Crunchiness is Next to Godliness

<-- Diapers on the clothesline

My friends and family may think I'm a little nuts, but I like to do things differently. I've always walked to the beat of a different drum, and if that drum beats a little crunchily, all the better.

I'm not mega-crunchy, but I like to think that little changes can make a difference. I suppose my inspiration to "save the world" comes from my mother, a die-hard recycler. I am also inspired by a quote from the Great Law of the Iroquois: "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." What we do to this earth does matter, if we want our descendants to live as well as we do now.

Recently, I feel like I'm trending more and more towards wanting to be more crunchy. Having recently had my first child, I want to make sure that I create as small of an impact on the environment that I can. I use cloth diapers. I think this is the biggest thing that you can do as a mother to help the planet. Not only am I not adding to our already bulging landfills, but I'm not covering my child's bum with petrochemicals, paper, and plastic. This also has the added bonus of being healthier for him. When in the hospital, he wore disposable diapers, and these were giving him a rash. When I got him home and put him in cloth, the rash was gone within a day. That's proof enough for me! I also try not to use any disposable products like bottle liners and disposable nursing pads. It may not be much in the long run, but I know I feel good about my choices.

I want to educate (and persuade!) my friends and family about my choices, but really, they don't listen. One friend said I was "brave" to use cloth diapers! Don't know what she was getting at there... Other than that, no one really wants to talk about it. That makes me sad, I feel like I have so much enthusiasm and can't share it with anyone.