The following is guest post written by Joann Hernandez.

While it might not make the Broadway stage, how I explained cloth diapers to my husband is worth notable mention.

From the moment I looked into the eyes of my most cherished gift, our baby, I could almost see mountains of disposable diapers ringing across his future horizon like the Rockies. Just not as beautiful. I could almost hear bulldozers huffing and puffing as they maneuvered giant landfills of disposable baby diapers into a new addition to the Disposable Diaper Mountain Range. I realized beneath a tiny powdered bottom lay a future diaper mountain. By all accounts, disposables do not begin stages of final breakdown for more generations than my infant would know. The only problem was explaining to my mod husband realities of using cloth rather than disposable diapers.

I worked out the script in my mind and even rehearsed a few lines with my baby who acted as if it was a bizarre maternal rite of parenting. By dinnertime, my script was memorized. All actors and actresses know how important it is to deliver their lines with perfect timing. For me, that would be after our little one was tucked in for the night and before the news blared away on TV.

I took a deep breath and began,
"Uh, honey. I've been thinking..." (Instant wrinkling of my husband's brow. If there is one way never to start an explanation, it was with those 5 words. Oh well. On to the business at hand.)
"Yes, and what were you thinking?", The Light of My Life asks.
"It's time we switched to cloth diapers," say I intrepidly.
"Cloth Diapers!?? Won't be more work for you? Aren't they be a little smelly? How about disposal of the "contents"? Surely, you want to rethink this, don't you?"
"Well see, dear...It's like this. Maybe our grandmas had the right idea. They hung cloth diapers out on the line and allowed them to air dry in fresh, clean breezes," I opined.
"And when it rains or snows? Then what?", Hubby asks.

Men! Why do they make a simple little conversion to cloth diapers sound so difficult?
"Oh, I would use the dryer for that, for sure," I said.
"How sanitary will that be? It' s not like having a fresh, clean change of diapers as with disposables, you know," Himself points out.
"Honey, they will be very sanitary before they get to the dryer," I reply.

No one told me at this point in the script convincing a somewhat germaphobic husband would be this laborious. I try again.
"Well, I'm thinking about when our baby has children of his own. Will there be another mountain added to the Disposable Diaper Mountain Range that keeps amassing will each new baby born today?"

"How will I learn to diaper our baby? You know how easy it is with disposables. Don't we need to use diaper pins to hold those things together? What if one of them opens and our baby gets hurt?", he asks.

"Dear, I am sure that diaper pins today are not like the ones our grandmothers used for our mothers and fathers. Look, I bought a "pretend" pair so you can see easy they are to use. See here? This is what today's cloth diapers are like," say I.

The room grows quieter than a tomb. Two thick dark eyebrows knit together in deep study of a set of diaper pins while the cloth diaper is brushed against his six o'clock shadow. "I see what you mean. Honey, I'm sold. Let's go out and get a couple of dozen tomorrow," he says.