This is from a brand new customer (who happens to be a great writer)! It was a joy to help her on her journey!
I’m a cloth diaper rookie… like a less than a week cloth
diaper rookie! Granted, I have been thinking
about the cloth diaper thing for well over a year, but the whole idea of it
just seemed so daunting, so over-whelming, so...different. How would I handle
major poop blow-outs at Target? What
about the church nursery? Would they
think I’m “that” high maintenance momma, roll their eyes and just stick my kid
in the church stash of disposable diapers? And what about all that washing? How
do I even know what cloth diapers to get? Which ones work? Which ones would
only lead to a poop-aclysmic mess that left me and baby knee deep in stink and
regretting the day we ever switched to cloth?
Okay, yes, I lean toward the dramatic on a fairly regular basis, but
honestly this decision was BIG, and if you’ve ever had to undress and bathe a
completely poop covered baby, you get me. So I gritted my teeth and I typed
“cloth diaper” into pinterest and I lasted, no lie, 4 minutes before I slammed
down my laptop lid and sighed, “Geez, I don’t even know where to start! I can’t
do this.” And I buried the idea in the
back of my head, drove to the store and bought 2 big boxes of ‘sposie diapers
at $22 a pop.
Then, last week, I went home to Lake Charles to visit my
folks for a week with my 2 kiddos (2 years and 8 months) and yes, I do deserve
some kind of medal or sainthood for making that 8 hour drive by myself with
them. I was super excited about visiting
my friend Sasha at the new store where she was working, eLeMeNO-Pee. I had been following the store online since
it opened and from pictures, it was so cute and had great finds for babies,
kids and mamas! We blew into the store
like the tornadic mess that tends to be my family, (no concept of “inside
voices”, little hands that want to touch EVERYTHING like we own the place,
kiddos trying to climb shelves to get “THAT” toy…yes, we are ridiculous) I
chatted with Allison the owner and my pal, Sasha, as I held my children at bay,
but all the while, I was eyeing the wall of cloth diapers….So many different
kinds, but seriously, all so cute.
Finally, I gathered enough gumption to look at them and say, “Okay,
girls. IF I was going to do the cloth
diaper thing, what would I need? How do
I do this?”
And THAT began my real education on cloth diapering. Allison and Sasha walked me through all the
different types of cloth diapers, from All-in-ones to cloth inserts. They showed me everything from the “cost is a
big issue” brands to the “if I had a money tree” brands, and all the
in-betweens. They worked up a cost for
what a “fresh from start, never done this before, rookie” (like me) would need
to get going. They talked to me about diaper
care: washing, wipes, liners, stripping.
They answered all my questions, even the super stupid ones and even a
few I hadn’t thought of.
And suddenly, I wasn’t so over-whelmed. I was excited! I had touched the products,
practiced putting them together, seen all the options, and then I
knew…I….COULD…DO…THIS!
So I bought a gDiaper starter kit and took it home. I was going to do this! I was going to cloth diaper my baby. No more paying $44 dollars a month for the STORE
BRAND diapers! No more adding 1,344 pieces of non-biodegradable, poop-filled
trash to our local land fill each year. And seriously, my kid was now going to
have the cutest booty in the church nursery! This was it.
New page. Look out cloth diapering
world, my family is coming, tornados and all.
