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Okay first let’s get this out of the way. I was watching TV last night… yes I often do in the late hours of the night after the kids go to bed. On Wednesday I like to watch Lie to Me and Criminal Minds… awesome shows both of them. I state this because the last time I mentioned a specific TV show episode on my blog…which I am about to do… I got bashed in the comments for watching the evils of TV. So there it is… I watch TV… avert your eyes now if that bothers you.

As I was watching last night, I was flipping around between channels to avoid watching any commercials. I watched a few minutes of Law and Order Special Victims Unit and saw that it was a seemingly uninteresting episode where they suspected a mom (Hillary Duff) had killed her 11 month old daughter. Not something that really interested me so I turned back to my regular show.

About 20 minutes later I checked back in and I see the show has done a 180 degree turn. The little girl has apparently died from measles. She was exposed to them in a park by an unvaccinated boy who got the illness from an Amish teenager. The mother of the unvaccinated child is then charged and goes on trial for negligent homicide and on the show they continually scream at her saying that she murdered a child.

Yes, that got my attention and I stayed tuned in for the rest of the show. I was so freaking angry by what I saw. And yes it is just a TV show but have you noticed just how many TV shows now have done this exact same thing? They make up bogus stories about how terrifying these diseases are and how non-vaccinating parents are no better than murderers. It is alarming to me as a non-vaccinating parent that this propaganda is getting spread around and stirring up hate towards a group of parents who are only attempting to do what is right by their children.

In the shows defense they did give the defense attorney some good lines where he made the expert witness, a doctor, admit that the MMR vaccine can have side effects that include seizures and death and that the side effects are not so rare. But mostly they allowed this doctor to really bash non-vaccinating parents and make them sound stupid.

In the end the jury did not convict the non-vaccinating parent of wrong doing but according to the prosecutor this was only because the mother of the dead child was a party girl parent who had neglected her child. Supposedly the jury did not want to punish the woman who had at least tried to be a good parent. A bunch of nonsense it what it is. The grandfather of the baby ends up killing himself in front of the non-vaccinating mom, telling her she murdered not one, but two people.

They also spread an outright lie by saying that children who attend public school are required to be vaccinated or their parents are breaking the law. ALL states have exemptions so this is a flat out lie. The state in question, New York, has two… a medical and a religious exemption.

One thing they failed to really highlight in this fictional story was that the unvaccinated child who got measles was absolutely fine. This only supports the widely held belief that most vaccinations are not meant to protect our own kids from these diseases but to protect other portions of the population… infants, immune suppressed, and the elderly come to mind. So when you take a risk vaccinating your child, and you are taking a risk, you are doing so not for them… but for other people. I for one did not make the conscious decision to bring 3 children into this world only to put other people’s interests before theirs.

On the show they basically said non-vaccinating parents are uneducated and foolish. But I have met hundreds of non-vaccinating parents and they are some of the smartest most compassionate people you could ever come across. They have poured over books (written by doctors) that highlight the dangers of vaccines, they read the studies that have been done about vaccine safety, and they make the best decision they can. In my experience it is USUALLY (not aways) the parents who DO vaccinate that are uneducated about the issue. Now of course some research and decide that they think the risks do not outweigh the protective benefits and they vaccinate but in general most parents just do what their doctor tells them and what they are pressured by society to do.

That is what I did with my first child and he almost died as a result. I now buck the system and call my own shots for the health of my kids. I won’t sacrifice them on the alter of public good. We choose not to vaccinate and we choose to only live in a state that allows for philosophical exemptions.

But the point is that through mediums like TV the public is being influenced to “hate” parents who buck the system and choose not to vaccinate. It doesn’t matter that many thousands of kids are injured by vaccines every year and it doesn’t matter that I witnessed my son go into respiratory arrest due to vaccines … the public is being informed that I/we are negligent parents.

I heard that an episode of Private Practice a couple weeks back also had a “bad mom” who didn’t vaccinate and her child dies of measles.

It makes me weary of what the future has in store. But then I remember that this is the same public that tells me pharmaceuticals, genetically modified foods, and irradiated foods are safe and that herbs and natural foods are suspect. I consider the source and then I can exhale and know that this propaganda is only out there because they are running scared. More parents are waking up to their lies and they are running scared and trying to gain ground with scare tactics. I for one will stand my ground and get even louder in my defense of parental CHOICE.

What about you? Did you see the show?

See also this important book review: He’s Not Autistic, but…

KaBOOM is a cool new site I have been hearing a lot about lately. It is a national non-profit that empowers communities to build playgrounds. The reason for it is that they believe unstructured play in particular helps make children happier, fitter, smarter, more socially adept and creative.

You can join as a member and find playgroups in your area, playgrounds and play places, and add ones in your area that you know about for the benefit of others. You just enter a zip code and see what it is in your area. I was suprised to see several places in my area already on the map.

KaBOOM is asking parents to help map online 100,000 playspaces in 100 days. Here’s what counts as a playspace: a playground, field, a skate park, roller hockey rink, lake, dog park, community center, basketball court or ice rink - any place where kids can engage in unstructured play for free or a nominal fee. A playspace listing on KaBOOM! consists of an address or cross street and a description, one photo and one rating. KaBOOM! has made creating this playspace listing easy: either a quick fill-in on their website or even easier -  a twitpic from your cellphone.

Start mapping your area today and help ensure kids have places to play!

Planting strawberries is a great project for kids because it teaches them many lessons (such as reusing materials and how to landscape with plants that provide food), and it is easy for small children to participate.

You will need:

* Some sort of container. I have used everything from wine barrels (rinse them out and drill holes in the bottom) to burlap sacks to the center tub of a broken top-loading washing machine. Just make sure the container doesn’t have any sort of chemicals in it, and do try to show the kids you can reuse materials instead of purchasing new or sending used materials to the landfill!

* Potting mix.

* Compost or garden mulch.

* Strawberry rootstock or seedlings. I have seen them sold both in flats/6-packs and as a bundle of rootstock held together with a rubber band.

* Bark chips or pebbles.

To start, fill the bottom container with bark chips or pebbles to allow the water to drain out. In areas with heavy rain, you will want a lot of drainage so use a lot (leaving only 8-12 inches for soil at the top to plant your plants in); in dry areas, you will want the container to retain water so use less (a layer only an inch thick). Explain the bark/pebbles to the kids by telling them plants need water to grow, but too much water can cause problems–kind of like how their fingers get shriveled up when they sit in the bathtub too long.

Next, fill the pot with your potting soil. You can teach the kids what goes into the potting soil by looking at the contents of it on the bag. Perlite or vermiculite is used to help the soil retain moisture; compost is added to give the plants nutrients; peat, ash, and other materials amend the soil and give it air spaces for the roots to grow in. Potting soil isn’t just a bag of “dirt” — it is an exact recipe, just like the kind you would use in cooking, that provides your plants with the ingredients to grow big and strong!

Now it is time to add the plants. Gently separate out the plants, explaining that rough handling can damage the plants and cause them to not grow. Show the kids the different parts of the plants, pointing out the parts that grow below the ground (the roots) and the parts that grow above the ground (the stems, leaves and fruit). Using diagrams such as these will help you to show the child how the plant will grow and what the different parts do. When planting the plants, dig a small hole, hold the plant with the roots inside the hole and the top of the root ball slightly below ground level, and gently fill in. To see what they should look like, look at this diagram.

Once all your plants are in, dress the top soil with some compost, mulch or straw, leaving a small space around the base of the plant. This will help keep the moisture in and invaders out. Your strawberries should be watered enough so that they are getting an inch or two of water a week, but not so much so that there is ever standing water on the soil.

Happy gardening and remember — We can make Earth Day every day!

Nikole Gipps is a web developer and mom of two in Eugene, OR. You can catch more of her gardening adventures at Oregon Treehugger.

Some of you already know this about me…but I am NOT a girly girl. I don’t wear dresses and skirts, I don’t wear makeup, and I my hair is cropped so short I don’t even have to brush it…ever. Even as a child I was the tom boy. I spent all day outside and I don’t even think I had any play makeup.

My mom though was/is very much that girly girl. She dressed to the nines, she wore makeup whenever she went out, she like to put makeup on me, even though I insisted I looked like a clown. She curled her hair all the time and loved to put me in curlers you wore all night. I would wake up and promptly brush out all the curls. Just about the only thing I liked her to do to my hair was french braid it..that way it was out of my face and out of my way.

Well, now I have a daughter of my own and she is just like my mom. They spend a lot of time together primping and beautifying. In the picture above you will see that my mom has already started her on the hair curling…which mystifies me because she inherited my naturally wavy hair. The other day though I was hugging her after one of her beauty marathons with nana and I noticed she had rashes on both sides of her face. Her skin was reacting to blush my mom had let her put on. Make-up in general has TONS of nasty chemical ingredients and carcinogens as outlined in the book Dying to Look Good. Last year my daughter got a pack of children’s play makeup from a family friend and the ingredient list made my skin crawl. It baffles me that looking a little better could be THAT important to anyone.

I do not want to be down on wearing makeup though. I am very glad that my daughter has someone to share this passion with because this is just one area that elludes my understanding and I want her to be herself…whomever that is. It lead me to the realization that I need to buy her some natural and safe play makeup for little girls but I am really having a hard time finding any!! So far she has non toxic nail polishes from Piggy Paints and lip balms from Jess Be Natural and Badger. I think I will pick up some Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmers for her too.

So that just leaves color for her cheeks and eyes. I have my eye on the Mineral Blush Powder in Apricot Dew and the Peach Shimmer for eyes, lips, and cheeks at Ely Organics. The stuff at Ely Organics is no natural you could probably eat them.

If a company were to create and market a very natural , organic line of children’s makeup I would be all over it. What about you? Do you have little girls that loves to play with makeup? How do you handle it?

Mondays nights my daughter has weekly t-ball practice. Pretty soon we will be spending our Saturdays at her games. She is just “tickled pink” by her t-ball gear which includes a helmet, glove, and a reusable water bottle… all in her signature color… pink. If her pants or shirt that we get from the coach next week have pink in them I think we might go into pink overload!!

The Pura water bottle is VERY nice though I have to say. I am itching to get a lime green one myself but since I have a couple other bottles already I will have to be content to covet hers. These Pura bottles are service grade, electro-polished stainless steel, no chemical liners, they are reusable of course, BPA free, and they come with a lifetime warranty. The lids are stainless steel as well, so that you don’t have to worry about any plastic pieces touching your water. The colors are pretty awesome too.

I am sure that Paige will be able to convert many of her teammates to reusable bottles just because of the “pink” factor.