What is it with these so-called “family” restaurants? Apparently being a family establishment means you can eat together with your family so long as you’re not having to feed your baby. Makes perfect sense!

After a few complaints from other customers, the Denny’s manager finally called the police to ask them what the law stated regarding breastfeeding mothers. As it turns out, North Carolina law protects a breastfeeding mother’s right to breastfeed even if her nipple is showing. However, the police stated that they could force her to leave on the grounds of “trespassing.” That’s always a great way to get rid of customers, right?

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“Today’s victory gives parents the certainty Congress tried to provide in the first place – that their children are safe from harmful chemicals in their toys,” said Aaron Colangelo, NRDC attorney. “This is a big win for children’s health and consumer safety.”

The NRDC filed a lawsuit against the CPSC in December after a loophole had been proposed to allow companies to continue selling pthalate-laden products so long as they were made prior to the ban date.

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The CPSC has granted a one year stay for the CPSIA mandatory testing requirements that were going to make February 10, 2009 Bankrupt Day for probably hundreds of thousands of businesses in the United States, as well as forcing many European distributors out of the country.

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But, it’s already nearly February and I have yet to get started.

Frustrated as I might be, I’ve found that living an eco-friendly lifestyle is not a static decision. It comes with highs and lows, new discoveries, changing habits, and most of all, finding balance. Sometimes that means you’re leaving a tiny carbon foot print one day. And on others, it might be bigger than you’d like to admit.

For me, living a greener lifestyle has a lot to do with state of mind.

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Simply place your vote digg style, and consider spreading the word with links on your blog, or emails to friends and family. This act affects handmade artisans of toys, clothes, and other children’s items, as well as resale, consignment, thrift shops, heck even eBay.

Surprisingly, media coverage has been quite slim on this issue, and many manufacturers and distributors (read: the ones with some major power to make some changes too) are unaware of the CPSIA and how it’s going to affect them next month.

If you’d like to learn more about the CPSIA, you can visit the Cool Mom Picks Save Handmade resource page, and listen to the Healthy Child, Healthy World podcast today at 1pm PST.

Related Posts:

Proposed Exemptions to CPSIA

New Law Will Make Handmade Toys Illegal

Don’t Make February 10, 2009 Bankrupt Day

“Yeah, but you know everyone will be flying in and taking limos,” the journalist noted. And honestly, he did have a point.

However, after researching the green inauguration ball further (which as it turns out is totally separate from the actual inauguration), it does seem as though there’s definitely a larger green effort involved in what might otherwise be passed off as green washing.

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So I’ve come up with a few ways to keep them firmly in their seats, all of which do not require you buying stock in bunch of plastic nonsense.

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I’m not even sure why they call it a “goody bag” because there’s just nothing good about it.

So here are some simple ways to create eco-friendly goody bags that kids and their parents will thank you for, and ones that won’t kill your budget.

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Granted, it is vacation and so it’s going to be hard to keep things as green minded as I usually try to be, but thanks to so many exciting new products, it’s not that hard to go green on vacation.

Whether you’re flying off to an island resort, or just taking a long drive South for the winter, here are some great products that will help lessen your carbon footprint and still enjoy the sun and sand.

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Dear grocery store baggers: Please stop looking so sullen when I pull out my reusable bags. They save your store money.

And of course, I had to chuckle and completely agree because almost every time (save when I bring my Olive Smart bags for some reason) I pull out my own tote bags one of the following happens:

a) Huge sigh from the bagger

b) Knowing looks between the cashier and the bagger

c) The slowest bag packing ever known to woman or man, not to be matched by me having to tell them that they can fit a solid 10 more items in that bag before they try to put it back in my cart.

Seriously, what makes them so miserable?

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I get the sense that you probably think breastfeeding is a no-brainer. You’re smart like that. With all the health benefits for mom and baby, you’d think moms would be scrambling to attach their babies to their boobs.

And you can’t beat the price of breastmilk, particularly as our economy is sinking fast. Not that you need me to remind you of that situation. Formula is pretty darn expensive (but they don’t tell you that when they send you home with that ugly black bag and all those free samples) and the money families are spending on formula could go to helping them stay afloat during these crazy times.

So maybe you’d be surprised to know that there are still millions of new moms who head straight for the bottle (well, that one too, but mostly I’m talking about the formula bottles) without even giving breastfeeding a chance.

The question is, who’s to blame?

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Staff toxicologists at the product safety commission told agency commissioners in the memo that some unfinished natural materials should be considered lead free. The materials include wood and fibers such as cotton, silk, wool, hemp, flax and linen.

Of course, these exemptions must still be voted upon for them to go into effect prior to the February 10, 2009 deadline, so your voice in support of these exemptions is still needed. You can find more information about the CPSIA via the Cool Mom Picks Save Handmade resource page.

Additionally, bloggers have started a Save Handmade meme in response to the low numbers of votes and petition signatures on the CPSIA protest sites. Please participate in any way you can and show your support of the exemptions!

[via; photo via Little Alouette]

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So combine a little more action in the bedroom with a breastfeeding or post partum mom (which could be anywhere to years after you have kids, at least that’s what I tell myself) and lubricant is a necessary evil. But know this, as my sex columnist alter-ego the Mominatrix would say, not all lubes are created equal. According to Good Clean Love, a mom-owned business and website aimed at “making love sustainable,” over 90% of lubes contain chemicals aimed at car and oven cleaning; probably not anything you’d want anywhere near your nether regions.

Aside from being extremely effective, my suggestions for personal lubricants are made using naturally-minded practices, which includes no testing on animals and natural ingredients.

Keep these bedside if you’re looking at a very very long winter.

1) Good Clean Love offers naturally scented lubes that are long lasting and recommended by gynecologists.

2) Emerita natural personal lubricants, including their popular OH warming gel, are made for women, by women.

3) The Sliquid Sassy Booty Formula is all natural and glycerin free, which is great for the many folks who are sensitive or allergic. *Link not safe for work*

4) Parent-owned LeastLikely2Breed.net makes a fantastic lubricant with an almost equally fantastic name that’s great to combat personal dryness as well as help things along in the bedroom.

With any one of these lubricants, you’ll be sure to make the holiday season a memorable one. Just remember to lock the bedroom door.

Thanks to my other gigs, I’ve got plenty of used packing materials laying around, all of which I reuse, or give to my kids for their art projects. In fact, our Christmas wrap is made entirely from brown packing paper stamped with carved potato stamps.

However, while you may not have those types of packing materials right in your closet, you probably have a few other things in there that will work well, and that won’t create more waste than necessary this holiday season.

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In response to the pending act, parents, small business owners, and online websites have joined together as a means to have their voices heard and encourage government officials to make changes to the act before it puts so many folks out of business.

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But another way parents can encourage green habits in their kids, other than reading books, is checking out Atlanta-based idBids, a company that offers cool eco-friendly starter kits that help kids take “iddy biddy steps for a greener world.”

It’s clear that many companies are jumping on a “green bandwagon” - creating eco-friendly products not necessarily because they believe it down to their very core, but because they know it’s popular and will sell.

Not idBids.

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As my Cool Mom Picks co-founder Liz Gumbinner stated last year, 2007 was definitely the “Year of the Recall,” as too many toys to count were taken down from shelves (well, at least they were supposed to be) due to high lead levels. But the improbable has now happened and the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act has passed “with a veto-proof majority.”

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The McDonald’s has since apologized to the mother, but sadly, this situation is too often repeated, not only in restaurants, malls, and other public places, but on the internet as well — most recently with a mom’s breastfeeding pictures being banned from Facebook.

As evidenced by numerous comments on a YouTube Breastfeeding montage created by the League of Maternal Justice (in protest of the Facebook Photo bannings), people still compare public breastfeeding to public urination and masturbation, and insist that it’s inappropriate for women to expose themselves in order to feed their children.

With a long list of arguments that most breastfeeding mothers and breastfeeding supporters could list, there are still many people in society who are aware and may appreciate the benefits of breastfeeding, when it comes to doing it in public, it’s still amazing how many people in this country specifically are uncomfortable.

It’s apparent that World Breastfeeding Week, along with organizations such as the La Leche League and Breastfeeding is Normal, are essential in the fight to bring the much needed awareness of breastfeeding, most specifically breastfeeding in public, to folks who may not understand that we can’t always just go somewhere and hide when we need to feed our children.

Of course, I can’t help but point out the irony of a woman being asked to leave McDonald’s, a restaurant that is attempting to promote family friendly eating with their new “healthy” menu. Apparently apples and caramel (mmm, healthy!) and juice boxes are cool.

But breastmilk? Not on their list.