Thora Turns 1

On Friday, March 21st, historically the first day of Spring, Thora turned 1 year old.

I'm sure that other parents have said it more accurately, and surely more succinctly, but when I'm caught relishing a moment, like her wonderful smile, and the way she eggs me on to tickle her more, or the saddest face that you've ever seen with a single fat tear sitting suspended on her round cheek, the soundtrack that waivers in the background, or more accurately, from a place in my torso, like the echoing cavern of a guitar, is one of dissonance. Each moment, I am yearning for the future. I think thoughts like, "I can't wait until she gives me hugs," or "Can you imagine what she will say when she can narrate her thoughts?" But at the very same time, I'm aching to preserve her just the way she is. Yes, her smile will be stunning when she has a full set of white teeth. But somehow, at the same moment, I can realize that her funny, lop-sided, jack-o-lantern smile of just 5 teeth is perfect! I love it. I never want it to change. But then... of course I do. Being a mom is at once the most wonderful thing to be and yet it is somehow unbearable. I watch my baby grow smarter and funnier and so gorgeous (she's breath-taking in my eyes), and yet my baby, the little floppy one that I brought home from the hospital, is disappearing with each day. What a complicated, painful, euphoric experience it is being a mom.

Green Things Part 3

Re-Furbishing Diaper Wipes

I know. You're thinking "WHAT? It's the convenience you pay for when you buy wipes. Convenience. What's next? Re-using your kleenex?" Actually, I learned accidentally that wipes could be washed and re-used. I must've unintentionally tossed a wet wipe in with the wet diapers. Because there it was, in the dryer, all fluffed up, clean, but still intact. And then I got to thinking... Since we launder our own cloth diapers, isn't it a bit silly to be throwing all those wipes away. I mean we're washing it all anyway. And for the most part, if they don't catch on some velcro from one of the pocket diapers while they're in the dryer, then the wipes are perfectly re-usable.

At first, I was recycling just a couple every few days, since it took some time to remember to put them in the diaper pail and not the trash. With just a few dry wipes to "reconstitute," the easiest thing to do to get them soaked again with the wipe fluid, was to put them underneath the new wipes in the box. There's usually so much excess liquid in the new wipes that it soaks down through the recycled wipes and they're nice and wet--just like new--by the time I get to them. However, now I'm managing to get almost all of the wipes into the diaper pail for washing and re-use so I've got quite a stack going. And there's far too many of them to merely soak up the excess fluid of the brand new wipes.

So, what to do with all these fluffy, dry wipes? I found a recipe for homemade diaper wipes online, which calls for:
2 T. baby oil
2 T. baby bath or shampoo
2 cups boiled water, then cooled

That's seems VERY easy. And CHEAP. And GREEN! The author of this recipe actually made her own wipes from a roll of paper towel. She could get 2 boxes of wipes with 1 roll of paper towels. To buy a refill 3-pack of wipes costs around $8 or over $2 per pack. If a roll of paper towel costs $1, she would save close to 75% per box when when she made her own wipes.

Which gets me to thinking... I wonder how expensive Seventh Generation paper towels are? Or other paper towels made from recycled paper? Would they be too rough to be used as wipes, even once they've been soaked in the wipe liquid? Hmmm... Although, that may defeat my efforts in my Green Things Part 2 post. Will have to figure this out.

Green Things Part 2

Going Paper-Free... One Step at a Time

I've decided that we should stop using paper napkins and instead use cloth napkins. So far, this has proven practically effortless. We eat dinner in every single night (we're poor AND trying to save to buy our first home one day soon) and so we've gone through an obscene amount of paper napkins. I'm using some nice kitchen washcloths that we were given; they're the perfect size for napkins. And really, we're not THAT messy. We can use one napkin each, for days. However, for some reason, when we were using paper napkins, our efforts to re-use them were always thwarted by Thora. She'd get her hands on a napkin that we were saving from the night before and within seconds, she'd tear it to ribbons. I'm also trying to be cognizant of using washcloths for cleaning as opposed to sheets of paper towel. And so far, we've had the same roll of paper towel up for weeks! I think this plan is working.

Green Things Part 1

Here are some Green Things I'm currently trying:

Composting

Cambridge, MA just seems to rock when it comes to embracing efforts to protect the environment. They allow recycling of almost all of the plastic that we buy (#1-6). If it weren't the Gerber food that we buy for occasional supplementing of Thora's diet, I'm not sure what plastic we'd have to throw away. (As it is, though, I compulsively re-use the Gerber plastic food containers, so few have gone to the landfill.)

And this spring the City of Cambridge instituted a pilot program for composting. While I've been collecting our scraps, I've yet to take them to the drop-off location. This is clearly one of the annoyances that will plague this effort in environmentalism. For now, there are limited opportunities to drop off one's compost. And it's a bit of hike. Will I be able to carry my compost (right now in a double-layer paper grocery bag) the mile or so with the stroller? Compost can get heavy, as the water in the food sinks to the bottom. So we'll see. My plan is to try this tomorrow, during their drop-off time in the early evening. Otherwise, I'll need to go, with Sean, in the car on Saturday.

Regardless of the hassle, I'm feeling motivated about composting. As the city's website says: "By recycling food, we reduce methane emissions at landfills that result from decaying organic matter. Methane is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide! Our goal is to divert at least 400 pounds/week, avoiding about 20,000 pounds of CO2 per year." (DPW) So it appears that composting is better for the environment than using a garbage disposal--something on first thought I figured was just as earth-friendly. And additionally, we've never recycled things like paper towels. I'm hoping that composting proves, if not as easy as recycling, not too troublesome. I'd really like to see the pilot program succeed.

Kumquats: The Peyote of Citrus Fruit?

First, I have to say that I have not taken peyote. But I did see The Doors three times in the theatre when I was in junior high, so... Anyway, I tried kumquats for the first time while my in-laws were in town this past weekend, and, well, have you tried these?!? My reaction after eating the first one was that it was like walking over coals. Eating kumquats is not for the faint of heart. I mean, almost blacking-out isn't normal, right?
They look like oval-shaped mini-oranges, about the size of a large grape. You pop the whole thing in your mouth, skin and all. The skin is intensely tart and bitter, but it is immediately countered by the incredibly sweet flesh of the kumquat. For a split second, when I eat one, I'm so totally overcome by the sensation, that I can focus on nothing but enduring. This extreme fluctuation lasts less than twenty seconds, however long it takes to chew the kumquat. And despite eating about a dozen of these, the experience ambushed me every time. It's not entirely pleasant, and yet, I think I like them. We must've made quite the sight: the grimacing, the puckered faces, the doubling-over... only to do it again and again. I don't have the steel taste buds to eat ultra-spicy food. I used to think people perverse who torture themselves with ultra-spicy food, who sweat, whose faces are at once shriveled and contorted with the rapture of the pain. Who claim, "No, it's delicious!" despite a redness to their face, and their body's attempt to douse the fire in their mouth with all sorts of fluid--tears, running nose, extreme salivation. "Why are they doing this to themselves?" I would always ask. Little Kumquat, you have solved that mystery for me.

Baby Food and Mommy Drink

Tonight, while Sean watched a DVR-ed basketball game (poor Duke), I made Thora some butternut squash puree. And because the two wine bottle corks that we own have mysteriously gone missing, I had to finish off a bottle of wine in the process. It was pretty good wine, in fact, for being a Trader Joe's $3.99 special--Castelli Romani Rosso. My palate is not terribly sophisticated when it comes to wine. I like bold cabernets, for example, wines that kind of run my taste buds over. But it did the trick. Exactly what that trick is, I'm not sure. But I'm here sitting up at 11:05, feeling very loose of mouth, so there's that. Anyway, back to the baby food. I get such a satisfied feeling as I seal up these re-used Gerber baby food containers for Thora. I feel so efficient as I lay out the empty containers in assembly-line fashion and fill them up. I have brief fantasies of having created a friendly, but hugely successful wholesome foods business. Butternut squash is my favorite to work with because I just want to swim around in it after I'm done. So okay, that's probably the wine talking. And likely, comments like that wouldn't help my fantasy-business. But its jewel-like color, its shimmer, its translucence. It makes me think that I should go pull that Boston Adult Education catalogue out of the recycling bag and look up "Stained Glass for Beginners."

The First Post

Here I am. I'm actually quite surprised that it took me this long to get here.

Why I'm here: I want a place to document the raising of my daughter and my attempt to establish a green, peace-focused household. My daughter turns 1 in less than two weeks and perhaps I'm feeling like her birthday is a perfect occasion to start down this road. It's becoming increasingly clear that she is now at an age when raising her goes beyond keeping her fed and safe. For almost her entire life up until now, our concerns have been to meet her basic needs. We've made decisions as to what to feed her and how to soothe her, for example. These were important decisions, but ones that seemed enclosed in our snug little house with just the three of us to measure the outcomes and to deal with the consequences. But now, the decisions we are beginning to face have repercussions that reach in to the future and outside of our house--into the world at large. She's not a baby anymore; she's no longer oblivious to us beyond the fact that we keep her happy. I'm no longer merely "The Boob." I'm "An Example." She's a young girl with a growing understanding of how the world works. I need to make conscious decisions as to how my husband and I are going to raise her. I need to be aware of how my behavior (practicing what I believe in and not merely professing my beliefs) shapes her developing world-view. What kind of person do we hope her to be? How do we instill the right priorities to get her there? How am I going to keep myself from swearing around her?

This is the aim for this blog. To record my life, all its choices, milestones, mistakes, successes, as I raise my daughter to be a teeny, greenie peacenik.