My Big Boy is now 3.5 and this is the first year he seems really into Halloween – planning for it, creating a costume (he wants to be a pirate), decorating our house and yard, etc. ( I just don’t know what will happen with trick or treating, as he may not be so ready to abstain from sugary treats and as content to just walk around looking at the houses this year!)

Last week, he was very excited when a small pumpkin came in our organic fresh food box, so last night I tried a new recipe for a spicy pumpkin/coconut/chicken stew for dinner. He ate it all up with gusto, then this morning at breakfast he even told me how much he loved his dinner last night, which is ususual! I think it must have been the pumpking factor.

But all of this interest in and talk about Halloween has got me thinking about how to “do” Halloween this year in our household. Oh, we’ve got lots of decorations from previous years to work with, but I started thinking about treats – how to hand out something healthier at the door, that’s better for the neighbourhood kids, but still fun and tasty, and that doesn’t come with too much packaging!

So I set out to write a blog post on greening your family’s Halloween, when into my inbox came a newsletter from BabyOntheWay.ca with an amazing article on Keepin’ It Green This Halloween, by Sarah Simpson. I couldn’t have said it better myself, so if you are looking for some excellent, practical tips on how to have a healthy, planet-friendly Halloween, check it out!

I have no idea how they found me (ah the power of the Internet), but the big U.S. parenting site iparenting.com emailed me earlier this summer and said they wanted to profile me for their Mom of the Month feature!Since previous picks included celebrity moms such as Keri Russell, Ricki Lake and Molly Shannon, I found it funny that they somehow decided upon me ( I live in Toronto, I’m in no way famous, ha!). It also felt odd because since most of my career has been spent as a reporter and editor, i’m usually on the other side of the notepad! But i was honoured to be selected and featured. It seems they chose me because of my philosophy on raising kids green, attempts to have our family live a more sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle, and our decision to start our company, Kai Kids, to help us and other families make that easier.The article was recently published over at iparenting.com and it’s a lovely piece. The writer spent a long time on the phone with me asking lots of questions about how we live our life and about my tips for greening your family. When she heard that we often eat vegetarian meals and that my kids really like beans and chickpeas etc., she even asked for one of our family standby recipes, so you’ll also find a recipe for my kids’ favourite bean & cheese quesadillas!So check it out – September’s Mom of the Month! (if only they knew how my floors so desperately need to be washed, that the laundry is piling up, and that we had takeout for dinner last night!)

For the past year or so many of us have read or heard about the dangers of the chemical Bisphenol A, used to make hard polycarbonate plastic. Today a new study piles on even more evidence that BPA should be banned.

Just after we launched our online store Kai Kids last November (fully stocked with glass and BPA-free plastic baby bottles and sippy cups!) studies about BPA leaching from containers, baby and water bottles and chew toys hit the mainstream press. Parents everywhere –those who could afford it, that is — started tossing common brands of sippy cups and plastic baby bottles and searching for safter, less toxic alternatives.

The word last fall was that BPA can be a hormone disrupter. Animal studies had shown links between chronic, low doses of BPA to obesity, diabetes, thyroid disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer, reduced sperm count in men and other illnesses, and that the most dangerious periods of exposure were in the womb, during infancy and early childhood.

Today comes news from the respected Journal of the American Medical Association that people with higher levels of Bisphenol A in their bodies also have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and liver abnormalities!

The team of British and American scientists compared the health status of 1,455 men and women with the level of BPA in their urine. Participants with the highest levels were nearly three times more likely to have cardiovascular disease than those with the lowest levels, and 2.4 times more likely to have diabetes. Higher BPA levels were also associated with abnormal concentrations of three liver enzymes.

So, if you still haven’t gone through your family’s plastic paraphenalia to weed out items made with BPA and other dangerous chemicals (usually clear, hard plastics and anything with the # numbers 3, 6 and 7), now is a great time to get the job done!

Our house is still not a completely plastic-free zone, but we’ve tried to wean ourselves of our plastic addiction by searching out safer, old-school alternatives: stainless steel and bamboo baby utensils (my Little Guy’s fave is my dad’s silver babyspoon engraved with Grandpa’s name Bruce), ceramic bowls and plates, Klean Kanteen water bottles, BornFree BPA-free baby bottles, Pyrex and stainless steel food containers, plus we wash and reuse any plastic bag or ziploc baggie that is still lurking in our cupboards and drawers.

It takes a little effort, and in many cases, more money, but in the end, you are investing in products that are usually more durable and often also recyclable, plus you can’t put a price on your childrens’ health and wellbeing!

This morning I was lucky to be be interviewed for an article for iparenting.com! The reporter was asking me for tips on green living with your family, especially for easy ways to go green without spending a lot of money. Unfortunately, although prices are starting to come down, eating organic, buying organic clothing and natural skincare etc. still does cost more than conventional goods, mostly due to the high production costs of organic farming, sourcing natural ingredients and materials, and ensuring fair labour practises.

But there is a lot you can do for your family’s health and the planet’s, that doesn’t cost a fortune. I find myself doing so many things that my grandmother did: reusing plastic bags, using a reusable shopping bag, cleaning with lemon and vinegar and baking soda, trying to make food from scratch instead of relying on heavily-processed convenience food.

Since we had our Big Boy three-and-a-half years ago, I realized that I’ve found many ways to go green and save money in our household, which leaves a bit of extra to spend on what i think is really important: buying organic apples, potatoes and red peppers (to avoid the dirty dozen fruits and vegetables most heavily laden with pesticides), hormone-free meats, organic milk, and chemical-free natural skincare products.

So here’s my green tip for this week: reusable baby wipes for diaper changes. Since Big Boy was born I have tried to avoid conventional disposable baby wipes – they are wasteful and full of alcohol and chemicals that aren’t good for the environment or a baby’s sensitive bottom.

At Kai Kids, we sell some wonderful organic cotton flannel Bum Wipes made by a mompreneur I know in Thunder Bay. Or you can just use old facecloths. I’ve used the same batch of about 15 cloths for almost four years now – with many messy, dirty diaper changes, believe me – and they are still good to go with no stains! At diaper change time, I just fill a small plastic bowl with warm water, soak the cloth, wring it out and wipe. I don’t use any soap.

Then i toss the cloth into a diaper pail with some water and a little non-toxic natural bleach (made from hydrogen peroxide) or you can use some white vinegar). Every two days i wash them in hot water. And voila, four years and two baby boys later, my two have never had many diaper rashes and think of all of the money I’ve saved, not to mention needless paper products diverted from the landfill!

Now, I must confess, that when i’m out and about, in my diaper bag i do carry a small pack of disposable wipes from 7th Generation. But i use them sparingly. If you want to be really virtuous, you can put a damp cloth in a ziploc bag for diaper changes on the go. Another great product to have in your diaper bag is Kai Kids’ all-natural Organic Diaper Spray – just a little on a cloth or your baby’s bum will help get things clean and fresh and it’s very moisturizing as well.

If you have any tips on green parenting I’d love to hear them so please share them here or email me at nancy@kaikids.com

So, my brother was visiting from Vancouver earlier this week, and Kai, our three-year-old, was over the moon, following him around, demonstrating his dancing skills, showing off his assortment of trucks and toys and generally monopolizing his Uncle John. My brother has a one-year-old, but three-year-olds are currently beyond his scope of experience, and I think Kai was keeping him amused and surprised with his imagination, constant barrage of questions, and quirky commentary. Three is such a fun age. Kai misses nothing, is very intuitive and says the funniest things sometimes. And he is so earnest, tries to be so helpful and loves to tell you about things he’s recently learned.At one point in the morning, my brother used the washroom just off the kitchen, and then returned to the breakfast table. Kai was playing nearby and piped up “Uncle John, you forgot to turn off the light! You are wasting electricity and that isn’t good for the earth.”John just looked at him dumbfounded and laughed. “You’re right Kai, I’m sorry, that wasn’t very smart of me, was it?” he replied, admonished by a three-year-old. I was so proud of Kai, and happy that he is absorbing what Peter and I are trying so hard to teach him: that we need to be mindful about how we live our daily lives, and try to do small things that will help lessen our impact on the environment. Kai also now tells his friends that we often walk instead of taking our car to daycare, or his playgroup because it “helps the earth,” and he insists we turn off the water while he is scrubbing his hands with soap before turning it back on to rinse. These are such little things, but they are easy to teach a receptive toddler or preschooler. And imagine an entire generation of children growing up thinking about how to conserve electricity and create less waste.On the days when the news gets to me and I feel overwhelmed by environmental disasters, world food shortages and global warming, this notion of a more conscientious, greener generation gives me hope. Hope that if anyone can turn this thing around, it will be these children. And my little green star will be one of them.

One of our customers called today to ask whether Kai Kids stocked any natural teething ointments and I had to answer unfortunately not. She has used something from the drug store before but said her daughter always throws up afterwards. So I told her what we’ve used on both of our boys during their teething days: Hyland’s homeopathic teething tablets. They are tiny, and dissolve instantly so you can use them even when your baby is 4-months or so, as you don’t need to fear choking. Our customer had not heard of these tablets before so I thought it might be worthwhile writing about them in case there is anyone else who would be interested in trying them. We get ours from a local natural food/health store. Good luck if you try them on your kids!

Robin at Comox Valley Kids blog just wrote an article about us, posted on Feb. 1st. Robin, thanks so much for the flattering post- we are glad you like our organic baby and maternity clothes! Check out Robin’s blog – it’s a great resource for parents with preschoolers at home. Although some of the activities are specific to her enviable location on Vancouver Island, she has lots of good ideas for crafts you can do on a rainy day and also, a fantastic Rainy Day Book Club, with some excellent kids book recommendations.

Launching a business is all consuming! But now that it’s been a few months and our organic baby clothes store Kai Kids is up and running well, Peter and I thought it would be fun to write a blog about our business, new products we are thinking of adding, our kids, and our adventures in green parenting. Plus, we wanted somewhere we could start a conversation with you – our customers and potential customers! We hope to hear from you in this space: what you are trying at home with your own children, products you’ve heard about and recommend we stock, what you think about our lines and more.

We just added two new lines to www.kaikids.com: Earth Friendly Baby and South of France. Since our son Kai was born three years ago I’ve struggled to find natural soaps, bubblebath and chemical-free skincare for our family that smelled nice and were affordable. It’s been particularly tough to find bubble bath that passes the judgement of both me and Kai! A lot of the natural, organic bubble baths just don’t foam up, and you end up wasting a lot of it trying to work up some bubbles. Earth Friendly Baby is a popular, award-winning natural baby skincare line from Australia that we are proud to now carry at Kai Kids. They do not contain any artificial colouring, parabens, sodium lauryl sulphate, petroleum-based ingredients, or any synthetic fragrance and detergents. And no animal testing has been conducted on any of their products. So we’re going to use their bubble bath and see! We are also stocking their Organic Shampoo & Body Wash formulas in two scents: Lavender and Chamomile. This line is quite new to Canada so we are looking forward to hearing what you think of it!

South of France isn’t a baby line, but we thought we’d stock their quality, natural soaps nevertheless. They are quite a good value as they are large, very hard bars of 100% vegetable soap that last and last. With lovely scents like Lavender, Honey and Lemon Verbena, each bar contains soothing olive oil and moisturizing Shea butter infused with natural fragrances and essential oils. Although made in the U.S., these rich lathering, bars are produced using a traditional recipe from Provence. And the company ensures their soap is not tested on animals, is biodegradable and they also use recyclable packaging.

-N