Thanksgiving is this week, and that sentence alone freaks me out just a little bit.  I mean, where did 2009 go?

Thanksgiving makes people think of a lot of things.  Family, traditions, FOOD.  (When else are you allowed to eat marshmallows on your vegetables without people judging you?)

It can also mean Stress with a capital S (sometimes for the very same reasons: family, traditions, food).

It also marks that time of year that we cannot continue to deny one simple fact - and I apologize to any of you who are trying your best to deny this fact for as long as possible.  When Thanksgiving is over, we cannot be angry that the neighbors have little twinkling lights all over their house.  We cannot groan when we walk into the mall and there are giant ornaments hanging everywhere.  We cannot be annoyed that the grocery store is playing THOSE SONGS over and over (and over) again.  (Well… in theory.)

It’s time for those next holidays.  The ones that involve singing and cheer and gifts.

So now is the time to start planning.  Why not take the first step and post those books, toys, and clothes that you’ve been meaning to put on Zwaggle?  Not only will you have a chance to increase the amount of Zoints in your account to use for your own holiday shopping, but you’ll be giving other families the opportunity to give those items to someone they love.

And that can help with the whole Stress thing.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Oink. Oink. Oink.

No, you didn’t mistype the Zwaggle blog address and land on a farm site. Those would be the sounds of MY house this week, as first one child, then a second, and then a third fell victim to the dreaded H1N1 - the so called “swine” flu. I’ve considered bathing the remaining kids in Purell, but I doubt it would do any good. Instead, I’ve decided to buy stock in Kleenex and Motrin, and cleaned the drugstore shelves of all of the Nyquil/Dayquil/Vick’s Puffs/Tylenol/orange juice that one woman could buy in my fair city. I despair of any of it doing any good, though - I think, at this point, that the flu will just have to run its course. And hopefully not run over me in the process. It’s been a good two weeks of at least one person being ill and I’m ready for a vacation. My most commonly heard refrain? “Wash your hands like Lady MacBeth!” (I swiped that from a friend - it just fit so, so well!)

One thing I discovered this week while my kids were down is that I am woefully unprepared to deal with this many kids at home at once, all under the weather and lounging around on the sofas. We don’t seem to have enough to do when you are too sick for school but not sick enough to nap all day. (Wait - that sounds AWESOME to me - I’d love to nap all day.) When I have sick kids, I try to set up a “Command Central for Illness”.  I keep the thermometer, Motrin, cough medicine, and tissues in one place, so that I don’t have to keep searching for things. (Not that I EVER misplace stuff …looking away, whistling innocently.) The sick kid can lounge on the sofa with a pillow and a blanket and when not sleeping, I do allow television watching - I know some people say that if you are home sick, there’s no tv, and I am usually of that mindset - but when someone is home with a fever - all bets are off.

But what, exactly, do you provide as busy work or amusement for a sick kid? Well, DVD’s are always welcome, as are new games for the Nintendo Gameboy or Xbox. New books are a tried and true pleasure, and I’ve been known to break out the Playdough for a fevered preschooler who is  just well enough to drive me bananas. In fact, homemade Playdough is exceptionally fun and I’ll give you our favorite recipe at the end of this post. What about other arts and crafts? Coloring pages can be printed off the computer, glue and sparkles and paints can make the hours fly by.

How do you handle having your kids home sick?  Share some of your tricks of the trade here and help us all get through what’s going to be a long, long winter.

Here’s to good health for all of us and a quick, fever free winter!

Homemade Kool-Aid Playdough

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup salt
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 packages unsweetened Kool-Aid- any color

I’ve added glitter on occasion.

Mix dry ingredients. Add oil and water.  Wearing gloves, knead for 10 minutes. Store in zip lock bag in refrigerator.

One other really delicious playdough recipe comes courtesy of my mom. This was my very favorite when I was a kid.

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 cups powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, using your hands. This edible play dough recipe should feel soft and pliable. Form shapes and be creative!

Today we have a great post about eco-friendly parenting from Zwaggle user, Holly.  Holly has her own blog, The Cloth Diaper Experiment, where she writes about her journey to be a green mom.  Be sure to check it out!

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Holly from “The Cloth Diaper Experiment” here!  I have recently taken a huge interest in becoming more eco-conscious.  The reason for this recent obsession?  My 7-month-old son, Jackson.  Jackson means the world to me and I want to do my part to leave him with a better, cleaner planet.  By making small changes, I feel like I’m doing something huge.

One thing that I’ve done recently is joined Zwaggle!  Zwaggle fits in perfectly with my goals to be an eco-conscious parent.  I love how the site focuses on reusing and recycling, and I also love the sense of community here, because being green is all about community!

So, what else have I done over the past 7 months to become the best eco-friendly mom I can be?

1) I do not buy bottled water anymore.  While water will always be my beverage of choice, I refuse to buy cases of water, which I used to do all the time.  Instead, I got a BPA free, reusable water bottle a years ago and fill it with filtered water from the fridge.  It seems so simple but it’s making a huge difference.  I think that individual bottles of water should be saved and used for emergencies, not everyday use.

2) I take reusable bags to the store with me.  I have about 15 and I try to keep them in my car at all times.  If I forget them and end up with plastic bags, I feel pretty guilty.  If everyone would switch to using reusable bags most of the time instead of plastic, it would cut way down on unneeded garbage.

3) I make Jackson’s baby food.  I am not throwing away several jars or plastic containers everyday and I know EXACTLY what he is getting to eat!  Making your own baby food is so simple and easy:

Cook the food until it is soft (steaming works the best and retains the most nutrients), puree, blend or mash to the desired consistency, and then freeze (I use BPA-free trays, ice cube trays with lids also work great).  After the food is frozen, I pop the cubes out of the tray and into a freezer bag!  When it’s time for Jackson to eat, I just thaw a cube or two.  That’s it!

It’s really easy to make big batches of baby food at one time and store them in the freezer.  The last time I made it was over a month ago and I still have 3 bags of cubes in the freezer!  By doing bigger batches once a month, it’s really not time consuming at all!

4) My biggest (and scariest) change so far has been switching from disposable diapers to cloth diapers.  Did you know that it takes a disposable diaper 500 YEARS to break down in a landfill?  Yes, you read that right, FIVE HUNDRED YEARS!  The average family will use 5,000-7,000 disposable diapers PER CHILD.  That’s A LOT of unneeded garbage stinking up our landfills for A LONG time.

Not many people know about the cloth diapers of today.  They are not like they used to be!  Prefolds (the kind of cloth diapers that you are probably picturing) are still around, but there are so many new varieties that are just as easy to use as disposables!  Sure, you might worry about how to deal with dirty diapers (I know I was), but you know what?  It’s not a big deal with the right products!  I don’t know what I would do without my diaper sprayer; it makes messy diapers so easy to deal with!  For the extra squeamish, there are flushable liners.  They resemble dryer sheets and you lay them on the inside of the cloth diaper.  When it’s messy, just flush it down the toilet.  It’s that easy!

Switching to cloth diapers has a HUGE impact on the environment and it also saves you money.  They’re also ADORABLE and are so much more healthy and comfortable for your baby.

Another great thing about them?  They last, so I can use the same diapers on any future brothers or sisters that Jackson has!  When I’m done with them for good, I can post them here on Zwaggle so that other families can do their part for the environment too!

As you can probably tell, I’m very passionate about cloth diapers.  I started my blog to show that it can be done and that it’s not complicated at all.  If you have any questions about cloth diapers or making your own baby food, I would be happy to answer them.  Just visit my blog and leave me a comment there or here on the Zwaggle blog, and I’ll be sure to get back to you!

Making little changes today makes a big difference for tomorrow.  I want to be able to tell my children that I did whatever I could to leave our planet in the best shape possible for them.  Don’t you?

* Be sure to follow Holly on Twitter: @TheCDExperiment