The Cloth Diaper

My mom gave me an Amazon gift card for my birthday.  Then I got a $105 speeding ticket.  In order to punish myself, I spent part of the gift card on a $12 cloth diaper, thinking, "If I use it 400 times, I'll have paid for the ticket."  This seemed totally plausible at the time.

The diaper arrived, and that first week, I used it almost every day ('cause I did a load of wash every day, see).  It was awesome because Julia was only urinating it.  Easy peazy.  Then she did a number two in it, but the stool was hard and rolled right into the toilet.  No problem.  Then the next week her stool was soft.  Super soft.  Smashed into the fuzzy diaper fabric soft.

So I spent 15 minutes bent over the toilet bowl trying to get the poo out.  The smell was horrific.  I threw it in the wash with lots of bleach.  It came out smelling the same way it did going in (a little less bad, I guess) with an after-sniff of Clorox.  No bueno.  Washed it again.  Still stinky but after all that work, it was going back on the baby by golly, who had decided this was her favorite thing to poop in.  Spent another 15 minutes over the toilet bowl.  Did some internet research.  Soaked it with baking soda in hot hot hot water, hand washed it with dish soap, and threw it in the washing machine with detergent and vinegar.  Finally came out smelling clean.

If you're my age and you know your mom used cloth diapers, call her up and tell her how much you love and admire her.  Think thoughts of gratitude for your grandmothers and great grandmothers.  I promise, these new expensive cloth diapers are a huge step up from what they used, and they're still a nightmare.  I'm astonished my mother had more children after me (I'm the oldest).  Once again I am reminded that my mom is extraordinary and tough like the pioneer women, while I am not so much.

This also leads to musings on what kinds of people today use cloth diapers in wealthy countries like ours.  (To women in 3rd world countries who have no alternative, we need to send love and prayers.  And maybe disposable diapers.)  I'm going to assume that cloth diapers really are more environmentally friendly, even after all the hot water, detergent, and bleach.  To believe otherwise would be to believe in a bitterly cruel joke on the environmentalist parents.  My conclusions on cloth diaperers:

1. They love Mother Earth more than their own lives or
2.  they care about the earth and can afford to pay someone else to do their laundry or
3.  they love doing laundry, especially if it involves feces or
4.  they feel a need to punish themselves for something they've done wrong.

Now go call your mom and pay homage.