There are so many things I said I would do when I had a child that I did in fact not do. I tried. I had the best intentions, but having a child and how you parent is something you just can't fully determine until your child is upon you. There are so many things that have thrown me for a loop, things that have tripped me up and have baffled me about motherhood.
One of them being diapers. I was NOT going to use environmentally harmful diapers. We were going to cloth diaper. I was going to assist in saving the planet one diaper at a time. WRONG. Seems to be a pretty good reason why these store bought, disposable diapers exist. They work, people. They really work.
Next is the food challenge. My child was not going to eat anything but food handmade by yours truly. Food that I pureed and knew exactly what ingredient was in it. Well, I tried on that too. He just ate too much. The only thing I was doing was making food, even when I prepped it ahead of time and froze it in the little ice cube trays a la 70's style. This is what my mom did. I know it works and can be done. However, this child of mine and his strong attraction to food made this aspect of parenting difficult. I wanted to spend this food prep time instead kissing his little cheeks and inhaling his sweet, little baby smell. So, here we are buying jarred baby food. At least, it's organic. Right?? Now, we're onto toddler food and let me tell you, trying to buy organic toddler food is breaking the bank. I'm just very cautious of what he eats because of how poor his nutrition was for the first 7 months of his life. I want nothing, but goodness and pure, whole foods to go into his little belly. This goodness just isn't made by me all of the time.
Moving onto the poop issue....how come no one warned me about the poop!? Our lives are filled with combating the poop. We live in fear of poop. When you find yourself hovered over your child, one parent holding him up and the other one rubber gloved and cutting a onesie off of him paramedic style, then you know the poop has won. Even innocent bystanders like Mr. Sock Monkey and Fluffy, the stuffed dog, are not safe from overnight poop shrapnel. What did they ever do to deserve being dragged into the poop crime scene? They are just crib mates! This very scene in fact happened last week. This is why we gave up on the eco diapers. Cloth, G Pants, eco friendly disposable...they all couldn't hold up to our kid. In the end, we guiltily grab the plain ol' disposable Pampers off the shelf and hurry out of the baby isle kicking ourselves. You see, this part of parenting was really important to me so failing at it is humbling. Nevertheless, you do what you can do and we try to make up for our portion of our carbon footprint in other ways.
How naive I was back in the beginning. How I could boldly state that this is what I am going to do and that is what I'm not going to do. I laugh at that girl now. To all those mamas out there that do pull it off, I salute you. You are my eco loving, homegrown heros. In the end, does intention count?
(Dear Son, sorry for posting about your personal habits on the internet. Mr. Sock Monkey put me up to it. )
