Cloth Diapers

SO as always I will start out my post with mentioning that I am now 34 weeks!! 6 Weeks to go. My complaints this week .. Heartburn!!! I never knew heartburn could possibly feel this bad. Otherwise I am pretty happy besides a quick battle with the flu last week.

I have been getting everything ready for when our little cutie arrives. This including our cloth diapers, I am actually really looking forward to this venture. I get a lot of doubt from my friends and family which I find quite odd, I have never been someone who gives up on anything but I will use their doubt as encouragement!! It is important to me because of many reasons.
Here are a few facts that I have found (http://www.rpi.edu/~cummia3/Portfolio/SaniSolar_3_files/SaniSolar%20Poster.pdf)

1.The US uses apx. 27.4 billion disposable diapers per year.
2.100,000 tons of plastic and 1.3 million tons of
wood pulp, amounting to 250,000 trees, are
wasted in the production of the annual 27.4 billion
disposable diapers.
3. An average baby uses 5,000 diapers before potty training, almost all of which end
up in a landfill making up 3.4 million tons of waste
4. It is estimated to take 250-500 years for a disposable diaper to decompose (GROSS!!)
5.It costs Americans on average $350 million annually to dispose of single-use diapers
in landfills.
6. The average family spends $800 per year on disposable diapers. (This is also a huge reason for my husband and I to use cloth diapers)

So here are some things that I found to make using cloth diapers easier.
Use a 5 gallon bucket with a cover, this way you can keep it contained until it is wash time. I also plan on keeping a little bit soapy water in the bucket, this is something that was personally suggested to me. For number ones you can just throw the wet diaper into the bucket.
For number twos it is suggested that you clean it off as much as possible, this can be done by using the toilet to shake off the as I like to call it doo doo.
When it is time to do a load of laundry you can run them through the wash just like any other piece of clothing. (You may want to use a detergent that is less harsh than what you use on your clothing) You can use a mesh bag as a liner in the bucket which you can just pull out the liner and throw it all together in the washer.
BIG TIP: USE COLD WATER!!! This will prevent stains.

Now really does that seem that hard!

Fair Trade in Action

A working shot of my sister-in-law, Watcharee (far left) meeting with one of our craftswomen about final patterns for our new Monkey Beanz crib bedding sets and diaper bags!!

Anyone who has had any experience with Thai culture knows the importance of family to Thais and Watcharee has gone above and beyond what most siblings in this country would consider helping out.  Really, we would not be able to create our new products without her help.  I hope that we will able to grow this business with her along for the ride to continue to support the people of Thailand including our own Thai relatives.  Thanks for the support and go to Monkey Beanz to sign up for our newsletter for announcements of new product arrivals!

Fair Trade Month Kick Off

I will start off with my number one excuse for not blogging for several weeks since it is actually pretty exciting.  We have been having some "issues" with our current website program and I've been toying with the idea of switching for some time so this seemed like as good a time as any.  After several days of scouring websites and online forums for reviews and comparisons, I chose which program to switch to and I have to say, this is one of the best decisions I have made.  I love the set up of the new site and that is what I have been doing  day after day these last couple of weeks and I think we are just about ready to make the switch.  I'm hoping I will get it up and running this weekend.  Yay!!!

In any case, I though that the first day of October, aka Fair Trade Month, would be a good day to get back into my blogging and share some thoughts...

The question:  What is Fair Trade?  I get this question a lot and have answered it so many times, I could probably do it in  my sleep.  If you are reading this, you probably already know the cookie cutter answer - fair living wages paid to employees, comfortable working conditions, ability for workers to have vacation and sick time or leave of absence to care for their family.  These are all inherent aspects to the fair trade movement and the foundation to any fair trade business practice but there is something more beneath those facts that I feel lies at the focus of Fair Trade Month for me.  In a word - awareness.

I recently had a parent in my daughter's school ask me if I only had fair trade or green products in my house for the kids to play with.  Umm ... no.  While it would be wonderful to live in a time when there were more options for fair trade products, organic products etc, I don't believe that this is an all or nothing issue.  I don't think that in order to call myself a proponent of fair trade, I need to rid my house of all non-fair trade items just as I don't think that I need to buy only organic food for my family to say I believe in the benefits of buying local and organic food.

I would not have been able to start and run a business that took advantage of others for my own profit or sell products to parents that I would not want my own children to play with.  Yet, that remains true even when I give in and buy the girls those inflatable Spiderman swim tubes that surely say Made in China on the bottom.  I do my best to support companies that are doing more with their business than simply trying to turn a profit but if  were to clear out everything in our house that is not organic, local or fair trade ... well, it would be a lot easier to pick up around here, I guess!

My goal for Fair Trade Month is to promote awareness.  Awareness of other people and cultures,  Awareness of where our food comes from.  Awareness of where the products around us come from.  Not to create guilt at all the mass produced, chemically enhanced items that may be there but just to be aware of what is around us.  To make changes where it is desired and possible and to be okay with knowing that just taking that moment of awareness is, itself, making a change.