Nappy Free

There are many things we've encountered in our tenure here in South Africa that we have found ourselves having to ask friends about, and often we have found these items to be nothing more than 'cultural' differences... but, as we discovered over the weekend at our child-birth classes, there are some things that are weird no matter what culture you're in. For example, we had a gal come and talk to us about neonatal and infant stimulation. I got the baby part, but I was rather lost when she was telling us how to 'play games' with our unborn child while he/she is still in the womb. People are always coming up with new ways of making kids more intelligent, so I just assumed this was one of those things. Then, however, (and I kid you not because you can't make this stuff up!) she moved on to ways of reducing the carbon footprint of our little ones-to-be. I'm from California, so I could follow her on trying to be eco-friendly, or at least as much as possible until these words came out of her mouth: "Nappy Free". You may think this is a euphemism for a club or environmental group supporting cloth diapering, but let me assure you, it is exactly what it sounds like. She told us how, if you so choose, your baby could go without diapers and you had three options for when they used the restroom 1. catch it 2. use a basin/tupperware (as a testimonial from one parent said they used and loved) or 3. get the child quickly to the toilet or garden. Now, at this point, I started looking around to see if this was one of those 'cultural' things, but to my relief, I found the shock and horror written on my face mirrored in 99.9% of everyone else there. I still can't believe this is a big enough movement (no pun intended), where there are testimonials and people educating would-be parents about it... Todd and I are still laughing and have firmly decided to keep saving the planet one cloth diaper at a time, but if you want to know more information, I have the lady's contact info for you. All I can say is, you'd be a bigger tree hugger than I!!!