making your own laundry detergent and jude update

In our efforts to adjust our income so that I can be a stay at home Mom, my goal has been to reduce our monthly payments as much as possible. We've done many things -big and small - to reduce our monthly bills, and lately I've been tackling our grocery budget. For the three of us, our budget is $130/every two weeks for groceries (which includes things like detergent, shampoo, toilet paper, paper towels, etc.). We do about 90% of our grocery shopping at Aldi, and the other 10% is usually at WalMart. I started couponing almost two months ago, and have been able to stretch our grocery budget even further.

One of our most expensive monthly items is laundry detergent, so when I came across a link for how to make your own, I bookmarked it and always had it in the back of my mind to try. About a week ago our store bought stuff was running low, so I figured I'd go ahead and give it a whirl. I didn't take pictures of it because I was doing it in small steps in between taking care of Jude and sewing, so I'm really sorry for not having any pictures to post. However, if you click HERE, you'll find a fantastic tutorial complete with photos. This was the tutorial I followed (the only difference being that I let the soap boil for awhile even after it had dissolved. This was pure accident - Jude had a meltdown, needed a diaper change, and had to be put down for a nap, and I completely forgot the soap was simmering). However, I actually think letting it simmer for awhile longer helped my detergent to not have any chunks and gave it the same texture as my store bought detergent - a jello-ish kind of thing.

I've used the homemade stuff for three or four loads, and it works perfectly! Since Jude hasn't shown any reactions to any of the other detergents we've used, I use it for his clothes, too. I'm hesitant to use the homemade stuff for his diapers, though - I'm afraid the Borax might be too harsh on a baby bum.

I will say though, that my skin is notoriously weird about detergents (and perfumes, actually), and more often than not they cause me to break out. This homemade stuff hasn't caused any breakouts!

If you click on the link, the author has a breakdown of how much you save per year by making your own detergent, and how much the cost of one batch ends up being. I made one batch, and put about a third of it into an empty All Free&Clear container we had. The other two thirds are in a covered bucket in our garage. It takes us about a month to go through the All detergent, which leads me to believe it'll take us about three months to go through my homemade batch. My guess would be that the ingredients will last us at least another three batches - making an entire year!

I'm so excited to be able to cross off "laundry detergent" from our grocery list AND save us some money in our monthly budget!

Now of course - onto some Jude goodness! He's walking up a storm, and is more often choosing to walk rather than crawl. He can recognize (and obey) commands like, "Can I have that?" and "Close the door, please." We're working with him to say, "More," and "Up," because when he wants more, or wants out of his high chair, he whines - and that's just grating. He responds to those words, but hasn't said them yet.

He's developing the skill of throwing a temper tantrum, and I'm developing a skill of walking away from said temper tantrum. The kid arches his back, throws his head back, and wails. Maybe this makes me a bad Mom, but I shrug my shoulders, say "let me know when you're finished," set him down safely, and walk away. Once he's stopped, I address whatever it was that was bothering him.

He's been a little under the weather, so the past couple of nights haven't been great for him sleeping, but he seems to have this "putting yourself to sleep" thing down pat. He's not even interested in us rocking him to sleep at night, he'd rather us lay him down after we pray for him, and let him get cozy on his own. Shawn and I are both really excited about this, but are also a little sad at missing out on that cuddle time with him.

The major downside of all this is trying to figure out how to get him to take naps on Wednesdays and Fridays when he's at work with us. We used to be able to rock him to sleep in our arms, and then kind of do work one-armed while he took a nap. He's refused to nap for either of us this past week - screaming his head off instead. We're still not sure what to do - pack and play in our offices, maybe (but do we really want to lug in a pack and play along with all his other stuff, and can we afford to go out and buy two more just to keep in our offices)? Shorter work days (an option I don't think our bosses would be thrilled about)? Suffering through an entire day without a nap until we can get him home and lay him down?

I honestly don't know - what would you guys do?

Jude's starting to recognize pictures of people, which is so much fun. We got a Christmas card from the Williams' a few days ago, and I was letting Jude play with it. He kept pointing to Jonah's face, and I would say, "That's Jonah! That's your friend Jonah!" Then Jude's body would spaz in joy, and he'd hit the picture with both hands, doing his little happy dance. He also likes pointing at Mommy's nose, at pictures in books, at the television, and at anything else that captures his attention.

Speaking of which - it appears a candle has captured his attention - I should probably go address that, huh?