That One Time I Was Nature Mom

 Exhibit A:

-Black bean and brown rice crackers with sea salt for snacks.
-Gelatin without artificial color for safe jello jigglers.
-Wax paper bags (unbleached, take note) so plastic doesn't touch their 100% whole grain bread.
-An activity book for healthy outdoor play.

I have been feeling so disillusioned and depressed and blueblueblue over the state of our union, that I turned to what helps me heal and feel like I can breathe again. Because we have a long way to go in this election year and I need oxygen.

I turned to decluttering. Productive, visible results from my labor, the peace within of a cleared out shelf. But as I began to pull and shuffle and discard, what I found buried within white cabinets wasn't clutter as much as bearing witness to a woman who once held on to the ideal of the highest level of conscious parenting.

All natural, all chemical free, all healthy and wise and 100 percent in earnest.

Souvenirs of when I was Natural Mom. Natural mom , the one who wouldn't buy anything unless it had the word natural written all over the natural container in soybean-based ink at least five times. Seven if you count the back.

Natural value 100 percent natural waxed paper bags made with all natural ingredients that are natural from a natural environment using a natural process for a natural lifestyle! Great for packing natural snacks! (There's eight here, what a beautiful thing)

Not pictured in the photo above because they didn't fit are the GoGreenMama silicone ice cube trays for freezing home made baby food along with the 25-pound Happy Healthy Baby acid-free pages cookbook for making my own preservative-free baby food, and the baby food mill with BPA-free blades for making the baby food.

I am not poking fun at anyone who chooses this lifestyle. The endeavor and hope comes from a place of sincerity: wanting the healthiest world for our kids but but but... guess who won't go along with it? Guess who spends just one freakin' afternoon at a playdate where they have their first hit of cherry red kool-aid and my friends? THE HEALTHY HOME HEARTH IS OVER.

It's impossible to forget that summer weekday afternoon when my four-year-old son ran in through the front door, fresh with the first mustache of his life: a red one. Still licking the lifetime supply of powdered sugar off his lips, he cried, "I had something delicious at Jeremy's house today and I drank a whole container of it and all I can tell you is I was wishing so hard that Jeremy's mom was you!"

"Oh yeah? Yeah? Well, does Jeremy's mom hand-shred your co-op carrots on a bamboo grater?!"

Pffft. Most assuredly not.

If love can be this easily bought, then why the heckhellheck am I doing this Organic, Non-GMO, Gluten Free, Kosher Vegan Raw Handmade production of your lives? Why am I working two part-time jobs for the sole reason of Trader Joe's? I ask you, where are the brains in that?

So, dear children, if you ever find yourself wondering if your mother ever had any other chef than Chef Boyardee and Little Caesar's Friday into if it's Monday then it must be $5.00 20-piece chicken nugget night, please consult Exhibit A above.

*Also not pictured above: the Essential essential home oil-making kit every mom of a newborn needs.

Living Lavender was my favorite.

* * *