Whole wheat diapers

A week ago was the one year anniversary of our very good friend Betsy's passing away. She had an amazing way with kids, and we were lucky enough to experience it first hand. She also had such an easy laugh, and I'm remembering some of the things we laughed about. One of them was our choice of disposable diapers. We try to be somewhat environmentally conscious with our purchasing decision, and it's almost impossible to do that with diapers. I won't get into the whole cloth vs disposable debate (for the record, we used cloth for Roel most of the time, but are using disposable for Susanna, but if our plumbing situation weren't so scary, we would definitely be using gdiapers instead -- http://www.gdiapers.com/). Our choice of disposables is Seventh Generation. They're unbleached, so they have a sort of natural, rustic tan-ish color rather than the standard white with the requisite cartoon character to grace baby's tushie. Anyway, we pulled one out in front of Betsy once, and she laughed and called it a "whole wheat diaper". I thought it was the perfect description.

We all miss Betsy. In fact, Roel still asks about her, which surprises me, given that he was only 3 years old the last time he saw her, and you can imagine the amount of growth and change that's packed into an entire year for a kid his age. But I think it's a tribute to Betsy's ability to engage and connect with all people, and with kids in particular.

I also remember two meals that Betsy provided for us. One was at her apartment -- it included roasted chicken and potatoes, but it was the brownies at the end that Roel recently reminded us of. (Why does food always come up in our kid stories!) The other was a meal that Betsy delivered to us soon after Roel's birth. We have an amazing set of friends, many of whom delivered home-cooked meals to us during the time immediately following the birth and between visits from in-laws where we were all alone with our first child, sleep-deprived and shockingly inept at completing even simple household tasks. Betsy brought us a "Mediterranean Salad" (or something like that), and I kid you not, Sheila and I thought it was the best meal of the bunch.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention Betsy and to let her know we're still thinking of her. As I mentioned in my inaugural post, one of the great outcomes of a blog is you get this archive of memories that might otherwise get lost (or at least fade) over time. As we re-read this blog in the coming years, and as our kids (hopefully) read them later in their lives, I hope this entry helps us (and anyone else in that large and lucky group of Betsy's family and friends) to have memories of Betsy that are that much more enduring.