The Breast Solution

So we're settling in nicely to our new neighbourhood and the brownstone/commune arrangement is working out fabulously. As I type, Saint Sarah is busy washing Dot's cloth nappies in with Peggy's and adding our compost to her compost bin while I, er, I...well anyway...

My three days off work have been great but it's back to work tomorrow. I have my glass bottles sterilized and packed in the mini-cooler ready to go (there are many new frontiers to conquer as a working mum of which the least dignified is surely pumping breast milk in your office. So far I haven't had to attend any high-powered meetings with marketing directors of major Fortune 500 corporations in between sessions, but imagine the bathos of the boardroom to the breast pump when I do).

The reason they're glass bottles is because in between going back to work, moving in, battling a horrendous cold and preparing batches of pureed organic food for Dot, I've been finding the time to obsess anew over the horrors of plastic as they apply to bottlefeeding your baby and storing their food (in case you're interested, all sorts of info to be found here; this link courtesy of Sarah who is as bonkers as I am about this stuff, if not more so). The best alternative I've found so far to the ubiquitos plastic ice cube tray is these food-grade silicone ones; Sarah and I spent hours online last night and couldn't find anything to suggest silicone is bad.

Which is just as well because I also - and I say this tentatively - think I may finally have found a solution to the leaky boob problem in the form of these silicone boob pad thingies. So far so good, anyway.

Gosh you know I am so tired that I think it would be best if I stopped trying to be funny and went to bed now. We think Dot's teething because she's waking up more or less every two hours at the moment. Which means I might get an hour in now if I'm quick.

Wal Mart: in the bag

The postman had an exciting package again this morning:
No, not the baby (she came from somewhere different) - the rather lovely Dot-sized Carry-a-Bag.

Understandably, Dot was keen to show it off and demanded a shopping spree so we set out to visit Wal Mart in Honesdale to see if anything organic had arrived since our last disappointing visit.

We started in the babywear section, hoping to track down some organic cotton onesies, seeing as Wal Mart is now the biggest purchaser of organic cotton in the world. Unfortunately nothing doing.

Nothing either in the way of eco-friendly diapers - and, especially when we thought back to Waitrose and Tesco with their full complement thereof, we found this distinctly disappointing.

But things began to look up in the baby wipe aisle - we found wipes made of organic cotton. Actually, on closer inspection they contain 'minimum 15% organic cotton' which is pretty crap, and I now realize they're not biodegradable or unbleached like the ones we normally buy, but they are the best thing we've found outside the city so they'll tide us over till we're next there.

And things had definitely come along since we last ventured into the grocery section. Admittedly mostly it was still radioactive-looking chicken, a terrifying array of luncheon meat-esque cold-cuts, a million different permutations of refined sugar and lots of styrofoam. But a bit of careful foraging yielded bread made from organic wheat (the hubby scoffed it down, declaring it 'great' though I found it a bit sweet), organic salad, broccoli, garlic, avocados, carrots and spring onions, pesticide- and herbicide-free tomatoes, two brands of organic milk and yoghurt (Horizon and Stonyfield Farm) and so-called 'all-natural' Al Fresco chicken sausages (we subsequently discovered that while these are made with no additives, it isn't clear whether the chicken used to make them is free range or stuffed full of antibiotics and hormones so we've emailed the company to find out. Watch this space).

We forgot to check for paper and cleaning products, having just stocked up on our Ecover at the health food store down the road, but this was all very reassuring stuff and actually gave us enough material for a pretty decent weekly shop. I was reasonably impressed - if anyone can change the tide in America, Wal Mart can. So, more please, Bentonville.

The only hitch was that I got to the checkout to discover I'd left my (and Dot's) bloomin bags at home. Dur, how stupid actually am I? So I had to cram as much as possible into the buggy basket and balance the rest between the handle and my chin while steering with the other hand. However, I hate to say it, but while our local farm stand is closed for the winter, we may be finding ourselves shopping at Wal Mart more often. So next time we'll bring our statement bags and parade around the store to see if we get a reaction.

I forgot to mention this trip was also a bit of a test drive for the wooly breast pads. I'm unhappy to report that, as such, they rained on our parade. As we were driving back from Wal Mart (it's still hard for me to type that) in the full flush of a successful green foraging trip, I felt the familiar tingle which means squirty boob time. Almost immediately afterwards I felt a cold patch spreading down towards my stomach - a sure sign that yet again a failing pad had left me looking like a wonky Girls Gone Wild wannabe, and not in a good way (not that I think there is a good way, though some readers of the male persuasion might disagree). I am absolutely gutted because I so wanted these pads to be the answer. Since they're not, I'm now improvising a double-pad system - a Lansinoh pad behind the wooly pad, one to stop embarassing leaks, the other to keep the chemicals away from me and Dot. I know this is getting ridiculous. I guess I should maybe do more research into the disposable kind to double check it really is worth all this fuss (I think it is, though). But for now I'll settle for looking like I've had a lumpy boob job (with my clothes on only, of course).

Finally, a bit of good news: we had over 60 readers yesterday, which for us is a big deal. Is it really interesting reading about me and Dot bumbling about trying to be green? Evidently somebody must think so, so whoever you are, thanks for reading. And please carry on.

G'night.

Making a stand

This was yesterday’s post but we had to pop to the city, so it’s going up today instead. Sorry regular readers.

Well it has been an exciting day. Dot got us up bright and early so I decided to carpe diem and got on the phone to Pecks.

As I listened to it ring, I got a bit nervous – never have been massively confident on the phone – but before I could get cold feet, someone picked up.

“Er, hello, I’d like to speak to the manager about some ideas I have for the store, please,” I said.

A man came on the line.

“Oh, hello, I was wondering if I could set up some time to come and talk to you about a few ideas I have for the store?” I said.

“Go ahead,” he said.

“What, now?” I asked, caught off guard.

“Sure,” he said.

“OK, well, er, yes, the first thing is, did you know that Kleenex cut down 10,000 year-old forests to make their toilet paper? So, I was just wondering if you’d consider not stocking their products,” I began.

“No can do I’m afraid,” he said, “Or I’d have the other lot complaining to me to put it back. It’s what they’ve used all their lives and it’s what they like. I have to sell it.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to think fast.

“We used to stock Green Tree or something but they went out of business,” he continued. ”Now we stock Marcal, but it’s our worst seller and I heard they just declared Chapter 11, so I don’t know how much longer we’ll even have that. And our warehouse doesn’t carry other recycled ranges because they’re more expensive and people just won’t pay. They want what’s cheapest.”

Bugger. He'd pretty much covered all arguments.

“Oh, I see, but it’s just, well, it’s really bad about the forests,” I said, lamely.

“Hm,” he replied with an air of finality in his voice. Clearly the paper conversation was closed.

I decided to change tack. “Er, ok, well, in that case, you know how all your vegetables are packaged in Styrofoam?” I ventured. “And as you know, Styrofoam is horrible for the environment. So I was wondering if there was another option.”

“We looked into it, but paper trays are 3 cents apiece whereas the Styrofoam is only a penny. We’d have to pass the costs on to the consumer and when it comes down to it, people round here just want whatever’s cheapest,” he said patiently. “We tried it with the egg cartons but people complained so we had to change back.”

“Oh,” I said again, not knowing how to argue with this straightforward lesson in marketplace dynamics (of course cost-cutting, along with that other pillar of 20th and 21st century consumerism, convenience, is at the root of most of our environmental woes).

“So no chance of ditching the styrofoam, then.”

“’Fraid not,” he said.

By now I got the feeling I was sounding either naïve or like a total crackpot (or both) but the manager didn’t seem to mind chatting, so in a last-ditch bid I said, “There was one other thing. There are some great farmers’ markets and farm stands around here, and I was wondering if you would be able to stock more local produce, or is that cost-prohibitive too?”

“Actually we do that in the summer, we have local corn and apples,” he said.

“Oh, er, ok then, well that’s great,” I said, thinking I had seen little evidence of local produce this summer, but whatever. “Well, thanks for your time, and sorry for chewing your ear off.”

“Oh, that’s ok,” said the manager, as if humouring someone simple.

We hung up. I was disappointed to have made absolutely zero progress and completely nonplussed as to what my next step would be, but pleased I’d had the balls to at least try.

As I pondered how I was going to convince the people of Narrowsburg to boycott Kleenex (placards? I have a feeling the locals might not go for it), an exciting package arrived: the wooly breast pads. What a relief: no more disposables. Mind you, I got a bit of a shock when I opened them – they’re as big as saucers and thicker than a...thick wooly blanket. They do make one look a little matronly, but the temperature dropped to 20 degrees by this afternoon so I’m sure I’ll be glad of the extra insulation.

Once I had them installed, Dot and I headed out for a walk in the woods. No bears spotted today; instead something much rarer in these parts - a Prius. The driver turned out to be Barbara (she of the local conservation society and vegetable patch). We hope to be seeing more of her soon.

The day ended in the city with a lovely dinner at Jamie and Kim’s.

“It’s terrible about the trees,” said Kim, who's a reader.

“It’s worse about our loo roll,” said Jamie forlornly. “Bloody green bloody crap.”

He didn’t mean it. He’s having his new house outfitted with the latest energy-saving devices and natural gas. And I’m sure his tender bottie will soon have forgotten what Charmin even felt like. Cheers Jamie. The boreal forest will thank you.

Home again home again...

So we're back in PA. Good to be back to get on with all our exciting projects (homemade cleaning products! compst bin!), but this global warming thing seems to be in full effect - this time last year the river was frozen into huge blue icy chunks like something which normally comes with a David Attenborough voiceover; today we got back to a free-flowing torrent and reports of 70 degrees two days ago. Easier to live with but wrong. Still, an incentive to redouble our efforts.

Dot and I took a stroll down to the river this afternoon. It was wonderful until her jetlag kicked in just as we reached the water's edge. After five minutes abject caterwauling I acquiesced and got my boob out on a rock in the middle of the deserted campground. Dot was fussing; I attributed this to the icy wind which had got up out of nowhere and wrangled her onto the boob. So imagine how bad I felt when she came up for air minutes later to display a veritable beard of super-absorbent material which had escaped from a tear in my breast pad and got onto her chin and even into her mouth (I was back on the Lansinoh pads having been unable to replace the eco-friendly ones even in Waitrose).

I spent the rest of the afternoon brooding over how severely I might have poisoned my little girl but feeling backed into a corner: the Lansinoh pads had to go, but even if I could find somewhere that sold the Natracare ones they'd proved no match for my leaky boobs (read embarassing leaks) and anyway, both types were generating way too much landfill for my conscience. So what to do?

Then I saw a reference to woolen breast pads in an email from the Bowery Babes (my yoga group) and in desperation asked for the reference. The reply came back: danishwool.com. I checked and hurrah! My prayers had been answered. Reusable pads in eco-friendly, naturally absorbent and hygienic wool that keep your boobs warm into the bargain! Here they are:

OK so they are the least sexy thing ever and will probably itch but I ordered two pairs of the Ekstra variety ("For women with extra strong "let-down" reflexes or heavy leakage") anyway.

So, just call me toasty tits. And pity my poor, long-suffering husband. He doesn't know about these yet.

By the way, I am dying to tell you about this cheese tasting thing but I've been up since 5; a baby with jetlag is not a pretty thing. Hopefully cheese tomorrow.

Home again

We're back in Pennsylvania today - can't believe we've been away almost a month, or almost a quarter of Dot's life. We had a great trip but it's lovely to be back.

But something's not right: this time last year it was freezing cold up here and the river was frozen into huge hunks of blue ice like something that normally comes with a David Attenborough voiceover. Today not a bit of ice in sight and apparently it was 70 degrees two days ago. Might be easier to handle but it's just wrong. Still, encourages up to redouble our efforts to stem global warming.

Dot and I decided to wander down to the river this afternoon to reconnect. Her jetlag kicked in just as we reached its banks and after five minutes abject caterwauling I acquiesced and got my boob out on a rock in the carpark of the deserted campground. Dot was fussing a bit but I assumed it was just because an icy wind had got up from nowhere, and wrangled her on. So imagine how bad I felt when, after some furious guzzling, I sat her up to discover a veritable beard of super absorbent material from the breast pad all over her chin and a few bits in her mouth (I'd gone back on the Lansinoh ones having run out of the eco-friendly version and been unable to buy more even in Waitrose). No wonder she'd needed some gentle encouragement to eat.

I spent the rest of the afternoon brooding over the harm I'd done her poor little body and feeling hopeless because what to do? I couldn't keep going with the Lansinoh pads, and even if I could find them, the Natracare ones had finally proved no match for my super-leaky boobs. And anyway, all disposable pads were creating far too much landfill for my conscience to bear. I seemed fresh out of options.

Then I saw in an email from one of the Bowery Babes (my yoga group) a reference to some woolen breast pads. In desperation, I got in touch and got the web address - danishwool.com - and hurrah! My prayers have been answered. Washable breast pads made from naturally hygienic eco-wool that are super absorbent, create no landfill waste and act as boob warmers into the bargain! (Just call me toasty tits) And here they are:



OK so they look like some creepy remedial thing and I'm worried they might be terribly itchy but I've ordered some (and a cute bib for Dot) anyway. I ordered the Ekstra - "For women with extra strong "let-down" reflexes or heavy leakage". Look, no one ever said this motherhood thing was glamorous (at least, I didn't).

So hopefully my ongoing quest for dry, eco-friendly boobs will soon be over. Just pity my poor, long suffering husband.

I'm still dying to tell you about this cheese tasting, by the way, but Dot had me up at 5 this morning (baby jetlag: not pretty) so I'd better get my head down while I can. Cheers all.