Appartment Living and Laundry Debate

The super came yesterday to fix a couple of tiles, of course, I got up and immediately took the washer out of the bathroom and into a bedroom, thankfully I had already taken care of everything and the unit was ready for moving.

The evidence and trail that we have a washer is huge: all of a sudden, the bathroom door opens out instead of in, there is a bench inside it (with a baby bathtub to disguise it), in front of it there is a hanging rack  with diapers, the main bedroom open can show more hanging clothes, including a sheet, there is detergent inside the bathroom and the laundromat boy has not come in several months. The main reason for having called the super is that two tiles fell, most likely due to the vibrations of the spin dryer.

But the super comes, does his job in 10 minutes, and leaves, either clueless or just playing dumb. I hate hiding it, specially since I think we're not doing anything wrong, but for those who wonder why it is forbidden to have washing machines in pre-war apartment buildings, here is the top 5 reasons for the ban:

1. Risk of flooding. Nobody likes getting water from your ceiling. That can happen if your neighbor upstairs has a flood due to a leak in his laundering system. Is it plausible? sure! indeed! It actually happened several years ago to me. I had a big washing machine in the kitchen, perfectly legal, with a place for it and installation and everything. Well, my washer was old and had been fixed before, I had gotten it from a friend that moved out of town. In any case, the risk is high when you have a device which require open faucets for installation and deals with large amounts of water.
   How I deal with it? my machine is not "installed". I fill it up with the shower hose, I never have a full time open faucet. On top of that, it has a limit placed on top, if you overfill, the water will automatically get into the inner tub and down the drain. And since it is lifted, I don't even need the draining pump. Just in case there is a double leak and water starts pouring out of the unit, well, it has less than 1 cubic foot capacity, less than 2 buckets. So that's my very unlikely worst case scenario: a bathroom flooded with the water of a bucket and a half.
2. Sudsy water in your sink or bathtub. Another annoying side effect for your neighbors downstairs. A friend of mine told me he once had a turkey marinating on his neighbors laundry water. Why does this happen? well, old buildings have a very old draining system, with a very limited capability in the water they can take. This flow of liquid can go to a max of 7 gal/min (or something to that effect, please correct me if I make a mistake). Pumping devices in washing machines get the water out at a rate higher than that. The time elapsed from having it full to having it empty and ready for spinning is quite short and the plumbing can't take it. Therefore, the water, having no place to go, gets out in lower apartments from the drain up.
   The solution is to have a buffer tank in which the water can go from the washer, so that it can get into the building's system at its own rate.
   In our case, the draining goes to the bathtub, which works as said buffer, and the water stays there until it can slowly go where it has to. Since it is a small unit, the bathtub is more than enough the size of what is needed.
3. Power capacity. Washers use a lot of juice. A brand new top load Maytag sucks 0.23 KWH per load. My Twin Tub Panda works on 250 W. That times .25  plus another 3 minutos of spin drying at 135 watts is 69WH, less than a third of a regular MayTag, and the equivalent of 3 light bulbs of full capacity for about 15 minutes, not a problem at all. Plus, my building does not have a ban in drying machines or dishwashers, which can suck up even more.
4. Noise. That would be a good argument for newer buildings and hollow materials, but in pre-wars? I dodn't hear my machine from the kitchen, let alone from outside of the apartment, is that good enough? Just need to make sure the spinner is balanced, though.
5. Business arrangements with Laundromats. If there were coin oparated machines in the basement, this argument would be a little valid, not here, nearest place is a couple of blocks away. Since such agreement is not in the lease, I can't believe they would try this one on me, I didn't know I would surrender the freedom to handwash or wash in my spare house and have to patronize a specific partner of my landlord. Really?

So there you have it. I'm not breaking the lease because my machine is not "installed". But I don't think my landlord has the patience to come and look at it, he may just start a fight if he hears "washer", so we will keep hiding it.

My Boy Has Long Hair

I have two beautiful boys: Tiny Guy and Little Guy.

 Little Guy is over 3 now and at this point, mostly out of diapers. He is a very singular one, with things done at his own pace and by his own way.

Due to my husband's beliefs, we didn't cut his hair when he was little, and then, kinda forgot about it. What came out was an amazing straight hair and bangs that he loves waving.

We do have a person that cuts his hair and leaves it long in a boyish fashion, but she lives very far, and due to Tiny Guy's arrival, we have not been able to see her, so Little Guy's hair is really long! We'll give it a cut when we see her, but in the meantime we're just trimming the bangs. We tried someone here and gave him a girl's cut (yuck!)

So, as you may think, I get all kinds of comments, I get the "what a gorgeous hair" and, most of the time the "you SHOULD cut his hair". Combined with the more polite "do you think it would be a good idea to cut his hair?" and my favorite: no comment at all, just a pedantic sign of cutting your hair in front of me in my own house, done to somebody else.

Why don't I do it then? well, by starters, I don't think it's someone else's business what I do with my child's hair. It's, more than our business, his. And let me tell you something, he may be delayed in his speech, but he can comunicate, and he has stated very clearly that he loves his long hair and doesn't want it short.

Moreover, my husband has long hair. My son does not understand that long hair is supposed to be "for girls", he doesn't understand gender issues very well, he knows he is more like Daddy than like me, and Daddy has long hair, so why wouldn't he?

Which brings me to gender issues. I have always stated that I have a boy, but never told him so. I have never told him the difference between boys and girls or showed him specific toys. He sees pink as one more color and does not relate it to girls. He is 3 and learning 2 languages, but he is, in all aspects, a boy.

Whoever says that little children don't know about gender identity have never had one. My little boy has not been exposed to gender related propaganda, yet he likes toy cars, trains, climbing, red, blue, green, Cars (the movie), Thomas the Train, running around, balls, etc. He doesn't care about how he looks and usually picks bright color T-shirts and jeans for outside (and nothing for inside). He climbs what you put in front of him, he is independent and determined. He doesn't care much about dolls, only once in a while he will get a stuffed animal and hug it. So, he has let us know that he is a boy, in every aspect, including the hair.

So, next time you see a child, before looking at the hair, look at what the child does and what the child is wearing and the child's behavior. The other day at a doctor's office, the conversation went like this:

-What a gorgeous boy you have
-Thank you.
 -At first I thought it was a girl, but then I saw the cars and how he was playing and noted that his outfit was definitely boyish.
-I'm glad, people take him for a girl a lot.
 -People just don't think.

So, use your brain for more than half a second. There are several children out there that are not what you pictured in your brain, mine being one of those.

Mother Evolution

I think I mentioned before that I didn't receive any parental support when making the switch. In any rate, it took my mom to actually come and see them for herself. She started by not doing anything in the beginning to being a total pro at the end, so I'm very proud of her. Due to her visit, we went to have dinner to my cousin's place. He was another skeptic one, he kept saying: "too much work". Let me see: when I was using disposables, I was dizzy with the smell, plus changing, going to a toilet, filling it, getting the clothes out with an explosion, soaking them in water, going out to buy them, making 1/2 hour lines in the supermarket to get them before the storm, going to throw them in the building's trash once a day, spending hours online trying to score a good deal because I was running out of them again, filling myself with wipes... Now I change them fast, put them in a bag, throw the bag in the washer every couple of days, fill the tub, put on the timer, leave them, then coming back, draining, filling again (this time with hot water), putting detergent, setting the timer again, coming back later, putting them in the spinner, drain and fill in the mean time, repeating the last process, (draining, spinning and filling) and hanging them. So, I guess maybe we're even. With the difference that I'm not dizzy, my pocket is not dizzy and the kids look awfully cute. Oh, and I don't carry a diaper bag. So, give your mom a try, just make sure your pockets are stuffed before leaving the baby with her.

I Washed a Disposable!!!

2 nights ago, I restored cloth diapers at night for Tiny Guy, but still used a covered disposable for Little Guy. Last night, Little Guy wore a trifolded prefold with a cover, and woke up without rash and without ammonia smell. All was well and good. I had a ton of diapers to wash this morning, so I emptied the bag, collected Little Guy's and tiny Guy's used for the night and started the "soapless" prewash agitation. Later on, I came to drain and fill with hot water, when I noticed small "drops" like cristaline, in the diapers. Didn't pay much attention, but then, I realized the water was not getting drained and the pump was suffering. All of a sudden, I saw that cristaline thing again, and then, surprise surprise, it was SAP!!!!!!! I located the diaper that Little Guy had used 2 nights ago, I totally forgot to toss it in the trash and totally forgot that he had used one, just had taken the cover and tossed it in the wet bag. My nightmare was just starting. I had a tub, a stash of diapers, and a bathtub full of SAP in my hands!!!!! I started with the tub. Passed all the diapers to the spinner and turned the drainer back on. Fortunately I have paper towels at arms reach from there, so I started getting all that gel out with them. Boy, that mass is sticky and hard to reach. The gel was preventing the water from draining, so the water itself was making my life harder. Another thing is that I didn't know what SAP would cause in the drainage, but I was in no interest to find out, so I put the hair stopper in the bathtub, so that it would not make it there. I had to go through the whole thing, fold a paper towel and clean all the edges, and not leave a single bubble of gel around. By that time, I was already exhausted, the kids were relentless and my husband was wondering what had happened to me. So I came back to the leaving room, told him what had happened and saw his face of "poor little thing, you have a lot on your hands". Believe me, I would have much rather had him saying "ok, I'll take care of the bathtub, just finish the diapers", but no such luck. So, after having taken a brake, came the cleaning of the diapers. I decided that the better and faster way would be to hose them. So I placed them in a plastic bin, right besides the washer's big tub. Took the shower hose, placed it in high pressure and turned it on. Started with the inserts and wipes. One by one, making sure there was no trace of gel in any of them. By the time I had done like 5, my shoulder was already hurting and the tub was already full. It was going to be a loooong day, so I took another break. Repeated this a few times. The situation got a little more complicated with the wet bag, then came the dreaded pockets and the Simplex. I had to hose them, hold them and turn them upside down and hose again. One by one, the wet bag too. I was done after 6 PM with severe arthritis pain and still a bathtub to go. I left it sitting for a couple of hours and made sure the tub was out of water and then went for the easy solution: the vacuum cleaner. It was a tough bet, since gel is not solid nor liquid. After 4 minutes it started smelling weird and I topped, it did most of the job, but I don't know the consequences as of yet. Finished with a paper towel. Took the vacuum cleaner out, there was a big black spot on the rug, so now I'm washing the rug too. Diapers seem ok, had to use some dawn and extra stripping. As I've said, it was a very long day, don't try this at home.

The dreaded little hands

I've mentioned before that due to rash problems in Little Guy, I've been using disposables at night.

As a lazy mom, I say that anything that makes your life easier, do it. Well, I wish I was back using cloth then, because there have been some leaks, but on the other hand, I don't have to wash diapers every day and I got rid completely of the ammonia smell and the rashes.

But now, I have a new problem with Tiny Guy, one of the reasons actually for any parent to switch to cloth: his hands!

Since he's almost 6 months old, he moves around and has found independence to be his biggest ally. He can push himself with the left leg and roll, he can even stand up and hold his whole body in the play pen.

And yes, he can reach the disposable diaper and pull the tabs, so he can wake up diaperless, and take it off anytime. I have to literally wait for him to fall asleep to put it and the rash cream on, otherwise he'll last 10 minutes. I hope his brother starts using underwear any time soon so that the rash wars are over and I can go back to all day cloth with him.

My Twin Tub Panda Washing Achievements

Before I bought my washing machine, we used a laundromat for all cotton stuff. They came, took a bag of dirty laundry and brought a bag of clean one.

For everything else, I would wash in our vacation house, 450 miles from here. I would get all the clothes in a huge laundry bag and come back with everything clean. That worked only when we went there every other 2 months, however, that is not always possible.

With a new baby, explosions every 3 hours became the norm, and I didn't have my husband available this time to hand wash those. I would leave them in the sink only to find them in the very same spot and remembering he's not able bodied like he used to be.

So, the idea of the washer was to help me with those delicate items that I wouldn't send to the laundromat, as well as those baby clothes that needed immediate attention. I never expected to wash absolutely everything in this little thing, but I just couldn't stop.

So far, in the 4 months that I've had it, the list includes:

• Baby clothes
• Cloth diapers and wipes
• underwear and socks for all the family
• pants and t-shirts
• jeans
• tons of towels
• sheets
• blouses
• sweatshirts
• a silk shirt
• a knit sweater
• a polyester blanket
• an army jacket
• a pillow (already bulky)
• bathroom mats
• a mattress cover
• a full size thick bathrobe
• courtiains

Since I have way more control than with a regular Maytag, I can put another cycle, regulate the water level and temperature, leave the clothes soaking after the agitation, etc. So everything can come cleaner than with an automatic. The trick is not to overload the washing tub and fill the spinner all the way to the top. Ah, and using very small amounts of detergent

What to do with Too Small Disposables

Due to several lost battles in the rash war, I had to give up on nighttime cloth diapering.

But my inventory of disposables was 2 bags of size twos and one single pull-up.

Then I wondered: could and should I use those little baby disposables on my big toddler?? mmm... wouldn't hurt to try....

So I went ahead and placed the small diaper inside a Real Nappies cover, just placed it all open on top, like an insert. Next morning, there was a lake around Little Guy, but his rash was much better (I may add we're using antibiotic and antifungal ointments). The diaper was completely full though.

Second night, I placed a prefold in bikini fold on top of the cover, so that it would catch the urine once the diaper was full. Total Success!! His rash is rapidly disappearing and he woke up dry as a grain of sand in the desert.

That gives me a relief. Tiny Guy was going to outgrow those diapers soon and I was going to be stuck with them taking space, now I know I can use them anytime I need a disposable for whatever reason.

He is taking a nap and I made a different experiment. I'm using a pocket with a trifolded prefold inside, covering the mini disposable. Wish us luck!