"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." - G.Marx

No poop today that I'm aware of.  Poop yesterday (and Evan's Daddy made me clean it up, the rat bastard - what does he think I am, the mommy or something??), but (blessedly) no poop Saturday while we were on the road.

(someday I will tell you the secret of why this poop tracking is so important, and why cleaning it up is a job more noxious than poop duty is for most parents....  But today is not that day.)

I'm afraid that I am a bad liberal.

I was considering how bad a liberal I am this evening as I was buying certified organic milk in a real glass bottle, and was paying through the nose for it.

You see, left to my own devices, I would buy much more organic and whole food than we normally have in the house, but Evan's Dad feels the expense and difficulty of doing so doesn't justify the end product, so the compromise in our relationship is that things that I buy that only I will eat (like this whole milk I'm gleefully drinking, or most vegatables, or Ice Cream) I can buy organic so long as I pay for them.  Other stuff, or anything he buys, however, will be whatever he feels is the best value at the time.  He understands that once the Little Guy is old enough to eat food, that food will probably be as much organic as I can get away with, at least at the start, and I think he's ok with that.

But then there are the diapers.  We were given a starter set of GDiapers when the Little Guy was born, and I love them and use them when I can (although I find they don't work well for overnight).  But I'm reluctant to foist flushable diapers on our daytime caregiver (she has other babies in the house and the changing station isn't set up near the bathroom), so he spends most of his day in disposables.  For that purpose I would prefer to buy and use Seventh Generation diapers, but...

(and here's where the Bad Liberal part comes in)

... the Little Guy's Grandmother buys us a package of diapers (usually Huggies brand) just about every week.  They are retired military and as such get to buy stuff at the base commisary at a greatly reduced price.  So in the nearly three months since the Little Guy was born, we've yet to buy a package of diapers, and we do, in fact, have a ton of diapers sitting in the closet awaiting use.  I've even given away a bunch of unopened packages of newborns and size 1s to the local women's shelter, as the Little Guy outgrew them before we had a chance to open them.

Now, were I a Good Liberal, I would do one of two things:

+ I would look a gift horse in the mouth and ask her to buy Seventh Generation instead of the brands she's buying us now, or...
+ I would donate all her gift diapers to said women's shelter and spend my own money on the diapers I prefer.

I have not, however, done either of these things.  Partly I don't want to rock the boat - the ones she buys are name brands that work well, and are inexpensive for her - how rude would it be to say "Hey, thanks for the gift but I don't like it, can you keep doing it but buy this other brand instead"??   And, partly, its that we're cheap broke - we have less money than we used to have, so spending money on something I don't need to buy is a luxury I don't have right now.

But another part - a big part - is simple inertia.  I know the two brands I mentioned above are better for the earth, blah, blah, blah, but I'm not committed enough to the "cause" to put my money where my mouth intstinct is.  In this way I am no different than most other typical Americans.  Sure, I do what's easy - for instance, we've stopped shopping at Wal-mart, because it was pretty easy to do so.  But turning down free diapers is hard.

So, while spending $3.00 + on a quart of organic whole milk today I realized that I am, indeed, part of the problem.  Just another lazy American willing to let the planet go to hell in a handbasket all to save a couple of bucks.

Good lord.  Next thing you know I'll be voting Republican.  Oh.  Wait....

Damn.