Good-Bye Green Toys

I spent the weekend cleaning out toys. Unlike most parents...I haven't really done this before.
OK- here and there, but never on a regular yearly basis.

Guess what my house looks like?

This is the problem with not-quite-crunchy toys. They tend to be well made of wood, fabric, really strong plastic or other long lasting materials or. They tend to be open-ended so they can be played with in many different ways and IN different ways as a child gets older.

So...ummm...we've kept them for awhile...a LONG while.

Good-bye wooden farm that's been played with for 4 years. Good-bye plastic 7 year old Mega-Blocks garbage truck with garbage cans. Good-bye multi-colored xylophone. Good-bye- wooden car wash, fabric people, 25 matchbox cars, wooden airport and finally but sadly, the musical pirate ship and a load of costumes that no longer fit.

I KNOW my son will still play with these toys given half a chance...but only occasionally and being able to move in his room is preferable.

Doing it again, would I buy so many toys? Rationally and greenly, the answer is of course "no". emotionally: "load 'em up". I can only be happy we mostly chose toys that can be passed on years later.

On the other hand, the cheaply made crap isn't still hanging around my house!

(However, if you are still in the buying for a toddler stage...check out my recent review of Pop On Pals - it fits the strong sturdy, open-ended criteria I try to follow.)
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Backyard Safari- Could You put It Down to Eat?

It's not often my son gets as excited about toys I receive to review, as he has about these from Backyard Safari But these have him carrying the various pieces around and begging me to let him take them to bed. I picked up a lantern from a recent blogger's brunch and was sent the Cargo Vest, Mega View Periscope and the Bug Vacuum to review.


My son has always been into science toys and I have always been leery of ...crap that breaks. These toys though are remarkable sturdy! The lantern really works and is strong enough to take on an actual camping adventure as opposed to ... the backyard kind. I also was happy to see that the cargo vest is well made with strong stitching and the periscope is solid, well molded plastic. As I said, I am very leery of junk toys that break easily. I've bought enough crappy science kits to last a life time.

OK- so a little bit on how well I think they have actually marketed this product too. These guys have done a good job getting where they need to be. It really is a niche product and could easily be and probably is displayed way back in the "educational" section of many toy stores. But, the very targeted advertising (we caught one ad in Boys Life), the extensive online advertising and PR campaign and the blogger outreach is so targeted that it's a great example of how to get a lot of bang for your buck.

So finally, a bit of disclosure. First I was sent there products to review for free. As is usual in this situation though, I leave the box for my son to open and the review gets written on his reactions...then mine. I also have a review policy which you can find here.



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Taking The Stairs

This is a post for the Green Moms Carnival, hosted this month by my friend Diane MacEachern, author of the Big Green Purse and an all around cool lady.The topic this month is transportation and I thought a lot about how to approach this from my suburban, car filled world.

Then it occurred to me that I was raising a child who not only never walked, biked, bussed or went by train anywhere, but also preferred the elevator to stairs!. This I consider a tragedy!

When he was an infant and toddler we lived in the city. We rode the bus to all of our Mommy and Me activities, walked to the playground and tooled around on wheels - me on my rollerblades, him in the heavy jogging stroller.

Since our move to the 'burbs though, much of that is gone, so much so that I've noticed that when visiting the dentist last week he whined to take the elevator rather than walk up the prettily plant decorated outside stairs to the second floor. Not an isolated incident yesterday he tried to insist we take the elevator down one flight from a parking garage- that's DOWN mind you.

So, I've been thinking about how all of this ties together. Raising children who don't walk anywhere...leads to having kids who don't walk ANYWHERE. And children who don't walk or bike or use public transportation (planes don't count) don't see the opportunities to do so and see no solution to the environmental harm too much time alone in the car can bring.

So, it's a new day in our house. Don't only do we now eschew elevators, we're gearing up for a summer of dragging out our wagon and walking to the nearest store...even if it's a mile away and I'll have to deal with whining as we drag the groceries home.

I think it will be worth it.



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Green Moms Carnival Named Most Influential Group

Sometimes hard work pays off.

Today I heard that my group of eco conscious moms - Green Moms Carnival, was named one of the most influential groups in the blogsphere by groupable.com.

Started almost two years ago by my friend Lynn at Organic Mania, we're a loose collection of women bloggers who got to know each other online and joined together to support each others efforts to make the world a little greener. A number of our members have written books, most of us have been featured in stories in print publications at one time or another, a few have been named most influential blogger/tweeter in her own right and the group won the Shorty Award for Best Green content on Twitter last year.

A lot of environmental groups work outside the corporate world to try to change behavior. We've found the opposite has worked for us. Our members work with Whole Foods and Seventh Generation but also with Wal-Mart and other mainstream corporate entities. We're marketers and attorneys and writers and we've provided direction and input to major companies, agencies and thought leaders.

It's nice now to see just how influential we've become!

Thanks Groupable!
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I keep hearing about the Green My Parents youth movement. It's popping up everywhere on my radar and frankly, it doesn't surprise me that children and youth are emerging as a force in the green movement.

Many marketers dub this generation of children born in the '90s and the early part of this century, the "Digital Generation", but they could just as well be called , the "Green Generation", the first generation to grow up aware of the harm that technology is doing to our health and our planet.

I think I am particularly aware of this movement because one of the founders Jordan Howard, 17, is a senior at Environmental Charter High in LA -

This high school an innovative green school is on this list for visit from President Obama to highlight his Race to the Top program for schools. So, it's big news here in LA!

Here's a bit about Green My Parents:

• Youth-led movement to save $100 Million for American families by teaching kids how their families can save $100 by going green;
• Launches Earth Day with a youth-led webinar via The National Wildlife Federation's SchoolTube.com. Webinar launches at 1 pm EST.

Plus, they have a book coming out for Download on Earth Day. I think this is a sign of things to come...if my own experience with my son hounding me to tiurn out the lights and turn off the faucet is any indicator. Read more!

The Not Quite Educational Birthday Party

I wasn’t planning on writing about my son’s birthday party this year, but I ran into a reader who started talking about one of my earlier parties and thought, oh - yeah- always a fun exercise. So, here goes.

Over the years we’ve vacillated back and forth – or done wild swings…depending on how you look at it, but the past 4 years we’ve gotten into a bit of a birthday party routine as follows:

1. - Pick a non-commercial theme

2. - Have it at our house with a bouncy house, another open-ended activity, a craft, and a treasure hunt

3. - Invite both parents and siblings and supply light snacks and drinks for all (supplemented by my awesome group of friends who chip in potluck)

4. - Add some more or less educational element

5. - Contribute to some worthy cause

Some of this has been easier than others. In past years we’ve done a “Save the Oceans theme” and a Safari/Cheetah theme. This year my son really, really wanted to do a Star Wars theme. He’s very into both the movies ( which I have been assured by various males has the archetypical male moral message – uh…OK) and the Legos…which we own by the hundreds it seems.

It’s taken me awhile to buy into both plastic Legos and semi-violent Star wars movies, but I’ve gotten lazy justified that he is now older and so it’s OK. I still, though held my ground on having a completely commercial, plastic/throwaway birthday party. I still have some crunchy standards!

So this year we compromised on a Space party with Star Wars elements. Our bouncy house, which I found out too late, was a bit old, beat up and rather small, it turned out, was in the shape of a rocket ship. Our alternate activity, which last year, for our 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea theme, was shooting Stomp Rockets at a cardboard submarine sort of thing we made, was continued this year.

Affixing cut-outs of the planets that we bought at a Teacher Supply Store, to tomato stakes, we created a Solar System on our side yard. My son appropriately wanted to add the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter, so we cut amorphous shapes out of cardboard and added them, as well as, printouts of The Lego Darth Vader ship we got from the web.

Thinking the kids could do a little math as they played, I taped a sign to our old art easel which read:

Star Troopers protect the Earth!

Earn 5 points for hitting an asteroid

Earn 3 points for hitting an enemy spaceship

Lose 3 points for hitting a planet.

Keep your score

I then dragged the easel out to the yard and supplied chalk. The kids completely ignored my instructions of course and made up their own games, which seemed to include at least 10 kids at any one time and a lot of laughing – oh well.

As is usual, rather than give out a Goodie bag, we coordinated the Goodie bag into the activities. This year, at Michael’s, I picked up small fabric bags insulated with a silver lining, intended to be used as water bottle holders but remarkably space-like for the kids to decorate in a space theme with Fabric markers. This was the main craft activity, but I also set up yarn, glue, tape, paper and small cutouts of stars and planets that various children used to make, pictures, mobiles and 3 dimensional art projects.

( As you may have guessed by now, I try to set up activities at the party that require no instruction, leaving ME time to enjoy the party rather than run around “manning” different booths or directing activities.)

Between these 3-4 activities and our open playroom the children found enough to do for about 1-1/2 hours until I called for the Treasure Hunt.

Ensuring everyone had their “space bag” decorated complete with name I called everyone together and handed out these sheets with a brief description of 9 major constellations. This turned out to be way more work than I planned. I finally found the illustrations on a disc that came with the DK Night Sky Atlas book we had and the descriptions on 2 or 3 websites…carefully edited to limit the amount of violence, incest and gore. (You really don’t want to tell your child the whole story behind the constellations unless you want to open yourself up to a variety of questions ranging from awkward to nightmare inducing.)

Giving them a chance to show off their knowledge, I asked a few constellation-type questions then handed out the star maps. I made 4 different routes through the constellations to avoid too many kids descending on each spot and told them to take on prize from each constellation. I had the constellations pictures blown up and mounted on tomato stakes (again) in our neighbor’s yard, somewhat hidden behind trees, bushes and rocks at my son’s request. By each was a cardboard box filled with “treasure”. One held “moon rocks”. One held space and Star Wars stickers, one held glow in the dark bracelets…you get the drift. A few had a sign in the bottom that said” No treasure here, keep looking.”

Since some of the smaller kids, knew would not be able to read a map, following it wasn’t required as long as you went to every station. What I figured out at the end was that I really didn’t need to give out both a map and the constellation guide, one or the other would have been fine…another lesson learned.

But, at least they went home with both an accurate map of the constellations in the Northern hemisphere at this time of year and descriptions of some of the major constellations.

We also had, as we also do, a “Picture spot”. This time with a full size cut out of Darth Vader, that was remarkably easy to find on the internet (who knew) and a rocket shaped Piñata from Party City. Luckily as I started to try to figure out how to mount our Darth Vader in the yard so it would stay up in the wind, I realized that one of the party guests watching me was…an architect! “Triangles are good” she explained and fixed up a few that guaranteed stability. Problem solved!

The cake which we always make from a Dr. Oetker organic cake mix and decorate with whipped cream instead of icing, fondant and plastic figures ended up being a last minute thing this year. ( Daylight savings time inconveniently started the night before the party, throwing all of my planning off by 1 hour.) My son drew a schematic that included a fondant moon and stars, a plastic astronaut and space ship and a few other embellishments. I made the cake early in the morning. Then 15 minutes before the party was to start ( after using all the earlier time making copies and picking up balloons, more tomato stakes and a party tray, plus assembling all of the activities) I grabbed the 3 cartons of whipping cream out of the frig and threw them into a mixing bowl. After 5 minutes of frantic whipping...still no foam. Uh- was one of those cartoons half and half? Yup. Crap.

My neighbor who was helping me get the cake together started looking around for powdered sugar for plan B, but we fortunately found a box of whipped icing that I picked up in the dollar bin at Party City while buying the balloons…saving the day. My son and 3 early arrivals quickly tossed the decorations on the cake and ran out to the bouncy house – the 15 minute cake decorating session – maybe I’ll give classes!

After all of that frantic activity, I was finally able to go out and relax at one of the tables which we cover each year with yards of themed fabric which we then recycle into table cloths for the tables on our patio all summer, at which point they are then so bleached out by the sun that we turn them into rags. More fun and more eco than plastic tablecloths!

All that is left at this point is to figure out what sort of charity works best with a space theme and send out thank you cards. my son though is already planning for next year!

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They Must Be Green

I was driving my son to school yesterday and turned on a CD. Generally we listen to audio books or kids CD's in the car, but...I thought I'd branch out.

I had an old CD from the movie, The Big Chill, that I had dug out from somewhere and popped into my car CD player, so I put that on...thinking back to the scene where Kevin Kline is bathing his son who is singing..."Jeremiah was a bullfrog.."

Surely this would be a song appropriate for an 8-year-old? Not bad, actually. The interesting part was my son's interpretation of the line: "I'd throw away the cars and the bars and the wars..."

He said:

"Hey Mom, they must be green, too!"

Gotta love it.


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Tug- A Brand Name or An Action?

This is my son's backpack.

Note the brand name: "Tug"











This is what happened when one of his friends took that word literally.



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Help With Earthquake Relief in Haiti

A little off topic today, but I awoke this morning to hear about a devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti yesterday.

Here in California we’re used to earthquakes. Every once in awhile we get a particularly huge one that brings down homes and buildings and we get a glimpse of the sorrow and feelings of helplessness rather more common after earthquakes in developing countries - because it is different there.

If you’ve ever been in an earthquake in the developing world, you know the extra sheer terror laid on top of the normal sheer terror of being in an earthquake. It goes something like this:

“I KNOW this building is going down because buildings codes here are nothing like in the US”

“If I get stuck in this building I’m never going to get out because rescue services are less efficient here”.

“I wonder what particular pipe is going to break and if whatever is in it is going to kill me because corruption caused the builder to skimp on safety codes.”

And more along these lines.

I had the misfortune to be in a high rise hotel during a fairly large earthquake in Mexico City awhile back. This is what ran through my head. That’s what came back to me when I heard the news about Haiti.

That's when I jumped on Twitter to see how I could help.

If you want to help, please check out this article on the Huffington Post that includes a variety of ways to do so.

If you are on Twitter or Facebook, please one of these phrases to your profile!

RT @mcmilker: EMERGENCY! RT PLEASE! ‎Earthquake relief 4 Haiti please text YELE to 501501 to donate $5 or go 2 www.yele.org


RT @huffingtonpost RT @mcmilker Haiti earthquake - How YOU can help: http://bit.ly/8ghHf4

Pass the word around and thanks for your help!! In these tough times we all need to stick together!

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The Scary Traditional Tree

Anyone else freak out a little when they see this tree with real lit candles? this was at a friend's house where he hosted a kid's Christmas cookie party. ( He doesn't have kids- bet you could have guessed that!)

It was fun and what you can't see in this picture is the fire extinguisher which he had handy tree-side.

Happy holidays!


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