Small, simple, and easy diaper bag... That does not look like a diaper bag!

A few months ago I left my wallet in the car with the car unlocked and the next morning my wallet (and GPS on an unrelated note) were gone.  This huge frustration led me to think about the question "WHY did I leave my wallet in the car unlocked?"  As I broke it down, I realized the reason was because I had way too many things (along with one beautiful toddler) I was lugging in an out of the car every day.  The evening I left my wallet in the car, I thought, well that's one less thing I'll have to carry to the car in the morning.  Dumb.  

So I needed a new solution.  I felt my huge diaper bag with 7 cloth diapers in it, and everything else I needed to take care of a baby on the run, had to go.  Plus, I needed to buy I new wallet.  So I hit the mall, hoping to spot just the right thing.  And I did!  

In Hallmark Gold Crown Store of all places, I found the perfect bag, not at all marketed to be a diaper bag!  The brand is baggallini and I have since seen it in many other shops.  They come in many styles and colors, and I tested out all the ones in the store by putting diapers in them, and all my other junk just to see if it would fit, and this one worked.  

The one fall back is I had to give up cloth diapering... at least "on-the-go" which was a slippery slope that led to no cloth diapering ever.  My little one refuses to wear them after I took a long hiatus.  Hopefully with baby #2 (coming this Holiday season) we can get back on the cloth wagon.

Regardless, let me give you a tour!

Okay, I have my messenger style bag hanging from my Jeep because the jeep actually plays a role as you will see in the final pictures.

The first little front pocket holds my little things... lip gloss lip stick, a pencil, teething medicine, sometimes a crayon or two.

Here is the wallet section.  Regularly used cards are easy to get to and the less frequented are all in one zipper.  There is a great little change pocket, and then a whole other pocket not even utilized.  Sometimes I hold receipts or a check book there.

I am not anti-pink, but its not one of those colors I identify myself with like some women.  However, the bright pink interior does make it easier to find things than in my previous bag that had a black interior.  

Change of clothes.... I have a pretty neat baby so we rarely use this spare, but on occasion we pull it out and I'm glad to have it.  I pack the lightest outfit she has for this so it isn't too bulky.

The middle pocket without a zipper holds snacks and sometimes a small water bottle.  She can come up to my bag and get it herself if she wants.

Here are the diapers and wipes.  It can hold about 4 or 5 normal size diapers though its only picturing 2 thick night time diapers because I really need to go buy more.  Seriously we currently own 3 clean diapers in the world right now- next stop is the diaper store!

I THINK it could hold about 2 prefolds if I wanted to.

The back pocket is zipperless so I keep my phone here so it is quick and easy to get to when its time to snap a picture of cute little Adelaide doing something adorable... Yes, I rarely use this as a phone!  Also, some hand sanitizer. Sometimes I throw these two items in the "wallet" section so I can fit a book in there.  For the most part, if I'm reading a book it is through the kindle app on my iphone.  Consolidate!

And just because I like to keep it dorky, I keep my keys on a carabiner on a loop on the outside of the bag.  For just a touch extra of nerd, I sometimes clip my purse to my belt loop so it doesn't slide around as I bend over during play time at the museum or the park.

You might be thinking... that is not nearly enough stuff for a whole day's adventure away from the house!  How does she do it???

The secret is keeping a stash in the car.  Very rarely am I away from the car for so long that I would need 10 diapers, 2 changes of clothing, a trash bag, bandaids, etc.  So I keep a surplus in the car at all times.  Its is very easily stored and organized.

Reused a Tide Container for a trash can.  (Don't forget to empty when you get home!)

A change of clothes, plus a spare bag to put the dirty clothes in.  Again, don't forget to take out when you get home.  I left some vomit clothes in a bag for a week on accident and the mold was disgusting... I just threw the whole bag in the trash, clothes and all.

Of course a thing of wipes.  I refill it every now and then, usually part of my car cleaning routine.

This is a dish washing detergent container re-used to store this and that little things.... snack, boogie wipes, Neosporin, bandaids, teething med, sun screen, etc.  

Another re-used container that holds diapers.  It can hold about 20.  Right now it holds the 1 other diaper we have.  That's right, all the diapers we have in our possession right now are pictured in this one blog post.

And that is it!  I've been using this method for roughly 6 months and I am extremely pleased and have not run into one problem.  Even when I go out sans-baby, I tend to carry the whole bag with me, and it is no larger than the bag of someone without any children, so it doesn't look odd or feel heavy either.

I did find an added bonus to the diaper box in the car.  When we have grandparents take care of her at their house while we go out on a date, we just bring the box in, and with everything so well labeled and organized, it makes it super easy for them to find everything she needs.

I've wanted to blog about this since I got it because I know someone out there is googling "diaper bag that is not huge" and I hope you find this blog!  Email me if that is you!  (or if you like the idea)

The Cost of Being Born

Oh second pregnancy.  Morning sickness hit me hard the first time around, but not as bad the second time around.  Unfortunately, not as bad, is still pretty bad.  Especially when you have a very exciting toddler on the move.  I try my best to think of fun games that involve me laying down in a curled up position while she runs around the house.  I also have a little help here and there.  Earlier this week, a friend took her to the park while I just took a nice shower and a nap.  And in the afternoon a middle schooler helps me out with her so I have pretty good support.

First time around, I saw the doctor at just 4 weeks pregnant.  I had an ultrasound by 5 weeks, medicine, by 6 weeks... the ball started rolling fast.  This time around, I still have not decided on a care provider at just over 9 weeks!  I haven't even had an appointment.

My first birth was done at a birthing center, which I LOVED.  I didn't appreciate the care I was getting with the OB, I went to two different ones, and with both I had LONG waits (once I waited 90 minutes past my appointment time while sitting next to a sign that said if a patient is 15 minutes late they must pay for their appointment that would be cancelled for tardiness) and I had extremely short appointments with rushed doctors.  When I switched to the care of midwives at Austin Area Birthing Center I had max wait times of 5 minutes and 30 minute appointments- I rarely took the whole 30 minutes, but if I had a lot I needed to talk about, it was totally fine to chat for a long time.

2nd Time around it would seem an easy choice to go with the Birthing Center again.  But now that I have a toddler my thoughts are leaning toward a home birth.  If the baby comes in the middle of the night, little Adelaide can sleep in her room while the baby is being born on the other side of the house and wake up to a new sibling.  There is no fuss about where to send her, or worries that she will miss us from being gone so long.  Sure, this isn't that big of a deal, many kids do just fine, but I thought I'd look into it.  There is a group in town called Heart of Texas Midwives that I visited with.

Heart of Texas Midwives is a group of three midwives that I would meet with throughout my pregnancy and one of the three (whoever was on call) would attend my birth.  I like all three of them a lot.  One of them was even a midwife at the birthing center during the time I was pregnant with my first.  Their prenatal visits are about an hour long- the first one will be an hour and a half.  I really like my interview with one of the midwives.  I brought Adelaide along and she was pretty grumpy from having a pretty terrible night of teething and just wanted outside so badly.  So the midwife suggested we just have our appointment outside!  We went for a walk holding Adelaide's hands and swinging her between us.  I loved it.

I LOVED the birthing center and I LOVED the home birth midwives... but I was starting to think maybe since my insurance didn't cover midwifery I should try just going the normal american hospital route.  It wasn't as exciting or beautiful as a birthing center or home birth but maybe I should just hang up that idea for the sake of saving a little cash that could be rather used on fun things for the baby.

I called up the insurance company and found out the cost of a birth assuming I have a no complication vaginal natural birth.  I was surprised to discover that using insurance (Aetna) would not save me any money at all!  I would actually be spending a ridiculous amount more.

I'm glad I called the insurance company rather than just assuming it would cost less!  Keep in mind we don't have the BEST insurance.  We have a $2000 deductible plus we have to pay 40% of the cost after the deductible is met.  On the plus side, even though they don't technically cover midwifery, they will pay us back 10% of what we paid after the baby is born.  So that actually brings the cost down even more.

Now this is all assuming I am able to have a normal natural birth.  There are always chances that things could become complicated, but my chances are lower since I have already had one natural birth.  I do think if I started in the hospital it would be a higher chance, as I'm not sure I could deny an epidermal.  I might even order a c-section!  Having a baby is a really painful thing!

I hope this is a helpful little guide for someone who was trying to find the lower cost option.  This is just true of these certain places in Austin and with our particular insurance, but take the time to figure out the cost in your town before you jump to the conclusion that you should go with what your insurance covers.

Now I just have to decide which midwife group to choose.  Two great options!

A New 4 List Plan

We gave our four list plan a few weeks, and it went very well!  But after actually watching the Alton Brown episode about it we realized we could make a few changes.  The heart behind it was to be sure to eat certain foods that are very good for you.  If you focus on eating those good foods, you won't have much room for the bad.  And the "bad" which were on the once a week or never eat lists could use a little altering for our personality.  Like Alcohol is something we rarely drink so it really didn't need to be on the once a week list.  And we never ate canned soups or diet things anyway so why waste the space putting that on our "never eat" list.  Actually we realized we didn't really even need a "never eat" list, but rather a special occasion list.  

So here goes another go at our own version of the Four-List Plan!

The Guilbeau Gifts Rule of 4

Chris and I considered putting this out there for Adelaide's first Christmas, but then we realized... well we don't want to have to go with the rules too, so we can't hold her to them.

This year Santa found all three of us on the super nice list; we all found tons of great presents under the tree.  This only makes it more difficult to start the discipline of keeping a simple set of gift giving and receiving rules.  But with my birthday being the first in 2013, I have decided I will be the first to abide by the rules.

It's simply a guideline for us to follow for giving & receiving gifts.  For Chris and my birthdays, we really don't have to worry much about our parents or anyone giving outside the rules, but we do have to work hard with each other.  Birthdays are when the two of us kinda go out of control with showering each other with gifts.  I think having this set of rules will actually make it more fun though.  Instead of just giving him everything I can possibly think of that he might want and I can afford, I can be more mindful about it and try to get everything on the list maybe... though I might just have to skip "1 thing to wear" for him... my man likes to shop for his own clothes!

It will be a fun practice for the three of us to do for each other, but we are also going to ask everyone else to be a part of it.  We're not asking everyone to give each of us 4 gifts, but just asking that anyone who wants to give us gifts gives no more than 4 and no more than 1 of each category: WANT, READ, WEAR, HEALTHY; and nothing outside of those categories.  And if we end up with more, the task is to give it away.

So I have a feeling a game will be made of these rules like trying to make an excuse of how something fits a category that really doesn't..."yeah, this movie is a "read" just turn on the subtitles!"  I have a family member I can totally hear say that already.  And if someone tries that, its not the end of the world; in the end there are still only 4 gifts so it works itself out.  It might even be part of the holiday fun making something "fit" into a category.

If you've seen this list on Pinterest you might be thinking, something sounds different about this one.  Well, the list that is getting pinned everywhere is a little different instead of "Healthy" they have "need" which actually has better rhyming to it, but "need" just sounds too dramatic to me.  As middle-class Americans with just one kid, we don't really have any needs that aren't being met.  Healthy sounded like a fun alternative to me!  There is a lot of wiggle room there too.  I'm thinking of how my mom used to put oranges, apples, and nuts in our stocking- that's an obvious healthy!  Or this might sound like a stretch, but my this year my sister-in-law gave Adelaide some reusable snack bags (super cute) and I think we could put that under "healthy."  And while toy vegetables can't be eaten, maybe we can even sneak that in as a "healthy."  And my Christmas gift to Chris this year, a Nike + iPod could have easily gone under healthy OR wear!  (Its something you wear on your shoe that tracks your running stats.)

Well, there is about 6 months till the big 2 year birthday for Adelaide which is the BIG DEAL in the family (yeah, I'm turning the big three-oh but I'm pretty sure the 2 year old will still get the bigger party).  So this is the official announcement with 6 months notice for The Guilbeau Gifts Rule of 4.

Has anyone else tried this, or something like this?  How did it go for you?

More happy please!

I thoroughly annoyed a friend of mine a few months back as she rode with me and Adelaide to lunch.  Adelaide was a little fussy and needed a nap and at the time the best way to do this was to sing "twinkle twinkle little star" about 10 times.  After about time number 8 she was begging for a new song, and fortunately Adelaide was cool with switching it up with the itsy bitsy spider and fell asleep after about 3 rounds of it.  That friend has not since taken a ride with me and Adelaide; I assume she couldn't take another note!
But now we have a new song.  Much "worse" than before and it doesn't induce sleep but it gets the biggest smile that makes it worth it.  Perhaps its her favorite because she can ask for it by request.  "The more we get together"  She makes the sign for more and happy when she wants me to sing this tune:

The more we get together
together together
The more we get together
the happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends
and my friends are your friends
The more we get together
the happier we'll be.

Once I get to the part about friends she gets a little agetated because what she wants to hear is the words MORE and HAPPY.  Therefor, when times are hard the song goes a bit like this:

The MORRRRRRRRRE

New favorite word: ELMO

wegettogethertogethertogether
The MORRRRRRRRE
wegetogetherthe
HAPPIER will be.

The MORRRRRRRRRE
wegettogethertogethertogether
The MORRRRRRRRE
wegetogetherthe
HAPPIER will be.

and then when times are really tough we just go with....


The MORRRRRRRRRE
wegettogethertogethertogether
The MORRRRRRRRE
wegetogetherthe

The MORRRRRRRRRE
wegettogethertogethertogether
The MORRRRRRRRE
wegetogetherthe

The MORRRRRRRRRE
wegettogethertogethertogether
The MORRRRRRRRE
wegetogetherthe

and for some reason she never tires of it and for some even STRANGER reason... I never tire of it.  I love love love love love that smile, especially when she is having a bad day and we can turn it around with a song. :)

A couple years ago I was annoyed if the radio even played two Coldplay songs in a row... oh how a child changes the way you see... or sing.

Four List Plan

A new way to eat in our family...

This is posted on our fridge!  Hope we can stick to it.  The hardest part for me will be never drinking soda!  But I hope that replacing it with a cup of green tea will help.  Also I read that eating Kale can curb your cravings for soda, and that is number one on the Daily List!

Refocus: BLOG

I've been looking over this blog and I notice a lack of focus on my part.  Are blogs supposed to have focus?  I started it one afternoon a couple years ago with the idea that I would blog about a new way of looking at things.  One hour after starting my blog I discovered I was pregnant- didn't see that one coming!  So the focus changed to pregnancy, then to babies, then to bragging about my baby and posting adorable pictures, and then sometimes just posting what other people have written just to defend some position that is very possible no one was trying to offend me on in the first place.

So I've taken a break for over a month because I just couldn't decide what the point of blogging is!  Well, taking a look at my viewers statistics on blogger, I can see what people view the most and how people find me, and then I decided to think about the benefits that blogging can bring me rather than just other people.

So I have figured out where to focus THIS blog (I may start another blog for other focuses).  Back to, "a new way to see."  This blog will just be a journal of sorts that logs some of the new ideas I've discovered or come up with.

I find I make decisions about something and then totally forget why I made that decision or loose track of the importance or significance of a decision.  So maybe with this online log I can look back and remember.  For example, I chose to do montessori style sleeping with my child, but kinda forgot all the reasons behind it and ended up getting her a regular bed frame also, and then ended up sleeping with her tons, and then put rails up so she couldn't get out... hmmm I think I lost the point of montessori very quickly!  

Hopefully, other people will also be able to find a new way to see as they stumble upon my blog.  For example, I have recenlty discovered the most AMAZING way to keep a diaper bag super simple and lightweight... it took me 16 months to figure it out!  Maybe I can save someone else the trouble who is googling "diaper bag, small, I don't want to be a pack mule!"  Along with other views I've come to over time.
I have no intention of getting big and being one of the most "pinned" blogs on pinterest, but I would like it if every now and then someone is encouraged or even have a change of heart about something because of my blog; anything from childbirth decisions to where to buy upscale baby clothes for sweet low prices. :)  And its even possible some day my mind won't be completely consumed with child raising and I'll blog about a new way to see other aspects of life as well.

If you've been trying to follow me since I left Facebook, and wishing I was only posting Adelaide pictures are... I'm sorry I'm not doing that so much.  Please just shoot me an email now and then to remind me to send you pictures personally :)

(picture unrelated to this post... but this post just NEEDED a cute picture right?)