Return to Nature

This past weekend we decided to up the parenting ante and challenge our laundering skills by letting Georgia go diaper-less pretty much at all times other than when sleeping. Okay, a little explanation is in order here. As you may recall, Georgia has eczema, which is usually under control but flares up from time to time, as you can see in this photo that Beth aptly described as looking like she's having her picture taken "for science."

Sorry, sweetie. You may kill me later, but mama doesn't want the blog to be like a never-ending Christmas card.

Unfortunately, Georgia's eczema decided to set up camp in her "diaper area." And it's quite evident that this makes her itch terribly. Like, she really claws at herself whenever possible. I feel like it took our doctor a while to rule out all other normal run of the mill diaper rashes, but 3 doctor's visits and 3 prescribed creams later, things seem to have improved greatly, and we're all on the same page now about the cause of her troubles. We may be heading to a dermatologist later this week, though, I'm not sure.
[Note: I'm not so stupid as to post pictures of this, but on Beth's advice we did start taking a daily photo of the scene. Based on my online researching of all things diaper rash related, I noticed that people typically put a tongue depresser in the center of the photo to keep it ever-so-slightly more decent. With no tongue depresser on hand, we went with the next best alternative, a green highlighter. So, although I find them hilarious, I pray that we never end up needing to show these photos to a doctor. "Um, ma'am, I think your daughter's problem is a highlighter..."]

At any rate, Joe and I wanted to be able to go to the doctor's Monday and tell him that we had done all possible things to help the situation, hence the abundance of naked time, which was only step 1 of our 14 point action plan. (And which, incidentally, was not particularly effective, as air would help a "normal" diaper rash, but not really the eczema.) So, that experiment resulted in a lot of laundry - mostly towels and baby pants, as the itchiness prevented us from letting her go totally nude. But hey, no diaper laundry this weekend, right?

With no diaper, I like to wear my pants grandpa-style: nearly up to the nipples.

Right now we're happy her skin seems to be improving, and relieved to know that there's really nothing that we're doing, or not doing, that's causing it, especially Georgia's beloved cloth diapers that her mom has grown quite fond of. Okay, passionate about. But that's a topic for a different post.

P.S. Like the way that I say that "we" are relieved? Um, Joe has been quite calm about all of this. I'm the one who's been incapable of having a normal conversation with a doctor and who's fallen prey to the idea that motherly stewing and worrying and obsessing about something may actually make it better.