It all started with this darn hard water that is now flowing through our pipes.  I didn’t think having hard water for a year while they upgrade my town’s water filtration system would be a big deal, yet it seems to affect a different aspect of my life every day.  I feel for all of you who deal with hard water all the time.

Last week, I was getting especially fed up with the brown/red ring on the inside of my toilet that was getting harder and harder to remove at each cleaning.  I have the beginnings of rings on all of my toilets but the one in my kids/guest bathroom was especially bad.  That toilet is older and it doesn’t get flushed quite as often as the other two toilets (especially when my four-year-old “forgets” to flush).

The ring was getting worse by the day and a friend – a disposable diapering friend, of course – suggested I use one of those pellets that goes into the tank and “cleans the toilet with every flush.”  Usually, I think and research the heck out of things before doing them, but the ring was scaring me and she gave me one to try (a blue one!).

You know where this is going — without thinking about it, I dropped it into the toilet tank in the kids’ bathroom and went on my merry way.

Until.

Until I went to rinse out a poopy diaper in the toilet the next day and almost dunked the thing in the bright blue water before I realized what I was doing.  Ugh!  I guess you should know that the word “oops” comes out of my mouth on a daily basis.  Or maybe hourly.  But this was a big one.  A big, blue, annoying oops.

Luckily, it’s not permanent; eventually the blue pellet will run out (I did try to fish it out and did get some of it before it broke apart).  And obviously, I can still rinse out the dirty diapers, I just have to haul them down the hall to the master bathroom.  Not a big deal, but a definite modification to my routine.  I’m certainly looking forward to the day that the pellet runs out, the water in the toilet runs clear and my hard water ring returns.  At least then I will be able to rinse out the diapers like I’m used to doing, conveniently, within steps of my daughter’s changing table and the laundry room.

I’m now thinking of finally installing my diaper sprayer after months of resisting, because I think the water for the sprayer comes out before it runs through the tank (still worried about what fun a curious four-year-old would have with that, though!).

Until I decide or until I’m sure the blue is gone, I will be carrying dirty diapers to my bathroom, leaving them on the counter there – grossing my husband out until I have a chance to dunk and swirl – and storing a second wet bag in the master bathroom.  I suppose it’s my punishment for not thinking of all of this before that fateful blue “plop,” I guess.

Have you ever done anything that alters your cloth diapering routine? How did you deal with it? Any suggestions for the hard water ring around the toilet? Join us to discuss on Facebook!