Julie Phipps-Labonte is Canadian mom to an 8 month-old son, loves history and has been inspired by cloth diapering to “reuse” in other parts of her life. Let’s get to know this cloth diapering mom a bit more:
Q. How have cloth diapers changed your life?
A. I never expected that cloth diapers would help me save money in other areas of my life. Like many moms today, our original choice to use cloth diapers was to save money. I’ll also admit that I fell in love the new “look” of cloth diapers when I was pregnant, and FuzziBunz became my first choice after doing a diaper trial program at my local diaper shop when my son was born. I loved the wide selection of tasteful colors, trim fit and most importantly the intelligent design of the One Size style diaper.
When I started the diaper trial program, I was educated by the shopkeeper that I would need to make changes to my laundry routine in order to use their program (and ultimately to be successful with cloth diapers). I had been using brand-name detergent plus dryer sheets previously and I was skeptical that changing to a single laundry soda without all the “extras” would clean clothing, let alone diapers. At that time, I was spending about $30.00 per month on a variety of laundry products before washing a single diaper!
That day, we switched to Nellie’s Laundry Soda for all of our clothing and use Rock’N'Green for our diapers and simply use handmade wool dryer balls to soften our laundry, improve drying time and manage static cling. My diaper shop also does bulk refills of Nellie’s so that we are spending $14.00 every three months! That’s an additional savings of $900.00 per year, and all of our clothes are cleaner than they’ve ever been without a heavy perfume smell!
Cloth diapering has made me review a lot of other disposable and wasteful items we’ve been spending our hard-earned money on at the grocery store. We’ve taken a more “reuse vs. disposable” approach to living. I estimate our total savings annually are in the thousands of dollars with all of the changes we have made so far, and it all started with a small stash of cloth diapers!
Q. What is your funniest diapering changing, poop or pee story?
A. Weeks after bringing our baby boy home, we considered ourselves pretty lucky to have not been hit by the pee fountain during a diaper change. Then finally at five weeks old, he produced one. Unfortunately, the changing table that was mounted on the playpen had a slight slope to it, and the stream arched backwards. Our little guy missed me completely, but got himself square in the face!
Q. What do you find most rewarding about motherhood?
A. The utter look of trust, dependence and love in my baby’s eyes every time he looks at me. When he adds in a giggle or a smile, my heart just about bursts!
Q. What was the last movie you watched / or last book you read? Tell us about it.
A. I’m a history buff who enjoys stories about British rule and monarchies. I’m currently reading The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory. She has written a series of Fictional books from the perspective of major historical figures during the Plantagenet and Tudor periods in England. Her writing style incorporates actual historical facts mixed with fiction to create a “what could have been” story from the perspective of actual people who lived during each period. The Red Queen is written from the perspective of Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII and grandmother to the infamous Henry VIII.
Q. If you had 24 hours of freedom to do anything you wanted (and money wasn’t an object), what would you do?
A. Fly myself and all 600 women in my WTE forum group (January 2011) to Europe (preferably Italy) for a day of shopping and a night out on the town!
Tags: Monday Mama
