Back in university I used to be a vegetarian. I am no longer, but still love legumes and many vegetarian cuisines. And now that I’m cooking for my kids, part of my mission to provide healthy meals is to provide a weekly meatless one.

Once a week we eat a vegetarian entree for dinner. The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health suggests just one day a week without meat can reduce your consumption of saturated fat by 15% and reduce your chances of heart disease.

The other night, as we were tucking into a tasty Red Lentil and Swiss Chard Stew over brown rice,  I explained to my two older boys (4.5 and 2.5) the reasons why we were eating a vegetarian supper:

• it helps reduce our carbon footprint. Less of the planet’s resources and energy is used to grow plants than to raise animals
• vegetarians have lower rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and some cancers.
• going meatless saves money. It’s a frugal, yet tasty and healthy way to curb your grocery bill, which is especially helpful right now during a recession

When my boys were babies and toddlers I would often just open a can of black beans or chick peas, rinse and serve as their protein that meal. It was quick and convenient, not to mention healthy, and helped vary their diet. Something must have stuck as now I’m fortunate that my kids love peas, beans, chickpeas etc.

I must admit, I’m not a tofu lover, so vegetarian night at our place tends to involve beans and legumes. Here is a great recipe we tried last week; easy, flavourful, cheap and nutritious. Plus, otherwise my sons won’t go near Swiss Chard (my husband is not a fan either), but they didn’t even notice it in this recipe!  It is quite thick, so you can serve it as is, over rice, or thin it out with more broth to eat as a soup.

 Red Lentil and Swiss Chard Stew

-2 Tbsp olive oil

-1 onion, sliced

-5 tsp. curry powder

-1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (I used 1/8)

-42 oz. vegetable broth

-1 bunch chard, chopped

-2 1/4 cups red lentils

-1 can chick peas, rinsed

-yogurt or sour cream for garnish

In a large soup pot saute the onion in oil over medium high heat for 10-15 min or until golden. Stir in curry powder and cayenne.

Add the broth and chard and increase heat to high. Bring to boil

Reduce heat to medium and stir in lentils and chick peas. Cover pan and simmer for 10 min or until lentils are tender.

Divide soup into bowls  and top with garnish if desired.

I get all kinds of newsletters from various parenting and eco sites and blogs to try to stay up to date on new products, and to keep learning while I’m home with my kids. Some days I feel like they are just cluttering up my inbox, but other times I come across something that really hits home with me and makes me glad I didn’t just hit Delete.

Today was one of those days. I get an e-letter from a newish Canadian site called Everythingmom.com. It’s a gorgeously-designed, fun, useful social networking site for moms and bloggers featuring advice, reviews, product directories, community, blogs, printable meal planners etc. I haven’t spend enough time on there yet since giving birth has kept my focus away from my computer for the summer, but I keep meaning to add myself and Kai Kids to their directory of mom-owned businesses.

As I quickly scanned it my eyes tripped across their Mothercraft Tip of the Week, and it really hit home with me so I thought I’d share it:

 Moms are often praised for their multi-tasking abilities. But for all our “doing” throughout the day, many among us go to sleep feeling like we’ve accomplished nothing at all. More and more research shows that multi-tasking only gives the illusion of productivity and efficiency. Replace your multi-tasking with the discipline to return your wandering attention to what’s happening right now. Sometimes it’s not about what you’re getting done, but rather what you’re missing when you’re on the phone, folding the laundry, watching Oprah and checking email all at the same time. (HINT: Your present moment!)

As a mom of now three boys under 4.5 years old, like many mothers, I’m a whiz at multi-tasking!  Nurse the baby and read to my two-year-old while coaching my eldest to clean up his spilt milk . . . you’ve got the picture. Throw in housekeeping, trying to be a supportive/fun wife and run a successful online business, and it’s juggle, juggle, all the time.

But I realize I can get too caught up in trying to accomplish multiple tasks and crossing items off my endless list of daily to -do`s. I’m a do-er, and sometimes I try to do too much, and I think I miss out on a lot along the way. Having another baby has added to my load, but it’s also made me realize my limits. There is only so much I can do, if I want to do things well.

Plus, having a soft-cheeked, twinkly-eyed two-month-old who is fascinated by the wind rifling the leaves in the trees has made me stop and enjoy more moments, more often. It has slowed me down, and instead of letting that frustrate me, I`ve decided to try and embrace it! This is most-likely my last baby, and these special moments go by oh so quickly!

Just looking at this page makes me feel guilty for not having written for so long!  But I have a good excuse: I had another baby in July (that makes three boys for us)!  His difficult birth, my recovery, and just getting used to a household of three boys under 4.5 years, plus running the business, has set me back a bit.

But with September around the corner, the back to school feeling has put me in the mood for new beginnings and getting back to my regular schedule, so here I finally am!

There is so much to catch up on, so tune in over the coming weeks as I write about:

• new non-toxic products for packing a litterless lunch
• 7th Generation eco products ( a review)
• how to select a tree to plant in your yard
• how much has changed on the organic/eco-friendly front since I had my first baby 4.5 years ago

Any suggestions for topics you’d like me to explore in this blog are always welcome; same for product suggestions for our online eco store, kaikids.com.

This belly of mine is getting big now (only a month or so to go until Baby #3 arrives!) and Peter and I are getting ready for our last big shopping show of the spring season!

This Friday, May 29, Kai Kids will be at the always fabulous Children’s Trunk Show at the Distillery District in Toronto.   This will be our third time at the Trunk Show and it is definitely our favourite shopping show: well organized, featuring gorgeous unique products for babies and kids, and a bunch of really nice parents: both vendors and customers.

We will be there with our Kai Kids booth and will be hauling our pretty, eco maternity and nursingwear so you can try it on,  our standard bestselling stock such as Bambu, Bamboosa and BabySoy, plus a bunch of excellent new items we’ve added to our online store:

•  handmade bamboo and organic cotton baby rattles
• new stainless steel feeding trays, perfect for baby
• organic mesh produce bags just in time for farmer’s markets
• natural, chemical-free hand sanitizer
• new spring styles of sweet and funky non-toxic baby and toddler shoes from

The Children’s Trunk Show is an exclusive shopping event featuring high-quality fashion, jewellery and art made by moms and geared exclusively towards kids and families. 50+ vendors are hand-selected to ensure a wide variety of goods—so you’re sure to find unique and useful gifts for all the children in your life in one place.

Come on out and join us this Friday, May 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., in the Fermenting Cellar at the Distillery District, 55 Mill Street, Toronto. We’d love to see you there!

Check out the great Organic teething Bonbon review on Cool Mom Picks!

Cool Mom Picks – Bonbons for babies

I just entered Peter and I and our Kai Kids online boutique in a great contest going on over at Canadian parenting site, WeeWelcome.ca .

They are promoting the plethora of Canadian parentpreneurs out there, which is great, as we all could use a little help promoting ourselves and reaching new customers. Small business is a tough go, and many, like ours, can’t afford to do much, if any, advertising. We rely on word of mouth, or word of “mom” to reach new customers and sell enough product to keep our biz afloat!

If you are a reader of this blog and/or a Kai Kids customer, we’d really appreciate your vote!  All you have to do is go on over to weewelcome.ca and sign up, then vote for Kai Kids! WeeWelcome is a great resource with lots of articles, blogs, forums, groups and contests going on all the time, and a good way to connect with other parents in your city or neighbourhood.

So please vote for us!  We could win $20,000 of advertising in WeeWelcome’s web site, newsletter and printed guides (I can’t even get my head around that figure!) plus a trip to Club Med for our whole family (baby #3 is due soon, so we’ll need it!  We haven’t been anywhere outside Canada since before we got married and had Big Boy over five years ago).

Kids love painting, drawing and colouring, and even if your little ones spend a lot of time creating at home, they probably are also bringing home several masterpieces a week from school or daycare. We have a magnet board in our kitchen where I post the latest works of art from our two boys, but they do tend to pile up.

I used to sneak old paintings and those that weren’t my favourites into our recycling bin when my sons weren’t looking. But then I realized that their colourful, abstract (they are ages 2 and 4) paintings would make excellent wrapping paper for gifts!

This reuses their paintings (and gives them a thrill to see their masterpiece adorning a present for a friend’s birthday party etc.), reduces the amount of wrapping paper we consume (I haven’t bought any in two years!) and saves us money. And friends and family love the personal touch and think it’s quite fun to receive a present wrapped in children’s artwork.

Plus, I no longer have to feel guilty about not keeping every “unique: canvas they bring home!

Do you have any good ideas for reusing items around the home and encouraging your kids to reduce, reuse and recycle? I’d love to hear them.

If you live in and around Toronto, please come join us tomorrow at the Temple Sinai Nursery School’s 7th Annual Boutique Night in north Toronto.

We at Kai Kids will be there, offline, with our plethora of ethically-made, eco-friendly products for babies and toddlers, plus there will be many other companies selling women’s and children’s clothing, giftware, jewelry, stationery, personalized accessories, home decor, and more. Guests can also purchase raffle tickets as there are lots of prizes to be won.

Come on out to The Temple Sinai Congregation of Toronto, 210 Wilson Ave., at Avenue and Wilson.

We hope to see you there!

To celebrate Earth Day today, I thought I’d share some excellent children’s books our family has read lately so you can try to make every day Earth Day in your household (we all know how little ones like to hear a story over and over again…).

One day earlier this spring I escaped for a bit of rare “me-time,” and headed to Chapters downtown, sans enfants. I scored several charming books for toddlers and preschoolers that I thought my two little green stars might like. Perhaps yours will, too.  Read the rest over at Canadian Family’s site, where I’m guest blogging this week!

Happy Earth Day everyone!

It’s only Tuesday, but it’s already been a busy week for Kai Kids. First we were featured in the Toronto Star’s Sunday edition, which brought us lots of online traffic and kept us busy shipping parcels off to new customers, yippee!

Plus,  I was invited to be the guest blogger over at Canadian Family’s blog for the week, in honour of Earth Day! My first post went up today: fun ways you can help your kids grow up green. Check it out, and if you haven’t already, spend some time on their site: it’s an excellent magazine and web resource for parents, full of Canadian content, and over the past few months, they’ve really beefed up their coverage of three of my favourite topics: the environment, mompreneurs and social media!