The Crunch Factor

Photo Credit: norwichnuts

Earlier this week, Mr. S. saw my "About Me" section on the sidebar and asked me what "semi-crunchy" meant.  Without thinking too much about the question, I answered, "You know, crunchy but not...way crunchy."  Then I realized he probably knew what "semi" meant but was lost on the "crunchy" part. This got me talking about granola, which made me think of Gretchen on Project Runway, and then I just got angry - but I digress.

There is a heaping ton of crunchiness among moms on the internet.  Sometimes it seems like everyone claims to be a little crunchy, but no one wants to own up to being totally crunchy.  I saw one mom's Twitter profile a while back where she described herself as "crunchy...but not crunchier than thou." (I don't remember who said that, but I kind of loved it.)

So, how crunchy am I?  Well, I love:

• Breastfeeding.  Foo has been breastfeeding for 19 months now and will probably continue well into toddler-hood.  Our families started to deem this weird at about 9 months, so they probably think we're total freaks now.
• Co-sleeping.  We didn't originally plan on co-sleeping, but once I had gone about three months without getting more than two hours of sleep at a time, we sort of fell into it out of necessity.  (Learning to nurse in the side-lying position saved my sanity). 
• Organic foods.  We were really strict about this in the beginning.  When Foo started solids, we wouldn't let him eat anything except jars of Earth's Best organic baby food.  This ended up being not very practical and really expensive, so we've loosened up a bit.

On the other hand, I think I lose all crunchy cred for:

• Circumcising.  I let Mr. S. make this decision since I felt he was probably more experienced with these types of things.
• Vaccinating.  Foo gets vaccinated, although he is intentionally a little bit behind schedule.
• Disposable diapering.  I work full-time, and in the beginning, Mr. S. was the full-time parent, so I let him decide about diapers.  Now that Foo is in daycare, it's hardly an option anyway.  If I were to be a SAHM one day, I would prefer to try cloth, although I hate laundry, so I don't know if it would last.

 Where are you on the crunchy mom spectrum?