Today Clementine is wearing her gDiapers, our solution to the nagging feeling that there must be a better way to diaper our kid than with big, soggy hunks of plastic that take 500 years to biodegrade. Let me be clear from the beginning that I know we all make choices, and I certainly respect people who choose whatever they choose on all sides of the debate. I have no judgement whatsoever and am just happy to be able to find my own solution in these cool flushable diapers that have a very cute (if not bubble-ass-creating) little external pant. Darling C. is fashionable AND respecting the environment, so I think I can check off my good parenting deed for the day.
Reaction to our new diapering choice has been varied, and when I say varied I mean that everyone thinks it's wierd. Our daycare provider is careful to seem respectful, but she sure as hell doesn't want to flush anything down her toilet and has offered to send the used liners home with me in a plastic baggie at the end of the day. Fine. My sister told me Nate is one step away from being a communist anyway, so it dosn't surprise her much. Then she laughed at the image of us driving down the road with our baby in eco-diapers in the backseat of Nate's 65 Chevy Impala, a model of Detroit engineering that sucks down gas and spews forth emissions. OK, I see the hypocrisy but counter only that we all have to do what we can where we can. Nate would sooner part with a limb than his car (and I must admit it's one of the first things I loved about him, so I'm partial, too), but we've often said we'd pay a tax of some kind in order to have the priviledge of driving it now and then. Maybe the diapers are our tax?! A little environmental give and take may not mean we're saving the world, but we're trying to do just a little tiny bit to ensure there's something left of it by the time our girl is our age.
The best reaction to our diapers by far, however, was from my friend Karen, who always tries to be supportive even when she thinks I've gone around the bend. She'll even sit in the room with me while I'm hooked up to the crazy milking machine that is my breast pump and act like I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary. Laura will do that as well, and she has even washed my pump parts in her dishwasher (yes! I'm the one person in the world you know without a dishwasher). Anyway, Karen told me there are certainly luxury items she wouldn't ever compromise, no matter what the impact. And she's not just talking environmental impact either. In fact, she claims she would continue to use her earth-polluting plastic applicator tampons even if there was a little baby bunny killed for every box she buys. Literally. She draws the line at doing the killing herself, though--don't we all have our limits?
I'm going to try to get my ass to Punk Fitness tonight because I haven't really capitalized enough on all the calories nursing is helping me burn. Oh, and all that rock-hard muscle I built up while trying to bounce my baby out on the treadmill has turned to undulating flab that stays in motion long after the rest of me has stopped. I swore to god I would never disparage my body on my blog--moms who blog about how much weight they need to lose make me want to hurl--but this is getting bad.
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