I'm still calling Baby Man "Microraptor" out of pure habit, even if we have picked out a name for him already: James Griffin Dilts. We may have even picked out a nickname for him, courtesy of Amelia. When I asked her what we should name baby brother, she pointed very matter-of-factly at my shirt, which pictured a fire-breathing dinosaur. "Ah, you want to name him Dragon, do you?" And then I made the mistake of publishing that little tidbit to the masses. Now we have a few uncles who are diehard fans of the name Dragon Dilts. Oh well.
Of note... this week is a stay-home-and-excitedly-wait-for-packages-to-arrive week. Huzzah!
The reason we are getting so many packages is that we finally are making the switch to cloth diapers. Yay! We've been wanting to do that for a long time. Why? Well, the main reason is because in the long run, cloth diapering is FAR cheaper than buying tons of disposable diapers, even when you factor in the laundering costs.
I am drooling just thinking about the money we'd save every single month if we weren't buying boxes and boxes and boxes of diapers (and wipes!) all the time. At least $40 a month, methinks. Definitely more once we have two babies. And and and! We could get other cool stuff! Like... sigh. Like, say, a reduction in student loan debt. Or something else just as exciting.
Our original excuse for not cloth diapering was that we did not have our own washer and dryer. I was not particularly fond of the idea of lugging a diaper pail to our apartment complex's lowly laundry room and then tossing the diapers into the community washing machine. And there was already a "no more than two loads of laundry per apartment per day" limit in this little laundry room. Darn. It would be extremely inconvenient. And I shudder just thinking about the sheer number of quarters we'd need... Maybe if I were more hardcore, I would have done it anyway.
One of the less obvious reasons I hesitated to use the communal washers to wash diapers was because I could not control everything that would be entering them... so there would be plenty of detergent residue on the inside of the washer. And actually, every communal washing machine I've ever used is visibly filthy with detergent residue.
This residue, apparently, is bad for cloth diapers, most importantly because the residue makes the diapers less absorbent over time. And ugh! If we want to use cloth diapers primarily for financial reasons, I want the diapers to last as long as possible so we can get the most bang out of our buck. Ideally, we'd want our diapers to last through as many babies as possible, so we'd want an appropriate detergent that would maximize the lifespan of our diapers but still clean them awesomely and affordably, etc.
Anyway, back to the excitement of packages! Packages, packages, packages! Out for delivery this very moment is our massive bucket of new laundry detergent. Yay! We got a lot. It'll cost us about 11 cents per load, which is actually quite good. (If we move somewhere that has hard water, we'll have to add something to counteract that issue so that the stuff in the water doesn't build up on the diapers--again, reducing the absorbency--but for now, 11 cents per load is teh awesome, I think.) Don't ask how much detergent we got.
Also, our diaper pail is supposed to arrive today. We never got one with Amelia. We've been using a plain old trashcan instead and sealing the poopy diapers in old grocery bags so they don't overwhelm us with odor before we take them out. (And actually, for much of her infancy, we used a Costco-sized cereal box as a diaper pail. Heh. Classy, I know.)
On Wednesday, the diapers themselves are supposed to arrive, along with some training pants for Amelia. (And, of course, the ones she picked were pink. Oh well.)
On Thursday, our diaper pail bags and our wet bags will get here. Wet bags are like the bestest things ever, by the way.
Tada! By the end of the week, we will have graduated into full-fledged hippies. We haven't switched to all organic clothing or family cloth, neither are we composting nor have we switched to 100% home-grown food... so don't worry about us getting too hippie. At least not yet. ;)
And the key words here are "not yet". After all, I have already stopped shaving my legs and armpits entirely. (Not because I want to be as hippie as possible. More because (1) I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make the sores on my legs go away, and the only thing that has at all helped is to just pretend I like leg hair, and (2) because my armpits have always hated the shaving experience, and also (3) because I hate shaving and am lazy. I seem to recall growing up that my dad had sores on his legs, too, so maybe I have inherited something evil from him. Curse you, genetics. Or epigenetics. Or perhaps a common environmental factor. Curse you, whatever you are. At least I can and do cover up my hairy legs with leggings.)
All in all, I suppose I am in great danger of becoming an extreme hippie before my days are through. I suspect it would greatly amuse God to arrange for us to live in, say, ultra-conservative Orem, Utah. I can only imagine a typical Utahn's reaction to the idea of, say, family cloth. (Also ... I want a bidet. They sound fun. Can I call it a bum gun?)
Still I am eagerly awaiting the UPS guy. Come oooon, UPS guy. Go zoom, zoom!
Anyway, all these baby-related purchases are practically making me itch to acquire more stuffs for little Dragon. We have practically nothing for him to wear that isn't pink or purple or covered in a girly print. And speaking of pink or purple or covered in a girly print... pretty much every single baby blanket we received for Amelia is pink or purple or covered in a girly print. Wo is us!
I was wise when I acquired our car seats and stroller and high chair and play yard... all is boy AND girl compatible. Huzzah! (And if I'd been even wiser, I would have realized how likely it is that our happy, reliable car will last us until we have three kids, and then purchase seats that'd fit three-in-a-row. Alas, I was not quite so wise. Our car has been so good to us.)
At least when I'm out walking, no one should say, "Aw, what a cute little girl" to Dragon, thanks to a lack of bright pink stroller. ... Though it wouldn't be too surprising if they said that anyway, I suppose. Even with Amelia decked out in a skirt and a pink top, people would think her a boy... simply because she was practically bald. Dang it.
Huzzah! It's the UPS guy! We now proudly own tons of diaper-friendly detergent and a shiny step-trashcan to be used as a diaper pail.
In other news... we just bought our plane tickets to Pennsylvania in December for Ethan (James' little brother) and Joon's wedding in December. Thankfully we had $1500 already set aside exclusively for this purpose, but still. It always hurts a little when you charge $1100 to your card. And then plan on paying another $200 for three weeks of parking at the airport because it just happens to be two entire hours away... Oh well. It is money already set aside for exactly that purpose, so it hurts a lot less. :) ... Ouch. Still hurts.
Speaking of which, I am totally a fan of living on a budget. We had a budget before... kind of. We'd budget imaginary money. It didn't really work for me. Now though, we have enough in the bank that we are budgeting actual money. It means that, despite the massive amount of money we've spent in the last two weeks... we STILL have plenty of money for a medical or automotive emergency. It is really, really nice to not actually have to be worried about money.
Anyway, I'm tired of writing.
Love and bum guns,
Jenna
and Amelia
and Dragon
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