The future of America's favorite pasttime

Update: Many thanks to Lynn at Organic Mania for organizing the Green Moms Carnival where this post on global warming will be featured with all the other great green moms doing their part each and every day to make our world a better place. Thanks Lynn! You can read her awesome carnival post and find more great posts on global warming by clicking on our carnival button: Middle school aged boys won't sit still for long, unless something grabs their attention - and FAST. If it's not riveting, you will find them dividing their attention between the TV, their iPods, playing PSP or surfing the internet, sometimes all at the same time. So, I wondered how it would go when my Dad sat my three oldest boys down to watch Inconvenient Truth.

No action scenes, no swearing, no car crashing, no wicked-cool sound tracks or celebrity icons they would easily recognize. So, when they sat still, I was surprised. They knew who Al Gore was, they even "sorta remembered" when he was almost president. They were saddened by the plight of the polar bears and surprised by the peaks and valleys of the temperatures over history. They were amazed at how large the ice caps look on a map and how huge the chunks of ice are that are dropping into the sea at an alarming rate. But that's not what stuck with them.

A couple of months after the movie, what they most remember is the interactive graphic showing what will happen to our coastline as the ice caps melt. They debate on how Major League Baseball will restructure all of the teams on the coasts. Red Sox, Padres, Giants, Mets, Yankees, Nationals, Angels, Athletics, Devil Rays, Dodgers and maybe even the Braves would all be affected as the water level rises. WHEW - our Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs would be safe. But, that's still a lot of teams that would need to be moved all because of one thing.

Global warming. My boys don't think in terms of Almanacs and temperatures. They don't rationalize pollution from factories they don't work at or carbon emissions from cars they aren't yet allowed to drive. They think about global warming as it would affect them today. Players they idolize, rivalries they enjoy, the home team they love and other teams they proudly wore on their back during the last 8 seasons of Little League play.

Many people tell me they don't want to discuss the gloom and doom of global warming, war, poverty, hunger or economy with their kids. I don't want to scare them, they say, they have enough to worry about already. That's funny, I think, my kids aren't scared. Why, I wonder?

I believe it's because we DO discuss it, we talk about how we live on this planet, how everthing is interconnected, how we are taking the small steps to protect our planet and what will happen if we don't. We then talk about how the world will change as the temperature rises and the ice falls. No more baseball as we see it played today and what that will mean to my boys as they raise their sons and daughters to love the game that means childhood to them. Global warming is a tricky topic, especially for kids, but take time to talk to them about it. They do understand and they can relate - even if it's only about baseball.

Baseball Update... AGAIN

Still playing...

Principles, morals and commitments to green living growing weary... feeling faint... need food.. need water...

Oasis at baseball fields sells bottled gatorade, scary meat & by-product hot dogs, corn syrup laden treats and lots of plasticy things.. I see myself walking toward the bright, waving ball caps heedlessly throwing quarters and dollar bills on the counter. I need food... I need water...

And then, my husband rattles the cooler with homemade ice blocks keeping pitas stuffed with local, organic peanut butter and SIGGs full of organic lemonade icy cold. I wake up from my dream. Everything will be OK. If they would just LOSE already!

Go Team! Sorta...

Green Cooler Chic

Those of you who read regularly know I spend a lot of time hanging out at baseball fields, in the dirt, chaos and heat. This requires lots of cold, cold reusable water bottles. How do I keep them all cold you ask? We tried the re-freezable ice blocks, but alas they melt quickly and the just don't keep things icy-cold. Any boy coming straight out of the catcher's gear in 92 degree heat will tell you, that's just not cold enough, mom.

We loathe buying bags of ice in plastic and even that melts rather quickly, so we came up with what we think in a great idea. Take empty plastic containers - our local butter comes in the perfect, round size - and fill with water the night before. By morning, they are solid cubes of ice which I load into the cooler of drinks. Even today, after7 hours outdoors, there were still disks of ice remaining.

We take the leftover ice disks, toss them into the gardens to melt and trickle water the plants. We take the melted ice water and dump it into the flower pots. Trust me, this water is GREYWATER after dirty boys have had their hands in and out of the cooler all day. And, it means that a tired mom can squeak by without watering parts of the garden today!

So, if you have all sorts of weird plastic containers you can't bear to throw away, but are upset at yourself for buying, don't beat yourself up, they have a second use. And, if you have very thirsty boys, you will never be without a cold drink again!

Baseball Update

All teams still winning. No end in sight. Baseball Saturday, June 21st from 8:45 am until 3:15 pm.


~ Estimated reusable water bottles filled = 12

~ Local pita / local organic almond butter sandwiches = 6

~ Local organic pretzels = 1 bag

~ Visits to the Snack Shack for non-local, non-organic, non-healthy treats = At least 3

~ June 21st? Also littlest eco 'burban boy's 4th birthday = celebration following games

~ Tired, dirty and exhausted = 1 Mom

Earning 3 giant, sparkly plastic Championship Trophies = Priceless

GO TEAM!

Go Team!

It's official. We're still playing baseball.

Like pretty much all the other mothers, we have seen the end of the school year along with it's field trips, class parties and graduations. School related sports, band and special talent shows are long gone. But, the mothers of our Little League just can't get into summer relaxation mode just yet. Why? Apparently because my kids are good at baseball. It's playoff time and my darn kids keep winning! If you keep winning, you keep playing. Until you lose. Twice. Want to know a secret? As much as I love winning. As much as I love my kids. As much as I love watching them. I am ready to lose.

I am tired. Making batch after batch after batch of organic lemonade in glass pitchers, only to pour the entire pitcher into open and thirsty reusable bottles on the counter gets old, quickly. Last year it was just a matter of grabbing plastic bottles out of the fridge and throwing them into bags. Now, when I am making all of the drinks I realize how much they actually DRINK! They don't just need one bottle for a game in this heat, they need two. Don't forget the bottle I need to pack for the youngest, the dad and myself. That's 9 bottles a game or practice, per night, six days a week.

Then of course, there is the business of dinner before we can leave for the game, which has to be made after I get home from work. Let's just say the all-local pancakes I made and then froze one weekend when I had some extra time, have been qualifying as dinner. Does that count?

We only take one car to the games these days, cutting down on both carbon emissions and fuel consumption. That means the youngest has to stay for the entire game. An added green feature to this, is that we are saving tremendous amounts of water at bath time. He just doesn't take one. I am actually not even sure what day he took his last bath. And, that's pretty yucky considering at baseball games he is petting random dogs, digging holes in the dirt with other random kids and eats candy handed out by other random mothers.

And, we're not done yet! After all this is said and done, there is the business of washing the uniforms that smell. Really bad. I have to tell you, the socks can smell so badly, I am tempted to make the wearers ride on top of the van on the way home from games. I have been resisting the temptations to use warm water or bleach or traditional laundry soap. It's the end of the season, the uniforms are looking pretty dingy. I can't exactly remember if they looked this way last year too, when I was still spraying, pretreating and bleaching? Did that do any good, or really is one uniform worn 3-5 times a week to play in the dirt and eat ice cream and pizza in, just going to be dingy no matter what?

So, while being green is good, sometimes it's really tiring. We have another couple of weeks to go before the championship game and I hope I can hold out. If so, by my estimates, we will have saved over 220 plastic bottles from the recycling bin, washed 35 loads of uniforms in the cold cycle with natural detergents and saved 320 miles of driving by taking one car. Now, I need a break. Being green is hard. Now, I just need to find a green way to clean my van...

A Greener Baseball Game

For those who don't know, my 4 boys play baseball. Avidly. Since they were 4. The oldest two are almost 13 now, so that's hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of baseball, considering we are there about 6 days a week. When it is winter, they play in an indoor league, so I don't plan for time off when the snow flies. Now, there is talk of joining a fall league. That would mean the only months I am not driving to baseball would be July and August. Add that to cross country, track, band, intramural basketball, preschool, field trips and oh, yeah - my job - and I am driving. A LOT. That's very not green. So, what did I do?

I switched from a hulking, gas guzzling SUV to a much more fuel efficient mini-van. That was step one. Then, I stopped letting the car idle more than 20 seconds during drop offs and pick ups. After that, we started working on carpooling with kids in our local area for practices, which we do at least once or twice a week when everyone's schedules jive.

One of the biggest sacrifices was deciding that taking more than one car to the games was just not cool. See, little eco 'burban boy is still quite little (OK, he will be 4 next month, but's he's still my baby!) and he doesn't always like to stay for the whole game, so in years past we took two cars - meaning one of us could take him home early. Because, you see, the big 'eco burban boys MUST be at the fields by 5:30 for warm ups and games don't end until 8:30 or even 9:00. That's a very loooong time digging in the dirt and eating laffy taffy from the snack shack. And, don't give me any crap about the non-local, non-organic laffy taffy. Bribes are crucial, OK?

So, between the carbon emissions and price of gas, we go one car to games or bust. This also means plenty of DVDs (from the library, OK! Geez, the laffy taffy doesn't have me completely off the wagon or anything!) and treats and blankies in the van, but it's working out. Everyone's a little cranky - especially eco 'burban mom - but we are making do. Saving money and cutting our carbon footprint - one game at a time!