I’m one week into my two week diaper drive for Help a Mother Out an organization that distributes diapers to families in need, and I’m happy to report that I have raised enough money via Pay Pal to purchase 1000 diapers!

Woooooo! That was my original goal!

But that got me thinking… if I’ve hit my original goal after one week and I have one week left in my diaper drive, maybe I need to double my goal.

Yep! That’s right. Now I’m set on collecting 2000 diapers!

To encourage people to donate and to thank all the awesome folks who already have donated, I’ve decided I’m going randomly pick one (1) person who donates (or who has already donated) to my diaper drive, and I’m going to give them a little treat. Anyone who donates any amount of cash via my Paypal link or any number of diapers to me in person by November 15, 2009 will be put into the pool for random selection.

Ooooh! So what kind of treat are we talking about here?

Well, I suspect that most of my dear blog readers have at least a passing interest in bento boxes and supplies and I know that many of you don’t have access to those items locally, so I thought I could take a trip to my local Daiso and pick up $30 worth of bento items for the one (1) contributor I pick at random. With most items priced at $1.50, that will get you about 20 things, give or take. Not too shabby! The one (1) randomly picked contributor will even be able to give me some vague guidelines (for example: “3 girly bento boxes, 2 boyish boxes, 4 packs of cute food dividers and as many picks as you can fit in the basket. Also something with a cat on it.”). I’ll do my very darnedest to get what the one (1) randomly selected person requests, but I can’t make any promises because the stock at Daiso varies from day to day.

Here’s a little peak at some of Daiso’s stock:

If the one (1) person I randomly pick isn’t so into bento making, I’ll give them a $30 gift certificate to Amazon.

Anyone who donates in person by putting diapers (or wipes) in the box on my porch can just shoot me a quick email at daisy [at] wendolonia [dot] com telling me what you donated and I’ll add your name to the list of people who donate via Pay Pal so you can have a chance at being randomly selected. If you’re local to the San Francisco Bay area and you need my physical address to donate, you can use that same email address to request it.

For more information about Help a Mother Out and why I’m trying to donate 2000 diapers to them, please see my original post Diaper Drive – Help a Mother Out. For some ideas about the kind of cutie-patootie bento supplies available at Daiso, see this post where I took pictures inside the store and this post where I went completely crazy buying stuff (scroll down to the bottom) or visit their wholesale web store.

Again, thank you so much for anything you can contribute. $5 isn’t very much to most of us, but it can buy 25 diapers that can get a homeless family out of a sticky spot. And a whopping $40 donation can buy a  huge pack of diapers that will ease the burden on many families who need a little help.

Let’s get those cute little tushies covered and help keep them clean and healthy!

I resisted getting an iPhone for quite a while. “Why do I need one,” I’d ask my husband. “It’s not like I need to keep track of clients or appointments or anything and I already have a regular cell phone to make calls with.” Oh, how naive I was! I finally caved to my desires and now I think I use my phone more as a stay-at-home mom of small kids than I ever would have in my former professional life managing a multi-million dollar website.

Beyond the obvious parental-type things I use my iPhone for (texting my husband to pick up bananas on the way home, calling the day care to say my son will be late) here are some of the ways I use my phone to be a happier mom:

1. I Entertain Myself While Breastfeeding

I love breastfeeding — let’s just get that out of the way right up front. I talk, sing and make contact while I nurse my baby. But after he starts to get sleepy, I need to be quiet and avoid eye contact so he’ll relax enough to go to sleep and at that point I’m stuck sitting quietly in the rocker for another 20 minutes or so. And when he was a newborn I did that 10 times per day! Besides normal web surfing and blog reading, I love to use this time to play games. Some of my favorites include: Wurdle, StoneLoops of Jurassica, Bejeweled 2, CandyMania PileUp and my most recent favorite, Blowfish Lite (sorry, couldn’t find a link). And even though it’s slow going to type on the iPhone keypad, I even use it to write sometimes. In fact, this post was partially written using the WordPress app!

2. I Take Photos of My Kids When We’re Out and About

This one is sort of a no brainer, but as a photography obsessed mom I love being able to take photos of my boys without lugging my big camera everywhere. I use these photos for scrapbooking in general and my Project 365 photo essay in particular and I recently had a “Duh!” moment when I realized I could email these photos to my mom and dad to give them a grandkid fix when they’re at work. No one ever said I was the sharpest tack in the box….

3. I Listen to Podcasts to Keep Myself From Going Insane

So very many of the mommy things I do in a day require that I use my hands and pay attention to my surroundings but don’t require that I be particularly mentally engaged. Housework and driving around running errands are a few examples of these horribly boring, mind-numbing chores. To keep myself from spiraling into a deep depression triggered by mental atrophy, I like to listen to podcasts while I do this stuff. Some of my favorites are the Manic Mommies, NPR’s StoryCorps, Meal Makeover Moms, and I’m looking forward to checking out this list of creativity podcasts Lain blogged about the other day.

4. I Record My Kids Laughing

…and babbling and telling jokes with the voice memo app. Photos are great and all, but those recordings of their little voices take you back to the age when they were recorded in an instant and oh my, they are sweet.

5. I Entertain My (Big) Kid at Restaurants and in the Car

I’m obviously not handing my iPhone to my 14-month-old baby, but my five-year-old is careful enough to be trusted with it occasionally. I don’t often let him use it, so when I give it to him to play with it’s a very, very special treat and he is absolutely thrilled. Some places I let him use it include: doctor’s office waiting rooms, in line at the post office, drives of over an hour and a half, and on airplane flights. I have a number of kid-friendly apps on my phone, but he also likes “playing” the same games I do. I also have an episode of Handy Manny on there for extreme circumstances and my husband has Wall-E on his phone for even more dire distraction emergencies.

I also use it to take notes for my son’s #babybook, but I already wrote about that.

How do you use your phone to make parenting your kids easier or more fun?

When Wyatt was a baby, I carried a little notebook everywhere with me where I carefully recorded all of his milestones. First head cold, the day he started crawling, every height and weight measurement from every doctor appointment — they all went in there.

With Augie’s milestones, I’ve moved into the digital age. Now I record all these events by posting notes to my social media sites and tagging them with “#babybook”. I find this to be incredibly convenient. When we’re at the doctor, I can whip out my iPhone and post a message with his stats as the nurse is measuring him. At home, I can just pop over to my laptop and type in a quick status update. Since I don’t have to search out the little notebook, I find myself much more likely to post silly little milestones like his first smoothie and how he said “uh-oh” for two days straight.

My micro-blogging network of choice is identi.ca for a few reasons. First, it pushes all my status updates over to Twitter and Facebook for me so I can easily keep in touch with my various networks. (Yes, i’m sort of addicted to social networks.) Second, identi.ca never deletes your status updates, unlike Twitter who I believe cuts you off after about 1600 messages or so (though I’m not sure about that). I also love that I can click a link and see all of my posts that I’ve tagged with #babybook in addition to seeing all the posts that other people have tagged that way. Finally, my husband works for the company that runs identi.ca so using it helps keep food on our table. Just sayin’….

Anywho — here are some of the gems I’ve recorded that will be going into Augie’s baby book as soon as I get around to starting it (poor neglected second baby…):

#babybook Augie can reliably get his hand in his mouth now. – 19-Nov-08 15:15:49 PST

#babybook Augie just rolled from his back to his tummy! Oh noes — he’s mobile! – 26-Dec-08 08:47:05 PST

I think the baby just purposely bit me with his new tooth! He was mad that I wouldn’t let him play with my hard drive. #babybook – 07-Sep-09 09:11:16 PDT

And from just a couple days ago:

Augie just toddled all the way across the living room! Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a WALKER! #babybook – 03-Nov-09 08:44:55 PST

I’ve seen variations on this idea on several parenting sites, but they usually suggest creating a separate account for your baby so people can decide if they want to follow his milestones. I personally find that logging out of my account and then logging in to my sons’ accounts to post is too much work (yes, both boys have accounts on Twitter and identi.ca. *cringe*). I also don’t feel like I need to give the people who follow me a choice about whether or not they get these updates because if they don’t want to hear about my kids, they’re following the wrong person.

If you’re interested in following me on the social networks, here are links to my various profiles:

• Identi.ca
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Flickr

A few months ago, I was introduced to an organization called Help a Mother Out by my friend Whitney of Rookie Moms. The mission of Help a Mother Out (or HAMO for those of us who are lazy typists) is to provide diapers to parents in need.

Did you know:

• Government assistance programs like WIC and food stamps cannot be used to buy diapers?
• Most food banks do not stock diapers?
• Diaper companies do not typically make charitable donations of diapers to families in need or organizations that support those families?

This information sheet from the HAMO site breaks down the facts surrounding diapers and poverty even further.

Ever since I first read about this and really started to think about what it meant, I have not been able to get this out of my head. Homelessness or poverty forces some moms to regularly make a choice between buying diapers to keep their children clean, buying food to keep their children fed, or paying to keep a roof over their heads. Now, every time I’m changing Augie and I reach for a diaper, I think about those moms and feel lucky to have a drawer full of Huggies to wrap around his chubby little tushie.

So what am I going to do to help these moms?

I’m going to hold a diaper drive!

My goal is to collect enough diapers to donate 1000 to Help a Mother Out. Would you like to help? Here’s how:

If You’re Local

I’ve put a donation box on my front porch to collect diapering supplies. Take a look around your house and see if you can dig up that half bag of diapers that your baby grew out of and bring it by. Or maybe your kid is completely potty-trained now (lucky you!) and you still have some Pull-ups around. Wouldn’t it be nice to clear out that closet space and help someone who could use them? Or maybe you’re feeling really generous and you could pick up a second box of diapers or wipes when you’re getting your usual supplies at Target or Costco. Really anything you can give would be fantastic! You can drop off:

• Diapers (sizes 3-6 especially, but all sizes welcome)*
• Pull-ups*
• Baby wipes (UNOPENED)
• New socks & new underwear for women and children

*Open packs of diapers are great, but please keep in original packaging or ziploc bag.

If you need my address, send me an email at daisy [at] wendolonia.com. The box will be there for two weeks from November 1-14.

If You’re Not Local

If you’d like to help out but it’s not really practical to jump on a plane with a box of diapers, I’ve set up a Pay Pal account to take donations. I will take every single cent that’s donated over to Target (or wherever I can find the best deal) and buy as many diapers and wipes as I have money for. (If I need a little extra to cover a box, I’ll  pay for it out of my own pocket.) Any little bit you can give will help. Bargain diapers are about $0.20 a piece so even a donation of $5.00 will buy 25 diapers.  $40 will buy the big box of 200 diapers!

Thanks so much for any help you can give! Let’s get these babies’ butts covered and keep them dry!

1. StoryCorps — Have you heard StoryCorps? They play it on Morning Edition on Friday mornings. I found the podcast on iTunes a few weeks ago and I’ve been running through the episodes at an amazing rate. It just features people’s stories. The stories of their lives. Big stories, little stories, funny stories, touching stories. I laugh or, more frequently, tear up every time I listen to one. It’s like an oral scrapbook of the American experience. Except great and not as pretentious as that description sounds.
2. Maclaren Quest Stroller — I wrote a little about this stroller back when we first got it a few months ago. Now that I’ve been using it for awhile, I can tell you that it is the best stroller ever! It was pricey, but when you consider how many strollers we bought when Wyatt was a baby — three — I think that the cost of this one stroller is about the same as what we spent on all of those. I like that it is slim and light, that I can easily maneuver it one-handed and that it doesn’t look all cheesy. I wish I could load it up a bit more without it getting tippy, but I can live with that.
3. Camera Strap Cover at Design*Sponge — I made one of these for our camera the other day. Not only is is fashionable, but now I don’t have to put up with that weird rubbery side of the strap touching my neck.
4. Stone Loops of Jurassica — I’m totally addicted to this game. I play it on my iPhone while Augie nurses.
5. Cosmo Cricket Snorkel paper — I love the bright, summery colors of this paper. Perfect for photos of my cutie little California boys. Actually, I’m loving all the Cosmo Cricket papers right now. Must resist….
6. Red toenails — Every summer, I paint my toenails red. I finally got to it this week and it gives me so much pleasure to look down and see my toes painted.
7. Charlie and Lola — I’m suddenly totally enamored of this kids’ show. We’ve checked out some of the books from the library before and they’re great, but I think the show is even better! That’s not something I say very often, either. The voices are perfect and the cool collage-y animation is wonderful to watch. If you have kids, you should go get a DVD to watch, right now!
8. The Freakin Never Ending To Do List — You have one too, right? Right? Download this free printable and like me, you can laugh every time you pull it out.
9. Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes — I’ve made three of the cupcakes in here so far. The red velvet recipe was fantastic. The others I’ve made are the brown sugar poundcake with brown butter icing and the triple citrus. Those were good too, but not good enough for me to make either of them again. I think the next kind I’m going to try are the one bowl chocolate cupcakes. I’ve heard lots of good things about those.

And finally, this is going out to all the mothers out there. I hope your kids treat you right!

I’ve been on a huge sewing kick lately! I’ve managed to churn out a bunch of different projects in the past few weeks and I thought I’d share them here.

My new internet addiction is sewing tutorials — I just can’t get enough of them.  I’ve been haunting the Sew, Mama, Sew! blog, The Long Thread and finding lots and lots of other great blogs and sewing sites. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — isn’t the internet fabulous? Seriously, what did we do before the internet? I don’t think I’d know half the stuff I know today. Anywhooooo…on to the projects!

Spring Ruffle Top

My first project and the one that kicked off all these sewing shenanigans is Made by Rae’s Spring Ruffle Top. If you click through to the link you’ll see Rae’s svelte sister modeling the cutest dang top you’ve ever seen. My effort, however, did not produce the cutest dang top of all time. I did make a lovely tent though.

From the front, not so bad:

From the side — dear God! Look at all that fabric!

(Yeah — the pose is goofy, but I wanted to show how completely unflattering this top is from the side.)

Now, I’m a hefty gal and I knew I wouldn’t look like the girl in the picture — but come on! This top adds a good 20-30 pounds to my frame. And the crazy part is that I took it in THREE separate times before I got sick of it and decided to call it done. What the heck could I have done so wrong? The tutorial has you take all your measurements and then sew it to fit your specific numbers. All I can think is that I am horribly inept at measuring. Either that or the tutorial doesn’t convert well into plus sizes. I think either scenario could be correct, given what happened with the next project….

Wedding Skirt

I searched high and low for a skirt to wear to our friends’ wedding, but couldn’t find anything in the stores. In a last desperate move, I made Angry Chicken’s 5 Minute Skirt the morning of the wedding.

This skirt took me longer than 5 minutes, but it was very easy. For this one, you only need your waist measurement. Simple, huh? How could you mess that up? I measured, drew the pattern, cut the pieces and sewed up the side seams really quickly. After the sides were sewn I thought it looked a little roomy, so I decided to try it on to see what the fit was like. I pulled it up to my waist and when I let go — I kid you not — it fell right back down to the floor. I can safely say that no one will ever describe me as “slim-hipped” so that means the waist was huge. This time I couldn’t believe that I’d screwed up so badly, so I re-measured my waist and then measured the waist of the skirt and the numbers matched up. Does anyone know what happened here? Is it because it was a bias cut skirt? It doesn’t seem mathematically possible that this could have happened.

I ended up taking the skirt in 8 inches(!) before it was finally passable. Frankly, I think I still could have taken it in a bit more, but we were going to be late for the wedding if I futzed with it any more, so I quickly added the elastic and hemmed it and we ran out the door. That being said, I will definitely be making this skirt again to try to get the fit right. Once I have a pattern that works, I think it really will take less than half an hour to throw one together.

Headbands

My next project was wholly successful! Hooray! I made these clever little headbands from Blue Bird Studio. These guys really did come together in just a few minutes and I used remnants from some other projects so I felt super frugal.

These are basically just a strip of fabric folded over a few times with the ends sewn around a rubberband for a little stretch.

Cute and easy! Here I am modeling one.

Next time I take a picture of myself, I’ll brush my hair, OK?

Baby Pants

I also made a couple more pairs of the Rookie Moms T-shirt Pants for Augie with some shirts I got at the thrift store.

A crazy t-shirt with a big snake on it produced these rock star pants:

And a plaid button-down shirt made these golf pants:

Baby T-shirts

And finally, I wanted to show these onesies I made to go with the rock star pants. These aren’t technically a sewing project because I made them with iron-ons I found at Joann Fabric, but I thought they were cute.