Cloth Diaper Burnout

I have a terrible confession to make.  I don’t even know how to say it.  Okay, here it goes….I AM TIRED OF WASHING DIAPERS!  Do I feel better?  Not particularly, because I know there are people out there doing their little smug “I told you so” dances.

Evie has been in cloth diapers since she was 3 months old.  I pushed through the blow outs with the prefolds until I got it right.  I pushed through the leaking of the one size pocket diapers until I got it right.  I had my washing routine down.  Then a few things started happening that put a damper on cloth diapers for me.  The first, and major, problem was the washing machine.  It is leaking and no one knows why.  SoHubby looked at it, although all that included was him lifting it up to discover there was nothing to see.  We called, and paid, a service guy to come out.  All he could tell me was that maybe I was putting too many items in the washer at once.  To which I reply, “Why the hell did I get a washer with an extra large option if it doesn’t hold extra large loads?”  Both men, SoHubby and repair man, blinked and stared at me until I threw up my hands and walked out.  To the great delight of the repair man, who doesn’t know why the washer is leaking or where the water is coming from, the guts of the washer still look good.  So when he called to ask if his brilliant advice of smaller loads (which puts a real cramp into my laundry routine) worked, I simply said, “I am going to wear this MUTHA out until it breaks completely.”  Or something to that effect.  In the mean time every time I do a load of laundry I get the equivalent of a small Mississippi River in my laundry room.  Since I don’t have something called a French drain (I assuming this is a drain that smokes cigarettes and doesn’t understand my silly American ways) I have been laying beach towels in the leaking spots and letting the river flow.  Not something I suggest to our civil engineers currently working on the rising Mississippi River problem.

Next I have been feeling overwhelmed lately.  I can’t pinpoint one thing exactly just a rush of little to major things going on that have been occupying my time to the point that if I have to dunk a poopy diaper in the toilet and run the washer 4 times at night then the dryer twice I might just go insane.  Another problem plaguing me is that my diapers are showing wear.  I guess if I was placed on a spewing butt daily for almost 2 years I would show some wear, too.  Heed my warning dear ladies, who are looking into cloth diapers, get the snaps.  Velcro is good until it is bad.  Also, they are stained.  Not that they are stained on the outside that you would see Evie and say, “GOOD GOD! What did that child sit in.”, but more on the inside where you wonder are these clean or not.  It isn’t for a lack of trying to get my diapers sparkling white, again, just Evie has had some toxic sludge doing in that region, lately.  Note: No raisins for her.  The aftermath is not pretty.

I have done the most heinous thing since I signed the cloth diaper contract, I have used disposable diapers from time to time.  This last time for 4 weeks.  It has been our little secret, but as what happens with all secrets, we were found out.  It was okay to use the disposable diapers when Evie had some rash that only Boudreaux’s  could handle.  That hippy dippy stuff made especially for cloth diapers was burning her butt, so I decided to go with the tried and true original butt paste.  Then there was the yeast that had taken up residence in the diapers that I practically needed an exorcism to remove.  After all that we were on our way until I found Target disposable diapers plus $1 off coupons.  It was a struggle, but I kept up with the cloth diapers, because that $14 could get me a few gallons of gas, right?  Then one day as I found a dirty diaper stuffed in the back almost behind the washer that I snapped and bought the devil of all crunchy mamas, disposable diapers.

I am coming to the end of the last box of disposable diapers and I am at a crossroads.  Do I buy another box, do I just hunker down and continue with the cloth diapers or should I take my own advice and just do both.  If you were a normal human being then you would just do what fits you at this moment in time and not worry about the rest, but I am me and I must torture myself until I am rocking in a corner mutter “cloth diapers” over and over to myself.  And don’t think potty training my 22 month old hasn’t crossed my mind, but if her siblings are any indication she is not ready.  Never mind the size issue.  Evie would have to wear a life preserver just to attempt to sit on the toilet at this point.  And remember the old saying, “don’t do anything that you don’t want to explain to the paramedics.”  So I think I will bite the bullet and take the heat and go through the stash of diapers, throw out the really worn ones and buy a DAMN! box of disposable diapers for when we are out and about.  Hey, I can always say, the summer is coming up and we will be home a majority of the time.  That would work, right?  Oh. Whatever! Go ahead.  Do your stupid “I told you so” dance!

Children, by Nature, are Disgusting.

I chuckle every time some one comments on how DISGUSTING cloth diapers are, like the baby has nothing to do with that or some how disposables magically make a small human shooting out crap less DISGUSTING.  I just assume that person doesn’t have children or their child has just enter the world and they are still in the “OOOOOh, she/he is sooooooooo perfect” phrase.  Yeah, well I am here to tell you that I have had 3 kids, used disposables on 2 of them and cloth on one of them, 2 are potty trained and they are all still very disgusting.

First case:  I will never forget it.  SoHubby and I were taking a leisurely stroll through Wal-Mart one day.  I am sure we needed something, but back in those days of just one child, who was still confined to a stroller, we were still able to leisurely walk up and down the aisles of a store just for the hell out of it.  There was Amber snug in her little carseat, which was tucked into the stroller, just cooing away looking all adorable.  I didn’t know at that moment what hell waited for me.

You never know when the Poo Massacre will strike.  You can feed them what you feed them everyday.  You can have a relaxing day or an eventful day.  They can be sick or healthy.  It doesn’t matter, these little beings have been given the ability to crap twice their body weight and size and projectile it in many directions.  The diaper is just there to give the parent a false sense of security.

I looked down at Amber, who was probably older than 6 months at the time, to see something gray peeking out from her legs.  Yes, people gray.  Once you have kids you will learn that crap not only comes in many shapes and sizes, but colors, too.  So I pick up her leg simply thinking that it was some dirt or other random item that needed to be brushed away.  Oh NO!  That small peek gave a preview of what Dante’s 8th circle of hell awaited me.  I rushed her to the bathroom, where she continued to coo and laugh her way through a crap induced anxiety attack.  I peel her out of the carseat to discover that I needed a fire hose to clean up this sea of crap that laid out in front of me.  I was armed with diapers and some wipes; totally unprepared for this particular craptastic emergency.  Just imagine BP gives you a square of toilet paper and tells you to go clean up that oil just beyond that beach.  Yeah, that is how it felt.

I managed to clean Amber up and get a fresh diaper on her, but then came the problem of what to do with the baby while I hose down her carseat.  You see because I was new to this rodeo I had just taken the carseat and not the stroller.  Some how I managed to get the carseat clean enough to put Amber back in it and return to my husband, who promptly asked, “WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?”  Oh he would never ask that question again once I handed over a few Poo Massacres for him to handle.  One important lesson I learned, always layer protection around the baby to make clean up easier and never trust a flimsy diaper to hold back the Niagara Falls of Crap.

Second Case:  So you say, “Oh but that is one case with a baby.  Babies are unpredictable characters and should never be trusted.”  Very true, very true, but let’s take a case that happen just last week.  It was a Thursday and I had a full day planned.  There were doctor’s appointments, which always run late, birthday presents to exchange, lunch to be eaten, cranky children that needed to be corralled and a Bath and Body Works sale that I couldn’t miss.  I saved B&BW for last, hoping that Amber would be happy with her new pierced earrings (She got her ears pierced as her birthday present) and Sam would be happily satisfied with a full belly from lunch.  Somewhere in there he saw some lip glosses that were in the shape of doughnuts and started screaming “DOUGHNUTS!” at me for the rest of the day.  He was told that if he just BEHAVED he would be graced with 2 Krispy Kremes of his choice.  And yes, eaten inside the lovely Krispy Kreme establishment.  (If you don’t get that last statement, you don’t have a 4 year old.)  All we had left was a quick trip to B&BW.  It would be a stop that would change all of our lives and force me to never be able to step inside the Elmwood B&BW store ever again.

I have been cursed with 2 children that have bladders the size of a pea or simply have a wanderlust to see every bathroom in every establishment we enter.  So when Sam started to grab himself, jump up and down while screaming, “I have to POO!” I wasn’t surprised.  I knew that the ladies of B&BW couldn’t resist letting a cute little boy use their employees only bathroom.  I moved Sam closer to the cash registers where the young lady behind the counter would hear him and offer up her bathroom.  It worked and off went Amber and Sam to the bathroom.  Now, you may be thinking, like SoHubby, why I would let Amber go off alone with her 4 year old brother.  I have done it many times, before, and the results have been good.  Of course that would mean my son doesn’t resort back to his monkey roots and decide to create a Poo Masterpiece. Silly me, this sort of situation never occurred to me.  See he has been lulling me into a false sense of thinking that he was a civilized human being.

I am quickly looking through the Wallflowers (see how after 3 kids I am QUICKLY looking through a sale instead of a leisurely walk through the sale) which was near the open back room door where I could move into action with a split second notice.  I notice that the kids were taking a long time, so I knock on the door to ask what is going on.  Amber tells me in a very nervous and concerned voice that things were not well in that bathroom.  So I demand she unlock the door and let me in.  When that door opened, I never in a million years expected to see the horrors that awaited me.  It is still kind of a blur, but all I can remember is a very covered toilet seat, a very covered little boy, a stunned girl and asking over and over again, “WHAT DID YOU DO?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!”.  I might have, also, asked if he was a monkey in a previous life, because who in their right mind would create such a nasty mess?

I clean up the best I can with my trusty wipes, again imagine a toilet paper square and a Gulf of Mexico full of oil,  and hurry the kids to the register.  Hey, I am a bargain shopper and needed to replenish my stock of Wallflowers.  Imagine that!  I leave the restroom to meet a naive young lady working in the stock room giggling to herself.  I smile toward her while secretly  cursing her with a massive Poo Explosion from the next baby she decides to coo and cuddle.  As I leave the stockroom I am met with ea store full of shocked and appalled  customers and employees who heard everything.  I pay and chase the kids out.  Needless to say, Sam didn’t get his doughnuts that day.  Mostly because why tempt fate, again, with high sugar treats in that tummy of trouble. So you see even once they are out of diapers they are still covered in poo just a little less often and with less containment system in place.

Third Case: Our most recent case happen just today.  Now that I am using cloth diapers and no longer have that sense of security. I am always on guard, although to varying degrees.  When I expect a Poo Massacre combined with a Poo Explosion I get nothing.  When my guard is slightly down and in a hurry to get some things done that is when baby strikes.  Sneaky little babies.  I simply wanted to change Evie’s diaper before we went into Office Max to get a picture enlarged and get everyone home so we could relax and enjoy the rest of the day.  YEAH RIGHT!  I open the diaper to discover the ever common blowout.  Cloth diapers are larger than disposable diapers so blowouts reach the top of the diaper and usually stop there.  The problem comes when you open the diaper and the Poo makes a run for it.

There is Evie laying on the floor of the Suburban crying because I have to bend her in half to clean her completely while Amber sits trapped in the third row dramaing it up about the smell and Sammy running and hiding in the open parking lot.  Because you know parking lots are fun minus those huge Monster Trucks zooming through threatening to make him a Sam puddle.  For the record, Sam had escaped before I knew what was brewing in that diaper of that sweet little baby.  In the midst of trying to get Sam and not have Evie roll out of the car Poo is flying everywhere.  It got on her clothes, the clean diaper I was trying to put on her, the wetbag (a bag that us weird Cloth Diaper users use to contain dirty diapers), the floor of the car and, of course, me.  Thoroughly disgusted I abandon what we were suppose to do at Officemax, corral Sam into his carseat and fly home with a laughing naked baby in the second row.

So the next time someone says that this or that is disgusting with regards to babies or kids, just smile and know that their time is coming and soon you will find them crying in a parking lot, public bathroom or the middle of a totally inappropriate place with a laughing baby/child covered in their own bodily creations.  Oh?  You didn’t think that Poo was the only tool in which babies/kids use to disgust us with, did you?  Silly, silly adult humans.

Cloth Diapers, Potty Training. Basically, the Poop Side of Things

In previous post I wrote about how I hadn’t fully jumped into using cloth diapers.  All that has changed.  Well, most of it has changed.  Okay, okay, we are still using disposables at night.  What can I say, I value my sleep at the moment and disposables can hold more than cloth diapers. And yes, I know about using more inserts and the Loopy Do, but at the moment the thought of changing my bed, because of a leaked diaper, at 3 in the morning doesn’t sound fun.   Beside that, we are using cloth during the day at home and out, and up until the minute before we put Evie to bed.  And when I say put her to bed, I really mean she is screaming from hunger, in her swing, at 1am which wakes up SoHubby from the sofa, he changes her to a disposable, because “Ew gross there is poop on this diaper and you want me to put it where, besides the trash”, then plops her in our bed next to me where I think I pop out a boob and feed her.  Sometimes I wake up and wonder where this baby came from, who am I and how was I on the floor of Congress debating the healthcare bill.  We really need to stop falling asleep to Fox News every night.   

My stash, as us cloth diaperers call it, is not as impressive as others.  I have only 19 pocket diapers by  BumGenius, 15 prefolds and 3 Thirstie covers.  There are a million choices out there for cloth diapers, which means I got overwhelmed and went with the popular choice.  I will say that I am very satisfied with BumGenius 3.0s.  I do have one All-in-One, One Size BumGenius, which is my absolute favorite.  So simple.  Snap the buttons to fit your baby, fasten it like a disposable and toss the whole thing into the wash when you are done.  I swear I never thought in a million years that, 1. I would cloth diapers, because “EW gross, you want me to put that diaper where, besides the trash.” and 2. that it would be so simple.  Seriously, even washing them hasn’t been much of a chore.  It is nothing like I remember my mom or my Aunt going through back in the day.  Everytime I toss a diaper in the wash, I think of my Aunt holding her nose as she dunked a poop diaper in the toilet.  Oh, I chuckle, now, but my time is coming, but I think it is still easier than it was back in the ’70′s.  The only thing that taxes me a bit is remembering that I have a load in the wash.  I am still getting use to doing wash at night.  I even have SoHubby hanging them to dry, because I want to go to bed before the last rinse cycle is done.  I will admit even leaving them in the washing machine over night hasn’t hurt, but I like to have them dry for the next day.

As for fit, I have gotten use to the bulkiness.  Although, the All-in-Ones seem to be a bit trimmer than the pockets.  I think it took some time to get use to the fit and Evie getting a little bigger.  The One Sizes may say they fit 7lbs-35lbs, but, for us, it was more closer to 9lbs that the fit was good. 

I like pre-folds, but I don’t trust them to keep the leaks at bay like I do the BumGenius.  This has to do with folding, which I am not that great at, and a fastener, which I am not using.  I am on the search for a snappi at a local store, but I think I will have to break down and get one online.  This is why the prefolds are for home use, in our house. The Thirstie covers are great and have made up for my less than stellar folding skills.

All in all cloth diapering hasn’t been half as bad as I expected.  I do recommend you do some research before you start.  Start here.  It may seem overwhelming, but once you narrow it down, it is not bad at all.

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In more poop news, Sam has done great with his potty training.  It seems just as I was about to give up and prepare to send him to college in Pull-Ups, he got it.  And that was that.  I don’t have to remind him to go and he has only had one accident since his first *plop* in the toilet.  I can’t expect more since he is only 3.5 years old and as fascinating as many public restrooms are they don’t quite measure up to chasing kids around the Firemen’s hall and dancing. 

It took me three kids to figure out that they are all different.  I mean I knew that Sam was very different from Amber and Amber is a bit different from her peers, but I kept trying to force things that worked on Amber onto Sam.  Being the strong-willed boy that he is, he was having now of it. While I was giving him tough love, he was throwing it right back at me.  I am not sure if Evie is an easy baby out of personality or necessity.  Hell, I am not even sure she is really easier than the other two or I am just not the same mom I was with Amber or Sam.  I have learned that some things aren’t as important as others and things don’t have to be the same as every other day.  I am a Virgo, however much stock you put into such things, and like my routine very much.  It gives comfort and security, while change brings stress and chaos.  I am learning that, in order, to have fun as a parent, and in fact have my second childhood, I need to let go on many hard and fast rules I use to have and just let things be.  Sometimes I think to myself, if money wasn’t an issue I would have had 10 kids.  Then I laugh and remember I may have loosened up; I haven’t gone nuts.  I am very happy and satisfied with the 3 that I was blessed to have.  Besides, we are short on spring chickens around here and it is hard to have zone defense when you are old and tired.  Yes, 3 is enough.