You can learn how to share the benefits of yoga with children in a two-day Savannah Yoga Center workshop.

The Childrens Yoga Teacher Training Certification Workshop, taught by Joanne Spence, is open to all yoga practitioners who desire to share the benefits of yoga with kids -yoga teachers, parents, classroom/PE teachers, counselors and para-professionals.

The workshop is Sat. March 27, 10 AM-5 PM and Sun. March 28, 10 AM-5 PM. Cost: $185 if registered before Feb. 22 and $210 after Feb. 22.

You do not have to be a yoga teacher or even have the desire to be one to participate in this workshop. The Yoga Playgrounds Workshop is about discovering how to live your yoga in your professional and parental life. For more info on Yoga PlayGrounds, click here.

To pre-register, click here or call (912) 232-2994 or email kelley@savannahyoga.com.

You’re trying to keep your kids healthy this flu season by stuffing them with nutrient-rich meals.

But what to do with veggie-phobic tots? Convince them to take on what writer and mom Charlotte Hume calls
the World’s First Great Big Vegetable Challenge.

Charlotte convinced her 7-year-old son Freddie to take a vegetable journey of a lifetime, getting him to eat through the ABCs of veggies, trying each vegetable from asparagus to zucchini in alphabetical order.

Freddie had to try at least two recipes with each. His mom found recipes that she thought would appeal to her finicky eater’s appetite. The challenge resulted in Charlotte’s extremely helpful blog full of kid-friendly veggie recipes. Think
zucchini turkey burgers and a canneloni recipe with butternut squash.

Join the Great Big Veg Challenge here.

A thank-you to Urban Baby Daily Picks for letting us know about such a useful kid-friendly recipe blog.

The slow foods movement is coming to Wilmington Island.

St. Andrew’s School will host a slow foods dinner on Sat. Nov. 14 from 6 – 7:30 PM on the Wilmington Island campus. Proceeds from the dinner will support the school’s green garden, an outdoor classroom promoting whole foods, community service and environmental stewardship.

The goal is to celebrate local cuisine, teach young people gardening skills and enjoy wonderfully prepared foods by Brighter Day, Cha Bella, Local 11 Ten, The Sentient Bean, Thrive and our own St. Andrew’s cookbook crew – First Come, First Served.

For tickets or more information, please call 912.897.4941. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students.

Alison Zielenbach!

Alison wins a $25 gift certificate to SproutBaby, an online source for organic, affordable baby food and products for eco-conscious parents.  SproutBaby sells Sprout Foods, the organic baby chow created by celeb chef (and dad) Tyler Florence.

Thanks to everyone who participated. There’s also another to chance to win big from  SproutBaby,

To celebrate SproutBaby.com’s first birthday, the online store is kicking off  its new referral program with a $2,500 giveaway.

SproutBaby.com will award one lucky winner a $2,500 cash prize in a random drawing for all customers making purchases between Oct-15 (today) and Dec. 15.

SproutBaby.com is also launching a new referral program for parents and families to earn unlimited cash back for referring their friends, relatives and colleagues. For more information, contest rules and referral program guidelines, please visit: store.sproutbaby.com/birthday and store.sproutbaby.com/referral

This week, a lucky SouthernMamas reader will win a $25 gift certificate to the new planet-friendly online shop SproutBaby, which sells Sprout Foods, the organic baby chow created by celeb chef (and dad) Tyler Florence.

Check out the rules below to enter to win:

•Visit SproutBaby.com, click on Shop and tell us what product you’d love to buy by commenting below this post.
•Entry period closes 9 pm Thurs. Oct. 15. Please tell us your name. We’ll pick a name at random and announce the winner Fri. Oct. 16.
•You have to be a SouthernMamas subscriber to participate. Subscribing is free. Click here to subscribe.

SproutBaby.com is the brainchild of parents and professionals that saw an unexplored area of parenting and shopping and wanted to bridge the gap between making healthy choices and making easy choices.

As SproutBaby.com grows to include more options to fit more needs, the company will provide comprehensive, eco-conscious, e-commerce and social shopping which is centered around making it easy to make mindful decisions about the products parents choose to put on, in and around their children and families.

Love your baby. Love the planet.

SouthernMamas reader Elizabeth St. Lawrence will offer an informative class to parents, grandparents and parents-to be on the basics of cloth diapering.

Elizabeth was featured in a SouthernMamas Q&A on cloth diapering here. Cloth Diapering 101 will be 10 AM-noon Sat., September 12 @ Just for Baby & More, 7701 Waters Ave.

Cloth Diapering 101 class is free and open to the public. Please register by calling 912-355-4455 or email welshcasey@gmail.com.

First 20 registrants will receive a $15 gift card.

Also, in honor of Grandparent’s Day, Sept. 13, grandparents can bring in their grandchild’s picture and receive a choice gift card from the “giving tree”.

Remember every Wednesday, grandparents receive a 15 percent discount on gift and clothing purchase.

Let your child learn and receive the benefits of yoga early.

A youth yoga class – Little Warrior Yoga – meets 4-4:45 PM Mondays @ Ashram Savannah, 2424 Drayton St. It’s for ages 3-7.

During July, SouthernMamas readers receive a 2 for 1 special to the children’s yoga. Just mention SouthernMamas to receive your discount.

The class is led by yoga instructor Cathy Baxter of Twisted Warrior Yoga.

The class includes lively children’s music, games, movement, storytelling, and drawing. The goal is to spark children’s interest in yoga and give them the tools to be self-confident, focused and happy.

Yoga mats will be provided. Dress in comfortable clothing.

The adult accompanying the participating child needs to stay in Ashram Savannah, but can practice yoga, read, or enjoy a few quiet moments in the open studio next door.

Classes are playful and light hearted and a great beginning to a lifetime of loving yoga.

Cost is $10 for first child, 1 sibling $5. Don’t forget to mention SouthernMamas to receive your discount.

For more info, email Cathy@TwistedWarrior.com or visit the Web site here for youth yoga info as well as adult yoga classes.

Savvy SouthernMamas profiles are back.  Know a savvy mama you want to nominate? Email anne@southernmamas.com. Read past SouthernMamas rock! profiles here.

Meet Elizabeth St. Lawrence, stay-at-home mother of three who became a cloth-diaper enthusiast with the birth of her third daughter, Brianna (pictured here)

Your family:
Husband: Matthew. Three daughters: Alexandra (5), Samantha (4), and Brianna (6 months)

Liz, we understand you use cloth diapers. Are you nuts? Why did you decide to try cloth diapers this time around? And please tell us there’s no toilet dunking involved?

Honestly, I didn’t realize people still cloth diapered when I had my first two daughters! I think with the whole “green” movement the last few years combined with the economy, cloth diapers are making a great comeback. A few weeks before Brianna was born, I was giving into one of my guilty pleasures, Facebook, and one of my friends from high school mentioned cloth diapering on her status. I had to comment and bombard her with questions, and soon I was spending all of my free time researching cloth diapers!
There are a lot of valid reasons for cloth diapering; I will explain the reasons that “won” me over.

Read Liz’s reasons for cloth diapering, the entire interview with Liz and get help if you’re interested in cloth diapering (and even cloth wipes) by clicking here.

You can shop The Market @ Trustees Garden in downtown Savannah while the kids watch the BEE Movie for free.

The movie will be shown @ 5:30 PM inside the Charles H Morris Center during Market Hours. The Market will be located in the Brown Tent from 4-7 PM.   Seated dining area to watch movie.

The Market @ Trustees Garden includes artists, organic farmers, live music and local fare. It’s held Wednesdays (4-7 pm) and Saturdays, (9 am-3 pm).

We’re often too busy to savor the beauty of being a mom and spending time with our kids. A Waldorf-inspired parent-tot program on Tybee Island helps moms slow down for a few hours each week and appreciate our role while our children enjoy creative play, meaningful imitation and oral learning.

The parent-tot program for toddlers, ages 1 to 4, is in the home of Bridget Lawson, who is Waldorf-schooled and trained. Tots and moms bake bread; watch puppet shows in Bridget’s sun-dappled playroom, equipped with Waldorf wooden toys (and pictured here); engage in crafts, morning circle time, story, outdoor play; and enjoy an organic morning snack.

Tots even grind the wheat to make the bread, as pictured below.

My son and I are relishing Bridget’s first session, which has two more classes, 9:30-11:30 Fri. March 6 & March 13. We drive away from each program feeling happy and renewed, with our bag of fresh wheat rolls we made together.  The next session starts Fri. March 27 and will run for eight weeks ending on Fri. May 15.

Beginning the week of March 9 is a separate four-week Waldorf-inspired parent-infant program for infants ages 6 weeks to 10 months.  The Nurtured Newborns Class at Bridget’s home will include observation and discussion of infant behavior, simple circle games and lullabies, snack for the parents and a sharing of insights from recommended study books.

For registration and cost info. on either program, call 413.575.5338.

The aim of Waldorf is to produce lifelong learners and teach through movement and example.

In the past 20 years, Waldorf has become the largest private-school movement in the world, according to Mothering magazine. Waldorf methods are now being taken up by a growing number of homeschooling families and public charter and magnet schools nationally.

Read more about the Waldorf educational philosophy here.

Operation Red Meat is under way @ our house, now that my toddler has been diagnosed as slightly anemic thanks to my distaste and distrust of mainstream meat. So now my guilt-ridden grocery store shopping sprees involve lots of over-priced grass-fed, hormone-free beef.

Are you also wary of conventional meat, but tired of shelling out big bucks for organic beef @ grocery stores? Then check out the Savannah Food Co-op, which helps families obtain healthy and sustainably-produced food and dry goods at affordable prices.

The co-op, started by some innovative local moms, offers primarily regional organic produce, Georgia-produced natural milk and butter, Georgia-produced organic pasture-raised ground beef, Georgia-produced artisanal pastured cheese, Midwest small-farm-produced organic yogurt, local pastured organic eggs, locally-made natural baked goods, fair-trade organic locally-roasted coffee, and natural drugstore items.

Read a Savannah Morning News Article here by Mary Landers about this much-needed local service and check out the co-op here.

Tossing out all your baby bottles that contained BPA and replacing them with BPA-free bottles?

If those bad bottles came from Babies R Us, the chain store is making it easy to dump them. Babies R Us reportedly has a generous return policy when it comes to allowing concerned parents to exchange the hard, plastic bottles that contain bisphenol-A for ones that are BPA-free.

Bisphenol-A, which is added to polycarbonate plastic, has come under scrutiny in recent months after studies linked it to potential health problems in animals and humans. A draft report issued by the National Toxicology Program in April found BPA could cause “neural and behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children” and may be linked to breast cancer, prostate cancer and early puberty in girls.”

Babies R U saw sales of glass baby bottles and BPA-free bottles jump in 2007 and will phase out baby products containing BPA by the end of the year. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, and Toys R Us, the largest toy seller, have said that by January their shelves will be free of children’s products containing BPA.

The bottle exchange reportedly various from store to store. So call ahead to find a store that honors the BPA-free return policy.

Read more about the BPA-free bottle exchange here. For a list of BPA-free bottles and sippy cups, click here.