Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day, everyone!  Like all of you, we have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Earth Day in our house.  Little Oscar has practically been vibrating with excitement ever since we put up our Earth Day bush, a “reclaimed” potted plant decorated with recycled tin foil, but without lights (simply not green to waste electricity in that manner), just giddy in anticipation for his first visit from Mother Nature.  Well, she did not disappoint.

When Oscar awoke, he was greeted with his Earth Day presents, all placed in one of our recycled shopping bags (you know the ones you buy at Whole F00ds and always forget to take back to the store, so you end up having to ask for paper bags and the clerk looks at you in disgust?  one of those).  Mother Nature does not wrap gifts with packaging materials and wrapping paper – let alone tape!  I think he was amazed at the bounty.  In the bag were many pieces of organic fruit (she selected the fruit that was just about to go bad and have to be disposed of -  do you have any idea how many tons of fruit is thrown out at grocery stores every year?), candy bought in bulk, and a t-shirt that says “solar power turns me on.”  Just kidding about that last one – the t-shirt was for me.  Since none of the slightly rotting fruit or candy was wrapped, it got a bit tossed together and made this really special melange that only a toddler could love.  Yummy.

In addition to all of his organic fruit and candy, Oscar was surprised with “new” toys and books.   Why buy new toys – even “green” toys when you can simply reuse the ones you’ve cast aside?  Especially the dog-earred books.  It’s all about recycle – reduce – reuse, people!  In addition to a number of toys he never really liked last year, he received my old cell phone, an empty macaroni & cheese box, a bunch of pens that are almost out of ink and a big stack of paper out of one of our recycling bins at work.  The non-printed side is a great medium for his artwork (aka scribbling).  We’re going to spend some time playing with his new stuff, and then our Earth Day adventures begin in earnest.  We’ll update you later on the fun we’re having.

ETA: in all of our earth day excitement, we couldn’t actually post until tonight.  You know how crazy the major holidays are.

April 22, 2009 Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | holidays, Oscar | 1 Comment