A post in which I write a letter to Mother Earth

Dear Mother Earth,

I’m not sure how you work. Are you like Santa where you know what I’ve been thinking and doing? If so then this won’t come as a surprise.

You know I have a lot of respect for you and all…and I’m not sure if I ever said the ‘L’ word but you know…I kind of dig you.

In the years we’ve been friends you’ve stayed pretty much the same it’s just me who is different. Our relationship has been changing and I think it’s at a point where we just cut the ties for a little while.

I know it sounds cliche but it’s not you…it’s me, really it is. Someone came between us and his name is Miloh.

When Staci and I first learned we were pregnant we were dead set on raising our child in an environmentally friendly way. We had plans to use cloth diapers from day one…we even got a new HE washer and dryer so cleaning them would be better for you.

Then we heard that cloth diapers are hard to use on super little kids, partly because of the size of the babies partly because of the amount of changes and partly because of the consistency of the poo.

So we decided to only use disposable for 6 weeks…just until we get things down and things get stable. Well we’re 6 weeks in and the disposables are still going strong. We have moved from Pampers to Earth’s Best but I know that while they say they are your best the are only really Earth’s better because they don’t biodegrade.

We still plan on doing cloth diapers…we’re thinking we’ll start at 3 months.

Then there is the dishwasher…we run it a lot…and by a lot I mean at least 6 times a week. We tried washing bottles by hand but it just wasn’t working for us. There were too many to wash. And before I go further I gotta admit the bottles are all plastic so that’s not good, right?

But back to the dishwasher…I’m not convinced it’s worse than hand washing…something tells me it might not be…but it’s often run with only bottles in it…sorry.

And to add insult to injury we’re not using earth friendly dish soap right now. We tried for so long but our dishes looked like crap…the plus is that if you ever come over you’ll notice our dishes are sparkly…

Another reason the dishwasher is on is that Miloh likes the noise…it helps him sleep. And really that’s what matters…I’d rather him sleeping to him wailing so if I have to do a little harm to you, Mrs. Earth, to have him feel comfortable I’m cool with that.

Next there is the little matter of the full refrigerator of food I threw away last week. I hate throwing out food…it’s such a waste and I know there are starving kids in China and such but we just haven’t had time to cook what we bought. Plus friends brought over food so maybe you should be blaming them. Because without them we might have eaten what we had.

Who am I kidding? We would have just had popcorn.

There is also all the crap we’re buying. We were good in that we borrowed a lot of stuff. One of those being a lamb swing, but maybe we didn’t need second. The thing is Miloh loves sleeping in it (with the dishwasher on) and it became a pain to lug it up and down the stairs.

I’m not saying we can’t be friends some day, I just think now isn’t the right time.

Maybe next year we can reconnect, are you on Facebook? Maybe then we can get together and laugh at how we were pulled apart. And hey, if you come over you can have a drink from one of those sparkling glasses.

One thing though, if you do come over then don’t look at our garage…we’re getting a new car soon…and it will be a bigger car…but I am looking at one with good gas mileage.

Thanks…Kenny

Kenny

Kenny is a photographer turned creative director who writes the daddy blog smonkyou.com. He has been pretty close to vegan for over 20 years. He’s always been interested in eco living but his with the birth of his first son he and his wife Staci have been trying to make it a larger part of their life.