aaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! i have just spent the last hour on a website created by the environmental working group, called skin deep, which is a database of all sorts of skin care products (and hair, nails etc), created to evaluate the safety of the ingredients in these lotions and potions. it basically was frightening. i consider myself relatively well educated on a variety of toxicity issues, and while i know that i take a risk when using some of the products i use, but this was pretty sobering. on one hand, most of the products i have used on the kids and myself are relatively low risk, but on the other hand, they are certainly "no risk." (what is?). this is one of those parenting black holes, where you can scare yourself silly, getting sucked in to a frenzy of fear that you are inevitably damaging your child's dna at every moment, and so you swear that by god you are going to rid their lives of every toxin. you start chucking everything out (recycling the plastic containers of course) and then you remember that just sitting in the car with all of its plastic and fumes and so on is probably more dangerous than all of the soap ever used on their bodies in their whole lives.

nevertheless, the concern is there, and valid, and so you return to the task at hand, detoxifying yourself and the kids, as much as possible, trying desperately not to sacrifice style, and you realize that this is worthy of its own blog. will she succeed or not? where will she start? the clothing? the bedding? the cosmetics? will she turn completely granola? can she pursue her dream of being hip AND toxin-free?

there have been some small successes: i have eliminated fruit snacks from our household. not a cosmetic, but a the bane of my existence for a long time. i have nothing against candy and sugar, believe me. i am very happy to toss a few skittles in ava's direction when she needs a little attitude boost, but these things drive me nuts. simply because they are housed next to the cereal and under the granola bars in the grocery store, as if they were healthy. they are CANDY. with a little vitamin c. how the hell the cereal companies managed to pull this feat of marketing off, i have no idea. the sad thing is, people actually believe that they are "fruit" -- and thus healthy. please. well, then again, most cereals are pretty much candy anyway, so i suppose i shouldn't be surprised. but they still bother me. "fruit snacks" -- my you know what.

but, yes, i did cave, and i did buy them for ava in a moment of desperation. but NO MORE! hah! general mills take that!