Adventures in Cloth Diapering

I've always been intrigued by cloth diapers because of the monetary savings, but I thought they must be way too much work! If it wasn't for a couple of friends sharing their experiences, Michael and I would have never realized how surprisingly simple and rewarding cloth diapering is. I want to share our experience in hopes that another parent or soon-to-be parent is inspired to do the same.

**Side note: If you use disposable diapers, please, please, please don't feel guilt tripped by this post! There simply isn't the time to pursue everything good in the world, so we have to pick and choose. Michael and I have simply picked cloth diapering to be one of the good things that we do.

Why cloth diapers?

They're good for your wallet. Although the exact number varies from source to source, everyone agrees that a child will burn through thousands of diapers before becoming potty trained. Taking care of your kids poop and pee can easily cost you a couple thousand, dollars.

Cloth diapers are cheaper. We spent a little over $300 on our diapers, special laundry detergent, and reusable diaper pail liners. Instead of baby wipes, we also use dampened baby washcloths and throw them in with the dirty diapers for washing and reusing. We hope to eventually have at least two kids, so we will be doubling or tripling (or quadrupling?!) our savings over the years.

They're good for the planet. Every disposable diaper requires a cup of crude oil to make and ultimately takes 500 years to decompose. Multiply that by thousands of diapers per kid and you've got a lot of negative environmental impact. I'm sure cloth diapers also require a lot of energy to make and take a while to decompose, but since you need less than twenty, the environmental impact is not nearly the same.

They're cute. Cloth diapers come in all sorts of fun patterns and colors. They're way cuter than disposables!

How much work are they? When you're caring for a diapered little one, time is a precious commodity. If cloth diapers created hours of extra work, I wouldn't have taken the plunge, but they're really not bad at all. Changing Grace's diapers takes a few extra seconds every time. Negligible, right? Every two or three days I wash her diapers which means dumping them all in the washer to go for a cold cycle to get the yuckies out and a hot cycle to get them clean. That takes just minutes of work. Once the washing is done, I hang them out to dry. This takes about five minutes.

The one thing that takes any notable time is restuffing them, and that takes about fifteen minutes, and I do it about three times per week. All in all, we invest about an hour or so of our time per week to save lots of money and a little bit of the planet.

**Edit: In an effort not to exaggerate, I overestimated how much time these things take. Line drying takes about two minutes. Re-stuffing the diapers takes less than ten minutes. Not bad at all!


If you're intrigued, check out this website for tons more helpful info. Or if you live in the Los Angeles area, I can give you an in-person tutorial.

Ten Things I Learned in June

Two of the bloggers that I follow have begun making lists of X things learned in Y month. So, I decided to try it out myself! Here are ten random lessons I learned in June.

1. Walks are more fun when you take a camera along.

2. Taking pictures is one of the easiest ways to insert a little creativity into my life. I want to do it more.

3. I can put things off for a really long time. I purchased a large photo frame shortly after getting married, and I just printed a wedding picture to put into it. Better four years late than never, right?

4. Photos look better printed than on a screen.

5. Costco is an amazing place to get prints. (Costco is an amazing place in general!) They're cheap, you can upload them online, and you can pick them up when you get your groceries and make your free sample rounds.

6. Making decisions with the prayerful support of friends is the way to go. Why do I try to fly solo so often?

7. Pregnancy weight takes forever to lose. And I am impatient.

8. 100 degree weather, drool, spit up, sweat, and the desire to put everything in her mouth makes for one sticky baby girl.

9. My favorite part of parenting, hands down, is is watching her grow and learn new skills all the time. I love watching my baby grow up!

10. Physics is fascinating. I am reading Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and Michael and I have been watching Minute Physics before going to sleep. My nerdy, curious mind is satisfied. Though Schrodinger's Cat makes zippo sense to me, and I feel pretty unintelligent when I try to follow the logic.

Playtime

Having fun with the kid. :-)

The way she tracks my emotions so closely in this clip is amusing, though a bit frightening!

Grace - Four Months Old

Our kid is growing by leaps and bounds! She is so pleasant to be around, very willing to smile at mommy, laughing more and more, and constantly exploring the world with her eyes and by grabbing objects and putting them straight into her mouth. If she gets fussy or bored, we step outside where the breeze gently playing on the trees, the colors of the flowers, and the sounds of the birds absolutely mesmerize her.

Nature and putting things in her mouth.
Two of Grace's greatest loves.

Nice hair, kid.

That's a nine month dress our big girl is wearing!

Here are a few highlights and lowlights of the last two months:

• 10 weeks old: She started laughing!
• 11 weeks old: She was diagnosed with acid reflux. What a relief to have an explanation for her fussiness and crying and her difficulty with naps and nighttime sleep. Within a few days of putting her on medication, her true, happy, curious personality came out. Now, over a month later, her little esophagus is all healed up from the irritation and she rarely shows signs of reflux. At 11 weeks old, she also went on a plane for the first time... it was awful! Because of the reflux and being in a new environment, she screamed and cried almost the entire trip.
• 12 weeks old: She started bearing weight on her legs. Also, the meds helped so much, that she started waking up once per night. But, then she quickly reverted to waking up twice again. Oh babies.
• 13 weeks old: She started razzing and I bought her some of her first toys at a thrift store for dirt cheap. Once in the middle of the night, Michael put her in her crib on her back, went to the bathroom, and then looked at her before crawling back in bed to find that she was on her stomach. Though we haven't seen it happen since.
• 15 weeks old: Grace's strong suit is anything verbal. Believe it or not, she started imitating the word "hello." She says something along the lines of "ah-looh." She's also consistently sleeping through the night now. Most nights, she goes to bed, sleeps for eight hours, wakes up to eat, and then sleeps a couple more.
• 16 weeks old: For the first few months, all Grace wanted to do was talk and stare at the world, and she quickly tired of anything physical. Now, she suddenly loves being held sitting up, she bears most of her weight while held standing, and she is trying so, so hard to roll over!

Getting Rid of Stuff

On Monday evening, my husband wheeled our recycling barrel crammed full of boxes and papers to the curb. On Tuesday, we overfilled it again for next week's pickup. We still have enough paper goods to fill it yet again.

On Wednesday, I dropped off four large boxes and one large trash bag of our stuff at Goodwill.

Yesterday and today, my husband raked in $30 by selling a book online and cds at a used music store.

I've always found satisfaction in keeping my possessions trimmed down, so when I recently found a $1 ebook on minimalism, I dropped the dollar, devoured it, and felt more inspired than ever to get rid of clutter. Michael and I have gone on a whirlwind rampage against our junk, ruthlessly getting rid of things that we don't use.

Here are two of the many tips and pointers from the ebook that I found most inspiring:

• When I've decluttered in the past, I often tackle a closet, drawer, shelf, or room with the mindset of removing what I don't want to keep. The author of the ebook had the tip of removing everything from the space you are tackling and putting back only the things you want. Catch the subtle frame of mind difference? You end up getting rid of more. And getting rid of more is usually a good thing.
• Declutter your inbox. Over the last few years, I've subscribed to all sorts of newsletters, ads, etc. so that every morning, I delete at least a dozen junk emails without ever reading them. Over the past couple of weeks, every time one of those emails comes in, I immediately unsubscribe. Now every morning, I open my inbox to see just a few emails that bear relevant information.

Isn't it ironic how our culture tells us so often that we need more things to feel good and yet owning more things just makes our lives more complicated? With every few items I throw away, give away, or sell, I feel freer and lighter. I love getting rid of stuff!

First Father's Day

This evening, I went with Michael, Grace, and my in laws to a delicious local burgers & beer place to celebrate Father's Day. Grace was a trooper hanging in with us even though she was sleepy.

Happy First Father's Day, Michael. When we got married, I had a strong suspicion that you would make a fantastic dad someday. I was right! It is such a joy to watch Grace wrap you around her little finger. I am so grateful that she has you as her first model of the love of her heavenly Daddy. What a great place to start!

Travels

Why, hello blog world! I haven't seen you in a minute! On Monday night (Or was it Tuesday early morning?) we returned from a two week Colorado vacation. I stayed pretty unplugged during those two weeks. Tomorrow, we leave for a weekend trip to Catalina Island and will be completely unplugged again.

The Colorado trip was absolutely wonderful, as always. Tons of amazing food, tons of wacky family, tons of incredible nature, tons of much-welcomed help with the baby. Although I have many pictures and many thoughts collected from the two weeks, I will leave you with just two pictures and one thought:

I hope I am as beautiful as my grandmas (both inside and out) when I'm in my eighties. Aren't they lovely?