My Little Man All Grows Up! :(

I know that's improper English...it's a quote from the movie Old School! And it's so fitting! I keep finding myself reminiscing about how far we've come in the last year! It's the most amazing thing to witness and be a part of! I remember Kelly and I looking at each other in the hospital and saying 'We're parents! How WEIRD is that?!' And how I finally knew what my friend Tony Winston was describing to me when he said 'You'll learn what it feels like to have your heart outside your own body with arms and legs!' Oh how true that is! You feel like you know your capacity for love, then you look into the eyes of this perfect and innocent little child that is completely dependent on you - and you learn about an entire new level of unconditional love. It almost brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it!!

Dang! It did bring tears to my eyes!!

Okay - anyway! As I keep brainstorming about things I need to do for Riley's 1st Birthday party - I just keep thinking about all the milestones we've met in the 1st year! I can't fathom being able to learn and master so many new skills in such a short period of time. Kelly and I saw on this show Brink we watch last week that they are actually trying to build robots that learn in the same way and speed that an infant learns in the first years of life! Can you imagine?! Sort of freaks me out! I can't imagine all the things that will be possible in Riley's lifetime!

We met another new milestone this week - we've pretty much completed the transition to solid foods! It's a little overwhelming for Mom though! It's pretty easy when you can just grab a jar or mix some rice cereal up! Now I'm having to get creative. And I'm still trying to stick with almost all organic and non-processed foods so that makes it a little more work too! But I figure it's totally worth it! I know there are conflicting studies out there on whether organic is actually better for you, but if nothing else I know there are less hormones and pesticides in it and it tastes A LOT better! I'm so over getting tomatoes that don't even taste like tomatoes!! I was lucky in that my PawPaw almost always had a garden when we were growing up, so I literally would eat tomatoes off the vine with a salt shaker in hand! I remember my sister and I sitting in front of the tv watching cartoons and handing the salt shaker back and forth for our tomatoes and eating them up like they were Little Debbie Snack Cakes! Those were special treats we only got every once in a while!

Anyway - my stance is that - yes, our parents got away with a lot of stuff when we were younger, we stood up in the back seat fighting over standing on the 'hump', and they smoked around us - yuck! This one still grosses me out! But at least it kept me from EVER taking one puff off a cigarette! But now we know 'better' than to do all that. Every visit to the pediatrician you are asked the same 2 questions - is he in a car seat everytime he's in the car? Yes! And do you make sure no one smokes around him or even wears clothes around him that contain smoke? Yes!

So I figure it's just a matter of time before they make it official that organics should be the standard for little developing babies. And the fact that I 'know' there are studies out there that state things like "Children's immature and developing organs, brains, and detoxification and immune systems, plus their larger intake of food per kilo of body weight, combine to make them even more susceptible to toxins than adults. American toddlers eating mostly organic food have been found to have less than one sixth the pesticide residues in their urine compared to children eating conventional foods, lowering their exposure from above to below recognized safety levels." means that I too know better now so how could I not try to do everything I can to give Riley the best nourishment. I've done that from the time he was conceived by cutting out caffeine and only eating organic food myself - why on earth would I stop now?!

However, my point in justifying all of this is that you have to be a little more creative. And you have to put a little more effort into making things for him that are healthy. And the most obvious piece is that I have to spend a little more money too. But I firmly believe everyone can afford organic food. All they have to do is cut out the cost of junk food or going out to eat all the time or those little vices like cigarettes, alcohol or the infamous Starbucks coffee!

Kelly's been on his Jack LaLanne Power Juicer kick lately, so we've been juicing it up! ha! It is so yummy though! And naturally sweet!

Another kick I've been on is watching what kind of lotion and body wash I use on Riley. Afterall, our skin is our largest organ, so if I'm lathering Riley up 2 or 3 times a day with potentially harmful lotion and wash - that's sort of negating the benefits of the organic food! I'm a member of an Environmental Working Group, and they have a Cosmetics Database where you can look up products and their hazard content rating. They have a Parent's Guide for Baby Products too. Man, this was an eye opener to me! Some of the products I had already been paying more for because I thought they were 'better' were some of the worst offenders - Mustela was one! It's funny when you start to look though - taking it back old school - Vaseline 100% petroleum jelly has zero toxins. So sometimes we just need to stick with the original items before everything became mass produced after the industrial age.

Once again, now that I am a little more informed - I can't ignore it!! So I've started making changes in Riley's products as we run out of them, but I haven't even begun to look at my own! I'm sure they are ALL bad!! And to think so much of this stuff we put on our bodies EVERY day! Sometimes multiple times!

Anyway...the main message is my little man is all growing up on me! Eating whole foods now! No more baby food for him! Before I know it he'll be asking for the keys to the car and for me to drop him off a couple of blocks from school so he doesn't have to be seen with me! Now that day will really bring tears to my eyes!!