Green Baby Gift Box will be closed for a holiday break from December 18-January 1. UPS could not guarantee holiday delivery to the West Coast after 12/17, so that set the dates. Orders can be placed on the website at any time, and customer service will also be open during the day (except on Christmas Day), but no orders will be shipped between December 18, 2009 and Sunday, January 3. We’ll ship all orders placed during the break on Monday, January 4, 2010.

Happy Holidays to everyone! It’s been a very busy year with lots of new projects, and I’m looking forward to a little vacation with family and friends.

Did I mention that my older son started Kindergarten in September? I thought this would give me more time, but after our friends got done volunteering us for everything from baking cookies to teaching extra science lessons, I had to invent a whole new balancing act… whew. I can’t wait until both boys are in the same school again. Right now I am supposed to be out shoveling snow…or was that doing the books for November? Or maybe looking up the directions for making gingerbread houses, since I have to produce four of them for a party on Saturday afternoon…

I will be not be shipping orders between July 6-10. Any orders placed during this time will ship on Monday, July 13. We are going to have a little company holiday, because my parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary(!) and all the kids and grandkids have been summoned to embark on a grand family vacation together. Hurrah!

It sounds lovely until you remember that I will have two small, easily overstimulated whirlwinds in tow. Wish me luck. :)

I’ll be taking a much-needed holiday break from December 18-December 31. UPS couldn’t promise holiday delivery to the West Coast after 12/18, so that set the beginning of the annual break. This means that I won’t be shipping out baby gifts again until January 2, 2009, but of course the website is always open. Customer service (including the 800 number) will also be open, except on Christmas Day.

Speaking of holidays, my 1-year-old Finn had pumpkin pie for the first time on Thanksgiving. While he was happily devouring his piece, I left the room for a minute to help out my older son. When I returned, he had climbed onto the table, removed a cover, and attacked the top of the pie:

If you think this is funny, you should see the ornaments on the tree…

Happy Holidays to everyone! And if you need a stress-free source for earth-conscious baby gifts, you know where to find us. :)

Welcome to the new website & blog for Green Baby Gift Box!

I’m Sarah, and I’ll be your guide through a whole host of subjects related to green gift-giving and “natural” parenting–everything from more about the fabulous artists and companies I have the pleasure of meeting

Sarah with baby Finn

when I put together a gift box to thoughts on the endless high-wire act of trying to raise children, find meaningful work, and refrain from damaging the planet on less than $30 Altarian dollars a day.

Ok, for those of you who haven’t read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I’ve just branded myself a hopeless geek. But trust me, when it comes to researching the ingredient list of baby shampoo, you need a geek at the wheel. One of our goals here at GBGB is to spare you some of that endless research and introduce you to safe & gorgeous products you can trust!

That brings us to today’s theme: exhaustion, a common state of new mothers.

For this first post, I’ll answer the question I’ve been asked most since founding the company: “How did you come up with the idea?”

The first time I was asked this, my mouth opened on its own and said, “exhaustion!”

There’s nothing like wheeling around a cranky newborn, whirring endlessly around the kitchen island in silent circles at 3am, to make you realize that a 9 to 5 (more like 9 to 9) job might not be a good fit anymore. Especially when it’s your second child and the thought of being attached at the hip to a breast pump rather than a baby for a big chunk of the day has lost its appeal.

But beyond this predictable physical need for sleep, my first baby year was marked by a new, time-consuming quest: trying to find baby clothes, furniture, body care products and toys that were not leaching PVCs or offgassing VOCs or likely to cause rashes or just plain scratchy. At the time, there was not a single store within a 100 miles that focused on natural and organic baby products, so Google and I spent a lot of quality time together. By the end of the first year, I had quite a book collection as well.

Then one day, I ran into someone from the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. Knowing I was interested in product safety, she started asking me about my experiences and telling me about related legislation currently being considered in Vermont’s legislature. As I surreptitiously rummaged in the cupboard for a tea cup that wasn’t already dark with tea stains, it hit me– I didn’t care. That latest bill could have required that all products be proved safe before being sold at bargain rates but, unlike in former years when I would have been all ears, I still couldn’t bring myself to really pay any attention, because all of my energy was being sapped trying to research breast milk storage bottles and bib finishes and the relative crash test ratings of car seats.

In a word, I was exhausted.

Back to the 3am lulling walks with a cranky baby. How could I control my own time, have more time to play with the kids, and pass on some of this research?

Enter Green Baby Gift Box. As a company, we like to think of ourselves as fairy godmothers, providing the perfect gift with a wave of our wands. Welcoming a new baby should be a joy, not a research project! We all have better things to do than to sit around comparing bottle brands and wondering if the crib finish is toxic.

So please enjoy browsing through our current selection of gift boxes, each packed full of beautiful, eco-friendly, safe, and practical items for young babies. Have fun, and send any suggestions my way!