I must be crazy...

I'm attempting to take a road trip with Liam. It's going to be just me and him. Granted, this will be our second road trip, but it's our first BIG trip. I'm lucky enough that my friend over at You Are My Sunshine lives exactly halfway between me and my destination. She has been kind enough to let us stay the night with her, so that we can break up the trip! Thank goodness. I don't think I could do 6 1/2 hours with a baby. It would turn into a 12 hour trip from all the stops! Plus, I get to spend time with my friend and her beautiful son. Win-win!

So, I'm going to visit family for a week... 8 days to be exact.  One glance at all the stuff I have to bring and it looks more like we're moving in! It's ridiculous how much stuff a tiny baby needs (or how much we THINK he needs).  There's the Bumbo and the activity gym, plus some toys and books....

Then there are all the tiny clothes! How am I supposed to know if it's going to be a one outfit day or a three outfit day? You never can tell, so you have to prepare. I'm just going to plan for everyday being a three outfit day...that means lots of clothes! There are also the bibs. Liam has started drooling constantly, therefore, he needs his bib changed out a minimum of 100 times a day. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but it sure feels like 100 times a day.

Notice the drop of drool and the soaked shirt.

Of course, I also need all my cloth diapers! I'm going to be able to use my sister's washer and dryer, so Liam doesn't have to spend the whole trip in disposables. Yay!

Organizing all of this chaos is no easy task. Liam's crib has become a giant laundry basket. At least I'm getting some use out of it until he moves into it.

Who knows what I'm going to look like on this trip. I'm putting too much effort into making sure I have everything for Liam that I'm just throwing stuff into a suitcase for me. Ha! 

That all said, I'm going to be MIA from here for a week or so. I'll be sure to update about how the road trip went when I return! I'll also try and get around to Part 3 of the cloth diapers post!

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Diapers or as we say in the Rivas household, Pañales!

I promised a post on cloth diapers, so here we go. I do not claim to be an expert or a cloth diaper enthusiast. There are those that LOVE cloth diapers and there are those who hate them ( Ew! Why would you touch poop?!). I am in the camp of cloth diaper likers and I love the money they save me. Plus they are so darn cute on Liam's little toosh!

Liam's 1st time in a cloth diaper. It was way too big!

My first look into cloth diapers had me so overwhelmed that I almost said forget it!  I liked the idea of less waste filling up our landfills and the fact that cloth diapers don't contain chemicals like disposables.  I also liked that in the long run we would save a lot of money, but when you first enter the cloth diaper world you feel like a foreigner.  When I first stared researching cloth diapers, I felt like I needed a dictionary! AOI. Fitted. Pocket. Stuffing. Isn't that what we have at Thanksgiving? What happened to just a diaper?! I went to an expert to find out.

I was lucky enough to have a friend who clothed diapered her daughter and she graciously showed me the ropes of cloth diapering.  She also had a stash of cloth diapers that she was trying to sell, so I took those off her hands for her. ;)  She had enough that all I had to buy was a few extra covers and prefolds! I really got lucky on that one. I tried to cloth diaper Liam for the cheapest price possible. Buying second hand and using prefolds and covers was the best way to do that. I have a very ecclectic collection of cloth diapers since I bought them second hand, but they work for us! I'll try and take you through what I have starting with prefolds and covers! 

The easiest and cheapest option for cloth diapering are prefolds or flats and covers.  I use Cloth-eez cotton prefolds from Green Mountain Diapers.  Liam is currently in the Yellow-small size and I also have the Red-Medium size. I have 12 in each size. The rule of thumb is 1 cover to 3 prefolds, because the covers can be wiped out and reused after you change out the prefold.

 I cover these with 4 Diaperaps small covers that I bought on a daily deal site called Eco Baby Buys. ( I love that site! Daily deals on Eco-friendly kid stuff!)  I also bought  four Econobum one size covers that came with 3 unbleached prefolds each. Besides the cloth diaper "accessories" that's all I had to buy new! 

Left: Econobum One Size, Right: Diaperaps Small

Econobum cover with Unbleached prefold.

Now, how do we put all this together to make a diaper? With a fold of the prefold and the greatest invention ever! The Snappi Diaper Fastener! There are quite a few folds out there, but my go to is the Angel Wing fold. It's quick and easy. What's even quicker is just trifolding the prefold and laying it in the cover. The latter is not good for Breastfed poops or messy poops, because the prefold can wiggle around and get the cover messy. This in turn means you have to use a new cover, but it is fast! 

Snappis!

 The Angel Fold

Add baby or Curious George.

 Pull over one side and hook with Snappi, then pull the other and hook.

 Pull the Snappi taught in the middle and add a cover!

Or you can trifold the prefold and lay it in the cover. 

That's how easy it is to use a cover and prefold!  I mentioned that I have an eclectic collection. I also have one random Grovia cover and a BumGenius Medium fitted diaper that I use together. A fitted diaper is basically a prefold that is sized and can be fastened with velcro or snaps. It doesn't need to be folded. They are nice to have, but they are a lot more expensive than prefolds. 

 Fitted BumGenius and my only Grovia cover.

Whew! I feel like that was a lot! I haven't even got started on All In Ones and Pocket diapers or the different diaper materials. Oh and the fun chore of washing all those little diapers! Those will have to wait for another day. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them here! Again, I am no expert, but I am glad to share what I do know! 

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I used the last disposable diaper last night! (Cloth Diapers Part One)

There may be 2 or 3 disposable diapers in Liam's diaper bag, but that is it! I'll admit I'm a little nervous. We're going all cloth from now on! We've been using cloth diapers since Liam was 9 weeks (when he could finally fit into them.), but we didn't use them exclusively. We decided not to spend the money on newborn size cloth diapers since he would only be in them for a few weeks, so we used disposable diapers when he was born.  By 9 weeks Liam could actually fit into his cloth diapers and we started using them during the day around the house. If we went out we would use disposables and at night we used disposables. 

Liam at 2 months loving his cloth diaper!

After buying this last giant box of disposable diapers from Sam's Club my husband and I decided that this was it....no more disposables. After all, why did we buy the cloth to begin with, if we were still going to spend money on disposables? 

 We still haven't made the switch to cloth wipes. We discovered through trial and error that BabyGanics wipes are the only ones that don't give Liam a rash. He got a horrible rash with Huggies Sensitive wipes and even the 7th Generation wipes gave him a little rash. We stumbled upon the BabyGanics wipes and then found them on sale at Babies 'R' Us. We're currently using up the 4th and last box!

After we use these up then it's on to the Diaper Rite Flannel Wipes from Diaper Junction.  I think I'm going to make my own wipe solution, but I haven't thought that far ahead yet. Ha! I have thought about how I'm going to store the cloth wipes. I'm using an old wipe container...why fix what's not broken? It works for disposable wipes and cloth wipes!

That is where we currently stand with cloth diapers. I'm starting from the end and working my way back to the beginning. Tomorrow I'll dive into how we started with cloth diapers in the first place. I'll give you a hint: It has to do with money!

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So, who is this Liam kid?

*** Update:  This was my first post at which time the blog was titled Laundry, Languages, Laughter and Liam. I just thought I'd clear that up since it's referenced in this post. =)



If you've stumbled across my blog, you may be asking yourself "Who's Liam?".  I am more than happy to answer that question! Liam is my adorable, smart and charming baby boy! See below.

 Liam Perez

You may also be wondering what HE has to do with laundry and languages. (I figure the laughter part is obvious.) Of course, babies create lots of laundry! Those tiny clothes seem to never stay clean. But my husband and I have added even more laundry...we've decided to try our hand at cloth diapering! So far, so good, but more on that later! 

The second part of my blog name is languages. My adventure with languages started well before Liam was ever a thought. I come from a Southern family and we speak only English, but I fell in love with the Spanish language in High School. I continued studying it in College and eventually changed my major to Spanish.

 

 La Universidad de Salamanca in Salamanca, Spain

I was lucky enough to meet and marry my bilingual husband, so the Spanish has continued.

 

Now, we've decided that we want Liam to be bilingual, therefore, the Spanish Language is spoken quite frequently at home! I wouldn't go as far as to say that we ONLY speak Spanish at home, but we're working on it! 

We also read and sing in Spanish!

So, there you have it! This is my adventure of motherhood, bilingualism and cloth diapering with a little humor thrown in. <3

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