take the greener parenting path...

The kids and I had the morning to ourselves so the plan was to let Mom enjoy some Nia exercise at ACAC and then we could head to the bookstore and the park.

In keeping with the no-buying pledge we head to Read It Again Sam on the downtown mall, my favorite used bookstore in town. I like the way it's laid out and the staff is always friendly and helpful.

My 7-yr old was looking for a football book and my 4-yr old wanted a Star Wars book. Unfortunately, they only had young adult and adult books dealing with those topics.

But they have a great kid section, so after my youngest finishes his tantrum, we begin to browse. Soon we are immersed in George's imaginary adventure among 76 dragons you have to find. And my oldest found a book about King Cobras that he's thrilled with. I even find a reprint of the 1915 edition of "The Betty Fairy Book."

So we make our final selections and head to Revolutionary Soup for lunch(love that place because they use lots of local and organic produce, just wish they would dish the plastic utensils). On the way to the park we buy our "Brownie for Barack" and head to the new McGuffey park. What a simple, beautiful, green day of fun.

On the way home I want to hit home the lesson of today's adventure: the hidden message being that it's fun and important to go green.

I ask my 7yr old how much his snake book was at the original price. $18.95. How much did we pay? $9.50. I said, Wow. Because we paid half the normal price, we were able to buy two extra (used) Ms. Frizzle chapter books about dinosaurs and whales! Cool. If we went to Barnes and Noble we would have had to spend more gas (more fossil fuels) and buy a new book (dead tree) and we could only buy one (the economics of this my boys really get!) That's why it's a better choice to go to a local used book store, son. We helped save a tree AND we helped support Dave and Barbara at Read It Again Sam (check the Betty directory for store hours). It's a total win-win.

And although we didn't find exactly what we were looking for in the first place, the alternative we chose was equally interesting and worthwhile and better for the planet. Maybe that's a big part of what "going green" means.

Peace,
BWB