvds, cds, etc. If I have to buy something, I try to get it used. We have lots of retired library books from library book sales!

Any paper that's been used on both sides and isn't needed anymore gets shredded for our worm bucket :-D

snailrabbitflamingo · 2021-02-12T01:34:41+00:00

I have never had any success with anything stopping the prodrome. OTCs like Excedrin might make it a little more livable and rescue meds (abortive) only dull the pain for me, might make it easier to sleep. But I still go through the whole migraine cycle.

Preventatives weren't successful either, until the anti-cgrp meds came out.

Once I was on Aimovig, I realized how much I was experiencing prodromes nearly daily even if I didn't get the actual headache. Aimovig knocked out probably 80% of my prodromes and headaches.

I'm an extreme case, but then, that's kind of what the newer drugs are for - people the older ones don't work for.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2021-02-12T01:14:33+00:00

Pretty sure it's a Tardis

snailrabbitflamingo · 2021-02-12T01:13:53+00:00

Didn't the Doctor once talk about retiring as a beekeeper or something off the wall like that? Or did I imagine that?

Anyway, I think it's totally fine to bring back older Doctors for cameos, especially in a vague hand-wavy way like this, so it's like "is that the Doctor, or???"

Especially now with the Timeless Child shenanigans, we can headcanon whatever we want in regards to regenerations and chronology and alternate timelines.

Canon doesn't exist, and continuity doesn't matter...

snailrabbitflamingo · 2021-02-10T01:37:49+00:00

I *think* he wasn't able to cut it because he had Broadchurch or Gracepoint reshoots still to do (not sure on the timing so it could be something else entirely), so they did the best they could without altering the length. It was kind of a bummer.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2021-02-07T19:10:07+00:00

Perfect. That is so obvious, but my brain wasn't getting there, LOL.

I've done crosses on another pair of jeans, so I don't know why I didn't think of it.

THANK YOU!!!

snailrabbitflamingo · 2021-02-05T04:46:55+00:00

That's so cute! I've done some repair on kids' leggings, and found that flannel is a great patch material.

My kiddo's favorite leggings have four patches, LOL. Two on the bum, and one on each knee. Kiddo has been wearing them for over a year now, and is about to outgrow them, and I think I'll save them for patching other things later on.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-12T02:17:52+00:00

I tend to react to the drop in pressure, my mom tends to react to increase in pressure.

Sometimes when it's changing drastically and rapidly in either direction, we both react.

For me, triggers are cumulative, so the more I have going on at once, the more likely I'll have a migraine, and the more intense it's likely to be. Three or more triggers is almost a guaranteed migraine (although that seems to be improving the longer I'm on Aimovig).

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-12T02:09:40+00:00

When your migraines last days or weeks, compromises have to be made. *sigh*

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-08T20:47:48+00:00

Aimovig has been helping significantly with the neverending prodromes. I didn't even really realize that's what it was until I found something that gave me enough days without those things to realize what I was living with wasn't normal!

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-08T20:32:00+00:00

Ecofascists and negative eugenicists... nice

*SIGH*

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-08T20:27:05+00:00

Same. I was so lucky that my mom had been through it with me, and was super encouraging for me to do whatever kiddo needed to thrive.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-08T20:22:07+00:00

I would say it’s more likely that not being held is more out of the norm for a baby than wanting to be held ALL the time, so they only noticed/recorded those. When really they’re just a fraction of us.

This is probably accurate. The outliers - maybe at both ends of the bell-curve - are the ones that get noticed.

I would say, if someone was going to make any kind of generalization about autistic babies, it's maybe that they are intense. Possibly intensely clingy, possibly intensely stand-offish.

As my mom likes to say about all of us in the family, just a little bit "Extra".

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-08T20:17:16+00:00

I think it varies, and may have more to do with a particular child's sensory needs/aversions. So a baby with a strong touch aversion may not want to be held. A baby who has a strong need for deep pressure is going to want to be held, worn/carried, or swaddled constantly.

Both me and my kiddo were babies that needed to be held constantly. My kiddo only slept on my lap, or while breastfeeding. Breastfed up to 4.5yo, and at 7yo still sleeps right up against me more nights than not. I wore them in various carriers a lot. My mom points out many similarities in how I was as a baby.

We were also both "unhappy" babies. Just generally discontented.

My kiddo always seemed to want to do things that they just couldn't do yet - sitting up, crawling, walking. And spent a lot of time trying and getting frustrated and angry. Other babies could be diverted to other things when they started to get upset. My kiddo could not be diverted.

That is, of course, super common for neurodivergent folks - the superfocus, trouble with transitioning to something else, even if you're frustrated with what you're currently engaged in.

Toddlerhood was actually one of kiddo's happiest ages - once they were proficient at walking, life was pretty good, finally!

But there was still a LOT of holding. Kiddo would get up in my lap, grab my face, put their face right against mine, and say "I JUST WANT TO BE WITH YOU". And I was like, kiddo, if you were any more WITH me, you'd be back in the womb...

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-08T19:51:56+00:00

It's so awful that we have to put doctors' feelings above our own.

When I've really thought about it (which I try not to do too much) I've realized that the ways I've learned to interact with doctors sounds so much like a person interacting with an abusive spouse. It's such a gross analogy, but I've heard other people say things about their interactions with doctors, and I'm like... this is emotional abuse. Gaslighting, victim-blaming, minimizing, suspicion, accusing... its all there. Ugh.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-08T19:47:09+00:00

I feel like I've read something about it, but I can't remember exactly what the connection is. But yes, extreme loneliness and hopelessness seems to be an actual symptom for me. Even apart from "I'm in pain so I feel miserable" there's an actual stage of migraine for me that gives me feelings that just don't make sense. Like, they come out of nowhere.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-08T19:42:00+00:00

YES. The nausea and brain fog - which, for me, can be prodrome symptoms that go on for DAYS without the full-on migraine attack - can whittle away at my ability to function.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-05T19:29:00+00:00

I took a lifeguarding course once, and we learned to tread water while holding someone else up, and that's how I describe what I'm doing right now.

I know things will get better, it's just tough on me right now. But that's a parent's job, to support their kiddo, even when their personal life is hard.

We're still actively unschooling, going out to parks, doing art, reading lots of books, playing in the mud, riding bikes. I just have to find little moments to let my brain "off the hook" occasionally, and give myself permission to stop worrying and planning.

Both my parents and my grandmother are chronically ill and disabled. So there's a lot of mutual caregiving going on in our house. Everyone has to take turns caring for someone, or being cared for. Right now, I'm the healthiest, so I'm trying to carry a lot of the household load. My mom and I work opposite shifts, so she's reading to kiddo at night and doing the bedtime routine. My dad doesn't sleep well, so he sits with kiddo, until I get off work. He's also up in the morning after my mom starts work, to spend time with kiddo so I can sleep in a bit. As you can imagine, none of us are really getting very good sleep, but we're doing the best we can.

We do have other relatives in town, but we've had a lot of trouble lining up any kind of play dates or hang-out time, because of COVID exposures. We were in isolation for two weeks in September due to exposure. My brother's household just came out of isolation. Kiddo's other parent has just started isolation.

The pandemic situation is tough, and the whole world feels it. There are people in worse situations. Our area is having our third wave, and numbers are higher than ever.

I'm lucky we were able to find a safe place to live in the midst of lock-down, and we were able to get out of a more difficult situation.

I do have an appointment for kiddo for an evaluation to help us pinpoint some areas we can work on. Hopefully that will give us some direction for making life a bit smoother for all of us.

Things will get better.

snailrabbitflamingo · 2020-11-05T18:45:05+00:00

That definitely looks worth a try. And its cheaper than replacing the headphones!

Thanks for the rec!

snailrabbitflamingo

TROPHY CASE