Eco-life

Being a parent has brought out my latent urge for safe living, safe cosmetics, safe foods. Perhaps it stems from the undergraduate chemistry lab when the best yield we would get in several organic reactions was 70% and after purification, still had by-products floating around. We extracted (or tried to, at least) lycopene from tomatoes once and could NOT get even remotely pure lycopene.

 

Air freshener – my roommate wanted to use it and said, “But it’s air freshener”! All I could see was, a soup of chemicals that I didn’t/don’t want to inhale. Products that I would be wearing gloves for and handling in the hood in the laboratory. Products that the very chemists who design them surely wear eye, ear, nose, hand, full body protection for. Products that one shouldn’t bring anywhere into a residential area, let alone spray it for purely cosmetic reasons.

 

I am looking for alternatives and here’s what I’ve brought home so far.

 

Baby Soap: Aleppo soap http://danstabulleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/alep

 

Hand wash: Dr. Bronner’s Eucalyptus Liquid Soap (1 in 6)

 

Shampoo and Conditioner: Green Beaver Cranberry Shampoo and Apple Mint Conditioner
(Ideally, I would like to use soapnuts, soaked and squeezed, but it takes too much time)

 

Diapers: Bummis Organic Cotton Prefold Diapers (what a money saving this is!)

 

Formula: Hope to keep it to none.

 

Laundry Detergent for baby clothes and diapers: Nature Clean Unscented Liquid

 

For adults: Seventh Generation or Bio-Vert

 

Cleaning supplies (kitchen, toilet, bathroom): Seventh Generation. They use some chemicals I don’t like but until I get down to brass tacks and start using baking soda and vinegar, these’ll have to do.

 

Stay tuned!

Dum Aloo

Did I not say, little? Yes, that was how much by the time I managed to photograph it for posterity.

Beauty is stomach deep, this time

There are few things in life as beautiful as colorful ingredients laid out in readiness to be miraculously transformed into a mouthwatering dish by skillful hands. Dum Aloo. Chef, MIL. Photography, Me.

 

Makes one want to eat the dish so much that little is left to photograph of the final product.

Where does the time go?

June 10, 2010.

 

So, M is now over 5 w old. There have been so many moments that I wanted to write about that this page has been perpetually open with nary a word written in it.

 

Update: Not yet any more words here. The absence of words speak louder than all the words in the world…

 

Update 2: Laughing at myself. I did publish this post with more words in it. How did it land up in my “drafts” then? Oh daft me! Perhaps it is the forgetfulness that says something!!!

From the deep blue mood

Written on May 21, 2010. And forgotten about.

When I burst out in tears when my baby cries and I can’t console her and she needs R’s or my mother’s hands to calm her down, I wonder if it is PPD. During the morose period, I wonder where the gushes of love are, where the connection is. Is it PPD? The thought depresses me. These episodes seem to happen more often in the late afternoon-evening, when she wants to feed non-stop and does NOT want to sleep. I am tired. She gets cranky. I wonder, does she get cranky when I get tired or do I get tired when she is cranky? Does it matter?

My husband was jealous that I got to feel her whenever she moved while in my belly. Now, he is a better non-feed-baby-cry-stopper than I am. I am happy.

My mother provides all the food for me, she can also soothe baby wonderfully, but of course!

When I can squeeze in some sleep while she is sleeping or being engaged by her father or grandmother, I regain energy and banish those blues.

She is sleeping next to me now. I want to eat that button nose.

Mother of all pillows

Your baby: Three months and third week. Big topic this week: mother’s milk. One of the tips on BC mentioned nursing pillows. It took me back to the day my sweet husband went out and got me one.

It was the day we returned from the hospital. My OB said that I should go home a mere 2 days after my C-section if I so wished, so that I may be more comfortable. Gosh, did I hate that hospital bed! I was on the same bed from the moment they swung me onto it off the operating table. We tried to establish a wonderful nursing relationship, my daughter and I, both trying our hardest. She, being but a few hours old, had but one job. But her nutrition depended on it. For me…football hold, cradle hold, cross-cradle hold, lying down, sitting up, leaning back, hopping on one foot…

I figuratively jumped at the opportunity to leave the hospital much sooner than I could have hoped from the moment surgical intervention was decided upon. We made it home with M, in itself, a bizarre experience, hardly believing that we were parents; that we have this small new family. It was a haze of pain and sleep. I might have mentioned that I wished a had something to prop her up or I might not have. R went out in the evening to get, I know not what, but he came home super-excited; he discovered the mother of all pillows, pun intended – the nursing pillow. Granted, he wasn’t quite sure how it was used; granted that it didn’t still come easy for M or me; but guess what! He made our lives a lot simpler, to the point that we now find it all a source of relaxation, not stress; tears of joy, not frustration; time to sink into warm cushioned slumber… yawn, zzzzzzz!!!!!!

PS: We’re having some trouble now, because of possible food allergies :-(. I hope it’ll all get resolved soon.

From http://www.jollyjumper.com/show/22