As Promised...Disposable Diapers Totally Work (If You Like Waking Up in a River of Poo)

Last week, I went on vacation with my mother. My mom and I have this tradition where every year we go to Kure Beach, NC with my kids and stay in a condo and eat fried seafood and ice cream for a week. We do other stuff too, but the main sticking points are the fried seafood and ice cream. We eat a lot of it. And every morning when we get up, we immediately begin talking about where (and how much) we will actually eat.

ANYWAY, because we stay in a condo, it is much like just traveling to another home. There is a washer and dryer and a full kitchen and all of that. Because of this, traveling with cloth diapers was no biggie. I just put our stash into a repurposed Gap bag and took it with us. And I washed diapers on the trip, just like I would at home. I actually washed them more often because Alice used quite a few as swim diapers during the day (just took the insert out of the pocket) or got her AIO sandy at the beach (I found that to be the best thing for her to wear to the beach--trim and absorbant). So I washed nearly every day. It was fine though--not a big deal.

When we got back home late Saturday night, my mom dropped the kids and me off at our house before she went down to my grandmom's house where she was staying (about 30 min. away). It was about 1:30 a.m., so we didn't unload the car--I just grabbed my toiletry bag because it held my contact solution and case. Because I was hella tired, I just carried Alice in to bed (she and the other kids were already asleep), said hello to Matt, and then went on to bed myself. Alice was wearing a nighttime diaper (extra stuffed FuzziBunz), so not a big deal.

However, the next morning, I realized that I had left our full stash in my mom's car. Because I knew that my mom was probably really tired from the trip home, I decided not to bother her and just put an old fitted and a wool soaker on Al until I could get the rest of the diapers. Approximately 30 minutes after I hatched this plan, Alice pooped. I couldn't let her sit in that, so I found a BumGenius that I hadn't packed because she had used it the night before we left for the beach. I washed out the cover on my hands, dried it quickly in the drier and then stuffed it with a combination of extra inserts. Whew, I thought. Crisis averted. But then, I realized that the trip had not been so kind to Alice's digestive track. Yup, more poop. Since I had exhausted my source of forgotten diapers, I begged my husband to go out and buy some disposables. After some convincing, he did it.

There were no real problems during the day that I let her wear it. Mom brought back all of our stuff, and I didn't think about it. But that night, I was changing Alice for bed. Sure enough, the bag of dipes was still sitting in the living room. The disposables were just laying near her crib. I thought, "What would it hurt? I spent $10 on those things, I should probably use them." So I just pulled one out, slapped it on her, and put her to bed.

The next morning Alice wakes up all happy and joyful. She is playing around in the bed between Matt and me--just smiling and being sweet. I love these times in the morning--the house is quiet and we just lay there and watch her, smiling at her movements and sounds. It is our time to devote all our attention to her and we all love it. All of a sudden, I hear the tell-tale sounds of baby gas. Now, on a normal day, Alice is pretty regular, so this is pretty normal for her. I think nothing of it and just let her get to her business. I shut my eyes and lay back and...

The next thing I know there is baby poop FLOWING down my new 500 threadcount sheets. Like not just a dot or a smudge or a tiny leak. A FULL ON LAVA FLOW. Add full on flow to moving baby and it is EVERYWHERE.

And I, of course, being the idiot that I am, think of nothing but this:

Yup, a Family Guy episode. To Live and Die in Dixie. In it, Peter Griffin gets mauled by a raccoon and then happens to be in an outhouse when it is tipped over by a bird. (I couldn't get a picture of the actual tipping.) Anyway, when this happens, and Peter is covered by the contents of the outhouse, he yells, "IT'S EVERYWHERE! IT'S IN MY RACCOON WOUNDS!" So of course, I jump from the bed, scream an expletive and then yell at the top of my lungs, "IT'S IN MY RACCOON WOUNDS!" My lovely husband gets the joke, but instead of quoting more of the episode (or even laughing at my funny) jumps out of bed and yells, "MY SHEETS!! MY AWESOME SHEETS!"

(Because did I mention that these were the sheets that I bought as a gift to us after our lovely anniversary trip as a way of bringing the luxury and romance home to us to stay? No? Because they were. They also cost a good deal more than I have ever spent on a piece of bedding and a good deal more than my husband even knew about. Had he known how much I actually spent on them, he probably would have chosen that moment to puke.)

Now, lots of people talk about cloth diapers being better for the environment, better for the baby, etc. But how about just better? We have never had a "diaper blowout" with cloth, never had that awful "poop up the back" that you get with disposables. We have had an occasional issue with wetness in the jumperoo and once some leakage when she managed to take off her diaper while in the jumperoo, but that's it. And compared to waking up to a veritable Amazon of baby poo? NOTHING. My husband said it best when he said, "Disposable diapers BLOW."

But...ah, the dilemma. Next week, Matt and I are taking our kids on a week-long family vacation to Williamsburg, VA. (One of the pluses to being a teacher, ya'll!) We are not staying in a condo--just a suite in a hotel. There is a guest laundry, but you have to pay for the wash, and it is not in the room so inconvenient (especially when we are planning on being out all day and tired at night). Before Poopgate '10, I had planned on taking disposables just for the ease of it. But...now I don't know. The way I see it, I have three options: 1) Take disposables and LOTS of clothes and Bac Out and Tide pens and just hope for the best, 2) Take our stash and just do laundry a lot, or 3) Buy a whole new diapers system (like Flips) that have a cover and a disposable insert. If I do that, I'm going to be out the money for the new system, and the money for fast shipping to get it here before we leave on Sunday. I'm just at a loss.

So we will see. I have to make a decision soon (for obvious reasons). However, aside from letting me hash out my options and maybe get some feedback from my -4 readers, I hope this post convinces someone out there to go with cloth. It is really the best option, and no, I'm not that crunchy or anything. I just like stuff to work the way it should, and well, disposable diapers do not. I am interested, also, to see if anyone googles "waking up in a river of poo" and happens upon this. Because if the internet has taught us anything, it is that if you can dream it up, someone out there enjoys it and is looking for video.