3 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day

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I’m not a fan of celebrating holidays.  The whole thing just seems like too much work.  Spending a bunch of money buying decorations, searching tirelessly for ingredients and competing with other consumers for the last ham at the grocery store, cooking a ton of food, and having a messy house all for just a few short hours.  Still, it wasn’t until this past Christmas that I realized just how important celebrating something is.  Having a child leads me to revalue the joy and togetherness that holidays bring into our lives.  Simply because we are alive, well and happy to have each other.  It doesn’t have to be one of the traditional holidays, but it should be something that is important to our family.  I’d like for my son to have fond memories of a special day that we got together and did something fun for a good cause.  So we’re starting our own traditions!

Mommy Can LearnEarth Day is this Friday and while it isn’t a homemade holiday, what better reason to celebrate than the solitary planet that homes us and provides us with food, water, and air!  Here are 3 ways that we can do a little good for our planet that does so much for us.

Teaching your kids about sustainable living

Reading books to kids is the best way to teach them about, well anything!  Learning about the importance of sustainable living is a great way to get kids involved and thinking about preserving our planet at an early age.  And once kids take an interest in something new, they’ll be sure to remind us to do our part as well.  Here are 4 great books to get started:

Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth

Disney Go Green: A Family Guide to a Sustainable Lifestyle

The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling

The Earth Book

Earth Day activities

Earth 911 – Cool DIY projects with reusable materials.

Education World – Earth Day lesson plans and projects – great for homeschoolers!

TinkerLab – 50 Earth Day activities for toddlers and little kids.

Utilizing sustainability sites

Freecycle – A great resource for donating and receiving free reusable goods to avoid using landfills.

Healthy Home Economist – A list of organic, non-GMO, Monsanto-free seed companies.

I Want To Be Recycled – Everything recycling!

Local Harvest – Find local farms, farmers markets, co-ops, CSAs and even pick-your-own fruit gardens.

What do you have planned for Earth Day?

 

My Birth Story

I was told that every mom should write out her birth story.  I don’t know if it’s either to reminisce on the wonderful experience you had or to tell your know-it-all teenagers how much work you did to get them here and how they should be grateful, but here it goes.

The morning I went into labor was a regular morning.  We got up, had breakfast and decided to drive out to the in-laws house about 45 minutes away.  Mister and his dad were grilling steaks while his mom and I were lounging by the hot tub.

Mister jokes, “you should stay the night over here and I’ll pick you up in a few days.”

To which my MIL replies, “oh no!  She’s not going into labor over here!”

My FIL (father-in-law) then chimes in, “she looks like she’s gonna have that baby in about 7 hours!”  We all laughed not knowing that it would be true.

When we got home I cooked dinner; we decided to watch a movie.  As he is getting everything set up, I go pee (for the millionth time that day) and see blood.  Um… WTF is that about?  I had read about women losing their mucus plug or water breaking, but I had never heard about blood.  I peeked my head out of the bathroom and yelled down to Mister “I think I’m in labor!  I’m going to call the midwife.”  He starts pacing back and forth.  I call the midwife’s office and leave a message for her to call me back.  Mister says “oh no, I have to get gas!”  O.M.G. This is not happening.  While he is at the gas station, the midwife calls back and tells me to come to the hospital.

As we drive down the freeway, I’m gripping the seatbelt with gut wrenching contractions just to I look over to see that Mister is doing the speed limit!  Yeah, because I am not in a hurry at all.  We finally arrive at the hospital.  My nurse, Danielle, put me in a wheelchair and took me to my birthing room.  She checks me and says that I’m 6-7cm!  What?!  It has only been an hour!  That means that this baby is almost here!  OMG, OMG, OMG, THIS IS THE MOMENT!  I had already planned to have a natural water birth so I firmly asked Danielle to get my birthing pool ready because I needed some relief.  Poor Danielle… she was so sweet and calm as I ordered her around for the next few hours.  I had to be on the fetal monitor for 30 minutes and in the meantime my in-laws showed up.

It was finally time to get into the pool.  Ahhh instant pain relief.  I floated on my back for a minute while Mister pushed water over my body.  Ya know, months prior I was really paranoid about being naked during birth and was sure that I’d cover up.  But in that moment I really didn’t care.  It was ALL hanging out.  And I do mean ALL.  I decided to change positions and get on my knees with my head lying on the side of the pool.  All of a sudden I felt the urge to push.  Danielle says, “don’t push yet love” in her calm Jamaican accent.  My midwife, Margaret, had not arrived.  I said, “I can’t help it Danielle.  I’m not trying to push, my body is doing it.”  I pushed about 5 or so times before Margaret came into the room.  Everyone was quiet.  Margaret did not coach me through my birth.  She had confidence that I could do this myself and really let me do my own thing.  I’m so grateful for her.  I pushed about 20 times and our son was born.  In that moment, Mister decided to cut the umbilical cord.  I got out of the pool and walked to my bed.  I felt great!  Danielle laid our son on my chest and I said to Mister “DUDE, we’ve got a kid!” as if I just had an epiphany.  Everyone in the room laughed.

I stayed up all night thinking about my new title: mom.  It was kinda scary at first, but becoming a mother has been the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Duty calls…