Birthday Moolah

When my son turned 5 this year, I wanted to do something different when it came to birthday gifts. We really have very generous friends and family and they all really spoil him like crazy with more gifts than he can really process and way more than he really needs (trust me, our house is a toy store in itself!). In the previous years, we’ve asked for donations to various charities in lieu of gifts. That was fine, but I found that it took the fun and joy out of opening presents for him. We are really blessed with so much and there are so many others out there that cannot afford the simplest things. After much thought my husband and I decided this year was the year to start teaching our son a bit about the stewardship of money and about the world around him.

This is what we decided:

• we asked family and invitees to give $5 instead of a gift ($5 because he was turning 5)
• half of all the money given to him for his birthday was set aside for him to spend, save, and/or invest in whatever manner he chooses
• the other half, which my husband and I would match dollar to dollar amount, would be donated to a charity or organization of his choosing

We started telling him of the birthday gift plan a couple of months in advance to prepare him and to get him excited and thinking about the important decisions that need to be made with regards to his birthday money. And though he didn’t understand fully or clearly the entire process, he couldn’t wait to turn 5.

It’s been about a month since his birthday and he still hasn’t decided on what he wants to do with his portion of the birthday money, though we’ve made several trips to Toys-R-Us already. He’s also grasping the concept that things cost money and he can’t just have whatever he sees he likes on the toy shelf (like that $100 Lego set he keeps eyeing). I am amazed at his patience and his ability in not making a rash decision and buy impulsively the first thing he sees.

As for the other portion of the money, we’ve had to help narrow down the donation choices for him. We’ve talked to him about a few different options and it looks like we’re thinking about the Kiva organization (which allows you to loan money to entrepreneurs in developing countries and when the loan is repaid back to you, you can re-loan that money out again to another entrepreneur). Kiva is not like your typical charity, it’s lend-and-payback philosophy allows the giving to continue indefinitely. In this process of deciding how to spend the giving portion of the birthday money, it’s truly fulfilling to see my 5 year old show empathy to those in need as he, and we, become more conscious of the world around us.

I recently ran across a website called DreamBank with sort of the same concept. It’s a more refined structure than our little birthday moolah thing. You post a dream gift (a specific item or goal) and than people/family/friends can contribute money towards it, in lieu of an assortment of gifts that you may not need or want, via PayPal. Environmentally it helps cut down on the accumulation of unnecessary stuff. In addition, DreamBank will donate 10% of its revenues to selected charities. The only drawback is the fees involved: a cost of $2.25 per contribution and a 2.5% fee of your total dream fund when you cash out. I have yet to try out DreamBank  and I don’t know the ins-and-outs of it, but the concept is intriguing.

What do you think about this concept of people contributing to one item/goal in lieu of presents? Are there other organizations or websites out there like DreamBank that you know of?

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Cheap Green Thrills

I was recently out of the office on a course and was forced to take public transit to get there.  All of these years of carpooling to work made me forget about my old university years of riding the bus everywhere. I would have to say that I have been spoiled or made lazy by the convenience of a vehicle.  Surprisingly, I got to my course a lot faster and cheaper than if I were to drive.  By the time, I factored in gas, parking and the additional time I would have spent on the road, I paid for my lunch out and then some.   My little one had mentioned to me one morning that she wanted to take the bus with me.   I thought about it and figured, why not?  Of course, she didn’t come to my course but we decided to take public transit on the weekend as a day trip.   She loved the idea of riding the Skytrain and Seabus.  It was a cheap trip because the kids were free (under 5) and riding through all zones was the same price.  She was excited to be able to gaze out the window and watch the buildings and scenery go by.  Her favourite part of it all was going into the tunnels.

Anyway, it was a great way for us to spend a day without having to add more to our carbon footprint.  It exposed us to the simplicities that excite a child and it made us realize that entertaining a child doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive.  As well, it saved us the hassle of driving with the kids all day.

Do you have any other tips or suggestions about some cheap and green thrills?

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Happy Snow Day

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone!

We were thrown a little off track with all the white stuff that kept coming down.  There was even a possibility that our Christmas gathering with our extended family would be cancelled — but  is wasn’t. And as the snow kept piling up, it felt like we were perpetually shoveling our driveway to no avail; our kids even picked up the shovel to help. However it wasn’t all work and no play, as we got to build the largest fort ever in our backyard and a snowmenpeople family. Hope you all got to enjoy the fun side of snow too.

We’ll be taking a little break over this Christmas season, but we’ll be back in January. We hope everyone had a warm and blessed Christmas with your family and friends. And with 2009 just around the corner, a safe and wonderful New Year!

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All I Want for Christmas……

With a little over a week left before Christmas the clock is ticking for me to finish all my Christmas shopping. I still have a few important gifts that I need to get and those would be ones for my kids and my nieces and nephew. Typically, these ones are the first on my list to get completed because it’s always easy enough for me to go to the mall and pick up the latest toy or gadget. This year is a little different as I am trying to avoid all the mainstream toys that can potentially contain toxins. On top of that, I want to make sure that I pick up toys that I know my kids will genuinely be interested in and don’t want to get the first “eco-friendly” toy I can find.

I needed a little help this year and received this handy little tool from my sister. I love the Skin Deep Database for cosmetics and beauty products. The GoodGuide is its equivalent for household products including toys, household and personal care. Toys are rated out of 10 and contain information about chemical contamination levels as well as the products’ environmental and social impacts. They rate not only companies that are “green” but also mainstream toy companies as well, such as Fisher Price, Hasbro and others. I wish I could go to the store with a little handheld “eco-detector” to ensure that the things I pick and purchase for my home are safe but until there actually is such a thing, this online guide will do.

Happy Shopping, Everyone!

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Goodies Made With Love

December is always a busy time of the year with parties, family gatherings and all the holiday festivities.  This time of year is made that much more special for my family as we get to celebrate birthdays for both my kids.  My mind is always thinking about their birthdays months leading into them because without planning ahead we would be lucky if I got my act together to bake a cake.  Aside from planning all the food and activities, I am constantly in search of goody bag items.  I want to give our guests something useful and practical but don’t want to spend a whole lot of money.  Typically, I end up at the dollar store to fill up the bags.  This year, with some planning ahead I decided to make the loot items myself.  It started with a simple search on the Internet and before I knew it, I had a project list of things that I wanted to make for my kid-lets.  I am so easily distracted!

There are many talented moms out there that have wonderful imaginations and amazing creativity that offer great help in making items.  I can only aspire to be like them so for the time being I use their resources for helping me out with my projects.  I decided to make felt crowns and super hero capes.   It was a pretty big undertaking because of the number of kids that are coming to our party but more so because I am definitely not a great seamstress.  I know how to use the straight stitch and the zigzag on my sewing machine and that’s about it.  I managed to make my way through it and they came out surprisingly great.  I can’t wait to give them to the kids.  There are also a lot of no-sew projects out there as well.  You just need to spend a little time looking for them.  I also have been using the library as a resource for ideas.  One book that I was given is the Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions that has great formulas from anything from scented water colors made with drink crystals to apple sauce and cinnamon dough.

Anyway, I am hoping to be able to find more time to do this for my kids and myself.  It gets me away from the TV and computer and lets me employ my creative side.

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It’s All In the Box

With the majority of the farmer’s markets closed for the winter I have been looking for places to pick up local and organic produce. There is a winter market but I haven’t had a chance to get out to it. I have also checked out a few Saturday Markets but sometimes my Saturdays don’t lend me time to get out before they close. For those of you who haven’t gone before, the Saturday markets are wholesalers of organic products that will open their warehouses once a week to the public, typically Saturday. I know that the local supermarkets are also picking up their lines of organic produce and products but sometimes they can get a bit pricey or their produce isn’t typically local. I have been meaning to check out some boxed deliveries for a while but keep putting it off. But with the weather so wet it’s hard to motivate myself to get out to run errands.  So then what better way to shop than to shop online from the comfort of home, and then have it delivered right to our door!  How nice!  It feels a bit nostalgic. I remember when I was little, my mom got our milk delivered to our door. For my research I am trying to find a company that carries produce that is local and in season and suits our family’s needs and requirements. I am looking for something that doesn’t require a commitment and is flexible with what I can choose to be delivered and when it can be delivered. I am also a bargain hunter so I want to make sure that I am not spending an insane amount of money for some fresh produce and organic products. Here are some of the companies I am looking into:

• Green Earth Organics
• SPUD
• Organics At Home
• Ladybug Organics (this one doesn’t service our area!)

Let me know if you have tried a company that you like or dislike. I would love to hear about others’ experiences. What better testimony about a company than from it’s clients.

By the way, we ate out only once this past week! Off to a good start!

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Hard Working Moms

I have to brag that I got in some “me” time, time without the kids, this past weekend. And though it didn’t include lounging around in my PJs, a spa treatment, or lunch with girlfriends, it was still very mind-replenishing. My dear hubby graciously took care of all 3 kidlets while I went to the Baby Purity Mother’s Conference that I had blogged about previously.

At first I was a bit unsure of the conference only because my sister couldn’t come with me and I really don’t enjoy going to things like this alone. When I arrived, I browsed the several info and vendor booths, like Green Zebra, yoyomama, inBed organics, Better Baby Bums to name a few, and picked up business cards and info sheets. And though one of the guest speakers that I was looking forward to hearing, Christopher Gavigan, had to cancel last minute due to family circumstances, the line-up of speakers that were there was nonetheless interesting and informative. The focus was mainly about chemicals in our everyday things that affect our health and well-being more than we know and the intriguing connection between the gut and allergies in kids. There was a lot of information to take in. Though there was a Q&A period at the end and one of the speakers, Margaret Evans, a RN and life coach, advised us to not feel overwhelmed but rather take one thing out of the conference and work on that, I couldn’t help but still feel like there is so much still for me to do, for me to look into. But that is me: a bit of a worry-wart.

I felt a connection with the 100 or so moms, plus a few dads, there. It was a camaraderie with strangers; moms/parents with the same interest as mine: providing the best we can for our children. I lunched with people I didn’t know and we talked about weaning, formula and stainless steel containers. I met the incredible one-woman force behind Yoyomama, Annemarie Tempelman-Kluit. I chatted with Lisa Frack, Online Parent Organizer for EWG and a blogger for Enviroblog, who was sweet enough to seek me out and offer a follow-up email to a question I posed during the Q&A period. And I introduced myself to Sydney Carlaw, the dynamic person behind Baby Purity. Now, I barely know her. But from the tiniest bit of email correspondence I had with her, and the casual “Hi” and “Thank-you for the conference”, I must say that she is one incredible woman (with most likely an extremely supportive hubby). Most of us, including myself, would love to fulfill our dreams but few of us have the tenacity and patience to follow through. This was her dream and she really made it possible to share it with us.

The conference ended with a ton of giveaways, and though I didn’t end up with one of the fancy gift baskets or the G-diapers or the blender, I came away happy knowing that there are moms out there: like Annemarie, like Lisa and like Sydney, who are working hard to share their knowledge and experience; enabling us to raise our children the best way we can.

By the way, one of topics for next year’s conference is the immunization debate. As for the fee, Sydney is working on reducing the cost by finding more sponsors. Looking forward to next year.

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Conference Call

We apologize for our little hiatus. We just got back from a wonderful vacation to the more francophone part of our beautiful country. We thoroughly enjoyed Quebec as we got to learn more about Canada’s earlier history and of course, we couldn’t resist and had to sample Quebecois cuisine: poutine, mussels, crepes and smoked meat. Yum! Now that we’ve returned, and somewhat recovered from the jet-lag, we hope to get back into the swing of things.

One thing that I did notice is a conference happening next Saturday that might be of interest. It is put together by Baby Purity, a resource for parents who are interested in more natural and healthier options for their children. The Baby Purity Mother’s Conference is a one day affair held in downtown Vancouver on October 25, 2008 from 9am to 5pm. Topics that will be covered are nutrition for the entire family, healthy first baby foods, and safe household products. What I’m most excited about are the guest speakers: Christopher Gavigan, author of Healthy Child Healthy World, and Lisa Frack from the Environmental Working Group.

I just registered so there still is some spaces available. Cost is $38.99. Sounds a bit pricey, but I figure that lunch is included, I will be in the company of great resourceful and informative speakers, and I’ll come home with a loot bag.

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Throwing In The Towel

With a household of 3 young kids, meal times are a bit on the messy side. We could easily go through a couple of napkins or paper towels per child each meal. I could not imagine our contribution to the tons and tons of disposable paper products tossed into the garbage which end up in landfills, all the nasty pollutants released into the air and water during the manufacturing process, and the cutting down of our precious forests, all for the sake of keeping my kids’ hands and mouths clean.

So the past few months, we have committed to using reusable cloths during meal times. It took a bit of getting used to since for years we had grown accustomed to automatically grabbing a tissue paper or napkin without a thought whatsoever. Now, the kids are used to the idea and ask for a cloth every time in lieu of a napkin.

Though there are some fun napkins and hankerchiefs out there that you can purchase for this purpose (from local companies like Hankettes and Hank&Cheef), we opted to use the kids’ former baby washcloths. They are stored in a little container and placed on the kitchen counter for quick and easy access. Yes, it means a tiny bit more laundry a week, but I figure it is a more eco-friendly option for us.

Have we banned disposable napkins, tissues and paper towels from our house? No, not yet. They are still handy for those super messes where major staining might be an issue or for those picnics outdoors. But I know that we’ve greatly reduced how much we use those tossables because I can’t remember the last time I had to buy a box of Kleenex or a roll of Bounty.

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Summer Jam’In

A recent trip to a nearby strawberry patch opened my eyes to a whole new way to savour local berries all year long. We went to a no-spray strawberry patch with some friends to pick some lush, in-season berries. The strawberries were not super sweet but they were deliciously juicy, deep crimsom red and percolated a sweet strawberry scent. Of course, we walked away with only one bucket full of strawberries but it was hard to resist looking for more and picking all the ripe strawberries in our row.

A suggestion from a friend got me looking into freezer jam recipes. I do have to admit I have always been apprehensive about the whole jamming process. I always imagined a big huge enamel soup pot, sitting on the stove, boiling away with jars of jam inside clanging against one another. Surprisingly, the recipe was relatively easy to follow, required no cooking and called for a few simple ingredients: berries, sugar, and gelling powder. I found a Club House gelling powder that required less than half the amount of sugar as other recipes that call for just plain pectin. Following the recipe on the package; I measured, my daughter smashed and mashed the strawberries, and half and hour later we had jam for our toast.

We are looking forward to raspberry, blackberry and blueberry picking so that we can make some more jam this season! Yummy!

By the way, all my jam supplies were picked up at the local supermarket, aside from the berries of course!

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