diaper pins, wool, puke, and all that jazz.

let's be honest. i love the vocation of motherhood.

i have a few confessions to make. first, after using chinese prefolds for nine months, i just now realized how they're supposed to be used. second, after battling with leaky diapers for two months, i just now realized that if i fold the pre-fold correctly (well, a newspaper fold, that is), the cover fits, and we have less leaks. boy, do i feel like an idiot. i've also decided to embark on a journey with diaper pins. part of the reason, i think, that grace's covers have been faling off is simply because the prefold moves too much and in all the wrong places. so this morning, i put diaper pins on the prefold, and i am already feeling more confident about the day.

you would think that after all these woes from cloth diapering, i would've given up. nope - i am convinced that this is still the better choice, even if i was doing it all wrong and it can occasionally be as frustrating as hell. cloth diapering is the best choice for my baby. see, there is something about disposables that makes me cringe - the chemicals, the diaper burns, the rashes, the explosion of disposable crystals all over grace (and everything else for that matter) - all those things have led me to the conclusion that disposables are probably not the best thing you can do for your baby. granted, they are easier, because all you have to do is throw the thing in the trash, but really.

using prefolds and covers are not that hard. i mean, had she been wearing the right sized covers, i probably would've never realized that i was doing it wrong. the only reason i noticed is because i needed to find a way to make these diapers work while waiting for our latest order of (the right sized) covers to come in the mail. quite frankly, how i was folding the prefolds was working equally fine when the cover was big enough for them to be folded that way... then grace grew, got chubby, and suddenly my covers weren't fitting over my improperly folded prefold. hah. lesson learned! now CDing will be a breeze!

honestly, between putting my hands in feces infested water to clean the poop off before it goes in the pail (yeah, my hands get SCRUBBED after that), the diaper pail itself (which now resides outside), and folding all those little diapers - i still choose cloth diapers. it's a lifestyle. it means a little more laundry, playing with poop, and involves pins (i want to buy snappis now that i know what good they can do!) --- but still, after nine months of it, i know it's the better choice. it's not just better for grace, but it's better for my wallet, for the environment, and for my work ethic (yep, it's true).

in other news, i got puked on last night. grace's mouth must've opened about an inch in diameter, and out shot this stream of spaghetti/formula vomit. somehow she managed (i was holding on my hip, so she really managed) to get her vomit from my hair to my toes, all over the floor, all over the clothes, and all over her. it was just me and my in-laws when this happened; let me tell you, it was like the world stopped. no one knew what to do. then, the world started up again, and i ran to the table, stripped grace, grabbed a cloth diaper that just came out of the wash and ran back to try to clean the puke off everything. it was epic. then, my MIL realized that i had puke all over my head (okay, folks, i could barely see out my glasses, it was that bad. half my face was covered, and it was in my hair.) FIL took grace while i ran back to the bathroom (where grace and i had just emerged from not a half hour before from taking a lovely bath), while i got the puke off me. i changed into some dry clothes, and the world was better again.

chris got home from mass two minutes later. he missed the whole thing. boo!

okay, that's my story.

peace and love.

ps: anyone else have some good/disgusting baby stories?