Valentine’s Day means chocolate, romance, and roses.  Wait.  That was before parenting!  Now it involves sleeplessness, breastfeeding, spit up, and cloth diaper changes.  Today I’m thinking of all of you with sincere endearment as you bravely slog your way through the challenges of early parenting.

Although those exhilarating and exhausting first months as a mother aren’t exactly romantic, they are infused with a love like no other.  You may not be treated to a violin serenade, but you will get gooey kisses, cuddles, and toothless grins.  If you are lucky enough to squeeze in a date or even a truffle, kudos to you!  You deserve every bit of love sent in your direction today.

On this green hued holiday, the best gifts won’t come in boxes or cellophane.  The divine offerings of free babysitting, the opportunity to nap, and maybe even the chance to sit in a hot tub for ten minutes are ultimately the most thoughtful.  If none of those things happen today, I hope you can be grateful to join this wonderful and difficult profession of motherhood.  Caress your babe’s silky cheek, smell the top of her head, and savor the moments that will fly by in a haze.  Now that my babies are four and nearly two, I miss those early, oxytocin-infused days.  Enjoy!

We love Celebrate Green, a website (and book) written by a mother-daughter team who bring eco-friendly values to every holiday.  Read their Valentine’s Day Post if you’re looking for a last minute idea for your child.  Here’s a hint: make your chocolate gifts more about quality than quantity.

Organic chocolates? Organic, local flowers? Or just a simple night at home with soy candles and some toothsome homemade concoction? How will you celebrate Valentine’s Day to show how much you love the planet?

I would be baking my famous chocolate beet cake . . . if my Valentine didn’t hate beets in every form imaginable.

What are the green parenting obstacles for your family?  Is it the time to launder and use cloth diapers?  Is it the support of other like-minded families?  Is it trying to breastfeed while working full time?

For us, it’s a limited budget.  There are so many areas where going green saves us heaps of cash, as we point out in The Eco-nomical  Baby Guide.  I revel in the fact that shopping at thrift stores, riding our bikes, and using public transport have economic, environmental, and health benefits.  But it’s tricky for me to expand our grocery budget (which is already our highest monthly bill) on organic food. We eat less meat, less packaged foods, and more bulk foods, but it would be lovely to dine on fully organic foods at all times.

I also dream of a solar hot water heater and a hybrid car, but those aren’t conducive with a one income lifestyle.

So what do we do?  I’ve chosen to embrace our limitations.  If we had heaps of cash, we’d probably naturally consume more.  Our budget keeps us in this cozy home and lends a frugally adventurous element to our family life.

Plastic bags multiply like rabbits, then stick around for all eternity. So a few months ago I asked you what you use instead of plastic bags to store vegetables in the refrigerator. It turns out that many of you had the same problem–and several great solutions, which I compiled in ten ways to help you cut down on plastic bags.

My latest veggie delivery arrived with a big, leafy bunch of chard and some cilantro. With my goal of eliminating plastic bags in mind, I snipped their stems and placed them in glasses of water. No plastic bags and no refrigeration were required to keep this produce fresh for over a week! Instead of languishing in the crisper drawer, they sat proudly on the kitchen counter. I’m calling it Produce Art, or perhaps Veggie Decor.

A final tip on creating Produce Art of your own: if you find the leaves wilting, simply trim the ends and replace the water. They’ll revive in under an hour.

What is Indiebound, you ask?  It’s a great way to support local bookshops without having to haul yourself away from your keyboard.  Simply search for any book through Indiebound, and it will be shipped to you directly from your closest independent bookstore.

What is The Eco-nomical Baby Guide?  It’s our entertaining and educational treatise on eco-friendly, budget friendly living with a baby in tow.  In fact, our frugal, green lifestyles helped each of us save over five thousand dollars on each of our babies’ first year, while staying true to our environmental ideals.  There’s hilarious humor, there are tips from the cloth diapering trenches, and there are hundreds of ways to keep the waves of plastic blinky toys at bay.  In fact, it’s pure, practical genius!  (Of course, we may be biased…)

We’re honored that The Eco-nomical Baby Guide is currently available on the shelves of hundreds of independent bookstores across the country.  If it hasn’t hit store shelves at your favorite book shop or local library, please feel free to request it.

Please let me know how you stay motivated to do all those little things that may take a bit of extra effort to help the environment. I have to admit that lately I’ve been slipping . . . relying on the dryer too much, going wild with the plastic produce bags, wasting food. What has happened to me? How do I get back on track?!

I made these easy DIY Valentines with my five-year-old daughter using wrapping paper scraps. Magazine pages would work just as well. I simply cut out a heart from the patterned paper. Then, I cut out a larger paper heart from colored paper.  Glue the smaller heart onto the larger one, and use scissors to create scalloped or spiky edges. My daughter then used glitter glue to decorate around the edges–that part is optional.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here at Greenbabyguide.com, we’re celebrating our fourth Valentine’s Day and we have a wealth of vintage posts to help you celebrate love with a green tinge.  DIY Paper Heart Valentines are simple and lovely and our Eco-friendly Valentine Baby Gift Ideas would be great picks for any tiny bundle of love.

If you’re short on time, consider Last Minute Homemade Valentine’s Day Cards for your preschooler’s class.  Those who are willing to have fun making a huge mess will enjoy having baby make Potato Print Valentines.

Indulge your sweet tooth by making Nutritious Valentine’s Day Brownies or try mixing some of your homemade sweet potato purees into some Baby Food Brownies.  (Don’t worry!  They’re for you, not the baby.)

Best of all, celebrate your relationship by planning a Simple, Frugal Valentine’s Day Date. Are you too exhausted for any romantic effort?  You’re not alone!  We know how it is to have Valentine’s Day with A New Baby. On one hand having a newborn is sheer bliss.  On the other hand, conflict and exhaustion.  (And those two states can shift back and forth on an hourly basis.)

Wherever you are in your parenting journey, I wish you rest. (And maybe a bit of chocolate.)  Do you have any plans this Valentine’s Day?