Lulu Loves: Thermos Foogo Sippy Cups

Lulu loves the Foogo sippy cup!

My daughter just turned 10 months old and I’m  starting to introduce her to the sippy cup.  Unfortunately, most of the sippy cups on the market are made out of plastic. As Kermit the frog says, “It ain’t easy being green.”  And raising a green baby is no exception.  Being a green parent is especially hard, and expensive!  Everything, from the organic baby food, to stainless steel sippy cups, seems to be about 10 times more expensive than their not so green counterparts.  But what’s a parent to do?

I can’t help myself.  I’m pretty anal, perhaps obsessed even, about what my daughter eats and what she uses to eat and drink with.  Aren’t all parents?  I mean, who says something like: Who cares about green parenting!  It doesn’t matter what kinds of toxic chemicals my baby is exposed to.  Heck, bring ‘em on! The more the merrier!

Since most of the sippy cups on the market are made of plastic, they don’t pass the test.  Although most plastic no longer contains BPA, there are other chemicals that are used in the manufacture of plastic than can be just as harmful.  For example, phthalates, which are used to soften and mold plastic, are known endocrine disrupters and have been shown to cause infertility, as well as developmental and reproductive disorders.  Even the heavy metal antimony has been found to be in some plastics!  Excessive exposure to antimony can cause poisoning.

So, I prefer to avoid plastic altogether.  I was excited to see that Thermos makes a sippy cup called the Foogo that is made out of stainless steel instead of plastic and has a silicone value for your baby to drink out of.

The Foogo comes in three different sizes to adjust as your baby grows.  There’s a 7-ounce cup with handles, a 9-ounce cup without handles, and an 11-ounce cup with a straw spout.  The cups are durable (if a bit heavy) and come apart in several pieces for easy washing.

My only complaints are the color and the cost.  At almost $15 a cup, it’s a bit more than I wanted to pay, but since it’s not leaching chemicals into my baby’s stomach, I’ll pay it.  I also would prefer more ambiguous colors to the traditional pink/purple or blue/yellow combo offerings.  Overall, the Thermos Foogo sippy cup is an easy way to introduce your baby to sippy cups without worrying about exposing him or her to plastic!

Lulu loves her Foogo sippy cups!

Lulu Loves: Plum Organics Baby Food!

Finally, someone is doing something about the BPA problem in baby food!  Even organic baby food sold in glass jars – like Earth’s Best – is packaged in a  container lined with BPA.  Why bother paying extra for organic when the package has BPA in it?

Until now, it’s been pretty difficult to find jarred baby food that isn’t packaged with the toxic chemical BPA.  During my search for a non-toxic baby food for my little one, I was excited to stumble upon Plum Organics.  Plum Organics makes baby food in BPA free pouches, rather than in glass or plastic containers.

Plum Organics makes three different kinds of pouches.  For infants, six months and up, they make a 3.17 ounce pouch of 100% fruit in six flavors: peach, prune, banana, apple, pear, and mango. The pouches don’t have any artificial ingredients or added sugar or salt.

For those babies that are ready to move onto the next level, Plum makes a 4.22 ounce pouch in six different mixed fruit and veggie flavors. Your baby will love the flavors!  Who wouldn’t love sweet potato, corn & apple?  Or how about spinach, pea & pear? Your little one is bound to love them all!  I know mine does!

For slightly older babies, there’s Mish Mash.  Mish Mash is a  pouch containing 100% fruit mixtures, like banana, pear, apple; (my daughter’s favorite!) or peach, pear, apple; and even strawberry, pear, apple.  Each 2.17 ounce pouch of Mish Mash contains fruit in a slightly chunkier texture, perfect for babies with developing palettes.

While I haven’t tried them, Plum Organics also makes organic freeze dried fruit and grain snacks (Fruity Fingerfuls), as well as an organic, gluten free fruit and grain stick (adorably named Fiddlesticks).

Lulu loves feeding herself Plum Organics BPA Free Pouches!

All of Plum Organic’s baby and toddler products are packaged in a BPA free container, certified organic, with no added sugars, food coloring or artificial flavors.  The best part about these foods is that you don’t need a spoon to feed them to your babies!  My 10-month-old loves that she can feed herself – without making a mess!

Right now, Plum Organics pouches are on sale at Babies R Us at 10 for $10.  Normally, each pouch runs about $1.30.  You can also find them at Whole Foods, Shaw’s, and Diapers.com (from $1 to $1.50 each).

While I initially balked at the price of these ingenious baby food pouches, I quickly remembered that the price was only slightly more than the 90 cents I was paying per jar of Earth’s Best.  And the Plum pouches don’t have the BPA!  I think my baby is worth it!

She Says: I Don’t Do Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is coming up.  Fast.  I can tell by the abundance of cutesy Valentine’s Day cards, tacky stuffed animals, and the smell of cheap cologne and chocolate floating in every store I enter.  I can’t escape it.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who like Valentine’s Day (read: those with a significant other), and those who despise the made-up holiday.  After all, virtually nothing is known about St. Valentine – other than his name and the date of his feast (you guess it – February 14^th).  And there appears to be no link at all between St. Valentine and Cupid – the Greek god of erotic love.

Those who don’t like Valentine’s Day aren’t just those without a significant other.  My husband and I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day.  Well, we did the first year we dated, but both quickly admitted that we were miserable. Being packed into a restaurant like a couple of sardines and giving each other gifts felt forced.  We are more than happy to do these things – but we prefer to do it when we feel it, not on a specific day of the year when we’re told we’re supposed to!

There really isn’t any reason for either of us to dislike Valentine’s Day.  But overpaying for flowers or buying each other gifts like boxers with hearts or ugly heart-shaped jewelry just isn’t our cup of tea.  I’m sure there are others out there who feel the same, right???

She Asks: How Important is Diversity?

This weekend, I attended a basketball game at the high school my children will likely attend.  I should mention that the reason we moved to the town we currently live in is because the middle school was rated the best in the state.  Our town is also home to one of the best private high schools in the country.  Overall, we’ve been pretty happy with the school system and glad that we made the switch from a somewhat urban school district.

But today I noticed something alarming in my idyllic town.  All of the players on both the home and opposing varsity high school basketball teams were Caucasian.  The cheerleaders were entirely Caucasian.  The audience, perhaps not unexpectedly, was almost entirely Caucasian.  Out of a crowd of about 300-400 people, there were exactly four people of color.  Yes, I counted them.  Four.  I can’t help but wonder what effect – if any – this lack of diversity will have on my kids.

The town we moved from was made up of an interesting mix of people.  According to the 2000 Census, about 75% of the town’s 60,000 residents are Caucasian, 10% Hispanic, 5% African American, 5% Asian, 1% Native American and the remainder are either of another or mixed race.

As a contrast, the town we now live in has about 14,000 residents, as of the 2000 Census.  97% of those residents are Caucasian.  The remaining 3% includes Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians and African Americans.  Combined.  No one ethnic group comprises an entire percentage point.  I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before this weekend.

My dad was in the military, so my brothers and I had the unique opportunity to live all around the country and world.  I spent most of my elementary and junior high years living in the Carolinas, and lived in Japan during my high school years.  I was fortunate enough to meet many interesting people and travel to so many interesting places.

When it was time for me to choose a college, I chose to be at a university in Boston – where I could continue to be around a unique mix of people.  One of my roommates the first year I was there was from Thailand.  Were it not for Pri, I don’t know if I would have ever discovered Pad Thai or Crazy Noodles! I had another roommate who was Jewish.  I had never even met a Jewish person before then!

I guess what I’m wondering is whether I’ve done my kids a disservice by moving them to a “better” school district.  Why does it feel so bad to live in a town that looks like a loaf of Wonder bread, or that suffers from the homogenization of a galloon of whole milk?  Would it have been better to keep my kids in a melting pot?  Is education more important than meeting different people and having new experiences?  Are kids who are raised in say, New York City somehow better than kids who grow up in rural New Hampshire?  I don’t know.  I suppose all I can hope is that by giving my kids the best education I can it will help them make their own opportunities.

What do YOU think?

She Says: The Real Reason Why American Kids Are Overweight – Team Sports Are Too Competative

I think I know the real reason why kids in American are alarmingly overweight.  It’s because, as my husband so eloquently pointed out, team sports are too damn competitive.

My youngest son plays basketball in a local league.  The program lasts about two months and costs several hundred dollars.  It is supposed to be a program to train kids and teach them how to play basketball.  Instead, it’s really a program that tries to find and recruit young kids with talent.  Those kids are developed, taught skills, and trained to be basketball players.  The other kids are left to rot on the bench, playing a token six minutes a game.  Or worse, they are not invited to play “special games”.  How are kids supposed to get better if they don’t get playing time?  Sorry, but I don’t want my son to be part of a so-called team sport that excludes some members of the team.

My son, who is 10, is no Lebron James prodigy, to be sure.  But the kid tries hard. He has been to almost every practice, saved his own money up to buy basketball shoes and really loves basketball.  It kills me to see this happening to him and other kids on the team.  Frankly, if I had known the team was competitive and not truly a team for development, I would have thought twice before paying for my son to warm a bench.  If a team wants to be competitive, then they should be transparent and say so.  They should have tryouts so that the kids can be placed on teams with other kids who have similar skills.

Sadly, this seems to be typical for most sports programs for kids.  Both my sons stopped playing soccer two years ago after having a terrible coach who encouraged the good soccer players on the team to put pressure on the bad soccer players.  This included name calling and getting physical.  No wonder the kids didn’t want to play.  Again, this was supposed to be a fun, non-competitive town league.

I could go on and on.  Last year during baseball, there was so much pressure on each of the boy’s respective teams to beat the number one ranked team, practice went on during a school nights until it was dark.  Games were played in severe rain.   One coach got into a fight with an umpire.  Not the example I wanted my kids to see.

What happened to sports being FUN?  Why does it always have to be a competition?  Teaching kids good sportsmanship is just as important, in my opinion, as teaching them the fundamentals about a sport.  My parents always told me that it wasn’t whether you won or lost, it was how you played.

I can’t help but think about whether or not I’d want to be on a team under these circumstances.  I know I wouldn’t.  And it’s no wonder that so many of our kids – those who are overweight, or those who aren’t as coordinated as others, those who are short, or too tall – don’t want to play team sports.  It’s a lot easier to stay home and play video games.  At least the video game console won’t call them names or hit or push them.