The Great Vegan, Cloth Diapering Experiment. Day One.

For those of you who don’t follow me over on the 6:30 and a Glass of Wine facebook page( and why don’t you? ), let me fill you in….

Last week I offered myself as a sacrificial blog lamb to my readers.  I allowed them to nominate parenting and/or lifestyle trends for me to adopt into my life for one week. Then they voted on the top four nominations.

There was a tie.

Goddamnit.

Thus, as the title suggests, I’m currently knee deep in cloth diapers and bereft of any edible animal meats or byproducts.

 

DAY ONE

Began swimmingly.  I had a perfectly satisfying, vegan approved, breakfast of banana and peanut butter.  Then, I went to collect donated cloth diapers and a little instruction from a very generous reader.  Thank you, Lucy.

Aren’t they so cute, all in a row?

I fell instantly in love with Luka’s puffy, cloth butt.

 

And all was well.

Until he pooped.

I’d begun cooking vegan dinner, quinoa with beans and corn, and the onions were just added to the oil, when Luka came to tell me himself(!!!) that he had pooped.  Oh, these cloth diapers are a wonder, I thought to myself.  He’ll be potty trained in a week, I sang.

” Poooo.  Poooo.”  He said as he tugged at his diaper.

Does anyone remember the Facebook post I made a couple days ago about how Luka never has solid, ” formed ” stools.  Nothing that could just fall off the diaper into the water.  Think more like doody-spread or poop pate.

Right.

Up to the bathroom I went.  Innocent.  I took a silly picture of myself in the mirror.

We recently put in a new, environmentally friendly, low water toilet.

There, in what couldn’t have been much more than 2 cups of water, I became far, far more intimate with my son’s excrement than I had ever hoped to be.

Gloves.  I hadn’t even thought of bringing gloves.  Yes, I wringed out the befouled diaper with my bare hands.

It was horrifying.

The onions!  I raced downstairs to the kitchen, splashing white wine on the burned mess.

And swigged out of the bottle.

Dinner was okay.  Is quinoa supposed to be gritty?

At bedtime, realizing how much more quickly the cloths soak through than the disposables, I trussed Luka up like a mummy.

So this is a prefold slapped inside of a fitted with a cover on top.

That lasted for three minutes.  Luka forcefully rebelled.  I put him down with just a fitted, a cover and a prayer.

Didn’t work.  I changed him into a disposable around midnight and called it a day.

Can you believe after all that, that it’s actually the vegan thing I’m having the hardest time with?

More on that later in the week…

 

 

 

Heather Bogolyubova

About Heather Bogolyubova

Heather Bogolyubova has an un-pronouncable last name. A Maine native, she's returned to the Pine Tree state after several years in New York. Now, she's a newlywed, has a new baby, a new job, and lots of fancy shoes she can never wear in the snow. The job: Stay-at- home mother and wife. Its hard. She's going to tell you all.