Not exactly sure where that phrase comes from, probably the Bible somewhere. But that has been running through my head all weekend and early this week. I mentioned in my last post that Thursday was a pretty stressful day. The reason is because of judging people.

My oldest son Alex has been taking a karate class at the Little Gym. We love it, he is really learning to focus and is doing much better both in and out of school. The class is a late afternoon class, so there is a mixed age range, and a mixed parent group. Stay at home, working, work at home, etc.. There are these two women who are very snobby and you average “I’m better than you because…” type of women. Well I must have a target on my back that says “FREAK” because man are they judgmental, especially towards me, and especially once they found out that I am a homeschooling stay at home mom, who uses cloth diapers. Immediately they assumed that I must not be as good as them because of all those things say to them that I don’t have as much money as they do. (By the way, I am not assuming this, they have pretty much come right out and said this)  Anyway, their boys have been bullying Alex. The first few times I let it go under the premise that boys are boys and they play a little rough. The third time this happened I became upset. I said something to the teacher, and then at the urging of both my awesome husband and the karate teacher I said something to the mother. I got a snotty, irrational response. Basically why should I have to discipline my children because of yours type thing. That may not have been what she was thinking at the time, but that is how it came off to me.

So this happens last Thursday, then today I have been engaging in and following a debate about covering up while breastfeeding in public. And the amount of judging going on over there is outrageous. To think that people assume that you want people to look at you while you are trying to feed your child, or that you are trying to arouse men, is just laughable.

My point is, why does everybody need to judge everybody else. You don’t know their specific situation, and unless you are very close to that person you may never know the whole situation. In the case of the women at the karate class. She had no idea that I grew up in the area that she thinks of as prestigious, and that if I wanted to work or send my kids to school I could, and if  I wanted to use disposable diapers I would.  Basically instead of assuming the best about the people around us we are so busy assuming the worst.  What drives me even more insane is the people who do the most judging get insanely angry when they are judged by others. Has nobody ever heard of “Treat others the way you want to be treated”

Okay, so I guess I didn’t have a specific point to this post, it is more of a rant. I needed to get some things off my chest.

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Today I am very thankful that I have a wonderful, awesome husband who is willing to take time from his busy schedule to go to said karate class with me this week to face down the nasty ladies.

I was never really too sure about the whole “green” movement, until about a year ago. Even then, I was still kinda skeptical about the whole thing. Our process from being a family who filled up two large trash cans a week and ate a lot of, pre-packaged foods,  (rice a roni, hamburger helper, etc… ) We were never as bad as some of the families that you would see on T.V. We have never owned a deep fryer, and I baked or grilled most of our meat. However deep down I knew there was a lot of room for improvement, I just wasn’t real sure how to go about it. I liked the way the meals I cooked tasted, they were easy, and most importantly, my family ate them. As for the trash, well, all that pre-packaged food comes in boxes, and for a while we did have two children in diapers. Paper towels and other paper products were often a staple for us. With a toddler and an infant it made life so much easier.

As most things in this house, the change started with the kids. When Alex turned 1, we started him on whole milk, that is when we noticed that he was still spitting up, a lot. It just didn’t seem right. So I talked with his doctor and put him on soy milk instead of cow milk. It worked wonders. That was the start of our slow gradual change to being a green family. At that time, I still bought and cooked with a lot of pre-packaged food. I was so overwhelmed at the idea of cooking without dairy that I didn’t quite know how to start. On top of everything else we were moving from a town house into a single family home, and I was pregnant. It wasn’t the time to start experimenting with how I managed the house. At least I didn’t think so. I just wasn’t ready.

Then came Lizzie. Lizzie has changed our lives in ways I couldn’t ever begin to imagine. We discovered very quickly that Lizzie was dairy and soy intolerant. Not just dairy like Alex. Not only couldn’t she have dairy or soy, but she became violently sick whenever she had either, especially soy. At about the same time we started noticing some behavior problems in Alex, mostly hyperactivity and attention problems. Nothing big, but it was creating problems at home and at his playgroup. Since I was now cooking dairy and soy free for Lizzie I decided to try it with Alex as well. It worked, but we were still having problems, and I was still overwhelmed. I had no idea how to cook all naturally from scrap.

This is when I began to feel that God was telling me that I needed to make changes in how I managed our house. I started to feel like, we were wasting too much. I felt like God was telling me that there was a better way of doing things, that I didn’t have to be so overwhelmed all the time. All I needed to do was make a few small changes and I would be a much calmer wife and mother.

Our first big change was the diapers. At the time Lizzie was a year old and Alex was three. We were in the process of potty training Alex, but we were not getting very far. That left us with two children in diapers of some sort. That is a lot of diapers, and a lot of money. That in itself did not cause the change, it was Lizzie’s constant diaper rash that brought about the change. When Lizzie was 6 weeks old she contracted a yeast diaper rash, it was our constant companion for the next year. That rash caused many sleepless nights, and tiring days. By the time Lizzie was a year old, I was at the end of my rope. We had tried every medicine and home remedy out there, and nothing worked. That is when I gave in. I decided to try the cloth diapers, and guess what, within 2 days of using the diapers, the rash was gone. Other than the occasional guest appearance when Lizzie is sick, we haven’t seen it since. Along with a happier Lizzie, there were several other side benefits to the new diapers. The cost was a big one, They were expensive at the beginning, because we use pocket diapers, however after 6 months we had made back all our initial costs through savings.  We were now also producing far less garbage.

That was our first big step. After that all the other changes we made were tiny baby steps. I had been doing some research on ADHD and eventually decide to put both the kids on an all organic diet. I started this for Alex, to try to help with his behavior, but it has been beneficial for both the kids. It has been a little harder on my wallet, but I am confident that it will even out in the end. Alex has shown a dramatic improvement in his behavior in all areas of his life. It took some time, and a large learning curve for me. I had to pretty much relearn how to cook, but it has been well worth it.

Now that we have made those two biggest steps, I am slowly making other smaller changes. I have switched to microfiber sponges  and rags in the kitchen instead of disposable sponges and paper towels. I have switched to all natural cleaners as well. I am thinking about switching to cloth napkins when we use up the napkins that we currently have.  In a more personal area, I have even switched to cloth sanitary pads. We have gone down from two large trash cans a week, to less than one. I am also thinking about starting a vegetable garden this spring, and possibly even a compost pile, to help cut down on our trash even more.

All in all, I think all our changes have been for the better. I know the kids are happier and healthier, and so am I. I am not nearly as overwhelmed about cooking for my family, in fact I even enjoy it. I love sitting down at the beginning of the week and planning our menu. I am a much happier, calmer mom, which means happier and calmer children and husband.

I am happy that we have “gone green.” I know we are not nearly as green as we probably should be, we still have two cars, and I drive wherever I need to go. I still use shampoo, and toilet paper, but I am happy with the way things are going. I will continue to make small changes in our lifestyle when I feel that God is telling me too.

There are always things that you wish you had done differently with your kids. I can’t be the only one who sometimes second guesses themselves. Sometimes it is the big stuff. If I had delivered Lizzie naturally maybe she wouldn’t have been in the NICU for her first week. But mostly If you are anything like me, it is the little stuff that you think about the most. For me the one I think about the most is using the cloth diapers. I knew about cloth diapers when I was pregnant with Alex, and for a short time, very short time I even considered them. Then I found out that there was no longer a diaper service in our area. The little exposure I had with cloth diapers was with my younger brother. My mom used them with him, and she was lucky enough to have a diaper service available to her. I realized that without a diaper service I would be washing all the diapers myself, and I wasn’t really a big fan of the pre-folded diapers and covers. At that time I wasn’t aware that there was anything else available. So like almost everyone else I just went with disposable diapers, and didn’t think much more about it. I was an overwhelmed brand new mother, who could barely keep her family in clean clothes, much less keep diapers clean.

When I was pregnant with Lizzie, I was watching a friend’s little boy, who is about the same age as Alex, twice a week. She used cloth diapers, only she had a kind I had never seen before. All in one diapers. They were cloth diapers that worked like disposables. WOW!! I had never seen such a thing. They were easy to use and cute to boot. So I started thinking again. The one thing I kept coming back to was the laundry issue. Laundry has always been difficult for me. I really dislike laundry. I can never seem to keep up with it. I felt like I was crazy for thinking that along with adding another persons regular clothing to the mix, I would be adding diapers as well. And since infants go through a ton of diapers I knew that would mean washing diapers every day, just to keep on top of them. I thought there is no way on earth I can do that. So I stayed with the good old disposables.

Then along came Lizzie. Lizzie can’t do anything easy. She has a very sensitive bottom. Lizzie developed a yeast rash that never really went away. It started when she was about 6 weeks old. It caused her to have problems sleeping through the night as she got older. She would constantly wake up to have her diaper changed since it hurt when she had a wet or dirty diaper. She fights constantly to be changed since it hurt her for so long to have her diaper changed. When she was a year old and we still had not completely gotten rid of the rash, despite constant doctor visits and medication, I decided we needed to try something else. I had never really forgotten about the cloth diapers. And seeing my baby in pain was just enough of tho motivation I needed to try them out.

When I first started I didn’t want to spend more than what I would have spent on a months worth of diapers. So I searched Free-cycle for diaper covers and I bought the cheep diapers from Gerber. I though I would try it for a month and then see what I liked and disliked about them. Almost overnight Lizzie’s rash went away!!!! At the end of the month I was a believer. I had a whole new baby. The laundry was not nearly as bad as I expected it to be, and I still wanted to try out the all in one diapers. I found out that Whole foods sells Bum Genius one size fits all, all in one diapers at our local store. I bought a few to try them out. I loved them. Not only that but Jason liked them as well. They are very husband and baby sitter friendly. When we realized that we preferred the all in one diapers over the covers and pre-folded diapers. We spent the extra money and bought enough diapers to last about 2 days.

I now wash diapers every other day. It is not nearly as bad as I once thought it would be. I try to wash them either first thing in the morning, or last thing at night. I have a HE washer so I put in a tiny amount of detergent and run the super wash cycle. That takes about and hour and a half. When that is done I run another super wash cycle with no detergent. Into the dryer they go, unless it is a nice day, in which case they go out on the line. About once every other month or so I need to strip the diapers of extra build up.

I also use cloth wipes. I have about 3 dozen baby washcloths. I mix together 5 cups boiling water with 1/2 cup California Baby Diaper Area wash. I pour that over my washcloths and let them cool. I keep them in a container with a tight locking lid. They last me about 2 weeks, and I just wash them with my diapers.

I have also started using diaper liners to make clean up easier. They are rice paper liners that catch any solid waste and it all flushes down the toilet. It makes clean up easier, but does add to the cost each moth. Not much but a little.

I can’t believe how easy it has been. Lizzie is doing so much better, and we are saving a ton of money on diapers every month.  Jason wrote a blog entry on how the cost compares between the disposables and the cloth diapers, check it out.

We love our new diapers. If we were to have more children, I would use the diapers from the start. That is the great thing about these diapers. They can be used from birth until your child is out of diapers, with a little adjusting. Since we already have the diapers we would be ahead of the game from the get go.

I buy my diapers and other accessories through Cotton Babies. Their prices are the same as other sites. Plus they have a great grant program for out of country missionaries.

That is our story of how we went from a disposable diaper family to a cloth diaper family.

Heather