Yes, it’s raining…
Nov 15, 2007 Rant
Ever since I moved to Vancouver, I’ve been amazed at how whiny people here are about the weather. I thought people in Montréal were whiny, and true, they are: every year, the first snow storm or cold spell makes the news and people act like they didn’t expect it to happen. It’s Montréal! It snows there every year. You would think people would get over it? Well, in Vancouver, I think it’s even worse, except that it’s about the rain.
Now, I’m no expert in meteorology, but we live right between an ocean and a mountain range. The forest here is called a rain forest. Do I need to keep going on? It’s a rainy place! Everyone knows it. If you don’t like it, move! But don’t complain every time it rains and act like it’s the end of the world.
Sure, when there are several days in a row with very little sun, it influences your mood a little. But the actual rain here never lasts for that long. And it makes the vegetation lush: I had never seen grass as green as our winter grass here. Rain cleans up the air and brings fresh smells in town. And it’s the price to pay to live right by the ocean and the mountains, which is why most of you guys moved here in the first place!
When we came to Vancouver, we decided to get equipped. We went to MEC and bought Gore-Tex everything: jackets, pants, boots… We bought rain covers for our backpack. When we bought our stroller, the first criteria was that it be good in the rain. When it’s rainy, we go out anyway. Sure we need to bundle up more, sure we have to wipe the dog’s paws when we come home, but that’s hardly a death sentence!
So to all of you out there complaining about the rain… Think of the drinking water supply being replenished. Go out. Enjoy your city in its natural environment. Jump in the puddles. And quit whining!
Or move to California.
Cloth Diapering – How?
Nov 14, 2007 Environment, Family life, Gear, Resources
Using cloth diapers is not as complicated as people may think, but there are a lot of things to think about and when you have never seen anyone use them, it can certainly be intimidating at first. So here is a summary of what it has been like for us.
We have decided to buy Mother-Ease diapers on the recommendation of a friend, and we are totally satisfied with them. We can get them in local stores, but also online for a very small shipping fee, and they are made in Ontario. The service is great and from what I have heard, the quality of the products is hard to beat. We have 36 of what they call One-Size diapers, which fit a child from birth to potty-training. You can adjust them by folding them differently and using different sets of snaps (no pins needed). All you need to do is change the size of cover you use as your child grows. A cover (which also closes with snaps or velcro) is necessary to make your diapers waterproof, and the perk of the Mother-Ease covers is that they are made of polyurethane laminate (PUL), which breathes a little and is one of the safest plastics out there health-wise. Some people also use wool covers, which I haven’t tried, but apparently they work very well and obviously, they are more environmentally-friendly than plastic ones.
There are other options out there, for instance all-in-one diapers, which have a cover and diaper sown together. They make things more easy as you have only one thing to worry about, but they are more expensive, take longer to dry and wear off faster as you end up washing the cover with every use. There are other fitted diapers that come in different sizes to accommodate your baby’s growth, as well as prefolds, which have to be folded and attached with a fastener or pins. All in all, it seemed to us that the one-size diaper was a good option, cheaper than most, as your diapers grow with your baby, but of good quality, which makes life easier.
Our diapers are made of bamboo, which is probably the greenest option at this time. Bamboo grows quickly without the need for pesticides, and it is naturally antibacterial. It also absorbs more, so the diapers can be trimmer for the same absorbency, although it does make them dry more slowly. Mother-Ease also sells cotton and organic cotton diapers.
When your baby gets older, you may need a bit more absorbency, especially at night or for longer trips. You can simply add liners to your diapers. Mother-Ease makes some (bamboo or cotton) that snap into the diaper, but there are also other companies making hemp or cotton liners out there. We use a stay-dry liner made of a wicking fabric to keep our baby’s bum dry since he seems prone to rashes, but a lot of people do without them or make their own by cutting fleece into the desired shape and size.
You don’t need to bleach diapers. Actually, you shouldn’t bleach them as it will make them wear faster. If your baby is exclusively breast-fed, their poop is water soluble and therefore, you don’t even have to get rid of it before you wash the diapers. You just need to do a pre-rinse. Since we don’t have that option on our apartment’s laundry room’s washers, we rinse the diapers first with the help of a diaper sprayer hooked onto our toilet. You can also use flushable liners to flush out the poop. Either way, your baby’s poop is eliminated the same way yours is: down the sewer, where it can be properly taken care of.
The only thing you have to be weary of is laundry soaps. Some will not work well with cloth diapers because they leave residues behind that can build up and make your diapers stink. So you need to go with something simple, preferably with no perfume and additive of any sort. We found two Web sites that rate laundry detergent for use with cloth diapers (Diaper Jungle and Pinstripes and Polkadots). We use Country Save (sold at London Drugs, but call first as we found that not all stores carry it) and we are extremely happy with the result as well as the price. You also need to use very little detergent, again to avoid build-up issues. That makes laundering your own diapers even cheaper.
Many people prefer to use a diaper service, which costs a bit more but simplifies your life. You drop your diapers in the bag given to you buy the service, and once a week they pick up the used diapers and drop a bag of clean diapers. This way uses less water as the diapers are washed in big batches, but the services have to use bleach and harsher soaps as the diapers are used on different babies all the time, and the diapers used are generally not as high quality, and therefore not as user-friendly.
Most people these days use a dry-pail method, which means that they just put wet and soiled (rinsed or not, depending) diapers in their diaper pail and take them out on laundry day. A washable diaper pail bag makes things all the more easy as you empty it in the washer, then drop the bag in the washer, too. The other method, called wet pail, consists of storing soiled and wet diapers in a pail containing a bit of water and either a bit of detergent or baking soda, or some other recipe (there seems to be as many as there are cloth diapered babies). In my experience it is unnecessary and make things harder on laundry day as the pail is a lot heavier to handle.
A lot of our friends use disposable diapers when they are out and about, but we just carry a dry bag (the type made for kayaking, like this) which is very light and small to carry when empty, yet can fit several used diapers. Since we use wash cloths and water instead of wipes, we just put a few wet ones in a Ziploc bags, and we’re ready to go! We have never had any problem. Sure, you do have to change the diapers more often than you would have with disposables, but you should be changing them often anyway for your baby’s health.
I’m sure that I’m forgetting some info, but I would be happy to answer any question on the subject. There is also a lot of information on the Internet on various websites. A good way to start if you are interested in cloth diapering is to join a forum online. Again, Mother-Ease has a very good one with a lot of savvy moms giving advice to the newbies.
Happy diapering!
Remembering…
Nov 11, 2007 Miscellaneous, Rant
I was 22 the first time I really celebrated Remembrance Day. Born and raised in Québec, I had to go all the way to BC to find out that this rainy day of November which, for me, was merely a day off, had a lot of significance for a whole lot of people. And I’ve been ashamed of my ignorance ever since.
Sure, I knew that we were remembering the soldiers who died at war. And I have a degree in history, so I knew what the wars were all about. But in BC (and, I believe, in most of English Canada), schools organize special events for Remembrance Day; they invite veterans or pipers, they read texts or write essays on the subject, they put up special shows… In Québec, there never was any of that.
I do understand the historical reasons behind Québec’s uneasiness around the war. At the beginning of World War II, William Lyon Mackenzie King was elected Prime Minister of Canada in part because of a promise made to Quebeckers that there would be no conscription for a war that a majority of the province’s residents thought was not theirs to fight. Later, when he became pressured to resort to conscription by English Canadians who had kept closer ties to Great Britain, Mackenzie King held a plebiscite asking the entire Canadian population to relieve him from a promise made to Québec only. Québec voted no. Canada voted yes. There was a conscription.
The sad thing is, conscription or not, a lot of Quebeckers volunteered to fight in that war and many others. They gave their limbs, their sanity or even their lives for world peace and they played an enormous role in our victories. They deserve to be remembered regardless of the politics that surrounded the issue. You can remember veterans and thank them for their many sacrifices even if you feel no tie to Canada. There doesn’t need to be a link between national identity and our gratitude for generations of soldiers who risked everything so that we can enjoy our freedoms today.
So today I’m wearing my poppy proudly. Happy Remembrance Day. And thanks a bunch to all those who fought and all those who are still fighting today (once again, whether you agree or not with the government’s policy on Afghanistan shouldn’t have anything to do with your support for the men and women in uniform).
And if you need even more inspiration, take a look at this awesome video (pour la version française, cliquez ici).
Malkolm the Birder Boy
Nov 9, 2007 Environment, Outdoors
Some people know how to raise a child!
We recently heard of Malkolm Boothroyd, an avid birder who decided to take a year to go birdwatching all through Canada and the United States without using fossil fuel for his transportation. From his home in Yukon to Florida, he will mostly bike while observing as many birds as possible (his goal is 500), raising money for bird conservancy along the way – oh, and also inspiring other people to get off their butts and do something, for a change.
Malkolm is 15… He’s taking this trip with his parents (can you imagine the bonding opportunity, at an age when most teenagers are barely ever home), but he’s the one who had the idea of the trip. And he had to do three school years in two in order to be able to take a year off. Something tells me that he doesn’t have a drug problem…
I don’t want to discredit Malkolm himself – he seems to have an awesome personality and the debate of nature vs nurture is not settled yet. But still. His parents must have done a decent job of raising him! It helps, I guess, that his dad is an author, photographer and film-maker who fought for the conservation of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.
Malkolm has recorded 357 birds as of today. He’s well on track to reaching his gold. Kudos to him, and good luck on his trip and in his efforts to make the world a better place for birds – and for all of us by the same occasion.
No Thanks!
Nov 7, 2007 Family life, Rant
They say that when you have a baby you get all sorts of people giving you advice on how to raise your child, how to dress him or her, etc. Now so far, except for my elderly neighbors telling me that it’s too cold to take the baby out (and it’s only 5 degrees… What are people in Québec supposed to do, stay indoors from October to May?), I can’t say I have experienced that yet, but I know what it’s like since I have been down that road with our dog.
When you have a dog, especially a cute-looking one like ours (and I’m just slightly biased), everyone wants to give them cookies. Now, our dog is rather well behaved, only rarely jumping on strangers, but if he sees food he loses any manners we tried so hard to give him and turns into a real Tasmanian devil. He becomes uncontrollable and jumps on the cookie-bearer, who usually gets scared and drops the cookie in the dog’s mouth, therefore reinforcing the bad behavior. And he has a truly astounding memory, so whenever he sees that person again he will go nuts and jump all over them. That’s why very early on we decided not to allow strangers to give him cookies. We can do it, because we will stick to our guns and not let him have a cookie if he is not politely sitting or lying down. But we don’t let other people do it.
A few weeks back, a mailman gave Sherpa a cookie before I had time to stop him. Ever since, my dog thinks all mailmen in uniform are cookie bearers. Luckily, our mailman (which I see at least once a week) is really nice and takes it in strides, even helping me calm my little tornado when I’m out with him and the baby trying to control one while stopping the other one from crying (I let you guess which is which). But this morning, I ran again into the mailman who gave him a cookie the first time. He was coming towards us from a distance and I said “No cookie, please”. But he got one out of his pocket anyway. I said louder, “No cookie”, then yelled “No!” as he just threw the cookie at the dog and then turned his heels and quickly walked the other way, leaving me fuming on the street corner.
What, is there another meaning to no that I don’t know of? What if my dog was allergic to that cookie?
Sometimes I find people so frustrating…
You can eat local in November and December
Nov 6, 2007 Environment, Miscellaneous, Resources
Many people associate eating local produce with the summer months: the days are long, there are fresh fruits and veggies galore, and you can buy produce directly from farmers at your local farmers’ market, or at the very least at your local grocer, with little effort. However come fall, winter and spring, eating local increasingly becomes a challenge as farmers’ markets wrap up and many stores strip their shelves of local produce in favor of items imported from around the world. To help spread the word about local produce, Get Local BC has put together a seasonal produce chart (PDF) which lists what British Columbia produce is available during a given month. The following is the list of local produce available during November and December:
Apples, Beets, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Chanterelles, Chard, Garlic, Honey, Kale, Kiwis, Lobster Mushrooms,Yellow Onions, Oilseeds, Parsnips, Pears, Potatoes, Shittake Mushrooms, Spinach, Sprouts, Truffles, Winter Squash, Red Fife Wheat, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Peppers, Tomatoes, Eggs, Dairy Products, Beef, Chicken, Turkey, Pork, Ostrich, Pacific Halibut, Pacific Cod, Dungeness Crab, Side Strip Shrimp, Spot Prawns, Pacific Sardines, Clams, Oysters, Mussels.
Finding local produce is not as hard as you may think: this Saturday marks the start of Vancouver’s Winter Farmers Market, which runs every second and fourth Saturday until the end of April at the Wise Hall (1882 Adanac Street at Victoria Drive). Maybe we’ll see you there!
Cloth Diapering – Why?
Nov 6, 2007 Environment, Family life, Gear, Less toxic, Resources
The number one reason why people don’t use cloth diaper is probably that they don’t know enough about them and they think they are awfully complicated to use… It sure is the first thing that came to my mind when I first considered diapers. I will address that concern later in the – How? sequel to this post, but I decided to start with the main reasons why people do use cloth diapers: money, environment and health.
Cloth diapers cost less than disposables. Sure, there is an initial investment involved, and it can seem quite costly if you purchase good quality diapers (which will pay off later, because if you buy cheap ones, you may not stick to it and they will have little resale value when you get sick of them). For instance, we bought about $600 worth of diapers when preparing for the arrival of our baby. You need to put the money upfront, but it’s nothing compared to the cost of disposables, especially if you plan on having more than one child. According to some sources, disposable diapers and wipes cost around $2000 over the life of one child. Of course, you have to factor laundry and reusable washcloths into the cloth diaper equation. The estimates I have seen added another $400 for laundry. You are still at about half the cost of disposables. That’s really straightforward! A diaper service is more expensive and can get close to the price of disposables, but most estimates still put them a bit cheaper. And there is a large market for second hand reusable diapers if your stash is still in good condition when you are done with diapering.
The number two reason, which was number one for us, is environmental factors. Some people disagree with that, saying that if you factor in the water needed for laundry, rinsing diapers or flushing diaper liners, the harsh soap and bleach needed, etc., cloth is not any better than disposables. But after doing a lot of research, I disagree. First, you don’t need bleach or harsh soap. We use an environmental, biodegradable, phosphate-free detergent, and very little of it, and our diapers are perfectly clean. Also, even if it is true that cloth diapers need quite a bit of water (although there are several ways to save on that front too), it is too easy to forget that water is also needed to manufacture disposable diapers. How much? Well, that’s the catch: the numbers most people use are provided by disposable diapers manufacturers, which are a doubtful source, to say the least. And you still need to factor in all the other resources needed to manufacture thousands of disposable diapers as opposed to only a few dozens of cloth ones (you can further reduce the impact of those by buying organic cotton or bamboo diapers). Finally, there is the issue of disposing of the diapers. They fill up the landfill, they pollute tremendously (it is actually illegal to dispose of human waste in garbage, but who actually washes poop off from disposables?), they don’t break down at all, and even so-called biodegradable disposables won’t actually degrade since they will be nicely packaged in plastic garbage bags and stuck in the middle of a landfill.
But even if cloth diapers were not actually better for the environment than disposable ones, there would still be the issue of health. Disposable diapers are full of toxic chemicals. Here is what the Less Toxic Guide has to say on the matter:
Harmful ingredients: dye, fragrance, plastic, toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene, dipentene
Disposable diapers consist of a plastic exterior, an inner super-absorbent layer treated with chemicals, and a liner. One commonly used absorbent chemical, sodium polyacrylate, can trigger allergic reactions. Disposable diapers may also contain dyes and dioxin, a carcinogenic by-product of the chlorine bleaching process.
A study conducted by Anderson Laboratories in 1999 and published in the Archives of Environmental Health found that disposable diapers release volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), including toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and dipentene. All of these VOCs have been shown to have toxic health effects, such as cancer and brain damage, with long-term or high level exposure.
The researchers also discovered that mice exposed to the chemicals released by disposable diapers were more likely to experience irritated airways than mice exposed to emissions from cloth diapers. These effects were increased during repeat exposures. The authors suggested that disposable diapers may cause “asthma-like” reactions and urged more study into a possible link between diaper emissions and asthma.
That almost says it all… Except for the issue of heat: disposables tend to heat up the skin more because they breath less, which is bad especially for little boys whose fertility can suffer.
On top of those three main reasons, there are a few bonus ones. For instance, cloth diapers (at least good quality ones) work better. In 3 months now, I have never had a leak, whereas people using disposables complain about them all the time. They also look better, at least in my opinion, and they seem more comfortable for the baby (would you prefer paper or cloth underwear?). They seem to make potty-training easier, as the toddler can feel the wetness better than in disposables. Finally, cloth diapered babies seem to have less rashes… Maybe because you tend to change cloth diapers more often – disposables should be changed just as often, but since they absorb so much, people are less likely to.
Are there downsides to cloth diapers? Sure: you have to wash them, but it’s not as complicated as people think. You have to bring them back if you use them while you’re away from home. And they are more bulky, giving your baby a bigger bum. That actually scared me a bit; I thought I would hate it. But I got used to it really fast, and I just use larger clothes to accommodate the diapers. Et voilà! As a convert who initially had absolutely no intention of using cloth diapers and who had never met anyone who did before I got pregnant, I have to say that I love my bamboo diapers, I have not used a single disposable diaper since I left the hospital with my son, and I have absolutely no regret.
Stay tuned for the sequel…