Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Giveaway winners from other blogs: a friendly commentary
I just want to say, that if you have a blog where you have contests, and you say in each contest post that the winner will be posted there, please do post the winner. It's frustrating to keep waiting to find out who won something, even if it's not yourself, and you keep looking and looking, but not seeing the winner. I'm assuming a winner was chosen and notified by email, but still. Inquiring minds want to know! So please don't forget to post your winners. Thanks!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
New Kaboodle Button
They made the "Add to Kaboodle" button even better! I love it! You should go there and try it out!
Giveaways have me dreaming and wishing again. Ack!
Sometimes I am able to stop myself from constantly wanting all the new or beautiful diapers that are out there, and then sometimes there are giveaways that make me remember. Oh, and the Rumparooz giveaway has done it for me! (see previous post) I want them all!!!!!!!!!! I just love love love their prints and colors. I keep thinking, Karina will look so cute in this or that! Ugh, stop it, you can't have them all! Well, the other thing I keep thinking about is the sustainablebabyish/sloomb organic bamboo fitteds in the beautiful Kirsche (fuschia) pink color.... I don't need them. Karina's nights are well taken care of. But I WANT it. I want the teal, too, but mostly the pink. WAAAAAAAAAAAANT. Again, I must STOP. Those Adorable Kinders dolls? Want them, too. Just look on my Kaboodle lists to see how bad it is. I want everything!
I do love the Kaboodle list because it does temporarily relieve the burning desire to buy all this stuff, but then Sometimes I remember that I'm probably the only person ever looking at/buying from these lists, but I guess that's okay, as long as I don't think about it.
So what DO I want? Here's a partial list. It's partial, because one list can never contain everything I want.
Smartipants diapers in all the colors, and lots of them.
bumGenius diapers in all the colors except orange.
More AppleCheeks diapers.
Rumparooz in all the colors and prints except orange, and boyish prints.
Wonder Wraps diaper covers in the old colors, the pretty colors. Even the grass green. (Because I love these covers so much, that's why. Green and orange are my least favorite colors, orange being the very least)
Sustainablebabyish/sloomb Kirsche and teal fitteds
Adorable Kinders rag dolls, a couple of them.
A bunch of the cute diapers and covers and wet bags from Etsy
Most of the stamps in the new Stampin' Up mini catalog, plus Wonderful Favorites, which I am still pining for (You know I got started blogging about stamping? I actually do some crafting in my free-hahahaha-time)
A bunch of the new Close To My Heart stamps and one of the current catalogs.
A tea tray
A large teapot in Old Country Roses
Everything else on my Kaboodle lists.
I do love the Kaboodle list because it does temporarily relieve the burning desire to buy all this stuff, but then Sometimes I remember that I'm probably the only person ever looking at/buying from these lists, but I guess that's okay, as long as I don't think about it.
So what DO I want? Here's a partial list. It's partial, because one list can never contain everything I want.
Smartipants diapers in all the colors, and lots of them.
bumGenius diapers in all the colors except orange.
More AppleCheeks diapers.
Rumparooz in all the colors and prints except orange, and boyish prints.
Wonder Wraps diaper covers in the old colors, the pretty colors. Even the grass green. (Because I love these covers so much, that's why. Green and orange are my least favorite colors, orange being the very least)
Sustainablebabyish/sloomb Kirsche and teal fitteds
Adorable Kinders rag dolls, a couple of them.
A bunch of the cute diapers and covers and wet bags from Etsy
Most of the stamps in the new Stampin' Up mini catalog, plus Wonderful Favorites, which I am still pining for (You know I got started blogging about stamping? I actually do some crafting in my free-hahahaha-time)
A bunch of the new Close To My Heart stamps and one of the current catalogs.
A tea tray
A large teapot in Old Country Roses
Everything else on my Kaboodle lists.
Rumparooz New Color Giveaway
The Cloth Diaper Report (www.clothdiaperreport.com) is giving away a Rumparooz Root Beer (brown) diaper to one lucky person!
I happen to have two red Rumparooz diapers that I got during the Black Friday cyber sales. All the colors are amazing, but not many companies make a red diaper. I really, really like it. It's got this cool channel that they call the poop scoop, and though Karina doesn't really need it, it's still nice to know it's there. They fit her really nicely, and the inside lining is very soft.
The thing about them that I love most, though, is the color/print options they have. Drool! Go to www.rumparooz.com to see them, and you will be drooling too. Then go to the Cloth Diaper Report and enter to win one for yourself.
I happen to have two red Rumparooz diapers that I got during the Black Friday cyber sales. All the colors are amazing, but not many companies make a red diaper. I really, really like it. It's got this cool channel that they call the poop scoop, and though Karina doesn't really need it, it's still nice to know it's there. They fit her really nicely, and the inside lining is very soft.
The thing about them that I love most, though, is the color/print options they have. Drool! Go to www.rumparooz.com to see them, and you will be drooling too. Then go to the Cloth Diaper Report and enter to win one for yourself.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Life with my daughter has become...different
Yes. My happy, smiling, wonderful child has become a screaming banshee. We are trying to get her off her formula and onto milk and food. She's not having any of it. She tolerates the fruit, the cereals, pasta, and other sweetish foods, but vegetables? Forget it. Proteins? Ha! Not to mention she's probably allergic to peanuts on top of it. Oh, and dryer sheets. I had stopped using them a long time ago and switched to dryer balls, but the static on her fleece jammies was INCREDIBLE so I threw the last two sheets in there when I did the last load, and today she woke up from her nap covered in red spots. Sigh. Called the doctor, and if we don't see improvement by the morning, I will most likely end up taking her in.
On top of her eating no meat or vegetables in several days, she won't drink milk. She'll only drink it when it's "flavored" with formula. We are planning to gradually reduce the amount of formula in it, so that over time she will eventually just be drinking milk.
Tonight, while I was attempting to feed her, and just getting covered in the food she was playing with, we discovered that our sink is broken. As in, it fell off in my husband's hands. The faucet. It just......FELL OFF. How does a faucet just FALL OFF? Crazy. Plus, the kitchen light is burned out, it's one of those old fashioned, school-cafeteria style fluorescents. There are 4 bulbs that go inside the cover. The cover has a frame that looks like wood but is fake. It is not so pretty, but whatever. So Bill got the cover off--just the part where the light shines through--changed the bulbs, and can't get the cover back on. We already checked for some secret opening, but there's nothing. So we aren't sure how we're going to get that thing back on. But at least it's now bright--and I mean BRIGHT--in our kitchen. I think there's about 160watts of light emanating from that overhead unit. It's like the sun in there.
Karina has also discovered that going for walks and actually walking rather than riding in the stroller is exceedingly fun. Now it's all she wants to do. She wants to run out into the street every chance she gets! There are some little, well, not so little, boys across the street who play basketball in the cul-de-sac where we live, and they were out today. She sooooo wanted to go play with them! They were really nice to her, and when the basketball whacked her in the belly and knocked her down, they were all upset. I wasn't, but they were! Still, she wanted to go back and play with them. She kept running out into the street to go over to them. She just doesn't realize that 10ish and 14ish year old boys really don't want to play with a little one year old baby girl! But they were sweet to her. And that was cute. I mean, it was manly. :-)
On top of her eating no meat or vegetables in several days, she won't drink milk. She'll only drink it when it's "flavored" with formula. We are planning to gradually reduce the amount of formula in it, so that over time she will eventually just be drinking milk.
Tonight, while I was attempting to feed her, and just getting covered in the food she was playing with, we discovered that our sink is broken. As in, it fell off in my husband's hands. The faucet. It just......FELL OFF. How does a faucet just FALL OFF? Crazy. Plus, the kitchen light is burned out, it's one of those old fashioned, school-cafeteria style fluorescents. There are 4 bulbs that go inside the cover. The cover has a frame that looks like wood but is fake. It is not so pretty, but whatever. So Bill got the cover off--just the part where the light shines through--changed the bulbs, and can't get the cover back on. We already checked for some secret opening, but there's nothing. So we aren't sure how we're going to get that thing back on. But at least it's now bright--and I mean BRIGHT--in our kitchen. I think there's about 160watts of light emanating from that overhead unit. It's like the sun in there.
Karina has also discovered that going for walks and actually walking rather than riding in the stroller is exceedingly fun. Now it's all she wants to do. She wants to run out into the street every chance she gets! There are some little, well, not so little, boys across the street who play basketball in the cul-de-sac where we live, and they were out today. She sooooo wanted to go play with them! They were really nice to her, and when the basketball whacked her in the belly and knocked her down, they were all upset. I wasn't, but they were! Still, she wanted to go back and play with them. She kept running out into the street to go over to them. She just doesn't realize that 10ish and 14ish year old boys really don't want to play with a little one year old baby girl! But they were sweet to her. And that was cute. I mean, it was manly. :-)
Friday, January 15, 2010
Great Post
Here's a great post from Cloth Diaper Blog on getting started with cloth. It answers a lot of common questions that new-to-cloth moms might have. http://www.clothdiaperblog.com/why-consider-cloth-diapers-for-baby/
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wow, tons of new diapers heading my way!
If you have read this blog for any length of time, or if you know me, you know how much I love my Natural Baby Company Wonder Wraps diaper covers. You also know that I hate the current color choices (solids). Ugh. They remind me of the seventies. I miss the pretty colors they had when I first bought mine, Berry (kind of a pinkish red), peony (pink), plum blossom (a really pretty purple shade), sage (celery green), an aqua color, a pretty blue color, white, grass (green) and chocolate. I have at least one of all these colors (except grass), but I use my wraps every single day, and they have been working hard for a year. A few of the most used ones are starting to see a little wear, mainly some pilling near the waist where the velcro catches when I fail to secure it to the laundry tabs (let this be a lesson to you!). Still totally usable, but I figured it's a good enough excuse to buy more, right? Except the colors STINK. So I searched my brains out online to find ANYONE who might still have a small stash of the old colors, and I found two sites: Jack's Magic Beanstalk, which had the blue one I bought as well as a plum blossom. I also found Baby's Bottom Line, which had 2 berry, 2 sage, and 1 plum blossom. I got one of each. They are a great value, the wraps, and I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend them to moms who are looking to cloth diaper and save a ton of money doing it. However, it was still about $40. No problem. Until today.
Today I found out that Kelly's Closet teamed up with Smartipants one size sleeve-style diapers (which are one of my new absolute favorites) and they have a color no one else has. Cocoa Bean. Oh yes, they have a beautiful brown, and don't you know I've been really wanting some brown pocket diapers for my daughter? Of course I do! So I put in an order. With Smartipants, if you order 2 of them, they're roughly $15 apiece. If you order 3, you get a package deal for $40. Hey, what do you know, I was thinking I needed another Think Pink Smartipants, since I have only one. It's a very pale pink, that can almost pass for a pale peachy-pink, just right for some of Karina's outfits. Soooooo, I got three. Plus, I have been using the Polar Bummis fleece covers on her at night, to let her breathe a little more and cut down on her rashes (she has really sensitive skin and eczema), but we only have two. I got another one, and that allowed me to qualify for free shipping, which for a limited time is on orders of $49 or more at Kelly's Closet. So now, $100 later, I have 3 new Wonder Wraps, a new Polar Bummi, and 3 new Smartipants diapers heading for me. Woo-hoo, at least til my husband gets the credit card bill!
Today I found out that Kelly's Closet teamed up with Smartipants one size sleeve-style diapers (which are one of my new absolute favorites) and they have a color no one else has. Cocoa Bean. Oh yes, they have a beautiful brown, and don't you know I've been really wanting some brown pocket diapers for my daughter? Of course I do! So I put in an order. With Smartipants, if you order 2 of them, they're roughly $15 apiece. If you order 3, you get a package deal for $40. Hey, what do you know, I was thinking I needed another Think Pink Smartipants, since I have only one. It's a very pale pink, that can almost pass for a pale peachy-pink, just right for some of Karina's outfits. Soooooo, I got three. Plus, I have been using the Polar Bummis fleece covers on her at night, to let her breathe a little more and cut down on her rashes (she has really sensitive skin and eczema), but we only have two. I got another one, and that allowed me to qualify for free shipping, which for a limited time is on orders of $49 or more at Kelly's Closet. So now, $100 later, I have 3 new Wonder Wraps, a new Polar Bummi, and 3 new Smartipants diapers heading for me. Woo-hoo, at least til my husband gets the credit card bill!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
new giveaway from Thanks Mama
Click through my link to see what fantastic-ness she has in store for you this time!
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Mothering Magazine articles to read
I found, thanks to Go Go Natural's Facebook posts, some articles at Mothering Magazine's website that give information about the environmental impact of cloth versus disposable diapers, as well as some really interesting articles about the timeline of the war between the two types. Unfortunately, I didn't see where the information came from, but I'm sure if I dig deeper I can find it. I do wish they had their sources clearly displayed, however. It would certainly make them more credible to people who think disposables are "environmentally friendly".
Here are a few of the articles:
http://www.mothering.com/a-tale-of-two-diapers
This one is about the ongoing battle between disposable diaper manufacturers and cloth diaper advocates, including an explanation of how consumers were misled, confused, and trained to believe that disposables are environmentally friendly.
Here is a quote from the article, "According to the American Petroleum Institute, 3.5 billion gallons of oil were used to produce the 18 million throwaway diapers that Lehrburger studied in 1991. Approximately 7 billion gallons of oil each year are required to feed our disposable-diaper habit today, almost four times as much oil as is estimated to be in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."
http://mothering.com/green-living/diaper-choices
This is by far my favorite one. It gives a lot of statistics about the manufacture and disposal (if you can call it that) of disposable diapers. Again, I wish sources were more available, but I'm sure, as I said before, research could find them. And probably a letter to the editor of the magazine would do as well. Here are some of these statistics:
http://mothering.com/green-living/politics-diapers
This article chronicles the war between the disposable industry and cloth industry. One of these articles, I admit I can't remember which one, mentions that there are areas of the country that no longer have diaper services. Well, I can tell you I LIVE IN ONE. The closest one is in a city that's at least 3 hours away.
I hope that when people read this blog, or Go Go Natural's Facebook posts, or the articles I've linked above, that they will do their best to spread the word. Don't be afraid to tell people how NASTY disposable diapers really are. Let's start making people think instead of just blindly follow the whims of the disposable diaper industry like a bunch of lemmings.
Thanks to Go Go Natural (http://www.gogonatural.com/) for pointing out these articles to me and others!
Here are a few of the articles:
http://www.mothering.com/a-tale-of-two-diapers
This one is about the ongoing battle between disposable diaper manufacturers and cloth diaper advocates, including an explanation of how consumers were misled, confused, and trained to believe that disposables are environmentally friendly.
Here is a quote from the article, "According to the American Petroleum Institute, 3.5 billion gallons of oil were used to produce the 18 million throwaway diapers that Lehrburger studied in 1991. Approximately 7 billion gallons of oil each year are required to feed our disposable-diaper habit today, almost four times as much oil as is estimated to be in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."
http://mothering.com/green-living/diaper-choices
This is by far my favorite one. It gives a lot of statistics about the manufacture and disposal (if you can call it that) of disposable diapers. Again, I wish sources were more available, but I'm sure, as I said before, research could find them. And probably a letter to the editor of the magazine would do as well. Here are some of these statistics:
- Eighteen billion disposable diapers are placed in landfills each year. They take as long as 500 years to decompose.
- Disposable diapers make up the third-largest source of solid waste in landfills, after newspapers and food/beverage containers.
- It takes more than 82,000 tons of plastic and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp (a quarter of a million tress) to manufacture the disposables that cover all the babies in the United States right now.
- The wastewater produced from washing diapers is benign, while the wastewater from the manufacture of the pulp, paper, and plastics used in disposable diapers is toxic, containing dioxins, solvents, sludge, and heavy metals.
- The Landbank Report, an independent review and evaluation done by a London environmental agency, concluded that compared with cloth diapers, throwaway diapers use 20 times more raw materials, three times more energy, two times more water, and generate 60 times more waste (The Landbank Consultancy Limited, “A Review of Proctor & Gamble’s Environmental Balances for Disposable and Re-usable Nappies,” July 1991).
http://mothering.com/green-living/politics-diapers
This article chronicles the war between the disposable industry and cloth industry. One of these articles, I admit I can't remember which one, mentions that there are areas of the country that no longer have diaper services. Well, I can tell you I LIVE IN ONE. The closest one is in a city that's at least 3 hours away.
I hope that when people read this blog, or Go Go Natural's Facebook posts, or the articles I've linked above, that they will do their best to spread the word. Don't be afraid to tell people how NASTY disposable diapers really are. Let's start making people think instead of just blindly follow the whims of the disposable diaper industry like a bunch of lemmings.
Thanks to Go Go Natural (http://www.gogonatural.com/) for pointing out these articles to me and others!
Monday, January 4, 2010
My daughter, the goofball
Now that Karina is one, we are getting ready to transition to "real" food. She eats her dinner with us at the table (in her high chair), and today I bought a suction cup bowl for her to start learning how to eat out of one. I put it in front of her, and dumped in her mushy baby food, chicken and rice and then some apples and blueberries. She started out with a spoon, but almost immediately switched to her hands. This is all fine with me--I don't worry about this little stuff like food all over.
The second important part of this story is that Karina has eczema. She has really sensitive skin, very pale, and in the winter, her eczema is apparently going to flare up. Our doctor said to bathe her only ever other day, so I decided I would not bathe her tonight. This was before I gave her the food.
No problem, I say to my husband, I'll just wash her off at the sink. She likes to stick her hands in the faucet. Great, this is my plan. Karina finishes eating, I dry-wipe her off, take away the tray, wet-wipe her off, take away the bib, and then take her over to the sink. Her shirt sleeves are goopy, too, but she's going to be taking that off soon to get pjs on anyway. I turn on the water at the sink, sit Karina on the edge in front of me, and start attempting to wash her hands. Well, I guess Karina had other ideas, because she sat herself right down in the sink, in her little diaper cover, and splashed herself all over with water. She was so wet that I had to get my husband to bring a towel just so I could carry her upstairs without dripping water everywhere.
It was so funny! Bill took some pictures of her in the sink. I don't think she's "bathed" in the sink since she was a tiny baby. It was just one of those funny moments you hope you'll remember but probably won't, and I realized that if I blogged about it, I could go back later and preserve it.
We are now keeping some of Karina's washcloths downstairs for non-bath nights. Oh, the messes I look forward to cleaning!
The second important part of this story is that Karina has eczema. She has really sensitive skin, very pale, and in the winter, her eczema is apparently going to flare up. Our doctor said to bathe her only ever other day, so I decided I would not bathe her tonight. This was before I gave her the food.
No problem, I say to my husband, I'll just wash her off at the sink. She likes to stick her hands in the faucet. Great, this is my plan. Karina finishes eating, I dry-wipe her off, take away the tray, wet-wipe her off, take away the bib, and then take her over to the sink. Her shirt sleeves are goopy, too, but she's going to be taking that off soon to get pjs on anyway. I turn on the water at the sink, sit Karina on the edge in front of me, and start attempting to wash her hands. Well, I guess Karina had other ideas, because she sat herself right down in the sink, in her little diaper cover, and splashed herself all over with water. She was so wet that I had to get my husband to bring a towel just so I could carry her upstairs without dripping water everywhere.
It was so funny! Bill took some pictures of her in the sink. I don't think she's "bathed" in the sink since she was a tiny baby. It was just one of those funny moments you hope you'll remember but probably won't, and I realized that if I blogged about it, I could go back later and preserve it.
We are now keeping some of Karina's washcloths downstairs for non-bath nights. Oh, the messes I look forward to cleaning!
Tiny Tush giveaway
Go here: http://dirtydiaperlaundry.com/tiny-tush-elite-giveaway/comment-page-2/#comment-11945 to enter to win a Tiny Tush Elite diaper! It's a one size diaper with lots of colors to choose from and has either snaps or velcro-type closure. Check them out, then head over there and enter to win...three people get to win!
Pet Peeve
I have a pet peeve. It is grammar. All my friends know this, and fortunately they don't judge me too harshly if I ever feel a pressing need to correct them, which I hope I do rarely. My biggest grammatical pet peeve is the constant, insistent, unbelievable overuse of apostrophes---mainly on plural words where they don't belong!
I can show you this really easily: A plural is a word referring to more than one thing. Dogs. Cats. People. CDs. 1980s. All of these are plural words. Notice that NONE of them have apostrophes--which are those little notches you see on contractions and possessive words. ' See, there, that's an apostrophe.
Plural words NEVER, EVER, EVER use apostrophes!!!!! EVER! NEVER!
Here is why: an apostrophe means that something is missing or left out of the word. For example, in a contraction, there are missing letters. Here's an example: can't. Can't comes from two words, can and not. When you put them together into can't, they lose one n and the o. Can not = can't. Apostrophes are also used on possessive words, which are words that show that someone or something owns something (or possesses it). What's left out here is trickier, because it's something that has been lost to us in the changing format of our language, but essentially--well, let me just show you. John's bike. The bike is John's. It is the bike belonging to John. Or, the bike of John. We don't talk that way, so we don't really miss those extra words, but basically, that's what the apostrophe is representing. It's showing ownership. John owns the bike.
So if you write, "I have eleven cat's and fourteen dog's." You are actually saying, "I have eleven cat is and fourteen dog is." Now, really, does that make sense? No, of course not! That's not what you MEAN. You mean to write, "I have eleven cats and fourteen dogs." What you mean is that you have more than one cat and more than one dog. The cats and dogs don't own anything, and the words aren't contractions.
This applies to words like: CDs, 1980s, 20s, Ds, and so forth. It's a lot more common to see apostrophes here because people are trying to show that it's not "CDS" or "DS" but that's why the letters are capitalized and the little s is, well, little. Same with numbers. No apostrophe. (I'd like to point out that the major league baseball team, the A's is a grammatical error. It should be the As.)
Bottom line: if it means more than one, don't use an apostrophe! Just take an extra second to think to yourself, what am I saying? What does this really mean?
I can show you this really easily: A plural is a word referring to more than one thing. Dogs. Cats. People. CDs. 1980s. All of these are plural words. Notice that NONE of them have apostrophes--which are those little notches you see on contractions and possessive words. ' See, there, that's an apostrophe.
Plural words NEVER, EVER, EVER use apostrophes!!!!! EVER! NEVER!
Here is why: an apostrophe means that something is missing or left out of the word. For example, in a contraction, there are missing letters. Here's an example: can't. Can't comes from two words, can and not. When you put them together into can't, they lose one n and the o. Can not = can't. Apostrophes are also used on possessive words, which are words that show that someone or something owns something (or possesses it). What's left out here is trickier, because it's something that has been lost to us in the changing format of our language, but essentially--well, let me just show you. John's bike. The bike is John's. It is the bike belonging to John. Or, the bike of John. We don't talk that way, so we don't really miss those extra words, but basically, that's what the apostrophe is representing. It's showing ownership. John owns the bike.
So if you write, "I have eleven cat's and fourteen dog's." You are actually saying, "I have eleven cat is and fourteen dog is." Now, really, does that make sense? No, of course not! That's not what you MEAN. You mean to write, "I have eleven cats and fourteen dogs." What you mean is that you have more than one cat and more than one dog. The cats and dogs don't own anything, and the words aren't contractions.
This applies to words like: CDs, 1980s, 20s, Ds, and so forth. It's a lot more common to see apostrophes here because people are trying to show that it's not "CDS" or "DS" but that's why the letters are capitalized and the little s is, well, little. Same with numbers. No apostrophe. (I'd like to point out that the major league baseball team, the A's is a grammatical error. It should be the As.)
Bottom line: if it means more than one, don't use an apostrophe! Just take an extra second to think to yourself, what am I saying? What does this really mean?
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Unbelievable article
I just came across an article, randomly, while I was looking for sites that might still have some of the old colors of Wonder Wraps. It was excerpted from a book written way back in 1997, but you don't realize that until you get to the very end and read the fine print. It is displayed just as if it were current information.
By the way, this little piece right here is chock full of MY opinion.
The article I read is supposedly about the pros and cons of cloth diapering versus disposables. It is one of the worst pieces I've ever read, even discounting the old information. Apparently, the person who wrote it did not do much, if any, research before writing. They just (it seems) wrote about their own personal opinions, rather than actually offering facts. The paragraph on pros and cons about the environment, for example, doesn't seem to have any pros for cloth...it seems to be mainly giving reasons why we should all use disposable diapers and keep filling up landfills. The article claims to offer parents information which they could presumably use to make a decision about cloth versus disposables. Too bad it doesn't really give both sides, and certainly isn't unbiased. Fortunately, the two comments on the article really help set it straight. The first comment is almost as long as the article itself, and really calls out the author on the mistake. I was so glad to see that. It's too bad though that some people won't bother looking at the comments. You have to click on them separately just to see them.
The article suggests, among other things, that cloth diapering is costlier, smellier, less convenient, and harder to do than using disposables. None of this has been or is true for me, and I've been using cloth for a year. To me, these assertions are simply ridiculous! Our water and electric bills have not increased by any amount that we have noticed, and really if we wanted to save money there, I should insist that my husband turn off or unplug all his tvs and radios and computers and the rest of his electronics. We have a tv in every room, and half the time hubby leaves them all on. Not to mention the amount of electricity that is wasted by leaving small appliances plugged in. My mom started unplugging everything, and her electric bill went down $30--no joke. As for water, you gotta wash the baby's clothes and your clothes, right? If I really wanted to conserve water, I'd only run the dishwasher when it's full, I'd take shorter showers, and I wouldn't fill up the tub every night for Karina's 10 minute bath. I'm glad that the first comment points out the cost of manufacturing the disposable diapers, of trucking them to grocery stores, of packaging them, and then of course, the mess they leave behind for YEARS to come.
The author of the article asserts that cloth diapers are bulky and hard to use. Um, I'm not having any trouble with them. My husband manages to use them. My mom uses them, and the staff of the nursery where Karina goes every Sunday seems to be managing just fine as well. As for the bulk, yes, they are slightly bulkier than disposables, although there are some brands that are very trim indeed. I also don't find them to be inconvenient at all. You have to do something with any diaper, be it cloth or disposable. I put my cloth in a bag, and it doesn't smell. You have to put disposables in a bag, and believe me, that smells. Ask my husband, who can't stand the smell of, well, doodles. He was thrilled when we switched to cloth as soon as Karina's bellybutton stub fell off (I didn't know enough back thent about cloth to think to look for a brand that would fit her better, so we used disposables for a couple weeks. Ugh, the stench! The diaper rash! Horrific.) I have babysat and worked in a day care where disposables were used, and I've changed my share of disposable diapers. I can swear to you now, they smell horrendously worse than my diaper bag. If I had to sit in a room with dirty disposables or dirty cloth diapers, give me the cloth, please!
To be fair, this article is excerpted from a book from 1997. Amazingly, that is over 10 years ago. I know a lot has changed. Even so, there are still glaring errors about cost, convenience, and environmental impact that can't be excused by the date of the article. In this age of global warming, huge landfills, and a bad economy, we should be encouraging people to at least consider using cloth--it does cut down the cost, it does not cause more harm to the environment than disposables, and it doesn't even compare to them as far as cuteness. (Sorry, I just had to throw that in there)
So here's my summary of cloth versus disposable:
energy use: I don't notice any difference in my bills since using cloth
convenience: I don't ever run out of cloth diapers unless I am so lazy that I never wash any. They work exactly the same as disposables, except they have touchtape (ie velcro, aplix, etc) rather than tape.
cost: way, way, way less than disposables. There are some cloth brands out there that can potentially save you as much as $3000. No kidding. That's a lot of money. Plus, my daughter will potty train a lot faster than disposable babies will, so that cuts my cost, too. Plus, I can reuse my diapers on future children, and sell them when I'm done. Can you resell disposables? Gee, I sure hope not!
environmental impact: from what I can tell, and I freely admit here that I have NOT researched this, cloth has less impact on the environment if only in the fact that it doesn't contribute to the junk in the landfills. I know that manufacturing disposables uses resources, and I admit I don't know what those are, but still, it's using up something. Both cloth and disposables have to be transported. I know that manufacturing plastics of any kind emits chemicals and horrible smells, although that's about all I know about that. My opinion: cloth hurts less.
Keep in mind that disposable diapers have hidden costs that are often left out of articles like this one, not to mention they leave out the cost of the diaper pail plastic bags that everyone wants so that they don't have to smell their, according to the article, "less" smelly disposable diapers. Ugh. More plastic and more waste! No pun intended.
If you want to see the article, here is the link to it. Please keep in mind that everything written here on this blog is my own personal opinion. My comments are not directed at the website itself, other than to say I think they should make it clearer that this is an old article with outdated, poorly (if at all) researched "facts". The bulk of the article appears to be the author's personal opinions, and that is not stated anywhere in the piece.
http://life.familyeducation.com/diapers/baby/50452.html
Just saw this on Twitter: GoGoNatural
Did you know that disposables use 20 times more raw materials than #clothdiapers? They do! Thank you mothering magazine for the info!
Another post today on Twitter: GoGoNatural Disposable diapers use 3 times more energy than #clothdiapers! Thank you Mothering Magazine for this great information!
By the way, this little piece right here is chock full of MY opinion.
The article I read is supposedly about the pros and cons of cloth diapering versus disposables. It is one of the worst pieces I've ever read, even discounting the old information. Apparently, the person who wrote it did not do much, if any, research before writing. They just (it seems) wrote about their own personal opinions, rather than actually offering facts. The paragraph on pros and cons about the environment, for example, doesn't seem to have any pros for cloth...it seems to be mainly giving reasons why we should all use disposable diapers and keep filling up landfills. The article claims to offer parents information which they could presumably use to make a decision about cloth versus disposables. Too bad it doesn't really give both sides, and certainly isn't unbiased. Fortunately, the two comments on the article really help set it straight. The first comment is almost as long as the article itself, and really calls out the author on the mistake. I was so glad to see that. It's too bad though that some people won't bother looking at the comments. You have to click on them separately just to see them.
The article suggests, among other things, that cloth diapering is costlier, smellier, less convenient, and harder to do than using disposables. None of this has been or is true for me, and I've been using cloth for a year. To me, these assertions are simply ridiculous! Our water and electric bills have not increased by any amount that we have noticed, and really if we wanted to save money there, I should insist that my husband turn off or unplug all his tvs and radios and computers and the rest of his electronics. We have a tv in every room, and half the time hubby leaves them all on. Not to mention the amount of electricity that is wasted by leaving small appliances plugged in. My mom started unplugging everything, and her electric bill went down $30--no joke. As for water, you gotta wash the baby's clothes and your clothes, right? If I really wanted to conserve water, I'd only run the dishwasher when it's full, I'd take shorter showers, and I wouldn't fill up the tub every night for Karina's 10 minute bath. I'm glad that the first comment points out the cost of manufacturing the disposable diapers, of trucking them to grocery stores, of packaging them, and then of course, the mess they leave behind for YEARS to come.
The author of the article asserts that cloth diapers are bulky and hard to use. Um, I'm not having any trouble with them. My husband manages to use them. My mom uses them, and the staff of the nursery where Karina goes every Sunday seems to be managing just fine as well. As for the bulk, yes, they are slightly bulkier than disposables, although there are some brands that are very trim indeed. I also don't find them to be inconvenient at all. You have to do something with any diaper, be it cloth or disposable. I put my cloth in a bag, and it doesn't smell. You have to put disposables in a bag, and believe me, that smells. Ask my husband, who can't stand the smell of, well, doodles. He was thrilled when we switched to cloth as soon as Karina's bellybutton stub fell off (I didn't know enough back thent about cloth to think to look for a brand that would fit her better, so we used disposables for a couple weeks. Ugh, the stench! The diaper rash! Horrific.) I have babysat and worked in a day care where disposables were used, and I've changed my share of disposable diapers. I can swear to you now, they smell horrendously worse than my diaper bag. If I had to sit in a room with dirty disposables or dirty cloth diapers, give me the cloth, please!
To be fair, this article is excerpted from a book from 1997. Amazingly, that is over 10 years ago. I know a lot has changed. Even so, there are still glaring errors about cost, convenience, and environmental impact that can't be excused by the date of the article. In this age of global warming, huge landfills, and a bad economy, we should be encouraging people to at least consider using cloth--it does cut down the cost, it does not cause more harm to the environment than disposables, and it doesn't even compare to them as far as cuteness. (Sorry, I just had to throw that in there)
So here's my summary of cloth versus disposable:
energy use: I don't notice any difference in my bills since using cloth
convenience: I don't ever run out of cloth diapers unless I am so lazy that I never wash any. They work exactly the same as disposables, except they have touchtape (ie velcro, aplix, etc) rather than tape.
cost: way, way, way less than disposables. There are some cloth brands out there that can potentially save you as much as $3000. No kidding. That's a lot of money. Plus, my daughter will potty train a lot faster than disposable babies will, so that cuts my cost, too. Plus, I can reuse my diapers on future children, and sell them when I'm done. Can you resell disposables? Gee, I sure hope not!
environmental impact: from what I can tell, and I freely admit here that I have NOT researched this, cloth has less impact on the environment if only in the fact that it doesn't contribute to the junk in the landfills. I know that manufacturing disposables uses resources, and I admit I don't know what those are, but still, it's using up something. Both cloth and disposables have to be transported. I know that manufacturing plastics of any kind emits chemicals and horrible smells, although that's about all I know about that. My opinion: cloth hurts less.
Keep in mind that disposable diapers have hidden costs that are often left out of articles like this one, not to mention they leave out the cost of the diaper pail plastic bags that everyone wants so that they don't have to smell their, according to the article, "less" smelly disposable diapers. Ugh. More plastic and more waste! No pun intended.
If you want to see the article, here is the link to it. Please keep in mind that everything written here on this blog is my own personal opinion. My comments are not directed at the website itself, other than to say I think they should make it clearer that this is an old article with outdated, poorly (if at all) researched "facts". The bulk of the article appears to be the author's personal opinions, and that is not stated anywhere in the piece.
http://life.familyeducation.com/diapers/baby/50452.html
Just saw this on Twitter: GoGoNatural
Did you know that disposables use 20 times more raw materials than #clothdiapers? They do! Thank you mothering magazine for the info!
Another post today on Twitter: GoGoNatural Disposable diapers use 3 times more energy than #clothdiapers! Thank you Mothering Magazine for this great information!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Got New bumGenius Diapers!
bumGenius is currently offering their 3.0 onesize favorite-of-mine diapers at buy 5 get one free! bumGenius hardly ever seems to go on sale (but it's okay now because I found out they give a portion of their money to an orphanage overseas) so I took this opportunity to get some more! I found a site offering them in singles, at 17% off, with free shipping. I got two Moonbeam (a color I didn't have), two Blossom (I have two, but they get used a lot), and one Zinnia (I have only one of this color). I know it seems weird, that I wouldn't get six, but like I said, I got them at a discounted price, what do they call that? Prorated? Anyway, it was a steamin' deal, as I like to say. When I get new diapers in the mail, I can't wash them fast enough. Oh, and an aside: I got some bumGenius detergent, and so far I really like it. The diapers just smell like cloth. I think I was experiencing some serious detergent buildup from my other detergent, which shall remain nameless!
So these new dipes are in the dryer as I type, and I can't wait for a reason to use them, especially my new Moonbeam ones. I only use my "special" pocket diapers when I take Karina out somewhere. Anywhere. But as long as I'm home, I just use prefolds and Wonder Wraps (pleeeeeeeeeeez come out with new colors, solid colors, I'm beggggggggging you!!!!!! I will buy some!) which work perfectly for us at home.
Most of your trusty diaper sites are offering bumGenius 3.0 onesize diapers at this sale price; some only allow you to do the buy 5 get one free, but a few will let you just purchase them singly at the 17% off discount, so just check your favorite sites for the best deal for you!
So these new dipes are in the dryer as I type, and I can't wait for a reason to use them, especially my new Moonbeam ones. I only use my "special" pocket diapers when I take Karina out somewhere. Anywhere. But as long as I'm home, I just use prefolds and Wonder Wraps (pleeeeeeeeeeez come out with new colors, solid colors, I'm beggggggggging you!!!!!! I will buy some!) which work perfectly for us at home.
Most of your trusty diaper sites are offering bumGenius 3.0 onesize diapers at this sale price; some only allow you to do the buy 5 get one free, but a few will let you just purchase them singly at the 17% off discount, so just check your favorite sites for the best deal for you!
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