Radio Silense

To say that a thesis is a lot of work is an understatement.  But I am so amazingly proud to say that there really is a light at the end of the tunnel.  I can see it!  I can taste it!  It is the most AMAZING feeling to be so close to the end.  All I have left is to print and bind this baby and sign my life away next Monday!

Working part time, having a 1 year old that I take to work and have with me all day, and researching/writing a masters thesis has been an insane endeavor.  It is not for everyone.  Not even the most organized and balanced individual can do this.  Sacrificing weekend of precious family time to sit in crappy library chairs was no fun!

Knowing I have earned this masters degree is due to sacrifices and hard work is bitter sweat.  I would never take on something like this again if I knew how much time it would take away from family.  So many events and invitations were turned down. 

On May 19th I get walk down the aisle with a masters hood on and and celebrate this great accomplishment with family.  So excited to have this done with and get to relax and get to a years worth of projects I've procrastinated on!

April 2012

Just a few fun shots out in the backyard I captured:

Easter 2012

April brought one of my favorite holidays.  Easter!  We had so much fun celebrating with Ryder.  Last year he was too small to enjoy it.  But Alan, Julie and Ashley made sure he had an Easter basket!  He still enjoys all of his bath toys he got last year.

This year we celebrated with my family in SF.  We played with the basket of stuff all day.  He loved the crinkly paper, the Toy Story talking book and the school bus.  Still one of his favorites today.

We enjoyed a great family Easter event in Golden Gate Park.  Ryder loved the Easter bunny, but was definitely liking the frog.  He wanted to bite him.

They had these amazing giant tinker toys that Ryder had a blast building with.  He would take apart and put together ant pieces that he could get to fit.

They had an easter egg hunt for the little kids.  But this is the only egg Ryder was interested in:

The pitting zoo area was a hit with Ryder.  Unfortunately he wanted to eat them all instead of petting them:

Ryder really enjoyed riding the train with nana:

We spent the rest of our Easter enjoying playing tourist in SF.  We rode the glass elevators (where Ryer's eyes are huge!) and the cable cars.  The Cable cars were a for sure hit!

March 2012

Bath-time Fun:

 

My new rocking airplane:

More fun at the park:

How I entertain myself at work:

Palo Alto Jr. Museum and Zoo:

February 2012

Lots of fun at the park:

San Jose Children's Museum:

Cloth Diaper Stripping

We have been cloth diapering here for about a year. There really is a learning curve, as there is for most new things. But the outcome of a clean, rash-fee, padded tush is well worth is. We've had some stink issues and some ammonia smell and rashes recently and i thought I'd fill you'll in on what I have learned. And give you some resources.

Detergent Build up VS other things building up (ew!)

1) Dawn - 1 T Dawn in the washer and rinse until 0 suds
(#15 on http://www.bumgenius.com/help.php)

There are just the simple stinky issues that typically are build up of detergent. We stripped with dawn and the diapers seemed better but never 100% stink free. I could put the clean diaper right up to my nose and take a whiff and still smell something. This was supposed to get any residue out of the diapers.

2) Calgon - 1/2 c and soak overnight and then wash as normal
(http://pinstripesandpolkadotsllc.blogspot.com/2011/12/stripping.html)

Then we tried Calgon. We soaked all the diapers all night and then washed them as we normally would. This was to strip and hard water deposits out of the diaper. Then we were still getting amonia burns 2 weeks after the Calgon. So, I got more help.

3) Vinegar - Soak all the inserts in venegar over night and rinse in warm (no detergent)
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Diaper-Therapist/141387209252417)

The owner of this page did a lot for me. She looked up water tests, etc to help with my specific issue, machine, water, routine, diapers...etc The end result was an overnight vinegar soak of the inserts, warm rinse cycle the next day, layed them out to dry, stuffed and wore them. 2 nights with no burns yet. No smell at all either.

The rest is from The Diaper Therapist - On a pH scale, ammonia is a basic. Vinegar is a mild acid. What you want to do is pour the vinegar right on your clean, wet diapers. The vinegar will help chemically neutralize the ammonia. Wring the vinegar through the fabric really well, let them sit overnight, and then just rinse them. ammonia comes from leftover organic (waste) trapped in the fibers. I see this a LOT with HE machines. Limiting the amount of water to a diaper wash reduces the amount the urine and soil are diluted. A long hot wash will only go so far if there's a small amount of water pushed through the fibers.

Redwood City - There's a couple things to look for when you're reading the water quality assessment. The first is 'Hardness', but also check the 'Total Dissolved Solids'.

Hardness (as CaCO3) ppm N/A 8 - 104 53
Total Dissolved Solids ppm 1000 N/A 27 - 174 95

So in this case, your 'hardness' which comes from calcium is only 53PPM. That's pretty low. But the bigger picture is clearer when you look at Total Dissolved Solids- which is 95PPM. So it's not just Calcium, Limescale, but also minerals, salts, and metals. Overall 95 isn't very high. Looking at the bigger picture I would say that the HE Washer is almost certainly the big culprit in the stink problem.

more resources:

http://thecloththatcounts.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/the-ultimate-cloth-diaper-care-resource-page/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Padded-Tush-Stats/159712977409653

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Diaper-Therapist/141387209252417

https://www.facebook.com/DiaperJunction

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spray-Pal/110702932361414

https://www.facebook.com/everythingbirth

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