Sunscreens

Stop with the hormone disruptors, Mom. Sheesh!

Let me first apologize for being SO late on this. For heaven’s sake it’s mid-June and I still haven’t written anything about sunscreens. It’s hard to feel a sense of urgency when it’s raining.

This is one of those stupidly-complicated topics. There’s a lot to cover here, no time to dilly-dally, no messing around, I’m going to get right to it.

First, the Vitamin D issue… We need Vitamin D for bone strength, strong immune system function, and studies have suggested high levels may reduce the risk of some forms of cancer. Many of us who live in the northern territories (rain!) are D deficient. The best source of Vitamin D is sunshine on bare, sunscreen-free skin for about 20 minutes a day.

The best way to prevent sunburns is to cover up. Wide brimmed hats, light-weight, long-sleeved shirts, tube socks worn under Velcro sandals are all a good way to go. OK, you can skip the tube socks, but they epitomize how I feel when I go into the sun completely covered: like a total nerd. I save this special look for working in the yard or any time I don’t really care. Whenever I can go with a completely, or partially, covered look I do. I’m always in search of cute sun hats (that also double as rain hats).

If you’re going to wear sunscreen, the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) 2010 Sunscreen Guide.  is a great resource. When choosing a sunscreen, the first question to ask is: can I tolerate a mineral sunscreen? If yes, the EWG approved mineral sunscreens listed here offer the best protection without any chemicals considered to be hormone disruptors.

Mineral sunscreens are often thick and white and don’t rub into the skin completely. I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t turn Josie’s skin bright blue. I mean bright blue. She doesn’t burn easily and I do my best to keep her covered. If I can’t keep her covered and we’re working in the yard or somewhere she won’t get strange looks, I put mineral sunscreen on her. If we’re out at a beach or some fun place with other people and I don’t want her to look like she just stepped out of Avatar, I occasionally (but rarely) put a non-mineral, well-rated sunscreen, which contains at least one hormone disruptor, on her exposed skin.

Gasp! A hormone disruptor on my baby? This is a good time to remember that we’re trying to decrease the overall toxic load on our bodies across a broad range of categories (foods, cosmetics, air quality, etc). We (and by we I mean I) do the best we can but sometimes we have to compromise even for purely cosmetic purposes.

Of the 500 sunscreens the Environmental Working Group evaluated, they recommend only 39 (8%). Here’s why:

  1. Many sunscreen manufacturers make exaggerated SPF claims that cannot be proven.
  2. There’s new information on two common sunscreen ingredients: Vitamin A and Oxybenzone. A recent study found tumors and lesions develop faster on skin coated with Vitamin A and Oxybenzone is a synthetic estrogen found in 97% of bodies that were tested by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

If you have a sunscreen you use and love, you can look for its rating here.

If you want to buy a product not on the list, here are some things to keep in mind:

  1. Stick to SPF 15-50
  2. Avoid ingredient Vitamin A also known as retinyl palmitate
  3. Avoid ingredient oxybenzone
  4. Avoid sunscreens with insect repellant

In case you couldn’t already tell, the federal Food and Drug Administration still has not issued regulations for sunscreens makers. Thank goodness for EWG.

Now, get out there and enjoy the sun, but for heaven’s sake, don’t tell me about it (rain!).

As for Rehydration…

Shoelaces?

After the most recent McDonalds debacle, orange drink is clearly out of the question (as if it wasn’t already, but oh how I used to love it!). The latest news involves lead found in juice and packaged fruits. Wednesday the Environmental Law Foundation “filed Notices of Violation of California Proposition 65 Toxics Right to Know law, alleging the toxic chemical lead was found in a variety of children’s and baby foods. The specific food categories included apple juice, grape juice, packaged pears and peaches (including baby food), and fruit cocktail.”

The complete list of lead contaminated juices includes brands I trust like Santa Cruz Organics and Trader Joe’s. The list also includes a few non-contaminated brands.

Josie doesn’t drink much juice because it seems to make her crazy – like jump on her trampoline while Mommy counts to 75 (one count per jump) then sing the alphabet song twice without stopping kind of crazy. Have I mentioned that we have a mini-trampoline in our living room? A few months ago I met with the coolest organizer/decorator in the world. Can you see us standing around, me with my notebook in hand to take down her brilliance, her rubbing her chin with index finger and thumb (she wouldn’t do that but just play along). We move furniture, we reconfigure, we solve all the problems of the room then… Hey, you know what would look great right here? A mini-tramp, yeah, one with blue padding around the edge decorated with green frogs and a giant foam handle. Just far enough from the fireplace that if she falls, she won’t hit her head but close enough to the kitchen… Yes, right here in the center, let me just move this coffee table out of the way, OMG its perfect!

Moving on… We try to eat unprocessed whole foods and this is just one more case for that. Packaging and processing can cause all kinds of trouble. But what’s a child to drink? I’m going to put Josie on an all-water, retrieved from pure mountain streams, rehydration plan. She will drink this pure-mountain-stream water only from a stainless steel cup, scratch that, she will drink only from her cupped hands, her cupped hands washed with organic handmade soap and air dried. And the stream will be high in the mountains, no scratch that, she will drink only melted fresh mountain snow from organic-soap-washed, cupped hands. Then I will obtain a sheep and I will dress her in clothes made of wool. She will only eat lettuce from the garden. Bathing will become unnecessary. If you need me, I’ll be in the forest, gathering sticks and fallen branches to whittle into shoes.

More Dangerous than the Marshmallow Man

Nothing scary to see here.

I was getting caught up on some light blog reading about cancer treatment, chemicals in children’s medicine, and toxic sunscreens when I came across this fun story about McDonald’s voluntary recall of 12 million Shrek-decorated glasses after complaints of cadmium contamination were lodged with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Cadmium is considered more toxic than lead and even low levels have been linked to health problems including kidney damage and fragile bones. One of those complaint-lodgers was thesmartmama.com.    

Here’s how I imagine this story went down: this woman blogger, goes to McDonalds, orders a Shrek glass full of something or she gets the empty Shrek glass as a promotion, (not sure how that works) anyway, she has the Shrek glass. It’s sitting on a tray. When the guy cashier turns around to get some fries she takes a small Bond-style camera pen-like device out of her inside jacket pocket. Or, even better, she takes out a Ghost Busters PKE meter with the arms that stick out and the little red lights  (Did you know there’s a site that contains instructions on how to make all the Ghost Busters equipment at home? Of course you did.) She points the tool, which detects cadmium, at the ink on the outside of the glass and the thing goes crazy. She’s thrown back by the force of the charge (don’t cross the streams!). Someone helps her off the floor, she takes the data to the CPSC, the glasses are recalled and (spoiler alert!) and the marshmallow man is killed in the end.   

Perhaps it didn’t happen quite this way, but this part is the truth: this woman has her OWN Thermo Fisher Scientific Niton XRF analyzer. Total rock star. She tested all of the parts of the glasses herself. The worst offender: yellow lion of Puss in Boots. Like Mr. Stay Puft, I don’t think I’ll ever look at the lion the same way again.

Housekeeping

This might be my favorite picture ever.

Happy Birthday! This has become a standard greeting in our house. Josie wishes me one at least 10 times a day, sometimes with song, sometimes not. I’ve stopped explaining that mine isn’t for a few months and hers isn’t for another six months. I’m rolling with it and thought I’d share the love with you.

Also: interesting conversation in the comments section of My Love of Pockets about why conventional blueberries, which used to be on the consistently clean side of the list, are suddenly #5 on the worst list.

And! In the ongoing quest to find organic BPA-free tomatoes we have a new provider, or at least we will soon. To get caught up on the other sources you can read the comments on this post Hey Everyone Let’s Panic and the next follow up Suspense (and BPA-Free canned tomatoes!). And Muir Glen just announced that with the next tomato harvest they’ll be using BPA-free can liners. Oh gluten-free joy!

Pardon Me

It's too dark but I like it anyway.

You’ll have to excuse me. I’m feeling very confused and tired this week. My lower left eyelid is doing a lot of twitching. A lot. Every time it starts I forget what I was saying, doing, thinking. It seems to be my body’s way of getting me to leave my problems alone, to keep me from fixating. It appears that I need to stop thinking altogether and relax. I’m trying to listen.

An Old-Fashioned Barn Raising

It's not always sunny. Some weekends are like this.

This place we go to on the weekends, the beach, the island, the cabin, it goes by all of these names. It’s a small self-governed community. That’s right; it’s run by a homeowners association. (Gasp! Hand covers chest). I know. Generally we have our fair share of politics and hoo-ha. Maybe some hullabaloo also. Just a little.

A few years ago, in all our wisdom, we decided to take over the management and operations of the island marina which sells everything from boat fuel and moorage to lattes, homemade donuts and hotdogs. Some of us weren’t so fond of this idea. We can’t even agree on how to use our water or when to repair the roads. Every 4th of July when we have the annual argument (Oops, I meant meeting, annual meeting!) It gets very Lord of the Flies around here. How on earth did we decide we could run and manage a business? Have we lost our minds? Yes, apparently that’s exactly what happened.

We’ve done this for a few years in a row now. This last weekend was the work party to clean up the marina. It was rainy and cold but the turnout was great. At 10:00 am we all converged with rakes and clippers to clear out the weeds, prune the dead growth, rake, plant flowers, clean, pressure wash, paint, and eat bratwurst for lunch.

In spite of the weather and the manualness of the labor, we kind of had a good time. Josie was in heaven with all that dirt and all those people to talk to. It was really… Kind of Amish. It was like a barn raising of sorts. All that work seemed to bring out a sense of community that we don’t always feel and for those few hours it felt like we were all in agreement, that this was a good idea and that we could do it. Really, it was no big deal.

My Love of Pockets

Stuff that grows on docks (not really) part VII

I guess I have a thing for pockets. I was mining my notebook for nuggets of entertainment, humor or trivia (slim, very slim) when I came across this little bit about things I carry in my pockets (Elmo undies, sleep caps, dog poop bags, tissue).

A Pocket for Corduroy was my favorite book as a child (so glad I could solve that little mystery for you).

There are times in life when pocket space is at a particular premium, like when I travel. When Paul and I were on our 8-month, round-the-world honeymoon, my pockets were always stuffed. In hot climates I carried a sweat rag. I carried room keys, luggage locks, bits of paper with addresses and locations, translations for cab drivers, bus tickets. The most valuable tool was the compass that Paul carried. We both have a terrible sense of direction. We got very good at reading maps, retracing our steps and communicating with locals in hand gestures and puppetry when all else failed (little games of charades all over the world!). Anyway, where was I?

Yes, parenthood is another one of those times when pocket space is at a premium. There are snacks to carry and sippy cups, barrettes and beads that are pulled out of hair on long car rides. There are little toys, mini monkeys that little girls get from coin machines at diners where their daddies take them. There is lip balm for the chapped-lip types like myself. There are napkins and used bandages and some unstuck stickers in case a certain little girl uses the potty. You get the idea. There’s a lot of stuff to carry but that’s not my point. There’s another point I’m getting to here…

The most valuable pocket tool of all time: the Environmental Working Group’s list of the “dirtiest” and “cleanest” conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. The top of the list contains produce that, even when grown conventionally, doesn’t carry a heavy load of pesticides. The bottom of the list contains the most pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables. You can lower your pesticide intake by 4/5ths if you avoid the conventionally-grown versions of the 12 most contaminated items on this list.

Take a look. Do you see peaches, apples, strawberries and blueberries at the bottom? Berry season is here and the peaches, the peaches are coming. Print it off. You don’t really have to carry it in your pocket but I would recommend carrying it in your purse, or your wallet, or wherever else you carry things because it’s important.

A New Story

We have things to do.

The past few months, when I’ve thought about my approaching five year cancerversary (anniversary of diagnosis), I’ve considered all kinds of ways to celebrate. But the truth is, that week, that whole month in fact, was busy. Real busy. I could see it coming well ahead of time with the events/commitments/fun all piling on top of each other on the calendar – Paul’s ship party, my mother’s birthday party, my mother’s back surgery, a night of sailing, a friend to pick up from the airport, a writing retreat.

Then there was a blog post to write. At first I thought I would tell the story of the breast cancer diagnosis and of the day I found out it was Inflammatory Breast Cancer and the sensational article I stumbled across, during my first terrifying breast cancer awareness month, that stated in simple terms it wasn’t an issue of if but when the cancer would come back and that there was a 90% chance I’d be dead in 5 years. But I don’t want to tell these stories again. They’ve all been written and told. Instead I want to tell new stories.

I want to tell the story of my mother’s birthday party. There’s my great husband who struggles with a punctuality problem who, of course, forgets he’s supposed to leave work early. There’s his meeting that runs long. There’s the changing of the child into her party dress in the parking lot of my grandmother’s retirement home. There’s our late arrival. There’s my daughter’s uncharacteristic disinterest in her grandparents, her inability to eat dinner, her intense dislike of her own chair. Then there’s my daughter’s barf, all over my great husband, all over the table and the carpet. There’s the rushing to the bathroom and changing out of her party dress and into the ugly and too-small backup outfit. There’s the rinsing of the party dress in the sink and the janitor cleaning up the carpet. There’s our return to the dining room for just long enough to say our goodbyes and go home and feed our dog who is starving and exhausted after a weekend of long-distance swimming adventures.  

The next day there’s a sick baby (and I do mean ‘baby’ here, not toddler, because when she’s sick, she will always be my baby) and soup to be made and my mother’s surgery and flowers to be gathered to be taken to the hospital, and hospital rooms to be visited and doctor’s appointments to be made and none of this. None of it is for me.

This story, and my life right now, is exactly as it should be.

This Weekend: The Mountains

Have I told you lately how much I love living in the Northwest?

Last weekend I was on the beach. This weekend I’m in the mountains with a few other writers and photographers and two gigantic dogs. I’ve been writing for multiple days in a row now and I’ve got a stable full of new blog posts and ideas.

Look out blogosphere. Consider yourself warned.

Blue Skies

Cool Weather

Purty Flowers

Lovely