I'm no environmental saint, but I can't help but laugh when people are amazed that I use cloth diapers. Have we gotten so consumed by our disposable lifestyle that the idea of washing and reusing something is so mind blowing?

She thinks cloth diapering is for hippies.

My mother-in-law and I have a very special relationship that involves colossal amounts of passive aggression (on her end) and patience (on my end). My husband is an only child from rural NY and I come from a huge family of eccentric French-Cajuns from New Orleans. You do the math.

Okay, so you’ve decided to cloth diaper probably because you know you’ll save thousands doing so not to mention the fact that you’re helping the environment and your baby’s precious skin.  But what next?  What does cloth diapering your baby entail?

The stash. You need a stash of diapers that will suit your cloth diapering needs.  The amount of diapers you should have will depend upon whether or not you will be using cloth diapers full time or part time.  A newborn will soil 8-12 diapers a day and an older child will soil 6-8 diapers a day.  I would suggest that you need enough cloth diapers to get you through at least two days of diaper changes if you’re going to cloth diaper full time.  If you are going to do it part time, any number of cloth diapers will help keep your disposable diaper bill down.  Even if you only use three cloth diapers a day, that means you won’t have to buy 90 disposables that month.

What started as a simple way to save money actually transformed my life.

I love the color green, but never considered myself to be green or crunchy. I jumped into cloth diapering to save some green not be green. Something mysterious happened to me and my conversion began in November of 2009 when I became a cloth diaper junky. From the moment my sweet little boy had his bum covered in an oh-so-colorful cloth diaper I was addicted.  What started as a simple way to save money actually transformed my life.

Almost three years ago, when I was just a normal, Aquafina-chugging twenty-something, I attended my best friend's baby shower, where I met her cousin's new wife and their little baby boy. It was a hot day in July and the tiny guy was wearing only a t-shirt and something very cute and colorful on his bum. "Is that a cloth diaper?" I asked.  "Why yes it is."  "It's adorable!" For the next ten minutes or so she told me all about the wonders of cloth. From that moment, it wasn't even a question for me: I knew I was going to cloth diaper my kids.  It just made sense.  It was economical.  It kept lots of smelly plastic diapers out of the home and out of the landfill (as a two-time nanny and frequent babysitter I had plenty of experience with those).  And I'll reiterate, they were ADORABLE!

As a cloth diapering, eco-conscious mama, do you ever find yourself in uncomfortable situations with non-cloth mamas? Ever been subjected to the raised eyebrows, the snide comments, or have you yourself, perhaps without thinking, participated in this kind of behavior? Do you ever feel a little like you're in a kind of battle?

My daughter's preschool teacher had one of those looks on her face.

Uh oh. Here it comes, I thought. What did my daughter do at school today?

I'm a twice-a-year cleaner - fall and spring. I have to admit, I'm pretty bad for the six months preceding the big purge. I tend to leave dishes stacked in the drainer, laundry stays in the baskets and deep cupboards might as well be a black hole. Once it goes it in, it won't come out again. Last week, I celebrated some recent weight loss with a closet cleaning (peace out size 14). This weekend, armed with new gloves and a steely resolve for what I might discover lurking in the shadows, I went on a raid of my kitchen cupboards. I am loathe to admit I found a bottle of Jimmy Neutron vitamins circa 2003 (flashback) and sunscreen that appears to have had separated. I also found a potato that had grown antlers and vacuum bags for a vacuum we sold 4 years ago.

My grandmother lives in a lovely Alexandria, Virginia suburb a few miles from Mt. Vernon. It's a wonderfully historic area, the kind that comes with its own juicy gossip dating back to the 1700's. She's fortunate in that she bought the home as a young woman and hung onto it while the military moved her around the world - and let me tell you her little neck of the woods has been discovered. One need only peek at her tax bill to understand.

While I was researching what was going on with cloth diapers in the news this weekend, I ran across a thought provoking article about Why People Don't Recycle. The author, Ashley Schiller, interviewed five individuals as part of an investigation to "help proponents of recycling better understand the 'how' of what can be done to increase participation" in recycling programs.

We started cloth diapering our first son when he was about 9 months old and we had just discovered we were expecting #2.

We've now been using cloth for a little over two years and haven't looked back! Now that we are now expecting #3 we can watch our savings grow, as well as see how much waste we are not generating!

Jennifer Crossley, staff writer for the TimesDaily.com published an interesting article, Green bottoms up: Many parents returning to cloth diapers, last Friday. In it she described how cloth diapers are "en vogue with snaps and Velcro and other added conveniences" and that "The diapers ride the green wave for families hoping to cut back on the amount of waste they produce."

In TIME's 2009 Best & Worst Lists Dan Fletcher listed reusable cloth toilet wipes as one of the Top 10 Odd Environmental Ideas. According to Fletcher, "Environmental experts recently called toilet paper 'one of the greatest excesses of our age,' leading to suggestions that Americans adopt reusable cloth toilet wipes as an environmentally friendly alternative."

When families cloth diaper their children instead of using disposable diapers, they save money and also support the environment. Another way families can save money and support the environment is through participation in a local Community Supported Agriculture*, or CSA.

I love to Google for the term "Cloth Diaper" and select the search link for "NEWS". In fact, even more, I love subscribing to the alerts and have them show up nice and neat in my inbox.

In her article, 50 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint, Diane Solomon cuts to the chase by simplifying ways EACH OF US can help cool down our earth. I say "our earth" because until we take personal responsibility we won't truly make change.

Your friends are about to throw you a baby shower. You are so excited and hop off to your local baby supercenter to register. Maybe you go to two or three places, after all this is your first, second, or fifteenth baby and YOU NEED STUFF. It is an exciting time - a time for planning and implementing, and if you're like the majority of us, a time to save where you can.

We talk a lot about cloth diapering here ... *der* we are a cloth diapering blog, however, we are also strong advocates of many other natural family living choices. And by family, we mean everyone in the family. Making more natural living choices means getting everyone on board. It IS a family's business to be about the work of making more earth-friendly, healthy choices.

As we read across blogs and web forums we hear a lot of excuses for why families don't cloth diaper their babies - even from families who pride themselves in making earth-friendly choices.

As a mother I enjoy many modern conveniences. Take for instance the microwave - perfect for re-heating the same cup of coffee 3 times because I was too busy wiping noses, bums, or putting together Lego^® castles to sit down and drink it. Yea microwave! GO MICROWAVE!

Kaara and Chris Smith (center) with their children Will, Noah, Zoe and River, use environmentally friendly products and practices in their Laurel home.