Baby Gift Guide for the Eco Family

Someone recently asked me what to get for a new mom. I checked out a list on another blog, but noticed that her post was full of product endorsements. I think it's more helpful to give tips and advice about what kinds of gifts are useful to us, and other new parents with an alternative, eco-minded approach to parenting and life. While I only have one child, I still count--I mean--have done a lot of research and feel qualified to give the following advice.

First, let me mention again that Portland, OR is an amazing place to be an alternative, eco-minded parent. If you are reading this from elsewhere, you might have different resources available. I'd be interested to learn about your options and choices. Also, if you can help the overwhelmed parents get organized, sometimes it's nice to create a system where people can contribute to a big purchase item. 

There are great sites online to make registries where you can just check off the items and buy them wherever is convenient/sustainable/local. Here's a link to another blog who already did the research so I don't have to: http://www.mom365.com/Wisdom/Pregnancy/Second%20Trimester/5%20Best%20Registry%20Sites.aspx

Consider these ideas if you're buying a shower or new baby gift for a family that wants to live as sustainably as reasonable (for them). 

Clothes
Hand-me-downs are amazing. Check with the family to see if they are receiving hand-me-downs before buying a lot of clothes. Find out if they are getting just a certain age range, then get a different one. 
If you do choose to buy clothes, second-hand shops are wonderful. The clothes are chosen carefully and a great deal more affordable than getting them new. Babies grow fast; some clothes never even get worn! There are also some eco-friendly shops that sell sustainable or fair trade baby clothes, if you must go new. A good pair of shoes for a 6-12 month-old is wonderful, as well. Try to avoid the cutesy clothes from the big box stores, as new, cheaply made clothes are sweat-shop made and just plain not necessary. Also, please avoid annoying gender-presumptive sayings all over the clothes that do not fit with the family you are buying for. "Daddy's Little Slugger", "Future Quarterback" or "Mommy's Little Princess" will most likely end up in the recycle bin, since second hand shops don't even want to go there. 

Diapers
Find out what the family plans to do about diapers. There are hundreds of options and it's a pretty personal choice. Almost everyone will be doing a little bit of disposables, for example overnight or traveling times. There are chlorine free disposables, as well as more eco-friendly options as well. Many cloth diapers have a size minimum, so most babies will wear the itsy-bitsy newborn diapers for the first few weeks. 

Cloth diapers are a big initial investment, but can save a family thousands of dollars over time. Most people choose one system and don't mix and match, because of the washing instructions and fitting combinations. If they are totally overwhelmed, a nice gift might be doing some research for them or buying a few single options for them to try out. There are some shops that sell just diapers, or online shops that will deliver. I asked my co-workers to each give me a diaper, as they were $17 a piece, and I got a perfect set of 20-25. Another helpful option is to contribute to the cost of a diaper service. 

Craigslist 
We bought all of our baby furniture, from a beautiful co-sleeper, dresser, crib, changing table, on Craigslist. I felt it was worth the effort. I'm not sure how logical it is to get a shower/baby gift this way, but it certainly is a wonderful marketplace of baby items. Always take precautions for safety and always ask about the working order before you set up the purchase. 

Big Box Stores
Even the most sustainable parent will venture into a big box store from time to time. It's inevitable. We tried to have a registry at Target, but found that most items were only available online and limited. Babies R Us is made for baby gifts, it's laid out logically and it makes things easy. They do sell some organic products as well. On the other hand, everything is made in China, many of the items are cheaply made, and they are not likely to worry about what something is made of beyond safety recalls. I put Amazon.com in this category, too. There are more items available, but it works in much the same way. Items to get at a big box store: 

• car seat (not recommended second hand)
• breast pump and accessories (also not recommended second-hand, but if you get one from a friend, that is ideal)
• furniture when you're over-budget and don't have time to browse craigslist
• baby gates, baby-proofing gadgets

Why Don't You Ever Write About Teaching?

Hi. I'm a teacher. It's in the title of my blog (which is, by the way, chronological, not in order of importance. Obviously.) I often write about work, as in, work is hard as a new parent, even if I'm working part-time, and I went to work and ... or pumping at work is... but do I actually teach? And what do I have to say about it? And why haven't I yet?

Well, it's complicated. I love teaching. It's rewarding, wonderful, frustrating, overwhelming, and never finished. It's been a part of my identity for a long time, since I was a teacher-entertainer in rural Japan, wishing and reaching for more responsibility. This year I have an especially challenging group to teach that I should've started to tackle before I was a parent, you know, back when teachers put in hours and hours of extra time at their jobs.

I'm teaching a literacy class, which is extra reading and writing practice for all students in the district (in addition to their regular Language Arts class) and my particular group, according to test scores, are a few years behind grade level for reading. That means so many things.

First, it means that many of them are disillusioned, disengaged, disinterested, and distracted. For most of them it means that the first seven or eight years of their school life has been frustrating and unpleasant, academically. It usually means that rather than the habits of success that we hope students have been learning, they have been instead learning how to survive in classes where they were not engaged. they have mastered the habits of fake literacy, distracting the teacher, getting others off-track to join their lack of engagement, and getting attention for something, if not for "getting it", then at least for being a distractor. Some have mastered the habit of checking out. Some bounce off the walls and are in some ways too engaged, they have no filter and shout out their opinions on everything, having a de facto debate with me with their peers as audience. I find myself saying way more often than I'd like: "sit down!" I wish they could run around outside, jump on a treadmill or something, instead of being expected to sit for six hours a day. ADHD or not, it seems unnatural to expect this, yet in our school system, the kids who can muster the strength to endure this are the ones who succeed. 

The concept of leveling classes is somewhat controversial. In middle school, the idea is that for the most part, students should be grouped by age, and ability should be taken into account by the teacher's curriculum and instruction--differentiated, so that there is an access point for every ability. This is very hard. On the other hand, grouping students by ability, while quite nice for the students "at the top", puts all students with learning struggles together to bounce off of each other and create chaos. And very little modeling of appropriate behavior goes on. 

That is what happens in my class, though I'd say I have three types of students. The first is described above. They are the disengaged, overactive, struggling students that are typical of many boys in middle school. Another type are just poor test-takers or have a different way of learning, or perhaps reading and writing just isn't their strength, but they still enjoy reading, barely recognize that their skills are low, and are perfectly willing to participate readily in class. 

And a few are like Shannah*. She was recently expelled for repeated drug possession. At age 14, she was already using pot as a coping mechanism, smoking pretty much every day, coming to school every other day, doing her best under her current condition (how often was she high in my class? I don't even want to imagine) and failing. Some of the girls in her situation are mature beyond their years, or at least exposed to things that take a maturity beyond middle school, whether they are ready for it or not. They developed early, didn't fit in to the "good girl" mold and chose the darker, more rebellious corners of school. They started by experimenting with pot or alcohol. They may have started having sex. They certainly aren't interested in reading some book about a girl in love with a vampire or a middle school boy pulling pranks on his friends. (Even Hunger Games didn't hook them.) I have a handful of these girls, and perhaps one or two boys in similar circumstances.  I had Shannah for a year and a half before she was expelled. She was placed in a new program that is finally available to middle schoolers, for students who can't find success after multiple tries in the regular system. I don't know if that's going to help her, but I guess I didn't, so I hope she can find some success.

So, are you getting why I don't write about teaching very much? Once I start, it's pretty hard to stop. Obviously on the weekends and in the evenings, I'd rather not contemplate all of this when I could be watching my baby grow up. I could be starting down a road of disillusionment with our current system and my job, even with the incredible support of my administrators and colleagues. I definitely feel the insurmountable challenges every day and do my best. Often I wonder if I'm the best teacher for this particular group of students. Sometimes I think they would do better with a really rad male rapper teacher with a beard who uses slang and can connect with them on a "cool" level. I know I have my strengths but I'm not him. This particularly challenging to engage group might not find me to be the one they most connect with. I can objectively see that AND still want very much to reach them. 

We have laptops. This year my classes (being the smallest and needing a lot of support) was chosen to work with Google Chrome Books. They are fantastic and they do draw them in from the edges. We are working toward blogging as a class, students getting individual blogs, online journaling, lots of videos, articles, digital literacy, and so much more. We use them almost every day. I think this will be positive memory and skill-set to work with. 

As for me, I still want to do my best every day, and often do. I still want to learn more tools for engaging these kids, I still want to find ways to reach them. I still reach out to my colleagues for ways to better my own practice. I still have really frustrating days where nothing feels it is going as well as it should for the moral imperative that teachers carry: each kid needs a teacher to connect to strongly, to really see them and reach them and push them, for success. How many kids will see me as that teacher? If they don't, am I wasting their time?

There. I wrote about teaching. 


*Name changed.

Gardening with a Baby

I googled this theme and did not come up with many helpful suggestions. I wanted some advice on how to carry your baby while gardening, what kinds of contraptions to rig to put your baby down where he would be happy, safe, and relatively bug-free. Perhaps I rely too much on the google. We'll just have to be innovative.

We started with O in the car seat, which only lasted about six minutes before he would squirm and cry unhappily. I would then put him in the baby bjorn, which worked alright for him but I could only water and not really bend over. We also tried "the grandparent", which is very effective but time-sensitive and not always available.


We have settled on bringing his bouncy chair and putting him under whatever source of shade is available, from the neighbor's raspberries to our ever-expanding sunflowers. It seems to work pretty well. We also put down a blanket with a blue and white umbrella over the top and he seems to like kicking his legs up and feeling the breeze. Now that we finally have a comfortable situation for him, I think he's getting out of gardening what I'd hoped: exposure to the sounds, sights and feel of nature, from the birds to the soft breezes to just getting his eyes filled up with all the different shades of green.


Let me back up and explain a bit more about our garden. (First, see my other post about our community garden plot.) Last year our plot was prolific. We had broccoli, tomatoes, tomatillos, strawberries, daikon, corn, arugula, cucumbers, pumpkins, peppers, eggplant, artichoke, spinach, lettuce, and sunflowers. We also had an earlier start and an easier time gardening pre-baby. This year, we got a notice in May saying that we needed to tend to our garden or give it up. We had visited once to survey but didn't get started until O was about one month old. We gave them our reasons and got to work. In the fall, Shannon had become disinterested in gardening and I had become increasingly larger and less mobile, so we didn't "put our garden to bed" as we should have. Thus, we returned to mostly weeds. It took some work to clear out, but some brilliant person had brought a ton of used burlap sacks from coffee shops in to kill weeds. We covered most of our plot with these sacks.


We also learned that in our absence, a killdeer family had nested in our plot, and people staked out the nest so no one would disturb it. We felt glad that we had inadvertently provided a space for another fledging family.


Other changes had occurred in our absence. A number of the plots had not sold, so the city decided to give them away to immigrant families in the area. We now have about five plots being worked by Eastern European families who have brought with them their knowledge of cold-weather gardening and have created amazing structures (cold frames I guess, though they are solid enough to call green houses). These families must have some agreement to raise food for their community, because there are so many tomatoes they could feed hundreds of people!


With new community members comes some strife, of course, and it came in the form of cultural misunderstandings. I have noticed that some of the greatest issues between cultures has to do with the use of space. In this case, I think being helpful has been confused with being invasive at times. We so far have thoroughly enjoyed the exchange. Shannon can speak a small bit of Russian, which quickly ingratiated us with George and Maria, who have given us tomato plants, cucumbers and a great big zucchini. When I asked George what kinds of tomatoes we got, he said "good". But apparently, not everyone had this experience. Early on, a woman came up to me to complain about pillows in the shed which might lead to homelessness (or something like that. I couldn't quite follow). She began yelling at me as a way to get me on her side (not effective, obviously) and in her rant, she said something about "the war with the Russians and you have to pick a side". I decided she was crazy and tried not to find out too much more about any war with the "Russians", who are not Russian. On the other hand, it has helped me to see others advocating for each other where I did not expect. A woman who can sometimes be interested in drama was defending the Eastern European families by explaining the difference in how people view ownership, and mentioning that they were impressively multi-lingual. Ultimately, we all will grow from this experience.

So, back to our plot: this year we have not taken on as much. We are being realistic about what we can handle (though with donations from George, our plans have changed a bit). So far we have seven tomato plants (two volunteers from last year's heirlooms), two butternut squash, a tepee trellis of green beans, a whole bed of strawberries, six broccoli plants, onions, arugula, cucumbers, three peppers, eggplants, and sunflowers. Actually, it sounds like a lot. We still have paths of burlap sacks and a small and dwindling weedy section, but it is a great work in progress, and now we have another person to share it with, which makes it even more meaningful.

Garden Plot

Our Garden:
Actually, I believe this garden is what kept me from blogging last year. I put all my creative energy into it (oh, and into growing a baby). It was a gamble, since the site is a few miles from us. I decided it was worthwhile because it was a) on the bike path and somewhat near the Max line, b) on my way to school (where I was temporarily laid off, but worked over the summer anyway), and c) within visual distance of Zenger Farm, where Shannon and I got married. My goals were to have a place to get out of the city, which feels stifling for a country girl in the summer, have a creative outlet for my free time, and enjoy digging in the dirt. Harvesting was an afterthought, though it sounded fun, too.

Portland community gardens are hard to get into. This one was brand new, donated land by the Furey family, for both a community garden and a CSA spot for Zenger Farm. There are something like 30 plots, mostly 20x20 feet, which is quite large. The land was once a farm, so the soil is incredibly good for planting. It had been a fallow field for years, watched over by Frank, the resident pheasant who still reigns.


I originally thought the garden would be my project, but as soon as I started, Shannon wanted in. And of course, he wanted to do things HIS way. This was not what I was looking for, but I saw through our bickering an opportunity to connect over something important to both of us. It has led to many an argument, but we are better for our gardening together. Last summer, we built, sowed, and grew the most bountiful 20 x 20 garden I have ever seen. Other gardeners had some good stuff too, but ours meant more to us, of course. We built two slightly raised beds (our first project together involving lumber), and lots of mound beds. We designed it to be a green haven with various heights that created some shade, our favorite foods, hummingbird, bee and ladybug habitat (and mice and frogs, and rabbits), and a place for sitting in our plastic adirondack chair.


I think this creativity, on some level, led to the most creative project anyone can enter into. After planting all the broccoli in our tray (18-20 plants) in various spots all over the garden, I discovered that the smell of broccoli made me want to gag. Yep, we got pregnant in July, as everything was in full bloom and fertility was in the air. I continued to make the trek, and aside from the broccoli, this was one of my happy places, where  I could reflect on what changes were coming and just do some good hard work.


Now, with a community garden comes a community. This one was real in the sense of being quite random, based on who lived nearby, who heard about this spot, who was passionate or curious. As I said, this garden was in deep southeast Portland. Off 122nd and Foster, which, if you don't know the area, is pretty poor. Driving up 122nd you will see car dealerships, strip clubs, convenience stores, and plenty of baby-daddies with pants falling down pushing a stroller or walking somewhat near their baby-mama pushing a stroller, as well as a few people who've lost their teeth to meth. The neighborhoods are more personal, but there are plenty of people struggling to get by or doing the best they can with what they have.

In our garden, we have a few retired folk, one woman who lives around the corner and gardens compulsively  in every open space she sees (this year she has planted flowers along the whole outside perimeter of the garden as well as in an old bark-mulch pile), a few people who are unemployed, a few families who want their kids to get in the dirt, and a few aloof folks whose stories I might not get to know. We all learned from each other the first year. Our neighbor to the south just stuck plants in the ground directly from the trays, without separating them, and said to my organic husband "I don't know about this whole organic thing!" (a requirement for the garden, mind you). So he learned from us and we learned how to be more diplomatic. Another opportunity for diplomacy was when a few gardeners got the idea that Zenger Farm's CSA, right next to our plots, was planted for everyone in the neighborhood to just take what they wanted. "It's for the community". We hopefully helped save their investment and plants for the people who had bought shares of the CSA. And we learned a lot from other gardeners as well. One of the best ways to learn was to merely walk along the paths and see what others were doing. Some came with years of experience, and some had never planted a seed in their lives. And those who opened up had amazing stories. Our neighbor to the west came from Vietnam as a refugee, and was one of the few refugees I have met who believes that sharing her story is an important part of healing. Our neighbor to the east was a retired grandfather/war veteran who cared for his grandson from infancy to school age, five days a week to keep a semblance of family going. And our neighbor to the north was Frank, the pheasant who let his presence be known every time we visited, with his shrill and demanding call, and then he showed off his family as they grew up in the fields and plots of the land we were borrowing.