One of the first reasons was purely vain. We didn’t like how they looked. Paul is a skinny minny and they are SUPER bulky. He is wearing 6 or 9 month clothing, in order to accommodate the diaper we would have to put him in 12 month jeans or have him just wear onesis, neither which appealed to us. He is far too short and small for 12 month jeans, they look ridiculous on him and it is too cold for him to go around without pants.

Another reason was the fact that they are very inconvenient. We could not get into a groove with them no matter how hard we tried. The storage, changing, washing, drying it was all too much for what used to be a very easy chore. Changing a baby doesn’t have to be that hard or time consuming. We have our fourth child and we do not have time rinse out poopy diapers or be laundering them every night. I know many people don’t launder every night but I am not about to have poop sitting around in my home, even if it is in a container, waiting days for me to get rid of it.

I cannot see how they are that much better for the environment. The constant amount of washing and water usage has an impact as well. Perhaps not as much as diapers in a landfill but it seemed like trading apples for apples to me with a much larger impact on my daily life. Call me selfish, it won’t bother me one bit.

I didn’t see any benefit to rashes while using them over disposables. In fact I really can’t figure this one out. Paul was far more dry on the buns each time I used disposables than with the cloth. He hasn’t had one rash while home and he has used far more disposables than cloth. I have also seen this with Mikaleigh and she has had plenty of rashes while using cloth. I personally think that the rashes has much more to do with the sensitivity of the child’s skin not the diaper used.

Paul disliked cloth diapers. He would cry when I was putting the cloth on him. This was most likely due to the fact that the orphanage used cloth and they didn’t change them all that much, I witnessed this first hand while I was in Ethiopia, but that is part of this equation. He also disliked how bunchy they were and would sit around a while when they were first put on. When he got up to crawl or walk he would have trouble getting up, again because of the bulkiness. (I am sure if you used these diapers all along your child’s life they would be completely used to these limitations.)

Washing them out is DISGUSTING. There really isn’t more to say on that. It is gross. I prefer to not have an intimate relationship with my son’s poop nor anyone elses. There are plenty of gross things a child will do, I don’t think I need to add more.

All in all it was an interesting challenge for ourselves. We should have trusted our gut and not tried this new venture, in the end it ended up costing us quite a bit more in the long run, but now we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are not a cloth diapering family.

We do still use the cloth during the weekdays when we are staying home for the day. We do this for the sole reason that we still have the diapers and we want to recoup a little of our money from them.

[UPDATE (8/24/2005): There's other varieties available elsewhere.]

I just bought 3 cases of size 4 and 1 case of size 2! Love to find great deals!

So when do kids normally get potty trained???? Maybe we should look into that for the older two!

The shoes arrived today. Well, actually, only one pair of shoes arrived. There was some sort of mixup with our buy-one-get-one-free “twins” discount. Sandi got pretty upset because she was really looking forward to getting these shoes and seeing The Girls in them. Each day I’d go check the mail and report their non-arrival to a dejected Sandi.

She fired off an email to Preschoolians customer service as I assured her that they seemed like a great outfit and would definitely make things right. They responded to her email within fifteen minutes with a follow up question and had the matter resolved within an hour. This was from 5 to 6 o’clock our time which would have been 8 to 9 o’clock Connecticut time! They’re going to send another pair out ASAP.

The shoes that arrived were very nice. They came in a see-through vinyl tote with an accompanying pre-addressed, postage-paid envelope to return them in if you weren’t absolutely satisfied or if they weren’t the right size. The Girls did look very nice in them so we eagerly await their colleague.

In case you missed it, Preschoolians easily has the best email response time of any company I’ve ever seen, the best discount for twins I’ve come across, and the best shoe innovations for children that I’ve heard of. Buy from them if you’re in the market; they’re a little more pricey than other stores but they’re better for your kids.

The shoes are from a company called Preschoolians. They are completely soft soled and have a view through bottom so you can be sure they are fitting properly. Very inventive. The company seems to have great customer service.

As you can see, the room is a rather bright pink called “Princess” from Disney Paints. Those cribs were a steal at $300 for both, including the mattresses and pads. If I had taken the picture today, you would also see two matching mobiles with various animals that were a gift from my parents. The other thing we painted last Saturday was Sandi’s white dresser that she’s had since she was a child. It’s now a nice light purple. With that and the walls, the room screams little girl.

My plan is to write a short, four-line poem that will adorn the walls of the nursery and remind the girls how much I love them and how much they mean to me.

We have other indications—daily vomiting, for one—that all is still well in the Brown Baby Oven.

But we found it and it was at 170 bpm. The baby is still alive at 11 weeks 1 day!