Well, the experiment has fizzled.
On Day Three, we ran out of gDiapers, both little pants were in the wash, one having been stained (inside) a lovely orange, courtesy of a sudden carrotty infatuation. The little pants in the wash, I cast about for an opportunity to go and buy more absorbent liners, and possibly some more little pants.
Then it began to rain. It rained for a night and most of a day, and I folded. The kids and I spent the day at home, slowly and steadily getting on each other's nerves. The Eldest has been given a set of checkers by the MIL/FIL and is absorbed in it. He'd beaten our babysitter Sunday night, much to her surprise, and was even skipping his morning TV show to play with the Man. Disappointed in my refusal to play (I'm bad at games and hate to lose), he was grumpy and frustrated with me. I grumped right back, while the Toddles looked on, astonished. I comforted myself with the thought that the day had begun well, at least...
Eventually, the Eldest looked at me anxiously and said, 'Mummy, let's clean up this entire house! Will that make you not be angry?' I had to laugh at myself, and hugged him. Sweet kid, that one.
Today, I marched off to Target for our monthly paper goods run. I arrived at the diaper section, poked about, and went home empty handed. g-Diapers have made it to our local supermarket, but not to Target. A metaphor? Or just inconvenient reality?
Whatever. Either way, I now have to schlep four blocks from my home to get the dratted things. I think I'll send the Man, instead.
4 comments:
I've been following your diaper saga a little bit, but I missed why you didn't go straight for cloth? I've never looked back, and no leaks either with prefolds and basic good quality covers. Although we finished with diapers altogether about a year ago. . .
miI, there are two reasons, both of them frankly mediocre.
First, the partner man doesn't like the idea of handling poop. I had to do some seriously fast talking to get him to accept the gDiapers, which involve only a teeny bit of handling.
The second reason is cowardice. When I started replacing paper towels with rags, the amount of laundry that I do spiked. Adding cloth diapers to the mix seems a bit much, somehow.
But you are an experienced cloth diapering mama, what do you think?
Well, the washing machine does the job no? Actually, we got what in Israel is called a "Niagra" (bidet?) or a sprayer to spray off the poop from the diaper into the toilet but we only need it if it's particularly messy. Before they ate solid foods we didn't use it at all. I loved the convenience of not having to worry about running out of disposables, and the cloth smelled way less. They sit in a dry diaper pail until wash day, although the covers went in any load. Prefolds also dry the fastest. The extra laundry varies from 2-4 loads a week. There's no way to get around that; I just consider the time spent as money earned and it quickly became part of my routine. I also only used the dryer if desparate. I found dealing with disposables very unpleasant, and I only used them if I ran out or for a babysitter (rarely). I suggest going to iVillage's cloth diapering board (just ignore the majority there who spend all their money on cute all-in-ones) or to borntolove.com, where there is a lot of good information. I post a little more about it on my own blog, if you missed that post: http://mominisrael.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-to-spend-virtually-nothing-when.html
Anyway I hope that helps!!
Thanks, miI! I'll have to look around some. Good post, by the way.
I was both delighted and disappointed to see that we practice a lot of your money-saving techniques. Bummer. I'm always on the hunt for a good budget-saver.
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