Brainwashing
February 24, 2010 | 4 Comments
At least with my oldest child, I think that perhaps the brainwashing I mean education has been particularly effective.
Case in point, today he began throwing up and having diarrhea. Evidently it’s going around?
I offer him some homeopathic Ipecac.
“No. I would rather my immune system take care of it.”
“Honey, it’s harmless. Homeopathics support your immune system. It won’t hurt you.”
“No.”
Clamps hand over mouth.
Sigh.
Apparently he was listening all those times I talked about the evils of pharmaceuticals and Big Pharma.
A few minutes later after referring to my trusty Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child, I tell him I’ll be giving him some acidophilus later.
“NO! I don’t want anything killing off my healthy bacteria!”
“Sweetie, acidophilus IS the healthy bacteria. You’re thinking of antibiotics. See? It says it right here in the book…”
photo credit: freeparking
I take him a small glass of water and suggest he take small sips, not gulps.
I’m surprised when this doesn’t lead to an argument about fluoride and estrogen in the water supply.
Top Ten Faves This Pregnancy
February 23, 2010 | 3 Comments
Today marks my 20th week of pregnancy, the official halfway mark. In view of this I decided to post my top 10 favorite things so far this baby downloading.
- MOE’S Southwest Grill. Let’s get food right out of the way since it’s SO very important to me at the moment, umkay? If this little one is a boy I might have to name him Moe because I cannot seem to get enough of their steak Overachiever tacos. The perfect combo of tastes to please the pregnant palate: crunch, protein, guac! and vinegary tomatillo salsa. Yum
- Green Olives. Straight outta the jar.
- Cinnamon Calli tea. The only thing I’ve found to ease my nausea a bit.
- My Old Navy maternity under the belly skinny jeans. These make me feel like some parts of me are semi-normal still.
- The BabyCenter.com emails that keep me updated on baby’s size and development each week. Also sweet to forward to Big Z.
- Target’s maternity clearance rack, where I’ve snagged shirts for $2.
- My BeBand that kept me in my pre-preggers jeans for several weeks past their unbottoned capacity. I’ve even used it as a comfy bra under dresses that are too low cut. I also plan on using it to hold my pants together postpartum before I’m able to button them.
- Big Z. For putting 5 kids to bed every night by himself while I try to sleep off nausea.
- Sweet children who are tiptoe around and are extra nice to me and each other after they hear me vomiting in the bathroom. Also Sadie and Ilana lifting my shirt to kiss my belly and say, “Hi baby, I love you!”
- My Floradix. My iron has been low this pregnancy so I started taking this stuff. It doesn’t make me sick and cause constipation like other iron supplements. Also doesn’t taste half bad!
photo credit: Bludgeoner86
Natural Moms Podcast #136
February 23, 2010 | 2 Comments
My guest this week is John Monroe. He is sharing “eye-opening” information with us on natural vision improvement based on the work of Deborah Banker, M.D., an ophthalmologist/general practitioner and internationally known expert on health and vision improvement.
Is it possible to eliminate the need for glasses and improve and prevent eye diseases? Have you ever wondered if eyeglasses actually accelerate the degeneration of your eyes? Listen in and find out!
Learn more about Dr. Banker’s Home Study Vision Improvement Kit here.
Pediatrician Zhivago
February 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Yesterday I got a little spanking from the kid’s pediatrician.
You see, I only take my kids to the Doctor when they’re sick and I’m unsure of the diagnosis or am concerned that it’s more serious than what I can handle and treat at home.
Which ends up being about every 5 years or so.
Apparently Pediatricians like to see the wee ones more often than that. Who knew?
Seriously though, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it right?
My youngest has only been to the Doctor twice in her 4 years. Once was when she was a week old for a comprehensive newborn exam. The next time was when she had an infected hangnail that wasn’t responding to home remedies and was painful to touch.
Yesterday the occasion was a little check up for Julien. It all started with a visit to the Dentist. During the exam, he asked me if Julien had ever suffered from reflux.
“No, why?”
“He has some unusual wear on his back teeth that isn’t indicative of bruxism but looks more like that of a child with reflux. Does he ever have hot burps?”
Stifling a laugh, I respond that he has never complained of any symptoms.
“It could be that he had it in the past. Just mention it to his pediatrician next time you see him.”
I’ve noticed a couple of things with Julien that concerned me and wasn’t sure if they were related, but reflux might fit the picture. And since he hasn’t seen the pediatrician in a few years, I decided to make him an appointment.
After looking over Julien’s chart, the Doctor immediately starts in on me.
“I not see dis child for 4 years. How I know if his growth eez normal? What about his yearly FEE-zee-cul?”
(You see, pediatrician is from Israel and has a cute accent. Also bears resemblance to Omar Sharif. With a little Raffi too. Who I also had a wee crush on. Which is the real reason I endure this.)
After looking in Julien’s mouth and ears he asks me one question:
“Does he have odor from zee mouth?”
Uh-oh. Yes, I am now admitting to the world wide internets that my beautiful sweet darling boy has stinky breath. All the time. Even after brushing, flossing and tongue cleaning. This is one of those little things I was concerned about.
When I admitted this to the good Doc, he made an immediate recommendation.
“Get him some Act-EEE-vee-ya. You know dis Act-EEE-vee-ya? One a day, in zee morning. He needs bac-TEER-e-yas. Act-EEE-vee-ya has zee good bac-TEER-e-yas. Also, Tag.a.met. 150 milligrams, for two weekz.”
Sigh. I’m not unhappy about the Activia with the good bacterias, but I’m not so happy about the Tagamet.
After all, he hasn’t done any tests to confirm the diagnosis. Is this one of those Dr. House-ish moves where you give the patient the drugs and if they get better, you confirm what you thought was wrong with them?
“So you think he has reflux?”
“No. You need make appointment for FEE-zee-cul so I can run some tests.”
“So why are we giving him Tagamet when we aren’t sure he has reflux?”
(Doctors just love it when you challenge them like this.)
Large Family Laundry Solutions: “Before”
February 15, 2010 | 2 Comments
I knew something had to change. I’ve been spending far too much time doing laundry for my large family (there are 7 of us, with one on the way).
Interestingly, in my days as a single mom of 4, I kept on top of laundry doing one load a day. As long as I did that, laundry never got overwhelming. During some of that time, I didn’t own a dryer and hung all the laundry outside or inside on a drying rack.
When I found myself in a house without a washing machine, I did the coin laundry thing for awhile. (Surprisingly, I didn’t mind this at all. Every week, armed with about $8 in quarters and two hours, I got ALL the laundry washed, dryed and folded in one fell swoop.)
Back to my laundry management system before August 24, 2009.
Part of the reason for my success with “one load a day” despite having 4 kids was because I had instilled good laundry habits in my young’uns. I trained them to wear their jeans two or three times, until they actually looked or smelled dirty. I strongly discouraged changing outfits multiple times a day and made sure items were actually dirty before I washed them.
They also had modest wardrobes. Everyone looked good, but their dressers and closets weren’t stuffed to the gills by any means. I found that I could even get away with not sorting (since I almost never use bleach and most of their clothing was purchased used, so nothing was going to bleed). I washed boy’s laundry on one day, girls on the other. That cut down on the footwork too (since the kids were roomies).
Enter new hubs and a 10 year old step daughter, aka Big Z and Little Z (Zeke and Zoe).
Of course, I love them dearly and wouldn’t trade them for all the Soap Nuts in the world…
but suddenly I found myself doing FOUR loads a day just to keep up, much less put a dent in the piles!
I spoke to Big Z about this phenomenon (also throwing in how much I previously earned per hour as an internet marketing coach to moms and a freelance writer, teehee) and we came up with some solutions. (Well actually I came up with solutions but Big Z wielded the power tools and did the heavy lifting. Gotta love that!)
Before I unveil my new “Large Family Laundry Solution”, I’ll talk a bit about why my laundry duties quadrupled overnight and what my laundry routine of recent months has looked like.
I’ll call this the BEFORE.
(I do wish I had actually taken a picture of the monstrosity that was the “BEFORE” with its mountain of laundry all over the basement floor but alas, I didn’t. I promise nice shiny pics of the “AFTER” shortly, when I do the B portion of this post.)
Bad Laundry Habits
Let me now refer to some of the habits that create needless laundry work. The first of which is :
Bogus Laundry
Bogus laundry is clothing that isn’t actually dirty, but which is mindlessly tossed into the hamper, where the Laundry Fairy/Angel (aka Mom) magically takes care of it. A few examples:
- Bogus laundry include jeans that are worn for a couple of hours that still look and smell clean.
- Socks that were never worn but which fell on the floor because the owner didn’t put them away in a timely manner.
- My personal favorite, towels that are used to blot a CLEAN body dry after a shower, which are then tossed still damp into the hamper. Ugh! (Please tell me I’m not the only person in America who thinks it’s perfectly sanitary to use a bath towel several times?)
- Doll clothes. Double ugh.
- Suits and dresses that are worn for two hours while a child sits still in a place of worship. They ain’t dirty either.
See what I mean? All this bogus laundry was adding up to huge work (and a wee touch of resentment) for mama.
Another bad laundry habit?
Too Much Clothing
Let’s be honest. Most of us wear about 20% of our clothing 80% of the time. Why not get rid of the clutter? All it does it spill out of jammed dresser drawers and make things fall off hangers in closets (creating more bogus laundry!).
When I moved into Big Z’s house, I tactfully suggested that he toss some of the threadbare T-shirts he had been collecting since the late 80′s. Since we were moving and having to pack up this stuff anyway, he obliged. We ended up with FOUR large black trash bags full. Ahem.
My stepdaughter’s closet had enough short sleeved t-shirts in it to outfit a small orphanage. She admitted that she didn’t like or wear most of them, so it was toss! toss! pack into storage for her new younger stepsister! She was thrilled to create tons of new space in her closet.
Another factor is my husband changing clothing several times a day. First he takes off his t shirt and PJ bottoms and tosses them into the hamper (wrong, PJs can be worn several times!), then puts on work clothes which of course get nasty with furniture repair goo, then changes into exercise clothing that get sweaty and smelly, then back into PJs… not sure what to do about all these wardrobe changes!
My laundry “routine” also brought me frustration.
My washer and dryer are located downstairs in the basement. Good because of the space to move around. Bad because I was hauling laundry baskets up the stairs. Then I folded it in little stacks around the living room. Then I asked various children to put their stack away.
The end result was that I had multiple little laundry piles for each load creating visual clutter in my living room while I waited for kids to obey or reminded them over and over.
No good.
The new system is much better. It saves me time, labor and creates no clutter.
More on that later!
Snow Way!
February 13, 2010 | 1 Comment
I’ve never seen snow like this in Georgia. While we may get a light sprinkling every year or two, it usually turns to ice immediately and isn’t any good for snowball making, much less snowman construction!
The snow was so thick and powdery, it could be rolled up in big thick sheets like insulation. I could hardly believe my eyes!
The kids built a ginormous snowman about 5 feet tall. This is really unbelievable for Georgia.
Before building the snowman though, the kids first jumped into the huge piles of snow.
My goal for this “snowed in” weekend was to finish ALL the laundry.
Ha! Fat chance. With all the wet pants, gloves and socks… I doubt it’s going to happen!
Speaking of laundry strategies for the large family, I tweeted and asked for tips yesterday.
If you have any time or labor saving advice to share, please reply to my Twitter stream or leave a comment below.
Thanks again!
Missed BlissDom
February 12, 2010 | 1 Comment
I’m feeling a little disappointed about missing BlissDom this year. (You can see a few of my BlissDom posts here and on my business blog here.)
Oddly, I had no plans to go. But hearing all the tweeting and thinking of how I missed seeing some of my favorite mom bloggers, I felt a twinge.
I have been feeling too horrible to do any traveling, but it’s on my agenda for next year. If you were in attendance, I would love to read your recap posts!
Please link to them in the comments. Thanks!
Dear Mother Can You Hear Me Whining?
February 5, 2010 | 2 Comments
I picked up the phone to call my mother today but she was still in bed which isn’t surprising since it’s one of those awful cold wet rainy dark days and I was going to whine about how on top of having nausea 24 hours a day I hurt my neck and despite my dear husband rubbing it with essential oils it still hurt like the dickens and I couldn’t sleep on my right side and it even hurt when I slept on my left so I had to sleep on my back which isn’t exactly comfy at 17 weeks and it hurts so bad this morning I can’t help my 4 and 7 year old daughters do their homeschool math so instead the 7 year old is helping the 4 year old and reading her stories which really is just too cute and to add insult to injury I’ve been having these headaches which I’ve never had during my pregnancies before and I can’t believe I have to go out in this God-awful weather and drag 4 kids to the grocery store but we need stuff so I can cook dinner and we’re out of snacks except bread which is fine for the older kids but Sadie is allergic and will get itchy rashes and productive farts which just makes more laundry and so I have to go and also I’m craving orange juice so badly I might hurt someone if I don’t get some soon and why did Georgia have to decide after a decade of drought to make up for lost time by raining buckets for months on end this winter and if I don’t get some sun on my face soon I might hurt myself and I read the other day that the excess estrogen in pregnancy can cause irritability and I’m all, “no sh@#*% Sherlock” and Caleb says he has no pants to wear and I remember that I didn’t do any laundry yesterday because of the intense nausea and headaches so instead of having 4 loads to do today I have 8 just to keep on top of it so I’m actually considering letting my 11 year old stay home by himself from the store but then his brother finds him a pair and suddenly I notice the kids are being awfully sweet to each other and to me probably because I lost it a little bit yesterday and raised my voice which I don’t usually do but I think they realized they had pushed too far and I suddenly feel a little ashamed complaining since the Amish women are so tough and all and some women cannot conceive a child and would be happy to be miserable for 9 months and although birth is pretty cool I wouldn’t take a 7 figure salary to be a surrogate mom.
/whine
… thank goodness when Mom can’t come to the phone, I still have my blog. 
Act Natural Hair Color Review
February 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I’ve talked about natural hair color on the blog before so I was eager to try this product. It’s from a company called ACT (Advanced Cosmetic Technologies). Their website is http://www.ActNaturals.com.
Unfortunately, I can’t give this product a glowing review.
I was excited about using an all natural, vegetable based dye to (hopefully) cover the grey roots that have been growing since my pregnancy began, but it didn’t do that so well.
To be fair, grey hair is notoriously resistant to color and even conventional semi and demi permanent hair colors often don’t color it sufficiently. It may just not be possible to color grey without chemicals.
If you search the internet you’ll find some really horrible reviews of this product. My thoughts are far less extreme either way so I’ll do a quick list of pros and cons:
PROS:
- The product is a natural, vegetable based dye and therefore has no PPD (short for paraphenylene-diamine, which I mention here in another article about natural hair dye). It also contains no ammonia or peroxide (so it cannot lighten, only darken your current hair color).
- It has a fresh, pleasant smell. When my oldest son walked in the room he said “something smells like cherries”.
CONS:
- The product was a little more complicated to apply. It’s a two step process and also requires the application of heat (basically you use a blow dryer to apply heat for 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off until you rinse). That wasn’t a super big deal, but the product is a little runny so it’s hard to keep it off your scalp, which leads to the second problem.
- The dye was very difficult to rinse off. I rinsed my hair 3 times but it still felt a little “muddy” with the product. Even now after several shampoos, dye comes off on my hands if I run them through my hair. The included “stain guard” did effectively remove stains from the sink at least.
That last issue is evidently par for the course for vegetable dyes. In fact today I got my hair cut and explained to the hair dresser what was happening. She said that was typical. “We use vegetable dyes here all the time and that’s just what they do, the pigments are just really strong.”
My hair doesn’t feel at all damaged or dried out. It feels soft and looks shiny so I’m pretty confident it wasn’t harmed by the process.
My final take?
I would recommend this product for people who have medium to dark hair (that is more forgiving of color mishaps) and wanted to go a bit darker, but not if I had grey hair I wanted to color.
How To Afford Cloth Diapers
February 2, 2010 | 4 Comments
Unfortunately, I eliminated my cloth diaper stash after my youngest child potty trained. (She was, after all, going to be my “last baby” right?)
Yesterday I got my first batch of cloth diapers in the mail. I’ve enjoyed fondling them ever since.
You mean I have to wait 6 months before I get to actually USE them?
As a self-confessed cloth diaper addict, I can scarcely wait to diaper a baby bum in these. It’s one of the fun things about new babies – perusing the different brands, deciding on your cloth diaper “system”, buying, washing and stacking your diapers in anticipation of baby’s arrival.
Frugal mommies who are using disposables become geniuses at combining store specials with coupons and rebates to get their baby’s ‘sposies dirt cheap – but what’s a cheapskate cloth diapering mommy to do?
Affording Cloth Diapers: How to build your cloth diaper stash
The most affordable cloth diapers are almost always going to be Chinese Prefolds. These are the workhorse diaper. Absorbent, they are easy to wash and they dry quickly.
Generally prefolds $1-2 apiece for the good ones, and you can often find imperfect “Seconds”
Prefolds are awesome for their adaptability too. You can fold them in different ways for boys and girls and use two in one diaper cover for nighttime. If baby has a rash, a loosely pinned on prefold will provide some protection while letting lots of air flow around to allow his skin to heal.
But, if you’re interested in trying some of the new, fancy schmancy Cadillac cloth diapers (or just want to keep a few of those around for Dads, Grandparents or babysitters who may not “get” cloth … or for travel), here are a few suggestions on affording them if you’re on a tight budget.
(There is another article here on affordable cloth diapers for your reading pleasure.)
Baby Shower Registry
Nowadays, dozens of natural baby online shops are offering baby registries. Search around to see if your favorite site offers one.
Personally I always found it very difficult to register at a typical discount store like Target and the like, because I don’t use so many conventional baby products that these stores sell.
But a lot of your friends and relatives will love the convenience of a baby registry. They know they’re getting you what you like and what you really need.
Amazon’s Wish List is another great option.
Simply browse to items you want and click “add to wish list”. If you have an Amazon account, you have a wish list by default. If you want to create a new one, it’s super simple to do. Tell your friends you’re “registered” at Amazon when they ask!
Once A Month Diaper
Try investing in just two or three diapers a month during your pregnancy. If your budget is tight you can probably still reallocate some funds to the tune of $20-$30 a month.
By the end of 9 months you should have a couple dozen, which if you wash often, could suffice, especially if you purchase “One Size” diapers.
Used
Back in the good old days (when my oldest was a baby), I could find nice used cloth diapers at thrift stores – it’s been years since this has been the case however. My thought is that most moms who are getting rid of their stash just sell them on eBay instead.
But, it’s still worth looking around – especially at consignment sales. Of course eBay and sites like DiaperSwappers are also great for finding used cloth diapers. If the idea of “used” cloth is too much for your squeamishness level, keep in mind that many moms will sell new diapers that their baby has outgrown or that do not fit their baby’s shape well, or that they flat out do not like. Some of these have been washed not worn, and some have never been worn. It’s worth a look.
So. How did YOU build your cloth diaper stash on the cheap?
Please share your tips in the comments!
photo credit: mikeporcenaluk
