Making do with the things you win

I don't know about any of you, but when a blog I read has a giveaway, I enter. Doesn't matter what it is, if all I have to do to enter is leave a comment at the end of the post, I go for it. A double broiler, cowboy boots, a trip to Santa Fe - yep, there's been some heart-breakers to see won by others, but what can you do? Well, you can enter them all and not discriminate the prizes - law of averages says you have to win something at SOME point, right?

And that's the story of how I won a cloth diaper and cover.

Which I now use all the time. On my many, many babies. That I totally have.


You have to admit, it is a fancy cloth diaper. It ain't your grandma's nappy, that's for sure. Seems cloth diapers went the way of the television and went from black and white (or okay, maybe just white) to color. COLOR! All this technology, it makes my head spin. I even got to pick out the colors I wanted for my prize, and one day my future child will have the cutest pooping repository in the world.

(At least for three hours or so. Then I'm screwed. I only have the one, see.)

Which begs the question, what do I do with it until then? It's too big for me, and anyway, I'm potty trained and have been for a long time. Must be going on a few years by now. I thought about putting it in my hope chest, but then I realized that I don't have a hope chest and now I have no idea where my dowry has gotten to! Probably the 1950s. But whatever, what's a girl to do with a pretty cloth diaper with no deliciously plump baby's bottom to stick in it?

Well...

...it makes a great helmet. Or it makes a helmet anyway. I don't know how "great" it would be at saving your head against being hit by anything harder than a sponge, but...uh, it's soft! Hard helmets always give me a headache, so ha! No more!

It makes a great bib. Now I don't know how much danger one is in of Chex Cereal staining their clothes, but it was the only foodstuffs in my room (those 10 steps to the kitchen are really too much to ask of me) other than cough drops, and it gets the point across. Note that this is also how I eat everything in real life - head first, no utensils, and with a deeply disturbing crazed look in my eyes. Don't ever touch my food. Ever.

(It's gonna take a special man to love me some day. Very special.)


Worried about the Swine Flu? So was I. You can see the panic it in my eyes (which is always there, but at this moment it was specific to the Swine Flu). But no more! Why use those scratchy, flimsy paper-thin hospital masks that barely hold back the sneeze of a single atom to protect your precious immune system when you can guard it with a multi-layered fortress of cozy, poop-resistant cloth? And don't feel self-conscious about how you might look. In the end, you'll be laughing all the way to the hospital, to where you'll be driving all your non-diaper-protected friends.

(At least, that's the kind of friend I am. I'd laugh. I'd laugh a lot.)

And finally, go bold and make a fashion statement with the diaper babushka! Keeps the hair out of your face, keeps your ear warm in winter, gives you a great conversation piece (or makes you a great conversation piece)...all kinds of good stuff. Be ahead of the trend for once!

By the way, this was supposed to be my "fierce" look, but, um, no. No, it's not. Not at all. I look more like a dying cancer patient. Guess who's never gonna be a model - THIS GIRL. Oh, woe is me.

Moral of the story? Never let the prize dissuade you from trying. There is always a use to be found for it.