The Great Cloth Diaper Change: Changing the way we think, but not one baby at a time
My sister Betty used cloth diapers with all her children. I admire that she did this.
Each of her little babies was neatly wrapped with a soft, cloth diaper that was pinned on each side.
I didn’t know it at the time, but she was being earth-friendly. She was “green.”
On April 21, the day before Earth Day, you can experience “The Great Cloth Diaper Change” beginning at 10 a.m. at Science Museum Oklahoma, 2100 NE 52 St.
There are hopes this event will be part of an even larger effort to break last year’s Guinness World Record for simultaneous diaper changing.
And, at the same time, Cloth Diaper Oklahoma and the Real Diaper Association will be bringing attention to the benefits of using cloth diapers, instead of disposable diapers that can take hundreds of years to decompose.
At the moment, more than 232 locations in 13 countries will be the sites of thousands of parents and caregivers changing their babies all at the same time, all using cloth diapers.
"The Great Cloth Diaper Change" event in 2011 -- Photo by Trevor Aagard
The April 21 event begins at 10 a.m. with the actual Great Cloth Diaper Change occurring between 11 a.m. and noon. Cloth diapers will be provided to those who need one.
The first 100 participating families will receive a goody bag. Activities during the event will include a baby-crawling contest, a toddler trot, cloth diaper mini classes, prizes and more.
If you’ve never changed a cloth diaper, click here for step-by-step instructions from babycenter.com.
–Linda Lynn
Earth Day! Let’s celebrate!
Friday is Earth Day. Most of us spend every waking and sleeping hour on this planet.
We call it home, but sometimes we take it for granted.
What could you do to give back to our big blue marble?
- Plant a tree. (or a bush or a seed)
- Walk instead of driving. (or skip, run, dance)
- Ride a bicycle. (or a cow, horse or unicycle)
- Share a commute with a neighbor or co-worker, or take public transportation. (And share good conversation on the way!)
- Volunteer to help clean up your local park or neighborhood. (Start with your own yard.)
- Use reuseable shopping bags, buy less and consider food packaging. Do you really need a separate plastic produce bag for lemons, limes, squash and onions. Go sans plastic bags, since you’re going to wash them anyway. (And use the food you buy. Don’t waste it and let it rot for a couple of weeks in the fridge.)
- Take shorter showers. (Turn water on, turn off, soap up, turn water on and do a quick rinse. Done!)
- Use less pesticides, fertilizers and chemicals around your home. Or stop using unfriendly products altogether. (You might not have the prettiest lawn in the neighborhood, but you’ll feel safe having your kids play there.)
- Spend the evening watching a sunset — not the TV. (The color reception is so much better.)
- Play outside. (Bouncing balls, Hula-hoops and horseshoes are more Earth-friendly than living room-friendly.)
- Take your children on a nature hike, sharing appreciation of our environment. (Don’t touch the poison ivy!)
Share your Earth-celebrating ideas with The Oklahoman and our readers. You might inspire someone else to follow your example.
–Linda Lynn
Plastic bags: What will you do?
A plastic bag is blown against a park fence.
By now many of you have seen or heard about last week’s “Oprah Winfrey Show” and her segment on the epidemic of plastic trash in the ocean.
I only saw a few minutes of the show — the swirling mass beneath the surface, the plastic bag wrapped around the bird — but it made me realize even more that we need to take action. For us, for our children.
The wind in Oklahoma is unforgiving. Plastic can quickly get away from you, and in an instant, like a balloon, it can travel up and away.
Plastic shopping bags as well as other plastics catch on fences, snag on grass and weeds, get caught on tree branches and drift to lake shores.
Ireland and Denmark have placed taxes on plastic bags, and consumer use was reduced drastically. Why can’t we do this in Oklahoma? Why can’t our state make the stand that we want to start making a difference in our country?
There’s so much we can do to make a difference. My daughter told me a story last week about a man she saw unwrapping a piece of candy. He unwrapped it, let the wrapper drop to the ground and then got in his car. She questioned why he didn’t just keep the wrapper to throw away later.
I’ve switched to reusable shopping bags.
Now, what will you do?
What will Oklahoma do as a state to make a difference?
– Linda Lynn
