For those who are wondering about the term “crunchy” or “crunchy granola,” in general it refers to the hippy-type tree-huggers, people who eat organic, recycle, usually very left-wing. In terms of parenting it refers to those mamas who do attachment parenting, cloth diapering, baby-wearing, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, etc.

I don’t really consider myself fully crunchy. I’m lax on the recycling, I certainly eat meat and dairy, though I do try to buy organic when possible (it tastes better and is better for you!). With the baby I do seem to fall into the typical crunchy categories… we’re going to be doing cloth diapering, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, breastfeeding, I want an unmedicated birth, etc. And it’s not that I suddenly one day said, “I want to be a crunchy mama!” and then tried to fulfill the various roles. I just, along the way, picked up one thing at a time because it seemed to make sense to me. Breastfeeding? I was raised with the “this is how we feed babies” attitude so I never even questioned that one. Wearing the baby in a sling/wrap? Makes sense to me. Co-sleeping? Makes sense to me (and even Den, who is FAR FAR from crunchy). Cloth diapering… okay, a lot of the reasoning behind that is my desire to recycle/reuse and use natural materials rather than disposables. But there is the aspect of “it just feels better!” (Trust me, I know this from experience – I use cloth pads, remember? ;) )

Oh, and I’m definitely very liberal. ;) If you couldn’t tell, LOL.

Oh, and for heaven’s sake, I work at a cat sanctuary. That by itself is pretty damn crunchy. (The people who work in that field are NEVER there because of the money – there is little – or a power trip – the cats still think they’re gods. They’re there because they believe in the cause, they want to give back, they want to help out. I wouldn’t be there if I didn’t feel like I was making a difference in the world, if I didn’t truly love what I did. I mean, there’s no glory in picking up cat puke day after day. None.)

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Speaking of crunchy…

I joined a new forum a few weeks ago, and it has due date groups. The first thing I saw was a post about birth beads… the members of the group exchange beads, so that they each will have a necklace with one bead on it from each member. The beads are to be of natural materials only: stone, glass, wood, etc. For some reason this drew me in.

It is time to purchase the beads and, while of course I would prefer not to spend a ridiculous amount on some beads to send to people, I want something with meaning. So of course I went right to stone. :) (Which reminds me, I really need to find my amethyst. I’ve had it for years and years, I even purchased a little pouch for it, and for some reason I always kept it near at hand as it was soothing.)

In any case, I have chosen Sodalite:

“Very often, when our emotions are whirling about in our heads we are tempted to seize at any decision which seems to promise that it will reduce our distress. Sodalite helps us to resist such temptation.

This also means that it can help to quiet any doubts you may have about your ability to make a decision, i.e., it quiets the inner critic.”

Sounds like exactly what I need during labor, don’t you think?

As an added plus, it’s very cheap – and all I need to buy is one strand of beads to have enough for everyone. :)