Have you heard about the Meat Free Monday campaign? It's "an environmental campaign to raise awareness of the climate-changing impact of meat production and consumption" founded by Paul, Stella and Mary McCartney. We're vegetarians so every Monday is meat-free for us, but I'm thinking maybe we should challenge ourselves to have a lower-impact eating Monday. See, Mondays are the busiest day of the week for us - it's the day we're most likely to fall back on frozen, prepared (albeit vegetarian) foods. With a little advanced planning, I could probably prepare a healthier, more environmentally conscious meal that didn't rely on prepared foods. Here's ten of our favorite, easy to prepare vegetarian foods:

• Replace the meat in lasagna with veggies like broccoli, mushrooms, onions, and garlic.


• Green smoothies served with cracker, hummus and cheese make a nice light meal.


• Veggie tacos: Beans, rices, tortillas, and guacamole are all your need but you can sautee onions, peppers, and mushrooms for more robust tacos
  
• Beans and rice: Do it New Orleans style by using red beans, plenty of Tabasco sauce, and some bread on the side.


• DIY pizza: Make a dough in a bread machine or buy premade dough at the store (we've even used French bread in a pinch), and top with sauce and your favorite toppings - sometimes we just do cheese, sometimes we add sauteed veggies to the top.


• Brown lentils over rice with carmelized onions: This is one of the faster, cheaper recipes and it's so delicious!

panini - get some fancy bread at the store (or make it yourself if you're so inspired), add some sauteed veggies, olive tapanade, hummus, or cheese then grill

• Veggie pot pies are always a hit in our house, stuffed full of carrots, squash, mushrooms, green beans and covered with a cheese sauce in a pastry shell. Our favorite recipe comes from the Moosewood Celebrates cookbook. Bonus? Make two, they freeze great!


• Egg or tofu scramble: Add peppers, onions, cumin, and a touch of chili powder, serve on a tortilla shell for a savory breakfast at dinner.


• Rice and veggie sautee: Sautee and serve whatever veggies you have in the fridge on top of brown rice.

The health and environmental benefits of reduced meat consumption are well-established, but vegetarianism isn't for everyone. If you're a meat eater, have you considered participating in a weekly Meat Free Monday? For a month? For six months? For a year?

As is the case for many parents these days we weighed the environmental impact of cloth diapers versus disposables. In all of our research and reading we came across a number of references and some testimonials discussing another alternative to some of the inevitable and literal waste that comes with having a baby. Early start potty training, or elimination communication or "EC" as some people call it, is the simple idea of teaching your kid to use the potty from the day they are born.

We thought this made a lot of sense. Since the only way to reduce the use of any type of diaper is to have your kid use the potty, why not start earlier rather than later? We read a couple of books on the topic before starting on our adventure, but the method is really simple: Put your kid on the potty from the day they are born (or whenever you want to start), several times a day (or however often you want to or can). Honestly, that’s just about it.

The idea is that you anticipate when your baby is going to need to go (after nap or nursing, for example) and you provide the opportunity for them to go in the potty. In the beginning, sometimes he will go (we have two boys) and sometimes he won’t. But when he does, you give him positive feedback. Some people suggest that you give your baby an audible cue to associate with going to the bathroom and teach them a hand sign so that they can tell you early on when they need to go.

As you read this post, I can assure you that there are lots of different experiences out there with widely varying results and opinions. This is just our story. I should also note that we have had one parent at home with the kids since they were born. The books we read said that parents can have as much success even if they are only able to practice early start potty training outside of work hours, but I don’t have experience with that directly.

For those who are interested, my goal here is just to let you know what worked for us, what didn't and ultimately why we love early start potty training.

What worked

We were astonished to discover how quickly and easily both of our boys took to using the potty. For our first son, L. (now 3), we used a small Baby Bjorn Potty and later upgraded to a larger one, but to avoid the added step of cleaning the potty, we are putting our second boy, C. (now 9 months) right on the toilet (with a potty training seat).

First of all, elimination communication doesn't mean committing to having your child make big messes when you miss their cues - diapers make a great fail-safe. Here's how we do it: When C. wakes up in the morning, we put him on the potty. He either goes if he needs to or doesn't and then we put a diaper on him. Unless he makes any indication of needing to go, we wait until say, before nap time (about 2-3 hours later) and then put him on the potty again. He either goes or he doesn't and his diaper is either dry or it isn't. (But its never poopy.)

We saw results within days of beginning our early start potty training, even when our kids were only weeks old. At that age, babies are... productive, so sometimes our boys would go on the potty and sometimes in their diapers, but over time they used the potty more and more and their diapers less and less. I’d say that by the time they were 4 months old, they were using the potty about 90% of the time for poop (more on pee in a sec). And by 6 months for our first son and about 8 months for our second, we have never seen a poopy diaper again!

What didn’t work

We did not find using an audible cue to be particularly helpful in our experience. We found that the association with the potty was enough for them to know what they were supposed to do. Nor did we find using a hand sign to be particularly helpful in having our kids "communicate" to us about their potty needs. We taught our kids a hand sign, but neither of them has ever used it to let us know that they need to go. Our second son is now nine months old and mostly we just provide several opportunities a day for him to use the potty and this is enough to get the job done. But on occasion he has communicated his need to use the potty simply by being fussy. We have learned that when he’s fussy, we should check the usual suspects plus one more. Is he hungry? Is he tired? Or does he need to poop?

Having a poop-free-diaper existence has been reward enough for us to fully endorse early-start potty training. However, our expectations for actually having our kids truly potty trained at an earlier age have now been readjusted as our older son was no sooner pee-trained than his (non-early start) friends. Somewhat ironically, this may have had something to do with our use of early-start potty training. For example, we noticed that while his friends were all discovering the potty for the first time and showing excitement towards this “new” activity (that they sometimes got rewards for) - he just thought they were crazy because he had been using a potty all of his life. What was there to get excited about?

While he was fully capable of using a potty to pee in - and in fact did pee in a potty several times a day (when we took him to the potty) - this did not translate into him voluntarily telling us when he needed to go. This turned out to be more of a developmental step, requiring him to be OK with stopping whatever fun activity he was doing at the time to take a potty break. For us that came right around his third birthday.

We used lots of "naked time" with our first son, L., on the theory that it would help facilitate regular use of the potty (one kept close at hand). In our experience, this didn't really offer much benefit above and beyond our early start potty training habits, so we haven't emphasized that as much with C. and don't really see much difference.

Why we love it

Particularly because we chose to use cloth diapers with both of our boys, not having to deal with poopy diapers has been heavenly. No extra rinsing. No stinky diaper pails. Clean bums, no diaper rash. And our kids’ waste has gone where it’s supposed to – in the sewer system, not the trash can (as often happens with disposables).

Finally, some might view the time spent putting your kid on the potty as time they don’t have to add to their schedule, but we have really valued our potty time with the kids. We use that time to talk with them and read stories. We have a big bookshelf right next to the potty. It’s the first thing we do in the morning and the last thing before bed. It has actually come to be scheduled quality time that we all enjoy.

Ultimately, we have found that early start potty training is good for the environment (fewer diapers of any kind and waste in its place), good for our kids (quality time with their parents and always knowing what the potty is for), and great for us (for all of the reasons above).

Have any questions about how EC worked for our family? We're happy to field questions in the comments.

Need cloth diapers? ZRecs published a Cloth Diaper Showdown nearly two years ago that is still heavily referenced, and Kim Rosa's Dirty Diaper Laundry site features great video reviews of cloth diapers and follows current trends and designs in cloth diapering.

Feeling lucky? PRIZEY's Baby Gear category has frequent giveaway listings of cloth diapers and diapering supplies.

DCI's I Am Not A Paper Cup sells on irony. It looks like a disposable coffee cup with a plastic lid, while in fact it's an insulated ceramic mug with a silicone lid.


And it isn't without its faults. Someone may reach for it, prepared to throw it away for you, and although once they pick it up they will be surprised by its heft, it does feel a bit more vulnerable and in need of your protection. I won't criticize it for not being dishwasher-safe - no double-walled vessels are (if you have been dishwashing yours, water will get in there over time) but both the lid and cup should be washed shortly after use, as they both stain easily. I've found that that's actually a habit I enjoy being coaxed into, as it means I have a clean cup in the morning rather than a dirty one waiting to be washed. It doesn't keep coffee hot quite as long as an insulated stainless steel mug, but it does keep it hot long enough, and is well insulated to the touch.

The white silicone lid seems to stain lightly over time if you just give it a rinse, as I have been doing. But some instructions on Amazon suggest to "soak in boiling water with three lemon slices or wash normally using toothpaste instead of soap," and I haven't done that.

But what I like most about this mug is that while I requested it based on its humor value, that same design is what keeps me focused on the need to bring it with me wherever I go. I am a person who believes in the value of reusable everything but often forgets to bring a mug when I head into a coffee shop. Just seeing this mug reminds me of how much I hate food packaging waste, and what a shame it is to use one of those paper cups with the plastic lids, of which I have undoubtedly used legion in my lifetime. And I pick it up and bring it with me, and have the barista fill it up instead of a disposable cup. No travel mug has ever inspired me so directly and routinely to do this. That makes what I thought was an ironic joke in fact a crucial aspect of the cup's success.

This cup has been around for a few years and there are others like it out there - I've seen one that has a built-in fake insulating sleeve integrated into the surface, but it gets some pretty strong denunciations for leakage, and the I Am Not insulates very well. There's also the We Are Happy to Serve You 10-oz. cup, which I don't know much about. You can pick up DCI's I Am Not A Paper Cup on Amazon.com for about $16.