What’s been happening

I realize it’s been a while since my last post. Life was pretty busy for a while.

We found out that the condo we were renting sold in a cash deal, so we had to find a place to live very quickly.

Then the deal fell through. We didn’t have to move, our place was going off the market.

Then the kids and I got hand, foot and mouth disease, aka COOTIES FROM HELL.

Then there was another cash offer on our condo. We had to move again. And find a place. In June. At the Jersey Shore. With a small budget. And two kids. And the real estate agent harassed us to be out in 2 weeks. (Right lady. Dream on. Thanks for your complete lack of help with that.) My landlord/friend was absolutely wonderful though, so she constantly sent us listings in the area and was supportive and helpful. In the end, after dragging the kids through countless rainstorms, many apartments, condos and townhouses, we found a wonderful little townhouse in our price range, with a washer and dryer, parking, and a POOL.  Yea. We win.

The week after we moved in we had about 50 of our friends and family over for the baby’s first birthday. It was a great celebration and despite oppressive and horrible heat, I think everyone had fun.

Then the step kids came to visit for a week. This is always challenging because I have no idea what I’m doing ever, which is made worse by the fact that I’m now caring for kids I see maybe twice a year and I lose my mind every singe time.

After that I took on the task of changing out my hard drive and fixing my busted up old computer. It went surprisingly well and I am typing to you from a fully functional (though still only held together by wires) laptop. I’m forever grateful for the assistance of the friends who helped me get it done.

Shortly thereafter we all came down with an awful stomach plague, which took me out for about a week. For the record, I’ll choose violent vomiting for 12 hours over a week of terrible stomach pain, dizziness and utter fatigue every time. This time, I lost.

That pretty much brings us current. Somewhere in there the baby went from crawling to running (it was instant, there was no breaking the parents in phase like the first time around) and I have new levels of crazy to contend with on a daily basis. Today I’m caring for additional children, as DDa acquired two imaginary friends over night.

I better go. There are loud noises behind me and I’m fairly certain it’s about to get ugly in here.

Type to you soon!

Flats and Handwashing Challenge Day 1: Why Am I Doing This?

WHY AM I DOING THIS??

This kept running through my mind as I sloshed the dirty diapers in the soapy water in my diaper pail. What was I thinking? Will I be able to do this all week? This seems like an awful lot of work. I mean, honestly. Is this REALLY necessary? And EEEW I JUST GOT SOAPY DIAPER WATER IN MY EYE!!

Since I had time (2 minutes per “agitation”, rinse, repeat, repeat), I reminded myself why I signed onto this challenge.

When I first started cloth diapering about 8 months ago, some of the women who helped me get started were talking about this “Flats Challenge”. It piqued my interest. I’m a person that enjoys a challenge (some would say that I like making things more difficult) and this certainly qualifies. I have two young children, am relatively new to cloth diapering, and a year ago, pretty much thought this is all there was to them anyway. Large pieces of fabric that you wrap around your baby, covered by ‘plastic pants’. Whoop de doo.

{As I’m sure I will rave on about in a later post, that’s not actually what it’s like any more. But back to my story.}

What really got me interested was hearing these sad stories: people washing disposable diapers and reusing them, babies with horrendous diaper rashes because their parents simply can’t afford to buy as many diapers as they need. What do you do in that situation? There’s no special assistance for diapers. Just food. What do you DO when you literally have to choose food or diapers?

That is why I’m doing this. I am not Donna Reed. I did not CHOOSE to be a homemaker. I got laid off. I’m not very good at this staying at home business. And frankly, if I didn’t know what I know about cloth diapers, I could very easily be in that same predicament. Diapers are expensive, and babies pee and poop a lot. I estimate that I would go through 480+ diapers in a 30 day period, with two kids being changed roughly every 3 hours. Paying about $.20 per diaper that’s $96 per month, and that’s not including wipes. Even paying per load to wash diapers, there’s still a significant financial savings there.

Again, why am I doing this?

To see if I can. To know that I can. To have the confidence to know that I won’t ever have to make a decision like, ‘Do we eat tonight, or get diapers?’ To know that if I come into contact with someone in that situation, I will be able to share this experience with them and help them know that they don’t have to make that decision either.

You may think I’m crazy, and I probably am. But I’ll be damned if I let that stand in my way.

Day 1 Notes:

I actually started Sunday because I apparently can’t read a calendar. Come Monday morning I had a pail full of lovely diapers to wash. After I talked myself out of talking myself out of this, things went fairly smoothly. What I learned is that my apartment is not a great place to dry diapers at all. After 7 hours of waiting , several panic attacks, and lots of moving them from room to room, I discovered they actually do dry fairly quickly, as long as they are getting air on them. The majority of my drying will be done in the basement from now on. Instead of being damn after 7 hours, they dried in about 2.5. The covers take a bit longer. I did 3 loads on Monday. I don’t want to have to do that again.