Dear Savvy Rest,

Thank you for making such a comfortable bed. We bought one (rather, two twins) to make our family bed a king rather than the full that we had from before. It took a while to get all the pieces and we weren’t expecting we’d have to return anything. Thanks for making it easy to return the mattress that came in the wrong size. We’re also really thankful that you didn’t charge us for another foundation. I do remember the woman who sold us the bed said that it would come by curbside delivery. Being as pregnant as I was, I couldn’t open everything to double ckeck that it came without a scratch. When we found out later (when my husband got home) that one of the foundations had broken wooden pieces I almost flipped. I worried all night that we would get charged and our “bed budget” had already been overlooked (by us).

Thank you. We hope that these twin beds will be used by our family and later by our kids (when they want their own beds) for years to come.

sincerely,

Leila

Birth Shirtificate

I was doing a google search (for something else) and came up on this birth shirtificate. Too cute.
This unique keepsake T-shirt is imprinted with Baby’s name, birth date, birth time, weight and length.

Clothing that aims to care

Last weekend we went to a new store near where we live called Bebop Baby Shop we saw some really cute clothes, diapers and books. We bought bilingual baby some new clothes as she’s needing to stay warmer now that autumn has arrived. One little outfit we got her was from Speesees, a store based in San Francisco whose motto is “fun fair organic” following the Fair Trade Federations Principles of fair trade. Their mission is:

… to be fun, fair and organic in the products we make, the way we conduct business, and the baby steps we take towards creating a more sustainable future for the animal, plant and human speesees on our children’s planet.

You can also check out their fair trade procedures.

Another great San Francisco baby clothing store, Tea Collection, which we’ve seen at another baby store nearby also aims high. While their clothes aren’t organic they are still doing their job at helping others who are usually exploited. Read what they have to say about their efforts here.

Jennifer Lance at Eco Child’s Play recently reviewed Tea Collection. In her post she says the following of the price tags on Tea’s clothes:

One thing I have become aware of recently is that cheap prices create the concept of fast fashion in this country, which is not good for our environment.

…

For more information about fast fashion, its environmental effects, and some graphic images, visit “Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry“.

Check it out. If anything for awareness.

Allow me to reframe my thinking

I’ve been thinking about the post I wrote called Hypocritical Parenting. I’ve been testing out other roads/ways of thinking about it and would now like to submit to you, dear reader, how I have reframed my thinking thus far. While I do admit that I sound like I know what I’m talking about, I am just stumbling through the dark here. I am new at motherhood and appreciate your support when I get it. I’ll have to post something elsewhere about how I’ve been holding up as a new mother. I digress and I’m sure you’d like to get back to how a person can change their mind about something they sounded so sure of a month ago.

One of the things that got me out of thinking that my daughter has too many toys was by taking Pooneh’s suggestion and put the toys in boxes and rotate them from time to time. This piece of advice I pass along to you. I also have to agree with Pooneh when she said that the best gift for kids are books. My daughter has quite the library already. I did take Suzanne’s idea (which I can’t find on her blog, but she’s a wonderful mama to keep up with) to set out a couple of books at a time, face up, on the book shelves. We still have all of her other books. I just put out the ones that seem more age appropriate.

On the birthday theme, I love the idea that Terre gave on having a green party, inviting guests to bring food donations for a food pantry. Other ideas that have come up have been to invite those who’d like to try it: a) plant a tree in her name; b) donate your time to a cause that fosters peace (my mom-in-law went to D.C. for a peace march and my mum teaches neighborhood children’s classes on spiritual qualities- moms rock!)

Plain John has a good point when suggesting that gifts that you don’t have a use for can go to those that do. It’s funny how much it brightens up my day when I receive a gift that I never would have bought for myself – the rare combination of object and gesture. There’s definitely something in knowing that someone thought of you even when you weren’t even there.

I appreciate the fact that many of you can see that.

Random tip #3

If you’re like us and you’re not sure about the toys made in China or about the plastic toys that could potentially leach cancerous chemicals into the mouths of our children, then I’ve got a German company you might like.

Click here to go to the website for Haba toys. Good thing we’re all fluent in German. Click here if you’d like to see it in English. We’ve got two of their toys. This one is a favorite we call “fishy”. We got this ball the other day. I like them because they’re made of wood and don’t use toxic paint. They’re great to chomp on and are bound to last you a while. Unless, like us, you misplace “fishy” on a daily basis.

We’ve found them at the local toy store so you might not have to purchase online, if you don’t like to. Check out Oompa Toys for Haba items. I haven’t bought from them so let me know what you think.

a good read

I just finished a new book called A year without ‘Made in China’ by Sara Bongiorni. Yes, they do make it through the year. You might have heard an interview with Bongiorni on NPR. If not, check it out here.

The book is written like a journal of sorts, giving us the ins and outs of their “made in China” boycott; how they deal with the comments of others, friends concerned that their kids are unhappy because they don’t have the “made in China” toys, and the lengths they go to trying to find out where a toy, shoe, or pair of pants is made.

Bongiorni takes a look around her post-Christmas house and starts looking for the “made in…” label on their gifts. She easily puts two and two together and realizes a need for change when most (if not all) of the items under their tree are made in China. Herein comes the boycott. As a New Year’s resolution, she decides that for a year she and her family will not buy anything made in China. From there the family embarks on their adventure. Of course, their oldest kid (5) isn’t always happy- and we read a number of misadventures about him throughout.

Their family ended up paying a lot more for what they did buy and a lot of times the toys they bought from other countries were smaller (sometimes better quality) but didn’t hold a candle to the larger, plastic and often times battery-operated toys made in China. What was interesting was that they still bought quite a lot of stuff during the year. It was as if they felt like they had to make it up to their kids by buying double the number of toys. (In the interview on NPR, Bongiorni says she thinks that they actually broke even because a lot of times they couldn’t find an alternative to the one made in China so they just didn’t buy anything at all.)

While I might have gotten enough just out of the interview on NPR, and sometimes the book seemed to drag on, making the same point over and over again about how hard it is to find things that aren’t made in China, I think that their learning about making more thoughtful purchases is a valid message. In their family, they won’t be continuing the boycott, but they will think twice about buying something and probably choose an item that is not made in China as a result of their yearlong experiment. Ever since reading the book, I’ve been checking labels on things in our house and am more aware of the impact that outsourcing to China has had on us. It is nice to be able to afford things we do need while living on one salary, but how many of those things could we live without if we tried? And how many of those things do we really need to begin with, and how many of them do we just purchase because they are so cheap and easily available (thank you China)?

You may also think that with having a child there’s no way I’ll last with this mentality but I’d have to say that the times when my family had very little were the times when we were the happiest. Those are the times I remember most above all.

Would I last this sort of boycott? A better question for me would be: What sort of New Years resolution would get me to think outside the box about the purchases I make? Do you have any suggestions? I’ll post my ideas soon.

The diapers we use

I’ve been asked on a number of occasions what kind of cloth diapers we use so I figured I’d post what I usually share in person. These days you’ve got so many options. You can choose from prefolds (the rectangular diaper that your mother or mother’s mother may have used), pockets, all-in-ones, fitted, etc. These are the ones we’ve used so I’ll stop there with the list.

Prefolds bought from Green Mountain Diapers as well as a store in Chicago called Bebybaby (although I don’t know where they came from) are great. The diapers we bought were the infant size which we still use on our daughter at 8 months. They are snug now, but they still work. We’ve got 1 dozen of the next size up but we’ll see when we get to them. These diapers are soft and a great value. We used prefolds only for probably the first 3-4 months of her life. We also bought a snappi to attach the diaper. No need to worry about pinning a diaper. We also have never had a leak, even at night. These are quality diapers.

Fuzzi Bunz (2): These are Pocket diapers. With each diaper you get 1micro-terry insert. You do have to shake out the insert in order to wash it but we haven’t had much problem with that. You don’t have to stick your hand into the pee, so don’t go there.

Bum Genius (1): This one I read about on the Mothering.com forum on diapers. They’re cool in that they are also a pocket but they have snaps on the front so that you can make it smaller or bigger depending on your baby. The company says that you can use these diapers from 8 to 35 lbs. I like the stretchy velcro closure.

Swaddlebees AIO (3): This is an All-in-One diaper. It has the diaper and cover sewn together. These diapers are soft and I like the snap closure. They can hold a lot of pee and we haven’t had any leaks of any kind. My mom liked them so much she bought us some, too. We use them a lot at night.

Swaddlebees Pockets (3): I love these because of the Organic Velour on the inside and they are so soft. It’s mind boggling. We did get one that’s a size bigger and figure we’ll get a lot of use out of it in months to come. It works just fine because of the elastic in the leg and the waist.

When our daughter was a newborn, we did purchase a Swaddlebees newborn fitted diaper, which we loved. A couple of months later, we purchased a larger size, which is now almost too tight.

Another fitted diaper, which by the way also needs a cover, was a Kissaluvs fitted. We’ve got two of these and they are great. One of the nice things about these is that they adjust with snaps so it has actually fit our daughter for quite some time. At first, they seemed a little too big, but they still fit her now.

Covers:

Bummis are really nice and they fit very well on our daughter. We haven’t had any leaks of any kind with these covers. We use them during the day and at night.

Disana Wool Cover: This cover breathes and being wool it is a natural choice. Even when you can feel that she’s peed, the pee doesn’t come through. It’s very nice for day and night.

By the way, if you want to see how these diapers look on babies, Green Mountain Diapers has a ton of photos so that you don’t have to imagine what it’ll look like on an actual baby. Even if you don’t ever think you’ll go with cloth diapers, the pictures are cute!

Query #1: organic or local

I’d like to introduce you to my internal switch. This switch gives me the go-ahead on some things while others just get the red buzzer telling me to steer clear. It’s made up of my moral code, the line that I draw in the sand that I won’t cross and the gray areas that make decision making difficult. Now when it comes to buying produce what does your internal switch tell you to do? You may not have thought of this or you may stare down your internal switch with a look of desperation from time to time when you see the glory of ripe blueberries at a price you can pay (but not organic nor locally grown). Regardless, to know you have a choice and that your decisions make a difference, why not make a solid choice? With this in mind, I present a query for readers.

When you feel you have a choice when buying produce do you choose organic over local? or local over organic?

Hypocritical Parenting

My husband read an article to me last night on stuff by Paul Graham. We had come to the conclusion a couple of moves ago that we did, indeed, have too much stuff. Graham takes a psychological and short historical view of stuff to help the reader look at what they own and why. What Graham’s article made me think of is all of the reasons to continue acquiring stuff. I do have some stuff that I don’t want to use because, like Graham refers to the “fine china”, it’s just too nice to use. I’m talking about things that really shouldn’t be too nice. They are things like postcards and pens. He suggests that you should only keep the things you are actually going to use and even before buying to ask yourself, “is this going to make my life noticeably better?” He also points out that before big closets were made to keep all of our prized stuff, shopping was not a leisure activity but companies have made it this way and we follow suit.

So, what does this have to do with parenting? I’m glad you ask.

I’ve been thinking about my daughter’s first birthday, coming up in December. I think my blood pressure just went up just typing that sentence. I’ll try to take it slow and make some sense here. My daughter has received a great number of gifts. Mostly made up of clothes and toys. While I am grateful for the help that family and friends have given us through these gifts, I have come to a point where I am seeing too many gifts now. I also see what my daughter likes to play with and seldom does it include the toys that make up a second carpet on our floor.

I’ve been thinking about what to do and I’ve had a couple of ideas. One is not worth mentioning to anybody. A couple of other ideas were echoed in a back issue of Mothering magazine. Judith Rubin talks about consumerism and children’s toys and offers a proactive approach on gift giving. One of the points she makes in her article is that we live in a culture of thoughtless gift giving. I have given gifts like this! It’s the obligatory gift syndrome. Here is a list of questions to ask before you purchase a gift for a child.. or really, anyone:

Alicia Daniel, field naturalist, teacher, and mother of two daughters, offers a radical checklist:1) Will this toy eventually turn into dirt-i.e., could I compost it? Stones, snowmen, driftwood, and daisies-they will be gone, and we will be gone, and life goes on.

2) Do I know who made this toy? This question leads us to search for the hidden folk artist in each of us.

3) Is this toy beautiful? Have human hands bestowed an awkward grace, a uniqueness lacking in toys cranked out effortlessly by machine?

4) Will this toy capture a child’s imagination?”

So, what do you do if you really want to try this but don’t want to upset people? That’s where I am right now. I have a couple of months of planning a letter to family and friends, using some of the suggestions from the Rubin article. She says to offer options instead of just insist that the plastic, made in China, commercial, marketing-driven toys that are out there are not what you want for your child. What my husband and I were talking about was the enjoyment that those that love our daughter will want to derive from shopping for her. By giving them narrower options to shop from, will they still buy her things that will have to “disappear”? Maybe so.

Why hypocritical? Now that I’m gearing up to write this letter, I feel like I should banish the stuff that clutters our home so that I am not practicing hypocritical parenting. I don’t want to have her make an change in the world and still privately live in a pigsty of unneeded stuff. In other words, I’m doing some more spring cleaning (in summer). I did give away about 5 or 6 bags of clothes to my old La Leche League group and now will be able to give away our daughters outgrown clothes to our new group.

I do need your advice: What should I do about my gigantic jar of pens and pencils? They still work and I don’t really want to just throw them away. (Is this the ranting of a clutter monster?)