The Innies and Outies of Interpreting BabyG

BabyG has become an expert at identifying her favorite words in the world around us. She spots miniature cat ornaments nobody else notices and screams: “Baicy! Baicy!” since she calls all cats after our own, Percy. In other people’s homes, she giggles wildly if she comes across a stuffed dog before addressing it: “woof woof!” or if she sees a picture of a cow: “moo! moo! moo!”

If you say, “BabyG, where’s your belly button?” she opens her mouth like you’ve reminded her of the most incredible idea in the world, hitches her dress up and points. “Bay bay!” she croons, hanging slightly on each of the ‘y’s.

In her picture books, she points at babies and says, “baybay.” Faster than a belly button, but the same word.

When she’s on the potty, or she has to go poo, she says, “bay bay,” only this time, the ‘b’s are very slightly sharpened…not quite ‘p’s yet, but on their way.

Finally, there is the word which, when she's in an enunciatory mood, may come out "bye-bye" or "bye" or "bay-bye" – but just as often comes out "bay-bay."

I figure she’s determined to use words to their full potentiality at this tender age. That she wants to reuse, renew and recycle syllables in order demonstrate the innate connection between the words we use and the way we use the world. And I am very proud of her for making such an intelligent stand at such an early age.

The only problem is that sometimes she drops whatever’s in her hands as if she’s been suddenly shocked by something she sees, points her tiny finger, and says, significantly, as if she’s introducing somebody to the queen: “Bay bay!”

And then you have to figure out what she’s pointing at: the potty, a baby, a belly button…or, God forbid, some new thing she’s decided should be signified by her favorite two syllables. Because not only does she want to point it out for her, she wants you to agree that she’s right by looking at whatever it is she’s found, pointing at it yourself and saying, “Yes, BabyG, Bay Bay.”

The other morning she was sitting in her highchair, eating some of her coveted frozen blueberries, when she began frantically pointing at the closed closet door and chirping: “Bay Bay! Bay Bay!”

“No, BabyG, there’s no Bay Bay, there,” I said, when I walked in from the kitchen to see what the commotion was about.

“Bayyy Bayyyy! Bayyyy Bayyyy! Bayyyy bayyyy!” she insisted, making the ‘y’s as distinct as possible.

By this time she was doing her best to jump up and down in her high chair, leaning as far out of it as she could (thank God that Svan is so well balanced). I stared into the door like you do at those 3D stereograms, and noticed she was pointing specifically at the closet’s missing door knob...

Which is, you will note if you take the time to move your mouse over the picture below...

quite clearly, an "innie."

A Blessing for You and Your Newborns

For Ruben and Angela, and for Ruby Graciela and Lucia Simone who were born 19 Feb 07

May they mash you up in their gummy mouths.
May they render you into a pulsing goop,
a thing that shares only a DNA signature
with the person that you were.
Make it new, they will say in their secret languages.
May they hold back their first smiles.
You will peer into their faces at dawn.
You will try swinging around to catch them
laughing at you like torturers.
May they hold back
and yank you down with their first smiles
like undercurrents in the warm sea.

Surfing

Here's some of the websites I Stumbled Upon recently, and thought I'd share.

The Sim Sweatshop
The P Mate
The Trash Vortex
Duck and Cover for the Modern Age
Flash Face
Global Rich List
The Miniature Earth

A Problem with Natural Parenting

I imagine that many folks who come by this blog think of us, and themselves, as natural parents. It’s a popular category. At least two major parenting magazines use the term “Natural Parenting” or something like it. There’s Natural Parenting and Mothering Magazine: The Magazine of Natural Family Living. There’s also the term “Nature Mom,” which I associate with a mother who is against circumcision, vaccines, pesticide-laden food, and products that use synthetic scents. I also think of nature moms wearing their babies in slings, co-sleeping, breastfeeding at Starbucks, cloth diapering, staying at home, home schooling, hiking, and hiding their TVs in the closet. I’m very, very sympathetic with many of these positions and practices, but not all of them. One reason we have called this blog Green Parenting is to develop new kinds of language to explore some of the difficult decisions where we don’t end up falling in the natural parenting category.

Here’s an example of what I am talking about. An article about the effects of lavender, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, made it to the headlines of major US news outlets a couple of weeks ago. (See the WebMD article about it.) I think one reason the story got so much attention is because it exposes a problem with the idea of natural parenting. The article reported that three boys who used lavender products developed breasts and when they stopped using the products their breasts disappeared. Lavender apparently boosts or mimics estrogen while hampering androgens. The findings indicate that lavender, like certain plastics and cosmetics, disrupts the endocrine system.

I don’t think this report should be a huge surprise to people who use lavender products regularly. It’s well known that lavender has a soothing and relaxing effect, which must be because of a rather sophisticated chemical (i.e. hormonal) interaction with our bodies. And it’s also associated with sexuality. So the report basically confirms folk knowledge. I still drink lavender tea. I like to feel relaxed. I guess my testosterone levels need some readjustment on occasion. But I’m not a pubescent boy. My body is not growing rapidly. My cells are not responsive in the same way as a fifteen-year-old’s. Parents have to pay special attention to both natural and synthetic products because children’s bodies are constantly in a state of transformation. If some boy wants breasts, I'm fine with him drinking lots of lavender tea. But we shouldn't fool ourselves about "natural" products.

Going natural does not guarantee good health. Nature can be toxic. Nature includes poisonous plants. Nature includes diseases like polio that cripple thousands of children every year. Naturalness should not exempt products from our careful scrutiny. I know most natural parents know this already. Most readers of Mothering Magazine are not dogmatic or inflexible. We try to be thoughtful, consider multiple sources of information, and balance our decisions. I just would like to see more discussion of how the term “natural” has its limitations.

And the Student Becomes the Teacher: Elimination Communication Milestones

(BabyG: PSSSSSSSSSS!  PSSSSSSS! PSSSSSSSSSSSSS!)

What Should Parents do about Global Warming? Avaaz Karo!

I belong to a feminist economics listserv where the posts generally deal with state policies on childcare and labor force participation rates. A few weeks ago, someone posted a general question to the listserv about global warming. What solutions do economists think will work? she asked. To my horror, the responses were mostly negative and fatalistic. Individual sacrifices, they said, cannot possibly make a substantial dent in the total carbon dioxide emissions. They believed that people in the U.S. could not give up their comforts. And that, even if people in the states did accept some changes, the tremendous economic growth in India and China would effectively cancel those reductions out.

There are a number of reasons why their arguments are specious. All growth is not equal. (Feminist economists have actually taken a lead in pointing this out, which makes the listserv discussion so surprising.) If the US were to spend all the Iraq war money on local daycare centers and windmill farms, the economy would likely have grown faster, our emissions would have been comparatively lower, and our lives would be more comfortable. Building commuter trains and highways both contribute to economic growth, but obviously they have very different effects on total emissions. Also, middle class people in India consume very differently than they do in the US. Growth in India and China does not necessarily mean an additional two billion people living the same consumptive lives people in the States currently do.

Furthermore, when I behave in a socially and environmentally conscious way, I know that my individual actions are not enough. We ride bikes, take buses and trains, avoid eating meat, buy local and organic, use vinegar instead of Windex, wash cloth diapers at home, compost our food waste, and recycle our paper, glass, and plastic – we do all these actions because they make our lives more enjoyable and meaningful. We do them because our actions can have a symbolic force when we share them over this blog. We do these actions because relatively small groups of individuals can change social norms. We do these actions because they bring us into a social network that lovingly supports us and allows us to act collectively for institutional, state, and global changes.

If you don’t agree with what I’m saying and feel that global warming is inevitable, that it is unavoidable and that BabyG will inherit a world of ecological disaster, I say be silent. What's the use of loud fatalism? For those interested in meaningful debate and action, let’s make our voices heard.

I'm interested in a new website called Aavaz.org. The site will attempt to use the same technology as Moveon.org and other such nation-focused sites with the hope of networking a multinational group of progressive people. The main organizers are based on four continents and they publish the site in ten languages. Check out the following Aavaz video:

Avaaz means "voice" or "song" in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Nepalese, Dari, Turkish, and Bosnian. In Gujarati, we also use the word "aavaz", although we tend to use it to mean noise, which is what activism often amounts to. I think this slippage in the usage of "avaaz" is worth considering. We do have a limited amount of time and resources to commit. We can be active without being effective. We can make noise without our voices coming through.

Although Aavaz is still quite young, I'm hopeful that they will build an effective group. Problems like global warming can no more be addressed by single nations than by individuals. I also assume that Aavaz will feature many of the same limitations that Moveon.org does. The top-down design of head organizers sending out dispatches and calls to action does not harness the creative power of decentralized, collective decision-making that characterizes, say, the Indymedia websites. But every approach has its limitations and I think there is a time for high-achieving, well-funded organizers to tell a group of like-minded people how to act in concert. So take a look at their website and consider adding your email to their list.

Gonna Wash that 'Poo Right Out of My Hair

Please see the updated post by clicking on health at the bottom of this post, and finding the new article.

*****************************************

There’s this line in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales about the Pardoner’s smooth hair that drips down in curls, and another about how the cook has a festering sore. Maybe I was smoking too many funny cigarettes in high school, because for many years I not only conflated the two characters, but I grossed out their appearances: I imagined there was a Chaucerian cook who was so disgusting that all the food he cooked was contaminated by his hair that was dripping with greasy, yellow oils and his sore that squirted puss. And sorry to say, this improperly combined, gross, imagined image is the only memory of the Canterbury Tales I took off with me, into later life.

It has come up because I’ve always had a friend or two who has decided to stop using shampoo, or to skip multiple days of shampooing. “Shampoo is just a capitalist consumerist conspiracy,” my friend Winona used to scoff during college. In Houston, my friend Chuck would say a little more humbly, “I find that if I don’t wash my hair, I don’t need pomades.”

For most of my life, I was terribly jealous of the likes of Winona and Chuck. Of people who could skip a day of washing their hair without looking like my nightmarish Chaucerian misread.

What I learned over the years, though, is that no matter what kind of shampoo I have used, throughout my life my hair has behaved more or less the same: it is thin; when shampooed daily, it is thin and brittle; when not shampooed, it looks like I put olive oil in my hair; also, it won’t grow past a certain length; it is flyaway and it never looks healthy. All these facts about my hair lead me to believe I was just another white girl with terrible, mousy, broken hair. Since I’ve read so much about the dangers of the toxins in shampoos, I was forced to buy super expensive shampoos (my favorite: Aubrey’s Organic Baby Shampoo).

And then, about a month ago, I read this article on “No-Pooing” – a name, I confess, I totally disdain. The writer I first read washed his hair with a baking soda solution, and conditioned it with Apple Cider Vinegar. Since I like mixing things together, and there is really nothing I can do to my hair to make it worse, I delved into this No-Pooniverse (can. not. resist. stupid. word. jokes. sorry. ch.).

_____________________________________

No-Poo Log, 2007:

#1: I washed my hair with 1 T. of baking soda dissolved into ¾ cup of water. As per the directions on the sites, I really massaged the solution into my scalp by first massaging around the crown, and then in the center of my head. I used no conditioner.
Result: Very clean, very manageable hair, slightly dry, though.

#2: I read that most people just mix baking soda into a hand paste before using. I tried this. And I also rinsed with 1 T. Apple Cider Vinegar and 1 Cup water.
Result: Hair was oilier than usual, but not gross with oil. It was sort of an interesting texture that held curl, and didn’t look brittle.

#3: I washed with the baking soda paste, again. I read that vinegar rinse should only be used on the ends of hair, and this time, didn’t wash my scalp area with it.
Result: A little less oily than before. I was not completely satisfied, though I already preferred this hair to shampooed hair, because my hair started feeling like, I don’t know, hair. I realized that my old hair felt more synthetic or something.

#4: Some people No-Poo by just skipping shampoo, but using conditioners.
Result: My hair was way too oily. The woman who suggested this was African American, though, and a lot of people on her site found it worked for them. Maybe it just doesn’t work on super fine hair.

#5: For about a week, I tried washing with varying amounts of the baking soda paste, and started skipping the vinegar rinse. I always needed 1 Tbs of Baking Soda: ½ I rubbed onto the top of my head, the other into the back.
Result: Varying degrees of hair feeling more oily than I had become accustomed to. Never hair I could go more than a day without washing, but hair that was much more manageable than it had ever been, previously.

#6: I washed with a lemon juice rinse (1 T Lemon Juice in 1 C water).
Result: Made my hair extra oily, again. But I was starting to worry because I felt like even when my hair felt more oily, it was also drying out the ends of my hair more.

#7: It occurred to me that my hair was the least greasy the day I mixed a T of Baking Soda into ¾ cup water. I had been assuming the paste was strongest in eliminating oil, but decided to test the assumption.
Result: Lo and behold: in the less concentrated version, my hair wasn’t oily at all. When I awoke the next day, even, it wasn’t oily. I didn’t have to wash my hair that day when I showered!

#8: I started using less and less Baking Soda in the ¾ cup of water.
Result: My hair needs about 2 t. full – 1 T. full dries it out.

#9: My hair was not oily everyday, but for the first time in my life, I worried it was overly dry. So I started using the vinegar rinse, and I added some rosemary essential oil – which strengthens and darkens hair.
Result: Voila! Hair not dry, not oily. But I can’t use this vinegar every day: more like every three days.

____________________________________

There are a few really fabulous No-Poo sites out there. My favorites are BabySlime, and Motowngirl.   Pioneer Thinking offers various hair/skin recipes.  The No-Poo sites explain how there is a long process of figuring out what your hair needs: clearly, I’ve found this to be true. It has been enjoyable, though, experimenting. Now I keep a water-proof container filled with baking soda, a teaspoon, and a measuring cup in the shower.

BabySlime has a lot of recommendations for different rinses. I’m about to mix up a gigantic batch, so I won’t have to make a hair rinse every day. Even on days I don’t use vinegar, I’d like my hair to smell of something, so I’m experimenting w/different essential oils. Daily I’ll use that rinse, and some days I’ll add some vinegar or lemon juice.

And I love washing my hair. Because 2 t. of baking soda a day costs less than half a penny. Because when you actually massage your scalp with baking soda, or with rosemary oil in water, it tingles. Because even though I was totally screwed by shampoos for most of my life, at least I figured it out. Because my hair used to be this terrible, sad fate I would be sealed with forever, and now it is this fabulous, shiny, manageable cool-person hair.

When Viresh Forgot English

In 1979, when I was about two, my family moved from Chicago to Mobile, Alabama. At the time, very few Indians lived there. When I was older, my parents and their Indian friends would tell me, “If you saw an Indian family in Bel Air Mall, you would approach them and invite them over for dinner. That’s how our community came together. How else?” When my family arrived, I was told, there were fewer than twenty families in all. Indians came to Mobile for the jobs – professors at the University of South Alabama, engineers at Union Carbide and International Paper, and the convenience store and motel owners along interstate 10. We were Indians from different parts of India: Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bengal, and so on. In a way, our small group reflected Nehru and Gandhi’s nationalist dreams more than anything you would find in India itself. We had Hindus, Christians, Jains, Sikhs, and Muslims among us. Our secularism was of the Indian kind in that each religious holiday was celebrated rather than American-style, which is to attempt a complete separation of religion.

What really astonishes me about my memories of those early days of Indian life in Mobile was the communion across caste and class lines. I remember frequently going over to a motel for dinner. The motel owners, like most Indian motel owners in the United States, were Gujarati. My family is Gujarati as well. But we are Nagar Brahmins and they were Patels. My parents both had M.D.’s and faculty positions at the University of South Alabama. The Patels operated a run-down motel on the side of a highway. Our family room window looked out on a big, green lawn. Their family room was separated from the receptionist desk by a beaded curtain and looked out on a parking lot. Our caste has historically practiced professions like medicine, law, writing, teaching, government administration, and diplomacy. Patels were farmers. Yet, on what felt like the furthest edge of the Indian diaspora, our shared language and food mattered much more than all the differences.

As the Indian community grew in Mobile, we did what Indians do best. We started to segregate ourselves. We did not have the numbers to have a Bengali Society and a Telegu Society, but there were enough Gujaratis to form a group. A group? Our group? Their group? My family spent more time with the South Indian professionals than with the “Motel Patels” in the Gujarati circle. I remember the stories we would tell each other about Patels. They have a deal with the pimps and prostitute, charge them by the hour. They have good training from life in India for hiding the extra money from the IRS. If they are losing money, they burn down the motel for the insurance. They can go anywhere in the country and have a free motel room to stay in. Did you know that the last motel before you reach the North Pole is owned by a Patel? I remember one Sunday at a weekly Gujarati class. My brother and I were looking down from a second floor window when a tiny car – maybe it was a Volkswagon Beetle – pulled up. We watched as eight Patels spilled out of its doors. "How did they all fit in there?" I asked. Someone said, “I’ve seen ten Patels fit into a car no bigger than that one.” At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I think these “Patel stories” served to draw a line between us and them. They transmuted the old caste boundaries from India into a new set of distinctions.

The Patel story that really grabbed hold of my imagination was about the time Viresh Patel forgot English. I do not remember Viresh very well. I think his family had moved away before I turned eight. What I remember are people’s descriptions of him. Even though he grew up in the States like the rest of us, he had a thick accent. He was said to have curly hair that stuck out in all directions. And, apparently, his parents took him back to Gujarat for a long summer and when he returned, he had forgotten English. His family’s home in India was that rural. That backward. No one spoke English to him there. But how can you forget English? I would ask. How is it really possible? Did he have trouble for a week, or was it like someone starting from scratch, learning the alphabet and reading, Jack and Jill ran up the hill? In my young mind, this story struck some chord inside that resonated with my anxieties. My fear was more that I was not really Indian enough and Mobile would never let be anything else. I knew I would never forget English. That’s all I had, English. Gujarati was a swamp to me. A bog. The story of when Viresh forgot English seemed to speak to our tenuous place in Mobile. Our non-place. I have written on this blog about being treated like the substitute nigger at my all-white school, but for the most part we were just off the map, outside of all rhetoric and discourse, beyond all communal ties and prejudice. Sometimes it seemed like we could say or believe anything about ourselves, and it would be true. At other times, I felt outside of all the groups – the Patels, the educated Indians, and even my family. Maybe it was this alienation that Viresh’s loss of language resonated with.

I know that BabyG, as a half-Indian and half-American-whatever, will face even more nuanced questions that I did. Sometimes I don’t feel that responsible for shaping her social milieu, so much as helping her sort through it whatever it is. Other times, I think we have to live in a city like Houston, where you can pick and choose the cultures your children are exposed to. Part of me wants to take her, when she’s about six, to India long enough that she forgets English.

The Problem with Dolls

The video below is about a high school student who repeated the famous experiment where black children are given a choice to either pick a white doll or a black doll. (Thanks Cake for passing it on to me.)

Maybe the experiment isn't that well constructed. Maybe it's an oversimplification to think that nothing has changed since 1956. Maybe the sample of little children isn't representative of most black kids in America. Maybe the self-hatred is being passed on by black parents to their own children, a process of internalizing a history of racism even though the colored only signs are long gone. But I got a little teary while watching the video.

MaGreen's stepmother gave BabyG a doll for Christmas, a dark-skinned doll with black hair. It's the second brown doll she's gotten. The first one came before MaGreen gave birth and I wrote about that right when we started this blog. I had the same response this time as before. I resented the doll and I resented the giver. Those brown dolls make me feel hyper-aware of my own skin color. I would rather not feel that way. I'd rather feel like my background and culture are an integral part of my life, that they will be for BabyG too, but without this dred feeling of otherness. Maybe those dolls trigger some small bit of racialized self-hatred left inside of me? I know that Helen's intentions were good, just as they were when she gave me Barack Obama's book. MaGreen says her stepmother has given little brown dolls to all her friends' babies, white and black and brown and whatever else. Her own kind of activism.

The problem with dolls is that they give children (and adults) a chance to openly reveal their deep sense of identity. Sometimes I would rather have those deep feelings stay buried so we can pretend our way American-style to a better future. I prefer the doll that MaGreen's dad gave BabyG. It doesn't look human. Going non-human's the only way to escape race and sexuality. That's the closest I have to a solution - we should ban all humanish dolls. At least then high school students won't be able to make such troubling documentaries.

The Audacity of Hope

For Christmas, we all went up to Utah. The last time I had gone to Utah, I had seen MaGreen’s step-mother Helen nearly die. I spent a week babysitting BabyG while MaGreen talked with her father and sat with her step-mother in the intensive care unit. After a life of substance abuse, her liver was so scarred that her blood was backing up and bursting through some of her veins. When she wasn’t vomiting blood and being rushed into surgery, she was delirious and demented. It seemed so unlikely that she would live. The doctors performed a procedure called TIPS, which I wrote about, and she “recovered.” After a month, she was living at home and on the phone she seemed more clear headed than I had ever known her to be.

Even in the relatively short time I have known Helen, I have learned to check myself when I feel hopeful about her. Paradoxically, I feel sadder when she is clear headed. You realize what has been lost, the extraordinarily kind and perceptive person who has been lost. Talking to Helen when the “real” her emerges only reminds you of the inevitability of her decline. I know this sadness is harder for MaGreen since Helen raised her from a pretty early age.

We got digital photos of Helen by email from my parents when they were passing through Salt Lake City. She looked so much better that it surprised me. Her skin was no longer yellow but back to its Queen Elizabeth white whiteness. For several months, Helen had cogent conversations on the phone with me about the latest Britney Spears story or the weather. Sometimes a terrible and wondrous hope flickered through my mind. Maybe she will last, maybe she will stay sober, maybe she could qualify for a transplant.

When we got to Utah for the holidays, we immediately realized that Helen’s mental state had declined again. Some relatives had warned us, but you can never know for sure until you see a person face-to-face. Helen didn’t exactly recognize us. Sometimes she did, sometimes she didn’t. She didn’t always remember our wedding. She didn’t remember dancing with me during the reception. She often thought MaGreen was Caroline Kennedy. She thought MaGreen’s dad was four different people, three of whom were living in the basement and trying to impersonate her real husband. She would walk through each room of her own house collecting objects and piling them up because they were hers. “How did this remote get here, this is my remote.” She would leave the house when no one was looking, walk through the snow in her slippers, and ask her neighbors to take her to the home she lived in before. She seemed more like an Alzheimer’s patient than anything else and my cynical, anti-hope side was clucking its tongue triumphantly.

For Christmas, Helen gave me a copy of Barack Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope. I had wanted the book. I had told MaGreen that I wanted a copy on the flight over from Texas. How could Helen have known that in the few days preceeding our trip, I had started to become infatuated with Barack Obama? The gift was a reminder that even this demented person who couldn’t remember who I am still had the “real” Helen inside of her, the person who is so perceptive she knows their desires better than they know themselves.

I read most of the book between car trips to Myton, Roosevelt, Vernal, Neola, Heber, and Salt Lake City. Obama departs from the style of his first book, which was a memoir. He only makes passing references to his personal and family history. It’s also not a statement of his policy goals. The book is more an analysis of rhetoric, a call for richer public discourse. Sometimes while I was reading, I wanted to cry, and to jump up and down. Obama is so eloquent and intelligent. He puts into clear prose the kind of arguments I have only come across in heady, theoretical books like Zygmunt Bauman’s In Search of Politics. He is such an impossible figure. It’s simplistic to call his background exotic. His genotype, his phenotype, his life story, his identity, and his rhetoric – together they are like some kind of manufactured narrative that magically reconciles all of the festering histories we never even acknowledge in the US. He seems to be the beautiful person I have always felt inside of myself, but who was battered down when I was a child by little unknowing kids regurgitating the latent hatred in our society, the beautiful person I myself won’t allow to show because I am too angry and timid and petty.

Having received this gift from Helen of all people, I felt the audaciousness of the audacity of hope, which is to say I felt ridiculous and naïve and vulnerable. Here I was carrying this book with a mixed-race liberal on the cover through rural Utah. MaGreen may as well have been Caroline Kennedy and I Rajiv Gandhi back from the grave. What would that make BabyG? I do not want to be so cynical about Helen’s chances to recover. I do not want to be so cynical to think that this nation could really come to accept a person like Barack Obama as its leader, which would be akin to a deep reconciliation inside of me.

The Capability Approach and Parenting

I have planned on writing this post for several months but never get to it, partly from being busy and also from fear of misrepresenting a complicated idea. I want to be very ambitious about Green Parenting. I don’t want to only write about planting a tree or going hiking with my baby. I don’t only want to write about swapping vinegar from Windex. I want to think about parenting in the broadest possible sense. What do I hope for my daughter? What do I hope for myself and my wife as parents? What are the parents’ and society’s obligations to the child?

When I think of these grand questions, the first answer that comes to my mind is very simple. I just want each of us to be happy. Then I have to wonder what happy means. Comfortable? Secure? Rich? Ensconced in a solar-powered mountain chalet? If I think hard about these answers, they all have problems. For example, I have known parents who sheltered their children in suburban homes and stockpiled massive trust funds, but the children did not thrive as adults. I know many sad, maladjusted children of wealthy families. That does not mean I want to abandon my questions. What is happiness? What is a dignified life? What is a meaningful life? A full life?

I think the Capability Approach can help us sort through these questions, even though it was not really developed as a parenting model. It was first conceived of by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Regular readers of this site might be familiar with Sen. He won the Novel Prize in Economics and I had the opportunity to interview him, the recording of which I posted on this blog. Nussbaum is a famous scholar at the University of Chicago, who writes about philosophy, law, feminism, and a wide range of other topics. Their collaboration has led to a burgeoning new area of inquiry and has already influenced the UN, the EU, and national governments. (Sen and Nussbaum were even married for some time and I like using a theory born of miscegenation to think about my miscegenating family.)

The Capability Approach focuses on an individual’s abilities to choose the kind of life they find meaningful. It focuses not just on legal rights, but on “doings and beings,” or outcomes and functionings. Nussbaum has suggested a tentative list of basic capabilities that we might discuss and come to a consensus about as the minimum standard for a life worth living. If you want to see the full list, check out her recent book Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, and Species Membership. Below is an abbreviated version of her list:

1. Life; being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length
2. Bodily health; being able to have good health
3. Bodily integrity; having one’s bodily boundaries treated as sovereign
4. Senses, Imagination and Thought; being able to use the senses, to imagine, think and reason
5. Emotions; being able to have attachment to things and people outside ourselves
6. Practical Reason; being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life
7. Affiliation; being able to live with and towards others, to recognise & show concern for other human beings
8. Other species; being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants and the world of nature
9. Play; being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities
10. Control over One’s Environment A) Political; being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one’s life. B) Material; Being able to hold property [both land and movable goods] not just formally, but [with] real opportunity [for use].

What I like about the capability approach and this list is that the individual is envisioned as a social being whose well-being depends in part on government, economy, and social norms. Even though the approach was designed primarily to evaluate policies and statutes, I think it could be useful in many other contexts. For parenting, I think the list could be used not just to think about raising a child so that he or she has a life of dignity, but about parents as well.

This conception of parenting would be in contrast to popular theories of parenting which tend to be narrow. For example, attachment parenting valorizes the attachment between parent and child. It is often silent about the mother’s need for a fulfilling life and just about anything that does not relate to attachment. Ferber seems interested in a convenient schedule for the parent and a child who exemplifies the myth of American individualism. The American Pediatric Association guide is focused on the child's bodily health. Let’s think about well-being and about society, community, parents, and children together in the broadest and most substantial way we can.

Home Projects

It's been awhile since I posted on home projects. But this morning my mom sent me a link to this U-Tube video in which this man named Wally Wallington lifts and manipulates Stonehenge-sized stones in his back yard, using just wood, himself, and levers.



I've been having fun reading people's summations of this video: A college commenter suggested the main point is that you shouldn't go off to Florida and play shuffleboard for retirement. Not a few others have concluded that aliens, alas, may not have created the pyramids. Mood-killers have agreed, enmasse, that Wally's "rediscovery" of ancient building techniques is a reminder of the numerous amounts of information and abilities humans have lost in the shuffle of more modern "progress". I like how it smashes common expectations/stereotypes about hard laborers -- he's a retired construction worker who is clearly ingeniuous, thoughful, resourceful, and not only interested in the way things work, but motivated and curious enough to follow his own observations to their incredible ends. And of course, I don't think it prudent to leave unspoken the obvious possiblity that Wally is, in fact, an alien.

Any summations I missed? Or, what I really want to know: what home projects do YOU have going on?

Houston Goes Fruity

MaGreen, BabyG, and I went to Urban Harvest’s annual fruit tree sale on Saturday, January 20, here in Houston. Within minutes of the 9:30 am opening, people – at least a thousand folks – had cornered almost every tree and vine.

Urban Harvest is a non-profit dedicated to nurturing communities through gardening education. They hold classes, send instructors to schools, maintain a seed library, and disseminate information about how to garden in the Houston area. Their largest event is an annual fruit tree sale. The sale has grown steadily and this year it was moved to a new, more commodious space next to the Emerson Unitarian Church.

The main fruit trees available were those that are ideal for Houston’s climate: oranges, lemons, grapefruit, kumquats, limes, tangerines, persimmons, apples, pears, figs, grapes, blackberries, peaches, nectarines, plums, mulberries, pomegranates, jujubes, blueberries and mulberries. An addition to this year’s sale were more tropical and sub-tropical plants like dwarf mangos, star fruit, Cherry of the Rio Grande, and jaboticaba.

By the time I arrived, just fifteen minutes after the opening, only a few orange and lime trees remained. The mood was civil, but people had a half-crazed look as they guarded their plants. Late comers looked bewildered. The check-out line snaked around the entire lot. The Urban Harvest website says, “Our vision for Houston is a city thriving with a network of gardens and orchards building community health, vitality and pride.” Seeing all those people clutching at their trees made me feel hopeful about this beast of a city. Maybe Urban Harvest’s vision is possible.

Their next sale will not be until January 2008. Check out Urban Harvest’s list of other fruit tree sales around Houston if you live nearby and can’t wait.

Klean Kanteen Sippy Cup Review

Last year, GreenDaddy’s parents considered retiring early and becoming entrepreneurs: they wanted to manufacture an invention – they hadn’t decided on it yet – in their native India, and then sell in the states. Around this time GreenDaddy and I discovered that there was no such thing as a sippy cup made out of stainless steel, and we thought: that’s it! Mom and Dad can make sippy cups in India, the land of stainless steel innovations!

Why did we care so much about stainless sippy cups? It wasn’t so much they had to be stainless steel, we just didn’t want them to be made out of plastics that leach hormone disruptors into food – we’ve written a lot about this here, and here and here. Our family doesn’t eat off of any plastic substance: all BabyG’s bottles were glass, her high chair is wooden, we store leftovers in glass containers.

When it came to be sippy cup time there was no such thing as a non-plastic one. At first, we opted to teach BabyG to sip from a normal cup, which is fine at the kitchen table, but on long stroller or car rides, she wants a little something to sip, you know? Ergo our dream of getting rich on stainless sippees.

Of course, neither of us were good enough capitalists to do more than email a stainless steel manufacturer in his home state in India. Meanwhile, I regularly googled “non-plastic” sippy cups, and eventually hit up on discussions on the mothering.com forums and Berkley Parents Network announcing rumors of Klean Kanteen’s product. We bought it as soon as it was available.

The Klean Kanteen Sippy Cup costs a pretty penny – around $15 on sale. You can buy a matching, Built NY insulated sleeve and spend $20 on everything. We didn’t buy the sleeve, as $15 is already a hefty price for a sippy cup, but people who did buy it love that it keeps drinks at the temperature you want them, and say it makes them easy to attatch to strollers, etc. I wish I’d gotten one because when it gets hot here, cold water stays cold for about two seconds.

The body of the Klean Kanteen is made from recycled stainless steel, and it doesn’t have an epoxy coating inside. It features an adaptor that changes it from a kid-sized, stainless steel water carrier into a sippy cup. The actual drinking spout is the regular Avent toddler spout, and though we haven’t tried it, I have read that any Avent spout or bottle nipple can be used. I have read a few reviews from customers complaining that the spouts leak, but if they switch to a different Avent spout, that problem goes away. Ours doesn’t leak, though.

Design-wise, I am not the number one fan of the Klean Kanteen. When BabyG first tried to use it, at 9 months old, it was awkward for her to lift the 7 and a quarter inch long canister high enough. At 13 months, it is still awkward. The container is fat at the bottom – regular, adult sized, water bottle fat – and a little thinner at the top, where kids are supposed to grasp it. This means that the greatest weight of the liquid rests in the fat part, and the baby has to pivot that weight around, more or less, from the thin part. I mean, if you had a giant object that was wide and heavy on one side and skinny on the other, you would have troubles picking up the skinny side, too. It's physics.

Moreover, the baby has to tip the bottle extra high to make the water spill from the fat part of the canister “up” into the thinner part. All and all, it just doesn’t make much physical sense. Better if the whole bottle were thin, or there was an easy to grasp part in the middle.

Another feature I don’t like, is how the adaptor that converts the Klean Kanteen from a basic stainless steel water bottle into a sippy cup, is made from #5 polypropylene, as is the actual sippy spout part (which is an ordinary Avent sippy spout top).

Of course, if you’re going to use plastic, #5 is “an okay one” -- meaning it isn’t “known” to leach, but that it is hazardous to make. Bisphenol-A, that hormone disruptor scientists noticed leaching out of plastics #7 (which many baby bottles and sippy cups are made out of!), has not been caught leaching out of polypropylene. At it doesn’t contain the carginogens like plastic # 3 (the plastic pre-wrapped sandwiches, etc) or #6 (Styrofoam) is suspected of carrying.

As somebody who believed all plastics were healthy as no-sugar apple pie until just a couple years back, and who has read that no matter the safety rating, one should never put plastic in their mouth or heat food in plastic, I admit I’m not completely sold on the safety of plastics not “known” to be hazardous.

Still: if you don’t want your baby drinking water or juice or milk or whatever it is you feed her out of materials that are either “not known to be” or “known” to be made out of carcinogens or hormone disruptors, and you really need a sippy cup, none of my complaining matters a single iota: The Klean Kanteen is the ONLY sippy cup that is mostly made out of a non-plastic material.

If water sits in your car on a hot day, it will be touching the stainless steel, not the plastic. And Klean Kanteen never develops that plastic taste, even if you leave the same water in there for a couple days.

I think Klean Kanteen saw the need for the stainless sippy cup, and they converted a product they already had to answer a growing consumer demand. They’re a good company, and I’m grateful they’ve created this product. I think many of the design “flaws” are more results of not actually having designed their “kids cup” to be a “sippy cup” for babies.

However, I’ve been reading around the web, and here and there people have mentioned the existence of stainless steel sippy cups at expos, etc, that are actually designed for toddlers. I bet by the time BabyG is a few years old, there will at least a couple better options. Heck, maybe GreenDaddy and I will visit a stainless steel plant when we visit Gujurat, this summer, and actually become stainless steel sippy moguls ourselves.

Until then, I do recommend the Klean Kanteen, and we will continue to use ours. When I lost the first one, I shelled out the excessive moolah, and bought another. I believe the Klean Kanteen is safer for my baby than the other options available. I'd like it to be more steely. I'd like it to cost less. And yes, it’s awkward -- but, hey, at least in this aspect it’s giving BabyG an early lesson in adapting to the imperfections of the world.

Love Fest 2007: G(comm Unity)nting

BabyG's 1st year bash was, if I haven't mentioned, a six hour long open house. Long enough that I wanted to provide sustenence for my guests in the form of not only delicious Harvest Pumpkin Apple Cake, but Dilled Egg Salad Sandwiches, two kinds of cookies, and homemade Limeade. It was on a Saturday, and the following Wednesday, I cooked three lasagna's for GreenDaddy's surprise birthday (in which my surprise was upstaged by the mean intestinal bacteria some piece of food delivered GreenDaddy two days before...)

These party preparations and caring for the poor, sickened GreenDaddy arrived, as the best kind of stress and sickness does, at the height of the holiday season. Right when normal people are busy getting their winter plans, purchases, and/or trips in gear. For us, that meant preparing for a two week long sojourn to Utah and then to California, to see all our respective parents.

All this plus doting mightily on BabyG was enough to frazzle icecubes. But everything came off okay.

"But how!" I hear one of you dear readers gasping. "Good Golly," another is muttering, "Your family surely is a veritable mountain of unyielding force!"

Yes, we are. Thanks phantasmic reader, for noticing.

But how DID we survive? And why didn't the eldest heroine of this blog expire in a pile of lasagna noodles, pumkin puree, and happy birthday ribbons?

[MaGreen], my friend and loved one,

we'll be over tomorrow at the beginning of the party, and you should think of hank and i as people who you can call in the morning or before the party begins to get last minute whatever (including, "please bring a can of coke with you to the party").

we can also run errands, take out garbage, put out chairs, provide nonviolent conflict resolution, mop up pee puddles, open windows, change lightbulbs, turn compost, take things out of ovens, entertain children, and oil squeaky door hinges.

love,
ch.

It's that simple. I always want to write about how at least 50% of our ability to keep working at being green parents is a direct result of the incredible community that surrounds us. Our nurturing, loving community is the "reen Pare" in Green Parenting.

For those of you who want a way to help out new moms, or sick friends, or just friends who need a lift: copy above note, change the names, and send it off. (Well, better change some details in it, too, because otherwise it could have effects opposite of your good intentions. Chuck's note immediately lowered my blood pressure, and even now, weeks later, reading it makes me incredibly happy. Makes me feel inordinately lucky.



It wasn't only Chuck who saved my ass. Our friend Nicole did all sorts of decorating, last minute shopping, and lasagna baking. Janira helped me get the house ready. Heather came over and made cakes. Kayte brought her camera and took pictures of the 1st birthday(since our camera was missing that day). Keith and Theresa lugged over half a dozen or so extra chairs. And for the surprise party, all GreenDaddy's friends brought little and big somethings to augment the lasagna. And even the people who didn't "do" something, "did" something by celebrating the births of my two favorite people, and have "done" countless other life saving and wondrous things for us these past many years. Thank you.






The ever expanding sum of my friends' kindnesses reminds me that being green isn't just about using glass storage containters instead of plastic, or growing your own food, or creating less waste, or riding your bike to work. It's about nurturing the people around you so they can make their own green choices, or maybe choices more inline with their belief systems, but that you support because they're your people.

This is important for me to remember. My community enables me to work for what I believe without becoming pissy, angry, or poison because I'm greener, or peacier, or a better earth-lover than whoever. It keeps me going when I'm pooped, and it makes me want to be as fabulous to other people as my community is to me. Which is Good for Green.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Sending this in to the scribbit Write Away Contest!

Continuing the Struggle for Reproductive Rights

MaGreen and I attended Planned Parenthood luncheon on Friday, which is an annual event marking the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the US. Nine hundred people attended the event including notable public figures like Sarah Weddington, who at the age of twenty-six argued the winning side of the Roe v. Wade case. There were also several elected officials present including State Reps Alma Alan, Elen Cohen, and Rick Noriega; City Controller Anise Parker; and City Councilmembers Sue Lovell and Peter Brown. Volunteers, donors, staff, and other supporters filled the tables.

Outside, on the sidewalk, about ten anti-abortion protestors held up signs and passed out pamphlets. One of them noticed my Planned Parenthood name tag and asked me if I believed women should have abortions. I said, “I believe in women’s right to choose.” Then she asked my friend, a woman, “Don’t you think women should have the right to choose pregnancy?”

“Of course,” my friend said. I was reminded not only of the different between our beliefs and theirs, but also of the difference between what they believe we believe and what we actually believe.

Inside, the keynote speaker, Marcia Ann Gillespie, gave an inspiring speech on reproductive rights. Gillespie served as the editor-in-chief of Essence and Ms. magazines and has participated in a number of struggles for racial, gender, and economic justice. She spoke about the difficulties of living a life of activism. She said, “When we remain committed to human rights, we often feel alone.” She also noted the need to question one’s own privileges and assumptions in what she called “a constant de-crudding process.” I really liked that phrase. Gillespie noted that her blindness to heterosexual privilege was one of the later layers of crud that she shed.

For me, real understanding of gender inequality came late, and is still coming. I did not have a strong opinion about reproductive rights until I was in college and various people tried to convince me of their positions. It was not until I was in a small gathering where a gynecologist explained why he performed abortions that my own position solidified. He said he didn’t have a single reason, one airtight argument, for supporting reproductive rights. He said that his patients each have their own stories. Sometimes a woman has been raped. Her life is in jeapardy. Or the fetus has miscarried. Birthcontrol failed. Perhaps the woman did not use protection and does not believe that a pea-sized cluster of cells in her own body ought to become a baby. Maybe the woman is poor and lives in a country that does not support mothers, where she and the possible child will not be able to live a dignified life. Or the woman has already had six children and does not want anymore. Each of those stories are the reasons.

Even if we do not agree with the validity of every single one of those reasons, we should support the right and the capability of those women to choose abortion during the first trimester, as one choice among other possible choices. Protecting that right should be one part in a larger struggle for gender equality, fair distribution of wealth, affordable childcare, universal healthcare, and education.

One Fun Thing

GreenDaddy and I are as busy as ever, and before he took BabyG to the Children's Museum, he said: "I'm going. But you have to work." He hesitated, said. "Okay, you can do one fun thing, but otherwise you have to work."

This is my one fun thing. I have three things to say:

1. I'm posting product reviews at Prop's and Pans.

2. In the process of deciding what to review, next, I chose our shampoos. Which led me on a snaking webhole of research and I ended up, gasp, deciding the three shampoos we love need to be nixed. I've gone no-poo in response. More on this to follow.

3. I also want to review Klean Kanteen's, non plastic, stainless steel sippy cups. They're the only sippy cups on the market you can get without plastic, folks! Before I write the review, though, I thought I'd ask if anybody else has used them?

Alright! The fun is over!

Healthy Baby 1st Birthday Cake Recipes

Oh the horrors of finding a first birthday cake for our little pookey-pooh.  The first birthday cake was a biggie.  There are so many options.  So many opinions.  People who believe depriving a baby of devilishly chocolate, sugary cake is tantamount to child abuse; people who believe giving baby any sugar, ever, is tantamount to child abuse.  Some people skip cake altogether, reasoning any messy, dessertish dish will do for the messy-faced photos that most everyone agrees are about the whole reason a child turns one.

For BabyG's party, we made, cough, cough, cough, i mean our friend Heather slaved in our kitchen all morning to produce-- several "cakes" in jumbo muffin tins, for the babys and toddlers present to have their own private cakes to destroy.  The adults got regular cupcake-sized versions of the same thing.  It was the right way to go: the adults who like tiny slices ate one cupcake, and those who never get enough, snuck cupcakes into their coat pockets on their way out.  And the kids all got to feel special enough to warrant a cake.  I didn't have to slice anything. I do wish I'd opted for a darker frosting color -- below she's eating Pomegranite Ice Cream.

We did have a hard time finding first birthday cake recipes for BabyG's party, to begin with, though.  After a year of little sugars, we didn't want send her into sugar-convusions on her birthday, but we're not anti-sugar, either.  We're a somewhere-in-between household.  So this is the post that offers up a little of my research in the form of some of the best recipes I found.


By all means, no matter when you read this, if you have a green cake suggestion post it in the comments and I'll likely add it to the list.  

The ever evasive word 'green' means: less sugar than normal cakes and/or healthy ingredients...but thanks to Fiddler, it also means cool, gardenish presentation.

A secret about my cooking, in general, is that if I can throw a vegetable or nut into something, I do it.  My selection of recipes reflects this.  Since there are a million versions of apple cakes, etc, I chose the recipes I like best.


BabyG's Birthday Cake (which she LOVED)
Pumpkin Apple Harvest Cake
By Cait Johnson, author of Witch in the Kitchen

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cooked or canned pumpkin puree
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup organic sugar
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped apple
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Whipped cream or confectioners’ sugar for topping (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Prepare an 8-inch round cake pan by greasing and flouring it.
2. Combine pumpkin, eggs, and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add flour, cinnamon, baking powder, ginger, and salt, stirring to combine. Add apples and nuts, stirring again. Pour mixture into prepared pan.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.
4. Cool the cake, still in the pan, on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then invert the cake onto the rack, remove pan, and cool cake completely.
5. When ready to serve, turn cake on to a pretty plate and top with whipped cream or confectioners’ sugar, if desired, or serve plain.

ps. If you make the cake, smooth it out when you put it in the pan as pumkin makes it bake in whatever shape it goes in there with.  Guests loved the cake, BabyG did...I frosted it by whipping heavy cream with a little sugar and cream cheese.  

mmmm mmmm mmmm

Cosmo's Birthday Carrot–Pineapple Snacking Cake (from Superfoods by Delores Riccio)
Makes 9 or more servings

1 1/2 cup sifted all-purpose unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs (or 1/2 cup prepared egg substitute)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar (can use less)
1/2 cup white sugar (can use less)
1 1/2 cups finely grated (about 4 large)
one 8 oz can of crushed pineapple, packed in its own juice, undrained
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 inc square or 7 x 11 inch oblong cake pan.
sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt into a large bowl.

In another bowl, beat the eggs with the oil, then blend in the brown and white sugars.
In a third bowl, combine the carrots, pineapple with its juice, and walnuts, if you are using them.

Beat the egg-oil mixture into the dry ingredients. When well blended, stir in the carrot-pineapple mixture. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the cake is risen and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out dry.

mmmm mmmm mmmm

Applesauce Cake Recipe
Ingredients:

1/2 cup safflower oil
1 cup Florida Crystals natural sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup raisins
1 cup hot applesauce without sugar
A handful of chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Preparation:

Mix the oil and sugar. Combine the spices, nuts and raisins with flour and spoon this into the oil/sugar mix, alternating with hot applesauce. Cream until smooth. Pour into greased and floured 6-by-10-inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.

mmmm   mmmm  mmmm

Cardamom Apple Cake from Canadian Living.com

Ingredients
• 1 cup (250 mL) granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup (175 mL) firmly packed brown sugar
• 2/3 cup (150 mL) melted butter, cooled
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
• 2 cups (500 mL) sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp (10 mL) baking soda
• 2 tsp (10 mL) cinnamon
• 1 tsp (5 mL) each nutmeg and cardamom
• 1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
• 1 cup (250 mL) chopped pecans or unblanched almonds
• 4 cups (1 L) peeled, cored chopped apples
• 3 tbsp (50 mL) icing sugar

Preparation

Grease 10-inch (4 L) angel food cake pan or similar pan and dust lightly with flour.

In large mixing bowl, blend together sugars; beat in butter, eggs and vanilla to make smooth batter.

Sift together flour, soda, spices and salt. Measure out about 1/4 cup (50 mL) and dust nuts. Mix sifted dry ingredients into butter batter; quickly stir in floured nuts and apples. Transfer to prepared pan.

Bake in 350°F (180°C) oven for 50 minutes or until skewer inserted in centre of cake comes out clean. Let cake cool in pan on rack. If possible, store for 1 day in airtight container before cutting.

To serve, remove from pan and, positioning patterned cardboard (or paper lace doily) over top of cake, sieve icing sugar onto cake. Remove cardboard.

mmmm   mmmm  mmmm

CARDAMOM CAKE from Cooks.com

2 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cardamom
1 tbsp. chopped orange rind
1 tbsp. grated lemon rind
3 eggs
1/4 c. canola oil
1 1/2 c. yogurt
1/4 c. honey
1 c. chopped prunes
1 c. chopped walnuts

In a large bowl, sift the flour with the baking soda and cardamom. In a medium bowl, beat eggs, oil, yogurt and honey. Stir the liquid ingredients into the flour mixture until batter is smooth.

Fold in the dried fruit and nuts. Pour batter into greased bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until cake tester come out dry.

mmmm   mmmm  mmmm

Upside Down Cardamom-Pear Cake

Pears:
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
Cooking spray
2 peeled Bartlett or Anjou pears, cored and each cut into 12 wedges

Cake:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (about 6 3/4 ounces)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
3/4 cup 2% reduced-fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°.

To prepare pears, melt 2 tablespoons butter in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add brown sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cardamom; cook 3 minutes or until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly. Pour sugar mixture into a 9-inch round cake pan coated with cooking spray. Arrange pears in an overlapping circle over sugar mixture; set aside.

To prepare cake, lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Sift together flour, baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon cardamom, and salt in a large bowl, stirring well. Place granulated sugar and 1/4 cup butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add eggs; beat until blended. Add flour mixture to egg mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Stir in vanilla. Spoon batter into center of prepared pan; gently spread batter to cover fruit.

Bake at 350° for 50 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; run a knife around outside edge. Place a plate upside down on top of pan; invert onto plate. Let stand 2 minutes before removing pan. Cut into wedges.

mmmm   mmmm  mmmm

Baby's First Birthday Cake (Carrot Cake)
(Makes 1 double-layer 9-inch square cake adapted from "What to Expect")

~ 2 1/2 cups thinly sliced carrots
~ 2 1/2 cups apple juice concentrate (you may use slightly less)
~ 1 1/2 cups raisins
~ Vegetable Spray/Shortening
~ 2 cups whole-wheat flour
~ 1/2 cup vegetable oil
~ 2 whole eggs
~ 4 egg whites
~ 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
~ 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
~ 1/2 cup wheat germ
~ 2 Tbsp low sodium baking powder
~ 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

Prep: Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two 9 inch square cake pans with waxed paper and spray the paper with vegetable spray/shortening.

1. Combine the carrots with 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of the juice concentrate in a medium size saucepan.
2. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, covered, until carrots are tender, 15 to 20 mins. Puree in a blender of food processor until smooth.
3. Add the raisins and process until finely chopped. Let mixture cool.
4. Combine the flour, wheat germ, baking powder, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Add 1 1/4 cups juice concentrate, the oil, eggs, egg whites, and vanilla; beat just until well mixed. Fold in the carrot puree and applesauce. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans.
5. Bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 mins. Cool briefly in the pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely. When cool, frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.

mmmm   mmmm  mmmm

Chocolate, Zucchini, Sweet Potato Cake
recipe zaar

1/4 cup cocoa
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup rye flour or buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup grated zucchini
1 cup grated sweet potatoes
1 cup dried cherries, hydrated in 3 tablespoons rum or hot water
1 cup pecans, roughly chopped (optional)

Decrease the oil by ½ cup, omit the sugar and honey. Try using chopped
jarred maraschino cherries for more moisture.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Butter and flour a bundt pan.
• Sift together first 7 ingredients.
• Set aside.
• In a mixer mix oil, sugar, honey add eggs and vanilla.
• Mix dry ingredients into egg mixture then add buttermilk.
• Stir in remaining ingredients.
• Pour into pan and bake for 50-60 minutes till toothpick comes out clean.
• Let cool.
• Invert onto cake dish.

mmmm mmmm mmmm

BANANA CAKE

2/3 c. banana, mashed
1/2 c. butter, softened
3 lg. eggs
3/4 c. water
2 c. unbleached flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
Optional: 1 c. chopped walnuts OR 1/2 c. chopped walnuts & 1/2 c. raisins

Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan. Beat together mashed banana and soft butter until creamy. Beat in water. In a separate bowl, beat eggs until very foamy. Beat into mixture. Blend in flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Beat until smooth. Stir in walnuts or walnuts and raisins, if desired. Spread batter evenly in pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Cool. Serves 8-10.

mmmm   mmmm  mmmm

Flowerpot Cake from Martha Stewart.com

This cake you have to see on the website, so here's the link to recipe and photo.  It's also for those of you decide your baby won't expire because of a load of sugar, and who want to see good chocolatey goodness wiped all over her/his mouth.  So here, "green" means it's in a flowerpot.  

 

A Doozy: Ending Painful Sex Via Physical Therapy

This post was hard to write, because it's stuff I ordinarily wouldn't share. I mean, it's about sex. But I think it's important to get the information out there, so GreenDaddy and I both agreed I should post it. I tried not to be overly descriptive, while being exact. But if women’s “private” body parts make you squeamish, click on by.

***********************************

A few years ago, I was tortured by recurrent vaginal yeast infections. I’d have an infection, take mega-antibiotics so it would go away, and it would. Then, the exact same time each month, I’d get a new infection – which I often discovered the beginnings of when GreenDaddy and I were having sex. Because even the beginning of a yeast infection makes sex very, very painful.

For about three months we lived like this. Three months of me seeing a Gynecologist, who prescribed me a mega-pill that killed an infection for about two weeks. I was also ingesting acidophilus in countless forms: yogurt, little pills, etc. I read and followed many natural courses. Still, every month, on almost the same day, pow!

The fourth month, I told the doctor I was certain it was the birth control I started right before the infections, because the only thing that had been as regular in my life was my period. She’d never read about such a link, and convinced me to switch brands of pills. At month five, the same thing happened. Infection, cure, infection. We switched again. At month six, she said, “See, it’s not the birth control, it’s something else,” and she sent me to a specialist on yeast infections who prescribed sulphur vaginal suppositories.

I wasn’t into that, and gave up the pill, instead. The infections disappeared immediately. Which we assumed would save our sex life. No such luck. Sex continued to be painful in exactly the same way as it was when I had the beginnings of a yeast infection. Like the condoms were made out of the smallest grates on a vegetable grater. Very painful.

GreenDaddy certainly didn’t want to have sex, if every time we had it I felt like fainting from pain. It made him feel terrible, especially because he's rather fond of sex. And I didn't want to have sex, either, but felt terrible. And we were more or less, newly married. I felt broken. I felt like I was somehow cheating him, even though we had had a fantastic sex life -- I knew I didn't have an innate fear of sex -- until the infections started.

So I went to see doctors. “Buy lubricants,” they said. We did. It slightly dulled the pain. "GreenDaddy needs to be better at foreplay," they said.  Nope.  “Some women just always have painful sex,” they started saying then. Doctors, nurses: everybody nodded authoritatively, on occasion consolingly. That was just the truth as they saw it. I read all over the internet about vaginal pain during intercourse. Some people offered surgeries. Others concurred with the doctor: you’re unlucky, and you’re, forgive the pun, just screwed.

I did, thanks to lots of lubrication, manage to get pregnant. It was fairly painful – say a five on that list of one to ten – but I wanted a baby. Then, during most of my pregnancy we didn’t have any sex at all. A couple months after giving birth to BabyG, we had sex. We had hoped that shoving a giant baby human through my vagina might have miraculously fixed something. It didn’t.

On a post-birth visit to Lu, our midwife, GreenDaddy and I asked her for help. At this point I had talked to a dozen different doctors of different ilks about the problem. I had had so many appointments I didn’t even tell GreenDaddy about them all because it was just one disappointment after another. We were both scared. Because it looked like this was just the way it was going to be.

Lu set up an appointment for a physical. Of the many doctors I’d seen, only three others had examined me. Like them, unfortunately, Lu didn’t see any obvious problems…though I found the exam excruciatingly painful, and she could see that.

I was bearing down for her pronouncement: “Some women just have painful sex” when she actually said, “Well, it looks like you have Chronic Pelvic Pain. You’ll have to go see the physical therapists at the Women’s Hospital of Texas.”

Physical therapists for vaginas? Yes. The whole reason I am writing this post is that there is this group of women working as physical therapists, and they specialize on problems with the vagina, and nobody, not doctors, not nurses, almost nobody knows. I'm writing in case somebody thinks they either have to have painful sex forever or no sex, they really ought to go see one of these people. Because it worked for me.

I was terrified the first time I went in. Of course, the baby came with me, because it was the middle of the day. I was led to a room with a massage-like table, where relaxing music was playing. My therapist came in then, and I thought, “How’s this twenty-two year old girl going to do anything?” I lost spirit.

She examined me, which was weird and uncomfortable. After two years of pain that felt specifically like lacerations of some sort, I was pretty certain no massaging of the vagina was going to help. I thought I was incurable. But she didn’t. She said, “I think we’ll schedule eight visits. That should do it. We’ll start the first one today.”

During this and all other visits she massaged the new scar tissue I’d created giving birth, and she massaged parts of my pelvic floor that would spasm whenever something touched them. Basically, my muscles remembered the pain from having sex at the start of yeast infections, and wasn't letting go of the memories.

I won’t lie and say the treatment itself wasn’t as painful as the sex. It was. But after two visits, she said I should go home and have sex with GreenDaddy.

By this point, the thought of sex was extremely unpleasant to me, though. I couldn’t imagine it not hurting: it had been about two years without painfree sex. But I went home and did as she told me…and that pain that had been about an 8 (without lubricant) on her 1-10 scale became a 5. And over the course of the next few visits, the 5 became a three.

On various visits, my therapist talked about other things too: the use of dildos to aid in healing, and various products meant to enhance a woman’s experiences during sex, mostly liquids that stimulate the clitoris to help a woman lubricate herself.

And now, it’s been about six months since I last went, and sex is 98.5% painfree, I'm at a .5 on the pain scale and we don’t need to use the Lubrin even.

So far as I'm concerned, my therapist was a magician. I have never been so grateful to a healthcare provider.

And I think back about all those doctors, a few family practice doctors, but mostly Gynecologists and OBGYNs, who told me there was nothing to do about having pain during intercourse, who didn't hesitate to relegate GreenDaddy and I to a life in which sex was either painful or nonexistant.

And I think of all the women experiencing vaginal pain and believing there is no hope.

And I realized that the reason doctors don't tell women about these therapists is because they don't know.

So I decided to write this post, hoping women in pain, their partners, their healthcare providers...people who need it will find it. And help women experiencing the sort of hell I was to find a solution.

If you want more information: Women's Hospital of Texas or google: chronic pelvic pain physical therapy (your city).

It's worth it.

BabyG Speaks, Acts, Dances, Kisses...

When she first started speaking at about 10 months, I didn't believe GreenDaddy. I had noticed the woof-woofs, but wasn't in the mood to count them. He noticed the hello, and I didn't want her first word to be delivered into a cellphone. Alas. It was.

The other first thing she started to do around this time was cough. I coughed because something got stuck in my throat, she'd giggle, and then pretend to cough. So I'd cough back, and she'd cough. Funny when we're playing in the living room, not so funny when she's in her car seat sounding like she's choking to death. (GreenDadddy reminds me: if she can cough, she's not choking. Okay. But then I'd have to be freaking out whenever she's silent in the back seat. Not really a fabulous alternative...) BabyG also thinks sneezing is hilarious, and tries to copy. BabyG thinks any grunt anybody makes and she can sort of copy is funny, too.

Her words:

• 1st: woof woof (to the dog next door & who i hate not only because she talked to him before she talked to us, but because he wakes her from her nap a few times a week, usually on days when she REALLY needs a nap)
  
• 2nd: Hello (to the cellphone which we must use more often than I realized)
  
• 2nd: Daicy (meaning, Percy, the cat, and actually, for awhile, all four legged creatures)
  
• 3rd: Qua Qua Qua (Spanish for Quack, addressed to the rubber duck)
  
• 4th: Memememe (milk, mom, feed me. maybe it doesn't even mean mom.)
  4th: Dadada (come notice me Dad. also applies to GreenDaddy's dad, V. maybe it doesn't mean dad. she says neither meme or dada with frequency. i like that our names are not her first words, by the way. i think its a good thing.)
  
• 5th+: bye
  
• dougee (dog)...
  
• aaaaahhhhh
• baa! (to the picture of a sheep)...
  
• duck (to the rubber ducky if she doesn't say qua qua)...
  
• psssst (the ec, elimination communication books said it would happen...and it has! she says psst, at least 50% of the time before she's peed. in oakland GreenDaddy's's mom would screech the car to a halt and BabyG would pee in her potty. in houston, we're just not driving around so much. and it's really cold. sometimes we hear her and don't stop...)
  
• kisses (my favorite by far. not only will she do things like climb over to whatever is impressing her most and kiss it -- be it me or her grandma or a singing airplane toy. and afterwords she'll say, 'kisses')
  

Basically, she's a genius. I think if I tried harder to coach her, she'd know more words. But I don't want to stress her out. She's coming along at her own pace rather nicely. I also suspect she's learning Spanish words from our babysitter, and my Spanish isn't good enough to catch them. I mean, the qua qua thing took me two or three weeks to acknowledge. I never learned the words for things like squirrel or quack, before, you know?

Aside from words, she's mimicing a lot. My favorites: in her picture book that has one hundred photos, she has great responses: yawns at the yawning boy, pretends to wash her hair when the baby's in the bath, and, for awhile, cried whenever she saw either the sippee cup or the spoon, until we gave her one or the other.

I thought the word books were silly when people gave them to me at the shower. I never realized that in all these months when she can't communicate with perfect control of her vocal chords, she'd use them to acknowledge meaning between herself and whoever is looking at the book with her.

Lastly, BabyG dances.  If I sing the Pookey-Poo song, or GreenDaddy sings anything, or the radio plays.  She stands up against some piece of furniture and wiggles her whole middle body like she thinks she's Elvis.