Thanks for all the well wishes, guys, you all mean so much to me!

So, I will admit to having a bit of obsessiveness to my personality. I will decide on a topic, subject, project, craft, whatever you want to put in this box, if I decide I want to do it, learn it, learn about it, etc; I will obsess until I know just about everything there is to know about it. I can pretty much tell you anything you would want to know about weight loss, diet, nutrition, exercise, etc. Not that I was able to actually put it to good use ;)

So, my newest interest, shall we say, is cloth diapering (CDing). I have decided that we are going to cloth diaper this baby. There are several reasons why we came to this decision; cost being the main one; second one being that it takes well over 150 years for 1 disposable diaper to decompose, and it is estimated a baby will have used 1000 in a year, and they are expected to be in diapers the first 2.5-3.5 years of their lives.

No, I didn't cloth diaper my other 2; probably because it wasn't ever presented as an option. In fact, if it weren't for the internet today, I probably wouldn't attempt to do this one this way; I didn't even OWN a computer, much less get on the internet, until Kathryn was about 6 months old. Anyway, you have a baby; you buy your diapers at the store. That's it, that's all. You don't see cloth diapers in the stores now. They do sell the prefolds and the flat cloth, which I bought, but used as burp rags. They don't, however, sell the plastic pants for the babies anymore; the only size I see now are for toddlers, for potty training. Therefore, with Kathryn, and with Jonathan, I wouldn't have known about CDing unless someone aproached me, suggested it, and showed me my options. And let me tell you, you would be amazed at the options there are available today. They have come a long way from the flat and prefolds and plastic pants of our mothers and grandmothers. They have so many different diapers out there, and there are several websites out there dedicated simply for the terminology used in the CDing world. I could bore you with the details, but I suppose I wont, unless you ask nicely ;). Basically, there are tons of companies out there making the diapers, which all have different options as to convenience, fabric choice, etc. And, on top of these companies, the cloth diapering world is apparently the newest WAHM/SAHM (work/stay at home mom) craze. Therefore, there are TONS of "homemade" companies making these and selling these, as well.

So, anyway, I'm stressing out because of all these different options. Obviously, I want to be prepared for the baby when it comes. But I don't know what to get, what to use, what to do. What works for one, or so many, so well, may not work for others as well. Some people SWEAR by a certain method, while others complete trash it. Therefore, it is considered a "trial and error process". It is suggested to buy several different brands/styles, try them all out, and then decide which way is better for you before you make your big investment. The problem is, it is, to me, quite a chunk of change to just buy a "sampler". So, therein lies my dilema.

Anyway, that's my current "obsession", in case anyone was wondering what was going on in the world of Amanda ;)

yes, I have a baby name picked out. Yes, I will tell you, if you ask nicely ;)