Like most people, I have my own priorities about money. I'll happily spend an amount of money on one pair's worth of sock yarn that I would not dream of spending on fewer than ten pairs of socks from Target--socks I don't have to knit myself. MHH will happily spend money on seforim, and takeout if he thinks I am too stressed to deal with Shabbos cooking at the end of the week.
But about most things, we are both naturally pretty cheap. I buy generic almost everything, and when Barak was born I think I bought one box of Pampers before switching permanently to generic diapers. He is wearing them still and I never had any problem. When Iyyar was born, the chain drugstore I had been getting my diapers at got bought out and sold off all their store-brand diapers at around 75% off. Being, as I say, naturally cheap, I thought gevalt! I'll buy him a babyhood supply in one go and never have to buy diapers again. Using Barak's growth as a guide, I bought stacks and stacks of ones, twos, and threes. I didn't get many fours, because I was (ha) toilet training Barak at the time and decided to get more of the smaller sizes that would take up less space. I shlepped almost all of those diapers home by hand, while carrying the baby who at that time refused to go in a stroller. It took about a billion trips. It was kind of a pain in the neck, to put it mildly, but I felt very pleased with myself. I had spent less than two hundred dollars and I had something like 2500 diapers in the basement. No more dashes to the drugstore for diapers! No more keeping an eye out for the sales! Mwa ha ha ha! I am the queen of advance diaper planning! I practically rubbed my hands together in gleeful cheapskate satisfaction.
Fast forward five months. Iyyar, aged six and a half months, weighs one pound less than Barak did at a year. He has been in size threes--THREES--for almost two months. Not only that, but the generics just do not do it for him overnight. He gets soaked and has to get completely changed at least twice a night. So not only are there stacks and stacks of ones and twos in the basement, I have had to BUY MORE DIAPERS in size three--Pampers, which actually hold all the pish in from 6 pm till 6 am. But cost twenty-five cents per diaper. And have Elmo on them, which means that Barak, who can actually fit into a size three, covets Iyyar's diapers and wants to wear those instead of the boring Care Bear ones from Target.
Anyone need some size two generic diapers? Anyone? I think I have around five hundred in the basement.
2 comments:
I've done things like this. Laying plans for kid #2 based on what you KNOW from kid #1 invites a humbling.
My mum had this (long term to realization) plan to put her child in cloth. Finally she had a child.. She had a large stash of cloth diapers. I had a 3 month stay in the hospital where they put me in disposable (i forget what brand). She finally brings me home and I want nothing to do with the nice soft environmentally friendly cloth. I want expensive plastic. only that /specific/ brand.
Totally there with the $ priorities. Either it's generic & from the 99c store or it's a nice seforim or sock yarn. ;)
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