Tales from the lake

We came home yesterday from an extended weekend at the cabin with my parents (which is why I've been MIA lately).  We went out on Friday afternoon and Carey came home on Sunday evening, while I stayed out with the kids and my parents for a few extra days (it's my parents' cabin).  We were thinking of maybe staying until today, but the heat was making everyone a little cranky, so we decided to come home yesterday afternoon.  Also, I needed to come home to my own bed, in my own room.  At the lake we sleep in the guest cabin (which is new and beautiful and has a ceiling fan and I love it), however, it is only 2 rooms - a bathroom and a bedroom.  So all 4 of us sleep in the same room.  When Carey was there I didn't really have a problem sleeping, but I found when it was just me and the kids, I was waking up all the time - either to pee, or because it was so hot, or Emmett was crying, or Annika was making noise -- I just couldn't get a good night's sleep.  But even though I didn't have great nights, we still had a lot of fun.  A bunch of things happened that could each be their own blog post, but I'm going to roll them all into one here (so this might be sort of long).  Consider yourself warned.

I washed cloth diapers by hand
I know what you're thinking - ewwwwww!!!  But it actually wasn't even that gross!  I almost always bring along the cloth diapers for when we're at the lake, since we have to haul all the garbage out of there anyways, so we either take home a bag of dirty cloth diapers or a bag of dirty disposables (which, in my opinion, smell way worse than cloth diapers).  However, usually we're only there for 2 or 3 days, which I have enough diapers for.  Since we were planning to be at the lake for 4-5 days, I had packed all the cloth diapers, plus some disposables for when the cloth ran out.  However, at the end of the first day, I thought, why don't I just wash out these 7 or 8 diapers now (rather than in 3 days when they're all gross and stinky from sitting around) and then I can avoid using the disposables.  So I did it!  I took everything down to the end of the dock and I put it all in the big mesh bag that I use to hold Annika's beach toys.  I held onto the bag handles and swished it in the lake, to rinse out all the pee (luckily there were no gross poopy diapers that day).  Then I put a bit of environmentally-friendly detergent in the baby bathtub (which we brought down for Emmett to use, but so far he likes bathing in the lake better), and gave it all a good wash.  Then rinse rinse rinse in the lake again.  It didn't take long, and I put everything on the drying rack and it was dry by the next day.  However, since we didn't end up staying 5 days, I didn't actually need the diapers I washed.  But now I can say that I've washed cloth diapers by hand!

Babywearing in the lake

I got to break in my new water wrap this weekend.  It worked really well, and dried quite quickly (which, given the heat, was no surprise!).  Emmett really liked it too.  He's a real water baby.

A small, but important, victory
As I mentioned, we all slept in the same room together, and I didn't sleep well.  On Monday and Tuesday mornings Emmett woke up at 6:30am, and both times I put him into bed with me so he would go back to sleep (and hopefully not wake up Annika).  On Tuesday morning he woke again at 7:30, and cried about 2 times before going back to sleep.  However, those 2 cries were enough to wake Annika, and I was scared that she was going to want to crawl into bed with us (and crawl all over us), and wake Emmett up.  So I didn't roll over and acknowledge that she was awake.  I pretended that I was still sleeping.  And I heard her reach into her bag, and pull out a book and look through it.  Without a word.  In her bed.  And then another book - still perfectly quiet except for the pages turning.  Without realizing it, I drifted back to sleep.  I woke up when she came to my bedside and said, "mommy I have to pee."  As I turned and looked at the clock (realizing then that I had fallen back asleep), I smiled to myself - it was 7:57, almost 8:00.  Which is the time that her clock turns green when we're at home.  It was as if she knew.

An artist in the making
In an effort to divert Annika's attention from the lake (she loves to go swimming and would probably spend all her time in there if we let her), we got out some watercolors and big pieces of paper and got creative.  It was really neat to see her joy in painting, and it was even neater to see everyone else get into it as well.  Even my dad did a painting!  Unfortunately all the pictures of us painting are on my mom's camera, so I don't have any to post right now.

Update on Emmett's eczema
I don't know if it was the heat, the humidity, the sunshine, the fresh air, or all of the above, but Emmett's skin got so much better while we were at the lake.  I'm hoping it's actually because I started keeping his hazelwood necklace on him all the time.  For the first few days after I got it, I'd been putting it around his neck while he was awake, and then trying to move it to his ankle for naps (and taking it off completely for nights), and it didn't seem to be making any difference.  I got tired of constantly moving it around, so I just put in on his ankle and left it there (even for nights).  That was right around the time that his skin started really improving.  By the time we came home yesterday his skin was almost completely clear - just a few little spots that hadn't quite healed yet.  But otherwise it was soft and smooth and beautiful, just like a baby's skin should be.  So I'm hoping and praying that it's the necklace that made the difference, and that it will stay this way.

A few other pictures

Emmett's floaty turtle

Check out the pose - a model in the making?

Love these kids!

Emmett loves his lifejacket. :P

Fast asleep on the ride home (the 3 of us crammed into the backseat of my parents' Jeep)

So that was our weekend!  And if you've been keeping track, this is my 99th post, which means next up is my "100 things about me" post, to celebrate 100 blog posts!  Stay tuned!!