Our girls are absolutely crazy about their cousin Aspen and I'm of the opinion that they definitely look like family! She's so good with them, especially because she's used to ruling Grandma and Grandpa's roost and has to share when the Veale family descends.
Second, it's been a little while since I gave you an update on our cloth diapering decision so that's what I'm going to do here. If that bores you, feel free to visit stealingfaith.com where I blogged today about the things that really should be given up once you get gray hair (like Hannah Montana bags as purses).
I'm proud to announce that we've now hit the critical mark where the initial investment of diapers has evened out to what we save. I have sold some of the diapers that we didn't like or those that didn't fit as well on our bebe, that pushed us to the break even mark several weeks early.
And, contrary to my mother's dire prediction that it would be a disaster, we like cloth diapering!
We've settled on pocket diapers, which are very similar to a disposable diaper in style. They are (obviously) fabric, with a fleece interior. There's a "pocket" between the fleece and the waterproofed fabric where you place a padded strip of fabric.
The reason they're my favorites?
1. They're very, very similar to disposables.
2. The liner will wash out in the machine so I don't need to pull apart yucky diapers.
3. The designs and fabrics are pretty and spunky, so it's fun to put Mikayla in them as well.
We've gone almost completely with one-sized diapers, which fit babies from 8 lbs. to 35 lbs. using a snap system. It's a little bit more bulky but gives you the most bang for your buck since you can use them from birth until potty training. (Heck, Maggie's 3 and has been potty trained for a year and a half - and she only weighs 32 lbs.!)
My favorite brands are Kawaii (you can buy new for cheaper than buying other brands used elsewhere at www.theluvyourbaby.com) and bumGenius (although Pocket Change, FuzziBunz and Happy Heiny's are also pretty awesome). I've used Craigslist to find used cloth diapers and sell the ones that haven't been so good for us - there's a pretty stable and hot market for cloth diapers. Everything I've listed has sold within two days and I haven't been burned by anything I've purchased.
I'm really enjoying using re-diaper.com, diaperpin.com, and justsimplybaby.com. And, of course, I have my link to allaboutclothdiapers.com which has been a HUGE help to me for researching and understanding the jargon of this little subset of culture.
I also decided to try my hand at using cloth wipes since I was going to be washing anyway. I quickly discovered the wipes I made out of old flannel receiving blankets are not at all worth the time and effort. It's much better to just buy a few packages of the baby wash clothes at WalMart!
I'm now making my own solution for the wipes and store it in a tupperware. It's a ratio of 2 cups water, 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 cup baby wash and I add about 1 teaspoon of almond extract because it makes everything smell so yummy!
Wet diapers just get tossed into the diaper pail - I wash every 2-3 days so there really hasn't been time for things to get stinky. When we have a poopy diaper we shake it into the toilet and either throw it in the diaper pail or use a sprayer to get it as clean as possible. Isaiah's going to hook up a deal that attaches to the toilet and has a sprayer (basically a bidet), we just haven't gotten around to it yet.
Now, if you have no interest in this topic - so sorry! I'll be back soon with my life changing thoughts about why a 40-year-old woman should never, ever use a Hannah Montana bag as her purse.
In the meantime, thought I'd let you know that cloth diapering has been going much better than expected! My next job is to figure out how to sew these puppies myself to save even more!
(Sigh. So many ideas and so little time to get them done!)
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