Sheryl Crow had one. Parents magazine raved about them in last March’s issue.  An eco-conscious expecting mother in your life may be hinting for one.  But what is a green baby shower?  It may seem like a ploy to get you to “buy” your way into the green movement.  Are we just trading piles of Pampers and mounds of plastic toys for $50 organic onesies and free-trade rattles?  Maybe.  But it’s also possible to throw an old-fashioned, down-to-earth baby shower that’s simple and eco-friendly.  Here are just a few ideas to celebrate the arrival of a new baby.

Throw a book baby shower.  Don’t forget the Green Baby Guide’s article touting the merits of giving the gift of imagination.  Attendants bring a book or two the child can treasure well after she’s outgrown her bouncy seat.

Try a secondhand fete.  If most of the attendants have had babies in the last few years, a secondhand shower can be an entertaining way to pass treasured belongings from one family to another.  Of course, this idea might not fly with many expecting parents or hosts-but it may be right up a green family’s alley. 

Give the gift of food.  Attendants can bring casseroles, desserts, or snacks that can be frozen until the bundle of joy arrives.  Exhausted new parents don’t have to spend time cooking during the first couple weeks or months with a newborn. 

Leave the shower out of baby shower.  It’s possible to have a party with friends, family, and games without involving gifts.  Participants can even write out wishes or blessings for the new addition that the host can make into a keepsake book.  Or circumvent the baby shower ritual altogether and involve friends and family in a picnic, hike, or other decidedly non-showery celebration.

It’s possible to throw a baby shower for expecting parents without busting your budget on so-called eco-friendly food, decorations, and presents.  A simple gathering of friends and family can accomplish the most important part of a shower’s purpose: welcoming a new baby into the world.

Any green baby shower ideas we forgot?  Post a comment!

If you’ve read my Earth Day resolution post, you know that I’m trying to lose two hundred and fifty pounds.  The Toyota Four Runner that we’ve been graciously allowed to borrow for the last seven years needs to be sold and we want to replace it with a more earth-friendly vehicle. 

Our challenge is to find a safe, reliable, fuel-efficient vehicle for between six and eight thousand dollars.  We’d like to have something that we can pile miles on for trips around town so that we keep our other car, a newer Toyota Camry, stowed away in the garage for most of the year.  Unfortunately we don’t all fit in the very NmG electric car pictured to the right. 

Originally we were thinking of buying a van or a crossover vehicle for the cargo space.  My mom helped us solve this dilemma by inspiring us to add a trailer hitch to one of our cars for around one hundred dollars.  We can rent a trailer for cheap whenever we need the space, but save loads of money on gas by driving a more compact vehicle. 

Here are some tips I’ve discovered so far in my search:

Narrow down your make and model: We began our search by thinking about the type of car we wanted to purchase.  Since Hondas and Toyotas offer the most reliable and fuel efficient options, we have narrowed our options down to either a Corolla or a Civic.  We’d love a Matrix or a Vibe but they’re a bit out of our price range.

Carefully check gas mileage for each year: In the beginning I wanted an older car with very low miles so that we can drive it forever, but I’ve found that each model year has different gas mileage.  For example, a 1992 Toyota Corolla gets just 23 miles per gallon in the city and 26 on the highway, while a 2001 model gets 27 mpg in town and 36 on the freeway.  That’s a tremendous difference! The best site for checking gas mileage of every vehicle around is here. 

Consider Safety: The other option to consider is that older models often don’t have the safety features of the more recent years.  We’re looking for a compact car from the late nineties or newer that’s safe enough to carry our precious toddler cargo.  This is a great site for checking crash test ratings.

Buy from a private party: We’d never find what we’re looking for at a car dealership for the amount of money we’d like to spend, but we will find it when buying directly from another car owner.  Private party price on Kelley Blue Book is often several thousand less than retail.  Plus we have the added benefit of being able to personally speak with the owner and find out more about the history of the car. 

Look in a variety of places: Honestly, this tends to make me a bit obsessive-compulsive, but it’s good to check Craigslist regularly just to compare and see what’s out there.  I’ve also looked the newspaper and some small, free publications here in town.

Use Carfax: For a nominal twenty-something dollars we can check the full accident and ownership history of a car and find out if there have been any odometer rollbacks.  

Get it checked out by a mechanic: One owner assured us that the car had been thoroughly cared for its whole life.  Our mechanic disagreed when he discovered the original spark plugs hadn’t been replaced after 72,000 miles of use.  Whew!  We’re glad we were able to dodge a potential lemon. 

Go with your gut: If I feel desperate to get the car, I know I’m not making a wise decision.  We have found that with our first car purchase as a couple we both had a great instinct about the vehicle that we ended up buying.  That’s the feeling that we’re looking for this second time.

I’ll keep you posted on our car buying escapades but mainly I’m interested in your tips.  If you’ve discovered a safe, inexpensive and fuel-efficient vehicle that I haven’t thought of yet, I’d love to hear about it! 

A few years ago when I was pregnant with Roscoe, I had a sudden Saturday urge to grow zucchini and hustled off to the hardware store to buy the wares for a small raised bed.  I sat in our driveway with the drill and awkwardly put together a rather pathetic little garden box that has nonetheless yielded some beautiful basil and tomatoes over the last few summers.  In this photo Roscoe is trying to prevent the weed-filled bed from being captured on film. 

This year with the help of my neighbors, I plan on putting together a more respectable raised bed.  Although I could just plop the plants in the dirt, raised beds provide excellent drainage for plants and also allow you to heap in all your own rich new soil. 

If you’d like directions on how to build one yourself, go to this website and check it out.  Then get some dirt, dump in those plants and see what happens.  (One tip: some websites recommend using pressure treated wood or painting the wood with stain, but you might not want those chemicals leaching into your plants.  We just chose to skip that step.)

If you have lawn you’d like to cover with raised beds, you don’t have to worry about digging out the sod.  Our neighbors gave us the great tip of going to a bike shop and getting large cardboard boxes.  Simply place the boxes along the bottom of your raised beds to stop the grass from growing up through your garden.  Then pile the dirt on top and you’re ready to go!

Squash, sweet potatoes, zucchini,  cauliflower, and sweet peas are just a few of the plants that you can easily turn into organic baby food as they are harvested.  Remember that home-prepared spinach, beets, turnips, carrots or collard greens shouldn’t be fed to babies younger than six months because of the high level of nitrates they contain. 

If you need further inspiration to grow your own organic vegetables, check out Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  It documents her family’s year of living off the land and is full of her rich and often funny descriptive writing.  You’ll also find yourself motivated to hit the farmer’s market and maybe even plant your own asparagus.  Enjoy the sunshine!

One thing I wondered when I was pregnant was what everyone was carrying around in those huge diaper bags.  I observed moms and dads dragging around overstuffed bags bigger than the carry-on luggage I’d use for a weekend trip.  What the heck did they have in there–fully cooked meals, extra outfits, an entire package of diapers?  I didn’t get it.  And I must admit, I still don’t.  I’ve been a mother for over two years now and have never carried around a diaper bag. 

During my daughter’s first six months or so, I didn’t bring anything with me on outings I knew would last just an hour or two.  I mean, I seriously didn’t bring anything for the baby: not a diaper, a book, a toy.  If I was planning on being gone for longer, I would tuck a Zip-loc bag into my purse. The Zip-loc would contain one extra diaper, another Zip-loc for the wet diaper, and a little baggie with two or three wipes.

Now that my daughter is older, I have to be a little more prepared on outings.  I still use the same Zip-loc/diaper system, but I’ll also bring a small book, a little snack, and a cup.  This all fits in the bag I’d normally carry around–a regular bag, not a diaper bag.

I know diaper bags don’t have to be gigantic pink bags appliquéd with teddy bears and ducks.  Hey, there are even some stylish, eco-friendly bags out there, like this messenger bag (pictured) I found on Zoe B Organics.  I wanted to avoid an extra purchase, and I never minded being diaper-bag free.

But I still want to know: what do YOU keep in that jumbo diaper bag?!

If both parents have demanding careers and multiple children, how do they manage things like washing cloth diapers, composting, making healthy dinners and spending time with baby? There are also some single parents out there who are handling full-time schedules and parenting while keeping the planet in mind. How do they do it?  I am utterly in awe of people who can juggle so much without feeling overwhelmed. 

My husband and I both work thirty-some hours per week and yet we find the balance of a two career family rather precarious at times. Over the last few weeks illness and injury has made the daily challenge of laundry and homemade dinners seem ever greater.   I often long for take-out, or look lustfully at the frozen entrees in the grocery store,  knowing that those convenience items are designed for the hectic, dual income family.  Even though I’m often overwhelmed,  I don’t want to give into the urge to buy disposable, convenience items, saving time while potentially harming the planet.  At this point it seems we should be able to handle some extra time for green choices since we have just one child, we both work equally hard on domestic tasks, and neither of us are working full time.

I’ve been wondering lately if it would actually be greener for one of us to quit working outside the home. It’s hard to say, but I do have visions of myself cooking up batches of homemade yogurt, biking everywhere with our son, and canning veggies that I’ve grown in our organic garden. On the other hand, I know from having summers off, that the reality of staying home is much more challenging and less productive than I imagine.  It’s WONDERFUL having lots of fun with my son, but I haven’t yet managed to weave organic clothing from the cotton that’s sprouted in my backyard. 

Since my teaching job provides our health insurance, I don’t foresee taking a leave of absence anytime soon. We just might find in the years to come that my husband is the one to be home with the children, which would still provide us with lots of family time to share during school breaks and holidays.

Really it isn’t fair to pick a winner in the working vs. stay-at-home debate since there are so many creative solutions available to families today.  Many parents have found ways to work at home, work part time, or take a leave of absence for a few years before heading back to their jobs. There is no absolutely right or wrong option, but it definitely seems like having more time at home allows parents to enjoy a more earth-friendly lifestyle.  Since summer is just a few weeks away, I’m counting the days until I get to enjoy a few months of stay-at-home motherhood—even if it’s just as a temp. 

Now we’ve written about avoiding plastics in baby care products, teethers, and toys.  Parents left and right are freaking out about all the possible health risks associated with some plastics.  You may be one of them.  I try not to freak out over everything I read, but I have become more aware of the preponderance of plastic in my life.  I even have a kind of hazy goal involving eliminating plastic from my house entirely.  But where do I even start? 

Okay, so purging the house of plastic may sound overwhelming, but there are little things you can do to start replacing it with other materials.  I try to limit my plastic consumption one step at a time.  When I needed new food storage containers, for example, I opted for glass.  (Stay tuned for yet another installment in my plastic saga: Eliminating Plastic Containers.)

I’ve also started figuring out which plastics are “bad” and which ones are okay.  National Geographic’s Green Guide has an article about how to tell the good plastics (numbers 1, 2, 4, 5) from the bad: numbers 3, 6, and 7.  They also have a down-loadable “Smart Shoppers’ Plastic Picks” card available through the above link.

Glad freezer and sandwich bags are phthalate-free

I’ve been using ceramic or glass to microwave foods for a while now.  Freezing and microwaving causes phthalates to leach into foods.  “Microwave Safe” only means the plastic won’t melt–it does not necessarily mean it’s “safe” to eat foods microwaved in them.  Softer plastics such as Ziplock bags are more likely to be phthalate-free than harder plastics, so freezing in bags may be a better choice than freezing in plastic containers.  According to this website, Ziploc regular and freezer bags, Glad sandwich and freezer bags, Hefty OneZip bags, Glad Cling, and Saran Cling Plus are all phthalate-free.

One day I’m sure I’ll have that beautiful, plastic-free house of my dreams.  All of my storage containers will be glass.  All of my furniture will be wooden (yes, I have plastic furniture–it was free!).  And I will hand-carve all of my daughter’s toys out of twigs that have fallen to the ground.  Until that day, though, I will just take it one step at a time. 

Every time I pull the plug on Roscoe’s bath, it pains me to watch several gallons of relatively clean water vanish down the drain.  Perhaps this angst is inherited from my resourceful mother, who always transferred our bathwater to the washing machine for a load of laundry after we were tucked into bed.  She currently keeps a bucket in her shower at all times to capture water for use in her garden but she wishes that there was a better solution for all that gray water waste. 

Thanks to Brac Systems, an innovative Canadian company, there is!  They have designed a grey water recovery system that filters bathwater and redirects it for use in toilets.  The entire system costs just a few thousand dollars (plus installation) but Brac claims that the system could save people up to 40% of their water bill costs.  It’s possible to redirect the water for landscaping use as well and to use the system to harvest rainwater. 

Since my life is too complicated for a new Brac System at this time, I’ve turned to simpler solutions for saving bath water in the short run. 

• We wash Roscoe’s cloth diaper covers in his leftover bath water. 

• I sometimes soak my toes in his tub, getting a mini-pedicure while he plays.

• Roscoe uses his bathwater as a beverage.  (Gross I know!  We’re working on this.)

• A few nights a week, Roscoe showers with daddy to save water and time.

• Rebecca opts for weekly baths for her toddler, saving at least 120 gallons of water a week by forgoing a daily tub time.

• Some people use leftover bath water to flush toilets.  They leave a bucket in the bathroom, scoop up some leftover bath water and pour it into the toilet, activating the flush mechanism.    

Roscoe accrues enough grime in a day to truly create his own gray water.  Someday it shall all end up watering our petunias or supplying our toilets.  Until then, we shall dutifully do our best to make it a darker shade of gray before it goes down the drain.  For a huge list of simple tips that just might make your Wednesday a little easier, go to Rocks In My Dryer.  

Growing up, frugality was more of a lifestyle than a choice. Even though my parents didn’t necessarily practice penny pinching with the environment in mind, many of their cost-saving practices were eco-friendly as well.  My sister and I thought that showering consisted of getting wet, turning off the water to “soap up” and then following with a quick rinse.  We flattened aluminum cans for the recycling bin and took the compost out without any realization that we were helping the environment.  However, through the practice of penny pinching we did learn that our resources are precious.

Although it may sound like I lived a horribly deprived childhood, the truth is that many of our thrifty practices were quite adventurous. Instead of going to Maui, my family spent our vacations camping in Oregon rainforests or visiting relatives, where we often set up sleeping bags on the living room floor.  On car trips we had picnics at rest areas rather than swinging through fast food restaurants.  No one in my family ever belonged to a gym, but we enjoyed nightly moonlit family beach walks near my home to stay healthy and enjoy the outdoors. 

Roscoe Goes Beachwalking 

Now that I’m in my mid thirties, I’ve learned to appreciate my quirky saving skills and all the benefits they’ve brought to me over the years. Having the ability to prioritize my values and then differentiate between wants and needs has been an extremely helpful skill.  I was able to pay off huge graduate school loans in four years on a starting teacher’s salary because of extreme (and sometimes neurotic) tightwaddery. Most of the time, all that penny pinching had huge advantages for the environment as well.  I biked for transportation whenever possible and bought most of my clothing at thrift shops.  To cut grocery costs, I ate very little meat and rarely purchased convenience foods.

As a parent, I find that all that self-restraint ends up providing personal freedom in more ways than one. Financially, it has allowed us the freedom to take more time with our son and relax about the costs of having a child.  We want to model thriftiness and living simply right from the start with Roscoe.

With that in mind, we outfitted most of Roscoe’s nursery with used furniture, dress him in quality hand-me-downs and use cloth diapers.  Roscoe doesn’t eye his crib with disdain and will never care that another soul has worn his clothes before him, but the cost savings are phenomenal.

Even though as a teenager I swore I would live a more luxurious life someday, I now have a great appreciation for my frugal roots.  When Roscoe grows up a bit and resents the simple life, I’ll remind myself that in the long run, we’re giving him the gift of self-reliance, self-restraint, and an environment that’s just a little bit cleaner.

Roscoe Enjoys Cost-Free Fun on The Playground Slide 

It takes almost no time to whip up a batch of pancakes from scratch.  Pancakes from a mix are filled with chemicals you don’t want your kids to eat, and they come in packaging you have to recycle or throw out.  For even speedier homemade pancakes, Joy explained how pre-mixing the dry ingredients can save even more time.  

The version I use is adapted from the Joy of Cooking’s basic recipe.  I use 100% whole wheat pastry flour.  The pancake is a fairly versatile food–you can experiment with different flours and milks if your kids don’t eat wheat or dairy.  I’ve even forgotten the eggs and had them turn out all right!

This recipe is suitable for babies and kids over one year old.
 

Whole Wheat Pancake Recipe

Preheat griddle.

Mix together in a large bowl:

1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour (or even regular whole wheat flour)

3 tablespoons sugar

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

In another bowl, mix together:

1 ½ cups milk

3 tablespoons butter, melted

2 eggs

Combine wet and dry ingredients, gently whisk together, and cook pancakes on the griddle.

Pancakes are endlessly adaptable.  Add blueberries, raisins, spices, or nuts to boost nutrition or calories.  I make a whole batch and keep leftovers in the fridge or freezer, then reheat them in the toaster oven for quick snacks.  My daughter, who has always hovered at the lower end of the growth charts, can eat up to four pancakes at a sitting.

I think I finally did it: I found an object that embodies the Green Baby Guide’s motto.  The humble pancake saves time, money, and the planet.

One side effect of going green is an enlarged sense of moral superiority.  I have to admit that I fall prey to this every time I pull out my fabric grocery bags at the supermarket.  The other shoppers stare with envy at my grungy canvas sacks, wishing that they had the wherewithal to save the planet while buying cottage cheese, breakfast cereal, and a few dozen eggs.  O.K.—the truth is, they don’t even notice, but I’m so busy basking in the glory of a fulfilled Earth Day resolution that I like to imagine the admiration of my shopping peers.

In reality the only person who is impressed by my canvas bags is me and that’s how resolutions really should work.  If we can find solutions to our green dilemmas the shift will end up ultimately making us happier than anyone else.  In the year to come, I’m going to pick just a few goals and then go from there.  I want to actually set reasonable expectations for myself so that I can accomplish them in the midst of parenting, working, writing and enjoying this very full life.

#1 Potty Train Roscoe Using Cloth Pull-Ups:  Of course, Roscoe may or may not approve of this one, but I’m looking forward to experimenting with all the great washable potty-training products on the market.  Although cloth diapers are decidedly better than disposables, all diapers have a huge planetary impact so I’m looking forward to a diaper-free future.  Did I mention how excited I am about avoiding all those extra loads of laundry?

#2  Find a good grocery solution:  Do I shop at the employee-owned big-box grocery store with rock bottom prices or the elite supermarket with fancy lighting and seventeen brands of goat cheese?  One has more organic options but they come with extreme expense. Perhaps I should rotate between the two or supplement by going to farmer’s markets or picking my own produce. I may end up joining a community farm and getting organic fruits and veggies delivered to my door each week.  This year I vow to find a system that works for my green conscience and my budget!

#3 Switch almost all the bulbs in my home to compact fluorescents:  The research I’ve done on compact fluorescents shows that the cost and energy savings are quite substantial.  Some of the fixtures in my home use small decorative bulbs, but I did find some smaller bulbs that come as compact fluorescents for sale on the Web.  Also, check out Ikea’s selection of economical compact fluorescents. 

#4 Find a creative solution for fuel efficiency:  We are planning on replacing a truck with another vehicle this year.  I have considered a vintage diesel car that runs on vegetable oil or a small fuel-efficient vehicle, but we do lots of remodeling/landscaping and need something that can be loaded with stuff.  Is there any such thing as a turbo, Biodiesel van that’s safe, dependable and economical?  If so, I shall find it!

Although my list is short, I seem to find that small changes always cause momentum that spills over into other areas of my life.  I’ll start small and keep you posted on my successes (and failures!).