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If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!
I heard that saying many times before I saw the truth in it.
When a woman is pregnant and her body is working overtime, she’ll love you for taking the time to nurture her. A lot of new dads don’t really understand the changes that are happening to their lover, and it can be hard to remember to take the time to nurture and embrace her. Sure, picking up after yourself helps, but I’m not talking about the house, I’m talking about her.
3 Nurturing Tips for New Dads
- Touch her. Give her a massage, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes. Start with the neck and upper back, spend some time working the hips and back of the pelvis, and end with a foot rub. You don’t need any massage experience for this, just strong hands, willingness, and love. For bonus points, heat a tub of water for a foot bath, add a couple of drops of lavender oil, maybe rose petals if you’ve got them, and let her soak her feet while you massage her neck.
As promised in “Natural Remedies for Morning Sickness“, here is my recipe for pregnancy tea. My midwives always advised I drink a quart a day of this special blend instead of taking prenatal vitamins, as our bodies absorb the nutrients from herbal teas more readily than from vitamins; however, I did both. My favorite Rainbow Light prenatal vitamins included many of the same herbs as my pregnancy tea recipe. Of course, there are commercially available organic pregnancy tea blends, but I preferred harvesting and buying bulk herbs to make my own prenatal tea. This tea should also be drunk by breastfeeding moms.
Pregnancy Herbal Tea Recipe:
To make this tea, add about 1 teaspoon of each herb, except the yellow dock, to a glass quart jar. Use just a pinch of yellow dock, as it has a strong flavor and should be used in moderation. Add boiling water to the herbs, and let the tea steep for at least four hours for maximum absorption of vitamins and minerals. This tea tastes good at any temperature, and a quart should be drunk every day by pregnant women and nursing mothers.
- Raspberry leaf: This herb has been called “The pregnant woman’s best herbal friend” by Jeannine Parvati, author of Hygieia: A Woman’s Herbal. The foliage has long been used by native people and midwives, as it relieves morning sickness and eases birth. This herb can also aid infertile couples.
Regardless of how “green” we consider ourselves, we’re all concerned about the quality of the food we put on our own plates and serve to our families. Tonight, the Sundance Channel’s The Green explores the world of food, from farm to plate. It’s award-winning series Big Ideas for a Small Planet profiles a large food processor, a wine-maker, and a New Mexico high school student who are all doing their part to reject industrial-scale agriculture, and the bland, homogeneous food it produces. Following that, Sundance presents the documentary All In This Tea from directors Les Blank (Burden of Dreams) and Gina Leibrecht.
Guayaki - Organic Yerba Mate Tea - (Guayaki.com)
I really only drink two things - water and tea. And I’m pretty fussy about the quality of each. Since I gave up the sauce (caffeine that is), I’ve been enjoying Yerba Mate as my new primary tea source. Guayaki sent me some samples to review for the magazine and I am now addicted to their Organic Yerba Mate. Not an awful addiction as addictions go. The company [...]
By Pem Charnley •
April 4, 2008
Only yesterday, I was talking to a member of the Green Options editorial team about the delights of tea – and we agreed, that Early Grey must rank as one of nature’s finest hot beverages for an afternoon’s pick-me-up.
The British Empire
Oh yes, think 4pm, the duchess summoning Jeeves to bring the best china, hallowed guests gather on the front lawn, croquet temporarily suspended as we congregate to imbibe.
So imagine my delight when I came across the following:
A kettle that boils the water in just three seconds.
By MC Milker •
March 12, 2008
By serenity_ii •
October 2, 2007
Found these LED tea lights, and they’re awesome, and it’s a good deal!
http://www.cudge.net/candles_detail10.htm
No more using up lots of wax tea lights, no more blown-out flames, no more burning risks, hopefully no more toxins!
Some of the most wonderful aspects of eating a plant-based diet is choosing from the huge variety of foods at your disposal and experiencing a change in your palate. My favorite foods today were definitely not my favorite foods 25 years ago (my father owned ice cream stores), or 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. It’s so exciting to continually eat better, learn more, and feel healthier all the time. It just
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By Brady Swenson •
July 13, 2007
As any movement for change develops and grows, it will face challenges to its original intentions. When a movement grows to the point that it begins to move from the fringes into the mainstream, as the Fair Trade movement has, it will face a host of difficult challenges. Most dramatically, the Fair Trade movement faces a trial of integrity as some of the largest corporations in the world are trying to
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