Natural as Possible Mom

My daily lack of sun exposure makes me stand out — and not in a good way — at my local beach club, but it also has a positive side effect: I get a lot of, “Wow, you look really young.” Makes me feel good, of course, but as careful as I am with my [...]

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Early in December I was putting out the garbage — barefoot, of course — and the pinky toe on my right foot caught on one of the driveway cobblestones. (Another one of my crazy, wacko injuries like my self-inflicted black eye and toddler-induced cut finger.) With blood pouring out, I hobbled inside, wrapped the wound, [...]

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Big Girl inherited many of my positive traits, but just as many of the negative ones. One such trait is the inability to let others help her. She seems to want to carry the world on her slim little shoulders. Another that goes hand-in-hand with the first: Projection. She is always thinking those what ifs. [...]

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Little Girl was up every few hours on Wednesday night. We thought it was because we took blanka away, but it turns out she was developing a fever. I figured it out after she woke up sobbing at 9:45 a.m. Gathering her into my arms, I realized instantly that she was putting off as much [...]

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A recent Consumer Reports story took a look at the safety of apple and grape juices, and the results were less-than-comforting. The organization tested a variety of juices including some organic options and found both arsenic and lead — neurotoxins that can cause a multitude of problems such as bladder, lung, and skin cancer as [...]

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Today the American Academy of Pediatrics reported on a study (seventh story from the top) — Washington State Pediatricians’ Attitudes towards Alternative Childhood Immunization Schedules — which appears in the December 2011 issue of Pediatrics, the organization’s journal. The study asked 209 Washington State pediatricians about their overall willingness and “comfort” to use an alternative [...]

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I’ve been buying the Thanksgiving turkey for a few years now. I fight the crowds at Whole Foods, spend a crazy amount (last year I paid $75 for a 20-pound bird), and hand it off to my mother for cooking. And every year at least one or two people tell me I am insane to [...]

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I recently participated in a food-related Twitter party. During our discussion about Thanksgiving turkey and whether or not stuffing is safe to eat, the host asked about cookware: what were people cooking their turkeys in? I immediately tweeted that I used to cook in a non-stick Teflon pan, but about two years ago I banned [...]

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Little Girl came home on Monday with her first preschool cold. No sniffles, just a cough. She’s actually really good about covering her mouth with her elbow, but she’s also only three. Sometimes she coughs on Mommy. Yesterday I started getting that tell-tale burning in my sinuses as well as a pain behind my left [...]

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A fellow Twitter pal clued me in that the New England Confectionery Company, the company behind NECCO Wafers, decided to go back to its old recipe — and all the artificial colors that used to be in it. I confirmed the news by reading this piece, Customer Outrage Forces Necco To Put Artificial Ingredients Back [...]

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