easter fun

we headed back to hershey this weekend for easter with our families.  this time, we stayed at aunt callie and uncle anthony's.  they just moved back to hershey from baltimore, and they have a lot of room in their new house.  matt and i were in a bedroom with our own bathroom, and daxon got to sleep in their nursery one night, then the "bonus" room the next night, cuz anthony's cousin came to stay, too. 

we got home friday night and went out to dinner with my dad to celebrate all of our birthdays (matt and anthony's are in february, callie and mine are in march, and my dad's is in april).  we went to the warwick tavern in hummelstown.  it's an old favorite of ours.  after dinner, we all went back to callie and anthony's and had ice cream sundaes!  yummm...

on saturday, matt, daxon, and i went to meet my mom and jeff and my step-brother's family at the country club for the easter egg hunt.  i popped daxon in my sister-in-law's baby bjorn (she was giving it to callie, so i had her bring it for me to use and then i gave it to callie).  daxon's cousins, aiden and brody, participated in the egg hunt.  poor little brody didn't get any eggs, but aiden cleaned up, and then was a nice big brother and gave a few to brody.  i didn't take any pictures, unfortunately, but i wish i would have tried to get a stealth picture of the two little twin boys whose parents painted football paint under their eyes.  seriously?!  it's an easter egg hunt, not a competitive sport! 

from there, the 3 of us headed over to matt's parents.  they had a full house, with matt's brother mike, his girlfriend jody, and his 2 kids (avery, 12, and gabe, 10), matt's other brother dan, his aunt barb and uncle jack, and his cousin bobby and wife brandi and their 2 kids (addison, 1, and jack, 3).  we had dinner and then went for a short walk.  daxon got passed around quite a bit, but handled it pretty well until the end of the night when he hit his wall - i think he was tired and overstimulated. 

sunday morning, daxon was an enormous fuss-pot.  he was wailing all morning long.  i thought something was wrong, or that he was sick, but his temperature was fine.  i think he was just feeling overwhelmed still from the night before.  poor little guy.  we went to church and he did great - he got kind of fussy at one point, but he was just hungry, so i gave him a bottle and he was fine.  my friend's mom was assisting with communion, so when we went up, she got a good look at daxon, then quickly sent us on our way because she was starting to cry!  so sweet.

after church, we went back to callie and anthony's for a little before heading back to the country club for easter brunch with all of my siblings.  we were missing my step-sister heather and my niece sidnae, but all in all, there were 17 of us - 10 adults and 7 kids.  we easily had the biggest table in the place! 

daxon slept through most of brunch, much to the dismay of his aunties.  they got a little bit of time with him, though, and his cousins were excited to play with the baby!  we hit the road around 4:30, and we got home to a nice big package on our doorstep....

our cloth diapers are here!  i cannot wait to put these on daxon's cute little bum.  i am in the process of pre-washing them right now (you have to wash them 3-5 times before you can use them).  we will probably wait to start using them until this weekend, so that we can get used to it before sending him off to daycare with them. 

speaking of...i go back to work on wednesday.  i have been doing great with it up until yesterday.  and then i cried about it 3 separate times on the drive home.  ugh.  wednesday is going to be a rough one.  i will totally be that girl sitting on the train in tears.  booo....

our "controversial" decision - part 2

so in the first post, i told you about our cloth diaper workshop.  i went over the differences between cloth and disposable diapers, and the care of cloth diapers.

one thing i forgot to mention - what do you do with the cloth diapers between washes?  jessica recommended 24 diapers, which would be about a 3-day wash cycle.  in between washes, you toss the dirty diaper into a wet bag.  the wet bag is lined with a (pba-free) plastic lining.  when you're ready to wash, you just dump in the diapers, turn the bag inside out, and throw that in the wash, too.  there are apparently cloth diaper pails that you can purchase, but for about $20 cheaper, you can pick up a plastic trash can at target that works just as well.  the important part is the wet bag.  for cloth diapering out and about, you just get a smaller wet bag that you carry in the diaper bag.  done.

ok, so now, the different kinds of cloth diapers.  this is where you can get a little head-spinny.  there are a ton of brands out there and it can be a little confusing to wade through it all.  so jessica broke it down into 4 categories, ignoring the brands for the most part.  it's much easier to shop by type than by brand.

first up, prefolds and covers.  prefolds are simply absorbent cotton diapers (the kind that most people picture when picturing cloth diapers - the white things that used to be attached with pins).  you fold up the diaper and lay it inside of a waterproof cover.  the waterproof cover is then folded up over baby and put on just like a disposable diaper.  so when you change the baby, you simply pull out the prefold, lay another one in, and buckle up - you can reuse the same cover all day long.  the advantages to this system are that it's the least expensive, by far - you can easily build a diaper stockpile for less than $200.  this will also probably last the longest - jessica said you can easily make the covers last for 2 or even 3 kids.  you may need to replace some of the cloth diapers along the way, but the covers should last for a looooong time.  the disadvantage is that since these are simply cotton diapers, they do not "wick away" moisture like some of the more expensive types of diapers.  so baby feels uncomfortably wet more quickly.  the upside of this is that kids in prefolds are often potty trained much earlier in life - her daughter was potty trained at 18 months because she hated feeling wet! 

next up, fitted diapers.  these are essentially just cotton or wool diapers, like the old-fashioned ones, but they come with velcro or snaps instead of pins.  they are super thick (so that they can be absorbent without leaking through) and seem like they'd be really warm on baby.  and again, they are do not wick away moisture.  they are also not waterproof, so you'd either need to buy covers or just make sure you're changing frequently enough so that the liquid doesn't soak through and ruin clothing, furniture, etc.  we ruled this option out immediately.

now we jump up pretty significantly in price to the pocket diapers.  a pocket diaper is a diaper and cover attached together.  the inner fabric is water-wicking, so baby doesn't feel wet.  but it is not absorbent on it's own - you must slide an absorbent insert into a pocket in the diaper to catch the liquid.  so when changing the baby, you take the whole thing off, pull the insert out, and put both (separate pieces) into the wet bag.  i'm honestly not sure what the advantage of the pocket diaper is.  especially when, for not much more money, you can upgrade to the final type of diaper...

the all-in-one (aio).  the all-in-one is exactly what it sounds like - waterproof cover, absorbent insert, and water-wicking lining all in one.  you change it just like you change a regular diaper.  it is definitely the most expensive option at about $20 per diaper, but the convenience factor makes it extremely attractive.

after much discussion and going back and forth about prefolds vs all-in-ones, matt and i have decided to go with the aios.  we think it will be easier on daycare, and easier on our parents when they babysit.  if one of us were staying at home, we'd probably do the prefolds and then just buy disposables for when we're out and about or when we have a babysitter.  but since baby boy will be in daycare full-time, and we want them to like us, we thought the all-in-ones would be a better option.  again, i've done a ton of research and it sounds like bumgenius is the hands-down winner, so we'll be stocking up on about 24 bumgenius freetime one-size aios.  it says one-size, meaning it can fit from 8 pounds through potty training, but jessica (and many other bloggers) said she doesn't think they fit very well until about 10 or 12 pounds.  so we plan to use disposables when baby is a newborn until he's up to 10-12 pounds.  it will be better anyway, because the cloth diapers can irritate the umbilical cord/belly button site, and we'd also have to be careful with his circumcision - you can't get vaseline on a cloth diaper or it affects the absorbency.

we'll be getting 4 wet bags - 2 diaper pail liners (so there is always one in the diaper pail, even when we're doing laundry), and 2 smaller ones for day care.  at the end of each day of day care, we'll empty out the wet bag, spray it with bac-out (an antibacterial spray), and reuse it for a few days.  we'll also get some rice paper liners. 

we've decided not to register for any of our cloth diapers or cloth diaper accessories because, to be honest, i don't want to hear people tell me how crazy/stupid/foolish/etc we are for choosing this.  we've already heard it from a number of people, and i just don't want to hear it about it all day at the shower.  after attending the workshop, matt and i feel pretty confident that this is something we can handle.  it will be more work, but we're willing to do it if it means that baby will be healthier and our carbon footprint will be a little bit smaller.

plus, have you seen baby butts in cloth diapers?  so.cute.

our "controversial" decision

as i became an avid reader of baby blogs, and a frequent board poster on hellobee, i have found myself drawn to the idea of cloth diapering.  yeah, you read that right - cloth diapering.  call me crazy, call me a hippie, call me whatever you want.  it's something that i've been really interested in and done a lot of reading and research on.  i devoured every single thing i could find about cloth diapering.  i researched the various kinds of cloth diapers available, the care of cloth diapers, the cost of cloth diapers....i poured myself into it.

i talked to matt about it and he thought i was nuts.  i forwarded him several of my links and he started to come around, but still thought it would be harder than i thought.

finally, i found a small local store, the nesting house, that sells cloth diapers.  i thought it would be good to go and put our hands on the products and talk to someone at the store.  and then!  i found out that once a month they have a cloth diaper class!  for free, you go and spend 2 hours learning all about cloth diapers.  they have samples of products to see.  i told matt about it and we decided to go check it out.

so on saturday afternoon, we ventured into crunchy little mt. airy, a small neighborhood of philadelphia, and sat down with about a dozen other couples and/or mamas-to-be and got a full tutorial on cloth diapers.

our instructor, jessica (i think?) was really nice, super knowledgeable, and crazy thorough.  she broke class down into 3 parts - comparing cloth vs disposable diapers, caring for cloth diapers, and then she went over all the different kinds of cloth diapers. 

first, comparing cloth versus disposable.  cloth is significantly cheaper than disposable.  yes, it's a big cost out-right, but in the long run, it saves you a ton of money.  using disposable diapers for one child for 2.5 years - from birth till potty training - will cost you approximately $2000, if you use average-cost diapers.  cloth diapers, on the other hand, can range anywhere from $150-$800, depending on the type of diapering system you choose.  that is an up-front, one-time cost, but then that's it.  if you choose to strictly cloth diaper, with no inserts or anything else, the only on-going costs you have are for the laundry - your water and electricity bills, laundry detergent, etc.

cost aside, cloth diapering has a much smaller environmental impact.  it takes approximately the same amount of energy to create a cloth diaper as to create a disposable, but it is cotton versus paper, and the cotton industry is a much cleaner industry than paper (have you ever smelled a paper factory?  ugh).  waste-wise, there is no comparison.  if you took all the disposable diapers you used for one child, it would fill a space the size of the room we were in on saturday - about 20x15x12 feet.  the space used by cloth diapers would be about 3x3x3 feet.  the only category where disposable diapers wins here is in water consumption, as it takes very little water to create a disposable diaper, whereas with cloth, water is being consumed not only in production but also in cleaning.  and then health-wise, cloth diapering wins pretty easily again.  disposable diapers are filled with wood pulp, which in and of itself is not terribly absorbent.  so they inject this gel made of sodium polyacrylate to help soak up the liquid in the diaper - this is what makes disposables not feel wet against baby's skin.  the problem here?  sodium polyacrylate has been named one of the top 10 most toxic substances on the planet.  truth is, most of the time, it doesn't directly come in contact with baby's skin, so that's why it hasn't been pulled out of diapers like it has with tampons and other products.  but if baby really soaks his diaper, it can sometimes push that gel out to the edge and can come out of the diaper.  yuck.  cloth diapers are made from cotton, hemp, and sometimes microfiber.  and though there is not a single stitch of natural fiber to be found in microfiber, i'd still rather have that against baby's butt than toxic gel crystals.

so there was that.  the next section of the workshop was caring for cloth diapers.  i have to admit, this is the part that had me nervous - i really wasn't sure we'd be able to handle the constant laundry, buying the special detergent, "stripping" the diapers, etc.  oh, and of course, the whole "putting poop in your laundry machine" thing.  it seemed like it could be overwhelming for 2 full-time working parents.  here's what we learned that helped us feel much better about it.  number one, you don't need a special "cloth diaper" detergent.  there are detergents and soaps that are specifically created for laundering cloth diapers (charlie's rock soap, bumgenius diaper detergent), but it turns out, you can totally get by without using them.  jessica said there is a pretty big list of "regular" detergent that is safe, but off the top of her head she knew that tide free and clear is approved for use for cloth diapers.  in fact, pretty much any "free and clear" kind of detergent is fine.  number two, well...number two.  i had read that when breastfeeding, baby's poo is pretty liquidy and therefore the cloth diapers can just be thrown into the wash, just like if he'd just peed in it.  but once they start eating solids, it's a whole other ball game.  the only thing i'd ever heard of was to get one of these diaper sprayers that attach to your toilet, spray the solid poo into the toilet, then put the diaper in the laundry.  sounds groddy.  but jessica told us about rice paper inserts, that you just lay inside the diaper.  liquids pass through, but solids are held in place, so you just lift out the insert, throw it in the trash, and then throw the diaper in the laundry.  easy-peasy.  number three, stripping shouldn't be necessary as long as you're careful about what you're using (as far as diaper rash cream, etc).  boom.  matt and i both felt loads better after this.

this is getting long, so in the next post, i'll tell you about the different kinds of diapers, what we chose, and why we chose it.  and then i'll tell you why we're planning to purchase our cloth diapers and cloth diaper supplies ourselves rather than register for them (namely, people are rude).