Confessions of a terrible housekeeper.

If there are any truths about babies and food, then this MUST be one of them: no matter how you try and play it, there is no avoiding a giant mess. That's the idea behind bibs, of course. But let's be honest here: they don't make a bib that truly keeps the mess off the clothes. So really, when you put a bib on the kid, you're just creating an additional item of laundry per feeding. So my brilliant realization of the morning was, of course, feed the baby naked! He was gonna need a bath anyway, right? Et voila, less laundry for me. Bibs are for suckers.






So anyway, I got some sympathetic emails after one of my earlier posts offering to buy us some disposable diapers. Ok, people, let me introduce you to the concept of exaggeration: we are not so destitute (yet) that we could not purchase diapers if we wanted to. And yes, there has been a level 4 terror alert poop situation or two since Owen's palate has been expanded. But really, REALLY - cloth diapers are working for us. Even my daycare lady uses them without protest, and let me tell you - love to ms. debbie and all that, but she doesn't exactly lie awake nights thinking of ways to accommodate me, you know? Cloth diapers are simply not that much work - and trust me, I don't really do things that are a lot of work. You're talking to someone for whom "putting the laundry away" means tossing the pile of clean clothes on the dresser. Fer cripes sake, I just told you I feed the baby naked so I'll have less things to clean!

I felt the need to defend my cloth diaper use because everyone gave me a lot of guff for it when I was expecting. I can't tell you how many times I heard the comment "you're going to use cloth diapers? heh, yeah - let me know how that works after two weeks." well, I'm here to tell you that it's now been six months, and things are going just fine. And it IS significantly cheaper than buying disposables, but that's not why we do it. I spent pretty much my entire pregnancy researching the diaper issue (I'll spare you an expanded treatise on my eco-guilt, but let's just say it is a canyon that runs deep and wide) and I have read probably every printed existing word on the subject. And the answer is unequivocal: the best thing, from an environmentally conscious standpoint is to not have a kid at all. And if you're going to go ahead and have one anyway, then cloth diapers are a much more sustainable choice than disposable UNLESS you live in an extremely arid region, such as Arizona or the Sahara. Which we don't. So we cloth diaper. And it's working fine.