Last Child in the Woods

I've pretty much taken care of babies in some arena for most of my life. I was six when my sister was born and didn't really stop after that. In that time I noticed that an infant will (99% of the time) calm down when brought outside and that really fascinated me. As a kid we were forced to play outside all of the time. "Be home by the time the street light comes on.", was a rule that everyone in my house was well aware of, and my sister and I were seldom home before then. My 16 month old loves to play outside and if I let him choose outside or inside he will always choose out (he'll even bring me his shoes if it means he gets to go out).

But, a scary thing is happening in America today. Unlike most of our childhoods, children today spend most of their time indoors and it is effecting them in big ways. As a science teacher I found it sometimes hard to get kids to connect with their surroundings. I taught in South Knoxville and I'll never forget the first time I brought a group of kids to the Smokies for a field trip. Some of them had never been! It absolutely shocked me that they had a National Park as their back yard and they had never been there.

I believe this book is a must read for anyone who interacts with children. It reminds us of where we came from (the "go out and play" generations) and how are children are being raised (hours of TV, computers, video games everyday). The book makes a case for how important it is for our children to be aware of, and be taught to enjoy, nature and the outdoors. Research shows that, "thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can... be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other maladies." The author Richard Louv "directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation—he calls it nature-deficit—to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression."

One of the reasons I absolutely love this book is because is not only does Louv do a good job at describing the problem and the symptoms of nature-deficit, he also gives parents and teachers tangible actions we can take to increase our children's appreciation of nature. The action points that he lays down in this book are part of the reason I am reccomending it as a "must have" to all parents.

Envirosax, 3 Stars

It's no secret that I'm a "bag lady". I have a different bag for every activity I am involved in; one for church, one for work, one for Master's Monday, two for Pampered Chef, etc. My bag obsession has expanded now that many people have their own reusable grocery bags. I think I found these in Parent's magazine but I don't really remember. I bought a whole set back last fall and then my mom bought my sister and I a couple more for Christmas. I like them because they are much larger than your average grocery bag (at least 1.5 times bigger), they are machine washable, easily foldable, and come in a variety of colors. For Christmas we used these to transport all of our gifts to Louisiana. It was easy to remember what bag to get down at each house because of the different colors (yellow for Stelly's, blue for Boudreaux's, etc.).

I do love to use these for grocery shopping, but be warned: grocery clerks try to stuff all of your groceries into one of these bags. If they use their bags they put one or two items in, if they use these they try to shove 30 items in the same bag! I do often forget to bring these in with me so that is a drawback, but overall I really like these bags for groceries or other purposes!

g Diapers, 4 stars

Being a mom I know that we all struggle with the fact that the average disposable diaper takes 500 years to decompose in a landfill. Yikes! The solutions are not simple (or cheap) but in this case I can say that they are doable. I do know friends who use cloth diapers but I have found a fusion of disposable and cloth diapers that are really neat.

I first tried g diapers after reading about them in a Parent's magazine. These diapers are made up of three parts: a cotton outer covering, a plastic liner, and a disposable pad. At first I was a little disappointed. The pads did not seem to stay in place and #2's often got on the liners and made a really big mess. After giving them a break for four months I decided to try them again. They work great. I think four months ago the liners and covers were just a little too big and that led to more leaks, etc. Now they fit really well and I have not had a problem in the last two weeks of using them. I have not even thought twice about wearing them out in public, which I would have never done four months ago. It does help that my little boy does have more firm #2's now, but I think even if he didn't the fit is the key to keeping things un-messy. He weighs 20 pounds now and is in a medium cover and using the medium/large pads. He does still wear a disposable at night, but the website suggests doubling up on pads to help cope with the extra fluids during sleeping.

One of the neatest things about these pads is the options you have with disposal. They can be thrown away in the trash, flushed down the toilet, or the wet ones can be composted!! On their website there is a really neat video that shows the break down of the pads vs. a disposable diaper.

I did give these 4 stars instead of 5 because of the cost involved. An average disposable diaper will run you 10-25 cents a diaper and these are about 40 cents per pad plus the start up cost of buying the liners and covers. You can purchase these online, or I get mine at Earth Fare in Turkey Creek.