Okay, first a follow up on my peking-pork-chops, they were FANTASTIC!! I did use less Ginger and more 5 spice, I served them over a combo of rice noodles and somen noodles. I did have an after thought of adding Chinese stir-fry veggies to the crock pot, but even with out anything other than meat, my family came back for seconds. So I will for sure be crocking this meal again.
moving on......
When I had my oldest son, Chris, I was a VERY young mother and knew NOTHING about cloth diapering. To me it was something my Grandmother did for my Mom and her 3 brothers and her mom before her and so on. But, who in the world cloth diapered in 1989 ??!!!!
So I bought Pampers and moved on with life.
Fast forward to 2007 and my fourth child , Gabriel, is born and I meet my composting, chicken raising, home schooling, vegetarian, tree hugging hipy, BFF Andrea Gilroy and boy did she open my eyes and show me the "love " of cloth diapering I had been missing in my life.
I quickly stopped buying the "boxed diapers" and moved right into cloth, 24 hours a day 7 days a week till Gabriel was potty trained.
The world of cloth is amazing!! There are pre-folds, pockets, AIO, covers and many more types. And styles GALORE!! You have FuzziBunz, Bumgenius, Bumboo , just to name a few. And the fabrics and designs are so darn cute. I mean what else is cuter than your baby crawling/ walking around with Elmo's face on his/her rump?? NOTHING!! Well except maybe Army camo, which is a personal preference in our house :)
And let's not forget the savings, if you change your baby every 3-4 hours and buy the cheaper end of disposable diapers you will spend roughly about $575 dollars just for the first year alone of your babies life, imagine what the total would be over 3 years, or the fact that babies will potty train faster in cloth than in a disposable, do to the fact that the cloth does not wick away the moisture and that babies don't like the wet feeling against there skin ( well at least mine did and don't). When you can spend $200-$300 and buy enough diapers to last you from NB till potty trained. To me that is a substantial savings for my family, especially since we are single income family and it is Army pay to boot.
Once Gabriel was potty trained I cleaned and stored my diapers for later use, aka Ian child #5.
When I had Ian I jumped right into cloth diapering with all the gusto I had had with Gabriel. Making sure that the diapers where cleaned and "put together" for every diaper change, no matter what time that diaper change was, whether it be 2a.m. or 2 p.m. No way was I going to be putting a disposable diaper on my baby. Things were going great till Ian was 9 months old and G.I Joe redeployed, aka came home, from Afghanistan. G.I Joe does not feel the love of cloth diapering , but he will use them as long as they are not a pre-fold and cover. But, that is not what changed. It was the extra person to care for and that I have a hard enough time staying on top of the laundry. The problem is not washing it it is folding it. Once the laundry is dried it is usually dumped on my love seat and there it will stay, since I don't have 10-15 minutes to stand there and fold it , my family will just pick through the clean cloths as they need them and then we are back to square one. Coupled with the fact that Ian did not, and still does not, sleep through the night and that I have learned that if I change him every time he wakes in the middle of the night he stays up for a longer period of time compared to if I just nurse him back to sleep for 10-15 minutes. So I decided to use cloth during the day and disposables at night. I am still saving some trees, not adding to much extra to the land fills, and doing my part to lower my carbon foot print.
Now 5month later I am questioning my choice to cloth diaper, again. Between home schooling Sasha and Gabriel, the fact that they both play sports , that we are gone from home a lot and all the extra happenings in our house I just don't have the time to wash one more load of laundry or fold it.
But, the saver in me screams "NO!!!, think of all the money you will spend buying disposable diapers over the next 2 years" and the earth lover in me screams "NO!!!, think of all the tress that will be cut down to make all the diapers you will be buying or how much you will be adding to the already over taxed land fills".
So I have decided to use both, still, cloth when I know that we will be mainly around the house or around Polk and disposables when we will be gone from home for long periods of time or when I am just to tired to even think about adding more laundry to the pile on the love seat.
For me this is a good choice, for now, but I pray that there is a mother out there some where who will do her part, and mine, to help save some trees and keep the landfill from rising .
No comments:
Post a Comment