All the cool things...

Only fun things and pics for this blog post!

Well, first off, I got bitten by the diaper bug again.  And by that, I mean I've been sewing my ass off.  I just got so tired of the nasty disposables stinking up the house (I don't want to have to take each and every one outside ASAP) that I decided we needed to put Charlie back in cloth.  I have been totally unmotivated to sew, so I bought a diaper from snap-ez.com (they specialize in bigger diapers) and figured I'd come up with funds to buy more.  But, the diaper just wasn't a good fit for Miss Charlie. :-( They are good diapers overall, but Charlie has a very long rise and has an itty bitty waist....bad combo.  So I got to sewing.  And tested pattern after pattern.  I finally settled on one (and shipped off the testers and the snap-ez diaper to a friend since I don't like mismatched diapers in a set) and got started on our stash.  I have quite a few finished already, but now I'm waiting on a snap shipment before I can finish them all. I will be finished by the end of the week I suppose.

Here's my final diaper.  I'm doing all white...boring, I know.  But I just think Charlie is getting a little too grown-up to have crazy colored diapers, and she's not showing them off like she did when she was a baby (there's nothing cuter than a little baby in nothing but an adorable cloth diaper, but it's not so cute on a big kid!).

  

And on:

 

I did a snap down rise so she has room to grow up AND out.  I want these to last a while!

 And then I found g-tube pads that I had cut out and pinned years ago, so I started sewing those.  I made about 2 dozen when she was younger, but these tend to get lost in the laundry, much like socks.  Funny thing was, I started making them the morning of my endoscopy appointment and was irritated because I forgot how tedious they were to sew! I think I got 4 done before I left.  When I went in for my endoscopy, they gave me fentynol and versed and I was pretty well looped out. Afterwards, my mom and I had lunch and then she dropped me off at home.  I went right back to sewing the pads, and before I knew it, I had the other 12 completely done!  I barely even remember sewing them, yet they were just as perfect as the ones I had sewn before I left.  Drugs can be awesome. LOL  It must have taken me about 2 hours because I "lost" a good chunk of the afternoon, but at least I was productive. :-D

My 16 little g-tube pads:

And Adrian has been helping me!  Here's him cutting out the little squares I use to stabilize snaps to thin fabric:

Charlie got her first pair of AFO's on Wednesday!  Eventually we hope to do some weight-bearing, but in the meantime, these just help prevent foot drop.  Here she is wearing them and her new wrist splints too:

And a close-up of the AFO's:

 

My friend gave me the idea to use Babylegs under the AFO's instead of trying to find knee high socks to fit Charlie (she still has tiny feet so this would be difficult).  Babylegs are just baby leg warmers that are popular in the cloth diapering community (who wants their baby to wear pants when their diaper is too cute to cover up!?).  Basically I just put her in regular socks, then put the Babylegs on, then her AFO's, then fold the Babylegs back down over top of the AFO's.  Cute!

Then I had another friend offer me 18 (!) pairs of Babylegs her kids had outgrown.  Score!

 

You can see above that Charlie is getting too big for her baby stroller.  We have a big special needs jogging stroller, but this thing is HUGE.  Charlie does NOT fit well in it:

But since we don't know how long it will be until another chair is approved and ordered, we just have to make do with what we have, don't we?  Here's the jogger with a fabric covered foam insert, pool noodles for lateral support and a footrest, and a snap closure to help hold the too-wide harness on her shoulders:

I'm SO thankful I inherited some crafty genes!

And here's just a cute pic of Charlie.  I said about this picture that her hair does naturally what boy bands all over try to get with tons of product!