Cloth Diapering Product reviews

I've had 6 weeks of trial and error with which to base these reviews on.

Cotton Babies BumGenius 4.0 One Size cloth pocket diapers with snaps

Overall excellent. Emmett has the snaps on these pretty much as tight as they go, and we've never had a problem with leaks. We like the base colors, and we might go get some of the snazzier patterned ones to use in warmer weather when he shouldn't need pants.

Absorbency is good, cleanup is easy, and the fabric doesn't appear to stain easily. These do afford the option of a thinner or thicker insert, depending on your preference or needs. I'm not sure I'd want to try to go all night on just one, but it could be an option, as he doesn't seem to fuss much when he's wet it, and more often than not, we have to go in and check.

gDiapers

Caveat: we bought these with the intent of going between the reusable and the flushable inserts. This only covers the reusable inserts.

Overall just okay. As with any Velcro style product, you do have to be careful with washing these, as the hooks tend to stick to things other than the loops, and trap fibers, eventually reducing the efficacy of how they attach. In the small size, they were too big for him until he was about 3 weeks old. There's a tiny size that we didn't know about at the time, but I would think that you would only get a minimal amount of use out of them. I personally don't care much for the elastic waistband.  At times it looks really really constricting and uncomfortable, but Emmett hasn't complained about it yet.

Cleanup with the reusable inserts seems to be more complicated than it needs to be. There's a snap in nylon liner and the reusable or flushable pad. I appreciate the breathable liner aspect, but I think having the pant and the liner as two separate pieces is unnecessary. Also, the flushable insert calculates at about 35 cents each, as opposed to 14 cents each for a disposable diaper. I'm all for earth friendly, but I'm sorry, it needs to be price comparable to traditional products for me. It's like organic foods to me. When the conventional apples are $1/lb less, i have a hard time going for the organic ones.

I suppose we'll give the flushable inserts a go, as they might be a viable option for travel.

Cotton Babies Flip diaper covers with snaps

A future review, as we haven't received them yet. They should be here today though. We'll let you know.
To be used with your stereotypical cloth diaper.
Rinse Ace Sprayer (http://goo.gl/cfsUh)

Cloth diaper sprayers seem to have two deficiencies in my opinion. One, they're overly expensive for what you are buying. Two, they hook into the toilet supply line, so there's no option for warm water.

This sprayer hooks into the shower head attachment. It's got a hose long enough to reach our toilet comfortably, which happens to be right next to the shower, so for some, this might not be an option without a hose extension of some sort. I much prefer having hot water with which to spray, and adjustability as far as how strong the spray is through use of the shower knob. It's also detachable, so you can hide in for when company comes over.

To be honest, we still have some things to sort out, like having a pail nearby the changing table so that we don't have to deal with dirty diapers right away. A bucket seems like a rather inelegant solution, but it would probably be the most effective.

What a difference a month makes!

Short and to the point, I'd rather be with Emmett than blogging.

At the moment, I can't be with Emmett, since he's in California visiting his grandparents, and I'm not, so I don't really have that as an excuse.

V, consider this your shoutout. Enjoy the leftover pizza.

Up until yesterday, I hadn't filled up my car with gas since October. I suppose since I can't have a car seat in it, there wasn't really much point.

Let me run through the new parent stuff:

Yes, it's awesome. Even at 3 AM when he won't sleep.

I seem to have become more or less immune to his cry, in that it doesn't irritate me. That doesn't mean it's not physically painful if he gets a good shout right in my ear.

Yes, you get sleep deprived. To the point where when talking with your spouse, you need to re-iterate what you're talking about, even if it's only been a few minutes, and there hasn't been anything else said since the last sentence. Pronouns don't work.

Flying with a 4 week old isn't so bad. We'll find out tomorrow how flying with a 5 week old is. Probably not much different. (famous last words)

Poop can have a trajectory.

While I don't mind having jury duty, tomorrow is awful inconvenient, but that's my fault for not asking to have it rescheduled.

I opted to stay home with wife and kid for 4 weeks after he made his appearance. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

I'm a nerd when it comes to bath water temp. The floaty ducky with the 'hot' stamp on it is nice, but I like using the kitchen thermometer, just to be sure. I'm also a nerd when it comes to bottle temp.

One of my readers pointed out to me that they don't really HAVE to read this, as they pretty much have a good idea of what I'm going to say, because I've usually told them everything that goes into this blog. Thanks for reading anyway, D.

To come, more adventures in cloth diapering, that is, if I haven't been put onto a major trial and sequestered.

Happy Birthday, kiddo!

Please welcome Emmett Thomas. Born 11/3/10, 9:09 AM. 6 pounds, 14 ounces, 19-3/4 inches.

Image used without Emmett's explicit consent.


At least the waiting game is over. Now I just have to re-orient myself with my own house, as I've woken up in so many different places in the last 24 hours.

Random Friday

1) Why do I continue to torture myself doing the incline? It's certainly not getting any easier. In fact, it's getting more painful.

2) Playing with the Slow Shutter app on my iPhone. Pretty nifty.

The waiting game

We've made some progress, enough to indicate that we shouldn't make any plans, cause anything could happen at any time. The waiting part does kind of suck, as we have no real idea as to whether or not today is the day.

On the other hand, some advice I've received was to make plans, and the baby will pick the most inopportune time to show up. Mid-act at a theater performance. While on the long stretch of nothing between Wilkerson pass and Hartsel. On Pikes Peak Highway, behind a tour bus. You get the idea.

The long stretch of nothing.

Taken from google maps street view without checking permissions.

Danger, Will Robinson!

To continue on the Uncommon Sense post, I'm assembling the baby bathtub at the moment, and the first line of the warning sticker reads: "Babies have DROWNED in infant bath tubs."

I understand the sentiment. Watch your kid. Pay attention. Don't scare the bejeezus out of me.
It's confidence inspiring, and really makes me want to use your product.

On a different note, for Lauren, Go Giants!

Surprise!

So I'd been going back and forth about having a baby shower at work, just a few people, with some of the typical 'guess the delivery date' type games and a cake for good measure.

I procrastinate, so It's no surprise that it's 3 weeks from the due date and I hadn't really organized everything.

Thankfully, my wonderful co-workers are more organized than I. Double thankfully, I was lazy today, and didn't go to the gym, as that might have put a monkey wrench in the surprise plans.

With the promise of free food, I was lured away from my desk and to a conference room. Sadly, the promise did not include leftover pizza, as that would have been too perfect.

It did include me being completely surprised for the second time by Laura, a wonderful cake from one of the best bakeries in town, presents, and games! For the due date game, sadly, only one person picked an October date, which is what we're hoping for. Perhaps I should put in a late entry for myself, and pick tomorrow, going with the "Price is Right" $1 strategy.

In any case, Thanks again to everyone!

E.T. is the nickname we've given him, seeing as how his ultrasounds make him look like an alien.

Uncommon sense

I'm a follower of Free Range Kids, and this post is one of the more positive ones that I'll share. More often than not, the posts on Lenore's site are ones that demonstrate the fear and craziness that's permeated society due to the 24/7 availablility of bad news from all around the world. Sometimes, I have to stop reading because they're so aggravating.

I hope to teach moderation and self-sufficiency to our son. Everything in moderation, including moderation itself. Sometimes, you have ice cream and brownies for dinner, and it's okay.



-Photo by Rizka Budiati used under cc2.0

Week 37

Today marks week 37 of pregnancy for Laura. He's officially safe to show up at any time now. We're as ready as we can be, I suppose. I'm sure we've forgotten something, but such is life, and I'm not going to stress about it. There's enough stress to go around for everybody, and I don't need to add more.

So this entire time, what is with babies being compared to fruits and vegetables in order to give an idea of how large they are? Especially when it's something that I've never heard of? What good is that supposed to do? Last week, I had to look up what a crenshaw melon was, just to have an idea.

Craziness.

This is a crenshaw melon.

Mean streak

My corporate home office has weather that is generally less pleasant that ours here in Colorado.

When I'm on a conference call with my team in the other state, the weather will often come up. As a rule of thumb, I try to play down how good our weather is relative to theirs by saying things like, "It's partly cloudly."

This is my definition of partly cloudy.

I can be a little mean sometimes, but I try to do it in the nicest way possible.

First!

Why start a blog?

I won't have a central focus, but I enjoy writing, and I'd like to think that I'm eloquent enough to write something that people might want to read. I'll do my best to add in pictures wherever possible, as I find that makes for a much better content.

What are you going to post about?

My posts will most likely be split into several categories. 1) My son should be showing up pretty much any day soon, as his official due date is November 10th. We're hoping for earlier than that, but will take what we get. We can guarantee he won't be late, as he's getting his eviction notice on said due date. That being said, one category will be kids/parenting, on the wonders of watching my child grow up. I'm going to try to raise my child Free Range style. One of the things I want to impart to my son is independence. Let's see how that goes.

2) Food. My RSS feed has at least 8 food blogs in it, including Eat, Live, Run, on which I comment on less than frequently, but more than never, Smitten Kitchen, Chocolate & Zucchini, Diner's Journal, La Tartine Gourmande, The Amateur Gourmet, and Zesty Cook. I love making a mess in the kitchen, trying new recipes, or just attempting to throw stuff together in manner that results in something both palatable and repeatable.

3) Tech. I'm both a nerd and a geek. I'm an iSmug 4 user, I'm both a PC and Mac. I, however, have not attained nerdvana, as I'm not a Linux user. Engadget, Wired, and Tom's Hardware liberally sprinkle my news feed.

4) General interest: BoingBoing, Treehugger, and the entire suite of Gawker sites round out my feeds, and I'll point out things of interest from them occassionally.

Why Leftover Pizza?

From the corporate environment, whenever someone would send out the email regarding leftovers in the breakroom, and the ensuing rush to see if what's left is worthwhile, which led to a follow-up conversation regarding how "Leftover liver & onions" wouldn't go over as well, niether as a blog title, nor as an email in the corporate world. I also thought it was fitting since I don't have a concentrated focus for this blog. Also, I thought it would be a great band name. Can you imagine it? "Friday night at the Palladium, Leftover Pizza!"

So, here goes!