truth and dare

Sustainability is important to us. We're not perfect, by any means, but we strive to limit our footprint and not take our resources for granted. That said, the new challenges of parenthood immediately put our ideas about how we would bring sustainable living practices into our new family to task. For every day of the week, there's something we do wrong, or at least something we do differently than we would most like.

It took about half an hour home from the hospital for Aaron and I to agree that we weren't going to do cloth diapers right out of the gate. There they were, stacked up and ready to go, but Veronica cried non-stop for the first 24 hours we had her home (another story), we were used to changing her with disposables, and the hospital had sent us home with a ton of them. By the end of the week, though, I felt a little sick to my stomach as I tossed several bags of dirty diapers into our building's enormous trash bin. It was the first time in our two years of loft living that I'd actually thrown a full bag of garbage away. Speaking of full bags of garbage, a related confession is that I didn't recycle /anything/ that week, or maybe it was two weeks. I pulled full plastic containers of food out of the fridge and just threw them away (for example). Maybe three, four, or five full bags of garbage with tons of biodegradable and/or recyclable materials all mixed in. And I was proud of myself for making it down stairs in order TO throw them out.

I used to religiously do laundry only once every other weekend (two loads). Now, in the morning, I fill up the washer with cold water. Throughout the day, I throw in whatever I would normally put in a hamper, along with the re-runs of diaper pants, onsies, sleepers, etc., and at the end of the day I wash it, and dry it, no matter how small or large the load is. Yes, I do this every single day.

I stopped local grocery deliver from SPUD. Who cares if your vegetables are local if they're rotting in your fridge? Side note: This week I'm going to write three or four menus up, and set up auto-delivery of the same exact things (quick, easy, finger-food type meals) for every week on Amazon fresh. May not be local (anymore) but I think we'll save money over both Whole Foods (down the street) and SPUD (the farmers).

Because we live in a loft and are largely surrounded by other people using their electric heat, we hardly ever used to turn ours on. This year? Cranked, constantly. I just can't keep warm enough, even with sweaters, etc. because I'm always having to unbutton, or undress, at least every other hour to feed little V.

The kitchen fan. We've learned that it creates white noise that allows us to put Veronica down in her bassinet and us to stay up for an hour or so in the main room without resorting to sign-language or written notes for that precious hour of adult conversation. Last night, she was up feeding and diapering from 3.30 - 5 AM and I took the plunge and put her down in her bassinet /before/ she fell asleep, knowing that the white noise from the fan would both put her to sleep and let me sleep without listening for every breath and every coo. It worked, but I'm gonna hate to see that electric bill once this becomes common practice.

The car. We drive everywhere. We drove to the library because we were late. We drove to capital hill because we thought she might sleep longer. We drove to ballard in order to take a 10 minute walk down the water-front. On two occasions Aaron drove her around with NO DESTINATION just to let me sleep for a few hours on my own. The gas bill hasn't killed us yet (still keeping it to under 1 tank per month, which is our regular limit) but I'm sure we're using 3x as much gas as we were last year.

Finally, let's discuss the hot water. The shower was (and still is) my refuge. On most days it is the only part of the day that I have to myself. It's the one thing that gives me a chance to think about something besides the immediate challenges of getting the baby fed or to bed. I often forget I'm standing in running water, and many times I'm thinking of blog posts that I'll compose later (like this one, which came to mind more than a month ago). But the thing is, with the hot water, I think I use a whole tank every time, and there's only been one day, so far, that I did not get my shower, so that's a lot of hot and a lot of water. Even Aaron confessed that he stood there a little longer sometime last week - and this from a man who's so environmentally conscious that he showers in the dark.

Sure, most of these transgressions took place the first week - when it really was a challenge just to feed ourselves. (Scratch that, we weren't even feeding ourselves.) Many of these things have settled down now and we're back to recycling, limiting the trash we create, and the cloth diapers are awesome (more on that later). But I'm not going to give up those showers any time soon, and I doubt Aaron will give up those long drives (as a side note, it's the only time he gets to listen to the Decemberists, who I don't enjoy).

But this challenge of taking old ideas about who you are, how you choose to act, and what's important to you ... and implementing them along with this incredibly daunting task of taking care of a very small human appears to be what becoming a parent is all about. This thing with sustainable living is just a small example of how parenthood drop-kicks you off the moving train of 'life as you know it' and into a wide open field of existential crisis.

Who are you, really? Be that. I dare you.