_{(so it’s a day late… so sue me)}

Hmm. I see a lot of people writing posts today about ways they and their families are trying to be more environmentally consious and I feel a little guilty because I’m not doing anything besides what I normally do. It takes me a minute to realize it’s been about a year since I started using clothdiapers, and hey, maybe that counts as being environmentally conscious, no?

Yer darn tootin’ it is.  At least as far as I’m concerned.

So yeah.  We’re still cloth diapering  And I’m still loving it.  I maybe even love it more than I did last year when I first started out with my bumGenius pockets and gDiapers.  And from where I’m sitting, I can’t believe I didn’t try this before.  I have a good amount of misconceptions I’ve made in my life and the hassle associated with cloth diapering is DEFINITELY one of them.  But you know how it is.  It’s always easy to fear the unknown and I had no way of knowing that cloth diapers wouldn’t be any hassle at all until I went ahead and just DID IT.

People who are anti-cloth diapering (and who would these people be, besides disposable diaper manufacturers and their families??), always like to argue about the water/energy required to clean diapers.  I always roll my eyes when I hear that because, SERIOUSLY?  That is somehow worse than sitting in a landfill, poluting the ground water, for 500 years?  REALLY?  And, just so’s ya knows, Kile says our water bill hasn’t gone up at all in the last year since I’ve been cloth diapering.  And I wash about every other day without fail.  So you tell me.  Our electric/heating bill?  No different either.  HMM.  ISN’T THAT INTERESTING.

Anyhow.  I’m actually kind of sad that we’ll be taking disposable diapers with us this summer when we take our Big Trip to Disney World and Beyond.  I know it’s not feasible to cloth diaper on that trip and we’ll need less hassle (A LOT LESS HASSLE) instead of more but… dangit.  I kinda like my cloth diapers.  I’m gonna miss them for the week we’re gone.  YES, I’M SERIOUS.

I can’t tell you how glad I am not only to not be buying package upon package upon package of diapers each month, but not to be dragging out bags of dirty disposable diapers to the garbage all the time.  For the month that we had two in disposables, I honestly felt that not only was I literally throwing away money, but that I was single-handedly contributing to the problems our Earth is facing.

I’m a practical gal and I will ALWAYS prefer the option that is easier on my pocket book.  When I’m out of diapers, I just run a load of laundry.  And voila, I’ve got diapers.  It’s SO much nice to be able to REUSE something rather than continue the cycle of purchasing, using and throwing away.  And when I’m done with a diaper or want to try something different, I sell the old diaper (there are HUGE communities online for this and you can get quite a bit back on your investment, depending on the diaper) and use that money to buy something new.  I don’t have a single diaper now that I had when I started out a year ago.  And I’m selling off some of my (once beloved) Goodmama diapers and am getting four square into Bagshot Row Bamboo diapers.  It’s like crack man.

And Kile loves not seeing the constant drain on the bank account too, I’m sure.

And if it weren’t for cloth diapers, I would have never discovered knitting the way I have.  And I wouldn’t be making some decent cash knitting up pants, shorts and skirts the way I am either.  So there’s that.

Cloth diapers, man.  They aren’t the prefolds and plastic pants your mother used (though you can do that too, if you really really want to).

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