Green Daily points to a now-classic and very handy Japanese guide to furoshiki - wrapping gifts in fabric.

One Inch World blog shows us an easy way to make Bowtie pasta out of felt. I'm thinking Z might get a collection of pasta for Christmas.

Eco Child's Play has a roundup of six charities to consider for holiday gifts. Two of them, Heifer International and Ten Thousand Villages, made it into the Tranquil Parent Gift Guide, where you can find green, safer, healthier, and happier gift suggestions for your whole family.

Polliwogged has a great list of ten simple activities for you and your new baby.

The FDA found trace amounts of melamine in one of 77 infant formula samples they tested and cyanuric acid in another. Melamine can cause adverse kidney effects - kidney stones, bladder problems, and at worst kidney failure; the FDA was conducting tests after Chinese formulas were found to contain melamine that had been deliberately added, and was killing babies; the agency believes that the "trace amounts" of melamine found in Nestle's Good Start Supreme Infant Formula With Iron were introduced accidentally. The cyanuric acid was found in Enfamil Lipil With Iron. If found in combination, melamine and cyanuric acid combine to form crystals that can further harm kidneys and renal function.

The FDA alerted manufacturers only, and the public only found out after the Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the test results. The FDA then removed a statement from its own website stating that there were no known safe levels of melamine, and came out with a threshhold - which, incidentally, was above that found in the sample. Thankfully for the agency, it didn't really have any credibility left to squander. As the Washington Post summarized:

Critics said the FDA's reassurances about products carry less weight after the recent controversy over bisphenol-A, a chemical found in plastic baby bottles, dinnerware and the linings of food cans. The FDA dismissed a growing body of scientific evidence that has linked BPA to health problems even as worried consumers stopped buying BPA-containing products. Instead, the FDA relied on two industry-funded studies that concluded that BPA did not pose a health risk. Last month, the agency's science advisory board said the agency should no longer maintain that BPA is safe.

"When FDA claims there isn't any reason to worry, that's exactly what the consumer should do," said Ken Cook, president of Environmental Working Group. "The once-revered public health agency has morphed into a taxpayer-funded public relations arm for the very industries it was created to oversee."

Sometimes you don't know what you've got until it's gone.