Thursday, May 21, 2009

Disposable vs. Cloth

Every parenting, mommy, family magazine in circulation has an ongoing debate regarding diapers: disposable vs. cloth. A similar ongoing debate occurs among the mommy mafia for feeding: bottle vs. breastfed.

For diapering, why don't the articles cover the real, everyday, life part of it? How do you clean a cloth diaper? How do you properly dispose of disposables? Will the messy cloth contaminate other clothes items if laundered together? Will the disposables call maggots to your trash bin? UGH! Real Life PLEASE! I can conclude which diaper is GREENER. I can conclude which diaper is EASIER. But I am asking for REALITY!

I am trying to decide which one is better for my lifestyle. And today it is CLOTH.

I poke baby three times. Baby is wrestling to stand up and run. Baby cannot remove cloth diaper (unlike disposable) on her own.

One hour later, Oops! Baby mess. UGH!!

Change baby. Two more pin pokes in her hips. Once again, baby is wriggling herself free and on the verge of running.

Dirty cloth diaper goes to the girls' bathroom toilet to be rinsed. Diaper takes a break and sits in the toilet bowl while diaper-cleaner is wrangling baby into the playroom. Big sister is playing in her room. Diaper-cleaner quickly loads the dryer. Diaper-cleaner returns to bathroom to rinse diaper and load into the washing machine.

Where is the diaper? I know dirty diaper cannot go too far. And I definitely know that nobody (other than me) will TOUCH dirty diaper.

I look in the bowl, behind the bowl, next to the bowl, behind diaper genie, behind wastebasket, under bath mat, in bathtub, behind shower curtain, and in the bowl (again).

The toilet starts gurgling. The pipe connected to the wall is shaking. The toilet water is now rising very quickly. The toilet water is overflowing. There is sewer water backing up into the bathtub.

"Hey," I shout. "Who just used the bathroom?"
"Hey," the echo shouts back. "Who just left a diaper in the toilet?"

Of course, nobody did it! So, how did that cloth diaper just get flushed down into the kingdom of sewerness?

UGH! And some other four-letter words shouting inside my head. This is just the beginning of my day. It surely cannot turn any worse. Or maybe...

Cats spy a constant supply of water gurgling up from the bathtub drain. Cats jump in and start to drink before I can get them outside.

UGH! Cats vomit!

It is only 8:13 in the morning! Is my debate solved?

I need a drink (or three) ... but only after Mr. Roto-Rooter saves the day! Maybe, Mr. Roto-Rooter will drink with me! After all, he is a man in uniform. And... yes, a man in uniform, indeed!

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