I QUIT!

This evening I am feeling a tremendous sense of relief, as if a heavy burden has been lifted off of my shoulders. Or the freedom a woman might feel in breaking up with an abusive boyfriend.

I've quit cloth diapering. Cold turkey. I just removed my last cloth diaper (filled with squishy nasty poop) and cleaned it and threw it in the wash with my last load of cloth diapers. I have several lightly used or never worn diapers that I'll be selling, along with cloth wipes, extra inserts, a pail and a wet bag. 

I don't need to explain why, because the past four posts I've written about that explain most of it. The rest of my reasons for quitting include the overall stinkiness, time/energy commitment (laundry involves going up and down a flight of stairs a few times), and probably our old washer and extremely hard water. 

Most of all, cloth diapering was my favorite mothering fetish and took up the energy of my devotion. But no more. I don't have to cloth diaper to be a good homemaker or even to save our family money. I don't have to cloth diaper to be a good mom, in the same way that a lady doesn't have to have a natural (or even vaginal) birth to be a good mom. 

I loved cloth diapers. They are cute. But they are also smelly and incompatible with my life now! I'm no longer asking for advice or tips because I've tried IT ALL. Twice. It didn't work and it's taking way too much of my emotional and physical energy.

Anyone have any good deals on disposable diapers? :) I'm all ears.

Happy News

I thought it would be interesting to read later on what all my thoughts were in the first 4 hours of finding out we are having our 2nd child (in chronological order):

-(looking at the two positive pregnancy tests with Carson complaining in the background because I left him alone for 1 minute) Oh snap. Too late to prevent this (as in I wasn't sure if I was ready)
-*tears of joy*
-Woohoo!!!
-Tell Carson he's gonna be a big brother! give him hugs and kisses.
-There's a little heart beating inside of me!
-Make a sign to surprise David when he pulls into the driveway in 5 minutes. (sign said, "Dec. 2013 <3")
-Oh yay I get to make that 2nd child announcement shirt I saw in Pinterest! (Only Child, expires such-and-such date)
-Oops! better feed Carson. Hands shaking in excitement, too excited to decide what to feed him! shaking too much to buckle his high chair! Just give him cheerios for now.
-*David sprints inside and we hug and cry*
-Call parents! grandparents! siblings! close friends! Can't wait to tell them!
-Oh yeah... a two year old and a newborn - LOL.
-We really need some more cloth diapers!
-Lots of texting and calling!
-So excited I'm queasy. That Ham and Bean soup suddenly doesn't smell so good. It's all in my head.
-Lets discuss what we want to do about some things - I'd like to keep the name to ourselves until he/she is born.
-Operation VBAC - eek!
-Yay! now we have extra motivation to get the basement back in order!
-Children are such a blessing from the Lord. He has truly blessed us with another.
-Praying I don't miscarry, but trusting that this child is in His hands whether in my womb or in heaven!
-Wondering how many kids we will have in total some day, and when/if we can adopt.
-God is making my heart bigger.
-I want toast.
-Now I can put the impossible venture for flat abs on hold for at least another year :)
-Yay!

Please don't say anything on FB yet :)

Cloth Diapering Difficulties pt. 4 (?)

Carson's old cloth diapers are in the trash :( they are useless now!

After countless tests with detergents, water softening, different cloth diaper brands, sizing, stripping, washing methods and research (jillian's drawers, paddedtushstats, all about cloth diapers, etc), I just got new diapers. It's the same brand, Bumgenius 4.0 one size pocket diaper. Even having to buy new diapers after a year, it still saves money. But the question remains: Will I have to do this again in 2014? Will I have to keep destroying diapers before I figure it out? Will I ever figure it out?

When I compare these with my old diapers its easy to see that both the PUL (polyurethane laminate) and the insert are just worthless now. 

Left: original cloth diapers, no PUL there! Right: New cloth diapers. See that shiny PUL?

 

Old insert on the top, new insert on the bottom. This is not so much of a surprise to me. It seems like 1 year of use would do this!

I don't know how some of this happened but I have a few guesses: 1) I washed them in super-ultra-hot water for most of the 1st year! 2) I used All Free and Clear, though from what I gather that doesn't seem to cause such extensive damage. 3) it's just the way they are made - 1 year warranty expires and so do the diapers! :P 4) moving to the sunny side of Louisville gave us severely hard water. I don't know if that's sufficient to destroy the PULs, but there is absolutely no PUL on any of my old diapers! Hence, when he peed, it went straight through the shot, non-absorbent microfiber insert and through the diaper shell onto my shirt.

We'll see what happens next time around. So far I am still using Charlie's Soap coupled with Charlie's hard water treatment, but not only are the ingredients a mystery, but they smell downright weird! I'd like to try Bumgenius's detergent or Allen's Naturally. (already tried Rockin' Green - that's a no-go) I'd also like to see if there is any kind of hard water treatment that I can use in the loads of cloth diapers no matter what the detergent. Calgon maybe? 

Has anyone else out there been through this with bumgenius? I started out thinking that I would use these same diapers throughout all my children's diapering years, but I was wrong. They didn't even last through my first child's first birthday. A year of use and abuse did them in! 

Any tips, hints, stories or tricks greatly appreciated!