diapers and laundry, nica style

Simon has added a new dimension to our morning routine - mainly a huge increase in the volume of laundry we have to do. We use cloth diapers for Simon during the day, disposibles at night; he's averaging 7-9 cloth diapers a day thus far. We have a combination of Nicaraguan diapers (usually very thin and not absorbant) and diapers we bought in the US (tri-fold standards and motherease snaps, all w/ nifty diaper covers). And in spite of our best efforts, Simon still has managed to pee on quite a number of our clothes and his own.
Since we wash all our clothes by hand, we've had to create some systems for efficient work, especially given the water shortages. Here's a look at our morning routine.
- prepare yesterday's diapers by putting them in hot, soapy water (heated on the stove)
- scrub them on the new lavandero - a concrete washboard w/ an attached concrete basin that holds about 10 gallons of water
- rinse them in the lavandero, making sure that the bucket that's collecting the water doesn't overflow
- empty the bucket into the toilets as necessary
- wring out the diapers and hang them in the sun
Here's Beth scrubbing away, and the finished results on the line (motherease in front, nica diaper on the front right, tri-folds in the back).
We wash all our other clothes at the old, non-diaper lavandero. We actually actually bought a new one (the one for diapers) shortly before Simon was born, so that we wouldn't have to wash dishes and poopy diapers in the same place. The water from the old one drains directly to the sewer, so we don't have to empty any buckets. Here, Mom Claassen gets into the action. She arrived the day after Simon was born, and her support has been invaluable.

Even Uncle Peter, who came up from Costa Rica for the weekend on a break from his semester abroad, gets into the laundry action.
And the finished results. The best time for hanging clothes is between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., as the sun comes directly into our patio. This works great during the dry season (Nov. through May) as things dry quickly. We'll have to figure out a whole new system during the rainy season (June through Oct.), as it takes clothes a lot longer to dry.
While mommy and grandma are busy washing clothes and diapers, daddy is busy sweeping and mopping the floors, emptying buckets (mommy can't lift heavy things after the birth), and preparing breakfast. It's a good team effort.

Before Simon was born, we could get all our chores done in about an hour; now we need a lot longer. :-)

Water Management, Part 2

A month or two ago we did a post about our water situation - water cuts and our attempts at storage. The situation is now a bit worse. We now lose our water every morning around 6 or 6:30 a.m. Most days it doesn't come back on until 6 p.m. This means that all the water we use for the day - laundry, cleaning, flushing toilets, bathing, and washing dishes - has to be stored somehow. Between our barrel, basins, and buckets, we now have the capacity to store about 110 gallons. This lasts us only for a day, and then we have to refill everything once the water comes on in the evenings. We're much more conscious of our water usage these days, and we try to conserve as much as possible. For instance, the water that we use to mop the floors can water our garden. The water that we use for washing diapers can be saved and then used to flush the toilets.
Here's a picture of our patio as we get started with our chores in the morning.

Simon's Friends

Here are a few pictures of all the people who have visited Simon in his first week of life.

Baby Simon

We are very happy to announce the birth of our son, Simon Claassen Thrush! Simon was born on Tuesday, Feb. 3, at 11:28 p.m. He weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz. and was 20 inches long. We're all back home now, resting and getting used to each other. Here are a few pics; click here to see a larger album through facebook.

piano

As many of you know, music has always been a big part of our lives. We both love playing the piano, and we were worried that our service w/ MCC would mean several years of fasting from music. We were delighted to find, however, that the university where Alan teaches has a music conservatory located right next door to the seminary. So for the last year or so, we've gone once a week to play one of the pianos in the practice rooms.

With the coming arrival of our baby, however, we realized that our practice times are likely over. So we started investigating the possibility of buying a keyboard to have in our house. It just so happened that one of the piano teachers at the conservatory was selling her keyboard. Selecting a Christmas present was never so easy. It's the first time we've had a piano in the house since we've been married; we're also excited that we'll be able to play the piano for our little baby when he arrives.