A few weeks ago, all my friends started pulling out these adorable Planet Wise wet/dry bags at play group and my inner green eyed monster immediately started gnawing on my common sense and INSISTED I had to get one too, even though I already had a wet bag and didn’t really need to be spending money on frivolous things.

But I bought one anyways, at my local fabulous baby store Papoose, and DUDE. It was SO NOT A FRIVOLOUS PURCHASE.

First off, it’s totally leak-proof, due to some sort of magical seaming and sealing process. Which means my biggest cloth diapering fear (carrying around a dirty diaper and having everyone think that smell is me) is totally gone. No poop smell or other kind of leakage. Exhibit A:

Magic non-PVC waterproof lining

Second, it has TWO POCKETS, one with the waterproof lining for wet stuff and one unlined pocket for your clean stuff. Brilliant. For someone who cloth diapers it means no digging around in my bag for the wipes and the extra insert and the diaper which is now full of Goldfish crumbs and sand and how did that green paint get in there? You could even do what my friend Megan has done and downgrade your GIANT DIAPER BAG to a cute little handbag and just use the snappy handle thing to attach it to your stroller or bag or whatever when it’s full. Exhibit B:

My cutest cloth diaper & my wipes case in the pocket.

Third, it’s freakin’ adorable. And large – 13″ x 16″. Exhibit C:

My print is called "Art Deco"

And just in case you thought I was lying about all my friends buying them first, Exhibit D:

Just from last week's playgroup, our collection of Planet Wise bags. Thanks to Connie & April for letting me be a weirdo and take pictures of your dirty diapers.

I sent Planet Wise an email letting them know I was going to sing their praises on the interwebs, for no other reason than I spent FOREVER looking at stuff like wet bags and diaper pail liners when we switched to cloth and I wanted to make it easier for anyone else trying to do the research. I also hinted at maybe doing a giveaway if they did that sort of thing and would be willing to work with a teeny tiny blogger. Shockingly, Lori emailed me back and said YES. I’m afraid she might be suffering from a head injury of some sort.

Which means YOU my friend, might be the proud new owner of one of these adorable bags in the pattern of your choice. Even if you don’t cloth diaper, these bags are perfect for dirty gym clothes, wet bathing suits, potty training, running clothes, or anything else that’s damp and possibly smelly. They’re cute and spacious and machine washable so you can just toss them in with your diapers/dirty stuff – even in the dryer.

TO WIN: Just leave a comment. That’s all.

If you want to check out the Planet Wise website and tell me which pattern you would pick, feel free. If you want to tweet about how awesome I am for giving you a chance to win the best wet bag ever, that’s awesome. If you want to like me on Facebook or vote for me on Top Baby Blogs, I’d appreciate it. If you want to tell me how much you hate these stupid reviews and giveaways, I’ll accept that too. But you only get one chance to enter with one comment. US addresses only please. (EDITED: OK MY DEAR CANADIANS! If you want to enter I will have Planet Wise ship the bag to me and I’ll cover the cost of mailing it to you. Because THAT is how much I love you!)

Good luck! And I’m wicked jealous of whoever wins. Free stuff is cool. Contest ends at midnight, July 29th. Winner announced first thing Friday morning! GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED. SORRY :(

p.s. If you DON’T win, don’t despair! You can find a retailer near you here. Of course, Papoose also has an online store. Just sayin’.

Disclaimer: I was in no way compensated by any business mentioned in this post for my opinions. I’m not getting anything for free or at a discount for this review and spent my own cash on the product mentioned. YOU’RE the only one getting free stuff. Because I love you.

First, we remove the onesie.

Then we go for a little drive.

Time to break for a little snack.

Mmmmmm...watermelon.

Oh you mean moving the slide into the kitchen so I can reach the counter ISN'T a wise choice? LOOK I HAVE A BELLY BUTTON!

Nothing to see here. Go back to the couch mama.

Tickle fight with dada

And now it's time for a little chillaxin'

Today’s pictures brought to you by the letter F.

F is for “Fluffy butt”
“Fun”
“Freakin’ adorable”

and of course

“Father’s Day”

Happy Special Dad’s Day to my wonderful husband E! I hope our little terror knows how lucky he is to have you. I know I do.

Back in April when I finally decided to switch to cloth diapers I was SO EXCITED, partly because I knew it was the eco-friendly, responsible choice…but also a little because I was finally going to be part of the cool kid’s diaper club, where everyone knew what AIO and AI2 and pre-fold and PUL and insert and pocket meant. I thought maybe someone would even teach me the secret handshake.

Turns out the handshake is just my EW EW EW EW EW! reaction to getting poop on myself AGAIN and I still don’t know what all the abbreviations mean. Luckily, it turns out you don’t have to know all that stuff to use cloth diapers, especially if you’re like us and still haven’t switched full time. It’s not an all-or-nothing experience and every cloth diaper I use is one less disposable in a landfill – and one more adorable fluffy butt I get to squeeze.

Our experience so far:

The good:
– The Katydids are my favorites by far, both because they’re super easy to use and because they’ve never leaked. I stopped using both inserts all the time and they still hold a whole morning full of pee. I also love that they’re easy to carry with me in my (admittedly huge) diaper bag – just once piece & easy to stuff in the wet bag.
– I also really like the one Happy Heiny and one Swaddlebee diaper we have. I’ve quickly learned that pocket diapers or all-in-ones are my favorite and would switch to them full time if I had a budget that allowed me to stock up.
– E has figured out how all our diapers work and will voluntarily put them on Baby Evan as long as they’re stuffed, stacked and available next to the changing table. Most of the time.
– My biggest fear – the WASHING – has been easy-peasy. I use Charlie’s Soap for the diapers and All Free & Clear for the rest of our laundry and haven’t had any trouble with build-up. I also really love hanging my diapers out on the clothes line. Which I know makes me a weirdo.

The bad
-We can’t bring ourselves to give up the disposables at night or when we travel. For a while Baby Evan was doing all his pooping at night, which made a disposable just too tempting. Now it’s just because I know he won’t wake up at 2 am screaming for a diaper change because he’s wet. We also used disposables this weekend when Baby Evan’s teething/new foods diaper rash got out of control and we went through a tube of Desitin every day. I haven’t found something that works as well and is safe for cloth.
– As much as I WANT to love my adorable GoodMamas, the extra step of using a cover makes me sort of dread them. They work great, my new Thirsties Duo covers work great, they really are NOT THAT HARD…but in my diaper stash they’re my second to last choice (last choice being regular old-fashioned pre-folds, which I have yet to even try, despite having 3 dozen stripped and ready to go).
– Although our diaper sprayer does get the poop off the diapers, it also gets the poop on the toilet, the walls, the floor and the person spraying the diaper. Maybe we just have really high water pressure. Maybe we are just not smart enough to do it right. It doesn’t really matter when tiny bits of poop are flying ALL OVER YOUR FACE.

The ugly
– I picked just about the WORST TIME EVER to make this switch. Not only did Baby Evan finally start eating solid food regularly, he started eating meat. If you haven’t had the joy of smelling meat-fed baby poop yet you’re a lucky, lucky person. These diapers are GROSS. The fewer seconds I have to look at or smell the poop the less likely I am to puke on the changing table. It doesn’t help that my super-power-strength sense of smell (thanks pregnancy!) is at an all time high. I can smell a dirty diaper from 30 yards and have to hold my nose when I toss my diaper pail bag in the machine. I’m reallyreallyreallyreally looking forward to trying full-time cloth with a new, exclusively breastfed baby whose poop doesn’t make me throw up in my mouth.

So to sum up: Good change, poor timing. I’m definitely going to keep using cloth at least part-time, and hope to switch to full-time in the future. Anyone have any newborn/small/medium sized all-in-ones or pocket diapers they’re looking to unload?

(Oh! AND! If you’re one of those people who have no interest in switching to cloth but had trouble with a certain diaper brand that may or may not have caused ugly chemical burns on some babies – including ours – may I recommend Luvs? I know, right, who uses Luvs?!?! We needed some disposables for our vacation a few weeks ago and they were the cheapest option at BJ’s so I picked up a box. They work great! They don’t smell funny! The box says something about a money-back guarantee although I know nothing about that! This endorsement is in no way sponsored by Luvs – they don’t know me from a hole in the wall – but my dislike of a certain other brand makes me want to support companies that don’t give my baby a horrible rash.)

It’s official, I have become a crazy hippie tree hugger. First it was the breastfeeding. Then the co-sleeping. Then the baby wearing. Then the baby-led weaning. Then I started foraging for all my food in the woods, sticking mainly to twigs, berries and the occasional mushroom cap.

Ok, so not that last one. But I am FINALLY making the switch to cloth diapers.

It was something I have considered  before, but never got around to actually doing. Sort of like scrapbooking, making my own whole wheat bread and learning Italian. Only with a lot more poop. But the stars aligned and suddenly it seemed ridiculous NOT to cloth diaper. The final straw was the promotion Franklin Goose ran, where they paid $5 in store credit for each product review you wrote. After racking up over $200 in totally free money (seriously, whoever came up with that promotion is SO TOTALLY FIRED) I broke the news to E that we were switching to cloth and he couldn’t object because they weren’t costing us anything.

Of course, then I spent $60 on accessories at Papoose. And then $95 on a huge lot of (barely) used diapers from my friend Emily. But she gave me a really really great deal – REALLY great, like, I sort of feel bad taking advantage of her great – and I’ve heard you really can’t have too many.

Since I don’t have all my diapers yet, I’m currently only part-time cloth diapering. And by “part-time” I mean “after I know Baby Evan has already pooped because I’m not sure I’m ready for that mess yet.” Plus I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing. For example, laundry detergent. I usually use Dreft and All Free & Clear for the babies clothes and our clothes, respectively. But for some reason I’m not supposed to use Free & Clear on diapers? So I bought a bag of Charlie’s Soap powder for my diapers. Although apparently Charlie’s is an all-or-nothing sort of soap, so I can’t switch back and forth with the detergent I already have. But I’m not willing to throw out 100+ loads of laundry detergent just because I’ve got THREE diapers to wash.

Like I said, I don’t really know what I’m doing.

But doesn’t Baby Evan look adorable?

This one is a Katydid, which is a pocket diaper. If I stuff it with both the regular insert and the infant insert it hold a LOT of pee. It’s also a nice soft cushion on his butt when he falls down. Plus I don’t have see Elmo in my kid’s pants anymore. THANK GOD.