it's not easy being green

Before Liam was born, my mom and I went to one of those obscenely large baby stores to register for my showers. As we turned down the diaper aisle, I quickly pushed the cart past all the fancy diaper trash compactors. My mom, however, stopped.

"You should register for one of these," she said.

"Uh, that's okay. We don't need one."

"Why? Did someone give you one already?"

"No," I said, mustering my confidence, "We're going to use cloth diapers."

My mom was silent for a moment and then she rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, "We'll see how long that lasts."

I was irritated. How hard could it be? I had just ordered some idiot-proof cloth diapers and rubber pants with adjusting snap closures. I was going to show my mom and the other disposable-addicted naysayers that sacrificing a little convenience for the sake of the environment was not a big deal. Plus, we could save a lot of money, upwards of $1000 a child I had read, maybe more.

Although we made a valiant effort for about a month with Liam, in the end my mom was right. As easy as those cloth diapers were to snap up, the super absorbency and leak-proof seal of the disposables were too seductive. We bought our first jumbo box of size 2 Huggies and never looked back.

When Elliott was born, however, I vowed to be greener. Around 6 weeks, I started cloth diapering exclusively during the day. Andrew, although not opposed to the idea of cloth diapering, wasn't too fond of the practice. He was fine about taking them off but seemed to be totally baffled about how to snap on a clean one. He would get the diaper wrapped around Elliott's neck or lose one of his legs in the thing; yell, "bugger!"; rip it off; throw it across the room; then, expertly velcro a disposable into place. Other than that, for me, the cloth diapering went pretty well for about 4 months. Then Elliott ate from a spoon and everything changed.

For weeks I stopped using the cloth diapers altogether. Then I felt guilty and tried to use at least one a day. I figured I'm saving about a dollar a week and putting one less diaper in a landfill every day. It's something. Well, hardly.

The other day as my cousin and I were feeding our youngest kids while her other two girls and Liam ran from room to room unwinding skeins of yarn, I told her that I was feeling guilty that I hadn't been using my cloth diapers. She burst out laughing.

"I feel guilty about a lot of things," she said. "And that is definitely NOT one of them."

Maybe she's right, why add to the guilt load? So, I am not the super earth mother I always imagined myself to be. It's a tough image to shed. But, hey, I compost (usually) and wash out my ziploc bags. And Elliott kindly endures one stinky, wet cloth diaper a day. It's a small attempt at stewardship. But at least it keeps my mom from saying, "I told you so."