In case you were wondering

Three-and-a-half weeks and half-a-dozen explosions later and I was so ready to get back to cloth diapers. Now that I was a full-time disposable diaper-er for nearly a month, I think I can more honestly say that I prefer to cloth diaper (most of the time). Here's why:

- At least here (or in any big city I would guess) you can't just open the back door and toss the stinky offender into the big black garbage can (aka: personal dumpsters) for the garbage man to pick up on his rounds next week. Here, you have to put your shoes on, walk a half a block, and touch a dumpster to throw a diaper away. Unless you want it sitting in your house. Sans-diaper genie (do those even exist in Italy?). Stinky. So the whole "convenience" of just throwing them away really wasn't convenient at all for me. Rather, I'd have a sack of dirty diapers by the front door waiting for the next time I felt like putting on my shoes and braving the cold. And the dumpster. And finding my keys.

- Explosions. Remember that up-the-backer that happened just hours after I put a disposable on Ada for the first time in over 9 months? It wasn't the last. I had more than two a week. And it stains. And it's nasty. And I hated it worse than I hate occasional cloth diaper leaks.

- I would forget to change Ada. A redeeming quality (that can easily be used as a crutch for forgetfulness/laziness/non-attentiveness) of disposable diapers is they can last for HOURS (read: 8, 9, 10, 12, 18?) and not leak (unless it's poop. Then you're toast). I changed Ada before church, some time before 8 AM, and didn't realize until NEARLY TWELVE HOURS LATER that I hadn't changed her since. That's gross. And I felt terrible about it. And the entire diaper was damp. On the outside. I shouldn't use disposables. I'm too prone to take advantage of the system.

- Disposables are expensive (especially in Costco-less Italy) and they hurt the environment.

- Ada had two bouts with diaper rash (see: I would forget to change Ada). It's no wonder why--the moisture just sits there trapped against her skin in the unbreathable plastic germ sauna. Yummy.

- It was so hard to get a disposable on her. They're so flimsy and thin (part of the reason why people like them, so this isn't all bad) but it means that every wiggle (as in, approximately 23 times per second) I would have to readjust the diaper, re-flatten, recenter . . . the games never end with The Lou. She's a flipper. With gDiapers, the Velcro tabs are in the back anyway. And it stays flat and open despite baby-hyper-activity. I could give you a play by play of why it's easier. But just know, for me and my baby, it simply is.

- Cloth diapers win the cuteness contest every time.

Mikey wouldn't agree with all of these. He admitted he was a bit sad to return to cloth because, in his words, "I don't like dissecting the diaper." But we're compromising. Disposables for night-time and church. Cloth the rest. I think we're really going to be happy with it.