Unexpected Wonder Wipes

  With Lucy, we decided to continue our cloth diapering adventure...it worked out great with Biggs...and now that she's practically potty trained, we can actually reuse our bum-genius diapers (once I make a couple minor adjustments).  However, with newborns, diapers that do not cover the cord are a must...when deciding which to use, we decided on the "workhorse of cloth diapering"...the good old cotton prefold...you know...the flat rectangles that most people use as dust cloths. Which...I might add...I had forgotten momentarily how to put on.  It is not that bad once you get the hang of it, but at first it feels quite like trying to fold origami onto a squirming infant.  My feeling, though, is that it is kind of like making sure you know how to drive a stick shift...worth the effort, makes you appreciate the automatic, and you know you could always do it that way if you had to.  By far the biggest perk to cloth diapering, however, is the wipes!--I know, I know...yuck...reused wipes...precisely my sentiment when we started on this adventure about 2 years ago...but my perspective has completely taken a 180.  It is surprisingly easy to make your own wipes...just get some pieces of cloth (cheap baby washcloths work great) and add your favorite cleaning mixture...mine is:  1 quart warm water, 1/4 cup olive oil (use a cheap version...it doesn't matter how it tastes), 1/4 cup Dr. Bronners Lavender castille soap, 8 drops tea tree essential oil, 8 drops lavender essential oil.  They smell heavenly...and we have recently discovered another cool thing about these wipes.
     We were among the many to witness Oconee's first ever fireworks for the Fourth of July...while walking at dusk to a good place to watch, Mom found some fire ants...or they found her.  She asked if I had a wipe...just thinking that something cool and moist would help clean any remaining ants off and wanted to wipe the bites rather than scratch at them.  All I had was one of my clothie wipes...and handed one over.  She wiped her feet and ankles and didn't think much more of it.  The next day, however, she showed us her foot...she had one angry ant bite (had been under her shoe strap and had not bee wiped)...there were also several other ant bites that you could barely see and that were not hurting or itchy at all!  Not sure which part of the wipe solution did the trick...but clearly these are helpful for more than just wiping a baby's behind!