even three-year olds need an extra snuggle.

wrap: all cotton Didymos Indio red/white (size 6)

This week is International Babywearing Week, and I was just thinking about when Emma was little and wearable. I can still wear her, but she would rather walk, so it’s just not as much fun.

So here’s a walk through our babywearing days …

1 week old in an Urban Baby pouch

2 weeks old in a Moby wrap

1 month old in the Moby wrap

just over a month old in a fleece Peanut Shell pouch (this was one of our favorites!)

some days, she would really konk out

8 weeks old in the Gypsy Mama Bali Breeze Wrap – looooooved this in the summer months

in Charleston, SC

hiking in the Ergo

in Charleston, SC again for a tennis tournament

2 days before her first birthday — she was sick, and I was working

in the Beco Butterfly (I sold the Ergo to fund this, and I am SO happy with it!!)

I’m not sure what I’ll do for future baby #2. I think I would like to try a ring sling, but I did love my Moby wrap so much. I’ve always heard that ring slings are MUCH easier, though.

Anyway, happy babywearing week!

We took Emma on her first hike this past Saturday. It was the perfect weather, and we had a wonderful time. Although, I have never been more aware of how out of shape I am. Phew.

the girls all had a lot of fun – I have no idea what Jessie is doing up the tree, but whatever!

can you tell Emma loves her daddy just a little bit?

Unfortunately, it was a little too late in the season for fall leaves – everything was pretty brown by this time. But we did spot a couple of nice oranges.

One of the groves of trees looked like a fire!

Some parts of the trail were really steep … and a testament to my out-of-shape’ness. I was huffing and puffing like a crazy person.

It was a very clear day, so you could see for miles and miles.

Eventually, Emma konked out and took a short nap …

A good time was had by all, and I think Emma thoroughly enjoyed her first hike. The part she was awake for, of course.

I hope you all had a good holiday. We spent the evening of the 3rd setting off the traditional fireworks with Ken’s brother’s family. Emma pretty much slept through the entire thing in our new Gypsy Mama wrap. Then, we took off to Georgia on the 4th and spent the day with my family — fun! We rode the 4-wheeler, played in the pool, visited with the neighbor’s horses, ate good food and even more delicious ice cream, and generally enjoyed letting everyone else take care of Emma for the day.

This afternoon, we’re heading to Charleston to see a close friend of mine, and we’ll be coming back late tomorrow. I can’t wait to get more use out of our new wrap. Speaking of …

Out of 8 voters, 25% of you got it right.

I chose the Haumea wrap …

She likes it!!

a blurry picture of the back

And if I’m not mistaken, the 2 of you who got it right were my mom and my husband!

I’ve got a bajillion pictures from Wednesday, but I’ve got to get our laundry done and start packing while she naps, so those will have to wait until we get back. Have a great weekend, everyone!

I found another fun plugin, so I thought I’d try it out … the poll!

As you can see, there’s a poll on the left sidebar. Let me explain.

I recently ordered a new summer wrap for me and Emma – a Gypsy Mama Baby Bali Breeze wrap.

These are hand-dyed and batiked in Bali, Indonesia. They are a bit dressier than the stretch (think “blouse” vs. “t-shirt”). Though the stretch wraps are a fairly lightweight cotton, the gauze wraps are some of the lightest, coolest, most compact wraps on the market, and fold down into a handy built-in storage pocket. The gauze, like other woven wraps, offers the greatest range of carrying positions, and many find it more supportive for older children.

The only hard part I had was choosing a color.

Here are my favorites:

Iris

Freya

Psyche

Morgaine

Haumea

Orion

Lalita

So the poll is for you to see if you know me well enough to know what color I finally ended up choosing. Good luck!

So you all know how much I love wearing Emma in her wrap or sling or mei tai … so I entered a contest to win a Moby Wrap at Adventures in Babywearing, which is a neat little blog that discusses babywearing, parenting and other cool stuff. I love our Moby Wrap, and if I could win another one, well that would be so awesome.

And while I’m on the subject (nice lead-in, eh?), I wear Emma around the house a lot and pretty much anytime we’re out. Partly to keep her close to me, partly to be able to still get stuff done, and partly to get her to sleep, which she always does while being worn. I’m not adverse to swings or strollers, which I still use on a daily basis, because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them. But sometimes, it’s just easier to pop her in a sling and do my cleaning or laundry or bottle-washing without having to go “check in” on her.

I mean, really … when you can get a crying, upset, fussy baby to do this within a matter of minutes …

it’s pretty much the best thing ever.

I also put her in cloth diapers during the day. Yes, really! I tried the old-fashioned kind that I used to wear, but those were NOT for us. Too much folding and pinning and covers and ugh. So we use Fuzzi Bunz and BumGenius pocket diapers. They’re pretty much the same as disposables, but you wash them.

Fuzzi Bunz:

BumGenius 2.0:

Why cloth diapers? Well, it started out as a cost thing. I figured if I could just wash her diapers and let her wear them over and over, it would save us a ton of money. But cloth diapers are actually pretty expensive! Especially when I started out buying a whole bunch of different kinds. Then, after they came and I realized that I would be washing poopy diapers, I seriously thought about scratching the whole idea. But I decided to try it for a couple of days, and it’s not that bad! You just throw them into a diaper pail, just like you would any other diaper – but instead of taking it to the big garbage can in the garage, I dump it into the washer.

We still use disposables at night and whenever we’re out of the house, because I can’t even fathom putting a dirty diaper back in my diaper bag. But that’s me. I still think we’re saving quite a bit of money, and it gives her little tushy a break from the chemicals in diapers.

Besides, they’re really stinkin cute!

So there’s my “crunchy” confession of the day.

I bet you’re all tired of just seeing pictures (yeah, right!) but there’s really not that much to update. But here goes anyway …

1. Nighttime sleeping – she’s awesome. She goes to bed around 10:30 and wakes up at 2:30, 5:30 and 8:30 to eat. I take her bottle out of the mini-fridge we have in our room, put it in the crock pot, change her diaper, feed her, and put her back down. Takes about 20 minutes MAX. Last night, she ended up staying awake longer than usual, but she was super tired, so I put her down without rocking her to sleep and went to bed. She grunted and looked around for a while and then fell asleep all by herself. She rocks!!

2. Napping – not so great, but the secret is to put her in the Moby wrap, and then she’s out like a light. For hours. I actually have to wake her up to change her diaper and feed her.

I did put her down in her crib for the first time yesterday to see how she would do. She napped for about 25 minutes before she woke up, so not bad.

3. Eating – she’s a pig! Just kidding. She’s right on schedule as far as how much she should be eating, but she tends to “graze” during the day – meaning, she eats about 2 oz every hour instead of 3-4oz every few hours. It’s kind of tiring after a while, but she should fall into a regular schedule soon. She is really growing, though.

4. Smiling – I got my first toothless, eye-squinching, wide-mouth grin today, and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She’s always super happy first thing in the morning, and she was grinning all over the place this morning.

5. Growing – I can tell a major difference in her size, but she’s still in newborn clothes. Even her 0-3 months stuff is still a little bit too big. I don’t think she’s quite 10lbs, yet, but she might be by the time we go to the pediatrician on Monday. I can’t wait to see how big she is!

Okay, the story behind the little thing on her head. A lady that Daddy used to work with (I think) crocheted (or knitted? I don’t know the difference) Emma a bunch of clothes. Really, really cute stuff! One of the items was this little bandana (kerchief? doo-rag?), so I tried it on her this morning and almost died from the cuteness.

Then, one of my friends knitted her a sweater and cap for this upcoming winter, so I decided to try that one on her, too. Warning: cuteness overload!

Anyway, here’s all of the stuff that Emma has to look forward to wearing. Oh, who am I kidding — stuff that I look forward to putting on Emma!

So overall, things are going really well. Even tonight, Ken’s playing tennis, and I didn’t feel like crying when he left. Everyone says that it’s easy by around 6 weeks, and I have to agree. I almost can’t remember those horrible first 2 weeks. Almost.

konks her out every.time.