Retro Mom Blog

Well, after a 4 month “blogging vacation” I decided it was time to get back in the groove.  During my vacation, I experienced one of the biggest changes in my life to date: I had a baby.  Not just any baby…I had my second baby.  Many people will tell you that having your first is THE biggest change life can throw at you.  I beg to differ.  While having baby number one is undeniably a mind-blowing experience, somehow the motherhood instincts that kick in once you see that sweet little bundle of baby goodness save you from the shock of the new lifestyle to come.  When baby number two came along, I went into the experience with a smug attitude that I knew what parenting was like and since I’ve already done it once, I can surely do it again.  What I got instead was a stiff slap in the face from my old friend, reality.  I have had to face the biggest mental and physical challenge of my life.  I did not expect my toddler to react quite so violently to the new lack of attention, relinquished to this little crying “thing”.  I did not expect to have such difficulty nursing during the first four weeks.  I did not expect my second baby to be so utterly and completely different than my first.  What I thought I could take “in stride” ended up knocking me to the floor!

Here I am, four months older time-wise, but I feel like each month has aged me another year.  But with time and experience comes wisdom.  Hopefully, for what I have lost in beauty and sanity, I have gained in savvy and ability.  I believe I have learned to become the ultimate multi-tasker.  I can vacuum the floor while holding a crying baby and comforting a screaming toddler.  I can eat lunch while nursing my baby, talking on the phone and ensuring that my toddler does not ravage the dining room in the process of eating his.  But more importantly, I have learned that perfection is not the ultimate goal.  That to have joy in your life you must learn to prioritize and accept the results when you don’t get to the bottom of your to-do list.  I’ve learned that there really is no such thing as the perfect mom and I need to stop beating myself up for not living up to my self-imposed, unrealistic standards.  I’ve learned that I really can be happy with dirt on the floor, dishes in the sink, a toddler who hasn’t had a bath in a week, and a garden that has seen better months.  Joel, my first baby, taught me what I *can* do as a mom.  Josiah, my second baby, has taught me what I *can’t* do and that I need to go with the flow of life, rather than attempt to reign it in!

So, while I’m not the perfect mom, I can still be “super-mom”.  I mean, my toddler does compare me to his super heroes, so why not be super-mom?  That is what I am in his eyes, my husband’s eyes and my baby’s eyes.  What else matters?

What unexpected changes did you experience upon the birth of your babies?

In my last post, I gave general instructions on how to make laundry soap. The feedback I got from this was great. I had several people asking me for this recipe and where to find the ingredients. Also, many people have since become homemade soap converts – COOL! I can say that after 1 1/2 months of using this soap, I love, love, love it! It is cheap, it WORKS, and is fun to make.

A few tips I have discovered along the way:

1. Shake before each use because the soap will separate. I like storing my soap in old milk jugs the best because of this. Used laundry detergent containers have a hole near the lid that explodes out when you open the container after shaking.
2. Use vinegar in the rinse cycle or in a Downy ball. It helps soften your clothes and cut down on residue, especially if you use mostly cold water. (There are several benefits of replacing traditional fabric softener with vinegar, among them are that it cuts the costs of laundering significantly – dryer sheets and liquid softener are expensive, and it cuts out the residue that softener leaves on your clothes which can aggravate sensitive skin!)
3. Essential oils will not make your clothes smell like “sweet orange” or “lavender”. It will scent the soap, but will not carry over into the clothing. If anyone has any ideas how to make this happen, please do tell!
4. If you begin using homemade soap, wash all your whites with just some washing soda (about 1/2 cup per load) first before switching from detergent to soap. My whites became pretty dull and upon further research, I read that the reaction between detergent and soap can cause this and that a wash with washing soda prevents it. Who knew?

As a follow up to my laundry soap blog, I wanted to share with you some other natural cleaning solutions that I have tried in my home these past few months. There are many benefits to using natural cleaners as opposed to the harsher chemical varieties advertised all over television. For me, I have always disliked the fumes that filled the house especially when cleaning the kitchen and bathroom and I especially disliked exposing my baby to those fumes. When I became pregnant again, I was quite a bit more serious about finding an alternative to inhaling these chemicals and what I found was a cheaper, environmentally friendly, non-toxic, and highly effective way to clean my house!

My two favorite work-horses of home cleaning are baking soda and vinegar. What don’t they do??

Uses for Baking Soda:

• Soft scrub for sinks and toilets
• Deodorizer
• Laundry booster
• Removes stains from many hard surfaces
• Mix with vinegar for ultra stain-fighting, cleaning and deodorizing
• Make a paste with dish detergent for a great soft scrub
• Carpet freshener (add a few sprigs of fresh lavender, sprinkle on carpet, vacuum after an hour and your house will smell so fresh!)
• When followed with vinegar and boiling water, will clean out a slow drain

Uses for Vinegar:

• Disinfectant for counter tops and bathrooms
• Deodorizer (after the vinegar evaporates the smell of it is gone and the smell of nasty trash can too)
• Natural fabric softener
• Reacts with baking soda to remove stains and dry, crusty spills (like on a stove top)
• Removes soap scum from shower walls and mineral deposits from shower heads
• Cleans wood floors beautifully when diluted by half
• Also makes a great mop solution for other types of flooring, even concrete floors which do not do well with sudsing cleaners
• Simmer in a pot while cooking fish to eliminate the odor

I have used vinegar and baking soda to clean my whole house from the refrigerator to the bathroom floor! If you like the smell of particular essential oils, these add beautifully to vinegar and the smell they leave behind is great! I especially liked adding lavender and eucalyptus. If you are interested in cleaning your home naturally and saying goodbye to harsh chemicals for good, here is a list of websites that got me started on my journey:

• http://organizedhome.com/clean-house/pantry-recipes-homemade-cleaning-products
• http://www.care2.com/greenliving/make-your-own-non-toxic-cleaning-kit.html#
• http://www.blisstree.com/treehuggingfamily/25-safe-non-toxic-homemade-cleaning-supplies/

These sites will take you beyond just baking soda and vinegar and show you how to apply several common and easy to find ingredients to make your home spic, span and fume-free! If you try some of these recipes out, leave a comment and let the rest of us know your review of it! Also, if you have any other natural cleaning suggestions, share those too!

Often as a stay at home mom I find myself questioning my “economic contribution” to our family finances.  Of course I know the basics; we are cutting day care costs, a second car, and a work wardrobe completely out of the budget.  And I also know that there are several immeasurable benefits of me being at home every day…so many that it is a completely different blog post.  Perhaps another day for that one.  Even in light of these facts, I began to think about what more I could do to make a substantial contribution to our finances.  I wanted to show my husband that I truly value the time and hard work that he puts into providing for his family.  To do this I have committed myself to being as wise with the money he brings in as I possibly can.  Wisdom with money nearly always equals two things: giving and frugality.  Giving, because we have been blessed, and frugality, so that we can give.  So, while I don’t have a job that brings in the dollars, what I do have, as a stay at home mom, is time.  And with this time, I thought, how I can I spend 10 extra minutes to save 10 extra dollars?

I decided to start small, rather than jump in head first making radical changes to our lifestyle all at once.  I want my changes to be maintainable, after all.  So I’ve committed to two small changes this month: making oatmeal instead of using boxed cereal and trying my hand at homemade laundry soap rather than name brand.  What follows are my calculations of time spent, money spent and money saved.  After which I have included picture by picture instructions on how I made my laundry soap.  (Thank you to Jeana M. for taking the photos and helping with the process!

Time
Each morning I spent 10 minutes making oatmeal for myself and my son.
Last night I spent about 25 minutes making laundry soap (and it was my very first time!)

Calculations
For the oatmeal vs. cereal comparison, I chose to use Cheerios, a mid-priced, common cereal.
Average price of Cheerios, $2.88 per 14 oz box, each box containing 14 servings.
Average price of oatmeal, $1.29 per 1lb canister, each canister containing 30 servings.
Joel and I usually consume 2 servings of either one in any given morning.
Each serving of cereal costs $0.20 (2.88 divided by 14 equals 0.2).  So, take that number by 2 and you get $0.40 per morning.  That number times 30 (an average month) equals about $12.00.
Each serving of oatmeal costs $0.04 (1.29 divided by 30 equals 0.04). That number times 2 equals $0.08 per morning, and times 30 equals about $2.40 a month.
By spending an extra 10 minutes every morning, I can save my family, literally, about $10 a month!

What you will need:

• Washing Soda – 1/2 a cup
• Borax -1/2 a cup
• Ivory Soap – 1 Bar
• Watar

The laundry soap calculations were a little more complicated, but here is how we figured that I am able to launder my family’s clothing for $0.01 per load!
Washing Soda is $2.74 or a 55 oz box.  Per batch of laundry soap, you use 1/2 a cup, or 4.2 oz by weight.
$2.74 divided by 55 oz equals $0.05 per oz.  $0.05 times 4.2 oz equals $0.21 per batch of soap.
Borax is $3.95 for a 76 oz box.  Per batch of laundry soap you use 1/2 a cup, or 3.5 oz by weight.
$3.95 divided by 76 equals $0.05 per oz.  $0.05 times 3.5 equals  $0.18 per batch of soap.
Ivory Soap is 3 bars for $1.  Per batch of laundry soap you use 1 bar, which equals $0.33 per batch.
So…
$0.21 plus $0.18 plus $0.33 equals $0.72 per batch of laundry soap.
Each batch makes two gallons and each load requires 1/2 a cup of soap.  There are 16 cups in a gallon, times two equals 32 cups in a batch.  1/2 a cup per load makes a batch last 64 loads.
$0.72 (the price of a batch) divided by 64 (number of loads a batch will wash) equals…drumroll please…
$0.013 per load (which, of course rounds to about a penny per load!)
Here is the recipe I used and, after washing 3 loads of laundry in it, I can personally attest that it does leave your clothes clean and fresh!

Laundry soap instructions:

• 
  Step 1. Gather your supplies.  You will need 1/2 cup Borax, 1/2 cup Washing Soda and one bar of Ivory Soap, grated.  Plus, a cheese grater, a large pot, a big bucket and LOTS of water.
• 
  Step 2. Grate your bar of soap as fine as you can and add it to your large pot.  The finer you grate it the better it will melt.  I used my mixer attachment to make this go quicker, but a good old cheese grater works too.
• 
  Step 3. Add 6 cups of water to the pot and heat it up until the soap melts.
• 
  Step 4. Add 1/2 cup of borax and 1/2 cup of washing soda to hot soap mixture and stir until dissolved.
• 
  Step 5. Add 4 cups of hot water into your large bucket.  Stir in your soap mixture.  Then add 1 gallon (16 cups) plus an extra 6 cups of water to all that.  Stir.
• 
  Step 6. Allow to sit overnight.  I just covered my bucket with a tea towel and left it on the counter.  In the morning your finished laundry soap will have a chunky/soupy consistency.  This means you did it correctly. Now you can pour it into a container of your choice.  I just used old laundry soap containers that I happened to still have in the basement; I cleaned them out first, of course.  Also you can add an essential oil if you wish.  The recipe is unscented, which still got my clothes clean and fresh, but I believe I will go get a lavender essential oil for mine.  It takes about 10-15 drops and you just add it after the mixture has cooled.

The information I gathered for this came from several, but several different web sites that offered recipes on how to make your own homemade laundry soap.  There were many variations and I just chose this recipe because I happened to have Ivory Soap on hand already.  All it takes is a Google search of “homemade laundry soap” and you will find many different ways to prepare it, even a couple recipes for a powder type soap if that is what you prefer or if you are a little short on time.  (However, the powdered type is not as cost effective as the liquid).  Happy soap making!

1 Samuel 15:22 “…to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed better than the fat of rams.”

Whew!  The holidays have come and gone, and for me, two months of seasonal retail employment!  We made it through dinners and gatherings, parties, decorating, cleaning, working and have hopefully also felt the joy and excitement of the celebration of our Savior’s birth.  With the passing of the busiest two months of the year may come a lull in which we are invited to contemplate the newness of a new year.  Many of us have had the opportunity to look optimistically into the future, planning various changes and resolves we vow to commit ourselves to in the coming months.  Now, a couple weeks have passed in 2010 and I have had an interesting chance to see inside my heart and find changes that need to be made to sustain me through the year to come.

Early in December, as I considered what it was that I would like to see for myself in 2010, God gave me a real conviction about my finances.  I did not meet with this conviction with the usual “gung-ho” enthusiasm that the new year has brought me in the past.  Oh, quite to the contrary, I wrestled for the entire month on December!  I did start our  new family budget, but with constant grumbling in my heart, asking God, “Why must we put on this restraint when it seems that so many others around us are allowed to live as freely as they wish?”  Believe me, some  of my “conversations” with God eerily resembled the tantrums my (almost) two-year-old can throw! Oh how I made myself completely bitter and miserable! But, by His grace and mercy, I made it through the month without being cast away or struck by lightening.  While my attitude was downright horrible, I finally set a resolve in my heart that, no matter what it felt like, I would obey.  Amazingly, with that resolve came the end of my negative attitude, thoughts and feelings.  My heart was filled with a new awareness of the blessings my life is filled with.  I began to see new light and purpose in God’s calling us to restraint.  I felt renewed.

So, with that, I made my new year’s resolution.  Not necessarily to keep a budget all year long–but to obey.  (Which, by the way, will almost certainly have something to do with our new budget!)  I resolve in my heart that over this coming year I will discipline myself to be an obedient child of God, despite what feelings and attitudes may arise in time.  And perhaps with this resolution, I will not look back come March and feel regretful!  I believe that this will continue to breathe new life into my spirit and that through obedience I will experience the same inner joy and peace that I was so blessed to see this past month.

I truly hope that you can also make a resolution that is freeing and that will not fade with time, but continue to bring you joy throughout the year.  No matter what it is that we resolve, let’s do so with careful prayer and consideration so that we won’t find ourselves regretful, but joyful!

What is your resolution?

Toddler-hood (my son is 20 months) is a time of energetic, wiggly, messy little people trying to find their place in a very big, interesting and scary world.  Sometimes I forget this as I drag my son to lunch after church during his usual nap time!  On one such outing last Sunday, I got frustrated with my son at the restaurant and exclaimed, “Joel, you are such a chore!”  My friend looked over and asked me, jokingly, “Why did you have kids then, if they’re such a chore?”  Ouch.  He may have been joking, but man did that response to my attitude stick with me all week!  So, in order to help me conquer this lack of patience I find myself falling into during stressful situations, I have compiled a list of reasons to remember why toddlers, in general, ROCK!

1. Toddlers are perpetually happy. You just don’t find angsty, brooding, depressed toddlers.  They have the world on a string and don’t need to be reminded to count their blessings.  They walk around with big grins on their faces and find the greatest joy in the very smallest of things: the book they’ve read a 1000 times, rocks outside the Dr.’s office, seeing a familiar little friend and jumping on the bed.  (We have squelched several a meltdown with a good jump on the bed!)
2. What toddlers enjoy most is spending time with you! Really, who else, other than a great spouse, could you say that about?  Those little guys follow you around the house all day, interested in every little thing you do.  Then, when you stop and sit on the floor with them, their faces just light up and all the sudden they have so many things they want to show you and do with you and tell you about (even if they can’t talk well)!  Those minutes and hours logged with your toddler really do mean the whole world to them; you become their hero!
3. Toddlers are incessantly curious. Every thing is a wonderful, new lesson and every moment an opportunity to make sense of something that was unknown before.  The look of wonder on your child’s face when you give them a piece of tape or allow them to get really messy in a bowl of pudding is arguably one of the greatest joys of parenthood.  You are the most wonderful teacher they will ever have and you will never find a more devoted student!
4. A kiss and a cookie make everything better. During those times when all the world goes awry and your toddler gets  frustrated, upset or cranky, nothing beats being at home with your kisses, soft words of reassurance, hugs, and a little snack.  They find the greatest comfort in knowing that you’re there to encourage them through the hard things and help them sort out their frustrations.  The years that this holds true are fast and fleeting as we all grow into more complicated adults with more complicated problems.  (Although I will have to say that I still like to give my mom a call when I’m frustrated, upset or cranky!)
5. Toddlers are the best snugglers you’ll ever find! When you’ve had a hard day, whether at work or at home with the kids, sneak into their room after they’ve fallen fast asleep, hold them in your arms, feel their soft hair on your cheek and kiss their precious little foreheads.  Or let them curl up beside you in a big comfy chair as you read them a night time story.  Or give them a big hug and kiss and tell them how much you love them–this is likely to be returned!  There is no better remedy for a sad heart, an irritated mind, or a stressed spirit than loving on your little ones and even your bigger ones!

While toddler-hood is an undeniably difficult time in parenting, it doesn’t have to be unbearable or lacking of any joy.  Next time you find yourself in a restaurant with a rowdy toddler, or in the middle of the grocery store getting dirty looks for your screaming child, or at home running out of patience, remind yourself of these five things and I dare you to remain upset!

For my first-ever blog post, I wanted to share a devotional thought on family that I wrote quite a while ago (is that cheating?), right after I quit my job at the bookstore.  Amazingly, even though I wrote this with the zeal of a person who had just begun something new, I still feel every bit as inspired as I did then.  Let it inspire you to make your family all it can be!

Titus 2:3-5
“I feel compelled tonight to share the passion that God is putting in my heart for my family. My husband and son consume my thoughts and energies as I strive to live out God’s call for women in Titus 2. I feel as though I have been given the gift of an opportunity; the opportunity to serve my family full time, to devote every hour to the well being of my husband, my son and my home. This came through almost two years of prayer, yearning and lessons of patience and endurance. And now that I have been blessed beyond imagination, I feel as though God has been just pouring out blessing upon blessing as I cook meals, change diapers, rock babies, clean toilets, and nourish my marriage. This passion that I described earlier can only be accredited to a miracle, as I came into wifedom and motherhood with no real interest in children and a great fear that I would not love my own as much as I should. But here I am, looking at homeschool curriculum (for my one-year-old son) and really enjoying time spent in the nursery at church. Not only have I been filled with a passion for Joel and JD, but I have an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the other children in my life.  It is amazing to me to sit here and see the changes that God has worked in my heart; and for those who have known me for a while, I’m sure they can witness this miracle for themselves!

In all this, I have been filled with a passion for the family. I do not believe that I can give Joel all that he needs to become the man that God has created him to be outside the context of a family that puts Christ first. I can only imagine what a difference it would make to the world if families would rise up and and together seek first the kingdom of God! Let’s focus on putting Christ at the forefront of every step we take. Let’s get our marriages right and put the other ahead of ourselves! Let’s turn our attention to the little ones at our feet begging for us to teach them; God has entrusted them to US. Let’s forget about the failures of the past and move forward with God’s direction! Can’t you begin to see what a difference it would make??

No matter what current situation you find yourself in, whether you are satisfied or completely dissatisfied, God can meet us here, just as we are! I am exhorting all of us who proclaim Christ to devote ourselves to seeking His will for our families. What does God have in store for your family? In my case, it was allowing me to stay home, even when it totally looks on paper that it should not work, it is! What miracle will He work in your circumstances? What kind of light to the world can your family be?”