Wiping it up: An introduction to cloth baby wipes

Cloth rags, napkins and towels are common alternatives to their paper cousins. But one thing I don't see people clamouring over is the cloth baby wipes.

I stumbled across this at the Indy Winter Market just before the baby's first birthday. Ragamuffin Diapers sold cloth diapers, baby wipes and femimine items made from "recycled flannel." I needed something in the baby's gift bag. I had a moment of weakness (and honestly didn't have enough cash for the homemade diapers, seeing they required covers).

Yes, nothing says "Happy 1st Birthday" like flannel wipes for your tush.

And so they sat, through the holidays. And I finally became brave enough to experiment with them. Logistically, they were a challenge. Bathroom on one side of the house; changing table on another. But I had an eager runner who was all too happy to put water on wipes for me.

And then I found recipes for baby wipe solutions. You can find several variations at Diaper Jungle and Makebabystuff.com. But I settled on a makeshift simple three-part solution of baby oil, baby liquid soap and water, now bottled in a small plastic squirt bottle that once held blue Crayola bath soap for my daughter.

I even opted to make more wipes on my own, after finding a pair of my husband's flannel pants in his drawer - despite having a 4-inch rip in them. Well, I suppose they were clean. After a couple of hours of cutting and hand-sewing while catching up on a show, I had doubled my stash. (It's not difficult to do - double up your fabric, cut a large square, then whipstitch together. It would have likely been faster had I actually learned what to do with my sewing machine instead of letting it collect dust!)

Using cloth wipes has settled into a fairly easy routine. Have I given up "regular" wipes in favor of cloth completely? Not yet. There are times when it's just easier to use traditional wipes, such as when cleaning up after one injests blueberries. ('nuff said.) But at least I'm getting braver about it.

Of Asa, Oswal and making sense in this crazy world

We had a few unexpected holiday guests. Even worse, they haven't left yet.


Sometime before Christmas, "Asa" joined our household. Asa embodies all that is good in a 3 year old's world. Asa shares. She picks up. She takes naps. She is a good friend. She comes over to make brownies - and thank goodness, she has always cleaned up her mess as I've never seen the evidence.


And a day or two later, another friend joined our imaginary mix. "Oswal" (no d, as in Lee Harvey) personifies the naughtiness we have. He hits. He pushes. He says bad words and makes a huge mess. He calls people names and is not a bad friend. In fact, he has yet to be allowed to grace our home with his presence.


Asa and Oswal are my daughter's way, I suppose, of sorting out right and wrong in this world. If it only was as simple as black and white.

Sometimes, I think we see living more responsibly as a black and white issue. We're good (fill in religious faith). Or we're not. We're green. Or we're not. We're great parents. Or we're not. We make a difference. Or we don't.

And when we take that right-or-wrong approach, we limit ourselves and set ourselves up for failure--or at least feeling that way.

So we can opt to take a positive approach. We can make attempts to make a difference in some small way in our community - whether it's reaching out to a neighbor or someone in need, reducing our consumption, adopting a stray pet, whatever. And we can accept we're making steps to a positive change -- think of it as a "pay it forward" mentality.

Or we can live in fear/anger/whatever, believe this world is going to hell in a handbasket, quit caring and live for ourselves alone.

Hmm... Personally, I'll take the first.

CSAs in Indianapolis and Bloomington

Searching for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in Indianapolis or Bloomington for this summer?

There are many options for you to consider. CSA programs range in season length, variety, delivery and share size.

Here are some of the CSA programs serving the greater Indianapolis metropolitan area and/or Bloomington:

• Balanced Harvest
• Big City Farms
• Core Farms CSA
• Double Oak Farm
• Farming Engineers
• Homestead Growers
• Kiss My Grass Farm
• Lost Pond Farm CSA
• Melody Acres CSA
• Nameless Creek Growers Association (Harvest Thyme CSA)
• Old Growth CSA
• Seldom Seen Farm
• Victory Acres

Please note that not while a CSA may state it serves Indianapolis, it may or may not serve your area of town.

While I'm sitting out due to financial considerations in 2009, I am eager to hear about others' experiences this season!

Attacking my very being

I have been accused via e-mail of trying to sabbatoge an Indianapolis CSA, of libel, of slander, and refusing to work with this CSA for a positive gain. The word enemy is a very strong word.

Yet, this CSA has not corrected with details any innacuracies they see, only that I am spreading "lies" about their organization. If I failed to recognize kale, for example, please let me know when it was delivered to me and what it looked like.

I also would like to state I offered to work with this CSA to develop an educational article/Q&A about organic farming, the challenges of a CSA or a behind-the-scenes look at how CSAs differ from a "farmers market" vendor, and I was responded to that "the proposal was inadequate."

Here's the deal. I'm sorry that this CSA owner is so fearful of me and what I have to say on a small green parenting blog that they have to lash out at me. I'm sorry this person doesn't believe in the First Amendment when the opinion differs from him or her. I'm sorry this person came out attacking me from the get-go instead of calmingly correcting any perceived innacuracies or asking to take it offline.

But the reality is this person chose to attack my very being. I pride myself on being an honest person and a person of my word. It's part of my faith. It's part of who I am. And by attacking the core of who I am, this person created an adversarial environment. Frankly, I feel like I'm being bullied with the threat of legal action.

Despite the fact this person has yet to acknowledge that they will retract their claims of libelous behavior from my blog, I will be the better person and remove the name of the CSA from this post per their request. I am also retracting my four-star review on LocalHarvest.

If you are researching CSAs and would like to know more, I will post a link to Indianapolis-area CSAs within the next day and am happy to share with you my positive and negative experiences in fairness with you via e-mail.

Back to your regularly scheduled green mommy blog!

Enabling OpenID commenting

I'm sorry to have to do this, but given the amount of negativity that has been posted in my comments by anonymous person(s), I am enabling OpenID commenting for the near future. This means no more anonymous postings.

I realize this is an added step for posting, but I believe that if people stand by their words, they should be mature enough to put their identification along with them.