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  • Live Good Raffle Contest

    LIVE GOOD RAFFLE CONTEST

    To enter: FOLLOW @LiveGoodinc and @ToniBolognamind on Twitter and tweet us pictures of you and your baby that shows us how you Live Good while being eco conscious. Take photos holding a sign, a card or write in the sand, “Live Good Baby”.

    Stage your photos in the park, at the zoo, by the pool, with the family pet, at sunset, eating healthy or just catching some zzz’s. Multiple entries are encouraged, so get creative and submit a new picture daily.

    At the end of the month we will choose our favorite picture and the winner will receive a Live Good baby pillow of their choice from LiveGoodInc.com

    To submit pictures, tweet @LiveGoodinc and @ToniBolognamind with #KidsLiveGood

    Please limit to one entry per day.

    The winner will be announced via Twitter and we reserve the rights to all pictures submitted for promotional purposes.

    lgb

     

     

     

    May 9, 2013 • baby gear • Views: 2744

  • Sometimes Being Eco is Annoying

    I really don’t want to live in a trashcan of a world, but being eco can be annoying.  To exclusively support organic fair trade local products that you also happened to grow in your back yard, had harvested by virgins, and processed by leprechauns is a fucking challenge.  The other day I thought I would buy some organic cotton t-shirts for The Munch, and one shirt was $40?! When I saw the price I threw up in my hand and then had to eat it because my dinner was from the organic store and my tofu kale wheat-free sandwich was not cheap.

    I know the responsibility is on me to be the change I want to see in the world, but I already changed my underwear today -isn’t that enough?  It is a lot of pressure for me to always make the right decision when there is so much crappy crap out there that is way crappy, but easier to get.  My main question is, why is there so much temptation to poison ourselves with toxic shit?  We have so much access to such a vast variety of products, but the majority of them are actually semi dangerous.  Major corporations are exposing us to some sort of poison, subjecting employees to horrific working conditions, and sometimes secretly feeding people rats they think is lamb.

    So there is plenty of incentive to be conscious consumer.  In fact I consider myself to be a PROsumer with all the positive shit I buy.  Get it? PROsumer rather than CONsumer? Am I lyrical genius or what?  But sometimes I want to be just like ahhh fuck it! I mean I got The Munch this hippy sunscreen because I read that sunscreen, although may protect you from getting skin cancer from the sun, actually just gives you another kind of cancer.  So I slapped the eco stuff on her, and it worked in the sense that she didn’t get burned, but it wouldn’t absorb into her skin.  She was walking around looking like Casper the Ghost the entire day.  I mean that is fine for a kid and all, but there is no way as a self-respecting woman, I can go out in public like a member of the Adams Family.

    Of course when we are talking about green products, food is the one I am most committed to.  But sometimes I get sick of being healthy.  Over the summer I am part of CSA (community supported agriculture) and get all my organic vegetables delivered to me.  They are grown in the most fertile soil and picked by a bearded farming angel.  Yet by time September rolls around all I want is to eat cheeseburgers and doughnuts.  I get so sick of vegetables I want to throw them against the wall, and then waterboard them.

    I know I should probably find a balance and feel peace knowing I am doing what I can and all that…. But what the fuck world?  Why can’t eco shit just be the only shit we can buy so I wouldn’t have to compare it to the other shit?

    (Here I am…. saving a spider and bringing her outside so I don’t murder her…. because I am environmentally responsible!)

    eco-annoying-blog-(i)

     

  • My Kid is a Tattle Tale

    I know it is important to teach our children honesty and all that crap, but man… kids really can’t keep a secret.

    Example 1:  The Munch was jumping on couch, and at times off the couch into my arms.  We were having fun, but then I got bored and wanted to get my boots so we could go.  Just as I was telling her I would be right back and turned my head, she leapt into the air to jump in my arms and subsequently fell on her head.

    “Munch I am so sorry! I didn’t know you were jumping!”

    “Wahhhhahaaaaaa! You dropped me!!!!”

    “Well, I didn’t exactly drop you, I just didn’t catch you. There is a difference.”

    “YOU DROPPED ME!!!”

    “Look, I can admit it is sort of my fault you landed on your face, but it is not like I actually dropped you.”

    “That is just semantics!” (or maybe what she actually said was “waaaahhhhhhaaaa!!” It’s hard to remember everything verbatim).

    I figured we had worked through everything and all was fine until we got to the store and The Munch decided to engage a random stranger as we were waiting in line.

    “Mamma dropped me on my head. And I was crying.  I was jumping on the couch and she didn’t catch me and I went boom on my head.  And I was crying.  And Mamma said I didn’t drop you, and I said you did drop me.  And I was crying.”

    Example 2: As a lady, when going to the bathroom I will most likely say “I am going pee” even when I know full well that is not the only act that will be taking place. But I feel more comfortable with people picturing urine coming out of my urethra then feces coming out of my anus.  Just saying.  So, I was at a friend’s house and said I had to use the bathroom to go pee.

    “I wanna come with you Mamma.”

    “Okay fine, come with me.”

    (Keep in mind, the bathroom was next to the living room where quite a few people were sitting… so if one were to talk in said bathroom, it would be impossible not to hear the conversation taking place).

    “Mamma you are going poops!”

    “No Munch I am just doing pee.”

    “NO MAMMA YOU ARE DOING POOPS TOO!! MAMMA YOU ARE DOING POOPS!!!”

    See! That is definitely poops in there

     

    January 25, 2013 • 2 years old, baby gear, Behavior, Pee & Poop, Talking and Not Talking • Views: 4298

  • You Better Be Looking Hot, Baby

    There is a $170,000,000,000 industry that women all over the world contribute to.  Can you guess what it is?  Ending world hunger? Stopping sex trafficking? Saving orphans? No silly! IT’S BEAUTY BITCHES!

    In the US alone over $50 billion is spent every year on beauty products.  The average woman uses 12 products a day, which is exposing her to over 160 different chemicals.  Chemicals that cause mice to go blind, produce cancer in rats, gives you lead poisoning, and make rabbits look really funny in lipstick.

    According to this chick, Stacy Malkan, cofounder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry “Most of these chemicals have never been assessed for safety. There are no requirements for cosmetic companies to assess the chemicals in their products for safety.”  AND… until more laws are passed companies can use words like “natural” and “organic” and still create products that are anything but. “There are no legal standards for the use of such words on cosmetics.  There are no laws to prevent it and the FDA has no authority to prevent it.”

    Alright!!

    So as we all know, society thinks old woman are yucky, and ugly women are just the worst.  Soooo to look less old and ugly, paint your face with toxic chemicals.  That will do the trick.

    And you want to know something really funny? Most of these products are all the same ingredients anyway.  So they cost $2 to make, and then if you are a French company with a fancy sounding brand, you can sell it for $200 and people will still buy it.  Just because of some sexy packaging and marketing strategies that European women have skin as smooth as a baby’s bottom.   Well, obviously the French have never seen diaper rash because that shit is a mess.

    That is why I am a Doctor Bronner’s kind of gal.  It is hard for me to believe that you need special face soap, then body soap, hand soap, shampoo…  Aren’t they all just shit that bubbles and makes you feel clean?  So picture me in the shower.  I know.  Pretty awesome.  I can put Doctor Bronner’s on my head, then on my face, then on my body, then brush me teeth with it, and the then do the dishes that I brought in there with me. Because it works for everything!

    Okay, so why am I even caring about all this?  If ladies want to spend their money on making themselves feel beautiful who am I to judge right?  Well…. I was recently alerted to this blog post that goes through all these toys for toddlers to get baby girls ready to become part of this booming industry.

    There are countless toys on the market to teach babies to beautify, preparing girls for a lifetime of preening.  Okay, so this is obviously totally baked and fucked up.  Even if you are an avid make up user, you can probably see the moral complexity of these types of toys.  Baby make up, baby nail polish, baby beautician outfits, baby vanity mirrors, baby thongs…(just kidding on the last one, but I am working on a prototype).

    But here is the problem.  I can absolutely see how girls would love to play with this stuff, especially if that is what they see mommy doing.  The Munch once saw me putting on chapstick and thought it was fascinating.  Now every time she sees it she wants to put it on.  I distinctly remember watching my mother put on blush, so every day before the 5th grade I would go the bathroom, purse my cheeks, and do the same.  As little girls we idolize our mothers, and things mommy is interested in has a seductive quality.  Point is, our daughters are observing us much more than we maybe realize.

    And here I am living in the country, feeling depressed that I wear fleece sweatpants on a daily basis and haven’t worn mascara since the Bush era, except if you count on my bush.  Yet I am probably being a great influence on The Munch.  She may not know how hot I can look with a bunch of makeup on my face, but she isn’t obsessing over beauty yet either.

  • My Cure For Rebellion

    All spirited people rebel at some point in their lives.  I think it is a way of individuating.  You see the expected behavior of your surroundings and explore the opposite.  I respect rebellion – why digest everything you are fed?  Especially if it has too many calories because quick puke that up right now!

    If you are a strong archetypal parent, chances are your kid is going to travel down a contrasting path.  We see it all the time: peaceful quinoa eating- Sanskrit chanting-no TV watching- hippies, raising children who end up working in advertising for M&M Mars.  Or staunch Republican-business owning- SUV driving- carnivores, ending up with kids who do performance art and Burning Man.

    I am anticipating that The Munch is going to rebel from who she thinks I am, and I have got a plan.

    To become the total opposite of who I am!

    I am going to start wearing pant suits, talk about what types of cars people drive and how that correlates to their value as a human, eat GMO’s straight from the jar with a spoon… I will watch network sitcoms and FOX news, listen to soft-rock radio stations, and make sweeping statements like “focusing on how attractive you are to men is more important than thinking Munch” and “learning is for the weak minded.”  Probably will cut my hair into a Hillary Clinton, and only wear high heels – even in the bath.

    I will keep up this charade until The Munch starts “discovering” yoga, tattoos, vintage Led Zeppelin T-shirts, gogi berries mixed with flax seeds, conspiracy theories, KRS-One, and Simone de Beauvoir.

    Then I will be like “ha!” Got you! Now you are just the person I want you to be!”

    “You sneaky mommy!”

     

     

     

    May 7, 2012 • 1 year old, baby gear, Behavior, Musings, Parenting • Views: 2624

  • Is Elmo Made of Crack?

    Is Elmo made of crack cocaine?  Kids get so addicted to Elmo I am convinced he is laced with some sort of amphetamine… it is impossible to be that obsessed with something as a sober person.  Munch has never even seen Elmo in action because I am afraid if I exposed her to him moving around on a screen her head would implode.  All the contact she has had with Elmo is on her big girl potty seat, and on her nighttime diapers where there is a small quarter-sized picture of him, and yet she is totally fanatical.

    She will hold her potty seat and scream “I found Elmo” over and over again until I feel like my life is a David Lynch movie.  And now when I change her diaper and try and put her brown-hippy-paper towel- 7th generation ones she screams in protest….

    “No!!! I want Elmo diapi!!  Elmo diapi!!!”

    “But Munch, we only use your pampers at night…. We use these burlap sacks during the day because it is better for the environment.  Don’t you want to grow up in a world with trees?”

    “Nooooooooooo! Elmoooooooooooooo!”

    So I decided the best thing was to get her an Elmo doll to see if that calmed things down.  Like how if you catch your kid smoking you make them smoke 10 in a row so they get overexposed, barf, and never want too see a cigarette again.  (Or they totally hooked because their blood has been replaced with nicotine but whatever….) But of course all these modern toys have batteries that make a simple doll do 7 different things including answering your emails and unloading the dishwasher.  So this freaking Elmo doll talks by pushing his nose, and now the soundtrack to my life is that disturbing little voice wanting to be hugged, tickled, and molested all day.

    (PS…. My friend Grace told me there is a documentary on the guy that create Elmo and the intention behind the puppet’s essence is pure love and physical affection- awwwwwww I get it now!)

    Munch nodding out on heroine laced Elmo

     

    March 30, 2012 • 1 year old, baby gear, baby products • Views: 3845

  • Baby Bag

    They say that “necessity is the mother of invention,” but they don’t say something else that matters just as much: if you look online you will probably find out that someone has already thought of it. Have you ever come up with an idea you are convinced is so brilliant, and will make you millions, only to find out it already exists? At first you want to curse the Universe for its personal spite towards you, then slap your computer across the screen for the audacity of suggesting that maybe you aren’t as innovative as you thought. But then you realize you probably wouldn’t have gotten around to manifesting your vision anyway, and feel relieved that you can buy it with a couple clicks and typing in your address. Ahhhhh… the convenience of the modern world where all you have to do is imagine, and then Google search for someone else who has done all the work.

    I had one of these moments the other day when I realized that The Munch has a serious aversion to blankets. I don’t know what it is? Maybe she was attacked by a blanket in a past life, or she thinks they make her hips look wide, but every time I try and put one on her she kicks it off in protest. But it is winter and I don’t want her to get cold, so I feel the pressure to turn up the heat, but then I think of all the wasted fossil fuels and the destruction of the rainforest, so I turn it back down, but then I feel her nose and it is like a little frozen strawberry, so I turn it back up, but then I think of my heating bill, so I turn it back down, and then I realize it is morning and I haven’t slept.

    And then an epiphany came to me.

    “This baby needs a baby sleeping bag!”

    I started creating a mock design for a little baby sleeping bag where her arms could be free, but she would still be covered and toasty warm. I knew I was onto something of epic genius, but then I realized that my sewing machine was in the back of the closet, I didn’t really have the right fabric, I had no idea how to sew a zipper, and I wanted to check my Facebook.

    After a status update and a few tears from looking at too many pictures of people’s vacations, I looked online and sure enough I found that baby sleeping bags already exist! So I got The Munch the best baby sleeping bag on the market (organic of course and woven by woodland nymphs from another dimension of eco-friendliness).

    Thanks Merino Kids for creating something I thought of, but making it way better then I ever could!

    I am jealous Munch! Maybe tomorrow night you can sleep outside!

    January 3, 2012 • 1 year old, baby gear, baby products, Sleeping • Views: 3301

  • Why Do You Want To Give My Baby Cancer?

    I know this might sound overbearing, but I really want to keep my baby alive. I don’t know, call it mammalian maternal instinct or the fact that I think eating her would be too many empty calories, but my plan is for The Munch to keep living.

    So when my friend sent me this article about toxic car seats that cause neurodevelopmental toxicity, learning disabilities, liver damage and cancer, I thought to myself… WTF????!!!!! Why are they putting arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury in car seats for babies??? Babies sit in those things???!! Babies that we are trying to protect from car accidents!! Who thought it would be a good idea to coat a car seat in cancer causing chemicals???? It makes me feel like I should be like Brittany Spears and just drive with The Munch on my lap!

    What is wrong with the world?

    Part of me is totally resigned at times and thinks “Well, everything causes cancer Munch, here, play with my cell phone if it means you will shut your pie hole for a minute…” but the other part of me says that this is totally wack! Why do we put known poisonous chemicals in products and then expose them to our children?

    Do we really need crayons that say “non toxic” on them? What is that supposed to mean? That there are toxic crayons I could buy instead? Sign me up! Think of all the BPA free plastics for kids now too. If BPA causes deathly diseases keep it in that bottle for sure! My baby is only going to be sucking on it. In fact, why don’t you give her a skin transplant of pure parabens and then scrub her till she bleeds with sodium laurel phosphate. Yes!!!!!!!

    This is like a baby Thelma and Louise in car seats!

    August 25, 2011 • 1 year old, baby gear, Environmental Impact, Health • Views: 2757

  • How Protective is Over-Protective?

    Before having a baby, I used to get viscerally annoyed at parents who would say the classic “Careful…Careful… Timmy, get down from there right now or you are going to fall!” Or “Don’t do that Chip it’s dangerous. Get that out of your nose this instant.” I couldn’t understand why they didn’t just let the kid be a kid. Kids hurt themselves. Big deal right?

    Wrong!

    You see my contempt was because I saw concern as over-protective. For all I cared, someone else’s kids could play paddy-cake with bear cubs if their parents would keep their mouths shut and not tell them to “Watch out for the mama bear.” Not because I wanted them to get injured, but I hated hearing the caution. In my childless world-view, I thought the priority was the experience of life, and if you get hurt then so be it… just a part of the learning process. They were not my kids. I wasn’t going to have to deal with the repercussions. I was just going to keep living my life.

    But now I get it.

    You don’t want your kid to get hurt, because it is you who is going to be affected by the consequences. Of course there is the altruistic part of any parent that loves their child and does not want to see them suffer… but there is also another side. A side that says “OMG, I seriously do now want to deal with my kid’s broken arm, and getting string cheese lodged in his cast to rot for the next 6 weeks.”

    Part of me still believes that kids have to hurt themselves, and it is a small price to pay for an adventurous childhood… but that same part of me now sees this as a theory, like communism, or the Gluten Free/Sugar Free diet. A good idea, but who wants to live that way.

    In a way, when I think back to my own childhood, I have to say, either my mom transcended this afore mentioned selfish propensity, or she is just pleasantly out of it. Here are just a few examples of “safety” according to my mom…

    Example 1: (Actual Quote) “I don’t know that much about car seats Toni… you just sat in my lap in the front seat while I nursed you.”

    Example 2: (Actual Quote) “In those days we didn’t know smoking a pack a day of Marlborough Red’s while pregnant was bad for you…”

    Example 3 (Actual Quote) “Why don’t you and you and your brother hop in the back of the pick up truck.”

    Example 2 (Actual Quote) “Toni, driving your children around is a republican thing to do. Why don’t you just bike there? It is only 20 miles that way. You just take a left, a right, a right, a left, a left, and then a right. You will find it. If you get lost, just ask a stranger.”

    (Can’t be too safe in the bath)

    (Watch out for those pillows!)

    April 21, 2011 • 9-12 months, baby body, baby gear, baby products, Parenting • Views: 7051