I pack school lunches for my kids every day. I don't mind actually making the lunches; it's the packaging that gets me, all those little plastic bags bound for the trash, stored in a garish character tie-in lunchbox. That part is depress…
Since I've become a parent, my delight with Peter Rabbit has been replaced with a desire to give him a time out for eating Farmer Brown's veggies and disobeying his mama. He's figuring out how to win we me over again though, by going gre…
I make no apologies about dissuading people from giving stuffed animals as baby gifts because the damn things just seem to spawn and multiply overnight. But I could easily make an exception when it comes to the gorgeous plush baby rattle…
So okay, we've been fawning over Dante Beatrix way too much lately. First it was their fabulous eco-backpacks made out of 100% recycled bottles which now come in little kid sizes. Then it was their adorable wheelie bags for kids. Next up…
One of biggest and easiest green changes I made in our house was that I started using cloth napkins instead of paper . But it's amazing how hard it is to find cute cloth napkins for the kids, let alone ones that aren't so big they might …
There's so much advice for new moms to wade through, and after being pregnant and told you can't eat spicy tuna rolls or a good brie for ten months, it would be easy to throw up your hands by the time you get around to choosing the safes…
My daughter recently drew a picture of herself and one of her school friends. She made herself pink and her friend brown. Neither color was exactly ... right. And as a budding artist, she was bothered by the limitations of her crayons . …
I don't even want to think about how many plastic sandwich bags I go through a month. Every day my son takes at least two or three in his lunch bag, and I've felt it's either use a disposable sandwich bag or buy the much more expensive p…
Can I mention that I'm sort of freaking out about this whole packing a lunch in an actual lunch box thing, which is completely silly because it's just a lunch for goodness sake. So, I'm relying on my daughter's new Laptop Lunch box and b…
The brilliant folks at Oeuf have listened to the pleas of cash-strapped moms like me and created a new kids' furniture collection that is chock full of the design and eco-friendliness of their other collections-- but at about half the pr…
The day I realized how many plastic baggies I was using in my kids' lunches each week was the day I began trying every sort of reusable container and wrap out there. Nowadays the kids take a cobbled-together assortment of reusables in th…
For years, I dreamt about a playroom -- a place (that wasn't my living room) where my boys could make a mess with their superhero toys and have pillow fights and stand on the furniture without making me insane. Now that we have a playroo…
I have heard nothing but raves about Mrs. Meyer's household cleaners and I have no idea why it took me so long to try them out myself. Because, now that I have, just you go ahead and count me in among the ravers. Washing dishes is litera…
If I had my way, birthday decorations would be limited to a couple of mylar balloons. It's not that I don't appreciate a good birthday celebration. It's just that when you pile on the streamers and the birthday signs and the confetti (oh…
When my first daughter was born, I figured all diaper creams were pretty much created equal. I bought whatever sounded familiar, never once scanning the label for stuff like synthetic fragrances, methylparabens, or sodium borate --let al…
"Say, is that a 1950's original Davy Crockett costume beautifully framed on your wall?" "Why yes, yes it is." Petrie Point Designs has taken recycling to a whole new level with their Petrie Pint vintage collection. Susan Petrie-Badertsch…
I know, organic cotton is cool, plastic is not. But cotton gets ... wet. With the drool. And the spit-up. And the yams. I'm grossing myself out just thinking about it. Never fear, though -- Wow Baby has a new line of US made, double-line…
I'm always on the lookout for unique eco-friendly baby gifts that don't break the budget, in addition to my regular arsenal of organic onesies and blankets. I know, boring. So when I saw the truly original heirloom baby teethers from Roc…
I may not know my Syrah from my Pinot Noir, but there are still times I'd love a glass of wine at a late-day beach picnic or at that Little League game that goes into extra innings. But dragging along a glass wine bottle (let alone wrest…
My crush on Ideal Bite began with the first sentence of their philosophy: If we all knew what we could do in the day to day to impact the planet and our communities in a positive way, we'd do it. I used to say that I would live a greener…
I've admitted here before that I'm a terrible gift wrapper, but as long as there are children aging in the world, there will be presents to wrap. Which is why I'm so happy to have found the Eco Deco line of green gift wrapping from Olive…
When I saw the Cardboard Designs airplane at Arte Bebe, I immediately sent it to my husband the pilot, who immediately sent it to all his pilot friends because it might just be the coolest plane toy we've ever seen. We're already fans of…
With three kids running circles around me, I've made some concessions when it comes to cleaning up. And one of them is that I'm not going to be doing all of it. My philosophy has always been that if my kids can make a mess, then they can…
Say that you need a giant-sized tote bag for the beach next weekend -- or if you're a family of geeks like mine, your library books -- and you're just not the preppy major-label canvas tote type. And say that you not only want something …