Monday, December 08, 2008

Diapers, Diapers, Everywhere....

Before Norah was born we seriously contemplated doing cloth diapers. Cloth diapers have come a long way in recent years. They are no longer just triangles of fabric with piercing diapers pins, rather they have rather sophisticated outside covers and a wide variety of choices when it comes to the actual diaper part. There are tons of different brands and options and a whole cloth diaper society out there. I knew there was no way we could handle washing them ourselves, I avoid putting baby shit in the same machine I wash my clothes in if at all possible. A service, while pricey, was actually pretty comparable to what we would pay in disposables. However, even then we had to consider the environmental impact all of that water and detergent has (not to mention all the aforementioned baby shit returning to the water source). In many ways I felt we were damned either way.

Ultimately, however, convenience on our part won out and we decided to go with disposables. But, we do use Seventh Generation disposables which are chlorine free (meaning they will eventually biodegrade) and don't use the same chemical processing as the other disposables. Plus, they are great on her sensitive skin and are plain beige (no silly cartoon characters). I try and off-set Norah's carbon footprint in other ways--for example, we never ever EVER take plastic bags from any store. I have been known to be at the grocery store or Target with a cart and leave if I have forgotten the reusable bags. At a drugstore or clothing store we either go bagless or I use a canvas bag. I know it doesn't counteract the impact of kabillion diapers we will ultimately dump in a landfill, but every little bit helps.

Anyway, back to my point of this long winded post. This morning at 5 am Norah had a blow out and BVZ went to change her. After a few seconds I hear, 'I think we're out of freaking diapers.' He was in fact correct. There were no diapers in her basket, her closet, or her diaper bag. How this could have possibly happened, I have no idea. How we could have not noticed this when there were only one or two left, I have no idea. You can't get Seventh Generations at the 24 hour Safeway down the street, so we were left with the only alternative--put her in the Pampers that the hospital sent home with us when she was born. Since she was a gigantic baby they gave us a bigger size and so while snug on her now, they at least got us through until Whole Foods opened and we could get her regular wear (which, by the way, we order diapers online and at WF they were $4 MORE a package! That's CRAZY).

And if you made it all the way through this relatively uninteresting post, you are rewarded with a cute as pie baby girl smile.

2 comments:

Maryellen said...

Norah's cute face definitely made reading about diapers and baby caca worth it!!!=)

JM said...

What do they call someone who's a hippie and a yuppie? A huppie?