raison d'etre

these last 2 wks, VL has discovered butter, salt, real ice cream, & chocosoymilk are the primary reasons for existence.

non-toxic baby products

i've got chemical sensitivities. i know this sounds like some Bay Area hippy psychosomatic thing, but ever since i was a kid, i would always get unexplained rashes and all my blood tests come out with elevated levels of eocinophils (white blood cells; in other words, my immune system is constantly on the offense). the worst outbreak was after we painted the house in the late 80s and i swolled up. not just my skin, but also my lips & eyeballs to the point we called poison control who were absolutely useless by the way. bathing in baking soda only addressed the symptoms. if you have ever had swollen fish eyeballs you understand that this is not some crazy imaginary thing i made up in my head. my immune system just doesn't handle very well the thousands of toxic chemicals that have become increasingly present in our society & environment. ever since then, i've been sensitive to chemical vapors including most synthetic perfumes/fragrances, deodorizers, etc. and i became more sensitive under the stress & duress of grad school.

so upside is we try to be as ecologically responsible and non-toxic as possible on a very tight budget. when we remodelled our fixer upper, we went as non-toxic as we could afford--non-formaldehyde treated lumber, non-off-gassing insulation, milk paint (and when that didn't work out b/c of the vinyl joint compound, non-VOC paint). i also went on a gluten/wheat-free and dairy-free diet the year before I got pregnant. it was really hard, but i'm lucky to be living in the epicenter of all things hippy and natural and near a gluten-free bakery. my allergies almost completely went away. of course, i fell off the wagon but i keep meaning to purge wheat & dairy yet again.

it's not always affordable to buy non-chemically treated organic products though so a neat trick that i recently learned

• vinegar vinegar vinegar! strips away toxic chemicals!
  
• carpet cleaner-mix mild soap (castile or natural soap) with vinegar
  
• baby products-(tip is from Organic Grace) wash all new baby products with a cup to a cup and a half of vinegar. This removes a good amount of the toxic flame retardent chemicals that most baby products are coated in. You can remove padding from car seats, swings etc. Wash new non-organic clothing with it. Use a drop of lavender essential oil in the wash to make it smell nice and soothe baby.

And of course, good ole consumer products which I've thoroughly researched on EWG and a few other online sites. This is not exhaustive because I tend to buy the least toxic one and once I find one that is adequate to my purpose, not experiment with others, new or emerging. I suppose if I was a paid blogger/reviewer I would try and be more comprehensive.

• Earth Mama Angel Baby Bottom Balm has the best diaper rash/first aid balm. Cleared up VL's milk allergy bottom rashes.
  
• I use EMAB baby soap/shampoo which is a castile soap. Castile soaps tend not to strip so it feels a little tacky on her hair. While VL doesn't have the (luxuriant) thickness of my hair, she definitely has my hair waviness plus. So it's better not to use stripping shampoos on her. But I don't like the feel of castile soap on hair. I've switched to using my organic Aubrey Island Natural shampoo and conditioner (a must for her curls!) on her which has fantastic results on her hair, but of course it's not baby soap so if it gets in her eyes, she cries. I've switched to using natural handmilled bar soap and Dr. Bronner's Baby Mild. It's way less expensive than EMAB castile soap. But I've got to find a toddler-friendly, wave-friendly conditioner.
  
• Gaia Natural Baby Conditioning Detangler-everyone I know loves California Baby, and while it's better than Johnson & Johnson by farI'm still a little horrified that it contains antimicrobial ingredients polyaminopropyl biguanide. I had to buy Gaia products from Canada when I first got it around a year ago. It's available on a major monopoly webstore now which if you are going to buy from it at least find an affiliated charity/non-profit that will get a minuscule percentage of the sale. [It looks like California Baby reformulated without anti-microbials. We're giving it a try now. We picked it up at Tarzhay]
  
• Nature's Baby Ah-choo Chest Balm for colds. Total late night anxious parent saver.
  
• Weleda Sunscreen Spf 18 This German homeopathic brand is nice though EWG supposedly docks them for their use of fragrance that is essential oil-based and therefore not toxic petro-based. Germans have a thing with purity (and yes, that is a major historical/cultural generalization but I'm anthropologically minded so get over it) so I tend to "trust" their products more; they make the best non-toxic toys and were the original innovators of the baby wrap sling in the 70s. I don't know enough about the chemistry of fragrance to know if it is truly toxic or not, but though the smell is assertive, it doesn't irritate me. You really have to have yellow-undertones for this sunscreen. Some folks have said it leaves them pasty. It comes out of the tube creamy yellow already. I like it though I haven't refilled because it is expensive and hard to find. I did find that the Pharmaca in Rockridge has it.
  
• TruKid Face stick SPF 30-great for when you are in a hurry. You have to rub it in pretty good. The mom who owns this has her HQ in West Oakland and is happy to have pick up orders which mean no shipping & handling charges and sometimes, ahem, tax discount. She gave me free lotion (too strong smelling and kid-fruity for me) and samples! VL associates facestick sunscreen with facepainting. She says "con mèo|cat" and meows everytime we put it on her.
  
• Loving Naturals Sunscreen SPF 30-we used this in Hawaii, intermittently. We liked it well enough though once your hands get greasy, the cheap sticker label ink rubs entirely off which is slightly annoying to have questionable ink flakes all over your body and then a now unlabelled white bottle. Like most mineral-based sunscreens, it starts off purply tinted and then is supposed to absorb.
• I just got Badger sunscreen SPF 30 and Facestick. They have the lowest toxic rating on EWG. I love their balms which contain only natural pronounceable ingredients from plants. Like LN above, you got to rub it in very well. Not waterproof and you must reapply frequently. T & I got a mild burn from 5 hours of Tahoe sun and a single application.
  
• We've mostly used reusable flannel wipes for VL along with butt/diaper spray (punkin butt has their in house brand and there's also another one which name I forget), but now that she is a messy toddler, we occasionally indulge in the ubiquitous disposable baby wipes. I hated how soapy Earth's Best is, so we found this European brand Nature Babycare. It claims to be biodegradable and it actually works great for gentle cleaning. It doesn't sting either. Our local Farmer Joe's has it, but only the scented one. I prefer the unscented which I got bulk offa the monopoly capitalist named above (affiliated non-profit link)

whoa nellie

Today Trang took us (Trang's daughter LA, me, T, & VL) to her secret kid spot The Brunk Children's Museum of Immigration in nearby Andersonville. Like any great children's museum, it had really great interactive roleplay exhibits; in this case, of life in the old country, the journey to America, and life in America. Not to detract from the museum's Swedish mission nor to detract from the basic fun-ness of it, I must allow that it's a rather grandiose museum name that surpasses its subject by far since it focuses on a very specific segment of Swedish immigration in the 1800s. The museum acknowledges as much:

The Museum has a Swedish focus; however, the story of Swedish immigration parallels that of many other groups who left the old world behind and forged new lives in America.

Indeed, there was the almost universalized American romantic meme of immigrating to America in the 1800s-a least if one was a European settler and not an African slave or a Chinese coolie or a dispossessed Injun. That substantial historical context aside, there was definite wholesome, rustic charm to delight my girlish homesteading heart having grown up reading & watching Little House on the Prairie. Think roleplaying Laura Ingalls Wilder. Plus, who doesn't love kid-sized pinafores, cast iron stoves, coffee mills, and chamberpots? The wooden milking cow that one could actually milk was RAD. So Sweden farmhouse in the 1800s was lots of fun for the girls. They cooked us fish, made us coffee, and had lots and lots of kitchentime fun. Then we took the cruise ship to America, a quick journey really because the girls weren't interested in rowing or shuffleboard. And then onto pioneer America of the 1800s, where the little one room cabin was adorned with hand embroidered aphorism in cryptic Swedish, with Ikea furniture (I kid you not), and *real* animal pelts-ugh, it looked way cuter on the actual racoons and coyotes. There was a darling garden handmade with recycled/repurposed rubber tires, boxes, fabric. Tucked away in a corner in front of the emergency exit was a small life raft-a story symbol of the desperate third world refugee influx to Sweden. This display was marked DO NOT PLAY. Refugee boat stories are depressing and not to be roleplayed, apparently.

At any rate, I thought wouldn't it be great for VL & LA to have kid-sized dioramas of vietnamese life? Oh, or better yet, a children's museum that could really reflect the diversity of immigration experiences? To come over, one could chose the boat or an airplane or... climb a barbwire fence. And then Life in America could reflect more recent realities like uh, urban homesteading, public housing, section 8, refugee camps... While not without humanitarian precedent, this roleplaying idea quickly devolved. Perhaps like the fragile refugee life-raft diorama, some stories are not meant to be roleplayed...

How do we tell our stories to our children?

Dead Dad's Club

I once caught this scene from Grey's Anatomy, that struck me with its truth:

Christina: There's a club. The Dead Dad's club, and you can't be in it till you're in it. You can try to understand, you can sympathize but until you feel that loss.... My Dad died when I was nine. George, I'm really sorry you had to join the club.

George: I don't know how to exist in a world where my Dad doesn't.

Christina: Yeah, that never really changes.

For so many decades, I have lived with death and loss and I am ever so very sorry to welcome anyone to one of life's fundamental rites of passage.

Last nite: Thai hot pot

Last nite: Thai hot pot with dungeness & prawns. Tonite: roast leg of lamb, prime rib, & more dungeness.

neow

yesterday I did something I haven't done voluntarily in over a decade. While VL napped, I went to the drugstore, got supplies, locked myself in the bathroom, and enacted the profession of my people--I painted my nails. And for the first time in my life, I like it. It's not the color per se (I wanted a dove gray but settled for gunmetal. and the violet on my toes is almost black, not plum) nor the nail polish (the smell still nauseates me) nor is it perfect having instantly ruined them trying to button up a jumper & onesie on a wiggly toddler. I still prefer my nails short and plain. And yet, I like them.

It is the ritual I spose, the ritual of carving out a space for myself that is completely selfish and indulges my vanity all for $7. And every time I see my busy hands doing busy things, my 'tips gladly remind me that I'm still me.

It is not quite a room of one's own, but it is enough. for now.

inward facing dog

weo, i did it, am doing it. i am examining myself and why i've been on such a short fuse--banging cupboard doors and drawers with disproportionate growling irateness (ok, so it still sounds relatively tame but the physical toll, the cellular attrition of such "restraint" is smothering the vitality out of me).

it could be the stress of having 4 jobs at two workplaces and fulltime workload expectations. it could be mine own hot temperment, unresolved grief, and emotional childhood wounds in desperate need of healing. it could be the chafing demands of balancing infinite-love-motherhood with 30+ years of self-centered Self ("i just need mother-fracking 15 minutes" when minutes become hours and whole days pass by). it could be the strain of a relationship deferred to all of the above. and it is all of the above. no duh, but causality is only slightly less ... interesting than the effects, the symptoms of a deteriorating inner life and a dusty social life.

so, i've enacted a 21st millenial cliche. i started doing yoga. downward facing dog has transformed my Life; i refer to my instructor as my guru; i wear OM jewelry, tribal yoga tatts and organic fair trade tibetan hemp parachute pants; my house now has a fountain & shrine dedicated to an eclectic pantheon of hindu and buddhist goddesses; and most importantly, i greet all people with prayer hands and a hushed "namaste" to socially mark my profound spiritual conversion.

ok, mostly a lie. i'm not a smug, middle class white born -again-yogini searching for the meaning of life in the consumption of other people's culture. i have a small soul and a petty mind and i couldn't resist mocking the Smuggles.

i do do yoga though, restorative yoga. it helps me to stretch out muscles rigid with a lifetime of tension, the gimpy arthritic limbs, and the habititude of pain. i am not transformed but then i don't expect instant gratification. it is enough that for one hour, once a week, i can breathe and quiet the riot of a bazillion synapses.

and, i sat down T and admitted the festering emotions--the rage, resentment, almost hatred, and then scariest of all, the nothing, that i sometimes felt. towards him. my bestest friend. the toll that homeownership, marriage, mourning, and now, parenting have taken on my half of the relationship over the last ten plus years.

(to be continued..)