by Arwen Mosher in Homemaking on Monday, March 01, 2010 9:00 PM
This Thursday, Blaise and I are catching a morning flight for a weekend trip to visit his godparents several states away. We’ve had it planned for months.
Then last week we found out Bryan has to take a business trip this week. He’ll be flying home on a red-eye and landing at 6:00 Thursday morning, just a few hours before my flight takes off.
Fortunately my parents live not too far away, so we’re spending a couple days with them while Bryan’s gone. It’s fine. It’s fun, even. But I’m going to be solo-parenting the baby for an entire week, and spending six out of those seven nights away from home. This puts a bit more than the usual amount of stress on my life.
This morning as I packed the kids’ stuff and mine, I reminded myself several times to get the diapers out of the dryer to bring with us, and sorted my mental list of vital diapering accoutrements. Pail liner, wet bags, spray bottle, special detergent… all these things on top of the list of a dozen other absolutely necessary items I need for the day-to-day care of my children.
I waited for a time when the children would be playing peacefully so that I could slip downstairs to grab the diapers without their noticing, when it occurred to me: I don’t have to do this.
Normally I love using cloth diapers. We switched when Blaise was a couple months old and we don’t plan to go back to disposables ever. Cloth diapering is a good fit for our household. But sometimes when things get crazy, the logistics are a little too much.
Immediately, the idea of using disposables this week made me feel relieved. I grabbed the pack of them that I’d bought for the plane trip and shoved them in the duffel bag, grabbed some wipes, and I was all set. Diapering the baby: CHECK.
Like I said, we’re committed to cloth diapering, and it was an investment, so I wouldn’t just go out and buy disposables to use on any random week when I didn’t feel like doing laundry. Under special circumstances, though, I feel it’s justified, and it’s going to simplify my life considerably this week. I’m grateful.
The whole thing has made me wonder, though: am I missing other opportunities to simplify my life when things get stressful? Perhaps an unnecessary complication is sitting right in front of my nose, and I’m just not seeing it.
Do you have any creative ways you simplify when things get crazy? Please share!
http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/blog/small_ways_to_simplify/
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