Great Cloth Diaper Challenge

On Saturday, April 21st, Allison and Vanessa participated in the Great Cloth Diaper Change. Vanessa learned of the event via the Goddard School’s weekly newsletter and thought it would be something fun for them to participate in, network at, and blog about. The Great Cloth Diaper Change was an attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records record for the most cloth diapers changed at one time and was hosted by local Austin business, Green Leaf Baby.  Green Leaf Baby is an online resource for all things natural parenting.  Aside from the fact that Allison uses cloth diapers and DIYs a lot of things to save some money…there is nothing “natural” about the way either of us parent…however…we thought it would be fun to mingle amongst the natural mamas of Austin.

Here is a run down {Law and Order style in honor of Vanessa’s favorite drama} of how our day went:

10:00 am-Allison Calls Vanessa

Allison: What are you wearing to this thing?

Vanessa: Jeans, a top from Forever 21, and greasy hair.

Allison: Okay, I want to make sure I’m not too over the top.

Vanessa: You’ll be fine.

10:35 am-Vanessa Arrives at Allison’s

Vanessa: We match.

Allison: I guess we do, oh well.

Vanessa: Your shirt is see through.

Allison: I know…it’s fine though…Wesley approved.

Note: This is important, we promise.

10:58 am-We Arrive at The Goddard School for the Great Cloth Diaper Change

10:59 am- We quickly change Caroline out of a disposable diaper and into one of Lincoln’s cloth diapers so we can “look the part” and not offend anyone at the event.  THANK GOD we did this.  Vanessa would have been kicked out of this shin dig.

11:00 am- We start walking towards Goddard School to get checked in

Allison holds Lincoln’s right hand and they walk to the passenger side of the car to collect her bags. Allison hears Vanessa lock the car doors (like she always does before anyone is out of the car). Allison goes to shut the passenger door just as Lincoln places his left hand on the door to open it. SLAM!!!! Lincoln’s tiny hand is literally slammed in the car door and the door is locked and won’t open.

Allison- Screaming hysterically “Open it, open it, open it…Oh My God, open it!!!!!!”

Lincoln- Mouth gaped open, stunned, and shocked is starting to scream and cry.

Vanessa- High pitched and frantic “What? What? Oh my God, the keys”.

Vanessa unlocks the car door and Allison flings the door open, scoops up Lincoln screaming “oh my God” and runs into Goddard School.

Not skipping a beat, Vanessa says “I’ll check us in”!

Allison runs into Goddard School where an employee runs in after her screaming “We need Butch!!!!” ( Butch is the owner of Goddard School-Cedar Park.)

Butch and Allison begin applying ice to Lincoln’s hand. Lincoln is hysterical, Allison is hysterical, and Vanessa and Caroline are checking in the AMB team for the Great Diaper Change.

11:05 am-Vanessa and Caroline find Lincoln and Allison (everyone is still crying) and suggest going to Caroline’s classroom to calm down

After a few minutes of book reading, toy playing, and mashing on Lincoln’s hand to make sure it wasn’t broken, everyone was finally calm.

You can see the bruising on Lincoln’s left hand in this picture–Please don’t call CPS on Allison.

11:10 am-We mosey on over to the main event after three {Caroline was unaffected by the above} mini-heart attacks

There wasn’t a lot of verbal dialogue between us at this point, it was mostly this 100% understood exchange of looks. We walked in to a room full of Austin mommies and daddies (and their cloth diaper wearing babies) who were hanging out in sweats, most with little to no-make upon, some who were openly nursing and all who looked at us like we came from a completely different mom planet. They were definitely not there to network or possibly be featured on Austin Moms Blog and we were most certainly out of place in our mom-flats, curled hair, and fresh make-up.

11:20 am- Sitting down

We quietly sat down on the outskirts of what seemed to be an exclusive circle {think 3rd grade waiting for school to start type circle and we weren’t the “cool” kids} and waited for someone to spark up conversation with us {we’d still be waiting}.

Allison captured some super cute pics of the kids…mostly of Lincoln feeding Caroline gold fish and we giggled at each other thinking “what the hell were we thinking?”

The countdown continued with lots of chatter in the inner circle, lots of mommies looking around at all the cloth diapers, and nobody wanting to talk to the uncool moms from Austin Moms Blog. And don’t think we didn’t try! Even with Lincoln’s hand being slammed in a car door, gold fish being spread out all over the floor, and us in our jeans that were too tight to be sitting down on the floor, we were still TRYING to spark conversations with other fellow moms!

11:25 am- The waiting continues

At this point children began getting antsy. There was a 5 year old in the corner of the room having a complete meltdown, which was only made to be more awkward by all of the parents continuing to look back at the “situation”. {Note to all parents: We’ve all been there with the tantrum throwing child so don’t stare!}. There was an 9-12 month old freaking out by being forced to stay in one spot, children were trying to crawl all over the place and honestly, this was the longest 10 minutes of our lives as we impatiently waited for the clock to strike 11:30 am and the Diaper Change to begin.

11:28 am- The coordinator for the event came in and told us to begin getting our children ready for the change

Maybe we are just fast changers, but we had our kiddos stripped from the waist down and cloth diapers unbuttoned in 30 seconds. We were then forced to wait an additional minute and a half with our squirmy 1/2 naked tots {Lincoln began to tinkle at one point} and other annoyed children.

11:30 am- The whistle blows–it’s time to start changing

We can only assume that because there was a whistle involved in this process, everyone thought it was some kind of race. Allison was throwing Lincoln’s legs in the air to get the diaper under him, Vanessa was frantically trying to figure out the newness of the whole cloth diaper thing, and other parents were rushing as well. Finally the coordinator said “take your time, this isn’t a race” and everyone chilled out a bit.

We took pictures holding our cloth diapers up, took pictures after the event holding our kids in their cloth diapers, and the deed was done! We were going down in history and would be a part of the Guinness Book of World Records!!! Or so we thought.

 

Caroline & Lincoln sport their Fuzzibunz Cloth Diapers

 

 

The coordinator came in and thanked everyone for participating, but went on to explain that they only had 24 children who had participated and that 25 was needed in order to be in the Records.

SERIOUSLY!!!???? You’re kidding, right!!!????

Don’t worry the story ends happily. We received an email later in the afternoon explaining that one mama had two children with her that participated, but unfortunately they had only counted 1 child so we did in fact have 25 participants and thus, would be a part of the Guinness Book of World Records!!!

All in all the event was fun and something we are happy we participated in. If anything, we’re glad we have a fun story to share with you all! Had the sequence of events gone differently we think our overall experience would have been different. Had Allison not slammed Lincoln’s hand in the car door, had we not made our grande hysterically screaming entrance, had we dressed in work out clothes and gone bare faced, we might have had a different feeling about the remainder of the event. Everything was super organized, the Goddard School was amazing, and now Caroline and Lincoln will go down in history in the Guinness Book of World Records. Will we do it next year? Absolutely, positively, unequivocally, without a shadow of a doubt, undeniably, NOT!!!! We’re 100% supporters of Cloth Diapers and making our world greener one tush at a time, but we’re not quite cool enough to be part of the “natural parenting club.”