little feet, big sky

I’m up in Salinas visiting my mother again – this time with Spice in tow. I flipped out yesterday as the spouse and I were trying to get Spice her passport and realized I just needed to get away for a little bit and my own mother was the best solution. I packed her “big” diaper bag, a back pack for me, her cloth diapers & wraps and her swing. *sigh* The swing… I hate the damn thing, but the car just won’t start without it, you know…

Driving up with Spice was a nightmare! First, I got on the road a little too late, around 3pm. Counting the slow through Santa Barbara on the 101 with afternoon traffic, and the smazillion cops pulling people over, I started to panic over driving with her after dark. At it was, we were stopping randomly for diaper changes and nursing, and I wasn’t too picky about where to pull over, but after dark? Even worse, as I got past Paso Robles, I noticed that there weren’t too many town-like areas to stop, just miles and miles of farmland. Add to that, Spice was getting tired of the constant driving and would cry for 20 minutes and quiet for 5-10, then start all over again. I was hysterical and in tears by the time we got to my mother’s. :-(

But today is a new day, and as moms seem to make things better, mine did, too. Good cozy sleep snuggled up together has wiped the slate clean for both me and Spice and she’s napping in her swing quite happily. *sigh*

She’s really so cute when she’s not screaming. :-) She half-smiled at me for the first time a couple of days ago in the bath. (She really likes her baths.) And then yesterday before we hit the road, she smiled at the spouse, while grabbing at his hair. This morning won me over, though. After eating, she sat and smiled these big open-mouthed smiles at me, with little gurgle sighs in between. Ahhh. So freakin’ cute.

It’s hard to believe she’s just 6 weeks old. A month and a half. She’s so alert and engaged, and since I’m obviously biased I have to say that other people notice it too. :-) As much as I wanted to take an international trip to see my grandmother, I’m starting to feel bad about taking her so far from the spouse for so long, especially while she’s breaking into new ground every day. It just wouldn’t be fair, even if he is super-tied up with some of our business stuff right now.

Well, off I go for now. Told mom I’d tidy up her resume for her this morning.

So the gDiapers with cloth inserts didn’t really work out for Spice. In fact, the gDiapers themselves haven’t really worked out, sadly. They’re okay for wet ones and super trim, but leak consistently with poopy breastfed blowouts. The worst part is the cleaning; toss the insert, either handwash the liner and wait for it to dry, or wash it with cloth diapers and have it be out of commission until the next load. God forbid it leaks, ad then you have the cover out for wash, too. None of which sounds impossible for the average cloth-diapering parent, until you factor in that you should have about 4-6 covers on hand and that they cost about $12 – $18 each… about the same or more than a quality cloth diaper cover! (A bumGenius one-size AIO is $18.)

I now have a great stash of Thirsties and Litewraps which are working out fantastically. I have a ton of gDiaper inserts left over, so I cheat and line a cloth diaper with one at night for better absorbency. I noticed that lots of people trifold the prefold and just lay it in the wrap, but this ALWAYS ends up in a poopy wrap for us, so I do a newspaper fold and snappi, then put the wrap on. If I’m good with my folding, I only have to wash a cover every 2 days. :-) Maybe later today I’ll try a jellyroll fold. I have two steel stepcans next to the changing area, a small one for the gDiaper trash and a large one for the cloth diapers. We have a large stash of cloth wipes, a wipes warmer and use Kissaluv’s Diaper Lotion Potion, with good results. Cloth is just so much easier! Spice hates being wet, so frequent changes happen anyway.

If you’re thinking of trying cloth diapers, I can’t stress enough the need to try out different brands of wraps, pocket dipes and AIOs. For example, Bummis are really well reviewed everywhere, but I hated them; they felt plastic-y on the outside and the velco was rough and dug into Spice’s legs. The Proraps were almost as bad and just felt cheap. On the flipside,Imse Vimse is the softest one I have and the Litewraps second. Getting one of each let me try them and figure out which to get more of. I also wouldn’t recommend buying up sizes in advance. The bumGenius 3.0 (one size) we have worked great when her poop was tiny, but it’s leaked twice with blowouts, so it’s at the bottom of the stash right now. I’ll try it more as her pooping schedule lightens up later. My sister gave us some Kushies she had never used, but those also leak a little on blowouts. I’m learning not to trust anything that doesn’t have a leg gusset!