completely different theme :)

i've bored myself with both the political and economic situation in the states.

i informed you all awhile back that we were going to be using cloth diapers for samil.
i had really wanted to use cloth since he was born, but some people convinced me not to. that, and we had been gifted enough disposable diapers to last until samil was about eight months old.

i spent about 50 dollars and bought the cheapest, traditional diapers - diaper service quality. and some diaper covers.

i was really only concerned about a few things: diaper rash, soaking through and my house smelling like a diaper pail.

i'm pretty diligent about changing diapers since samil is what they call a heavywetter. but, in efforts, i think, to save money, you will see a lot of dominican babies running around with diapers FILLED with pee. ask my mom, she'll tell you. diapers down to the ankles from the weight of urine. at least with a disposable the baby stays moderately dry, but with cloth that wet just rubs against the butt. sad.
so, in order to combat that, samil is in cloth only 95% of the time. the two days a week that he goes to a babysitter, he wears a disposable. i'm okay with that, because honestly, we're in cloth for the economy not the environment (though the GREENness of it is a benefit).

we've gone from $42 dollars a month to $9 a month on disposable diapers.

i also kind of hate changing sheets on samil's crib. it's a mini crib and a pain to get the sheet on. don't get me wrong, i change his sheets frequently. i just was scared that with cloth, he'd soak through more and i'd have to change his sheets like everyday. these fancy diaper covers are beautiful. but i don't really trust them at night. so theresa, my dear friend emily's mom, sent samil some "rubber pants" awhile back, and he uses those at night. we haven't had a leak yet.

fancy in the day. useful in the night.

here's a kind of gross thing you might not know about underdeveloped countries.
you can't flush the toilet paper! so, we empty our trashcans in the bathrooms everyother day, if not more. if not, the house smells gross. add some poopy diapers in there, and the odor is nasty.
but, for some reason, i'm not nearly as grossed out by a poopy smell as i am by urine.
a poopy smell could be anything. someone farted? okay. left something out of the fridge and it went bad? okay. but urine is very distinctly urine. and for me, a house that smells like pee is just not clean. with cloth, we eliminate the extra poop smell by dumping it in the toilet - what a novel place for it, eh? - and then rinse the diaper and throw it in the washer. every two or three days, i turn the washer on and voila! clean diapers. and with a little bit of powder soap in the washer, there's no urine smell.

so, basically i'm pretty happy with the situation. and our wallets are much happier.
now, if we could just get samil walking...