Water, Shower Curtains, and Teddy Bears

Thanks to little toddler man, AKA my Baby Bear, I have been without a laptop for a long-ass time. I have longed to open up this blog and vent many times. I have done a lot of venting in my head.

It's amazing to me, how far we have journeyed as a family. Every time I am able to read back my first few posts I just get so happy as to how much our knowledge and understanding of the world and our bodies has grown. I am finally at a comfortable place with what's in our home and how we are living. We generally make good decisions in regards to the foods we eat and things we purchase, and no longer even really have to think about it. It's becoming a natural lifestyle and it feels awesome. I can send hubby to the grocery store and not have to fear what he will come home with. We can sit down and watch a movie together without fighting off late-night junk food cravings. We can take a road trip with a cooler full of veggies and health food stores mapped out on our route. We're getting pretty good at this!

Or we...were...?

A few weeks ago we found out that I am pregnant again, and in my crazed hormonal state the Beast has been awakened. Meaning, I am going absolutely crazy ridding our house of toxins and online researching, again. I thought those days were over! Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try to fight it, if I see a piece of plastic in BBs mouth, or something of the non-organic variety in the fridge, or even if I just start wondering in my mind just how toxic furniture piece X is, it's gone. Just like that. I don't hesitate, think of the money we have wasted, or care really. I DON'T NEED IT.

Okay, maybe it's not that bad. After all, we still have our foam-filled couch, I still spin my lettuce clean in a big green plastic lettuce spinner, and I love playing Legos with BB. But don't think I haven't thought about tossing them all. I have. I'm like a crazed serial killer just waiting to kick some sofa butt. But I'm practicing self-control. :)

But seriously, the things that are really driving me nuts right now are our water (both faucet and drinking), our shower curtains, and BBs clothes/blankets/stuffed animals. I have always wanted a filter for our shower/bath heads. I know how many chemicals enter your body while you bathe and shower and it's pretty much all I can think about when I'm bathing/showering/bathing BB. Now that I'm pregnant, I can SMELL the high amount of chlorine in our water and it's driving me crazy. It's like showering in the freakin' neighborhood pool. Yuck. As for our drinking water, this has been an ongoing issue that I just can't seem to make right. In our new house, we will surely be getting an RO Filter, but right now it's not something we can spend the money on. We cancelled our water service because I was GOING to purchase glass bottles and fill them up, but I could never find an appropriate glass bottle for us (they were either gigantic and heavy, or tiny, or not really meant to travel and be filled). So now we buy cheap plastic gallon jugs of spring water that have probably sat in the back of some hot delivery truck for hours or days upon end, collecting bacteria and leaching their plastic-jug chemicals into the water. It's that or fluoride. Ugh.

As for the shower curtains, our inside curtain--which I recently learned CONTINUOUSLY off-gasses (unlike certain other plastics or finishes, which primarily off-gas at the beginning and get better over time) has not only been contaminating us with it's PVC vapors but has also been developing very suspicious little black spots for a few weeks. "It's getting moldy, we need a new curtain", I told my husband. "No it's not", he said, "You just want an excuse to buy a non-toxic one". True and true. So I gave it some time and like all good mold it got just a little bit bigger, and finally I just took the liberty of ripping the damn curtain down and throwing it in the trash. So now, we are left with a cloth curtain meant for the outside that gets VERY wet, and come to find out (hadn't even read the tag until the inside curtain was gone. How's that for irony?!) it's made of crappy synthetic plastic polyester. So--two new shower curtains it is. As soon as hubby gets frustrated enough at the wet curtain attacking him while he showers, and the bathroom floor being soaked when he steps out, it's off to the mall we go :)

Lastly, the issue of BB's clothes/blankets/stuffed animals. I remember reading a LONG time ago that as long as something was washed at least seven times, most of the chemicals in the fabrics were stripped. But recently I was reading up on the toxicity of flame retardants (thank you California for setting ridiculously high flame retardant standards and causing the rest of the states to follow suite. I was highly disappointed when I learned the truth about you) and I am thinking maybe washing just isn't good enough. It's not just the clothes either-- all of those fluffy blankets and cuddly little bears are made entirely out of polyester as well. (And in case you were wondering: "Polyester is the worst fabric you can buy. It is made from synthetic polymers that are made from esters of dihydric alcohol and terpthalic acid"- Read about the top 6 most toxic fabrics here ). As for now, I have not cleaned out any of these things yet; however I do keep his snuggly "fleecy-like" PJs at the bottom of his drawer, and only put him to bed in his tight-fitting, 100% cotton PJs that are free of flame retardants. I try to move his animals out of arms reach when he sleeps so he doesn't put them in his mouth. And when I need a blanket, I reach for the cotton ones first. This will have to do until he needs more clothes, at which point I will be purchasing either used 100% cotton or organic cotton clothing only. The new baby will only know cotton, and as much organic as we can afford.

I know that toxins are everywhere and unavoidable, but the truth is you can try to cleanse your body as often and in the best ways that you can. If that means removing some of the chemicals from your house, that's better than nothing. I know you don't have to strive for an entirely toxic-free home to be safe, and that even if you can accomplish living in a completely toxic-free home (good luck) that it's not going to mean you are healthy. Just by being ALIVE in this world our bodies are already burdened. My thoughts are that if I can at least make my home a safe place, than hopefully when our children do step out into the real (toxic) world their bodies will be more equipped to handle these things than if they were constantly overburdened. The body needs a chance to cleanse and heal itself or else it will simply not be able to rid itself of the overload.

And apparently pregnancy hormones are not in my best interest. Hopefully next time I sit down to write we will still have a couch. Not sure if hubby would forgive me for that one ;)