sick kids – BabyCostsMoney

Out, Damned Toxins.

Published on March 13, 2017April 9, 2017 by Darlene Dee9 Comments

Out, I say. Get thee chemical self beyond my house!

Yes, perhaps I am being over-dramatic. But maybe not.

As I have mentioned over and over again, our home had the Plague for a full month. Many plagues in succession, actually. So I bought some Clorox bleach wipes and cleaned everything. Every. Thing.

What is better for Babystar to lick — bleach or germs? I genuinely don’t know. I DO know that the bleach destroyed the skin on my hands. The infinite hand washing likely did not help either. (Oh snap, I AM Lady Macbeth!)

I love Babyganics high chair and toy cleaning spray, but it has been out of stock at Target and Babies R Us whenever I have checked for the past two month. We ordered some from Amazon and seriously WHY didn’t I just do this earlier? It was $7.98 for two bottles.

During the height of the plague, Babystar got a diaper rash. She rarely gets diaper rash, and it could have happened for many reasons: she was sick, she was wearing disposable diapers for weeks, and she had a LOT of extra poopy diapers which meant a LOT of wipes against her skin. I can fix two of these things.

She’s back in cloth diapers. (I do not know for sure that the disposable diapers CAUSED her rash; Target brand disposables do not usually cause a rash and we use them as her overnight diapers. Ironically, Babyganics diapers DO cause a rash along the elastic edge but I think she is just sensitive to something in those particular diapers. Anyway.)

And after lots of research, we ordered a box of Water Wipes for $31.79 from Amazon. We had been using the Costco wipes with no issue, but I think the recent extra diaper changes using these wipes could have caused the rash. I totally, scientifically, tested one of the Costco wipes on my own (clean) bootie to see how it felt. It stung. Poor baby. Hopefully the Water Wipes will live up to the hype. (I totally tested them on myself already and there was no sting at all. It was a bit cold, though.)

Can we start a freaky internet challenge like planking and tebowing and owling (w.t.f.) called, um, wiping(??) where we test baby wipes on ourselves? Probably not; it would get X-rated pretty quickly. But I highly encourage every parent (DADS TOO) to test your baby’s wipes on yourself. You know, in the privacy of your own bathroom or youtube channel or whatever. It totally stung and kind of blew my mind.

Yes. YES. I challenge you all to try using your baby’s wipes on your own bits. Report back. Let’s get real.

Oh, also relating to this dark time of winter, we bought a humidifier ($49.99), we bought an extra 3-pack of pacifiers to switch them out more often ($6.99), and we paid a $15 co-pay at the doctor’s office. Y’all. The humidifier is an elephant. Meet Elly.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $15,272.14

#NaBloPoMo

Published on November 6, 2016December 12, 2016 by Darlene Dee2 Comments

Have you heard of NaBloPoMo?

~~It is THE trendy new neighborhood in Manhattan~~.

I think it started after NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month (or something close to that). NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month, and participants commit to posting every single day in November. I like short-term challenges due to my short attention span, so I totally joined up.

I made it three days, y’all.

But I am not giving up. I’m hopping back on the horse, picking up my boots, or some cowgirl metaphor like that, and getting back to it.

Dude (get it, because cowgirl). Everyone in my house was SO.FREAKING.SICK.

I saw things. Gross things.

Babystar started puking on Halloween and the poor baby’s tummy is still not right. Does anything smell worse than baby diarrhea? Short of death itself? Name something, because I cannot think of a single damn thing.

You don’t want to read anymore do you? Don’t worry, I won’t describe it. I want to. No one here will let me share my pain with them. The Teenager legit said ‘Mom, we can talk about anything you want. Anything. Except that. No one wants to hear it.’

I know. BUTOMG. I even tried discussing it with Babystar and I KNOW she can understand me because even she looked at me like why are you telling me this? Which is totally unfair because SHE DID IT.

I put a cloth diaper on her last Wednesday when I thought the coast was clear. The coast was not clear. I almost threw the $35 diaper straight into the garbage. I didn’t; I traumatized myself for life instead. Hey Cloth Diaper Mamas, what do you do when baby is sick? I’ve been buying disposables. (Holy crap they are expensive to use all the time! Of course, that cloth diaper cost $35, which admittedly was the most expensive diaper I’ve ever purchased and I don’t know why I put THAT one on her as a test but still.) So far since Monday I’ve bought three packs of Pampers at $9.99 each from Harris Teeter.

So this weekend I’m partying with two long lost friends: Clorox and Lysol. I usually use less harsh things to clean, but this feels necessary. Get thee behind me, Germs! Besides, our parents cleaned with actual bleach and we all survived.