How it all started...

How I started down my crunchy road of hippy-ness is kind of a long story, so I'm gonna try really hard to keep it short.

It took us a while to get pregnant. Brett doesn't really like to admit it, but it took us almost 2 years to get pregnant. (My issues, not his.) It was really hard on me, especially emotionally, because I knew I was supposed to be a mother, and it just wasn't happening. After several rounds of drugs, we finally managed to conceive. During my quest to get preggers, I happened upon a certain website called Babycenter. I've always loved message boards, so I pretty immediately loved this site. Through it, I started to become aware of some parenting choices/styles I hadn't heard about before.

I wanted to have a natural unmedicated childbirth, but that ended up not happening with our daughter. I was kind of bummed, mainly because my epidural went so badly, but I figured, whatever, not the end of the world. I did manage to have an unmedicated birth with our son, though, and I really loved the experience. So, one part of my "crunchy" status.

Squishy and I just moments after his birth.

My other initial foray into the world of crunchy parenting was with babywearing. This is a really old practice that involves, quite literally, wearing your child. There are a plethora of different carriers, which I'll talk about later. But I really love it, and it's incredibly handy when you're trying to get things done with kids around since it allows you to carry your child but have both hands free.

When our daughter was about a year old, we finally started cloth diapering. I'd been wanting to do it for a few months, but since there's a pretty large initial commitment, we waited until we had the funds to do it. Both kids are cloth diapered, and it has saved us a TON of money. Plus, cloth diapers are just stinkin' cute. Pun intended.

There are other, small things I do that are crunchy. We're getting rid of all the chemical-y cleaners and going more natural. We use wool dryer balls and homemade cloth diaper detergent. Soon we'll switch over to homemade detergent for our clothes as well. In my next post, I'll talk more about what exactly it means to be crunchy.