the great cloth diaper change: a charm city mom's recap

We're thrilled to have Mel Cardell, a Charm City Area mom and North Mommies Area Group Moderator for Baltimore Mommies, share her experience at Baltimore's Great Cloth Diaper Change last Saturday. Hosted by Soft and Cozy Baby and Green Spring Diapers, this event aimed to join others happening around the world to set the world record for the greatest number of cloth diapers changed simultaneously AND to put a spotlight on using cloth diapers.A self proclaimed 'crunchie" mom, Mel lucked out at the change... read on to find out how! You can check out photos of the event on Timonium's Patch.com.

There were 41 other parents with their pre-potty-trained youngsters along with me and my 23-month-old son crowded into Hoppin' Tots Children's Gym on Saturday morning. It was neat to see so many "crunchies" along with me, but actually, there was a great mix of folks from all backgrounds, and all parts of Baltimore and beyond, too. What's cool is that in our area, we got to change our diapers at half-past noon. We were lucky. At some of the other 400+ locations participating in this event, it was the middle of the night (think Australia)!

At about 12:20 pm, things started getting serious. We all got our kids into position on our changing mats, stripping their trousers off, and tried to keep them from squirming away. Event organizer Anna Wong, the owner of Green Spring Diapers, counted down the minutes, then seconds, and then we were off! (OK, actually it was the diapers that were off.) We all had to change our babies into cloth diapers that were commercially available (no handmade up-cycled dishrag diapers were allowed), and the kids involved couldn't be more than 39 inches tall. My munchkin definitely qualified, but still seemed one of the older kids. He was very interested in walking around and checking out all the open diaper bags littering the floor.

I was grateful that my kid went from a clean diaper to another clean diaper, but once Anna uttered the words "Change Those Diapers" (the same phrase used worldwide), and the diapers came off, you could tell there were quite a few bottoms that were definitely ready for a fresh diaper. Whew!

Then the door prizes were announced. We didn't win anything, but didn't leave empty handed, either. We got a reusable cloth shopping bag with the Great Cloth Diaper Change logo and some valuable coupons and samples from some earth- and kid-friendly local businesses. And a handful of scribbled phone numbers of like-minded parents so we can set up some future playdates!