Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner...

...except for the whole "chicken" part, since I happen to know for a fact that one of the randomly selected winners is a super-vegetarian... if not vegan. She just might be a vegan. (And we're totally cool, by the way. It's fine because, like, I'm pretty sure she doesn't even hold my birthday party against me since she knows the fur has no nutritional value and that there's no such thing as a vegetarian wolf.) Ahem, moving on.

Opting to share the bulk of my cloth diaper stash with other families instead of sell, consign or donate the diapers and other goodies means that families who might otherwise not try cloth diapers have the opportunity to fall in love with this eco-friendly, totally adorable option for FREE. These diapers are well known in the land of cloth diaper lovers and will easily last another child or two, so my hope is that the winners will share the love when they are done with them by passing them to another sweet family who will use them.  

Anyway, I am so happy to announce the two winners of the Great Stash for NO Cash cloth diaper giveaway prizes. The names were randomly selected using Random.org through Rafflecopter. The Full Stash packages each include 1dozen Fuzzi Bunz diapers, 18 microfiber inserts/doublers, a large wet bag, a small wet bag, and a dozen reusable cloth wipes--all from my collection. The Bonus Stash package includes two Fuzzi Bunz diapers, five inserts, and a sweet boutique blanket that we just loved from area craft masters Crackabo.

FULL STASH WINNERS: Jaycie W. and Megan T.

 BONUS STASH WINNER: Holli G.

There were nearly 100 entries, which is pretty sweet considering this was all through the grapevine and my blog is pretty much brand new. Of course I know one of them because, well, 30% of my facebook followers and blog readers are technically real-life, true-blood friends who have seen the whites of my eyes in the last month or two. It will be nice to send her a personalized little card with the package. The others are women whose names I recognize from online community support groups for local mothers. I haven't met them yet, I don't believe, but it is cool to know that two of the packages will be staying here in Tiny Town. Lucky mamas and sweet babes--I can't wait to pass on the stash that we so loved. Watch your emails, ladies--I'll be in touch for delivery info soon!

Thanks to everyone for entering, for reading, and for simply being you. Don't you ever stop.

A Great Stash for NO Cash!

Heads up! I finally figured out how to make the giveaway legit on Facebook. Be gentle with me, as it's my first go with this particular application, but I have used it as a participant in other giveaways and found it easy to navigate. Most of you should have no trouble at all. Click here to enter!

You can enter up to five, yes FIVE, times in a variety of fun ways. Get one entry simply for “liking” a palpable paradox on Facebook, another for tagging the page in a status on your personal page about what using cloth diapers means/would mean for your family, another for following @palpableparadox on twitter, yet another for tweeting about the giveaway on twitter, and lastly (my personal favorite) you can write a haiku poem about cloth diapering on the Facebook page after you've liked it!

Remember, you don’t have to be actively cloth diapering to enter or win. You can be simply interested in trying them; you can be pregnant; you can be daydreaming about having a baby; you can have a neighbor two doors down you think could use them; you can be a Papa who wants to cloth diaper on his weekends (and I kind of hope you are, actually); you can be a grandma, a sister, an uncle, a mentor or a teacher of someone who you think might appreciate them. I just want the collections to go to homes where they will be cherished and put to good use by families who want to try to do the best they can for the Earth.

Now, the official mumbo jumbo: This giveaway is sponsored by me and only me, not Facebook or Rafflecopter or Fuzzi Bunz or any of the others groups, companies, organizations or individuals who may be mentioned in the duration of this giveaway. One winner will be drawn on the morning of April 3, 2014. If the Facebook page receives 250 or more likes by April 2, there will be a second winner drawn; if the page receives 300 or more likes by then, a third winner will be added. Winners will be randomly selected, and packages will be delivered (if local) or shipped within one week of the drawing. By accepting the prize you agree to release me of any liability resulting in your acceptance and use of the diapers, liners, cloth wipes, and wet bags contained therein. Use common laundering sense. The diapers have been stripped, but I advise you to launder them in your own fashion and detergent before use—you know, for sanitation’s sake. Now, if you’ve made it this far, you can leave a comment here on the blog for a chance to win a bonus mini prize pack not announced anywhere else. Simply tell me your two favorite colors from the rainbow diaper stash photo and you will be entered into a secondary drawing to be held the same day!

Good luck!

Nice to meet you, Cloth Diapers!

When I had my first son a couple months after turning seventeen I wasn't really running on well-researched paths. I pretty much raised him in a manner heavily influenced by three things: mainstream child rearing culture, the ever-present advice of my ex-husband's parents, and the way that I was raised myself. Suffice it to say that a lot of my parenting beliefs and approaches have changed over the last several years, and all I believe to be positive steps toward the outcome of better relationships with healthier more confident children.

Some of the differences between what I affectionately refer to as my my First and Second Waves (of motherhood) include issues of circumcision, breastfeeding, babywearing, elimination communication, diapering, sign language, sensory learning, screen and media exposure, and issues surrounding 'discipline' when the children 'act out' (aka now I'm not always a huge jerk when my kids are slamming down on my buttons in a developmentally appropriate way).

One of these subjects tends to lend itself to less inflammatory discourse than some of the others, so I'd like to start by sharing a little bit about my venture into cloth diapering.

Though I had seen my step-mom cloth diaper my little brother when I was around ten years old, I remember it being a cumbersome task involving pins and covers and hand wringing shitty diapers in the toilet. Par for the course in many cases, sure, but to me as a child--totally disgusting. Koa and Cedar were raised in disposable diapers due to a number of circumstances ranging from resources to knowledge, but mostly due to lacking exposure to the practice. Jump forward almost a decade to find me living in Tiny Town, a great place to be born. Here I learned about Doulas and Midwifery and natural birth and birth centers... And about cloth diapers.

Elvis is everywhere, even on a tiny Birch.

Once I found them I was hooked. There are so many amazing companies and hard-working Mamas with home businesses to choose from; children look adorable in them; they come in almost any print or color you can imagine; after the initial sticker shock wears off they pay for themselves quickly and retain a strong resale value; and using them creates a lower impact on the Earth than using disposables. With all that on the table it was hard not to get hooked. Those of you who've been following along well know that once I get excited about something I don't really look back until the guilt or regret not only nips at my heels, but actually tears a chunk out of the back of my thigh. Such is the life of a borderline hoarder. That is how I wound up with a stash of diapers that numbered 120+ at one time for just my two youngest boys. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but like I said Tiny Town is really into these sorts of things so finding used cloth diapers in excellent condition to bulk up on was an easy task. Besides, mathematically speaking, this obscene amount of diapers really only amounts to purchasing one every three days or so... Which kind of doesn't make me sound any less impulsive, I realize, but it's a noble cause to get behind. 

Birch wore cloth a solid 93% of his diaper days and Aspen started in them, but we finally caught on to elimination communication with him and drastically decreased the need for a lot of diapers in the process. I was rotating through an immense diaper stash and washing a less-than-full load every two or three days, had finally perfected my dry pail and wash systems, and I felt great for acing something plenty of other people are intimidated by. That is until the day a tiny baby Aspen got the diaper rash that changed everything.

Looking for some pep.

Maybe I'll tell the tale another time because it's a doozy and deserves a full post with lots of informational links and statistics, but basically when Aspen's diaper rash refused to respond to the usual course of treatment at home, I took him in to see another doctor in his pediatrician's office who had room on his schedule on a Sunday. It is enough for now to say that the doctor did not respect me or my son, resulting in formal complaints and investigations with the State that nearly took us to court for a malpractice suit. Then, because of a need to apply heavy creams to his rash that would compromise the absorbency permanently in the cloth diapers, I started using disposables. Simultaneously I battled a depressive bout of my own while also processing a lot of other internal family stressors, and I couldn't find the energy to think about returning to the cloth diaper ritual after a month, then two. Now it's nearly seven months later and I can say that my fetish for the fluff has quelled considerably. My expectations for myself at this juncture are much lower when it comes to my ability to manage regular weekly laundry, even with the help of Brian and the older boys, much less the added two or three loads of diapers. Part of me feels lame for throwing in the towel, but more of me recognizes the breakup with cloth as a simple way to practice self-care. When everything feels like it's caving in on me, or like it's incredibly heavy or busy, or we have a week heavy on the nighttime accidents or daytime art projects (which seems to be, well, pretty much every week), removing a few loads of laundry a week actually feels like removing a few tons of brick off my back even if I do understand the social, environmental, and financial implications of the decision. We all have to arrange our priorities based on our circumstances, and I feel no shame in reevaluating them according to my latest self-revelation. In fact friends, reevaluation driven by self-reflection and revelation is a really refreshing practice. It helps me remember that the whole world is fluid, even me, and that it is okay to be so.

I do, however, still love cloth diapers--especially my Fuzzi Bunz stash. I sold off my tiny ones as soon as Aspen was out of them since he is the final baby in our home, but I still have a huge stash of medium and large sizes in all the colors of the rainbow. While I could likely sell them for $5-$8/ea in Tiny Town and recoup some of my investment, I've decided I would rather share the benefits of cloth diapering with other families who have or are expecting a little one and who may or may not otherwise consider using them due to cost or other factors. And plus, remember the Great Purge of 2014? I have to hold up my end of the deal. The diapers are beautiful, insanely useful, and totally storied--they were part of every day of my children's lives for 2+ years--but they are not doing any good just sitting in IKEA storage bins.

The most glorious remnants of our cloth diaper days.

Stay tuned for the full details on how you can win a dozen of my Fuzzi Bunz diapers and inserts, along with both a pail-sized and a travel wet bag. Sure they're used but they were well taken care of and recently stripped, they are free, and they will be catching shit so I don't think it really matters that much. Plus, you are under zero obligation to enter to win something you wouldn't actually cherish and use. For the rest of you, save about $125 and change the way you handle bio-waste forever. It's actually a really sweet deal, and one which I will have delivered to your door if you win and live in the US.    

Details coming Wednesday (or maybe sooner if I get ambitious and am not just being pushed around by caffeine and sleep-deprived delirium) so stay tuned, spread the word, and be sure to LIKE ME for the most up-to-date announcements as I hammer out a plan...         

Adios, Crazy Cat Lady!

So there I was just searching the internet for crazy cat lady pictures when something went very, very wrong. Kind of. It was also hilarious. As part of the Great Purge of 2014 I found myself highly motivated to get rid of all the cat-related items still lingering in our garage and then, when I wasn’t looking for a reminder of any sort, I was hit in the face with a banner reading “Mother of the Year.”

I’ve always had cats, my whole life, as long as I can remember. The first cat I had as a child was a ragtag black cat with hints of rusty red in her fur, a crooked half-tail, and all the patience in the world who we found at a gas station somewhere between San Antonio and Santa Fe. I called her Cinderella Lauper—Cindy—after my then-favorite Disney movie and the only natural progression for the mind of a child in the 80s, the seeker of all things fun, Cindy Lauper. She was an affectionate cat all the way until the feline leukemia took her. Fast-forward twenty years to find me offering every remaining cat-themed supply in my possession up on an internet group designed for free exchange of goods and services, preparing to load some random accompanying image from Google to add a laugh, and discovering a video of obvious pornography on my husband’s laptop when I go to retrieve my image.

A quick glance at the properties showed me that the video was actually a very brief file of a nude woman doing leg lifts… like the exercise—am I the only one who thinks it’s odd that this would be arousing? like, to anyone, ever?—from  a site called nakedsports.com. After an intense bout of laughter at the thought of such... dare I say deviance, and a few clicks to delete the evidence, my husband and I pondered which one of the boys had made the accidental click that no doubt ended in a frantic closing of all browser windows and an immediate deletion of search history. I think we’ll leave that one right in the recycling bin my son(s?) imagines it was put in years ago, a hilarious and endearing reminder how bizarre adolescent inquiry is for everyone.

Suffice it to say (and without further embarrassing the children) I had cats when I was a kid and pretty much every day thereafter and now I don’t. All of the pet things I hoped to give away were weighted reminders of the companionship of animals I can’t currently house. Though having a box of shit in my house to tend to would most certainly put me over my edge, I still miss each of the cats I’ve had in the past. With one kid pretty much anaphylactic due to the dander, however, remaining pet-free is no question for me. Giving these things away empowers me to let go of the distant and impatient longing that comes with refusing to fully let go of my life as a crazy cat lady. This is clearly a step in the direction I need to be heading right meow.    

Is it beautiful? Is it useful? Is it storied?

The Great Purge of 2014: Part One

You wouldn’t know it walking into my sweet middle-class (rental) home, standing under the enormous chandelier with the whiteness of the walls glaring back at you, or looking up into the sparse décor of my open floor plan, but I have too much shit. No really, like, it’s kind of a problem sometimes. It’s emblematic of other problems I have and sometimes it comes rushing into the office in my head to demand a raise on the priority list of mental health concerns I should probably attend to.

Sometimes I am able to listen to the piece of me that yearns to live simply, that feels joy and weightlessness wash over me after handing a prized possession to its next owner to treasure. Other times I hold onto the things I have like a hoarder five years after the Great Depression, the memory of struggle and starvation and stealing and sobering sadness of life lived “without” still raw in my mind and triggered by the sweat of current labors.

Some examples of objects I continue to carry despite their utility having run its course in my life:

• An extra dining set. No, not dishes. A six-foot-long pine table and six matching chairs. 
• A scooter that hasn’t been started in two years.
• Three boxes of size eight clothing.          
• A jar full of false eyelashes, a drawer full of ruffle-butted funderwear, and a collection of Martha Stewart Kids magazines from the mid-2000s.

… And that’s it. I can’t list anything else right now because in my mind there is ALWAYS utility—I just may not have come to the right moment to discover it yet. Do you do that? Do you ever just hold onto something because someday it is bound to come in handy and you happened to be able to acquire it today for whatever reason? I have to talk myself down off ledges more frequently than I’d like to admit.

And so, the Great Purge of 2014 begins.

I have been homeless, slept under bridges, in rest stop bathrooms, in cars, in camps and on the ground. I have siphoned electricity off of neighboring units to run a space heater and refrigerator full of the previous night’s kitchen loss from my gracious employer. I have had Christmas presents provided for my children by complete strangers. I have lived owning literally nothing more than the pack on my back. And now I have all this shit everywhere.

Two knife blocks. Fourteen Christmas stockings. An Elvis bust with a broken nose. Two lamp shades sliced down the side (rendering them inoperable in their most basic function). Two playpens and no babies left. A 12pk of clear lip balm containers and a 2lb bag of beeswax. A secular Christmas Countdown calendar, homemade, collaged with the most incredible collection of handmade upcycled envelopes, each tucked with a note full of fun. Six boxes of compact discs. Three dead computers. Little hotel shampoos. And of course, those three boxes of size eight clothing. It’s time to let some of it go.

You can follow me on the journey. In fact, I encourage you to not only follow along but to participate. Each week I will select an object or several to get rid of and at the end of the week I’ll post a picture of the all the week’s purge along with a story about one particular item.

The process I will use to break down my inner-hoarder is simple. 

I'll reflect on the given object and ask myself the following:

 Is it beautiful? If no, then out it goes. If yes, is there someone else who might appreciate its beauty more? It has to be more than aesthetically pleasing; the beauty has to be in the context too.   

Is it useful? If no, then out it goes. If yes, do I have more than one? If yes, pick one and get rid of the other(s). If not, I’ll keep it. This is about minimizing after all, not about returning to abject poverty. 

Is it storied? If no, then out it goes. If yes, is the story something I’ll forget if the object is gone? Is the story something someone else might appreciate? Stories are vital components of our relationships to one another. I want to share the storied objects I have with the people who helped to create the memories attached to them, or to find people who can create their own new stories with the objects I no longer need to hold on to.

By my calculations this imprecise formula will have my inner-hoarder feeling a little less hoard-y in no time. I hope that I can find some people who will love and cherish all the storied, cool and useless and wacky and tacky and beautiful, wonderful things I’ll be ridding my life of. Because as awesome as it is feel secure and to engage in consumerism and “collecting” to prove that sense of security, I can’t imagine why I need to hold on to four square yards of fake fur or a pair of hiking shoes that are too narrow for me to wear without getting painful blisters anymore.

What can you let go of this week? How will purging it help you or someone else? Next week I'll be sure to update you on all of the beautiful, useful, storied relics of my past that I'm cutting loose, how I let them go, and what it felt like. I can already feel my palms sweating.