Earth Day!

We passed a quiet Earth Day together today.  The kids wore the Earth Day shirts they had painted (although they were too busy playing in the dirt for me to get a picture of them).  Elliott and I spent a few delightful minutes on the couch together, folding a giant stack of wash cloths that we use for so many things around the house.  The kids took turns sitting on my lap at the sewing machine zig zagging cloth wipes for the potty.  Several of our old ones had worn out, and we keep running out between diaper loads.  I often find this type of sewing tedious, and had considered buying more, but since I already had the supplies, and the time, I decided it was more in the spirit of the day to make them ourselves.  I'm glad we did.  The kids really enjoyed getting to work on the sewing machine.  I sewed the cover for the cushion for Papa's rocking chair.  A friend and I reupholstered our two rocking chairs nearly 2 years ago now, but I'd never gotten the cover for his cushion made.  I finally had time and energy this afternoon, so I dug out the fabric and worked on it.  It isn't completely done yet, but I'm waiting to find out if Papa wants more foam for his cushion or if he wants it to stay as is before finishing it.  The children played outdoors all afternoon, soaking up the sunshine of a still rare (this spring) warm day.  Papa worked from home and neither of us drove anywhere all day.  And we finished the day off with a vegetarian dinner that was lovely!

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

A Dozen New Cloth Wipes

For the Polar Bears

Sofi got a book, The Last Polar Bear (Laura Geringer Books), for Christmas.  It is about the effects of global warming on the environment of the polar bears, but written for the level of young children.  It is a really good book, and has opened up a lot of discussion at our house about what causes global warming, and how we can help the polar bears.

We've talked a lot about the three r's - reduce, reuse, recycle.  We talked about only using what we need, and being careful with our energy use.  We talked about lowering our gas usage and getting better mileage.  There have been many, many conversations following the reading of the book.  It has made the concept of global warming a really tangible thing for my kids.  Now they understand the WHY in our quest to be good to the Earth.