Call Me Crazy

I started this post a little over a week ago and then decided to hold onto it for today, Earth Day. It just seemed like a perfect fit. My plan was to post it last night but then I couldn't find some pictures I took (how do you lose digital pictures on your computer?!), couldn't find the camera to retake the pictures and just got too tired. Then today was super busy and now I'm just hoping to finish and post it before Earth Day is over. So much for perfect. (Oooh, I made it, up before the end of the day!)

So, call me crazy.

We stopped using paper towels. Now, in place of the roll of paper towels on the rack mounted under the cabinet we have large, double sided cloth napkins that snap together. Crazy? Yeah, I know. But before you go and dismiss me as a crazy, crunchy, earth mama hippy... oh, too late. Ok, so maybe I am kind of a crazy, crunchy, earth mama hippy but I have good reasons! Other than the crazy, crunchy, earth mama hippy reasons.

Our "un-paper" kitchen towels.

The 2 "wetbags" we have hanging on our stove to put the dirty towels in.

I almost took a picture of the roll of paper towels hiding in the cabinet that we use for greasing pans. But that just seemed too crazy, even for me. See, I'm not that nuts.

It started rather innocently. We had been using cloth diapers for over a year and were surprised that it really wasn't too much work. Having gotten used to the cloth thing for diapers I saw discussions online about other cloth alternatives. Doing some research, I started wondering about the possibility of switching us over. I admit, my first reasons were of the crazy, crunchy, earth mama hippy variety but then I started to wonder about money. After doing some math I realized that maybe it was worth saving money. And I like that I can do a little of that "save the earth" bit and "save the money" bit at the same time. Sometimes it doesn't exactly seem like they go hand in hand but a lot of times they do, you just have to examine it closely. Again, not that crazy!

We feel good about our choice and we just like it too. Bounty may be the thicker, quicker picker-upper but that paper's got nothin' on flannel and terry cloth in pretty prints that look good in my kitchen! Talk about absorbent, Bounty is trying to be these guys.
The wetbags I got from SweetSlings and we love them. Great size, well made, and pretty. The towels were from a co-op but you can find something similar from a few different places including Bug 'n Ed who is offering up a $15 GC right now on The Leaky Boob.

The beautiful mess that started it all, our diaper laundry.

O-muh-gosh. Uh, I took a picture of the dirty diapers in the washer. Three pictures, in fact, because I was messing with the lighting. For diapers.

Holy crap, I am crazy!

Crap, that's a lot of Diapers

So just after creating a post showing the creation of a belly cast for an art piece I talk about diapers?

Yeah, that's right, I do. There are a lot of diapers around here these days. And, I'm admittedly proud to say, not one of them is going into a landfill. Nope, these beauties get used and reused. Which means that's a lot of laundry. With two in diapers it is also a lot of crap because that is a lot of diapers. Sometimes they get folded, often, they don't which really isn't a big deal because we'll have to do another load tomorrow anyway. Rinse, wash, rinse, dry, repeat.

Love cloth!

Hello my name is Jessica and I'm addicted to... cloth diapers.

Ok, laugh. Laugh so hard your sides hurt and you snort. Or are you just thinking I'm crazy? It's possible you're not thinking anything at all since, well, I may be the only person reading this anyway. But you know you have your odd addiction too. Besides, I'm not the only one. There are entire online communities of CDing (Cloth Diapering) addicts. Yes, I belong to a couple and yes, we really do get online and chat about diapers and what goes in them. I'll let you ponder that for a moment.

My addiction started innocuously enough, it certainly wasn't intentional. In fact, I had thought my diapering days were over when, surprise! We got to give it a go again. I had encouraged friends that were having babies to go green, save the earth, do baby's bum a favor and forgo the disposible diapers in favor of cotton but me, well, it was too late. Cloth hadn't even been on the radar with my first three so I confessed the thousands of diapers I dumped in a landfill and moved on after a moment of silence. Until that line showed up on the stick I peed on. It wasn't long after that positive test result that I moved from "Oh my gosh, we're having another baby" to "Oh no! I have to cloth diaper it!" So between puking and IVs I reached for the computer and began my research. That's when I discovered the online communities dedicated to just cloth diapers! Crazy? Possibly. Fun, oh yeah! At first I had sticker shock but that faded after a little bit of math (hello, disposable diapers aren't CHEAP!) and I started thinking how cute and soft it would be. I became educated in the health benefits as well and considered that if we had used cloth with Lavinia and Helena perhaps our rash issues wouldn't have been such a battle. I'll never know of course but so far, Evangeline's bum has been much less red than her big sisters' rear ends ever were in their diapering days. Then I started picturing a cute little baby bottom swathed in soft fabrics with darling prints. Someone introduced me to the wonders of wool as a natural cover for cloth diapers and after puzzling over that one for a little bit I was completely hooked. Aside: yes, wool would seem like a hot option, after all we don't even own any wool for ourselves here in Houston but when someone asked me if I'd rather wear wool or a plastic bag and I got my hands on some amazingly soft, not itchy wool I saw their point. Back to my story. So I bought a few diapers. They came, we opened the packages and the girls and I oh'd and ah'd. I practiced on baby dolls and teddy bears and settled on prefolds (the kind my mom used but not the big flat ones that you have to fold, the ones that are, well, pre-folded) and some fitteds. We choose a combination of PUL and wool for covers but it wasn't long before we realized we liked wool the best. Yes folks, Evangeline really did wear wool all summer long and you know what? Not one rash. We LOVE our cloth. It's fun, cute, healthy, and good for the earth. There's all kind of info out there on cloth, I'll come back later with some of that but for now, I just wanted to share; I'm a cloth diapering addict. :)