Green to Grow Bottles

Oh, hey, did I mention we got our http://www.greentogrow.com/ a couple weeks ago? I mentioned them originally here. You know, the Bisphenol-A and Phthalate free ones?

Well, we used them fairly extensively for the first time on our trip back home for Thanksgiving. I like ‘em. There are, like with everything, good and bad point about them, which I will attempt to outline here:

Good:

• Plastic. And not the bad plastic. We like glass, but to put the glass in a diaper bag is not something we like to do.
• 5 ounce size. The glass we have are 4 oz. Believe me, the extra ounce comes in handy. Especially when travelling. We also have some Born Free Bottles, but they only come in sizes which are way too big right now.
• They are kind of cool looking. Yeah, I know – silly, but a plus, none the less.

Not-so-Good:

• As I mentioned before, they are a bit pricier than glass. Maybe that will change if more people buy them.
• The stuff printed on the bottle scratches easily. We didn’t have this problem with the Avent plastic bottles we used with my daughter. And we used those for years. It isn’t really that big a deal if the cute cartoon fruit guy on the front gets scratched. But, if we lose the measurement stuff on the back… that won’t be quite so okay.

Overall, we’re happy with them. Will we buy more? Probably not. We use glass in the house, and three is sufficient for most travelling. Maybe when we move up to a bigger size for him, but then again, we already have the Born Free in the bigger size…

Bottle Quest

Yowzers! Just caught a glimpse of these bottles over at ApartmentTherapy.

Manufactured by GreenToGrow, these bottles are Bisphenol-A and Phthalate free. And they look friggin’ awesome.

They are a bit pricey ($7.49 for a 5 oz, up to $10.49 for a 10 oz, wide neck bottle), but they, well, look pretty awesome. Oh, and the whole “not full of bad stuff” is pretty awesome, too.

And the website this husband and wife team put together is chock full of educational resources to help educate parents about creating a health environment (and not just limited to bottles!) for their kids. And we’re definitely all for that!

Of course, we already purchased some Born Free plastic bottles (9 oz bottles go for about $9-10 each, so the cost is comperable), but they are way to big for our son right now. It might be nice to grab a couple of these 5 oz bottles).

So… even if you aren’t interested in purchasing, head over to their site and check ‘em out! They are at GreenToGrow.com.

Previously: WeeGo BPA-free Bottles, and a little blurb about Born Free Bottles.

Not just a Wee bit green

As I agonize over whether to buy the Maxi-Cosi Mico car seat without seeing one in person first, I find myself drifting back to the BabyStyle website over and over. Today, I noticed a link talking about a new website, Wee Generation, which is a collaboration between green products producer, 7th Generation, BabyStyle, and Healthy Child Healthy World (formerly CHEC), an organization which helps promote a healthy environment for our children.

This site was created to help educate parents on how they can become “Greener”, for their children’s sake, as well as, apparently, to one day move merchandise make green products available to parents. They are starting with “the first diaper bag to be Cradle-to-Cradle certified, and they are looking for input on design. If you add you input, you will be eligible to win one when they are produced.

They are also giving away organic baby tees, and a green nursery make-over.

Eventually, there’ll be more tips and a blog for info on Green Parenting (note to Wee Generation: my email address is over there to the right if you need writers).

It looks like it could be something very fun and exciting, so check it out.

(I also didn’t realize BabyStyle had a Green Shop here.)

Green Baby Announcements

When you have a baby, and are trying to raise a green family, your first challenge could very well be how to announce your new arrival. Okay, it probably won’t be your first eco-challenge, but one of the first you may face after the birth of your little one.

Everyone wants to know, so you gotta let ‘em know. Sure, you could e-mail an announcement, but good luck walking
Grandma through the steps of checking her email a month later when you ask her how she liked the announcement, and she says, “What announcement?”

Well, thanks to the folks at drool.icio.us, I found out about these really nice eco-friendly announcements from Fine Moments (those Babble folks do surprise me now and then).

There’s a gazillion (that’s a word now, right?) choices, and I like them all. You can add your own photo, and inside message. No wood is used anywhere in the manufacturing process, according to their website(I guess they don’t put the paper on wood pallets…) Anyway, the key is, they are printed on 100% recycled paper (unlike that Harry Potter book you are going to buy).

No word on eco-friendly inks, so I assume traditional inks.

These could very well be the front runners for our baby announcements in a couple months. Relatives only. The rest of you can read it here.

(100% recycled paper birth announcements from Fine Moments, starting at $3.85 per — good lord, is that what announcements cost these days??)

What? A Year Already?!?

So, as of tomorrow, I will now be doing this a year (My response: “Holy, crap! A year already!? How did I find enough stuff to post about for a year???” Ms. Kaz’s response: “Really? Only a year? It seems longer.”). One of my goals was to present information to help parents be more responsibly green.

I can’t say I’ve been a runaway success with that, but it hasn’t been a failure.

That being said, I wanted to point out a great discussion over at DaddyTypes about reponsible toy makers. This is beginning to come down to which ones make toys with lead-free paint, environmentally conscious woods, and free of chemicals.

There are some great suggestions there. Check it out, and if you know of a great toy company, please add your comments.

Or add them here if you don’t want to head to DaddyTypes. But if you’ve never been to DaddyTypes, you should…

Designs on a new nursery

Holy cow, the House & Garden website has some sweet kids’ room designs here. Of course, I have no single room large enough to accomplish anything shown there, but it sure is sweet to look at. I just gotta make sure my daughter doesn’t seem them, or she’ll want them.

Of course, the really nice thing about this section is the inclusion of eco-kid products, and an all too short Q&A with Amanda Moore, an “eco-conscious nursery expert” about creating a green nursery. Ms. Kaz taped a similar program from HGTV the other day (I’ll have to get the name of it), which, again, was way too short. But there are plenty of resources out there.

It is nice to see these topics hitting a little more mainstream media sources.

There’s a lot of other nice stuff in this Design For Kids section, so check it out (thanks to Daddytypes!).

Product Roundup

I’ve recently run across a few interesting products lately…

• First, Greg at DaddyTypes took time out of writing about toys to tell us that Orbit, the company which makes a funky, modular stroller system, is introducing a “green” version of their bassinet cradle, which will be made of eco-friendly materials. The company already clean-energy, buys carbon offsets, and recycles. So, if you are in the market for a stroller soon (like us!) and can get past the Bugaboo Bee, then check it out. (via DaddyTypes)
• The folks over at Strollerderby take time out from celebrity news to tell us about Mabel’s Labels’ Allergy Alert Label. These are ultra-sticky labels with your child’s name and their allergies listed. Customizable in terms of name, graphic, and allergies, it is even possible to turn these into an I’m-A-Vegetarian label by making the second food allergy line be something like, “and I am vegetarian.” Of course, that only works if your kid also has an allergy (like mine).

  Now that our daughter is in a new, and slightly larger daycare, it might be something for us to consider. No word if Vegetarian (i.e. Vegetarian w/o food allergy) labels are in the works. So stick these to your kid’s lunch box, backpack, sippy cup, forehead, wherever. (via Strollerderby)

So go check ‘em out, already…

Green Updates

Let’s catch up with some of my favorite “Green” parents, shall we?

• First off, thanks to Strollerderby for including me in their latest “Playdate” round-up, which mentions some of the “green” parenting blogs they’ve stumbled across lately. Lately, several of their editors have been including some great links for green parenting.
• Long-time I Hate Snaps friend, Zygote Daddy, whom I hate to admit I haven’t been doing a good job lately keeping up with, has worn out a set of cloth diapers. He chronicles his search for the ideal replacement set here.
• What the?! Citizen Baby tried out some new bulbs that are not only CF, but claim to reduce odors?!?
• Finally, Ms. T, over at, ahem, BoobJuiceFactory, continues her series on making your own baby food. She’s got far more patience and resolve(?) than we do.

Glass Baby Bottles

So, we’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that we’ve failed our current daughter*. We’ve let her watch some TV. We’ve let her eat some occasional non-organic foods. And, much to my mother-in-law’s chagrin, we’ve let her eat jelly beans. But worst of all, we let her drink out of plastic baby bottles.

We’ll continue to raise her, so she can live out whatever miserable life she can muster. But we’ve decided to try harder with the next one. That being said, we’re looking to possibly move to glass baby bottles. If we can find them. Apparently, they are becoming more difficult to find.

Sure, some say the dangers of plastic baby bottles are overblown, but why take the chance? We don’t want to break another child!

And when they are both grown, and our older daughter asks why her little sibling is so much smarter and stronger and healthier than her…?

We’ve decided that we’ll hug her and tell her, “You’re a… nice girl…”

* Okay, okay, we don’t really believe we’ve failed our daughter. But we are always looking for ways to do things better, so I am hoping to chronicle our decisions, and (probably more-so) ask for advice. So… if anyone has recommendations or can share experiences with glass bottles, please let us know!

Quickies

There’s a cold being passed around our household, so I just have a couple of quickies for tonight:

• Now that my daughter is 2 1/2, it is about time she started thinking about what she’d like to do with her life. Fortunately, I found a game that will help her. It is called The Exciting Game of Career Girls. Now, I just have to find a copy of it somewhere… (via BoingBoing)
• The Buffalo News has a front-page article about the difficulty in getting school kids to accept healthy school lunches. It talks about not only how “it is healthy” doesn’t inspire school kids, but also how healthy brands have to compete against those kids are bombarded with advertisements for. It talks about some local successes, including how one Montessori school is handling the problem.
• On the potty-training front, my daughter continues her gradual progress. However, one member of our household has suddenly embraced the potty — our youngest cat, the one we affectionately call stupid mother f’er “the kitten.” The potty we bought for our daughter – the one she used, like, 4 times before wanting to sit on the big potty – is now being used by “the kitten” to pee in. We now have to clean it out once or twice a day. Why don’t we put it away if our daughter isn’t using it? We’re afraid of where he might go if we took it away.
• Did I mention I love our local Letters to the Editor page? Lately, there is a big flap about Connecticut wanting to switch to Compact Flourescent bulbs. I mentioned previously that we were going to try them, and we did. We bought one at IKEA (actually about $.5o+ cheaper than at Home Depot). It worked pretty well. It does take a while to “warm up” but once it does it works great. Anyhow, there were two letters which annoyed me:
  • A self-identified older gentleman complains about flourescent bulbs, saying, in his experience, they aren’t as bright, and that will hurt people, such as himself, who cannot see as well. I believe this was the same letter where he said he would horde bulbs and hope the bulb police don’t raid his home. (note: this may have been two seperate letters, I forget)
  • Another was from a member of a local environmental group who complained about the mercury content in the bulbs, and how this is a more environmentally friendly alternative. I will give him points for mentioning LED lights as an alternative.

In answer to the first gentleman, there is a big difference between the old flourescent bulbs which hung in basements, and CF bulbs. Most CF bulb packages will identify the comperable wattage of traditional bulbs. We got one comperable to a 75 watt bulb, and I would say it is at least as bright as a 75 watt traditional bulb.

In answer to the second, he fails to mention the reduced carbon and other toxin emissions which will result in the use of less electricity due to the bulbs. I know you are trading one evil for another, but if the second evil is lesser, isn’t that a good start? We are asked to choose the lesser of two evils every 4 years in November anyhow…
Hopefully, we’ll all be healthy soon, and I can finish up our trip report. Then those of you bored by Disney can read something a little more interesting.

Now, since I live in Connecticut, I better head to the grocery store and buy a month’s worth of groceries — there’s a few inches of snow predicted tomorrow night…

Happy Friday

Sorry, I’ve been working on a trip update, and I keep remembering more and more… so I am trying to work out a balance of keeping your interest while not boring you with Disney overkill…

In the meantime, did I ever mention what fun it is to go out and pick up the paper in the morning?

Just this morning, the front page features two stories:

2nd-grader faces drug charge

It seems a 7 year old brought some crack into the school and gave some to his friends. I can’t bring myself to read the whole story, but my guess would be that the kid picked up some of his parents’ drugs and really has no idea what this stuff is. Either way, he’s been charged (7 years old, remember) with possession of narcotics, and has a juvenile court date.

Kids’ soaps contain traces of carcinogen

A group of Connecticut environmental groups comissioned a study to look at children’s soaps and shampoos, and found that 15 of the 24 tested contained small amounts of 1,4-dioxane. The EPA has determined this to be a “probably human carcinogen.”
If I can find a link on this, I will, but it appears to be a debate between “acceptable levels” (the manufacturers) and non-acceptable (the coalition).
I can’t say we’re okay, but we did switch to natural versions of shampoos for our daughter about a year ago. The striking part of the article, really, is the quote from a UMass research study which says that since 1975, childhood cancers have risen 21%.

Okay, well, at least I can get a laugh from reading the letters to the editor…

Greener Holiday Cards

I still love the holiday photo cards at MangoInk.

But I also love the greener cards at Greene Street Greetings. Some of the designs are very nice. Some are neat, but generally not the type of card we look for when choosing holiday cards. However, they do allow you to upload your own photo, then they will work with you to turn that into your own holiday greeting cards. The bonus here is that you are not restricted to a single, non-fold cardstock — you can create single-fold cards with your own photos, which allows you much more room for a personalized greeting.

What is really great about these cards, however, is just how green they are.

These cards are made from 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper. The inks they use for printing are toxic-free soy and vegetable derived inks.

The company runs its website on a server which is powered by solar and wind power. And if that wasn’t enough, they purchase carbon-offset credits from Terrapass for additional energy overhead.

So, if you’re looking to go green this holiday season, check them out.

(via TreeHugger)