It's been hard to get to the blog because of all else that goes on around here: teeth-brushing, toy-picking-up, adventures in central park, slow-food-cooking-experiments. And then once in a while there's a quiet naptime and time to check in here.

We've been thinking about water filters this week, and wondering if we should buy a high-tech water filter to reduce the chlorine and the fluoride and the arsenic and the lead and everything else that is in our water. Sure, the water in NYC is clean and safe. Kind of. It comes from a nice reservoir, not far from our place upstate. But then it has to travel 150 miles to get here. And it's processed to kill the bacteria, so it's more like swimming pool water than spring water. Then the water is medicated with fluoride. We've heard anti-fluoride mamas described as "fringe".  Fringe? The fluoride surrounds us, and really it's not that good for you— and sometimes is actually too much for a toddler's teeth (and bones, and organs). We keep it out of our toothpaste, but we'd also like to keep it out of our water.  Europe is 97% fluoride free. Why not we?  (If we lived in London we wouldn't have fluoride in our water, wouldn't pay for health care, wouldn't have to register our kid with a board of education, and wouldn't be arguing with the doctor every time they suggested a chicken pox shot.) I suppose the fringe American is just a mainstream European at heart. So, we're going to get a water filter that at least reduces the amount of fluoride that we consume (not to mention bathe in).

Meanwhile we've been doing a lot of bird watching in the Ramble in Central Park, and these are our sightings for the month: red-tailed hawk, starling, grackle, downy woodpecker, robin, field sparrow, mourning dove, pigeon, mallard, red-winged black bird, cardinal.

Stay tuned for warblers. And peace.