Life is Better With…Wet Wipes!

I don’t even remember my first pack. Must of been almost 17 years ago now. Since then, I haven’t been without them near. (Well, maybe on the occasional get away without the kids.) Yet still, it’s not like wet wipes stir up any feelings of nostalgia. After all, I use them and throw them away without a second thought. I know, I know–I myself cut up old T-shirts to use as rags in order to recycle and save on paper towels. But baby wipes are just too convenient. Besides the changing table in the baby’s room and the pseudo-changing spot downstairs in the family room and in the diaper bag, I’ve got a pack under the driver’s seat of the car, the pantry cupboard, the stroller, and one in my room.

Not the only one to notice their convenience, companies that make cleaning products caught on, and I do appreciate a Lysol wipe in the bathroom But besides the fact that they cost over 7 cents each (I don’t mean the really cheap dollar store variety–they aren’t even worth the $1) while the wipes I’m happy with are less than 2 cents each (that’s at Sam’s Club), the plain wet wipes are so much more versatile. I mean, sure there may be germs, but who would ever use Lysol wipes changing a diaper? Seriously, though, that one pack in the car needs to be used for a lot more than diaper changes. The dusty dashboard during a red light, sticky face and fingers after an errand to the “sucker bank”, after the park before the sandwich, then again after the sandwich.

My husband was the one who told me to write about wipes. Perhaps because I was cleaning the collection of finger prints off of the inside of our front door at the time. He didn’t know I had cleaned the piano with them earlier that day and while I was at it used a few on the dusty fireplace and the wood blinds. My 5 year-old has the job once a week to wipe up the dust bunnies that collect on our wood stairs. (I would have told her that when I was 5, we didn’t even have wet wipes, and to be grateful. But I grew up in a house without stairs, either, so I haven’t mentioned it.) I figure that if whatever cleaner they put in a wipe is gentle enough for a baby, it won’t harm dirty faces and wood floors.

Once, two children ago, I found myself for a period of time without a family member in diapers. When the pack of wipes in the car finally ran out, I realized, diapers or not, life is better with wet wipes. My youngest is 2 years old and not currently interested in giving up diapers. I know that will change in the coming months, but I know I’ll still occasionally buy my case of wipes.