Cloth Diaper Carnival V - The Hubby and Cloth

Welcome to another installment of the Cloth Diaper Carnival brought to you by Cloth Diapering Bloggers and hosted by Kim at Dirty Diaper Laundry.  This Months topic is "Hubbies/ SO and Cloth Diapers".  Make sure to visit other blogs participating by following the Linky (if I can get it up) or by grabbing the link at Dirty Diaper Laundry :)

Since I decided to use cloth diapers when I was pregnant with my first, I never had to go through "the change" with the hubby.  He was not used to disposables, just as much as he was not used to cloth diapers. Now, don't get me wrong, he had changed a couple of diapers in his day using disposables, so he wasn't totally a diaper newbie.  Actually, when it came to cloth diapers, we were equals in the changing department- both of us having no experience.  Anyway, it didn't phase him one bit when I told him cloth diapering was the way we where going. Until I told him how much money we where going to be saving. Then he bragged to everyone how smart he was to use cloth diapers. Ha Ha Ha.

It has been three years since we have started our cloth diapering journey, and the hubby has had his share of opinions and suggestions along the way.  He doesn't like snaps. They are hard for his big fingers to maneuver, so he goes for the Velcro dipes in our stash. He doesn't like pockets, as he can't fit his hand in the pocket to stuff them. He likes the old school pull over covers better than the Velcro or snap wraps as he sucks at making sure the diaper is fully covered.

Overall, I just make sure our stash is diverse enough to accommodate him in the rare instances that he changes a diaper. OK, to give him credit, he changed his share of diapers with Logan, our first. However, with Sophie, he changes maybe 5 diapers a WEEK. And if he ever had to WASH them, I don't even want to think about what he would do, or what would happen to my poor diapers!

Make sure to visit all the blogs participating in this carnival!!!!

Wordless Wednesday- My Little Cowgirl

 

 

A Rant On Toys

My space has been taken over by toys. There are toys in every room of my house. There are toys in both cars. There are even toys still out in the yard. And really? Do the kiddos play with all these toys? Of course not!!.So I was thinking to myself, "Self, why are there so many freakn' toys in this space o' mine that NO ONE PLAYS WITH?"

And I suddenly knew it is because of me. I buy the toys- granted, most were sweet deals that I found at yard sales, flea markets, and consignment shops. I pick the can't-pass-by freebies up off the side of the road. I say "YES!" eagerly when people offer me their kiddos' cast offs. Geesh, why am I the toy horde???

My kiddos are 3 and 1. They don't watch TV with COMMERCIALS (thank you Nick Jr), so they have no clue what is out there.  Wait, I take that back. Logan, at 3, is just starting to catch on to advertising. He has found mail order TOY catalogs and Black Friday fliers laying around and has gotten very excited about all the toys in them. But you know what? He seems perfectly happy just LOOKING AT THE PICTURES.   I am the one getting all worked up about how many of those toys to get him for Christmas, and how much they are gonna cost.  Seriously? He might have asked for one of the toys out of the tons of pictures he looked at. And for real? He could care less if he gets the $15 truck over the $150 dollar truck. Even if I can get that $150 one for $40....OK, OK, see, it's about me again.

What I have realized is that I need to change MY behavior in order to make sure that my still young kiddos are not going to think that the world revolves around toys. If I can reduce the quantity of useless toys they are surrounded with in their daily lives, than toys won't seem so important.  And hopefully they will value the toys they do play with. Logan spent last weekend at his Granny's house and I cleaned out his room. I filled two trash bags with toys and stuffed animals to bring to the thrift store. He hasn't even noticed.

And  another thing? Last week Logan was playing with an old fire truck baby toy that I had pulled out of the toy stash in the basement for Sophie.  Of course, Logan recognized it as his old toy and immediately started playing with it. He was in meltdown mode after 5 minutes. Why? Because the batteries didn't work. With out the batteries, there is no siren. With out a siren, the toy is "broken".  I told him he could make the "Woooo Wooooo"" siren  noise himself. He stared at me blankly like I was talking crazy! With all these battery operated toys, am I raising kids who lack imagination???

This really scared me! It scared me enough to decide that this Christmas we are going battery free. And on top of that, the hubby and I also decided that this year we are only getting the kiddos gifts that promote imaginative play.  So no Vtech and LeapFrog plastic battery operated learning toys for my kiddos this year. They will be learning with their new musical instruments and craft supplies. Logan will work on his imagination with his wooden parking garage and service station, and Sophie with her cloth tea set and wooden sound blocks.  And the hubby won't be running to the Mobil station at midnight on Christmas eve to spend a small fortune on batteries...

Wordless Wednesday

Couldn't resist taking a picture.......

The sound of the camera and the flash scared him a bit.....

But he fell right back asleep!