The horror: an update

It has now been a month since my first family cloth (I typically refer to it as toilet cloth or, less formally, pee rags, since I'm the only person in my 'family' that uses it) experience and I've come back with some thoughts.

1. I still don't love it. But it's tolerable and I'll continue to use it. I have even started contemplating using it for #2's.

2. My biggest problem at the beginning was that I wasn't using it like I used toilet paper. I'm a wadder, not a folder and I was trying to nicely fold my cloth and wipe. Now that I wad it up like I did with paper, I feel much better.

3. I still don't feel very dry after I use my toilet cloth. I'm curious if this is because the t-shirts I cut up were 10% poly and 90% cotton instead of 100% cotton, which should absorb better.

4. My cloths aren't all uniformly sized and I highly prefer my larger ones. In the beginning, I thought it was silly to cut them so large. Now I know better.

5. I think this would be a much better experience if my toilet had a bidet to rinse my bottom off and THEN I could wipe up with toilet cloth. I would feel more assured that I was truly clean. For now, though, I can't install a bidet on a toilet that isn't actually mine. And for later, I can't install a bidet AND a diaper sprayer on the same toilet, so it just isn't going to happen for me.

6. Another thing that would greatly improve my experience would be (as I mentioned before) being able to conveniently store my box of toilet cloth on the back of the toilet or somewhere similarly handy, and to keep my wet bag next to the toilet. As it stands now, I have to bend over to get a clean cloth from under the sink before I sit down (especially difficult/annoying being 5 months pregnant), then I stand up and waddle back to the cabinet to throw my used cloth in the wet bag before I have the free hand available to pull my dang pants up and flush.

7. Because I use cut up t-shirts, after their first wash in their newly cut up state, they come out of the dryer in little rolled up tubes. The first time, I flattened them all neatly out before storing them back in the tissue box. Now I just throw them into the box in their rolled up tubes. It doesn't bother me, especially since I wad them up to use them anyway.

8. Over the last month, I believe I have saved about 1.5-2 rolls of toilet paper. This is all while: still using paper for #2, Emmanuel still using paper, using a LOT of toilet paper to blow my nose (pregnancy congestion/nosebleeds), sometimes cheating and using paper for #1 when I was feeling grumpy, and the horrible people we live with stealing our toilet paper for God knows what.