This day is brought to you by the letter 'P'

'P' standing for puke, packing and Pitch and Praise.

As in, because Haydon's napping, I should really be packing for the weekend, but it's hard to drink my delicious coffee while packing, and it's easy to do it while blogging/reading blogs.

We're going with the youth from our church to Pitch and Praise - a weekend camping retreat.  I'm not sure if I'm pumped or petrified about going camping with a baby and a bunch of young teens...I think it'll be good.  My one ridiculous and irrational fear about the weekend is that I would be wandering around with my babe strapped on and need to pee and not have anyone I can pass the baby too.  To which St. James said "It can't be that hard to pee with him in the sling!" (We don't all come with that kind of equipment...).  And my friends, the other leaders who are going said "...we'll hold Haydon."  Phew.

The problem with packing is, Haydon is perpetually puking.  This is fine when I'm at home and can do two loads of laundry a day (crap!  I'm supposed to have diapers in right now!).  This is less fine when by 9 in the morning he's already puked all over me.  I had all of our clothes clean last night so that I could pack everything, and I'm not sure I will even have clean clothes to pack by the end of the day.

It's a good thing I love doing laundry so much.  Here's some pics from my line earlier this week.

Eeeee!  Does it get much better?  SO cute!

I know.  Poop stains.  Gross.  Have I mentioned that I love cloth diapers?  This would NOT have happened if he wasn't in disposable that night...St. James said he was cleaning poop out of his neck.  Have I mentioned that I love St. James?
 

Yep.  Baby stuff is cute.  H&M for the monster socks...

A Poem for My Boy

Hey, remember that time I was obsessed with diapers?

...oh right.  That would be currently.

And to feed the flames of fanny fanatacism, I just discovered a new blog.  http://clothdiapers.blogspot.com
Yep, 'cause I really need to spend more time reading about diapers.  You probably do too.

Anyway, they're having a Mom's Week give away.  To enter, you have to write a little (500 words or less) blurb on the theme "I'm so glad you were born"

And so I decided I would exercise my creative writing skills, 'cause they haven't been used in awhile.  I wrote a poem for my boy.  Can I share it?  It's a little sappy...keep your eye rolling and gagging noises to yourself.


I'm So Glad You Were Born

I’m so glad you were born.

You - with your perfect pursed pout

You - with your ever-rosy cheeks

You - with your deep baby blues

lined with those lovely luscious lashes.

I’m so glad you were born.

You - with your early-morning squeals

You - with your deep sleepy grins

You - with your gleeful giggles

 that leave me no choice but to laugh along with you.

I’m so glad you were born mine.

Mine - to cuddle and kiss as you sleep at my breast

Mine - to grin over with pride as they tell me “how beautiful!”

Mine - to love and to lead

as we look to the future with wonder and hope.

 

Cloth Diapering Resources

This is the end of the diaper diaries, I promise. I just wanted to post some helpful links and resources for cloth diapering.

*The first is re-diaper, a Hamilton based cloth diaper store run by my friend Anj. Located on Ottawa St S, re-diaper has a great selection of cloth diapers and accessories, and Anj is super knowledgable and helpful. When Haydon was born, Anj got us set up with everything we needed. Including a lasagna (I can't promise the lasagna deal is still running). BUT, I can tell you that Anj has some great Earth Day sales on right now, and that they're on until tomorrow. I can also tell you that I have 3 coupons for 10% off at Little Bird/re-diaper, and am happy to give them to the first three people who speak up!

*Simplemom.net is a great blog resource for all things mom related. Last year it ran a great series on cloth diapering, with info on everything from what kinds of diapers are out there, to how to put them on, to how to wash them, and pretty much anything else you can imagine that's cloth diaper related. When I was pregnant, I spent HOURS reading about and researching diapers, and this was a great starting point!

I think that's all I have to say! I hope that my diaper ramblings have piqued your interest, and that I have hopefully gotten rid of some of the scariness of cloth diapering. Feel free to ask me any questions!

And now...I have diapers to hang out!

The Dirt on Diapers

It's Earth Day, did you know? Apparently I didn't, 'cause I thought it was last week. Which started my week of diaper blogging. In case you forgot why I love cloth diapers...

- they save me money
- they save trees, and don't take up room in a landfill
- they hold poop better, and are nicer for my boy's skin
- they are easy to use
- they are stinkin' cute

Sure. All of those things are great. But for many people, the big hang up with cloth diapers, is the laundry. Here are the two laundry-related reasons people have given me for not wanting to use cloth:

"You put the poopy diapers IN YOUR WASHER!!!! ewwwwwwwwwwww. I'd feel like I needed TWO washers - one for the poopy diapers, and one for my clothes."

"But, all that extra laundry....?"

And here are my responses:

Washers are for washing. Washing dirty things. Dirty things like diapers. When a baby is being breastfed, the poop washes off no problem, and once they move to solids, you can roll the poop into a toilet before tossing the diaper in your pail. And if the diapers come out of the washer clean, I'm pretty certain the inside of your washer is clean by the end of the cycle too. I have yet to find poop on my clothes.

And what about all the extra laundry? I don't do that much diaper laundry. I do more laundry because I've been puked on than I do diapers. We have 20 diapers. Every 2-3 days, I remove the bag from my pail, walk downstairs, put the diapers and the bag, into the washer, press the start button, and walk away. An hour and a half later, I return, put the diapers in the dryer for awhile. If it's a nice sunny day, I'll toss them in the dryer for 20 minutes or so just to soften them up, then hang them in the sun - it bleaches out the poop stains. If it's not nice out, or I don't have the time, they take about 1hr and 20minutes to dry in the dryer. I have a second pail liner that I put in while the other one is washing. So, really...it's not that much work. I remove the bag from the bin (which, last I checked, you have to do with disposables...unless someone has some great system in which you drop the diaper into the pail and it disappears forever. If you do, you might be able to convince me to switch.) I carry the bag downstairs (you have to take the disposable diapers out of the pail and out to the curb, right? same amount of work so far). I wash the diapers. They don't sit in my house all week getting stinky and gross.

If you reallyREALLY can't handle the "extra work" of washing diapers, there are diaper services! And, believe it or not, they are STILL cheaper than disposables - about $25/week or less. Here are two in the area:
Comfy Cotton
Bear Bottoms

I have one post to come...some cloth diapering resources. Links, stores, etc. Check it out!

Diapers, ad nauseum

Yep, you have reason to think I'm nuts. I have more to say about diapers. Did I mention I get excited about them?

So, I already told you how much money they save, and how many trees they save, and how much better they hold poop. But, I haven't told you how easy they are to use. I'm pretty sure that it's about the same amount of work as disposables (although, I don't know this for sure, 'cause I have never used disposables full time). Let me tell you how it works at our house.

This is our change station. Underneath are the diapers and covers. In the hangy-thing to the right we keep cloth wipes, and to the left is the pail where the dirties go. When it's time to change a diaper, we come in, first grab a wipe, walk to the bathroom and get it wet, then return to do the deed here. Diaper comes off, and is dumped in the pail beside the change table. So far, pretty much the same as a disposable (aside from wipe-wetting, I suppose). Clean up whatever mess is here (I like cloth wipes a lot more - they just seem to clean easier, and if your babe has sensitive skin, you don't have to worry about wipe chemicals), then grab a fresh diaper.

The diapers we mainly use are called kissaluvs. We've tried a couple other systems, but these are the ones we like best. It's a fitted cotton diaper. We add the doubler because Haydon is a pretty heavy wetter. It just lays inside.

Over top of the diaper goes a cover. There are lots of different kinds, we've got 4 or 5 that we've tried. This is the fun part of diapering - so many different colours and patterns to choose from! There are some with snap closures, and some with velcro. Velcro is fast and easy, but snaps last longer (good for future babes), and are more difficult for a baby to take off on their own. Also, if you have a porker like mine who's belly tends to roll over the top of the diaper, the snaps avoid velcro scratchies.

That's all there is to it! And seriously, does a disposable diaper look this cute?

I think not...

In praise of cloth diapers

It's earth day, did you know? To celebrate, I drove to Starbucks with my reusable cup instead of walking to Timmy's and using their paper cup. Apparently I love good coffee more than I love the planet. But, I do love the planet. And I think it's important that we use our resources carefully. And as soon as there is Starbucks in walking distance, I'll walk there instead of drive.

Cloth diapers are one way that we are trying to be responsible with our "footprint", as they say. I thought I'd do a little plug here to share with you my love of cloth diapers. Often, when I mention using cloth, or people see me changing Haydon and comment on cloth, the remarks are along the line of "Wow! You use cloth? Good for you..." With a hint of "That's way too much work for me." or "I refuse to carry around poopy diapers." in the background. Really, it's not that much work. And, as far as cleaning up or carrying around poop goes, that's not a huge issue either.

So, why do we love cloth? Let's start with the environmental reasons. I've read that it can take over 500 years for for a disposable to decompose, and that a baby can go through 5,000 diapers...imagine that pile in a landfill. Also, creating all of those disposables can take up to 300 lbs of wood. That's a huge environmental cost.

Then, there's the out of pocket cost. Diapers are expensive. Using disposable diapers, up unto the age of 3, can cost almost $4,000...that's for one kid. Cloth can be a bit expensive up front, but, once you've bought them, you've got them. And you can use them for future children. Here's a great cost comparison . I'd say, so far we've spent about $500 on cloth diaprs, and I think we're set for the next little while - the diapers we're using right now are supposed to fit up to 25lbs. We could easily have spent at least $500 (and probably more) on disposables up to this point, and still need to shell out around $30-$40/week for the next couple of years. Yes, we need to take into consideration detergent and energy costs for washing, but it's still considerably less.

Along with the cost to the environment, and my pocketbook, there's the actual diaper performance. The few times I've had Haydon in disposables, he's had poop explosions, and diaper rash. In cloth, we've had no rash, and maybe one time the poop has escaped the confines of the diaper. Cloth also doesn't give him saggy droopy bum after a while of wearing.

So, that's why we love cloth. Here's my response to other peoples' reasons for not using cloth.

First let me deal with the poop. Then I'll show you how cloth is not that much work.

a)Breastmilk poops are not stinky. I'm not gonna say there's no scent, but it's not a gross one.

b)Solid poops just roll of into a toilet, and you don't have to carry them around.

c)If you really don't want the inconvenience of carrying around dirty diapers, use disposables when you're out. It will still make a huge difference in your diaper costs and ecological footprint.

d)Your washing machine was made to clean dirty stuff, and will not be forever contaminated by having poopy diapers in it.

Ok. That's enough for one post. I have tons more to say, so I think I'll make this a multi-post topic. And there will be pictures. Lots of pictures. Later.

Discussion is welcome!!!