A few weeks back the wife and I began using cloth diapers on our baby. Not exclusively, just most of the time, and they’re probably not what you think of when you think cloth diapers.

They’re the Bum Genious brand and we ordered them all from that very site. Why cloth diapers?

1) Babies potty train earlier with cloth diapers. They don’t pull moisture away from the body as well as disposables so the baby knows it’s sitting in a pile of urine. There’s ups and downs on that point. Diaper rash is concern but if we’re attentive to her needs I think we can avoid it. On one pack of the disposables we do have they proclaim that you can leave your baby in them dirty for 12 hours. Uhm? OK, that might be useful if I was a freaking heroin addict.

2) We don’t like the idea of any “chemicals” being on the baby’s body. It’s a little hippie-ish but, whatever. I certainly wouldn’t feel safe putting a disposable in my mouth so I don’t like putting it on my baby.

3) Personally I hate the smell of disposable diapers. Not the poop or urine smell, the smell of them when they’re clean. See point #2.

4) Most importantly: Save money.

At $18 a pop they’re not cheap but in the long haul they’ll save us money. Disposables will run you about $950 a year if we’re to believe the Baby Bargains book we bought when we learned about the pregnancy.

You need about 24 of them on hand for an infant and that works out to $432. Then add in another $45 for a sprayer that hooks up to the supply line of the toilet for washing the pooh off them. Now we’re at about $480. That’s a fixed cost and they’ll be reusable for all of our children most likely. Add in another $100 in extra laundry detergent and we’re at $580 for the first year but over two years we’re looking at $290 a year instead of $950 a year.

And we’re not disliking the experience one bit. You have to plan a bit more, and tote dirty diapers back home with you when out and about, but it’s really not all that bad. Run a load of laundry at night when we start putting her down to bed and put ‘em all back together before we finally hit the sack. It’s a bit of a time sink but compared to that whole “having a baby” thing it’s a rather small drop in the bucket.

We do still use disposables at night right now for logistical reasons, and we keep them very handy for when we’re traveling like we were this weekend to visit the wife’s family. But, they’re backups, not the primary diapering system.

I’m liking it. I’d highly recommend it to other parents.

We were a little concerned about how the dogs would react when bringing the baby home, but so far everything has been great.

One thing we’ve noticed recently is that when we put baby Eleanor into her crib and walk away Chuck Norris stands guard. No shit. He walks into the nursery, turns a few circles, then plops himself in the doorway looking out. I love that dog.

From Eleanor

Sorry, no gun blogging lately. News from SHOT Show is pretty much the big thing this week and everybody else is covering it just fine.

So, instead I’ll whine for a bit about my mortgage company.

I recently switched from a local bank to a local credit union for a number of reasons. With that change I moved pretty much all of my major monthly bills over to their auto-pay system since it works much better than my old local bank’s did.

So, I was a bit surprised to see that I had a late fee with my mortgage company this month. I check my bank’s record and sure enough, the amount of the monthly bill (plus some extra) was transfered to them. Log in to the mortgage company’s system and yes indeed, that money got there a full 3 days before it was due.

And they applied all of it, every last dollar, to a payment toward the principal. Nothing toward interest or escrow and 15 days after it was due they dinged me with a late fee for not making my payment.

I am not a happy camper. I’ll probably refinance it with my local credit union just to avoid this nonsense in the future.

Eleanor Ewing Buist was born at 7:45am Jan. 8, 2010 at 7lbs 13oz and measuring 20 inches long after 57 hours labor. Yes, my wife is a champ.

Our 1st baby is due in 14 days now. So, it could happen at any time. Good news is our mid-wife^* is extremely happy with the pregnancy thus far and doesn’t see any problems. Kudos to my wife for really taking care of herself during the whole thing. She’s a champ.

*: No, we’re not doing a home birth. That’s what everybody thinks when they heard the term mid-wife. We’re going to a hospital for the delivery but the OB won’t get involved unless something goes wrong.

Last weekend the wife and I were at a Barnes & Nobel picking out books. When the wife went to pay for them her credit card was denied. Odd. She did note that they issued her a new card because the old was expiring and maybe that’s what triggered the decline. We didn’t think much of it at the time.

A few days previous a package had showed up at the house, via UPS, addressed to a Mr Jack Daniels from BodyBuilders.com. Odd. I did an address search and didn’t see any neighbors around here with that last name so I opened it up figuring it was just a horribly wrong address and gave the contents of it away.

Turns out somebody had stolen the wife’s credit card number and used it to make that purchase, probably just to test the card out. Somehow Capital One figured out it was a stolen credit card number and froze the account right after that order was made.

Impressive response time I’d say. Not sure how they figure that stuff out, exactly, but I’m glad they can.

This was just too funny not to pass along.

For those of you that know the area I’m driving south on Alpine Ave this afternoon and go to make a right on red at 4mile. Not familiar with the intersection all that much I spent a good 5 seconds double-checking that there’s no traffic coming my way, after a few vehicles pass, that would prevent a right on red. For those of you not familiar with the area two 5 lane roads are intersecting here. I’ve got two lanes coming from the left and a chance that somebody across from me has a green arrow pointing left.

The split second I let off the gas the driver behind me, in an Escort that has its hood tied down with bungie cords, honks. I resist the urge to slam back on the brakes and make him wait.

We pull onto the next road and he stomps on the gas and moves into the passing lane as I gently ease up to speed. I hear him grinding the gears as he reaches for 3rd when going by me and notice evidence of another fender bender on the rear of his car.

Up ahead our two lanes converge into one. A slower driver than Sparky is in the left, so Sparky moves to the right, guns it, and it met with a driver that is making a right hand turn into a grocery store. He manages to get into the left lane narrowly cutting off another driver earning himself a one finger salute right out the window from that guy.

About a mile down the road we’re down to 1 lane in each direction with somebody making a left hand turn in our lane and Sparky is stuck waiting like everybody else. For all his impatience he’s about 16 feet further ahead of where he’d be if he just took his damned time.

When traffic gets moving again he pops the clutch, stalls his car, and rolls off onto the right shoulder.

Kid, you’re doing it wrong.

I got word this afternoon that my aunt Deb passed away in her sleep last night. I’m not certain how old she was but it was between 48 and 50 years and we have no idea what the cause of death is right now. She just went to sleep and didn’t wake up.

She and her husband had been on vacation for the last two weeks, camping in the UP for most of it, and on the night she died they were in Manistee for one last night before heading home. I last saw her up in the UP and got the chance to sit around the campfire with her and her husband for a couple of nights drinking beers, swapping stories, and just generally catching up as we tend to only see each other during the holidays and such. I very much enjoyed the few times in my life when I got the chance to do that.

I don’t know why this memory sticks out in my head, but it does, so I’ll share it. When I was about 9 years old she and her husband moved to Alaska. It must have been around December because I remember the family getting a postcard from them at Christmas that year. Among the things that I don’t remember was written:

While crossing the Rockies we pulled over and Dave took a pee in a stream. Don’t drink any Coors for a while!

Twenty years later it still makes me chuckle, and I’ve thought of that nearly every time I’ve seen a Coors beer. It’s safe to say I probably will for the rest of my life too.

There’s one more that just jumped out at me. I used to have a reoccurring scary dream when I was between 5 and 8 years old. In it I’d be lost in the woods with something chasing me and I’d be wearing a red sweatshirt she had gotten me. The dream was always in black and white and the trees were only as thick as twigs and the monster after me could crash right through them. Eventually a giant version of Aunt Deb would come up from behind me, grab me, and give me a big hug and then I was safe.

You will be missed, Aunt Deb.