Lately with two children in-tow I've been feeling like I'm growing into motherhood. With Rita I struggled to enjoy life because I worried and sought to control everything. Really, everything.
Now I just sigh when Rita takes a marker to the walls, eats off of the floor (Sweep? Are you kidding?! We're doing good to have food and clean laundry over here!), and ends up teeteeing on the bathroom floor on the way onto and off of her potty. Not that I don't lose my cool often, but it's decreasing a little bit!
I just can't keep everything together. So instead I'm learning to keep together the most important aspects of a home: food and clothing. Visits to the park now take precedence over vacuuming and dusting. Play dates over dish-washing. Naptime over making the beds. And home cooked meals over cloth diapering.
Yep, after our run with disposables during/after the hurricane I realized I was able to cook supper, have other laundry done (Tyler, my love, I'm sorry for the days you have had to wear my purple-edged ankle socks to work) and just have wiggle room to breathe.
I still ache in my heart and the pit of my stomach when I think of the waste. But, I just couldn't hang with two in cloth diapers. I had to wash diapers everyday: cold rinse, two hot washes (thanks to hard water) and two 70 minute dryer cycles. Needless to say my laundry was bogged down with three-four hours of diaper laundry per day. And that isn't even washing diaper covers!
The final straw was that Jonah didn't seem to agree with cotton diapers...the wet on his skin drove him mad and our hard water made all of our microfiber liners begin to seriously repel urine. Every nap time was a diapering marathon because as he would relax to sleep Jonah would urinate ever so lightly and wake up crying. It was a vicious cycle that was resulting in an exhausted baby and cranky momma! After two mornings of four diaper changes (for Jonah alone) in one hour and no morning nap, I knew we needed to make a decision.
So Tyler and I talked and prayed and I cried...but it was either stop cooking or stop cloth diapering.
So I'm hopeful to try cloth diapering again once Rita is potty-trained, but I'm not making promises to myself. I know this is probably disappointing news. I still believe cloth diapering is awesome, but it just wasn't best for Jonah. And definitely not the best for the sanity of this cloth diapering momma!
So I'm growing. I'm accepting my limits. Now I'm having time for things like going to farmers market and doing puzzles with Rita.
With more time on my hands I see myself becoming a better wife and momma, and that, dear family, friends and readers, is most important.
What are areas you have had to change in order to accommodate meeting the needs of you and your family?
 |
| So long prefolds and flip covers...hoping you'll be back once I have two feet running on the ground. |
Be sure to hit "subscribe by email" so that replies to your comment go straight back to you!
Girl, I give you props for even attempting cloth diapering with two little bitties. I didn't even try with Landon since keeping up with laundry already is one of my weaknesses (but I'm getting better!). I definitely think letting go of things that just aren't working out is necessary to our sanity. But it's SO HARD. I want to exclusively breastfeed, but after endless pumping and barely an increase in my milk supply, we had to make the decision to supplement indefinitely.
ReplyDeleteI had a friend's mother (who breastfed 4 and is a big advocate) tell me that in the big scheme of Landon's life, it isn't a big deal. And I suppose she's right...as long as we love our babies and raise them to know Jesus, they'll be just fine!
Great post! I can relate so much to everything in this!
ReplyDeleteWe tried gDiapers with disposable inserts (we have community laundry in an apartment complex so this idea was a compromise) and stopped after just a few months. Our decision to stop was because I simply could not keep the pouch holders (for the disposable liners) and the covers themselves clean without consistent access to laundry - with no waiting on the neighbors! As Joe grew he got more active during diaper changes (he's a ROLLER)and I couldn't get the things on him well so they'd leak (complete operator error - they worked amazing up until the rolling became a HUGE issue) which only created more laundry. Between all that and working full-time we stopped. We went out of town for a week for a wedding, took disposables and there was no looking back.
You made a great decision for you and your family! Every family has different dynamics and sometimes what we want and long to do just doesn't work out the way we hoped. I definitely know this! I'm glad to hear that things are going smoothly for you!