PSA: Bath toys

This is a public service announcement for new mothers. Before you put those cute squirty bath toys on your registry, I want to show you something. Warning: this is horrifying... [I'm being a little sarcastic here, but this is actually true.]

That's a bath tub full of bits of MOLD! I wish you could actually see what it looked like in person because this doesn't do it justice (as if that's a bad thing).

Let me tell you something. I may be OCD, but in general, germs don't bother me all that much. "A little dirt don't hurt" I say. But my kids bathing with mold?? I am NOT okay with that.

Let me tell you something else. I have a hard time keeping up with stuff around the house. It's always messy with dirty laundry, dishes, etc. piled in various places. I do my best, but we have to live life. But the one thing I DO do is squeeze out our bath toys after EVERY bath.

Now, before you freak out too much, this was AFTER their bath (they didn't actually bathe with this, exactly), and after my trying to clean the toys, which apparently just loosened the mold, but all of that was inside the toys that they play with (and, in James' case, CHEW on!) on a normal basis. 

I had noticed some stuff coming out of their toys recently, so I decided it was time for a good cleaning. I've thrown gross bath toys away before, but most of their current toys were a set of squeezie boats we received as a gift from family this summer in Canada and they are FAVORITES. There would probably be mutiny if I threw them away. I looked up how to clean bath toys and found this blog (which I recalled having already pinned on Pinterest). I did a bleach soak and made sure to squeeze the bleach mixture into the toys. They soaked for about two hours, then I rinsed the outsides really well, then filled the sink with clean water and rinsed the insides of each toy really well, squeezing clean water in, shaking it around, and forcefully squeezing it out over and over again. I did this until no more mold came out and I thought they were good. The blog had suggested plugging the holes with hot glue so it wouldn't happen again, but I thought, "well, that's silly! That takes away the point of the toy!". So I threw them in the tub with the boys.

Within minutes I saw some of the floaty stuff. Yuck! We quickly finished the baths, and when Jason took the boys to put them in their PJs I started squeezing out the toys again and mold was basically flying out of every single one! I called Jason in to show him and he was as disgusted as I was. 

We agreed to go ahead and plug the holes, as sad as that is, but I think they'd still be happy to play with the boats just as boats. I'm thinking we might buy a new set of squeezie toys (they usually come in packs of 10 or so) and put one or two in the bath, then after a few weeks, toss those away and get out two new ones. Either that or skip squeezie toys altogether. The boys enjoy squirting the water, but would they really miss it? Maybe squeezie toys can be reserved for pools and outdoor play.

Just thought I'd share because I was actually quite surprised. I thought one or two of the toys were kind of gross, but I did NOT think all of them were, nor did I think they had that much grossness inside of them!

Bubble Bath

I told you I was playing catch up!

Bubble bath! It's not the first time we've done a bubble bath, but James sure seemed unsure of what to make of the bubbles!



We are working on teaching James some baby signs, just like we did with Drew, so, in retrospect, I think what Drew was trying to ask was how to "say" bubbles in sign language. I obviously missed that. I actually find it funny how often I watch videos and figure out what one of them was trying to do or say that I missed the first time around. Apparently I should live in instant replay. :P

Wordless Wednesday: Return of the mohawk

(P.S. Those are bath crayons... cool, huh?)

Wordless Wednesday: Drew's new "do"s

For Aunt Christine

Drew loves his towel that you made!

And I love him in it! Thank you!

Bubbles!

Tiling and styling!

Jason and I actually managed to accomplish a small remodeling project in our house, which, as far as I'm concerned, is no small feat with a) a baby in the house and b) pretty much no handiwork skills.

We actually redid our entire downstairs bathroom, or "powder room" for my Canadian counterparts. It all started because of a wobbly toilet.  It was so bad that I would get up off the toilet (which, at 9 months pregnant, was a little too frequently) and it would make a huge noise, then I would hear water running... not a good sign. After Drew was born Jason's mom came to visit and helped us pull out the toilet to replace the seal underneath.  It turned out that there was a leak, and it was pretty bad; the hardwoods under and around the toilet were pretty much destroyed.

So we decided to pull out the wood and replace it with tile.  Who puts hardwoods in a bathroom anyway? (Don't even get me started on the hardwoods in my kitchen... I love the wood, but between leaking refrigerators, dishwashers, back doors where wet animals come in and out, and of course said animals' water bowl, they're just about destroyed too!).  We picked out some tile that would match the chocolate brown walls in the bathroom....

Then we realized those walls were in horrible need of being repainted too (and what better time to paint than when the toilet and sink are out of the way!). My main reason for wanting to repaint the walls was because the previous owner had used a flat paint, and that paint showed every drip of water from shaking water off hands and dripping it over the towel.  Even though many of you were happy to see it go, I actually liked the chocolate brown, but I finally admitted that a closet-sized bathroom is not the place for dark enclosing colors (I should mention that aside from our master bathroom all the colors in our house are from the previous owner).  I was going to get a glossy version of a slightly lighter brown but I finally relented and decided to paint the walls with the same neutral color the rest of our house is painted with (so boring!).

Because I picked such a boring wall color I wanted to spruce up the rest of the bathroom. I wanted to incorporate the dark brown that I loved, and thought I'd also pull in some of the red from my living room and kitchen. Jason, however, was not happy about that prospect because he knew it meant spending even more money.

So I managed to buy only a few small things- a new towel (you can't use a tan towel with tan walls), a soap dispenser ($5 at Target!), a can of brown spray paint, a bottle of "antiqued bronze" metallic paint, and some red/orange glass marbles. I painted the mirror frame, the trash can, the towel hanger, and the toilet paper holder (which were all gold) with the antiqued bronze metallic paint, then spray painted my wicker baskets brown.  I almost bought a wall hanging for the wall (actually, I DID buy a wall hanging, and promptly returned it) before I realized I already had one sitting around doing nothing after getting knocked off the wall in my entry way (picture Jason walking through the house with a lawn mower... okay, okay, it's just a push mower, but still!). It was even better than the one I had purchased- the interlocking rectangles looked perfect with the little red rectangles on my towel. Instead of buying candles I filled the votive holders with brown stones I already had and the cheap red/orange glass marbles I had purchased.

I wish I had before and after pics, but I didn't think of it at the time. At the very least, here is the color the walls were (they were the same color that is currently in my upstairs guest bath, or Drew's bathroom I guess I should say)

And here are the hardwoods (against a darker chocolate brown)

And voila, the new bathroom:

It drives me nuts that some of the rectangles are crooked

 

Many thanks to "Poppy" for all the help ripping out the hardwoods and installing the tile.

And many thanks to Grandma for helping to fix our horrid painting job!!

Grandma had to borrow some painting clothes from me. Guess what? She's wearing a shirt I used to wear in 6th grade!

P.S. Those of you who have been to my house may be thinking, "that bathroom has been finished for a month! Why is she just posting pictures now?" Well, things were "finished" for a month but we finally got the last finishing touch put on last week- the wall hanging. I couldn't possibly take pictures until that was finished!!

Splish splash

Drew loves taking baths!

I got a new bathtub for him (thanks Great-Grandma Paulen!).  In this tub his feet are actually in the water; he quickly learned just how fun it is to splash!  Look how happy (and wet!) he is!

Who do I look like?

Am I a mama's boy or a chip off my dad's shoulder?  Some people have told me I look just like my dad, while others say there's no way my mom could deny me.  What do you think?  Take a vote!

Here are some comparison pics of when we were all babies!  (Click on the pics to make them bigger).

And here is a pic of Mommy and Daddy now:

What do you think?

Just added: a good close-up of me!

Get This - Survey Results - GlowDay.com