MamAnomolie

This is the time of year when another one of my anomolous tendencies reveals itself. Let me explain. I love the idea of simplicity parenting. All of us, myself included, have too much stuff. Jonathan and I joked before we even had kids when we saw how many toys some of our friend's kids had that we were going to send ours outside with a stick to play all day. Less stuff around promotes kids using their imagination. This is how I truly feel. AND I LOVE PRESENTS!!!! OK, there, I've said it.

Seriously, I love presents, specifically the opening of presents. This year, when Jonathan and I were deciding on our budget for Sophie's Chanukah and Christmas gifts, it sounded less like a conversation and more like two people negotiating a deal. I was the one trying to drive the price up, if you haven't already guessed.

My family has the rather unusual custom of celebrating Chanukah while we're all together for Thanksgiving. Every year we have to figure out, based on everyone's schedules, what night we open the gifts. If it's going to be later in the visit they always say, "Rachel? Is that alright with you? Can you wait that long?"

Let me point out here that I have nieces, 5-years-old and 10-years-old, who aren't as excited as I am. Let me also point out that recently the adults have all decided that we are only getting gifts for the kids. This in no way diminishes my enthusiasm. I love giving gifts. I love watching other people open gifts.

Right now Sophie is still too young to be able to anticipate and be excited about holidays and presents, but I know next year that will no longer be the case. I want to instill in her a thankfulness for family and the non-material things in life. I also want her to be empathetic towards others who are not as fortunate. But she's a sharp cookie, and I don't hide my feelings well...she's going to know how excited I am when we all open presents.

We had been prepping Sophie for Halloween for about a month. She knew that she was going to be a bee, and that bees say "buzz," and she tried her best at saying "trick-or-treat," which came out more like "teet teet." It got to the point once we reached late October that I could ask just about anything and her first answer would be, "A bee!" So, our plan was to go trick-or-treating at a few houses in the neighborhood and have her answer the door with us when trick-or-treaters came to our house. We also had a Halloween playdate planned in the afternoon. There was one thing we had not planned on...rain. This wasn't just a light drizzle, either. Halloween afternoon arrived along with a downpour.

If Sophie were older, she likely would have been upset that bad weather was threatening her Halloween experience. Sophie, however, did not mind the rain. In fact, the rain was by far Sophie's favorite part of Halloween (tasting chocolate for the first time later in the evening was a close second). A friend of mine had planned the afternoon playdate at the park, luckily one with a large shelter. There were activity stations, yummy Halloween goodies, and lots of other kids. Sophie was not interested in any of that. She wanted to play in the rain. For the first half of the get-together, we were the only ones not under the shelter. By the end of the afternoon, Sophie had found two fellow nature-lovers with brave mothers.

Recently I was writing in Sophie's journal and trying to describe how much she likes to explore and spend time outdoors. I didn't feel like my words were quite expressing the wonderful energy that is Sophie. I think these photos from our second Halloween illustrate it much better. I hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween and that if you didn't have good weather, you at least enjoyed the bad weather like we did!

I have lamented in years past about the lack of Chanukah items at Target. Aisle after aisle in the holiday section are devoted to Christmas wrapping, cards, decorations... anything you could want, but when I asked for the Chanukah paper, I was directed to a sparse endcap in the party section with low quality blue wrapping paper and a few gift tags. I know, I am not really a practicing Jew, yet I'm still offended when Chanukah is given such little attention.

This year, however, I was surprised and pleased by the Chanukah display I saw at Target this year. Yes, it's insane that today is Halloween and the display is already up, but the point is that we were given a whole endcap and half an aisle of Chankukah stuff! That is major compared to years past. It's not low quality, ugly stuff either. There was a cute wooden Noah's ark with wooden "lit" candles that would be great for allowing a small child to get into the experience. There was nice Chanukah wrapping paper, stickers and greeting cards.

There was even an Elmo's Little Dreidel book that I made the mistake of handing to Sophie. We almost had to add Chanukah goods to our last minute Halloween candy run. So, I just wanted to say thank you, Target! At least one person has noticed the change and appreciates it very much! Oh, and in case anybody is wondering, Chanukah is December 20-28 this year.

I wasn't this smart in my former life. Let me explain. I used to work in the natural resources/environmental health field. The people that surrounded me every day could identify wildflowers, were master composters and were well versed on the pollutants found in our groundwater.

Now I am a stay-at-home mom. The adults I am now surrounded by have come from many different fields. I hang out with former teachers, reading specialists, chemical engineers, vet techs...the list goes on. I sometimes forget that we don't all share a similar work background, and then something will happen that brings it sharply into focus. Recently, for example, I picked up a cicada at a play date and then identified a butterfly that flew past us. Everyone was impressed. I felt like a rock star.

It happened again recently at another play date when some of the moms were talking about their "new to them" cars recently purchased for their expanding families. Somebody lamented that they didn't get to enjoy that new car smell. "True," I said,"but it's not good for you, so there's another plus to buying used."

"It's not good for you?"
"What's not good for you?"
"The new car smell is bad?"

The comments sort of echoed in a circle around the room. Everyone was looking at me. Half of me felt like a rock star. The other half felt like one of those people who watches people eat something and then says, "Do you know what they put in that?"

So, here is the down low on that new car smell. I don't say this to point fingers at people (except perhaps car manufacturers), but rather as an opportunity to inform and perhaps empower ourselves as consumers. We assume that products are tested and deemed to be safe before they are offered in the marketplace, and that if they are found to be potentially harmful they would immediately be removed from the marketplace. This is, unfortunately, not the marketplace in which we live. We live in the marketplace of new car smells.


That smell comes from phthalates and PBDE's. Crazy words, lots of consonants in a row...here's what they mean. Phthalates are used to soften plastics. PBDEs (Polybrominated diphenyl ethers) are flame retardants. What you're smelling are these chemicals off-gassing from your car's interior. Phthalates can cause all sorts of health problems, but most notably are classified as reproductive toxicants and probable carciniogens. PBDEs impair learning, memory and behavior, even at low levels, in lab rats. They have been found in the breast milk of every woman who has ever been tested.

The Ecology Center, based in Ann Arbor, MI, has some great resources for learning more about the new car smell. They even give rankings for some of the best and worst cars on the market based on levels of toxic substances found in the vehicles.

I know, let's be honest, most of us have a long list of preferred features for a new car, and vehicle air quality is probably not on it. Even if you don't choose your car based on which one has the lowest level of new car smell, you can still reduce your exposure. Used cars are a great option since they have likely already offgassed. If you do get a new car, open the windows as much as you can to let fresh air circulate inside. Finally, heat tends to make the problem worse, so be sure to open the windows if your car has been sitting in the sun.

While I would love to say that the "new car smell" phenomenon is an anomaly, unfortunately, it's not. There are a lot of smells that many of us associate with good things - new car, perfume, our favorite soap - that are not good for us. Many of these smells are VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that can be harmful to our health. While it's not a fun topic to think about, as a consumer, and as a mother, I would rather be informed about the products and materials in my home and environment, and try to choose as wisely as I can.

If I really like a book, I tend to become quite attached to it. For me, finishing a good book is kind of like ending a relationship. That's why I'm chowing down on Halloween candy right now. I just broke up with Barbara Kingsolver. I just finished reading The Lacuna. It was the last novel of Ms. Kingsolver's that I had left to read. I basically devoured all of her fiction this summer and fall, so this breakup is particularly rough. We had a long relationship.

I started with Animal Dreams and was instantly hooked. I liked The Poisonwood Bible, devoured The Bean Trees and Pigs In Heaven, and wanted Prodigal Summer to last forever. The Lacuna was last. I have to admit, the subject matter was so out of my realm of knowledge that I was a little intimidated in the beginning. Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, post-revolutionary Mexico, Leon Trotsky...but it sucked me in, and ended up, in all places, in Asheville, NC. It was my favorite, and I'm having a hard time letting go.

I'm moving on to Ms. Kingsolver's non-fiction and maybe some of her short stories and essays, but I only fall in love with novels, so now it's kind of like we're not dating, but still friends. That never really works, does it?

There have been so many things that I've been wanting to write about, but this week we're in serious need of some comic relief, so I've decided to share a Brian Regan clip instead. Of course, there is a story that goes along with it.

A few things are important to know for this story. The first is that Brian Regan is one of Jonathan's and my favorite comedians. We like him so much that if we find out that you have never heard of him and we're near a computer, we consider it our moral obligation to show you clips of his standup routines. He is absolutely hysterical. Really, if you don't watch the clip I've included in this post, you're doing yourself a disservice.

Another fact that's important to know for this story is that my husband Jonathan is the most even-keeled person that I know. He manages to stay calm and level-headed in situations where I would freak out or get angry. It's a quality that I admire and hope rubs off on me.

Having spent so much time with Jonathan, I have realized that in some extremely stressful situations he'll react inappropriately. Not inappropriately in an, "I can't believe you just said that" sort of way, but just in a way that doesn't quite fit the situation. It's probably something that most people wouldn't think twice about, but because I know him so well I've picked up on it.

I first noticed this when I was in labor with Sophie. We had just arrived at the hospital. My contractions were four minutes apart. Every time I had one my legs shook uncontrollably. I had just been told that, despite all of this, I was not dilated any more than I had been a week before. The nurse asks, "On a scale of one to ten with one being no pain and ten being having your arm cut off, how would you rate your pain?"

At this point Jonathan, who has been calmly holding my hand and telling me how great I'm doing, says, "Say eight! Say eight!" He then turns to the nurse and says, "It's a Brian Regan bit."

Here's what I wanted to say: "Seriously, right now quoting comedy skits seems appropriate? I'm in agony, and this woman has no idea who Brian Regan is (seriously, she had absolutely no sense of humor) and no idea what you're talking about. Plus, I was going to say eight, but now I can't because she'll think I'm joking."

Here's what I did say (actually it was really more of a whimper): "Seven."

No, really, it is a sick day. The thing is, sick days look completely different with kids. Sophie has the cold that has been going around, and I have some sort scaled down adult version. While I'm thankful that Sophie doesn't seem to feel that bad, that also means that I have to figure out things for us to do all day. Playdates are a no-go since we don't want to pass our germs around, but staying in the house all day makes us both bonkers. We tried a park and playground yesterday, but there were enough other kids there that I felt like half the time I was corralling her away from them. Today we went to one of our favorite spots - Historic Yates Mill County Park.

We didn't even explore very much of the park, but there was so much to experience. We enjoyed the color of the fall leaves and flowers, the texture of the lambs ear and the cattail leaves tickling our face, and the smell of rosemary and wild onion. Sophie loved feeling the wind blowing her hair and the trees all around us. We watched ants, snails, bees and butterflies. We picked up leaves, sticks, and berries. It was just what the doctor ordered for both of us!

Tada! What do you think of the new design for MamAnomolie? It's funny, in my former life I worked on web sites, and would never have slapped something up so quickly. I used to test things out behind the scenes, look at the site in every browser available, on Macs and PCs, on every possible screen setting. Now? I'll be honest. I've done next to nothing in terms of testing this out.

I had been having some issues with the former template I was using. Text not lining up where it should be, page components floating on top of the blog text. Besides, I was ready for a change. That's when I found "Liquorice," this lovely little number from btemplates. The name alone had be hooked. I like the vintage, simple feel of it.

I am still working out some design issues. I also have some work to do adding more pages along the top navigation bar and other design elements. A HUGE thank you goes out to Freed Design Studios for help with the CSS code! You rock, Elise!

I seriously couldn't fall asleep last night thinking about all of the changes I wanted to make. I was giddy. (If my excitement about caterpillars didn't have you convinced before, surely by now you realize I'm a nerd.)

So, all of this being said, I would LOVE to get feedback. Does is look alright on your browser? Are you able to leave comments? (If not, you can send me a message telepathically or through smoke signals). Do you like it? Do you have suggestions? Are you out there? Mom?

In years past I have planted a butterfly garden in the backyard. The past few years, however, I've done nothing. Seriously, the only thing I've done this year is buy some parsley for the black swallowtail butterflies. The herb guy at the farmers market knew me because there was a period of time this summer when I'd run in every few days with Sophie for more plants. We had so many black swallowtail caterpillars (or "pippas," as Sophie called them) that our parsley supply was continually decimated. What can I say, I'm a sucker for pippas.

I thought we were done with butterflies for the season, so I was pleasantly surprised when Jonathan found a monarch butterfly while mowing the lawn. Unfortunately, that particular guy (yes, it was a guy) wasn't doing well. I think it had formed it's chrysalis too low and didn't have a good place to hang and pump its wings. I moved him to a better hanging spot on our window screen, and that's when I noticed the other chrysalises. It turns out the milkweed I had planted in years past had been enough to attract some monarch moms, unbeknownst to me.

So far, three more monarchs, both females, have successfully emerged. There is one more chrysalis that I'm still waiting on. It was actually hanging on our rain lily, and it was dragging on the ground a little bit. I was afraid that this butterfly would suffer the same fate as the first one that emerged, so I moved this chrysalis so that it's hanging off of a stick on our deck.

Sometime I'll need to share some quick and easy ways to raise local caterpillars. It's really amazing to watch the whole process, for kids and adults! For now, however, I just wanted to share these photos from our backyard butterfly nursery. No matter how many times I see a monarch chrysalis, it just amazes me. It looks like a little jade and gold jewel!

Jonathan and I are not portrait people. As much as I want to capture moments of Sophie's life on film, I feel like having her sit for a portrait would not at all capture the essence of Sophie. Plus there is the fact that Sophie doesn't sit.

The photos I love of myself and loved ones are those that aren't so staged. We may be aware of the camera, but there is a sense of ease and playfulness that is hard to describe but easy to see. Karen Davis Suttles was able to capture our essence as a family beautifully on film, and for that I am so grateful.

Karen is Jonathan's first cousin. I know, how lucky are we to have such a great photographer in the family?! Last week while we were visiting Marion, NC, she offered to come take some pictures. Here is some of Karen's work. It was hard not to post them all on here. Thank you, Karen!

Here is one of those topics that is so big to me that I don't even know where to begin...

I am a landowner.

This past May, Jonathan and I bought about 27 acres in western North Carolina. I'm sure this will be the first of many posts about "the land." Our intent is to eventually build a house and move there. We don't have a timeline for this plan yet, but regardless of the actual timing, in my head it seems far away. I think it's because the idea of even owning as much land as we do is something I can't quite wrap my head around.

I grew up in the suburbs. The biggest expanse of land that I ever had any claim to was our home from when I was born to age seven. It was about a quarter of an acre, but as a little kid in the suburbs, the backyard seemed huge. Since then I've lived on smaller and smaller parcels. Looking out any window, the most prominent feature has always been another house. In Virginia, where I lived from age ten until college, there were woods near our home with paved paths. My friends and I would go off the trails and try and get lost, but we inevitably would emerge from the woods on a path, surprised that we had actually traversed very little ground and knew exactly where we were. Always pavement and fences and houses.

So the scale of this property is something completely outside of my frame of reference. And when we have a window to look out of, the most prominent feature will not be another house. It will be mountains. Fields, forests, creek, green lushness, and, above it all, mountains.

I am currently reading "The Lacuna," by Barbara Kingsolver. (Her work will surely be the topic of future blogging as I have been devouring it all this summer and fall.) It takes place largely in Mexico, but later in the novel in Asheville, NC, which is about thirty miles from our land. Kingsolver, through her main character Harrison Shepherd, describes western North Carolina this way.

"It is a good place, Carolina, build of mountains and river valleys. Did you receive the postcard? The tall buildings you see in it are full of banks and bakeries, the usual things. But look carefully at the background of the picture: mountains. They stand behind every view, like a mother offering a blanket in which to wrap everyday life and shelter it from useless dreads"

I love that idea, of those mountains like a blanket. Jonathan, Sophie and I paid a visit to our blanketed land this week. We crossed the creek into the five acre field which is currently being tended by a local vegetable farmer. Tomatoes are on most of the field, with eggplants growing on the rest. Eggplants in shapes and colors I never even knew existed. Above the field is forest. So much to explore. So much to know. These photos show only the beginning of what will be a lifelong exploration for all three of us.

If you've read much of this blog or know me very well, you also know that I can be quite...what's the word? Interested? Concerned? Obsessed! That's it! I can be quite obsessed with the ingredients that are found in personal care products. I look at the Environmental Working Group's Cosmetic Safety Database religiously when looking for a new product.

That being said, I also want the product to work well besides being safe to slather on my hair or skin or, more importantly, Sophie's. I have found myself inching higher and higher on the ratings scale trying to find a shampoo and conditioner that will tame my mane. No luck on that yet.

When it comes to products for Sophie, especially sunscreen that will be applied liberally all over her, I've been pretty picky. I had been using California Baby, which is safe and works, but you know that scene in Twilight when Edward reveals what happens to him in sunlight and he's all pale and shimmery? Seriously, that is what Sophie looked like. It worked for Robert Pattinson. Not so much for my daughter.

So, when SafeMama gave Purple Prairie Sun Stuff their Best Overall Sunscreen Award and mentioned that it "doesn't leave you looking ghostly," I knew I had to try it. After cross referencing the Cosmetic Safety Database, of course. It checked out. I've been using it on Sophie all summer and LOVE it!

Purple Prairie Sun Stuff does indeed rub into Sophie's skin! It is more expensive than what you could grab at the store, but costs less than California Baby. For about $20 you get 2.9 ounces of the California Baby lotion versus 9.5 ounces of Purple Prairie Sun Stuff. My only complaint is that it is so thick it can be kind of hard to squeeze out of the bottle. But that also means I can hand Sophie the bottle to distract her and I know that she won't get it everywhere.

I highly recommend Purple Prairie Sun Stuff from Purple Prairie Botanicals! You know, unless you're into the vampire thing.

Since I took another break with the blog, I was looking back at some of my previous posts and found that I had one saved as a draft. It was titled "Making Stuff to Pass the Time," and was written on March 27, 2010, two days before Sophie was born. It ends rather abruptly. I'm sure I had intended on getting back to it later that day or the next, but my contractions began later that night. When I returned to the blog, I never returned to the post...until now. Here is what I had written back then.

"So, I'm now one day past my due date. I have been trying to keep myself busy in order to not get anxious or impatient. A book that I recently got has been great in helping me to do that - Simple Sewing for Baby by Lotta Jansdotter. It's great! I like to sew, but I'm not too great at it and require very detailed instructions. Jansdotter provides them, and the book is full of really cute projects. So, baby girl now has a tag blanket and a giraffe rattle..."

That time seems so long ago. I remember going to the fabric store several times the week before Sophie was born, waiting for people to ask me when I was due so I could excitedly tell them. Besides the tag blanket and giraffe rattle, I also made a travel diaper changing pad and matching pouches. What's funny is that one of Sophie's favorite books is Lotta Jansdotter's "Simple Sewing for Baby." It has lots of photos of babies as well as drawings of balloons and dogs. She'll sit and "read" it longer than any other book she has!

Sophie just had her first modeling gig! Before you worry that I'm on my way to appearing on the next episode of Dance Moms, let me explain.

My friend Carla is starting a sewing business, Flying Fox Studio, making kid clothes, hats, pet accessories, bags and pillows from organic, upcylced, and locally sourced materials. She needed to get some photos for the organic kids line she's working on, called Fox Tots Organic. Carla wanted pictures of her handiwork on someone, and that someone was Sophie.

I know Carla back from my working days. She is a writer/editor who I got to know during several different projects. Her attention to detail and desire to get things just right were apparent (and appreciated!) in her work as an editor. These qualities are also evident in her new endeavor. She isn't using a little bit of organic fabric here and there as a marketing gimmick. She is thinking about the entire textile production process, researching different options (like kapok instead of fiber fill, who knew?), and aiming for complete transparency in her marketing.

We were discussing some of the difficulties of finding organic textiles, especially from the U.S., at prices artists and consumers can afford when Carla said, "I'm starting to think I want to change the old phrase to 'think locally, think globally, act locally, act globally.' That's certainly not daunting, is it?" No, not at all, Carla. Hey, at least I have a cute model to lend to the cause!

Of course I had to post some adorable photos of Sophie on here, but I also wanted to showcase Carla's other work. How great are these purses?! And that wrist wallet? A ridiculous amount of cuteness going on there! Well, I'm off...now that Sophie is a model she has become quite demanding of attention!

In honor of Take a Child Outside Week, I have decided to sit inside at my computer and resume blogging. No, really!

Before I was a stay-at-home mom, I worked in the field of environmental education. Not just casually, as a seasonal thing, either. I was in it full throttle. My Master's degree is in environmental education, and I worked for the state Office of Environmental Education. Previously, in preparation for the annual, national Take a Child Outside Week I would be feverishly adding events to the online calendar, attending meetings about how to hype it up and spread the word, and editing the office's website so that it was featured on every page.

So, that is why I found it wonderfully ironic that on September 24th, the first official day of Take a Child Outside Week, it was my husband who said, "Hey, it's Take a Child Outside Week." "Really?" I replied. "Yeah, it says so right here." We were at Historic Yates Mill County Park, taking a walk with Sophie.




So, I could tell you that in honor of Take a Child Outside Week we took Sophie to the park, but the truth is that Sophie and I are outside all the time. We don't need a special week to enjoy picking up sticks, looking at bugs, and collecting leaves, and for that I am grateful.

This has definitely been my favorite Take a Child Outside Week to date!