So I put her back in cloth on Friday and she’s been in it ever since.   No rash, no crabbiness, sleeping like a champ.  SOO happy that this is going to work for us.

Saturday morning I discovered one huge advantage that I hadn’t even banked on. Usually when I go in first thing in the morning, you can smell the wet diaper. After 11-12 hours, it’s just really, really ready to be changed–you know what I mean?? The brand of disposable I was using sometimes even leaked so I’d have to wash the sheet saver and the pjs after changing the diaper.  But Saturday morning I went in to Sweet Pea’s room and smelled…. nothing!  There was no musty wet diaper smell! And no leaks or wetness to be found.  The diaper was certainly nice and heavy but other than that there were no signs of any problem. I was thrilled with our first over-night cloth diapering experience.  Sunday night was the same way. I did use the extra newborn insert that came with the diapers when I put her to bed at night. So instead of the usual one, she had two inserts.  I don’t know if that made the difference or not? Who cares–it works!

After Friday and Saturday and most of Sunday in cloth, it was time for laundry today. Taking the lid off the can wasn’t too bad. I’ll admit, I did get a pretty strong ammonia-type smell. Not pleasant, but nothing too bad. Since the lid was off and the diapers were on their way into the machine, it was nothing I had to live with.  The bathroom where the dirty diaper container is stored never smelled all weekend! To me, that’s much more important than a little whiff of yuck on the way to the washer.

So, overall I’d say we’ve got a  good thing. This looks like it’s going to work for us!

I’d read online that with the way the pocket diapers work (the wetness seeps down onto the insert that was stuffed into the pocket), some babies may have a sensitivity to the fabric used in the liner (microsuede). UGH!  So I put her in a disposable diaper with some Desitin for overnight and the next few days until all the redness was gone.

In the interest of being scientific, I had realized that there had been another change that took place that same time: we started her on cereal. After some more Google-ing, I discovered that some babies may show intolerance to solids by developing a diaper rash.

The test was on: is the rash from the diapers? Or is it from the cereal?

So, we went back to disposable.  I switched from oatmeal to rice cereal. We started having napping issues, more spit ups and crabbiness. Double UGH! Plus the rash still lingered (reduced, but lingered).

On Wednesday, I stopped all cereal. We’ve been back to only bottles for the last 2 days and the napping is back (hallelujah!) and the crabbiness is disappearing (wooohoo!).  The rash is also gone–yippee! I’m inclined to say that the  rash was due to the cereal, not the diapers. But, only one way to find out!

Today I’ve put her back in the cloth diaper. We’ll see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, here’s some cutie pictures of Sweet Pea in her pink bum Genius!

Monday was laundry day!

I’d done cloth diapers all day Sunday before hitting a little snag (more on that later….).  A girlfriend recommended that when cloth diapering you set a wash schedule and follow it.  Yes, there’s an increase in laundry, but at least you have a day and a plan in mind.  She does Monday, Wednesday & Friday. That made sense to me so I decided to do the same.

The routine that is prescribed by bum Genius is a cold prewash, a hot wash and an extra rinse.  The inserts go into the dryer and the outer (colored part) is dried on a rack.

My washer doesn’t have anything on it called prewash or prerinse.  But light wash is an option.

So my diapers all went in on cold light wash with no detergent. The idea is that the prewash rinses off any, ahem, solids that might be lingering and spins and drains them off.  Get this! This diaper was VERY dirty (read: big poop).  This is what it looked like after coming out of the cold light wash WITHOUT DETERGENT!

Seriously!?! You can see a very, VERY faint stain there at the bottom in the leg elastic, but that’s all.   I’ll do you a favor and not show you a before picture. Take my word for it, this was a DIRTY diaper.

Then, I did a hot wash with the extra rinse cycle. Here’s what came out:

One of those diapers has never been worn, the other had a poop in it! Can’t see a difference, can you!??

Here’s the stack of beautiful cloth diapers–all ready to go! I stuffed them all and have them stored in a bin in Tenley’s room so that I can just grab one when it’s time for a change.

One of the things I had to figure out was the system I was going to use for the dirty ones.  Some people use wet bags. I’ve read good things about them–especially this brand.   But my hesitation was the price. Maybe I’m being too wise with money cheap, but I just couldn’t see spending $30 for a bag for poop.  A friend of mine who cloth diapers uses a trash can with a lid.  That got me thinking.

So I headed to Walmart and discovered this handy little bin:

The bin (with a lid that snaps on) cost a whopping $4 and the laundry bag to go inside was $1.50. Woohoo! That’s my idea of a budget!

So, my dirty diaper bin system is ready to go!

But wanting to do it and actually doing it are two different things!

I talked to a friend who’s done it for more than a year now with her daughter & read a blog I enjoy of a couple who also have done it for a  year.  I’ve googled and read and priced…. and finally decided the best of the best is bumGenius.  I seriously could not find one bad review. Plus I LOVED the idea that they are one-size-fits-all.

The snaps on them let you resize them as your baby grows. So I wouldn’t have to deal with wondering when to move up a size and constantly purchasing the waterproof shells in a larger size. Plus I was worried about being able to properly fold the liners to fit my little girl—what if I didn’t fold it right? What if the shell was too big? All these little things felt stressful & opened the window for leaks.  YUCK!

So I looked exclusively at bumGenius, and I discovered two options: the All-in-One (AIO) and the Pocket diaper.  The AIO is just that–nothing to add. No liners. No separate pieces; everything is built right in. It looks like you’re just putting a cute pair of bloomers on your baby. They will do their “business” right in that. Then you take it off and throw the whole thing into your dirty laundry basket. The negative to that from my perspective is: they cost about $7 more per diaper (yikes!) and they are made of a material that causes them to dry much slower (according to reviews I read online).

The Pocket diaper is similar. It also looks like a cute pair of bloomers. Comes in all the same great colors as the AIO. The difference is that it has a slit (a pocket) in the back of the diaper where you stuff a thick insert. So there are two pieces to deal with instead of just one like with the AIO.

Stuffing the liner into the pocket

Once the liner is stuffed in, your diaper is absorbent and ready to go. Plus with the pocket diaper, they come with an extra “newborn” liner. Those are smaller and meant to help the diaper fit a newborn better. But they can also be used to double up the absorbancy of your diaper. My plan is stuff one in at nighttime for some extra insurance. The pocket diapers are less expensive and dry faster since they’re made of cotton (not organic materials like the AIO). Those two things appealed to me and I decided to go that route. Sure, stuffing the diapers with their insert is an extra step but to me the cost savings was worth it.

Once I’d decided to bum Genius pocket diapers,  I checked ebay & Craigs List hoping to score a great deal–maybe someone who bought a stash & then decided not to do it. But I had no luck.  A friend told me about Kelly’s Closet.  I priced them there and found that there was a small discount for purchasing large quantities (6+), which I intended to do.Plus they were offering free shipping as well as a “surprise” free diaper when you ordered over $99.

So I placed two separate orders for 6 diapers each. That way I paid about 50 cents less per diaper for buying a large quantity, got free shipping and two free diapers. So for 14 diapers I paid a little over $200. That’s roughly $14.29 per diaper. Buying one bum Genius diaper at retail is $17.95. Plus Kelly’s offers a fun little points incentive—as you accumulate points, you can cash them in for gift certificates to go towards your next purchase (they carry other goodies like detergent, wipes, etc.).

The two free diapers I got were called Flip!  They are made by the same makers as bum Genius (woohoo!) but work a little differently. They are two pieces: a shell and a liner. There’s no pocket for the liner, the liner just lays right in the shell. The idea is that you could own only 3 or 4 shells and buy many liners. When your baby wets the diaper, you just pull out the wet liner and replace it with a dry one. The shell will likely not be wet or dirty & can be reused.

The Flip! diaper

Here’s the cost break-down:
In buying the newborn size diapers, I was thrilled when I was able to put together a deal (using sales & coupons) wherein one diaper was 18 cents. Tenley goes through 6-7 diapers a day. That’s $1.26/day or about $450 in one year.  Of course, the problem is:

1. that assumes I can consistently get that sale/coupon price

2. as she starts wearing larger sizes of diaper, the cost goes up (they package fewer diapers per box as the size increases).

And if we assume that she is potty trained by 2 years old, I’ve paid at least $900 in diapers.

Those cloth diapers will have paid for themselves by the time she’s worn them for 5-6 months! PLUS, when and if there’s a little brother or sister who can wear them, the cost savings just keep coming! I’m very excited about those numbers.

So I ordered my stash and they arrived Friday!  I plan to chronicle our first few days on them and my system for dealing with the laundry. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Despite being an avid couponer for a year or so, I’ve found it harder & harder to really make it worthwhile.  Manufacturers seem to have beefed up the conditions on their coupons often putting “not subject to doubling” or making the product cost more while the coupon is worth less.  Stores seem to be more strict with how often they have special couponing events  & also have raised their prices. So by the time a coupon is doubled, you really aren’t getting the product for much less than the generic item would cost. Overall, I haven’t found it to be much worth my time and effort to track the ads and keep up.

I also came to realize that trying to get the big “deal” sometimes meant I was going to the store to get items I didn’t really NEED or would use. So though the deal might be sweet, what good am I really doing?  Getting an item I don’t want for a few cents isn’t much of a deal!

This past Wednesday I needed to go grocery shopping though.  I’d planned out the meals I wanted to make, priced meat at local stores and decided I’d check my coupons against the Farm Fresh ad. Wednesdays is when Farm Fresh doubles coupons that are valued up to $1.00. I managed to have a few that matched their ad, plus they were offering their “buy any combination of 10 products and get $5 off”. Some of those items were things already on my grocery list.  That’s a good sign.

Overall I spent $30 out of pocket for about $65 worth of groceries. Not too bad!

He has divided the entire Bible up into ten sections. Each day, you are to read one chapter from each of the ten sections. So each day, you’re reading 10 chapters of the Bible. By reading from different sections, you’re getting a taste of several different genres of the Bible.

At first, I thought this would be confusing and hard to follow. Who wants to be in the middle of the Exodus and the nativity story and reading a chapter of Romans all in the same day!? It didn’t make sense to me.

I’ve been in it for nearly a month now. I’m sorry to say that I haven’t consistently read every day of this last month. And some days, I’ve needed to only read 5 chapters and then the next day I’ve read the remaining 5.  But the plan isn’t really about meeting a deadline; it’s about building a habit and getting a broad, big-picture kind of view of Scripture.

To give an example though of one of the beautiful & unexpected benefits of this, let me show you something I saw today in my reading:

Today I read Job, chapter 10. Job is crying out to God: ” . . . you would hunt me like a lion and again work wonders against me. You renew your witnesses against me and increase your vexation toward me; you bring fresh troops against me. Why did you bring me out from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me… (v. 16-18)

Then, on to Psalm 10:

“Arise O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted…O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed…” (vv.12, 17-18)

And Proverbs 10:

“The way of the Lord is a stronghold to the blameless, but destruction to evildoers. The righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not dwell in the land.” (vv. 29-30)

Joshua 10 told the story of God stopping the sun in the sky while He did the fighting FOR the children of Israel: “There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.” (v. 14)

At first glance, it may seem like a strange hodge-podge of verses and stories. But look closer, and see a never-changing, sovereign God. While He allows the destruction to fall on Job, the psalmist praises Him for providing security and safety for those afflicted like Job.  Proverbs calls Him a “stronghold” which is seen yet again when He fights for Israel in the book of Joshua.

If you’re up for trying something new, I’d recommend giving this reading plan a try. I am enjoying reading and seeing examples of my unchanging God fall together in a new way.

1. I like it

2. I’m getting more produce than I could eat

3. It’s fun

4. It could become expensive if I’m not careful

5. It’s more filling and satisfying than I expected

6. It has changed my perspective on the food I do choose to chew

So, I went to Farm Fresh Sunday night to get some more produce.  Last week’s juicing totaled about $16.00 I think.

I spent $11.60 yesterday, I purchased:

3 cucumbers

1 lb. of collards

3 lbs. apples

5 lbs. of grapefruit (for only $1.99!)

10 oz. spinach

and (my favorite & funniest purchase) 0.03 lb. of ginger root.

Ginger is $4/lb.! That’s crazy!! Plus I’d never tried juicing it and didn’t want to waste the money. So I dug around the produce bin and found the smallest piece of ginger I could.  It was only 3/100 of a lb. When the cashier rang me up, she actually did a double-take: it was $0.12!  HA!

So, this morning I had some new produce to try. I juiced the entire bag of spinach (10 oz. raw). I was SO disappointed to see that those 10 oz. yielded only 4 oz. of juice!

Such a bummer! Added to that spinach was:

1 cucumber,

2 grapefruits,

4 Granny Smith apples,

1 small piece of ginger

Really, REALLY good! Totally made up for last night’s epic beet fail.  The grapefruit is very strong, so is the ginger and cucumber. I’m not sure that I really need to put ginger in a juice that has grapefruit. Either taste is plenty; together is a bit strong but I still liked it.  Cucumber with Granny Smith apple is really good too. I dumped out the small cup and juiced those 2 flavors together to taste. I really liked those two by themselves.

Once, I’d poured all the juice together, I had 40 oz.! Those grapefruits & cucumber really yield alot of juice.

By this point, I’d played around too much with the camera and the juicer. Someone was making a great deal of fuss, so I figured I’d better stop playing and go back to my new full-time job….Mommy-ing.

Who can resist that face!? 

I’d said I would experiment with juicing for five days.

Today’s juice was an EPIC FAIL!

Looks beautiful, right?  I’d decided to use up all the rest of the kale since I was getting tired of it and had just bought some new produce at the store.

I added two new things to try: a beet and a small piece of ginger (you can see it there at the bottom-center of the bowl).

Beet juice comes out looking very, VERY dark:

This is just the one beet! So dark, and quite juicy!  I had high hopes when I saw this. . . . then I tasted it. OH YUCKY YUCKY YUCKY BEET!  It tasted like sharp, beety dirt. That’s the only way I can think to describe it.  I’ve never really liked beets, but had always had the canned ones forced on me as a child.

I thought maybe the  real, natural ones are better?

No.

They are not better.

They are gross.

But I powered through thinking that the apples, carrots, orange and ginger that I was adding would SURELY cut the taste.

It did not!

Soooo disappointed by this one. You could taste a slight hint of the ginger but it was drowned out by the nasty dirt taste of the beet.

It made about 24 oz. of juice. I think I drank about 4 oz.

Then, I did something I’ve not done yet in these last 5 days of juicing. . .

I threw it out.

I just couldn’t drink it.

You should have seen the look on Paul’s face when he smelled the juice!  I think he said something like:

“Oh sweet Lord, that’s nasty!”

Yep, that sums it up!

Breakfast juice today was 7-8 leaves of kale, 2 Granny Smith apples and 3 carrots:

 This is the pulp that is left over in the machine after juicing.

Not bad…. I’m finding though that the kale kind of falls apart and you’re left with some shards of the curly leaf even in the juice. I’m eager to try a different kind of green (spinach? turnip?) instead but I’m making myself use up the kale I bought.

Dinner was an AMAZING pineapple-citrus juice. I had to share with Paul, but I could have drunk this juice for DAYS!

It was the remaining half of the pineapple, one grapefruit, two oranges and one Granny Smith apple. WOW!

Since I had Paul around, he took over  the camera while I juiced. This made more MUCH prettier pictures this time!

Ahhh, juice!

So gorgeous, it deserved a prettier glass…

…& a better back-drop!

This combination made about 40 oz. of juice—I’m learning that the juicier the fruit, the more juice you get (duh!).   I can’t say enough about this little experiment. I’m seeing that it really could be possible to do a fast of only juice. I don’t think you’d feel like you were fasting…except of course for missing the chewing of food.

The only cons I have so far would be:

1. The cost.  The produce I’ve purchased is under $20 and this has made 1-2 juices a day for 4 days so far. It’ll probably last me another day or so. But to do a fast, would mean no food at all, and more juice.

2. The clean-up. It is a bit of a pain to disassemble and wash the machine after every juice. I’m getting faster & more efficient the more I do it. And I guess that it’s really not any more than the prep, cook and clean up of a food meal.  It’s just new. Plus I am juicing AND eating, so I’m prepping and cleaning up from both food & juice, so maybe that’s why it seems like so much more work.