Strange Machines

I live by the road. In fact, come to think of it, I’ve always lived by a road with a substantial amount of traffic and with it, a substantial amount of pollution. As a child, I lived by a main road, watching motorcycle riders race through the night and by day, count the number of cars that passed and mentally run myself like a Frogger across the road and back.

Traffic pollution, along with cigarette smoke, contains several hundred volatile organic compounds (VOCs), increasing your risk of various kinds of cancer and numerous health problems. This is a scientific fact.

These days I’m not sure if opening the windows to let in random car exhaust or an unfortunate waft of cigarette smoke is worse or closing all my windows and sitting in the toxic wasteland of modern living with our cheap plywood adhesived furniture and VOCs from our every day things like paper or packaging.

Regardless, there’s no escape. I’ve sought to improve my home’s air quality by introducing plants into the home with the help of NASA scientist Wolverton’s book How to Grow Fresh Air, which helped even this brown thumbed woman here keep some plants alive, namely the Snake Plant, Lady Palm, and Corn Plant. Hardiest plants around.

I really think that companies and communities should take a step further and install a thermal oxidizer equipment in our living spaces. A thermal oxidizer service basically cleans your air. In a closed environment, such as a large office building where the windows are never open (yes, I’ve worked in many of those and seen bugs play musical humans for weeks on end), thermal oxidizer equipment would definitely help.

In truth, it is more likely that factories manufacturing products with toxic chemicals would use them most (and would see a value in installing one). Worker productivity and health matters to their bottom line and an investment in thermal heating services, for instance, would make most sense.

For us civilians living in our shoeboxes, we can only rely on the magical ability of plants to do the same as these equipment. I really do recommend the book and can state for the record that having those small 5 Corn Plants, 2 Snake Plants, 2 Peace Lilies, and 2 Spider Plants in my room has helped my sinuses clear. My Lady Palms do a great job of cleaning the air in the outer rooms and they stay alive too. I have given up on Areca Palms which all die on me. But the tall and graceful Bamboo Palm I just acquired has been thriving, except for a single mealy bug incident that was quickly cleared up with some rubbing alcohol.

According to Wolf, the wool is much cooler and the BumGenius, covered with PUL, is about the same as a disposable. A touch test with the kids here with our hot and humid tropical weather reaffirms this. Kitten’s bottom is dry when wearing wool but sweaty when wearing her BumGenius.

I stand corrected. Wool covers are critical. They hold tight the whole package which is diaper + insert, something a wool shortie cannot.

The problem arises when a wool cover cannot completely cover the diaper, leading to night time leaks. That’s when you either pop on a wool shortie or use a smaller diaper.

But if you had to get only one, I’d go for the cover. Measure your baby and any existing diapers you’ll be using with it very carefully.

If all fails you can still buy a shortie and hope your child doesn’t complain to you that it is itchy!

In principle, the naturalbluecloud wool shortie was supposed to be the solution to all the leaking problems but really, I had ordered a size too big after the other wool covers appeared to have shrunk a little from washing.

I’d ordered L but my skinny boy was swimming in the waist, although the legs were sort of fine. They gently enveloped his leg rather than clasped it with a vise-like grip.

So after 2 days of leaks, first from the waist – my solution: tuck the wool into his waist – then from the legs (where he firmly insisted it leaked although I felt nothing, but there was drippage down from the leg side when I felt about) – I had used the XL Loveybums instead of the L that night.

Tonight, we tried on Twig & Vine’s exquisitely soft bamboo fleece diaper (definitely the best I’ve ever used on the kids) in L, in between the fleece a brandless hemp insert from Whoopeekiddies, on top of that, a L Loveybums organic cloth diaper with another hemp insert, an XL Loveybums wool cover over and a naturalbluecloud wool shortie over that.

hemp insert in bamboo diaper -> hemp insert over cotton diaper -> wool cover -> wool shortie

Overload! At 3am Wolf woke and told me he’d leaked. Same leak, just down the inside of his pant leg, and thankfully nothing on the bed. I checked the multiple layers and only the first layer of hemp had been mildly soaked and a bit of the side of the Loveybums diaper. It was only one pee.

So I realised my mistake. I should have concentrated on TIGHT, not THICK. I took out the wet hemp insert, removed the dry one too. Used a fresh bamboo insert inside the Twig & Vine bamboo diaper, closed that. Took out a fresh L Loveybums diaper. Put that over the bamboo diaper, wool cover + wool shortie. Thinner, but definitely tighter.

Looks like this from baby’s bottom:

bamboo diaper with bamboo insert -> cotton cover -> wool cover -> wool shortie

The wool is supposed to absorb the extra fluid so I should really let it do its job than overstuffing the diapers which causes a huge gap between skin and diaper, and that is exactly where it leaks.

Let’s see how it goes in the morning.

I guess cloth diapering, especially with new diapers, takes some trial and error in getting the right diapering configuration. And during the trial, remember to get your baby to sleep on a rubber mat or there’ll be lots of laundry to do.

I’ve decided to move Wolf to using cloth+wool during the day so I needed to order some larger sizes for him and we needed a safer leak-proof solution for the night and ordered an organic wool shortie for him.

Here is Twig & Vine’s Organic Bamboo and Hemp Fitted Diaper. We ordered 4, 1 in L (which incidentally is XL under Loveybums’ sizing chart – with this in mind, always check the measurements rather than rely on weight or assume all sizes are the same) and 3 in M.

And we also ordered an organic O-Wool wool shortie (aka soaker) from blue cloud. Love that it is lanolized and ready to use.

I couldn’t resist blue cloud‘s heavenly organic hemp blankie for Kitten. After a day of mulling and polling my friends, I chose the natural over the wine.

I had such a wonderful buying experience from both sellers.

They were kind enough to answer my many questions (I can be quite long-winded – they were very patient and nice about it – a smiley face goes a long way). Both took the time to help me check shipping rates and offered the most cost-savings option before I ordered, which is important for us international buyers (as I type this, the USD is about 1.5x the Singapore dollar). Most importantly, they were very cheery and sweet and so lovely to deal with. They have a customer for life in me.

More evidence that houseplants clean our air.

The experiment was conducted by Dennis Decoteau of Penn State’s Department of Horticulture with a snake plant, spider plant, and golden pothos inside “experimental chambers in a greenhouse equipped with a charcoal filtration air supply system to measure ozone depletion rates.”

While it took 75 minutes for ozone levels to come down in plantless chambers, air in chambers with plants reached the target in just 50 minutes. He speculates the plants take in the ozone through their stomates (tiny pores used for gas exchange) and then break it down once inside the plant.

The article also recommended keeping plants in our rooms because:

* Plant-filled rooms contain up to 60 percent fewer airborne molds and bacteria than rooms without plants, studies show.

* People who work in offices with windows and plants are happier than others, according to a study of 450 office workers in Texas and the Midwest. In fact, 82 percent of the participants who worked with plants and windows around said they felt “content” or “very happy,” compared with 58 percent in windowless plant-less offices who said the same.

* Plants seem to make people more contemplative and self-reflective, according to one ethnologist.

For 47 more houseplants that clean your air, check out How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office.

My sinuses have cleared since I put houseplants in my bedroom (since January actually). To date, we have a large Areca Palm (temperamental thing), 2 Snake Plants (hardy), 6 Corn Plants (easiest to manage), and 1 Spider Plant (who goes out for sun and rotates with its brethren outside). These are ideal for an air conditioned bedroom in the tropics. My poor Peace Lily just died. RIP dear fellow.

And we just had a leak. A big one. A small puddle and half a soaked pj later, I changed the perplexed toddler (who confessed to peeing several times) to a L diaper and had a revelation:

The XL simply did not fit the XL wool cover. The L fitted it perfectly.

The leak had seeped out the side where it was peeking, although the soaked through hemp soaker and diaper technically should have contained it if the wool had covered it properly.

Now, Kitten is using a L-L combo and the cover covers all quite comfortably so I suspect either the XL was accidentally shrunk or Wolf’s simply grown.

The solution: forget wool covers, just buy a wool shortie (underwear with cuffs) for your wool+diaper solution. That will solve the diaper peekaboo problem (and if I find a diaper without too-tight elastic on the back and thighs, I’ll get them all).

I’ll have to admit I am a little addicted already. I found myself scouring Loveybums if they have any seconds I could get and was relentlessly clicking through Whoopeekiddies to look at the BumGeniuses (and very very heavenly hemp wash cloths, supposedly cloth wipes but I stuff them in my cleavage to soak up excess sweat when I carry Kitten and emergency burp cloth).

Then I realised this was the perfect time to try different diapers. I had enough diapers for 1.5 days really, and seriously needed another night cloth diaper for Wolf because it was his diaper that I had to wash and dry daily so he could wear it again the next night and another wool cover because his Loveybums XL cloth diaper seems to keep peeking out of the XL wool cover. Not good cos it caused one leak already.

I found some wonderfully soft bamboo hemp diapers from the awesome Twig & Vine I plan to order soon when some money comes in. I like that the elastic at the back and legs are not sewed as crunched up tight as the ones on the Loveybums ones which cause Kitten to have red marks in those areas when I carry her in the Ergo. Don’t the Twig & Vine diapers look heavenly?

That brings my count to:

1 NB/S organic cloth diaper (which might retire soon)
5 M organic cloth diaper
2 L organic cloth diaper
1 XL organic cloth diaper
4 organic wool cover (1 for each size)
7 BumGeniuses
To order another 4 bamboo hemp diapers (still deciding on the sizes but most likely 2L + 2XL)

Total: 20 diapers for 2 kids (half the stash is shareable)

That should tide us through washing once in 2 days + air drying the laundry rather than using the dryer every day. Our electricity bill has gone up $50 since we started cloth diapering but we save that $50 too on not buying disposables.

Hemp is tons more absorbent than cotton and bamboo is somewhere in between. I was thrilled that a single insert (hemp or bamboo+cotton) is sufficient stuffing for the kids overnight and by day they don’t need any stuffing.

Why organic? I figure if we go cloth, we go all the way. It is better for the planet and for our kids. The process of making cotton and even bamboo fabrics is pretty darned harmful to our planet, so supporting the organic textiles industry is the way to go.

DH says that cloth diapering and laundering indulge my OCD tendency to clean. Well, it should feel good to be good to our children and our planet, no?

I realised why Wolf’s cloth diapers sometimes leak. He often sleeps in strange positions.

The hemp insert is pretty thick so it causes a gap between his legs and diaper. Hence when moving, the gap increases and causes leakage especially when he is peeing at that moment.

This time it was a side leak.

I made no fuss. Quickly changed him and put 2 towels in the wet spots and am nursing him back to sleep now.

Yes it is possible.

Kitten got a recurrent rash which came back after her all night pee party using the BumGenius + Hemp Doubler + Loveybums fleece liner.

I was pleased to find out online that our California Baby Diaper Rash Cream can be used with cloth.

Hope that helps. We’ll find out tomorrow morning.