Doing Good, Wiping, and Being Quiet

An old peanut butter jar decorated with stickers and containing some shredded packing wood pulp = a Good Deeds jar for Advent! Even as of last Lent half a year ago, John was not old enough to understand the concept of doing good deeds for something (last Lent: good deeds earned them pennies to give as alms at Easter). But this year suddenly he is with the program! I explained how it worked to the kids, emphasizing how good deeds are even more special when someone does something without asking or does it anonymously. Then I went to do a chore and I heard rustling in my laundry room: I discovered John trying to maneuver the canister vacuum by himself and he asked, "Mama, would vacuuming for you be a good deed?" So cute! The rest of the day was a flurry of John trying to find good deeds to do. And this morning a fight nearly broke out between the kids about who would wash which parts of the toilet ("No, I want to clean the inside of the toilet!") until I assured them that all children cleaning the toilet would get pieces of hay for doing a good deed.

I have discovered making homemade baby wipes. Margaret has been my first rashy baby. When she began getting tough diaper rashes, I had to learn how to treat them because John and Mary had never or almost never had rashes. But Margaret's rashes would never completely go away, just ebb and flow with treatment of zinc oxide 16% and an anti-fungal cream. I even consulted our pediatrician and tried several $10-per-tube specialty creams that were recommended. After months of this, more digging around showed me that perhaps the commercial wipes I was using were part of the problem: second ingredient alcohol! I know how drying alcohol is on my adult skin: just using alcohol gel on my hands the few times a week I'm out and about leaves my hands cracked and sometimes bleeding in the winter. And that is the hardened skin of adult hands! I'm really rather amazed that I've been wiping alcohol on my baby's sensitive, thin skin up to a dozen times a day (and have done this for three babies now).

So I sewed some flannel wipes and made a batch of homemade spray (2 cups water, one tablespoon castille soap, one tablespoon olive oil, 1-2 drops tea tree oil for antibacterial properties). Finally, my sweet girl's behind was healthy! With the commercial wipes removed from the equation, the zinc oxide and anti-fungal could do the job and Margaret's skin was healthy within the week and has remained healthy for the whole subsequent week, longer than ever before.

Now the only trouble was that using the cloth wipes was a real hassle, especially since I am using disposable diapers, so not doing loads of cloth diapers anyway. I had to launder my cloth wipes nightly just to have enough for the next day. And I have yet to find out how to use cloth-anything for diapering purposes without making my house smell like a cat litter box--and I had cats for 30 years and their cat litter boxes smelled better than my diapers pails even when I laundered cloth diapers nightly. So, that remains a mystery and it's too bad because I'm really fond of cloth.

So, today I switched to paper towel "wipes" (using soft Viva brand) with my spray and I'm so pleased! I could not find a container in which to store pre-soaked paper towels, but then I realized I could just store a roll of dry paper towels plus my spray bottle in a plastic bag and I'll be all ready to go. I haven't figured out how to take wipes like this on the go, but for the few times I'm out and about with the kids for extended periods, probably not too much harm would be done by using commercial wipes at those times.

There are many web pages about making your own wipes, but the one I like best so far is from Kitchen Stewardship.

I have a new Quiet Time strategy that might be a winner: keeping both kids together and in the den with an audio book. The joke around here is that daily Quiet Time is rarely quiet for Mama because I'm spending all my time putting Miss Mary back into her room, repairing the mischief she did, and defending John from Mary having invaded his room. It seems that despite my failure for 18 months running at getting Mary to stay in her bedroom, she will stay on the blue mat, while John is confined to a sofa. (I think Mary simply desperately hates to be alone, which makes Quiet Alone Time tough.) Right now we're listening to Paddington Bear on CD from the library and it is delightful: I hadn't remembered from my childhood that Paddington is "from the darkest Peru"! What fun.