All Things Supercinski

Our motivation for using cloth products came from a desire to reduce waste, conserve trees, and reduce our exposure to chemicals. It has been an easy transition, taking small steps at a time.

Cloth Diapers - this was a decision we mulled over for a while after Josiah was born. What helped us decide was actually getting to see our friend’s diaper system in place, who let me borrow two different kinds to experiment with for a week. I was sold. We use BumGenius 2.0 (one-size) and Fuzzi Bunz, and I highly recommend them both. This site is helpful in answering all your cloth diapering questions, and this one gives you reviews from moms who actually use the diapers. The cost for cloth diapering one child is about the same as if you used disposables, but the benefit is that subsequent children can be diapered for free! The average baby will use about 10,000 diapers before toilet training. An estimated 1 billion trees a year are required to produce disposable diapers.

By using cloth, you reduce the chemicals (dioxin) your baby is exposed to, reduce waste by at least a full trashbag a week, and save trees.

Disposable diapers are a highly processed product, and they can remain intact in landfills for many years (some sources quote upwards of 100 years). Disposable diapers contain a layer of absorbent wood pulp (usually from managed forests), and chemicals specifically included to improve absorbency and wick wetness away from the skin. While this system works well in keeping the skin dry, it can also be a potential skin irritant. Disposable diapers contain chemicals banned in the 80’s in women’s tampons, but continue to be used today to improve absorbency in children’s diapers. (Wikipedia)

Baby Wipes - I sewed these out of a single layer of flannel and wash them with diapers. They are bigger, wetter and handier for cleaning up baby poop than disposables, plus you know what goes into them (no chemicals!) I just make a solution of water and soap (just a squirt of Dr. Bronners and about 2 cups of water), pour it over them and squeeze out some of the water. They sit in an old wipes box that we were given when Josiah was born.

Mama Cloth - For basically the same reasons as stated above, I switched to cloth for my feminine products. I found some great hemp pads here, and have sewn a few of my own. If the thought of using cloth for this makes you squirm, do some research into what goes in a tampon or disposable pad. Additionally, cloth pads are dramatically more comfortable than disposables.

Canvas Grocery Bags - Yes, I am that lady in the grocery store that brings all of her own bags. After seeing the Parisians do it so elegantly, we got ourselves some bags and now have enough to bag all of our groceries during our big shopping trips. Plastic grocery sacks account for an inordinate amount of trash, take 1,000 years to decompose, and while they can be recycled, why not use your own? You can carry twice (or thrice) as much in one bag and the baggers tend to be more careful with your produce this way. There are some really cheap canvas bags available online in cute colors. Think about it: you use your plastic bag for almost 20 minutes on your drive home from the store, but it will last much longer than it is ever useful. Some interesting numbers about plastic bags:

~500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.

Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest them.

In 2001, Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%. Approximately 18,000,000 liters of oil have been saved due to this reduced production. Governments around the world are considering implementing similar measures.

More from reusablebags.com

Also, one of the biggest problems our local landfill has is corralling all the plastic bags that blow around off the landfill - additional labor is used to clean these up regularly.

Cloth Napkins - I sewed some cloth napkins from some material a friend gave to me. They work great, don’t waste, and they were free! It was also a fun craft project for me.

Cloth Paper Towels - We bought some paper-towel-like cloths (thinner than a real towel, but with little pocket “weave” to pick up stuff) at Sam’s. There were 25 towels that I cut in half to be closer in size to regular paper towels to yield 50 reusable towels for only $5.99. They are just like paper towels, but cotton! I’m really enjoying cleaning everything with them. Paper towels and toilet paper account for the greatest consumption of virgin (first cut) trees. (Ideal Bite)

I don’t buy paper plates or cups as we still have some of those left from our wedding to use when we are hosting a large group of people (showers, parties and such), and if it is less people, we just use dishes and wash them. We reuse all of our ziploc bags at least a few times, and a friend just showed me these nifty bag replacements. The only paper products besides actual paper that we use these days are toilet paper and cottonelle wipes, but replacing them with cloth is still a way off for us.

Stay tuned, for Green Cleaning, airing soon!

Everywhere you look, green is in. It’s trendy to make less of an impact on the environment. While that is great, I think that as Christians, being more environmentally-conscious is an overflow of our faith. Christians should be the most radical environmentalists around–we worship the God who created this earth and we should worship Him by not filling it with trash and chemicals. Making less of an impact on the environment is considering others more important, those in the future and those living around the world. Part of ‘going green’ is also rejecting the throw-away consumer attitude that pervades our American culture. This opting out has rewards unto itself.

For us, simplifying things, living greener and consuming less have been rewarding experiences. We have made small changes over the course of our marriage, and since several friends and readers have asked to know more, I thought I’d address some topics in a series of posts. It will give me something to blog about (besides Josiah), and maybe encourage others to put more thought into the little things.

We are by far not the greenest people around, so we don’t claim to be. After all, we still drive a SUV! But we have learned some interesting things and want to share, so stay tuned for more Getting Greener posts.

My workplace had a 20 in. LCD monitor (a $300+ value) that was broken for quite some time. After several attempts had been made at diagnosing the problem it was placed on the ’scrap/recycle’ pile. After receiving permission to take it away I promptly researched and found the issue and the correct component needed to resurrect the hardware. $45 later (courtesy ebay) we now enjoy the beauty, space savings and energy efficiency of a 20 inch UltraSharp display.

Remember, before you dispose of etrash (monitors, PCs, old telephones, etc) find out if your local city/county has any sort of recycling program for such items. Bryan-College Station has such a collection day twice a year. The next event is scheduled for October 20th, 9am-4pm. Your local Freecycle group is also a great place to be responsible with items like these. Several organizations take old equipment, refurbish it and donate it to needy children and families and other programs.

Breaking news…

The horror!

In case you haven’t been reading our blog for at least a year, or you just forgot, Supercinskiad is the Olympics for our family. Thomas and I compete in 7 different games, awarding gold or silver medals for each competition. The person with the most gold medals at the end of the games is the winner. It has been a week of fierce competition over here, with both competitors giving it their all.

This has been the year of the upset - Rachel stole the victory in leg wrestling, while Thomas somehow managed to snatch the gold in Mancala and unbelievably won Nerts. (I blame my poor, burning fingers for the loss–I had just peeled bowls upon bowls of tomatoes and jalapenos to make salsa and spaghetti sauce, had burned my foot and cut my finger–how can you play a speedy card game with such injuries?)

Here are the standings:
Farkel: Thomas
Leg Wrestling: Rachel
Mancala: Thomas
Boggle: Rachel
Nerts: Thomas
Speed Scrabble: Rachel

We started the chess competition last night, and time will tell who the overall winner will be. If you are curious about who won last year and the previous year, it was me!

For those who have read this far, here are some little known facts about the tradition of Supercinskiad:
-It started in 2005 after hearing about a similar weekend of competition from the couple who did our premarital counseling.
-Someday, we hope to incorporate Josiah (and whoever else is living here) in more kid-friendly games.
-We have opening ceremonies consisting of playing the Olympic theme song and walking around the living room, waving at our fans. And no, we aren’t drunk when we do this.
-After each competition, we play the Olympic theme song and have a medaling. The person who won the gold stands on the couch and waves. If we were really serious, we’d play the national anthem, but we aren’t that serious.

We had all of our playgroup together (minus one) today for lunch. It was especially special since two of the families ventured back to BCS from Houston to join the rest of us. Josiah was the youngest of his pals, but not for long, there are four more babies on the way! We love our sweet friends and I am so thankful for wonderful women to go through this whole parenting thing with, and excited to see their families grow. Thanks for the picture, Julia!

Doctor’s orders are for frequent warm baths to help his wound drain. We’ve spent many at least an hour a day in the bath the past few days, which makes for a happy boy with pruney toes. Mama whipped out the camera yesterday to alleviate some bathtime boredom. Enjoy!

Does your little one get fussy in the bath? Try putting them in there when it is empty and letting them play in the running water. Provide cups for added fun.

Another Josiah favorite is his own personal washcloth. Sometimes he scrubs himself with it, but mostly he chews on it.

And here’s a cute video, Josiah is learning to count!