Chewy Granola

Hello, Blogland, it is I--Dyann--and I am actually here to actually do something with my blog.  Actually!  (If any of you have heart attacks at this announcement, never fear--Hubby has jumped headlong into the cardiac unit at nursing school.  He'll know what to do!)

I've always been me.  I've got some quirks and I'm a little weird sometimes (Rachel and Aubrey, don't tell how often 'sometimes' is.), but I've always had sort of the same perspectives and opinions about things.  I figure out what works for me and I do it that way.  (That's not rationalizing OCD, is it?)

But over the last year, I've noticed a shift in my paradigm that I wasn't expecting.  It all started with this guy:

Pretty handsome, ain't he?  When we got serious about him resuming his schooling and changing track, we knew that there would be some necessary monetary changes.  So we started figuring out how we could get our overhead as low as possible while still retaining a modicum of responsibility.  For example, paying rent for a modest home instead of picking up some cardboard boxes and calling the park our really, really big backyard.  Responsible.  One of the most far-reaching decisions that I made was to switch to cloth diapers.

Honestly, when my friend told me about 4 years ago that she was cloth diapering (or CDing, as it's abbreviated in the CD universe), my first response was, "Why on earth would you do that?"  I immediately recalled the cloth diapers and plastic saunas pants that my little brother wore.  No thanks.  But after a bit of research and a lot of convincing, I decided that never having to budget for diapers would be a good thing.

So I did it.  And surprisingly, I love it!  Cloth diapers have come a long, long way since our own padded-tushy days; they're easy, simple, varied and super cute!  I mean, people plan outfits around which diaper cover a child is wearing that day.  I don't do the fancy ones, though, as I went with the lowest-overhead option, which is a little more complex.  But I love it because I'm doing it.  At first it was a little tricky because it was all new, but as time went on I got better and better.  I'd get a little giddy when I changed Weston's chubby little bum because I was doing it--I was REALLY doing it!!!  Now I can fold a tea towel into a moderately complex origami fold with one hand while hold the baby with the other AND talk on the phone!  And you've got to admit:  the boy DOES look pretty darn adorable in nothin' but his unders.

But let's face it:  it's poop.  And it's not really blogworthy.

As a result of jumping into the CD world, I've been exposed to a new microcosm of moms who are way, way earthier than I have been.  I mean, I've always been a bit of a recycling nazi, but this is intense.  So between the knowledge gained from the CD group, Dr. Mercola and a touch of facebook thrown in for good measure, I'm doing things (or not doing things, as the case may be) that I never really imagined a year ago that I would be.

Like:
--making my own deodorant out of coconut oil, baking soda and cornstarch.  (Antiperspirants have been strongly linked to breast cancer, especially if they contain aluminum.)
--lying out in the sun and eschewing standard sunscreen.  (Vitamin D is essential and I don't get enough; the chemicals in sunscreen are actually known to cause skin cancer ?!?; I use a different, natural sunscreen if I'll be out for a while.)
--curing my infant's plugged tear duct by dropping breast milk in his eye--via my fingers, thank you.  (It's full of antibodies, so it works great!)
--using coconut oil as diaper rash cream, face/body moisturizer and conditioner. (It also smells yummy.)
--delaying or eliminating immunizations for my children.  (This one is a bit tricky, but lots of the immunizations have such horrific side effects that I'd rather skip it or delay it--like the HPV vaccine causing cervical cancer (and the medical community doesn't explain that you are only exposed to the virus by being promiscuous); an oral polio vaccine in India recently caused a huge number of polio-copycat cases; the MMR is linked to autism and brain swelling. !!!  There are people out there who don't vaccinate their kids at all, instead concentrating on building a good immune system.)

So now I'm ready for this to be my family car, right?

Not quite.  Because I still buy inorganic foods (would do organic if it were cheaper), send my kiddos to public school, gave birth at a hospital and plan to wean Wes before he learns to ride a bike.  And I don't grow all my food, weave baskets and make my own feminine products.  So I'm not the super-crunchy granola type.  But neither am I Wonder Bread.  I'm in the middle.

I'm chewy granola.

And you know what?  I sorta' like it.

(PS--I'd be a terrible mom if I didn't post a picture of my sweet baby girl who's 4 now.  It was her birthday when I started this post.)