Cloth vs Disposable

At a recent mom-baby play group in my community we were discussing ways to save money with kids.  Eventually cloth diapering over disposables came up.  Quickly followed by a argument that with the cost of laundering (soap, water, running the washer and dryer) disposables were much cheaper than cloth. 

Side note: since when is 'cheap' better. And why do people brag about cheap food and diapers, but cheap cars and cheap dates are bad.  What my baby sits on all day, and what he eats kinda seem important and worth spending money on to me!

So anyway, disposables are cheaper and thus better!  Now, I am much to shy and stutter during confrontations to have said anything really at the time.  But now I am on the Internet and have found bravery!

First off, cloth is cheaper.  You need a big initial start up, but after that you need to only buy soap.  I can see if you google an online diaper store and look at there up to $40 for an all-in-one diaper, you would be scared right back to the newspaper looking for huggies coupons.  But fear not, I have never paid more than $15 for a new diaper.  I bought half my stash used and skipped the fancy diaper pails (garbage can people, same thing!)

Secondly, it is fairly easy to sacrifice some convience to save money in almost any living situation.  I hang dry all my diapers and even all my clothes, there isn't even a dryer in the house, so that saves us lots of electricity.  I do use a lot of hot water to wash my diapers.  I try and ease my hot water guilt by only using hot water for diapers, cold for regular clothes. 

If you are one of the lucky moms to whom money is no issue, please think about this: your baby's great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren would be able to, in theory, go to the dump and find your baby's diapers.  Those disposable diapers take longer to break down than the house you are living in.

Minus the money aspect, and minus the environmental impact, there are more issues of what exactly is in disposables, hormone disruptors right next to baby's hormone factories, BPA in recycled paper pulp, etc.

I for one cannot, in good conscience, use disposables for any frivolous reason.  While pregnant, and continuing, I researched diapers.  I tried to read as many blogs, and articles as I could to do this one part of my job as best I could.

IPad Or is it iPad? Or Ipad?

I was cruising around the Internet looking for a good baby/toddler topic to post about, I came across a search result titled "Does your toddler need an IPad?"

I'm gonna stop you right there Internet.  NO! No toddler needs an I-anything.  It's a toddler! 

Now don't get me wrong, if your toddler has special needs, or your family is in special circumstances, then by all means, get an IPad and download all the helpful apps you need.  I've heard great things about apps that help children with autism expand their vocabulary.

Now to clarify my clarification: you being to stressed out from working all day and your kid being grumpy after day care is not a special circumstance. 

I cannot think of another good reason to give a toddler electronics. If you can, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it is an excuse and not a good reason. 

Interact with your child.  Don't let a battery powered toy or a TV show teach your kid the alphabet, have fun doing it yourself.  Don't buy something to do your job. 

Rant over!

Hope you all find some time to enjoy some quality time with your cave babies this week!

Simple Christmas

Christmas has come and passed.

The month before Christmas was full of planning and preparation.  Are the photos going to be developed in time to get them in the mail?  Will the package arrive on the other side of the country in time for grandparents and great grandparents?  Did we buy enough food to hole up the few days before and after Christmas, to avoid all the last minute shoppers and Boxing day chaos?  Some things went well, all our outgoing presents were shipped in time!  Some things, didn't go so well, the parcel is still out there somewhere missing.

This was the Christmas between breast-fed cave baby who doesn't care at all and food-fed cave toddler who only cares about the crackers and juice box in his stocking.

I noticed a few things this Christmas, our first with a real cave toddler.

• Cave toddlers actually don't care about any new toys, until you feed them breakfast.
• Even when they are excited for new toys, that excitement wanes once they get a glimpse of the old forbidden cupboard of cooking utensils. 
• A cup full of new pencils is the only way to get a cave toddler to sit still for the Skype camera.
• Special Christmas breakfast is good, but cave toddler would have liked being fed porridge by his cave papa just as much.
• The Christmas tree is interesting, but watching the stand mixer is just as fascinating. 

I feel like I could go on and on, but there is one overarching theme I picked up this year: cave babies are simple.  He didn't care if one present was ordered late and not there in time for the official Christmas morning. While he doesn't really appreciate the work and planning we put into his Christmas, he makes it a little easier by being completely content with a snack and watching cartoons curled up on the couch with cave momma and cave papa. 

Christmas won't always be so simple, but it's nice while it lasts.