After my brush with pagan paranoia and subsequent realization that when it comes to drinking the clear waters of meditation I am the cloudy cup, my search for a spiritual place to support my family lead me right to a place I never thought I’d see again: church.

Not that my personal experience with said institution has been all that bad. My father was raised Christian, my uncle is an Episcopalian priest and I spent a big chunk of my childhood singing with my best friend in her church’s choir.

But as an adult, I cringe at the wars, terrorism, bigotry and racism that have been—and continue to be—performed in the name of Christianity.

So how did I find myself sitting in a pew a few weeks ago, humming along to a tune that I recognized from childhood as “Praise Him from whom all blessings flow,” holding a sheet of paper listing hymns and sermons, and folding my $5 donation into a tiny manila envelope?

Let’s back up to the paganism part. For some time, I’ve worried that my children have no regular exposure to the concept of social responsibility, something that seems to be reinforced by organized religion. Although I spend a big part of my life focused on increasing people’s awareness of eco-consciousness, my children don’t connect growing and eating organic food, recycling, composting and turning off the lights with any bigger picture.

Yes, we meet as a family each year and choose where our annual donation will go. We donate cans and diapers to food banks, clothing to charity, and games to Toys for Tots. My husband and I talk with our children about Doing The Right Thing, and try to demonstrate that concept with our actions. But there was no regular instruction in the benefits—both socially and personally—of empathetic action.

And we had no division of days. Our big end-of-the-week activity was watching “60 Minutes” together—often with both my husband and I on our laptops, catching up on work. I felt like our workweek was sliding into our weekend and back again. There was no full stop, no reflection or meditation—things that I remembered from Sunday mornings, and things that I wanted my children to experience.

So I stumbled into a Unitarian Universalist church a few weeks ago. I was nervous, anxious, and sat near the back. The high beams and creaky pews transported me back to childhood as I watched children gather at an altar to donate canned food for the homeless.

But although the sounds and smells were familiar, the message was radically different. There was no representative Jesus on the cross; instead, symbolic flags showed symbols of Christianity, Judaism, Muslimism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and many other isms that I didn’t recognize. And the service, which involved a spoken meditation written by Thich N’hat Hanh and a reading from a book by Holocaust survivor Dr. Viktor Frankl, was proof of the congregants’ claims to be resolutely “anti-racism, anti-oppression and united by shared values, not by creed or dogma.”

Remember that “Praise Him” tune I was humming? Here’s what we sang that day:

Rejoice in love we know and share,
In love and beauty everywhere;
Rejoice in truth that makes us free,
And in the good that yet shall be.

I’m not saying that this church answers all my questions or solves the problems that I struggle with as a parent—perhaps the cup will cloud over at UU, too. But I’ll be bringing my kids back next week.

Amen.

P.S. This will be the last Mommy Greenest post for a while, as I’m taking this show on hiatus. Three kids, life and EcoStiletto.com is taking its toll, and I’d really like to watch “60 Minutes” without interruption. See you in 2010! xxRachel

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell you that I actually wrote the majority of this post last year. And not that I’m so brilliant or anything, but I wanted to run it again to highlight the fact that despite a bout of Buddhist soul-searching in order to instill some semblance of self-realization upon my children, their materialistic yearnings are in full swing, yet again, this Halloween.

In fact, not much has changed chez nous this year: The $7 Mona Lisa’s skeleton portrait, purchased from the Chinese crap factory otherwise known as Party City, hangs on the door in an effort to thwart my kids’ relentless requests for a styrofoam graveyard on the (ec0)lawn. We grew three gorgeous pumpkins in the garden this summer, which are just waiting to be carved. And despite the fact that I’ve been hoarding cardboard in anticipation of designing some truly terrifying gravestones, last night they told me anything homemade wouldn’t be scary enough.

Sigh.

Yes, Halloween has truly evolved from what I knew as a kid:  Kleenex ghosts hung with thread in the window, a few hand-carved pumpkins on the porch, a pillowcase to carry the loot and a ghost costume made from a sheet over my head. (A sheet with the over-the-head part colored yellow made me an fried egg one year. The visual still makes me cringe.)

Today I get guilt from my kids every time we exit or enter the house. Why don’t we have cobwebs. Why can’t we get a tombstone. Why nothing screams or sighs when you pass through our front door.I’ve tried to explain that we’re trying not to buy so much plastic. I’ve tried to explain that plastic is made from oil, and oil is non-renewable, causes pollution and wars (not necessarily in that order) and that it never, ever goes away, it just breaks into tiny little pieces that swirl in the middle of the ocean. My in-laws even made bat cut-outs for the windows.

All they want is a $49.99 screaming ghost hanging in our entry way. Oh, and candy, did I mention the candy?

Far be it from me to deny my kids a little Halloween candy. But it’s with a wince that I witness the bags stacked high in the supermarkets, filled with candy that’s made with (un)fair trade chocolate, artificial food colorings that have been linked to hyperactivity and ADD, and high fructose corn syrup, which health experts say alters the way our metabolic-regulating hormones function and basically tricks our bodies into wanting to eat more and more of it. (Ergo the post trick-or-treating gluttony.)

Last year, I sourced candy free of petrochemically derived artificial colors and flavors, and not made in China (whose melanin-tainted milk chocolate gave us quite a scare). I found indie packs of USDA certified organic cotton candy made from evaporated cane juice, single-serving bags of organic gummy worms, individually-wrapped organic hard candies and yummy bubblegum made from a natural chicle gum base sustainably harvested in Central American rain forests, rather than the synthetic plastic that’s in conventional gum. (Thinking twice about handing out Hubba Bubba?)

That didn’t stop my kids from bringing home bulging bags of chemically-enhanced candy, which they ate in gluttonous frenzy until they made themselves sick.

This year, I might just shut off the lights and hide. Although the sight of the Barnacle (read: baby) done up like a kitty-cat might be worth staying up for. I think I’ll leave the lights on. Keep the bats in the windows. And hand out organic pretzels.

It’s not like I’m some crazy Birkenstock wearing woman who uses The Rock on her underarms. I like lipstick as much as the next girl—I just like to know mine’s lead-free. Think I’m kidding? Go to the Environmental Working Group’s Cosmetics Safety Database and search your brand of lipstick. More than 60% contain lead, which is a neurotoxin. And most women eat about nine pounds of the stuff over their lifetimes. But seriously, there are so many awesome beauty products that are totally chemical free these days, why would you want to use anything else?

At www.EcoStiletto.com, I feature beauty options that just might get you off chemicals altogether. But for the DIYers among us (read: me), I whipped up a facial scrub/mask recipe that you can make in minutes and delivers a serious glow.

How? Go to the kitchen and grab sugar, eggs, honey and instant oatmeal. Go on, I’ll wait!

A little background: I love scrubs but don’t like that most of them contain oil. I like things that can be used on my face, hair and body—and oil isn’t one of them, no matter how pure, it still gives me zits and always ends up in my hair. So I created this Essential DIY Scrub & Mask that I’m totally addicted to—used it for three days straight (okay I’m a little obsessive) and seriously my skin was NEVER better. My blackheads were gone, my giant pores were smaller and my skin felt super soft and clean. Try it!

Essential DIY Scrub & Mask:

Six tablespoons raw organic sugar
One free range organic egg white
One tablespoon organic honey
One packet plain instant organic oatmeal

Strain the egg white into a bowl (or mortar, if you’ve got one), then blend in the sugar with a fork (or pestle). Blend in the honey, and then the oatmeal (leave it uncooked). Now rub the mask into your skin in small circles.

Some people think that sugar can be too harsh for the face, so if your skin is sensitive, please be gentle. I, on the other hand, have alligator skin. I like to put some muscle into it.

Once you’ve thoroughly exfoliated your face, just clump some more of the scrub onto it and let it dry for 10 to 20 minutes. (Make sure you’re wearing not-so-nice clothes, as it sometimes does fall off a bit.) Wash off, and presto, glow-o!

You can also use the scrub in the bath or shower—because it lacks oil, you don’t have to worry about slippage. Make sure your pipes can handle the small amount of oatmeal involved. And keep any excess in the fridge—it’ll keep for a few days, but after that, toss it. (If you use it straight outta the fridge you might need to dilute with a little water for better spreadability, just fyi.)

The secret ingredient to this recipe is honey. Honey is a natural emollient, which means it helps the skin trap moisture. When I visit my family in Santa Fe, I always stick a bunch of organic honey sticks in my carry on. At night, I crack open one of those sticks and slather the stuff on my face. I leave it on for 10 minutes or so and wash it off. (It helps if I haven’t already had dessert. Yum.) It leaves my skin super dewy and soft, minus pore-clogging oil.

Sugar is a natural exfoliant, as is oatmeal, which also has colloidal—or soothing—properties. I’ve used whipped egg whites on my skin for years to cleanse and minimize pores—recently I heard that egg whites also increase the production of collagen, which is something I didn’t care about as a tweenager. I’m not a beauty scientists so I can’t tell you exactly how it breaks down. But for those of you who are trying this right now, tell me how you look in 20 minutes. It works, right?

I am not a religious person. In fact, I’m not sure I even believe in god. Growing up, my religious education was diverse, to say the least: Native American ceremonies with my dad, singing in the Episcopal church choir with one friend, celebrating Passover with another. As an adult, I learned about meditation through yoga classes but never tried it beyond shavasana. And although I’m thankful for my exposure to many different religions, I’m worried that my children are missing out on a crucial spiritual element.

I may just be raising a house full of pagans.

So when a friend invited my children to join hers at a Sunday morning Buddhist meditation designed for kids, I cajoled mine into going. I even corralled a friend for each and dragged them along. And it was all fine and dandy until the stress kicked in: I worried about being late, about the Barnacle (read: baby) misbehaving and about my kids disrupting the class. “If this is what going to meditation means to you,” my husband told me in the car, “You are obviously missing something.”

So I calmed down. I sat with the Barnacle in my lap while my kids joined the circle on mini pillows. We closed our eyes and envisioned negative thoughts blowing out of our noses as black smoke, and positive thoughts entering our bodies as white light.

Then the leader did a science experiment, beginning with baking soda in a cup. “This is your mind,” she said. She poured in vinegar, which created a cloudy liquid that foamed up and over the top of the cup: “This is what negative thoughts do to your mind.” And as she read aphorisms from a book while my ever-inquisitive children asked increasingly out-of-context questions, my anxiety grew.

By the time we wrapped up with an art project where the kids decorated hearts with pictures and descriptions of what made them happy—and my 10-year-old son and his friend began a heated discussion of their favorite new video games that culminated in both of them writing that what made them happiest was the absence of their siblings—I was fuming. When my husband returned from getting an (inopportune) cup of coffee, I basically shoved the Barnacle at him and stomped out of the room.

I wasn’t mad at my husband, and I wasn’t mad at my kids. I was mad, I think, at the fact that I had envisioned the experience of meditation as transformative—I’d hoped that we would start deep breathing together and the five of us would become some kind of model Zen family.

The reality of my real family disappointed me.

But why? Because my kids are competitive, combative and loud? Because my son likes to talk about video games and my daughter knows all the words to Selena Gomez’ latest album? Because the Barnacle is—for want of a better descriptive—two?

As my husband pointed out, I was the cloudy cup in that situation.

My children moaned and complained every time I mentioned the meditation class, but in the end they came with me to experience something completely different. They sat quietly as someone they didn’t know talked to them about things they didn’t understand.

Sure, they ended up back in their comfort zones. But they trusted me enough to take them outside of it. That’s white light to inhale, a story to write about on a paper heart and a concept I’ll try to remember the next time the water clouds.

Despite the fact that Tinkerbell may be Disney’s new poster girl for energy efficiency and tween stars like Dylan and Cole Sprouse offer carbon footprint reducing advice between “Suite Life on Deck” shows, the O.G. Mouse House is far from environmentally conscious.

I found out first hand this week when my family of five—plus our friends, a family of three who were visiting from Chicago—made our annual pilgrimage to Disneyland.

We tried to be as sustainable as possible. We packed in an organic lunch—after first confirming online that dietary concerns were justification for bringing in outside food, then nervously covering the food with sweatshirts as we entered. We had anticipated a showdown in which we would have to explain the concept of pesticide-free as a justifiable dietary concern, but nobody even blinked.

We also brought stainless-steel water bottles, which we filled up each time we found a rare water fountain. (Then we caved and let the kids get icees, which probably blew their high fructose corn syrup allotment for the year.)

In between, we went on as many rides as we could cram into a 10-hour period. It’s probably stating the obvious, but the amount of energy used to run these rides—plus restaurants, lights, trains and the other electrically-fueled experiences that make up Disneyland—is mind-boggling. With the place smack dab in the middle of sun roughly 350 days a year, the lack of solar is a crime.

We did find bottle and can recycling bins, but they don’t accept any of the immense amounts of paper and plastic used to package and deliver the snacks, sodas and fries that we consumed once our clandestine organic lunch was complete. C’mon Disney, even the Los Angeles Zoo uses biodegradable plastic cups!

Now that studio head Dick Cook—the former park tour operator who spent 38 years working his way up the ladder to studio head—is out, word on the street is that things will change dramatically at Disney.

Here are some changes I’d recommend: Solar. Wind. Biodegradable plastic. Organic options. More water fountains!

Other than that, Disneyland is perfect. Thanks, Walt.

What a month. After desperate, late-night trips in search of third-grades’ perfect notebook and fifth-grades’ essential pencil sharpener (“Not that one, this one!”) and endless potty pleadings with the toddler (only to realize that her new school doesn’t require it), I finally got the kids into school.

Part-time, on behalf of the Barnacle (read: baby), but school nonetheless, conjuring up visions of four—count ‘em, FOUR—whole hours of uninterrupted time, with which to do as I please (read: work).

And then the boom dropped, in the form of paperwork. Endless paperwork. Entire forest’s worth of paperwork. Paperwork that takes hours upon hours to complete, distributed in duplicate, in case you missed it the first time.

In the throes of major recession, apparently our bankrupt school system still has the wherewithal to publish a 100-page booklet—in both Spanish and English—which, as far as I can tell, is basically the bible of the Los Angeles School District.

I flipped through it before recycling, grumbling about the waste of paper, until I stopped short at three pages of something called the “Approved Pesticide Production List.” Apparently, the LAUSD is now required by law to disclose the pesticides that they’re spraying on the properties where our children are playing (making me wonder how many years they’ve been spraying without notice).

A form asked parents to indicate if we wanted to be notified when spraying was to occur. Well, duh.

This is not a new subject for me. I’ve been reading a lot about pesticides, most recently about those in drinking water, which have been linked to aggression in children. As cited in a recent study, “Some…children were observed hitting their siblings when they passed by, and they became easily upset or angry with a minor corrective comment by a parent. These aggressive behaviors were not noted in the [pesticide-free]…[children].”

A recent National Academy of Sciences study suggests that “more than 28% of developmental disabilities in children may be caused by environmental factors.”

Ouch.

With that in mind, let me give you the short list of what they’re spraying at my kids’ school: Hydroprene, Linalool, Piperonyl Butoxide, Pyriproxfen and Orthoboric Acid.

That’s just the first page.

All of these pesticides are indicated as “dangerous” by the school district. Some of them are on the National Resources Defense Council’s list of governmentally sanctioned “pesticide poisons,” of which NRDC scientist Miriam Rotkin-Ellman said, “This is really an example of how public human health is not being protected in our current system of pesticide review.”

Yet they’re approved to spray on a regular basis around children, who absorb—pound for pound—many times more pesticides than adults.

According to HealthyChild.org, which just launched an “Eat Healthy” campaign that clues in parents to the dangers of pesticides in food, we now face a “historically unprecedented rise in chronic diseases and illnesses such as cancer, autism, asthma, allergies, birth defects, ADHD, obesity, diabetes, and learning and developmental disabilities. Credible scientific evidence increasingly points to environmental hazards and household chemicals as causing and contributing to many of these diseases.”

Kind of makes you want to take your kid out of a pesticide-laden school, doesn’t it?

Home schooling isn’t an option: Apparently, I’m really not smarter than a fifth grader, especially in four hours a day.

So my husband and I will sign the notification forms, keep our kids home from school the next time they spray, and hope for the best.

What else can we do? Any suggestions?

“There’s always a way to wear fur”

–Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief, American Vogue

“Anna is the most powerful woman in the U.S.”

–Andre Leon Talley, Editor-at-Large, American Vogue

“Nobody was wearing fur until Anna put it on the cover in the ‘90s.”

–Tom Florio, Publisher, American Vogue

Are you sensing a pattern here?

Yesterday, I saw a matinee of “The September Issue.”  I ditched my life for 90 minutes of escapism, hoping to understand a little better what makes this fashion industry tick.

But five minutes in, the escape was over. I grabbed my notebook and pen and started scratching out notes in the dark. I was appalled. Appalled. What started out as a lighthearted look at fashion’s bible quickly degraded to a revelation of the industry’s dark side.

I’ve been a journalist for more than a decade. I have a master’s degree in the subject. I spend hours agonizing over how to honestly present Ecostiletto’s sponsored newsletters and dedicated emails. And, as a result, I’ve spent a year wondering when my little start-up will actually start.

Yet at Vogue, where last year’s September issue weighed in at record 644 pages of ads (versus 196 of editorial) there is clearly zero separation of church and state. No wonder Tom Florio is happy.

Anna Wintour is filmed as she interacts with retailers and manufacturers—Nieman Marcus, the Gap, Mango—which are an obvious influence on her editorial choices. Anna’s resident jester, Andre Leon Talley, takes his tennis lesson wearing a Louis Vuitton scarf and Piaget watch—both perennial Vogue advertisers. And after the first 10 minutes of watching her flamboyant outfits, you have to wonder if Wintour’s salary is subsidized by the Fur Commission.

Apparently, back in the wonder years of 2007, the demand had even outstripped the supply for luxury fashion—but fashion desired product placement, as well, which “The September Issue” was happy to supply. About midway through the movie, even Wintour’s instruction to her driver to take her to Starbuck’s seems like an obvious plant.

This is a magazine that has clearly been bought and sold by the commerce it supports—with no question of the consequences. Beknighted designer Thakoon is photographed threading up a dress for the Gap, but there’s no mention of what third-world hands will stitch the thousands of copies to be sold in Gap stores. Florio nods to Wintour’s support of fur without a hint of irony. And $50,000 in editorial is scrapped because it doesn’t show enough of the clothes.

I can image that, for some, “The September Issue” is an exciting, insider’s view of a glamorous industry. For me, it was a testament to how far we’ve come in a year. This September, I celebrate the eco-friendly shows of designers like Mr. Larkin at New York Fashion Week. I look forward to Portland’s forthcoming all-sustainable fashion week. And I toy with the idea of joining The Great American Apparel Diet, in which participants pledge to buy no clothing or accessories for an entire year.

We’ve come a long way, baby.

Image from “The September Issue.”

OctoMom has 14 kids. I have three. Yet those three—plus the demands of life, work and marriage—may be making me just as crazy. Not insane enough to have another brood of babies, mind you. (Although once you have three, what’s another 11 more?) But crazy enough to:

1. Seriously consider jumping out of a moving car when my husband engages me in yet another financial discussion.
2. Completely forget the dates and times of crucial engagements—like my son’s playoff baseball game.
3. Let a faulty cordless phone lead me to yelled profanities and an innocent appliance smashed on the floor.

Now, obviously the demands of the aforementioned kids, life, work and marriage do take their toll. But it seems to me that as I move later into my 30s, my patience for said demands becomes especially thin during one particular time of the month.

Oh yes, you know where this is going.

Let me preface this post by saying that I’ve always thought PMS was a load of hogwash. Cramps suck, I know, but I’m of the buck-up, bootstrap mentality—publically I sympathized, but privately I scoffed at those who drowned their sorrows in a bag of cheese puffs.

Ladies, I now feel your pain.

Not that I feel any more literal pain than I always have. Save one morning at age 11 when I just about passed out in the nurse’s office, my menstrual cramps have always been pretty consistent. Painful, but not debilitating—as long as I have an ample supply of ibuprofen on hand.

No, my pain is more of the psychological variety. As I said to my husband just the other day, “I actually think I’m kind of insane for about two days before my period and three days in.”

“Really,” was his deadpan response. Apparently this is a well-known fact in the Sarnoff household.

But it scares me, the depth of the rage that I feel when I’m on the rag. I’m quick to yell at my kids and slow to apologize to my husband. I can’t sleep at night and won’t wake up in the morning. I walk into the house in a perfectly fine mood until the sight of unwashed dishes in the sink makes me fire-spitting furious. I spend hours organizing drawers and closets, only to lose my shit when they get messed up again.

In a nutshell? Insane.

So, like any (thankfully insured) red-blooded American, I went to see my doctor. Who thought I might want to consider Prozac.

An antidepressant 30 days a month to combat five days of strife? That’s like putting a cast on your leg when you need a bandaid on your ankle.

Whose take are these doctors on, anyway?

Instead, I took a good, hard look at the patterns of my month. And realized that before and during my period, I slack off on exercise. I take in more carbohydrates.  I check my email obsessively and make Important Lists of things that are decidedly unimportant. In short, I stop doing the things that make me feel calm, and start doing the things that make me feel frenetic.

This month, I’m tracking. I’m doing yoga, whether I want to or not. Waiting until after breakfast to check email. Deep breathing when I walk into a messy room, and making sure the family calendar has me on red alert for soccer games.

But I might just grab a few bags of snacks, the next time I’m at the market.

Hey, whatever works, right?

What works for you? For those of you late-30s moms, are you finding a difference in how your time of the month goes down? For those of you 50-somethings, how the hell long does this last? Let me know what worked for you, and what didn’t. Thanks!

And so the war continues. If you’ve been reading MG for a while, you’ll remember that last year, right around this time, my daughter came home from school with a lice infestation that prompted an eco-reversal on my part (read: Rid) and a style change on hers as she chopped her waist-length hair to a chin-skimming bob.

This year, apparently, it’s my 10-year-old son’s turn. My close-lipped, typically tweenage son who can barely tell me what he did all day, let alone let on when his head itches.

And here’s the kicker: He’s blonde.

Now if you’ve ever dealt with lice, you know what that means. Nits happen to be the exact shade of yellow—dare I say, blonde—as your child’s hair.

But having been through this once before with the brunette, I knew my weapon of choice. No, I didn’t repeatedly douse my three children’s heads with Rid, which contains an active ingredient–piperonyl butoxide–that’s the Environmental Working Group has indicated is a “low hazard” for cancer and reproductive toxicity, but still smells mighty toxic to me.

Although I did shampoo him to kill the critters that I saw crawling on my son’s scalp (plus the rest of the family, proactively), I then got to work with a more natural arsenal: A bottle of tea tree oil, and a fine toothed comb. Every morning for the past three days, I rub tea tree oil on my palms with a little water, then run my fingers around their hairlines—concentrating on the back of the neck and around the ears—to dissuade any stray bugs from trying to take up residence.

And each afternoon I wash their hair with regular shampoo, then sit them down in strong light to go through their hair strand by strand. I haven’t found any nits in my daughter’s dark brown hair, and I’m praying that the quick check of the wiggly Barnacle (read: baby) is thorough enough to confirm the same absence of wigglers of the insect variety, but each time I examine my son, I find a few more tiny—hopefully dead—eggs, which take about 15 minutes to pick out, one by one.

Ugh. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

I dread this kind of infestation. I go crazy washing all the towels and sheets and hats in the house. But the reality is this: I hole up in the bathroom and my son—who usually ducks his head when I try to kiss him goodbye and will only let me hug him if no one else is looking—actually talks to me as I comb through is nit-masking blonde hair.

Yes, gentle readers, I’m using a pest infestation as a means to communicate with my tween. Have I no shame?

I hope that by today, I’ve got them all. But I’ll keep checking in the back-to-school weeks to come. I may not find any more lice, but at least my son and I will have a few days more of decent conversation before the wall of silence goes up again.

What’s your chem.-free method to combat lice and/or communicate with a tween or teen? Tell me about it!

Back to school for my family revolves around food. After a summer’s worth of ten o’clock breakfasts and 4 p.m. “linners,” we’ve got to stock up on the essentials for three square meals a day. And because all three of my children have, shall we say, distinctive taste buds, that involves a lot of stocking up.

First there’s the new water bottle, because invariably the caps for the ones we have were lost over the summer, leaving us with a cupboard full of indestructible stainless steel containers that are completely worthless. And though my kids might still complain about toting the bottle around rather than tossing a plastic version, I simply remind them that the (filtered) tap water that I pour is tested weekly, while bottled water isn’t required to be tested at all. And that independent tests have found all kinds of icky stuff like giardia and chemicals in bottled water—in fact, last year several kids in our district were hospitalized after buying it from a school vending machine.

That’s enough to get them running to the water fountain.

The water bottle is followed by a new set of BPA-free plastic containers, since the tops to those have invariably gone the way of the water tops, and our existing sandwich boxes became bongos for the Barnacle (read: baby) in June. To fill them, I fill a cart with three types of food: bland for my 10-year-old (peanut butter sandwiches, no jelly), salty for my eight-year-old (seaweed chips and olive snacks) and hearty for the Barnacle, who eats pretty much anything—just a lot of it.

Yes, I buy organic food, and no, I don’t find it’s more expensive. Studies found that because kids eat four-to-five times more fruits, veggies and milk than we do, they’re way more vulnerable to the pesticides in the conventional food. If I can justify buying a coffee for $3 at Starbucks, I can certainly justify paying $1 for milk if it prevents my daughter from early onset menstruation and my son from smaller testicular size linked to infertility (yes, it’s true).

At the market, I add a bunch of goodies for our annual end-of-summer block party. We roll the barbecues into the front lawns, block off the street with trashcans so the kids can play full-court basketball, and break out the beer. Because summer can’t last forever, but fall’s fun too. Cheers!

P.S. Pic above is from a few years back when my daughter started kindergarten, and my niece was evacuating Katrina. Ah, the good old days.

P.P.S. Looking for great eco-friendly lunchboxes and water bottles? I got mine from OneSmallStep.com, where they’re giving readers 10% off now through September 15th with “EcoStiletto10″ at checkout. And for insulated lunch bags made from 100% recycled water bottles, check out KidsKonserve.com, where they’re giving readers 15% off with “ecostil” at check out through September 20th. Note the EcoStiletto.com connection, where it’s all about the ecoswag, baby. Subscribers get discounts like this, plus a chance to win free sustainable shoes, every week!