diapers

i just realized that in all these weeks, i haven't much mentioned diapers. perhaps that's because they've never really bothered me. that is, they never really bothered me before this weekend. so we just finally made the transition to cloth diapers. putting your baby in cloth diapers in missoula is sorta similar to drinking from a reusuable coffee mug in missoula. you just do it. you would never be caught with a paper coffee cup, god forbid one with a little black, plastic lid, or double, good god forbid, a paper cup from starbucks (we even protested the opening of that coffee place, people with signs stood around in front for weeks!) so it was just sorta always assumed, especially by my enviro-husband, that we would use cloth diapers. but the little peanut was so little, that we resisted for a while, knowing that we would have to put two cloth diapers together just to get it to stay on her little bum. but the time came this weekend. we busted out the clothies, the snazzy diaper wraps, the little snapey clip thing and felt of so fabulous about ourselves in the process.

so there we are at the bike and beer festival on saturday and my little one who never just starts bawling out of nowhere, starts up. sure enough. the poor thing is soaking wet. so we lay her out on the grass and strip her down and her dad pulls those silly cloth diapers as hard as he can to get a "secure fit." but sure enough, a few hours later while eating my cobb salad with little elie on my lap at 'the depot', i looked down to find a lovely river, actually tributary, a goldenrod stream, decorating my favorite pants. so then we did the change in the restaurant bathroom, little missy laying on her changing pad between the two sinks (i had this fear that her head would fall in the little hole of a trash can that they cut in the middle of the faux marble countertop!) while all sorts of cute, collegiate griz fans came in and sorta looked, aghast, at the flailing mom and her poor, shitty daughter.

but still, we persevered. yesterday we went with the fam for a beautiful hike in the bitteroot valley. at kootenai falls, we sat by the creek and nursed while all the other crazy kesslers (excluding morty) went in the water. of course roseann somehow managed to go in in her clothes, while everyone else hooted and hollered like river banshees. elie continued to nurse peacefully, us nestled with lucy in our little patch of shade. in fact, let me capture this moment for you. here are the crazy nuts in the water. here is newly mellowed mama, her perfect daughter and her neurotic dog, on the bank. (i am trying to insert the photos in the appropriate place, but they might end up at the top...i'm working on my layout techniques!)

anyhoo. so the day continued in it's brilliant way. we decided to give eliana a little "baptismal" in the holy waters of kootenai creek. roseann hasn't been able to stop asking jeffy to baptize eliana in the catholic church. unfortunately for her, mama gillie has never even sat through a catholic mass. it seems sorta wrong for a child to be baptized in a church that her mom is clueless about. i want that sort of ceremony for her, something fully honoring her and bringing those who love her together, but not in a church that i know nothing about. so for now, the creek seemed fine. and her dad blessed her with some water (dotting the cool water right by the yellow sap mark from the cottonwood tree we were nursing beneath! what a montana girl!) and we said some sweet words and all was lovely. the little missy had been sleeping and/or nursing the whole day and was superbly behaved on this special sunday. we headed down for the car and mom got in back with eliana while dad was driving. she then showed me how very advanced her eyes are and tripped out the whole way on this little mirrored/musical mobile thingy my mama sent her. she made the sweetest little sneaky smile faces at herself in the mirror and looked at the little soft, stuffed fishies hanging from the hot pink plastic. i marveled at how well she did on this long drive, bragging about her to her dad the whole way. until we got on the outskirts of town...i heard her make a little farting noise and looked down. suddenly, mustardy gook, lots of it, flowing out the side of her stupid cloth diaper and down, down, down her body, down to the back of her car seat and even through the carseat to it's base and, even, if you can believe it, on to the apolstry of the honda! amazing! what a tremendous poop for such a small child. but even more amazing...did we forget to diaper this child?? oh no. it's just the damn cloth diaper working oh-so-well again!!!

luckily we were sort of close to uncle josue's house. "josue, it's gil. we have a diaper emergency! can we use your lawn??" and within a few minutes we were pulling her out of the muck, marveling at the amount of goldenrod that had flowed through the backseat, that was stuck up and down elie's backside, on her feet, in her mama's hair, on mama's arms. i stripped her down and stuck her in josue's sink. she absolutely hated that and screamed her best elsinore screams. she even had little tears in her angry eyes. imagine that. you are happily going around in your sling on your mama's chest in the woods. then you're happily crusing along in your carseat. then suddenly you are naked, covered in shit, and getting hosed down in a sink. that totally sucks. so i got her warm, dressed her in a new onesie, snuggled her in a clean blanket, and sat down on josue's couch for a long comfort feed. wherein we discussed the merits of cloth diapers.

of course, my husband has done lots of research on the topic and really, if it weren't for the peer pressure of our small and ever so environmentally righteous town, jeffy would probably be able to argue that, in the end, the water used to wash cloth diapers is equally troubling for the environment as the amount of plastic filling the landfills when using disposables. i say, forget the peer pressure! i still wear lipstick even though none of my friends in this sweet city wear make-up. i still don't downhill ski even though everyone else does. it's okay to be an individual. hey, we even stopped composting! people still like us. but this diaper thing is totally sick. we were doing so fine before. i thought i had it all figured out. and now we have just another new thing to deal with.

jeffy says we need to give it a month. a very generous family friend gifted us the diaper service and all we have to do is stick with it for a little while - we don't even have to wash the damn things! so here we are, cloth diapers and all. and i just heard little elie pass some gas. and i'm dreading having to see how things look in there!