No Coupons Today

Where has the night gone, anyway? I need to start getting to bed at a more reasonable hour, but I always want to end the night by making one of these posts, and I never seem to start it early enough. What, poor time management, me? Surely not!

I have been severely bummed out for the past couple of days in the coupons department. I bought some remanufactured black ink cartridges from a company online, and they did not work. Not only did they not work, but trying to make them work ruined my new color cartridges as well! Sometimes I guess it is not worth it to save a little money. The guy I worked with over the phone was pretty nice about it, he is sending replacement black cartridges and a return envelope so if I do have to return it all for a refund, I will not have to pay the shipping. But for now, I have no way to print any coupons at all! And there have been some good ones I have been itching to print, too. I just remind myself that deals will come around again, and we are adequately supplied on most things for now.

On that subject, I read an article the other day about how something like 1 in 4 report worrying that they won't be able to pay for diapers, and that many of those women have to sacrifice money from vital needs (food, utilities, etc) just to keep their kids in diapers. And that children in poverty often have diaper rash because they aren't changed as often as they need to be, to make the diapers go further. I totally understand how that could happen. Diapers are super expensive, and not everyone has the time (or the printer) that I do that would let them coupon down to something reasonable. Cloth diapers are, maybe ironically given history, a luxury of the middle class and higher these days. We are lucky to have a washer and dryer in our building, but we would not be allowed to wash diapers in it, even more so for people whose only access to washing machines is a laundromat. You need either a good home washer/dryer or money for a diaper service to use cloth, and even then, the initial outlay for cloth diapers is quite steep. You really have to look at it as an investment that will amortize over the diaper years of your baby, and not many people in poverty have the luxury to make that big initial outlay. The article made me sad, but it made me grateful as well, and suddenly diapering isn't quite such a chore anymore. Taking Robert into his own bedroom and setting him on his nice changing table, wiping him with wipes and putting a new diaper on him every time he needs it? We're very lucky.

This afternoon after M came home from school, we took Robert down to the pool in his new swim trunks. He is starting to get used to the pool, and I think he really enjoyed himself. He's learning how to splash and thinks it's very funny, especially when he can splash Mommy in the face. Some of our neighbors with little kids were also down there, and there was much interest on both sides. I have noticed that when we go swimming it takes at least an hour for setting up and getting cleaned up afterwards, when we normally spend less than half an hour in the pool. But hey, he's having fun, we're having fun, and the water feels great. It's worth it. The weather here has been very hot, and I dread seeing our electric bill this month. When it comes, it will either be some validation of the hotter hours I spend here, or a kick in the pants to spend more of them a little uncomfy. We shall see!