It Ain't Easy Being Green.

I muttered these words like a manic mantra under my breath today during the two hours and change that I wasted trying to find a store that sold cloth diapers in the "great" metropolis of Los Angeles. And, guess what? I came up bare bottomed.

It ain't easy being green . . . in L.A., anyway. That's right, a city of almost 10 million people hasn't managed to muster up a few square feet of floor space devoted to moms who are making a concerted effort at ridding the world's landfills of chemical coated and synthetic gel filled poo pants. Yet, there are more farmer's markets and biodiesel peace bugs than I can shake my diaper pail at.

This past weekend, we lazed away our Sunday afternoon in a snugly lush valley just an hour northeast of here . . . among burning sage, drum circles and barefooted dred daddies bouncing vegan tots on their naked knees. So why, in a west coast city of this size and "perceived" embracement of everything natural and eco, is finding cloth diapers sans the internet so hard to do?

We had been ordering all of our cloth diapering supplies from a mom and pop venture out of Portland, Oregon called Babyworks, since Noah was born. The Owner, Pauline, walked me through the daunting dance of being a new parent and cloth diaper doer with gentle skill. Just the mere thought of venturing out into the world to discern one colorful all-in-one from a waterproof pocket diaper was simply too much to bear during those early months. We had many a long telechat. But now those supplies of early are growing much too tight for the buns and tummy of our sprouting little greenie and we yearn for fresh dooty duty gear.

I, too, am finally ready to physically branch out into the wide expansive universe of reusables and want to peruse the many varieties there are for the pickins'--with my hands, my fingers, my eyes--with all of my five senses, I want to shop. One of the many reasons we chose cloth diapering was to circumvent the wasted energy and resources used for the production, packaging, shipping, etc. of disposables. We longed to buy local. After all, we figured, how hard would it be to find cloth diaper supplies in a city where plenty is it's middle name? But, discovering only one diaper cleaning service in the suburb of Pasadena that was so sub par we decided to scrub our own hemp prefolds should have been more than a subtle clue.

As my search dismally dead ended today at a few wrong numbers of bygone baby stores, I once again had to turn to my trusty mouse and keyboard to quell my cloth diaper yearning. So, Heather and Shannon at the Cloth Diaper Outlet in Springfield Oregon, thank you for making cloth diapering supplies readily available to us lowly residents here in the city of Angels. Apparently, this city's little angels poop in plastic.