Anyone else have a very dramatic little girl?? Check out this little miss!

She and her older brother were swimming at our local pool and they were misbehaving which resulted in her getting kicked in the eye. We promptly left and about an hour after we got home this little punk came out of her room sporting a faux black eye that she had given herself with a black marker.

When I took the pictures I had not let her know I was on to her so she thought she was posing for pictures that would forever incriminate her brother. Just look at her stern face, LOL.

On my, her father and I laughed so hard… and then I sobered up when I recalled how we were know where near the teen years yet… gulp.

I never much liked the play dough you buy in stores. Its smells funny and it has lots of chemical dyes in it to get those nifty colors. It stains carpet when it gets mashed into it to. ;) But every kids likes play dough right? Well, for several years we have either made it ourselves or bought homemade dough from crafters on Etsy.

Recently though we used a DIY play dough kit called Yohoho Dough. It comes in a nifty canister that can be reused for numerous other things and inside it you have everything you need to make 4 pounds of modeling dough. My youngsters give it a thumbs up. It is fun to watch mommy make and fun to play with. Using the canister to hide their treasures in afterwards is a bonus.

The dough is organic and non-toxic and it is a USA made product. The whole pirate concept is a winner too, my kiddos love it. Our dough is still going strong after a couple weeks. We keep it in a bento container on top of the fridge and pull it out almost every day for a few minutes or hours of doughey fun. I could REALLY see myself using Yohoho Dough for all future play dough requirements. It is waaay smoother than anything I have ever made on my own, more like modeling clay and the process was so simple.. just combine the wet and dry ingredients, heat and mix. It was easy and my kitchen stayed clean.

I used an old plastic spoon to mix because I didn’t want to get a wood one all sticky but the plastic one almost broke when the dough got stiff so use metal or wood!

You can jazz up the dough with scents and food coloring too! We plan to try that soon…

I am 32 years young today! I had to run the numbers in my head to figure out how old I was… a sure sign that you are OLD. :)

Going out of town this evening to have a birthday dinner with my folks and help my mom set up for her house guests next week. My brother is making one of his rare stops in the US so that is a nice treat. I will finally get to meet my new nephew that they adopted from China. My brother will be hanging around in DC for awhile and then he will be moving to Indonesia. But I am excited to take the kids and go visit him there!!

Anyway… since I have to get ready to leave I will post some pics from last week. The kids and I took nature walks deep in the country, played at the park, and we stopped at a protected wildlife area. It used to be farmland and actually we lived on the 100 acres directly behind it when we first moved to Ohio. But local farmers bought it up together and let it go back to nature. It is all wildflowers and wetlands now and I wanted the kids to see it. It was one of the most relaxing times I can remember in years, spending two full days adventuring outdoors…

One area that many overlook on their journey to go more green and natural is family planning. Few of us likely have the emotional and physical strength as well as the resources to go through life without trying to prevent pregnancy at least at some point in our lives.

So what is the greenest and most natural way to prevent pregnancy? This is one area where I gravitated to the more natural options even before my natural family living journey actually began. I had strong opinions about some of the more mainstream birth control methods. Let’s look at some of the options and I will tell you what I decided upon..

Chemical Contraceptives- When my future husband and I discussed birth control methods and family planning for the first time we found we were on the same page as far as family size was concerned. We were not on the same page about how we would prevent pregnancy though. The most common method it seems for young women, then and now, is oral contraceptives or other chemical-hormonal contraceptives like the IUD, various injections, the patch, and internal rings. My husband assumed I would not have a problem with these methods but he was very wrong.

I wasn’t trying to lead a natural or green life yet but I knew with 100% certainty that I would NOT take hormones or use chemical contraceptives. I wasn’t going to introduce these things into my system and mess with my body in that way.

These contraceptives have many side effects, they increase chances of serious diseases like cancer, and using them supports the corrupt and powerful pharmaceutical industry. All of this makes them a not-so green choice and for me an unacceptable choice.

I wasn’t on board with copper IUDs either. While copper itself is natural… unless we are born secreting it in our uterus then it is not “natural” for birth control, at least for me. The most common side effects are heavy and prolonged bleeding and loss of sex drive. Niether of those potential side effects was acceptable to me but this option is way better than the hormonal ones.

Barrier Methods- Barrier contraceptives would be condoms, diaphragms, cervical caps, sponges, and spermicides. I have no personal experience with any of them other than the sporadic use of condoms over the years… usually a couple months after birth when I didn’t want to take the chance that breastfeeding alone would prevent pregnancy. They are not-so green in that they create waste and they are not-so natural in the materials they are made with but they are important in the grand scheme of things (STDs).

There are greener options too. Sheepskin condoms are biodegradable and vegan condoms do not use animal products like many conventional condoms. The Sheepskin condoms do not protect against STDs though.

Sterilization - If you are positive you don’t want to have any children or have any MORE children then this is a good route to go. My husband and I opted for him to have a vasectomy this year so our baby making days are over. I actually wanted to be the one to get sterilized but after my abdominal surgery (cancer) I had too much scar tissue to make a laparoscopic surgery possible. They would have had to cut me open again to get at my tubes and another major surgery did not sound appealing.

For anyone thinking about doing this, the best time to have it done is after the birth of your last child. Typically they ask after baby number three if you want to have it done. I said no when they asked because they caught me by surprise. I hadn’t even thought about it or discussed with hubby and I ended up wishing I had said yes.

Incidentally I also found this to be a controversial method. When I shared that my hubby and I had opted for sterilization we got some nasty comments from deeply religious folk who thought we were hell bound for discarding the gift of fertility. I never knew it was such a hot issue until that time.

Natural Family Planning- Also called NFP and the fertility awareness method. This is the primary method that my husband and I used. It is by far the most natural and green choice and it is IMO actually VERY easy. Using NFP my husband and I had 3 babies over an 11 year period and none of them were accidental. Of course that is not to say they were planned either… one was and with the other two we were aware that their conception was likely and we were okay with it either way. When we wanted to prevent pregnancy we did and only rarely used condoms when my cycle was a question mark… like after birth, during breastfeeding.

Basically Natural Family Planning or NFP limits sexual intercourse to naturally infertile periods or portions of the menstrual cycle when pregnancy is unlikely. Various methods can be used to identify whether the woman is likely to be fertile and this information is used to either avoid or achieve pregnancy.

The two main methods are calendar based NFP and symptom based NFP or a combination of both. Using the calendar method you would track the days of your cycle on a  calendar (or Cycle Beads) and based upon an understanding of how the reproductive cycle works you would engage in sexual activity accordingly…. or not.

The symptoms method tracks various symptoms of a woman’s cycle… body temperature, cervical mucus, breast tenderness, ovulation pains, etc. Some people use fertility monitors or urine analysis strips to determine their fertile times but I never did.

I used a combo of both systems with an emphasis on the symptoms based. I was bad at remembering to track my cycle via a calendar. But I found it easy to discern fertile times by tracking cervical mucus and ovulation pains. I knew my body pretty well and I remember the month we conceived my daughter. I mentioned to my husband that the cervical mucus says this is a good baby making day. While we hadn’t been trying to have a baby we didn’t see any reason to try and prevent it either… we ended up with a beautiful daughter 9 months later.

With our youngest son it was similar. I was about to go on an extended vacation with our two kids and since I wouldn’t see hubby for over a month we celebrated before my departure. I knew, thanks to the texture and color of cervical mucus that I might come back from vacation pregnant and I did. I knew that if I wanted to avoid pregnancy I could abstain or use a condom. It was easy, for me at least, to track my fertile and infertile times and plan accordingly.

All in all I think NFP is the greenest and most natural way to handle birth control followed by sterilization. Barrier methods definitely have their place and we have greener and more natural options in that arena too. I can’t get behind hormonal and chemical contraceptives for health reasons and will be advising my own daughter to steer clear but to each his own right? What is your take on this issue or your experience with any of the methods I have discussed? Comment and share your stories and tips.

Recommended Books:

Honoring Our Cycles: A Natural Family Planning Workbook

Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health

NFP Tools: Cycle Beads

Food Inc. is playing now. If you do a google search for show times you should see any local listings. It is only playing in one theatre in my city and I need to go see it. This is one of those rare movies that actually has a meaningful and important message and yet it is not showing in very many theatres. Do your part and support this movie if you can!