Household Chemicals for Babies

The largest chemical exposure that babies have is right under our nose... or more like right under their bottoms. Disposable diapers contain a cocktail of chemicals that many parents are completely unaware of. And many of us believe that if the word "baby" is on the packaging than its safe for baby. This is not always the case.

The following chemicals are present in almost all of the non-natural (huggies, papmers).

Dioxin (your friendly carcinogen byproduct of bleaching/chlorine)

Toluene (found in glues, and harmful when "out-gassing". Meaning when baby is breathing the fumes from their diaper)

Sodium Polyacrylate (the absorbent beads, not so much a hazard in diapers that are changed regularly... but it makes you wonder about the overnight diapers)


Toxic Waste that is non-Biodegradable. This is our biggest landfill problem in current history. The average baby puts one ton, that's two thousand pounds, of non-biodegradable toxic material into the landfill by the time they are two years old. These diapers will still be in the landfill when they are putting their first grandchild into a diaper (and their great grandchild too). Why is this a problem? Because as the plastics and chemicals in the diaper break down they leak those chemicals into our ground water.

What are the solutions? The first solution and the least expensive is cloth. I know I have said this before but, cloth diapers no longer are pins and folding. They are way cuter than disposable one (not to brag, but once you start using those cute colors and prints you can't go back, you get a little snobby about it actually. I mean look how cute that recycled K-Life t-shirt diaper is!).

Another option would be to use natural diapers such as the one's I mentioned above, Seventh Generation and Gdiapers. They use more natural paper products and no bleaching. They are more biodegradable and breakdown in a few years (vs. 500). Many of these diapers are the same price as the other disposable diapers if you have them "drop shipped" from Amazon, print the coupons, or go to places like diapers.com

My new hobby (like the hobby of the week) is making Owen cloth diapers out of our old t-shirts that we loved at one time. In the picture above I used one of my old K-Life shirts from when I was a youth mentor. I used to love this shirt and its really cute as a diaper as it has Arnold on it saying, "whatchu lookin' at". Which is really cute on a baby's bottom.

***I am going to post my pattern for making cloth diapers out of 100% recycled fabrics (Including the snaps!) keep posted for my first tutorial!

Making Your Own Cleaners

Many people think that switching to natural cleaners is expensive. And they can be if you buy top brands from your local health market. But you probably have all the ingredients in your house already to make your own natural cleaners. You can make them out of things you already use. You can also find all sorts of recipes online for making your own cleaners for specific projects. Sometimes I treat myself to something special like a jug of Mrs. Myers (I like the all purpose cleaner) it makes my bathroom smell sooooo good. Oh wait that's not the point, you don't need expensive cleaners you can make your own.

I will post other recipes throughout this month and post other things about cleaners and other products we use in our homes. But for now I am short on time and will give you just a few to start with.

Kitchen Sink Cleaner:
2 ingredients
Baking Soda
Boiling Water

Directions: 1 fill tea pot with water and heat. 2. Sprinkle baking soda and scrub out sink. (you will find that the most stained sinks will return to white, or silver with a little baking soda--if your sink is particularly stained you can use Barkeepers Friend). 3. Rinse sink out with boiling water.

***so your baking soda will clean your sink, and the boiling water will disinfect it.

Toilet Cleaner:
1 Ingredient
Borax

I love borax, you can sprinkle a little of it in your toilet and scrub away. You can also use borax for all sorts of things, like washing your cloth diapers, pouring it on ant hills, you can remove rust if you mix it with lemon juice...

OK more to come and more exciting things in store.

Keep it simple and enjoy the beginning of Summer! We just went blueberry picking this morning for the first time of the season. We met some friends out at the farm and picked a whole two pounds... Owen ate two pounds of green berries and sand, and Marin ate another pound of actual blue berries so I threw an extra dollar in the can.

this was taken last year I'll post some this year pictures of Owen eating sand and Marin collecting berries

Cheers!

Old Post

I came across this post I never published... its from New Year's Eve.

You are a parent when...

You have friends over for New Year's Eve and you find this on the table...

Check list:
Beer-Check
local cheese-check
bread from favorite bakery-check
homemade toffee and salsa-thanks friends
baby monitor-check
sippy cup-check...

If you are still using traditional chemicals...

Its time to protect that place you call home.

"Ordinary household products such as cleansers, cosmetics, and paints are now the Los Angeles region's second-leading source of air pollution, after auto tailpipe emissions, air quality officials say." --Loss Angeles Times, March 9, 2003.

When I read statements like the one above it makes me really sad to think of people assuming that they are using products to "clean" their homes but in reality they are only "contaminating" their homes with harmful chemicals that are absorbed through their skin and lungs. This is a topic I feel really passionate about, mostly because its really really easy to change the use of household chemicals.

GETTING STARTED
If you are still cleaning your house with traditional cleaning chemicals, its time for you to get rid of them TODAY. I'm not normally a bossy person... OK so I'm the oldest sibling in my family so maybe a little bossy.

Here's the scoop on cleaning with chemicals (I'll be brief); they are very very harmful. How's that for brief? Well OK maybe a few more thoughts on that.

"Our homes derive much of their comfort and the majority of their conveniences from hundreds, if not thousands of household products... Nowhere is this more apparent than the cleaning cupboard, where we rely on a vast collection of liquids, sprays, waxes and powders to make our living spaces sparkle." While we use these products and love their convenience, most of them have been invented in the past few years, and have had little or NO (let me say that again, NO) safety testing, long-term or short. "It remains to be seen if a lifetime spent among them is safe, let alone good for us. These unknowns have turned modern homes into test tubes and the people living inside them into guinea pigs in a vast and uncontrolled research project." (Naturally Clean)

I'm not saying that there has been no research done on the chemicals we can buy at Target or any other box-mart to clean our homes with, but what has been done is very very minimal... and does not give the average household much information.

As of 1995 of the 80,000 chemical compounds now in use, only 400 (or 0.5 percent) had been tested for carcinogens. Out of those 400 that WERE tested it was estimated that between 5-10 percent of the total (80,000) number of chemicals in use were carcinogenic. That puts us around 4,000 or 8,000 chemicals in use that are likely to trigger cancer. And they are on the market today...still...yes...

So in my "getting started" section I want to just make you aware of the fact that traditional cleaning products have the capacity to do much more harm than to the germs in your toilet.

Over the next few months I am going to post a series about household chemicals that we all use, from baby shampoo and sunblock to cleaners. I am also going to do posts about natural cleaners, and other products that you can buy or make. Ways to replace your chemicals with natural products and not break the bank. All to come...

Pregnant in America

I Spy

Do you remember those I SPY books?

Owen likes to create his own I SPY

The past few weeks have been difficult to keep up with this boy. He's very determined to make his mark upon our house... more on that later

Our Things

Every child has their favorite things. This is a picture story of the one's that have been our favorites.

It all starts with Marin's first love, when she was 14 months some friends gave her a Madame Alexander doll. We were grateful, but had no idea of the relationship that would develop.

*this picture was take before "the accident"


She would be named CryingBaby and go just about everywhere

Except for those few months she was carried around in a box and called Baby Jesus, but that was just a few months of her life.

*this picture was taken after "the accident"

THE ACCIDENT of CryingBaby: one day we were out walking, Marin and CB in the stroller. Somehow CB fell out of the moving vehicle and got caught under the wheel! Its was horrible, CB's head got pushed across the sidewalk and was forever scarred. CB now has a scratch from the concrete on her cheek and upper lip.

There would be another "thing" that became friends with CB. MADELINE! Madeline also has lots of books and movies that we love.

*This is before Madeline's accident also

Madeline has gone many places with us too. She got to take a trip to Uncle Willy and Aunt Lizzy's wedding.

*this picture is after her run in with a dog who ripped out half her hair, we don't like to talk about it.

There are the kitchens. Marin loves our kitchens and now Owen also loves them.

And there was the year of the goggles. Marin wore these around her neck, to church, grocery shopping and even to the potty.

There was the singing snow couple. Their batteries never died and we could never put them away with the Christmas decorations. They lived on through the seasons singing "Frosty the Snowman" about 3405982340572984375973401983598749784398730498750948752 times.

Thanks Grandma

But it always come back to one little doll

Who is nursed, and loved

who loves a good time

and is even loved by Owen.

Speaking of Owen he has a few of his own "things" but that's another story.
What are things your kids love.