Being Aedan's and Amelia's Mom: November 2010

This morning I woke up to my kitty Mocha being spastic at my door, she came into my room and starred at my ceiling as if something was there.

After my fog of sleepiness lifted, I heard what she was so focused on. It sounds as if a squirrel has decided a nest in our attic to avoid the chilly weather

Times like this, I'm often glad we rent, it isn't REALLY my problem and the property management will deal with it.

So I called George, our super. He said he could come over later in the day and check it out and see if he needed the contractors involved.

When he arrived to peek in our attic with a flashlight to see what he could see. he needed access through Amelia's closet. Now you need to understand Her closet is VERY well stocked with all her cloth diapers, all the medicines, changing creams bathroom stuff, all her clothes toys etc - basically everything a baby might need in their first year. There is not one inch of space wasted in that closet.Also, while I'm not the most neat freak there is - I DO have a deep appreciation for organization in my living space, so I have spent quite sometime making that closet what I need it to be.

While George was up there with his head in the attic, he couldn't see much with his flash light, and in an attempt to be thorough, took one foot off the ladder and meant to rest it on a shelf to give him better leverage to look a wee bit further.

Well he misjudged the weight he should bear and down he came, and so did EVERYTHING in our closet. Every shelf was knocked down and all the brackets warped.

It must have been quite the fall. I was worried about George, George was worried about the mess, and profusley sorry.

In his haste to try to fix some of it- stepped on a bottle of grape seed oil I use for her skin after her baths- and yup- that went all over the floor too.That poor man though is probably going to be pretty sore tomorrow. You can't fall like that and not have some pulled muscles.

Poor George felt so bad and just kept making the mess worse in his haste to fix it, I told him just go home and rest himself.( before he slipped in the oil)

I tried tackling the mess myself, but there was just too much going on, so my mom popped by as back up. An extra adult between 2 kids, dinner being made, the mess and the craziness of the evening goes so much further.I'm glad she was here as the job would have easily taken 3 times as long without her.

So for now, the mess is out of the closet, I need new shelf brackets - they are all twisted and warped.

I won't be putting it all back together until the contractors assess ( they will be in and out of the attic) Yes I'm frustrated I can't really have a functional nursery for hopefully just this week - But I'll survive.

I managed to snap a pic mid way through clean up attempts, I laid newspaper over some of the oil to stop it from spreading about. not that it helped that much Oil is tracked all through the house.

DISASTER!

Someone remind me to post an after pic when it's all cleaned up?

If you care NOTHING about cloth diapers, but want to see a cute picture of Amelia - scroll to the bottom of this post.

This is a post from a cloth diaper forum I'm on that I originally posted my review. I decided to post it here as I begin to resurrect my blog.

Some background information to those who are reading this blog more as part of my story, I Cloth Diapered my son from 11 months until Potty training, before that point we had severe diaper rashes and were constantly using prescription creams.

I also suffered immense guilt knowing the carbon foot print we were leaving on his world, I was debating using G-diapers but before I tried them found some Mother Ease One Size(MEOS) fitted diapers in a consignment store - we bought a few Thirsties Covers to go over them and that was that, My son, rash issues disappeared my guilt was gone, and he was cloth diapered.

This time I'm starting fresh cloth diapering a small infant,( rather than a nearly 30lb 1yo) his old stash doesn't work so great on her small body without tonnes of bulk.

Some good friends have loaned me 36 small prefolds and an army of covers. While they are between babies ( hoping for another!)I'm grateful, they have had heavy use, but I don't like using them like I used my sons fitted diapers, and about %50 of the time have still turned to disposables.

Also, fitted + cover or prefolds + cover, is a 2 part system that has been taking more time at the moment of diapering than I care to invest while I have a 3 year old also craving my attention, so the search is on for the perfect diaper for my small baby. that offers a quick change at an affordable price.

I've had a bit of tunnel vision in that I want to invest in a one size system so it grows with her and hopefully I won't have to buy more.

I did find a seller online who has sold me 10 bum genious diapers for a great deal.... I'm waiting for them to arrive, I have one of those I have purchased already to try. The same distributor, Cotton Babies - has a less expensive All In Two ( AI2 ) diapering system called Flip.

Here begins my review

Flip has the option of having Stay dry inserts made of all man made fabrics like microfiber etc,They have inserts made of all natural fibers, and they even have disposable inserts

I bought a stay dry day pack.

It comes with 2 One Size snap covers and 6 One Size inserts. 8-35lbs

The idea of this diaper is very similar to laying a prefold, trifolded inside a cover.

Except - they have a small ruffle at the front AND the back of the cover to help keep the insert from slipping out. This allows you to also pre-stuff the diaper.

Also the fabric is not natural fabric so it is trimmer and can still holds a lot of wetness. Its also nice not to have trifold, and to lay a stay dry liner on top, Its already sewn on. So it is much faster to use - super convenient if your use to prefolds, you may fall in love with this system- I suggest picking up some inserts to try under your present covers for more convenient changes

I could imagine if I had an older baby, crawling, walking, climbing this system is probably not fool proof, you would be relying on a very well fitting cover, but for my little baby who doesn't even roll over yet, I like it. I'm sure I'll drift away from it in time.

On my almost 2 month old, its one of the trimmest options I have in my house.

I even tried this diaper overnight, the ultimate test of a cloth diaper - not one complaint from her for 11 hours of wear in it being heavily saturated by morning, and she does complain about sposies overnight, so that's pretty good. The stay dry top on these really did still feel dry to the touch and my baby's skin felt dry too.

Out of curiosity, I decided to also try the inserts in my Thirsties Duo size 1 velcro wrap ( won't work in their snap covers) and a small Bummis Super bright cover... the OS insert folded down fit perfect in them both! If I did this again, I'd consider buying inserts only and not the covers - I don't have a complaint about the flip covers, I just like my Thirsties better for the gusset design. The velcro also made it much more convenient and quick over the snap covers. I bought this system to compliment the Bum Genious in hopes of it being a space saving diaper bag system of convince while on the go.

I may be buying 6 more inserts - they are cheap for how well they work, and can act as great doublers down the road even if I fall out of love with this system.

Oh - and she did poop in it, and as I had expected - newborn poop goes everywhere, so yes the cover was soiled and needed to be washed. I could see this system frustrating to moms of super poopers if they didn't have enough covers.

Washing - it didn't hold her poop stains like other systems do, but drying takes FOREVER, I was hoping being more of a AI2 system it might be fast drying, but the microfiber with several layers does not want to give up the moisture.

I would give this system about 4.5 stars out of 5

It Looses points for dry time and potentially needing more covers than is suggested...

It gains points as a good night time system, and the liners being adaptable and the entire system being super affordable.

If your curious about this system, and already have some PUL covers, grab some inserts, they are cheap, you will probably like it, and if you don't, you have some fantastic overnight doublers.

I might try the organic inserts too.

Here are the pics!

First the insert front and back... The rough microfiber side goes down, the smooth stay dry side goes up. It has a running stitch across the insert showing you where to fold, and it does a good job helping the fold stay put.