Review: The Eco-nomical Baby Guide

After I decided to switch to cloth diapers, I started reading up on "going green." One website I found and came to love is The Green Baby Guide. The women who run the website, Joy Hatch and Rebecca Kelley, are releasing a book called The Eco-nomical Baby Guide and I was lucky enough to receive a copy to review here on my blog.

First things first- this book is beautiful! It features illustrations by someone with the alias woolypear, and they are just plain wonderful.

Most importantly, however, is the information contained in this book. It really is a great guide for someone with a young baby who is open to the idea of giving their baby a "green" start in life. I'll start with all the info on cloth diapers, since that is a major focus of the book. I assumed it wouldn't teach me much since I had been using cloth diapers for 4 months or so. I was dead wrong. And even if you don't use cloth (I know many of you don't), these work as general laundry tips as well. I had been following the directions I received when I bought the cloth diapers- to first run a rinse cycle in cold water and then a full cycle in hot water. Well, that has now stopped. In fact, I don't wash hardly anything in hot water anymore... I wonder why I did so often. And I'm going to attempt skipping the extra rinse too, unless a diaper is really bad. The next step I'm going to take will be harder since I am in a condo, but I'm going to try to put a clothesline up on my balcony to dry some of the diapers and use the sun to get rid of stains. See, these are tips anybody could use!

One statement the book made hit me hard: "Our lifestyles have turned parenthood into an industry like anything else." Seeing as when I read this, I was beginning to plan Brayden's first birthday party in my mind (yes, the birthday that is still over 4 months away and that he won't even remember). I so fall into the materialistic trap. It's one way I'm a major hypocrite and I know I need to work on that. This book had some great and simple ideas to help the environment, your wallet and ultimately your child. Some of the ones I'm going to work on are:

buying things secondhand whenever I can
keeping our thermostat at better temps
get one of the houseplants that reduces household toxins
make my own cleaning solutions (I already do laundry detergent)

I only wish I had read this book before I had Brayden. I may have started using cloth diapers sooner, but more importantly I could have worked on being a less materialistic parent.

Cell phones

Even with all the other forms of technology out there, cell phones are the one form of technology that can keep you "connected" to the world 24/7.

We got rid of our cell phones a month ago today, and I'm here to tell you it can be done. When we decided to cancel our phones and just have a landline, I was a little freaked out. I worried about something happening to Brayden and me possibly not being able to know about it right away. I worried about how I would fill my time on my 45-60 minute commute to work. Well, I'm just fine. Turns out there's this thing called the radio that usually has songs to sing along to, or heaven forbid I can just use the time to think and actually be alone with my thoughts.

I know cell phones have some good to them, so I'm not putting them down completely. I'm sure we'll get them again at some point in our lives, especially if we start making more money. But I'm glad we don't have them right now. It can make meeting up with people and things like that more complicated, but I was utterly too dependent on the thing and we really needed to save some money (you'll find out why in about 2 weeks).

So if you're looking for big ways to cut your budget but don't think you could give it up, you might be surprised. What I thought would be a huge deal to me has turned out to be not so hard.

"Reckless Acts"

Utah's State Legislature has done it again (proved to be unenlightened Neanderthals that is). They have just passed a law that will allow charges to be filed against women who arrange for illegal abortions. That sounds good, right?

It's not though. The law's terminology says that a woman can be punished for "intentional, knowing, or reckless acts" leading to a pregnancy's illegal termination. The law was put through in response to a case where a woman who paid a man to beat her up and cause her to miscarry was not able to be charged. Do I think she should have been charged? Yes. Do I think the word "reckless" could lead to major problems? Yes.

An example from the article is about domestic abuse victims. Democrats fear that women who are beaten to the point of losing their child could end up being charged if they tell their story. One thing I worry about is women who choose to have home births (even more so with women who choose to have unassisted home births). If I chose to have a home birth for my next child, and the baby ends up being stillborn, with the wording of the law as it is I could be charged. The ACLU also gives an example of a woman who fails to wear her seatbelt and then gets into an accident causing a miscarriage.

Maybe I'm being overdramatic, but I am so against the word "reckless" being a part of this law. The Democrats tried to have it removed because of the potential problems with domestic abuse victims, but when do Democrats get their way in Utah? (Not very often.) It leaves it too vague and open to interpretation. Ultimately, I agree with the conclusion the ACLU came to:

Practically speaking however, this bill changes the presumption that abortions obtained in this state are legal. If this bill is signed into law, women in this state will essentially be in the uncomfortable and unfortunate position of having to prove that abortions they obtain (or miscarriages that they suffer) are not unlawful.

I don't have much faith that Gov. Herbert will do anything about this before signing the bill into law, but I'm still going to write to him to let my voice be heard.

Which jacket?

One jacket was bought at The Children's Place (on sale but still $10) and one was bought at Dollar Tree (for $1 obviously). Which is which... and which do I like better? Which do you like better?

Conspiracy theories

I just finished reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, so I have conspiracy theories on my mind, but I still wasn't prepared when I heard yet another one about President Obama at my work (already have heard about the Muslim ones and the ones about him not being a citizen). One of my co-workers came in and started talking to someone sitting next to me about how her cousin was reading Revelations and thinks that Pres. Obama is the Anti-Christ and will rule for 3 1/2 years. Thank goodness she wasn't talking to me... I have no idea how I would have responded. He has been president for over a year and this is still going on?! Come on, let's not be poor losers. And lastly, anyone who has this much hatred doesn't seem like they are in the right place spiritually if it did happen to be the "end of times."

Just sayin.

Here's a Snopes link about the Anti-Christ theory, with an abolsutely crazy video "proving" the theory. And here's a link to some other theories about him... people are nuts.

Milestones

(I'm sure it just got about 10x harder to take his picture!)

Brayden is reaching milestones left and right and it is just amazing to watch. It is so neat how babies just learn all of this stuff, a lot of it seemingly on their own. I mean, Brayden hasn't really been around crawling babies, but he figured it out. He isn't a pro at it yet, of course, but he has crawled at least a few feet a couple times a day since Friday. I cannot tell you how excited I was on Friday night as he hesitantly crawled those first few feet towards me. I was pounding on the floor, both out of my own glee and because I was trying to encourage him. I didn't know the people who own the condo downstairs were there (it's a vacation condo for them), and they pounded on their ceiling so I stopped. It was pretty funny.

In the last month he has also:

-learned how to pull himself up to stand


-cruised around his activity table (it's only about a foot each way, but he has gone all the way around it)
-waved (he did it twice in one day in January but then stopped)
-he has actually stood without losing his balance for 10+ seconds at least 5 times
-and just yesterday and today he is starting to master reaching down to pick something up off the ground while he's standing at the couch or his activity table (this one takes some concentration and is adorable to watch)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: babies are amazing. They learn so much in such a short period of time.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sensitivity

I had never though of myself as being particularly oversensitive (or insensitive for that matter), but parenthood has definitely made me more sensitive, especially when I hear about children suffering. Adam says it happened to him too, so I'm guess it's something most parents go through.

There have been multiple child abuse stores in the news. There have been a couple where the baby that was abused and/or killed was around Brayden's age- those really got to me. Anything having to do with shaken baby syndrome gets me teary-eyed immediately.

I cried when a contestant on The Biggest Loser told her story about her husband and children dying.

SIDS stories scare me to death. I am so paranoid about him while he's asleep. If I'm awake, I'm checking him every 15 minutes or so.

Seeing footage of children and babies in Haiti seriously made me want to adopt. I'm not a perfect parent, we are by no means rich, but seeing what they have been left with made me so sad.

And just last night, I was watching an episode from the first season of House, M.D. I heard it was a good show, so I got it from my library. Well, about 3 episodes in, 4 babies in the maternity ward all get sick at about the same time, and House sets about solving the mystery. I cried when a baby was strapped down for a MRI, and I cried when one of the babies died and the news was broken to the parents. And the show isn't even real!

Sometimes I wonder why I even watch the news anymore. If any story is told that involves a child's suffering or death, I wind up a blubbering mess.

Funny Face

Anne Frank

Anne Frank's diary is on my list of 50 books to read this year as one of the rereads. I read it back in junior high and didn't remember much of it. Really, I'm glad I don't have a good memory of the classics I read in school, because when I reread them now I get so much more out of them then I did back then. This was no exception.

When I started reading it, I could just not get into it. Anne was such a typical teenager, and the diary seemed like pure fluff. And truthfully, it kind of was at first. However, due I'm sure to her atypical experience in hiding, she underwent transformations making her as or more mature than most adults out there today. One thing that she learned (through experience) before I learned it (through schooling) is this:

"Oh, it's sad, very sad that the old adage has been confirmed for the umpteenth time: "What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does reflects on all Jews.""

It took me taking a class entitles Gender and Other Contemporary Issues and reading about the unfairness of one minority person being seen as a representative for their race, religion or ethnicity. Another sign of her maturity is found in this quote:

"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise withinn us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."

It was so sad to learn what happened to the Frank family. Now that I have a child, I cannot imagine being torn apart to different concentration camps and actually surviving your wife and both of your children as her father did.

7

By the way, I cannot believe Brayden is 7 months old today. Time is going much too fast. Also, I must have been wrong about the teething last week- he must have just been sick. Either that or that tooth is trying to slowly torture both and me by coming up and then receding back down, over and over again!

Yes, another post about birth

I realize I write a lot about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and other stuff that may make some people uncomfortable. I decided a few weeks ago to try to tone it down after I caused a stir on facebook... however, I have to rant about something tonight. I'm allowed to write about what I am passionate about... everyone else does. At least I'm warning you in advance so if you're sick of hearing about it from me, you don't have to read it.

The Today Show on NBC aired a segment showing a live c-section being performed. The reason why: both the mother's and the father's families have a history of big babies and an ultrasound done last week put the baby at 10 lbs. C-sections are there for medical emergencies, people. You're in labor for an insane amount of time without progressing, fine, that's what c-sections are there for. You or the baby are in true distress, it's a great thing we have this surgery that can end that distress. However, more and more c-sections are being done that are elective like this one and not medically necessary. Now onto my specific rants about the segment:


First, I hate that this show reached millions of people and normalized c-section as an elective choice. Second, they were flat-out wrong and most people watching don't even know it. The baby ended up weighing 10 lbs at birth. That means the ultrasound weight estimate was wrong, which actually happens a lot. It was likely about half a pound off, because babies usually gain an ounce a day in utero at the end of the pregnancy. And here's my biggest rant: when the baby was weighed, Meredith Vieira commented that they had obviously chosen the right way to deliver this big baby. Umm... no. I had a 9 lb 14 oz baby vaginally. It can be done. For the most part, a woman's body can and will do what it is meant to do. My friend had a home birth last April that I was privileged to be present at. She's a tiny little thing, and she gave birth to a 9 lb baby. Our births were not wrong. Big baby does not need to equal c-section.

I think I'll be tuning into Good Morning America from now on.