Green Parenting

I grew up traipsing through the woods. We called them "woods," my friends and I, but really, they were just a dense strip of trees big enough to hide in when the leaves were full in the summer, and small enough to see to the other side in the winter. I loved those woods with its Maples, Birches and Oaks. The snap of twigs underfoot, the smell of damp dirt and sour, leaf decay, the belly scratches from tree climbing and then watching those same trees turn yellow or orange or red in the Fall - those were some of my happiest  moments as a child.  Read more >

Babies.  Cooing, sleeping, screeching, crying . . .  Read more >

I've been hearing concerns about child car seat disposal, namely, can they be recycled? Car seats are the only piece of kid gear required by law and, in some places, for kids up to age 8, so one child could have two or three different seats before they graduate to standard safety belt. With four million babies born in the U.S. annually, and each requiring three car seats before age eight, Americans buy as many as 12 million seats a year. And even though 90 percent of the materials are recyclable, where does all that metal, foam, fabric and molded plastic end up?  Read more >

There is a little piece of me, the usually dormant compulsively tidy piece, that gets irritated when she digs up worms in the middle of our not very stable lawn-on-a-hill, or builds forts with sticks woven through newly planted shrubs. But I bite my tongue a lot, because really? I like that she's outside communing with nature and making hosta leaf boats for ants and acting as midwife to worms. Digging in the dirt, learning to fish, planting seeds -- it's all part of keeping her connected to the earth, something that is incredibly important for lots of reasons.  Read more >