As our youngest is really getting into solid foods, it is very convenient to open that jar of baby food and spoon it into that chubby, smiley little face. When I have time though (which isn’t very often) I like to make his food myself. I’ll try and do a few foods in bulk. It’s as simple as throwing that bag of frozen organic peas into my steamer or pot with just a little water and cooking for around 10 minutes. The only caveat to the pot is to make sure you aren’t using a nonstick pot. Some studies say the coating on those has been linked to very bad things for your health. I have a set of stainless steal pots that I LOVE. They steam out the top when the food temperature reaches 180 degrees. This is supposed to be the point of optimal cooking where you still keep all of the precious vitamins and minerals, but kill anything bad that may be on the food. OK…back to making the food. You cook your peas until they are that beautiful bright green color. If they look a little brown it’s been too long in the heat and the vitamins and minerals are breaking down. You can really tell the difference between peas and sweet potatoes you make yourself and store bought. They are just so much brighter and richer in color. Once your peas are cooked just put them in a little food processor with some water and voila you are now a 4 star chef for your baby. I am big into recycling so I re-use the old baby food jars. I pull off the label, run them through the dishwasher, and they are as good as new. I label them with masking tape and a sharpie and they stack nicely in our freezer. It’s like a little rainbow of frozen jars. The food should keep for 3 months frozen or 3 days in the fridge. Once you have mastered single foods like peas or blueberries (my son’s recent fav), then you can move onto more complicated recipes. I try to mimic what he is currently eating in the jars and have a few choice recipes as well. I’ll post those another time with a list of my favorite books on baby food.

OK. I put in my first batch of compost last month. It wasn’t quite as broken down into tiny particles as I had wanted, but it looked mostly just like the bagged soil we all buy. I had Jon till it into our garden bed and I have not smelled anything but fresh soil in our garden. I can’t wait to see how it makes our plants grow. We will be planting our shipment of fruits and veggies this weekend. Maybe we’ll have something delicious to eat by the end of summer. Yippeee!

Now….let me give you the lowdown on the first time composting experience. Despite my best efforts in adding way more “browns” vs “greens” there was still some smell in our composter when you lifted the lid. The composter itself did not smell nor did the area around the composter. This is good since it is right next to our back deck. BUT when you lift the lid….let’s just say I didn’t smell roses.

Also, I left the lid open a few times so the rain would wet down the compost for me instead of me adding water to it. I suggest NOT doing this since I had flies of all sorts chowing down on my kitchen scraps.

You are supposed to keep the compost moist so it will break down faster. This gives you the compost tea that collects in the bottom of the container. It’s supposed to be super liquid fertilizer. I read you’re supposed to dilute the tea to 1:10 parts water and your plants will love you for it. I wasn’t counting on the tea draining as I turned the bin. If you have too much water in your compost, then it drains out and gets all over the bin and your hands while you turn it.

These are just a few things to think about. I will definitely continue to compost our scraps. I think this bin is the best option we have so far. I did spy a new composter that blows mine out of the water. It’s electric and you keep it in your kitchen cabinet. It’s by NatureMill. It’s the coolest and gets rid of all of the negative experiences I had with composting. I totally want one! I hope we will carry these in our store soon, but for now go check it out. http://www.naturemill.com/ I feel I am now an experienced composter and I can’t wait to reap the rewards soon. I can almost taste those yummy tomatoes and fresh blueberries from our garden.

I guess it goes without saying, but kids have toys and those toys take LOTS of batteries. Even toys I used as a kid that did not need batteries then, now need them. We finally started switching over to rechargeable batteries. We bought one battery charger for $20, but it didn’t work very well and I took it back. We purchased the same brand charger for $30 and it is much better. It tells you the progress on how the batteries are charging on the digital display. The batteries that belong with the charger are pretty expensive so we’re hoping other brands will come out soon for less. If you are looking to switch to rechargeable batteries save some time, then buy the Energizer $30 charger. The batteries charge quickly and it works great.

Ever wonder what that unpronounceable word is in your cosmetics ingredient list? Ever wonder if it’s bad for you? I found a website that will tell you. It’s by the Environmental Working Group at http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ You can search by ingredient or by the company who makes your sun screen, make up, etc. I try to take some of the things with a grain of salt, but the website is pretty cool if you want answers. Check it out.

I usually try to use an environmentally friendly dishwashing powder like Ecover or Seventh Generation. These washing powders are biodegradable so they break down in the water after use (unlike many petroleum based cleansers) and they work great too. I love Seventh Generation’s liquid dish soap for hand washing. Here’s my tip of the day. If you don’t want to keep having to run to the store to replenish your “spot remover” you add to the dishwasher, then you can make your own for so much less! It is so simple. All you need is 1 cup of Borax and mix with 1/2 cup of baking soda. I keep mine in a tupperware bin with an old teaspoon measuring spoon in the bin. I store this next to the dishwashing powder. You just add a teaspoon of the baking soda and borax mix to your normal dishwashing powder and your dishes will sparkle for a fraction of the cost. No more hard water drops on your glasses and it’s environmentally friendly.

I used to work as a consultant for a skin care company that did the home “parties” kinda thing about 2 years ago. I didn’t like the whole selling aspect, but the company really opened my eyes to the stuff that’s in the products I used to use every day. The company sold products that used ingredients from science and nature. You could learn about the products and basics about skin care, etc. from the webcasts at the company’s website. I was just starting to get on the all natural/organic band wagon when this company came along. I no longer use a lot of their products, but the information and education I gained while doing it was great. I now believe that you shouldn’t put anything on your body that you wouldn’t want to eat. I say this because your skin is your largest organ and what you put on it does get absorbed into your system. I’ve also learned that babies skin is about 4 times thinner than adults so they are especially vulnerable to toxins in skin care products. I’ve got some of my favorite products we use on the boys on the website store. I’m currently finishing out my stash of company products on myself, but when it comes to my boys I don’t take any chances…..what’s in your bathroom cabinet?

I have a new daily habit. I’ve started composting our daily kitchen scraps. We cook at home quit often and I’ve noticed we’ve filled our bin in only 2 months. I asked for this composter for Christmas. I know…it sounds a little weird. A composter ….. for Christmas, but let me explain. Ever since we bought this house I always wanted a garden. I wanted to grow my own fruits and veggies. So, for Christmas I asked for a composter and a tiller attachment so I can till the garden soil. The composter I wanted is an Enviro-Cycle base tumbler. It is a big green cylinder that spins in place. You just fill it, close the door, and grab the built in grooves to start turning it. The bonus is at the bottom of the composter (where the wheels are to turn the bin) is the container to catch the “compost tea.” It’s the water that runs out of your compost that is chock full of goodies for the plants. They come in green for warmer climates and black for northern climates. Everyday I make eggs and a smoothie for breakfast. I put the banana peel and egg shells in our counter top composter. When it gets full (about every 3 days) I dump it into our big Enviro-Cycle compost tumbler. I now have 2 months of kitchen scraps (greens) and newspaper and junk mail (browns) filling up the bin. The greens can be anything plant related ie: grass clippings, banana peels, coffee grounds and bread. You don’t want anything meaty or oily and definitely no poo. I’ve learned that the bin needs about a 1:2 ratio of greens to browns otherwise it starts to smell not so fresh. Now I just turn the bin everyday and it should decompose into awesome compost. It’s starting to warm up here in Georgia so maybe I will have compost in about 6 weeks. I’ll keep you posted. My problem is now I want another composter! That way I can keep putting in our scraps in another bin while this bin cooks. I’m addicted to composting. Jon’s gonna love this!

As a mother of 2 under 2 diapers are a part of life. I always wanted to try cloth diapers (aka CDs) when we had our first son Matthew. Everything I knew about them was that they were gross, used pins, and you needed a diaper service to deal with them otherwise they were a no go. I wanted something that was just a good as the Huggies we were so used to using everyday. It couldn’t be complicated or my husband wouldn’t try it. (no offense Jon ) I’d read that disposables were a large portion of the waste going into our landfills and that they took an eternity to decompose. So….I spent some time trying to find a cloth diaper that suited our needs and I found it.

At 14 months, I switched Matthew into a One-Size Pocket Cloth diaper and we haven’t looked back since. We purchased 7 diapers at the time and 8 bamboo cloth wipes just to try out. They are great! The diapers are a “pocket diaper” in diaper lingo. This means that there is a slit in the top and you can change out the stuffing or “inserts” in this pocket. The outside is a PUL covering. Now, these diapers are not completely organic cotton and I recognize this, but they’re still a lot better than disposables. We chose the One Size Pocket diapers so they would grow with Matthew and we wouldn’t have to purchase more diapers in different sizes down the road. They fit babies from 8 lbs up to 30 lbs with these adjustable snaps and close with velcro tabs (just like the old Huggies). We purchased an extra insert to double stuff for overnight. With our newest addition, William, we did use disposables until he was about a month old. The CDs were a little too big and bulky for him at the time. Now they have reformated the CDs and they have a special insert just for newborns. I sure wish they had these 3 months ago! I fold the cloth wipes in half and they store inside our wipes warmer just like our disposable wipes used to. I keep them moist with a wipes solution I make myself, but you can buy pre-made solutions as well. I keep a 1 liter Rubbermaid drink container filled with water and a squirt or two of all natural baby shampoo and baby oil (if you like). Then I just pour the solution onto the wipes in the warmer whenever I add fresh clean wipes from the dryer. About once a month I take out the wipes warmer insert and clean it with bleach so everything stays moist and clean.

Cleaning the dipes…
In our pre-CD days we’d take our Huggies, roll it up with the wipes inside and put it into our diaper genie to make small “diaper sausage links” to put into the garbage. I changed out the diaper genie to a normal trash can with a step on lid a while back. They changed our genie model and I couldn’t find the plastic baggie insert that encases the diapers in the stores anymore. I still use the normal trash can for our CDs. When we have a dirty diaper it is just like before. Cloth wipes get rolled in with the diaper and all gets put in the trash can for laundry the next morning. The only thing different is that I like to pull out the inserts before I put them in the trash can. You want to wash the inserts outside of the diaper so they get clean and dry better. I wash the dipes every morning on warm/cold with a natural detergent. My favorite is Planet powder laundry detergent. It works really well and since we have a HE washer and dryer I get double the amount of loads out of it. Detergent for CDs must be free from dyes, artificial fragrance, and brighteners or any other harsh chemical. All of these things can irritate your baby’s very sensitive skin. After washing, everything gets thrown in the dryer on low. Viola! Fresh clean diapers are ready in 2 hrs. or less and you didn’t have to pack everyone up and take them to the store to get more diapers.

Another note on the CDs, you should use a liner if you have to use any rash cream. The rash creams coat the diapers with a water proof layer and then the diapers can’t absorb the wetness. I recommend Imse Vimse liners. I got them from Cotton Babies as well and they have lasted forever! I cut them in half and line any diapers when we use rash cream. They are flushable so they are great for dirty diapers. Just pull out and flush away. I’ve put them thru the washer and dryer at least 2 or 3 times before they fell apart. If you accidentally forget to line the dipes you can usually get the cream off by treating the stain with dish soap before washing. Works like a charm in our house.

The CDs are pricey in the beginning I’ll admit. I believe our outfit of 22 dipes, 5 packs of wipes and liners cost around $500, but the savings you get in the long run are amazing. I believe one site I read said you spend well over $2,000 on getting just 1 child thru diapers. Our detergent costs $7 and lasts for at least 40 washes. Then it is only the small amount our HE washers and dryers use in electricity and water. No more trips to the store for dipes and no more dipes going into the landfill. For traveling I keep 1 or 2 dipes in the diaper bag with a small container of disposable wipes (Seventh Generation or Whole Foods brand chlorine free).

I’ve been using CDs on our 2 boys for almost a year now and I’m really impressed with how easy it is and feel better about our choice. Even Jon now does the dipes in the mornings some weekends and doesn’t complain. Both sets of grandparents were able to use the cloth dipes after a brief tutorial and the grandmothers did the laundry while I was in the hospital with William. They really are easy and great to use.