My Experience with Cloth Diapers

I have a 6 week old baby who, except for the first few days of her life while we were in the hospital, has never worn anything but cloth diapers. I'm not going to give you the environment as the impetus for choosing cloth because I'm sure there are legions out there in internet land who will argue that the water and electricity that I use to wash the diapers offsets the absence of poopy disposibles in the garbage dump.

My husband is partial to the diaper rash argument...that the incidence of diaper rash skyrocketed with the rise in use of disposible diapers. Frankly, that too will be written off by mothers who will argue that more frequent changing would abolish much of those incidents.

Originally, I think that the decision to cloth diaper was driven by the fact that the concept is entirely aligned with how my husband and I live. Nothing in our life is disposible - everything is solid, heavy...and will last 100 years. I actually liked the idea that all of our children will have the same diapers. There's continuity in that - history. These are OUR family's diapers now and forever.

So, now after 6 weeks of hard daily use, what do I think about cloth diapers? Are they worth it?

Absolutely. I wouldn't change a thing. She's happy in them. I'm happy with them. I have several cute diaper bags made for me by Kelly at Petunia's. The XL ICKY bags hold 1 load of dirty diaper laundry for my front loading washing machine. I have a few regular sized ICKY bags that I take on the road with me, while we're strolling around town and stepping over/rolling through the raw sewage that seems to be spilling out of several manhole covers near our apartment building (ah, yes...cholera anyone?).

Exclusively breastfed baby's poo is completely water soluble - meaning, I don't dunk anything or whatever you're thinking. I remove the diaper and throw it immediately into the diaper bag, poo and all. When the bag is full, I overturn the bag in my washing machine and then throw the bag in, too. Voila. I don't touch anything.

One cold water rinse and then a hot cycle using special cloth diaper detergent from Clean Rinse and the dipes are clean - enough to pass the most rigorous olfactory and visual tests (which is more than I can say for Zadar streets after a rainstorm). For whatever reason, I've always finished them off with a second cold water rinse with about a half cup of vinegar (for softening) and a few drops of lavendar oil (for scent) but it's not required.

Now, there are a variety of cloth diaper covers (not all cloth diapers require covers...but mine do). I went entirely wool - no PUL covers. I have a full stash of Aristocrat and Disana covers (pictured on the right). I embellished the covers with the crocheted flowers that you see. And despite being a natural fiber with a bad reputation, even the covers couldn't be easier to care for. In 6 weeks of daily use, I've washed and relanolized the covers once - once! And that, only because I thought I should rather than any particular need (meaning, they weren't leaking and they weren't stinking).

So, friends. My foray into cloth diapers has been an unequivocal success so far.

Zadar, Lebanon

It's that time of year again...

From mid-November through New Year's, Zadar sounds like bombed-out Beirut. Under the rubric of Anything-to-Appease-the-Kiddies, parents buy an arsenal of firecrackers which are set off day and night by their kids.

Walking to school? ...why don't you pass the time setting off firecrackers...

After lunch...what else is there to do but light firecrackers...

Do you hate the neighbor's dog? Shoot a firecracker at it and laugh like a maniac when the animal goes running...

This also marks the time when my husband wears out the speed dial for the Police.

Disptacher: Hello?
Husband: Yes, I'm just calling to let you know that there are a couple kids in front of my building that have been lighting firecrackers for the past half hour...
Dispatcher: And...
Husband: Well, it's illegal. And I'm looking right at them...right now...as we speak.
Dispatcher: What do expect kids to do? When I was their age, we used live ordinance.

(actual call)

Ah yes...welcome to the Wild West...

So, when little Jimmy blows off his sister's arm or grows up to be a delinquent, the neighbors will all cluck their tongues and say, ˝he was such a good boy...˝ and they will be baffled.

Zadar Road Work

Well, it's been awhile....but not too long (or so I tell myself).

What's been happening? Hmmm...

Well, they are in the midst of building a road next to my house (where I live AND work). So, in addition to drilling into solid rock from 7am, they have also been sucessfully drilling into my brain. The funny part is that this road is short. It's the perpendicular piece connecting two parallel roads. This road will be built by what seems to be one or two guys. And it all has this sort of keystone cop vibe. One guy gets out of the drilling machine....runs over to the backhoe...scoops up the rock bits and makes a pile....then runs back to the drilling machine. God Bless him. This guy can literally build a road all by himself.

We went on the boat yesterday. Just a day trip across the channel to Ugljan. We anchored south of Kali. Ate. Napped. Swam. That's the Croatia that I love. When you're in vacation mode, the place can't be beat - unless it's Sunday or a holiday.

Now it's Monday, again. Back to the drilling....

A Great Strange Day in Zadar

It was a weird day yesterday.

First off, that heat wave has definately broken. Now, it's raining...raining...raining and cold.

We woke up too late to go our usual mass (we went to an evening mass, instead) so we decided to go into town for a coffee. There, under near constant rainfall, we met a British pair who just arrived in town that morning. We chatted for quite some time and ended up inviting them to have lunch at our place. I thawed a few more pieces of meat, etc...and off we went. It was a great afternoon. They simply couldn't believe that we would just invite people over to our house for lunch - people we have only just met....and without planning. The day was lovely.

After mass in the evening, we went to a local hangout for a drink. There we met a family from New Zealand. We were completely charmed. We ended up sitting with them for hours, talking about anything and everything. They had 3 great super well-behaved and polite children, two of whom were born in Thailand while the father did a stint there. They were on a 3 1/2 month ˝vacation˝ -basically, a world tour. Great people.

All in all, a great - strange - day.

Zadar is HOT!

Sorry there's been such a gap in postings. It's so hot this year, I don't know what to do with myself. We're in the grips of a heat wave that hasn't been seen in 50 years. Four people have died, already...all of them in Zagreb, I believe - which makes sense...same temps but more humid and more smog.

We went swimming last Thursday. Despite the official water temperature - 24 degrees (celsius), that day - I believe, in truth, that it was closer to 19/20. Brrr. However, once you stop hyperventilating after entering the water, you become quite accustomed to it...dare I say, it's refreshing? Now the powers that be tell us that the water temperature at the local beaches is 27/28....so what does that make it in actuality? About 22/23 - which is not bad. This is the Med, after all. You never get the bathwater temperatures like you do in Hawaii or the Caribbean, for example. But it's great, nevertheless.

As an aside, I posted a predition awhile ago about the tourist season this year. Just based on my own anecdoctal evidence (what kind of tourists were coming and when), it was my contention that the tourists came earlier than usual to 1) save money by coming in ˝shoulder season˝ and 2) because Easter was late...add a little swine flu to that....and you get a nice confluence of factors which will spell disaster for the local tour operators and hoteliers. My theory was that come ˝high season,˝ this place would clear out. It's too expensive for what you get and people will stick closer to home. Well, it looks like I might have been right. Despite reports around Easter of ˝record breaking˝ numbers of tourists...and much poo-pooing of the pundits who predicted a disasterous tourist season due to the financial crisis, now...a month later and kissing the beginning of the official tourist season, the bureau which keeps statistics on tourism reported yesterday that visitors are down 38%. I won't say ˝I told you so...˝

Zadar Local Elections

So, local elections were yesterday, Sunday. As predicted, HDZ swept Zadar. This is a HDZ stronghold. VOX tv, a local station, featured one-on-one interviews with Minister Kalmeta (HDZ) and someone else on the HDZ ticket for last hour or two leading up to the campaign blackout which was supposed to take effect at midnight on Friday. The interview is tantamount, of course, to one giant infomercial for HDZ. Fine, what do I care? My questions is, where were the enraged lawyers for the opposition threatening to sue the station?

So, yes, all electioneering was supposed to stop. Forget baby-kissing and photo ops with celebrity supporters, Zadrani like free olive trees from their candidates. Sadly, that too was supposed to end at midnight on Friday. No informercials. No new campaign posters. Of course, this strict prohibition was completely ignored in Zadar but HEY, as it turned out...according to GONG - a national whistle-blowing group - it was completely ignored everywhere in Croatia, and by all parties. Laws, like signed contracts, serve as mere guidelines rather than real directives/prohibitions. But I digress.

So, things will continue business-as-usual in Zadar. The wild west...

Fishing on the Bridge

Last night, we were walking across the bridge and saw a guy fishing. Now, we see this guy fishing off the bridge every night, but honestly, only last night did we actually witness a strike. So, he's fashioned a ˝spear˝ from what looks like a hoe with points instead of a flat edge. He ties the other end to the bridge and HURLS it at amazing speed into the water....and I mean, amazing speed. Now, the bridge is 10 feet above the water....and it's nighttime. How does he see the fish?

Nevertheless, we saw him fling the hoe and pull out a rather sizable fish.

A Coup at the Zadar Market

I'm a fan of carrots. I pretty much cook with them everyday. I make cakes from them. I eat them raw. So, yesterday, we were at the market and our vegetable lady began to tell us that she's got a bag full of carrots that she can't sell - she can't sell them because they're funny looking ...they're twisted or bent - and would I like to take them. How can I say no? So, I walked away with my weight in carrots. Oh bliss!

So, I'm amending the menu. Roasted potatoes ....and carrots. And in addition to the walnut cake, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

We also picked up some dried figs from the walnut guy. I love those things. He had a few different kinds but we chose local ones. Around here, they dry them with bay leave which adds a little kick. Besides, it's the taste profile that we know - there's no need to be experimental at Easter time.

Off to Split to visit Husband's grandmother today.

Lambing Season!

So, last night I was reading about the lambing season, this being Spring and all.

Since moving to Croatia, I've actually met a real live shepard. While it is a fairly common profession, particularly here in Dalmacija, the only shepard that I've known personally is Lukić in Ražanac (I like the tag line in this link to Ražanac ...). We had coffee and cakes at Lukić's house once. I was interested in buying some of the wool during the shearing season. The modus operandi around here is to burn the wool, because who actually wants wool in Dalmacija? At the time, I was working on a craft project that required stuffing. In lieu of wool from the Lukić flock, I used a little bit of Husband's grandmother's dowery. A dowery of wool (!)...I mean, even that there WAS a dowery blows my mind. When was the last time you heard of families getting doweries?

So anyway, husband met Lukić some years back walking around the village with his flock. Lukić told a story that the winter wind from the NorthEast, the Bura, is so strong in Ražanac that a gust knocked him off balance and he fell into the water which - naturally- got his clothes wet. Rather than catching a cold walking around in wet clothes, he walked back to the village naked. Ahhh, Ražanac...it's a unique place.

Anyway, Lukić was getting tired of the sheparding business and was thinking about going into the business of raising snails. That would be another first for me...snail wrangler.

Mormon Boys in Zadar

Recently, I became acquainted with a charming, young artist from Salt Lake City - Senta Plyer of As I Was Saying. I was telling her that a year ago, she would have been the first person from Utah that I'd ever met - but now, since living in Zadar....Ironically, I've met several people from Utah.

A few weeks before Easter last year, we met two Mormon boys standing on the street corner trying to talk to people on a Saturday night. One of them started talking to us, in PERFECT Croatian, asking ˝if we wanted to be a part of a church that isn’t corrupt.˝

Now, you must know that Husband and I met at church...Catholic church...and the faith is central to our life together. So, this approach of theirs piqued our interest not because we were conversion material but rather, we wondered how successful their tactics were in Croatia as it is purportedly a Catholic country.

So, ˝they˝ continued talking in perfect Croatian - I say ˝they˝ because the younger one never spoke. When Husband said ˝you can speak English,˝ these guys melted into a gooey puddle. As an immigrant, myself, I know how they felt. Your ear strains to hear something familiar all the time.

Turns out that the young one, Brady, had been in Croatia all of a week or two and was in complete shock. The older one, Chase, was almost done with his time in Croatia. We chatted for an hour mostly off the topic of religion, exchanged contact information and parted ways.

As the time approached, we thought to invite those boys for Easter lunch but wondered if they would even be allowed to come. I called anyway. ˝oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I knew you guys would call us...I knew it!˝ So, yes. They could and would come. A third Mormon kid, Jerrod, was absorbed into the fold after being evacuated from Serbia a few days prior.

So our Catholic household for Easter 2008 consisted of:

Husband and I, Husband's 75 year old Yugo-nostalgic aunt and 3 Mormon boys. What a mix to celebrate the birth of our Lord!

We ended up having those boys over to our house lots of times, including American Independance Day. As is standard operating procedure, those boys get moved around to other cities...some go home...so the exact composition of our group of Mormons changed everytime. We went through Miles from Texas...Robbie from Arizona...Gabriel from Italy...Hugo, a Venezuelian Mormon whose whole family moved to Zagreb (so he spoke Spanish and Croatian) but it wasn't until we lost Brady to Varaždin in the north that we parted ways with the Mormons. It just wasn't the same after he left - the last vestages of the core group were gone.

They were good boys, though. Good times.

At Peace in Zadar

Today, I am at peace with Zadar.

Yes, one of my kumquat trees has a small mealy bug infestation and everyone for 50 miles seems to be burning their olive cuttings at this moment but I couldn't possibly be bothered.

About the picture: There used to be a rooster that lived in the sort-of squatter camp that is across from our building. I say ˝squatter camp˝ because every structure in that line of small buildings is completely illegal. Anyway, we called that rooster ˝Oroz.˝

At some point last year, we stopped hearing Oroz. What a shame. I mean, the pure comedy factor of having a rooster crow in the middle of a city can't be beat. I can't even count how many times that we'd have guests from the U.S., Canada, other parts of Europe....and Oroz would start crowing. ˝I'm sorry, is that a rooster crowing outside?˝ they would ask. Ahh yes, my friend. Indeed, it is a rooster.

R.I.P., old man.