parenting Archives - Page 26 of 26 - My Life: A Work in Progress

Well, that was a FAIL

So yesterday I tried out my first cloth diaper. It was a prefold inserted inside of a diaper cover. Turns out prefolds are more difficult to fold than I previously anticipated. Of course my already-skeptical-to-cloth-diapering husband is staring at the debacle while my baby is screaming because I’m taking so long. I gave up on the prefold and reached for a pocket diaper, which seems almost impossible to mess up. I just found online another way to roll the prefold, called a jelly roll. I’m going to try that today. If that doesn’t work…I think my prefolds may be too small for baby J.

Today was a little stressful. I couldn’t ignore my ear pain any longer and went into the local military clinic I’m assigned to. I have an issue with Q-tips. It’s some sort of strange compulsion. If I see a Q-tip, I HAVE to stick it in my ear. I’ll even use Q-tips at other peoples’ homes. Like if they have me over for dinner, and I see a Q-tip in the bathroom…I’m going to town! I’ve actually gone to the doctor 3 times (maybe 4?) in my life to get the head of a Q-tip removed from my ear. Anyway, the doc wasn’t sure if my ear was infected or not, but they flushed a ball of wax (gross, I know) out of my ear that was jammed way down. He said the canal was inflamed and red, so that’s why I’m in so much pain. Once they got the wax out, I could hear again. Hallelujah! It was getting kind of old asking everyone, “Pardon me? Excuse me? What was that?” He also gave me antibiotic drops for the ear. I know some people would say don’t take antibiotics for an ear infection, but the ear has been getting worse. I tried tea tree oil and peroxide in it, with no relief. Anyway, back to the stress. Basically, I’m sitting on the examination table, leaning over to the right holding a bottle of breastmilk in baby J’s mouth as he’s sitting in the stroller to keep him from crying while the doc’s peering in my left ear. Annnd it kind of went on from there. Oh, the nurse said other than the ball of wax, I have very clean ears =)

Anyway, hubby is putting up curtains in our bedroom. Finally! (we’ve been here since April, but he’s been gone for about 5 weeks of the time at sea) I’m going to finish folding these baby clothes and make some chicken noodle soup for dinner (I’m cheating again. I’m adding ingredients to a can of soup).

Later I’m trying this jelly roll thing with the diaper. Woo hoo!

Cloth Diapering WILL work for me!

Despite the fact my husband is grossed out over washing poopy diapers in our washing machine, I’m insistent that I’m doing this. For one, it’s better for the environment (yes, I know you can argue that you still use gallons of water every year to wash them blah blah blah, but at least I’m not filling up a landfill), and two…extremely cost effective, especially if you use the same diapers on multiple kids, which we will. Our son’s two months old, and I haven’t started yet. I figured that as a new mom/new wife (my husband was deployed, so we’ve barely lived together), cloth diapering might be too much on top of it all. I pulled out the two diapers I’ve bought yesterday. One is a diaper cover with prefolds and the other is a pocket diaper with inserts. I bought two more pocket diapers on Zulilly today, which brings my grand total to four. That’s not so great, considering I need about 12 if I wash daily. It’s a start though. I plan to look for deals and buy them from different sources. Cloth diapering costs money up front but will save thousands in the long run.

I’m dying to try one of my cloth diapers on my son today, but I need to wash them first. I’m still looking into laundry detergents suitable for cloth diapers. So far, I’m looking at Rockin’ Green (but I’m not sure about the scents) or Tiny Bubbles. I already have Tide Free & Gentle, which some people use for cloth diapering, but seems to leave build up on diapers over time. It should be okay for a few days until I buy new detergent, so I’ll probably go ahead and wash them today with the new 3-6 months clothes I pulled out yesterday. My 2-month old is now in 3-6 month clothes. He’s growing so quickly! 🙁

Also on the agenda for today…fold baby clothes, take the baby for a walk, look presentable before my husband gets home, unpack at least one moving box, and cook something edible for dinner. I’m thinking rice with a can of cream of mushroom soup sauce (it’s cheating, I know) and some ground hamburger in there for protein. Salad on the side, of course. Pudding for dessert would be yummy. Hmmm…I should mention I need to lose 30 pounds of baby weight.