Okay, so I never thought of myself as "Granola"  Things just kept happening in my life that brought me to question how healthy things really are in our prepackaged world and I kept making decisions that ended up being "Granola" then I kept getting accused of being "Granola" and I thought "that's funny me, Granola?"  

So I had been using alternative healing methods, alternative skin care, juicing, organic foods, cleanses, alternative cleaning products, natural baby products and so on.  So, I was pretty Granola except I hadn't used cloth diapers. Now, I did think about cloth diapering my babies, I thought about it long enough to remember my childhood babysitter with her hands in the toilet swishing a poopy cloth diaper in a toilet. Swishing and swirling. That was enough for me to not want to ever cloth diaper -  no matter what.

Then my second baby came along, a beautiful baby girl. She developed a diaper rash around two weeks of age that wouldn't go away. I tried all the homeopathic, natural ointments, I even pulled out the drug store diaper rash ointments - nothing worked.  I tried to get rid of her rash for over three weeks when I finally took her in to the doctor. The Doctor said very matter-of-factly "Oh it looks like an allergic reaction to the diapers and wipes"...

........my world started spinning (actually swishing) as I envisioned my hands in a toilet swishing and swishing. A primal scream was building inside me "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!" I wanted to scream! "No swishing"  

I called my husband immediately after leaving the doctors office.  As soon as he answered I abruptly said  "she is allergic to diapers!" I was almost in tears. My husband was as dumbfounded as I was.  "Well what are we going to do??" he asked.

So, I headed to the drug store, bought some plastic pants and several packages of diapers and some pins. We went home and together my husband and I tried to figure out how to fold them, how to pin them. We called my Mom for advice a couple of times during the initial cloth diaper change. We knew nothing. So we thought we had the baby pretty secured in a giant diaper and very uncomfortable looking plastic pants. Still neither one of us felt like it was safe to hold her without water proof lap pads.  Sure enough in just under 60 seconds my husbands lap was soaked! The diaper leaked within seconds of putting it on her!! I started crying, thinking my next two years were going to be soaked and smelly.  We were going to be those people whose house smelled like urine “ the stinky neighbors."

I decided to go online. I found a whole new world of interesting cloth diapering fanatics. I thought how funny it sounded that one mom listed her hobbies as "cloth diapering and scrapbooking" I thought for sure they must all be nuts. I ordered my first REAL cloth diapers online and learned how to cloth diaper in a modern, easy way. My only regret is that I didn't cloth diaper my first son. Now my hobbies are "cloth diapering, sewing and scrapbooking."

So now that I am a juicing, homeopathic healing, herb taking, green cleaning, cloth diapering mommy, I have finally accepted that I am Granola! I am proud to be Granola!  

Soooo Go Cloth! Go Granola!