Home Remedies

   Flintstone went into the Dr's office a couple days ago to get his shots, and I'm pretty sure he came back with some sort of a bug. I hate all the germs in Dr's offices. Which is another reason I chose to give birth at
home.

   Poor little monkey has been a congested and snotty and at night seems just generally uncomfortable. During the day he is, for the most part, his usual happy, active, mischievous self (though covered in snot), but at night he has trouble breathing through his nose. He tosses and turns and cries in his sleep. I've been bringing him into bed more than normal and he's on and off the breast every few minutes. He wants to nurse so bad, but his poor stuff nose makes it hard for him the breath while he does.

   I feel so bad for the little guy. I don't think I've ever seen him stay sick for more than a day.  As a family, we don't get sick very often at all. I credit avoiding meat, eating tons of veggies, staying active, and not smoking - a biggie.  And for Flintstone, I think a lot of his heartiness comes from breastfeeding.  He has never been Really sick (something I am thankful for every single day) and he's never had a fever or been what I'd call sick for more than a day.

   But now he is sick, and it's time to start breaking out all the home cold fighting remedies:

   Breastmilk - first and foremost.  Full of antibodies and perfect nutrition, breast milk has even been recommended for older kids (and even adults) if they happen to have a milk mama in the house. It also works like a charm for eye ickies - just fyi. Plus, it's been proven that sick kids recover faster with lots of loving touch, so breastfeeding doubles up on the healing goodness!

   Mama's Cold Remedy Soup - specially formulated from ingredients proven to help ease cold symptoms, plus it's yummy and there is no food more comforting for a cold than hot soup. Check out all the details be clicking the recipes tab up top!

   Steam - humidifiers, pots of boiling herbs, and hot baths and showers.  What parent hasn't spent a night in a steamy bathroom with a congested baby?  Yesterday morning (when I first tried to post this . . .) Flintstone and I spent a nice long time playing on the (clean) floor of a nice steamy shower.

      Hot Drinks - MacGyver and I differ on this.  My grandma is a nurse, and growing up whenever any of us didn't feel well, she'd make us something warm (not too hot, esp if there was a fever involved, and non caffeinated) to drink.  It was always instantly soothing to a sore throat and warming to the spirits.  To this day I swear by hot tea (or hot toddies ;-)) when I'm not feeling well.  Lemon, honey, and ginger being the old standbys remedy wises.  I haven't yet given Flintstone anything tea like even though there are plenty that are safe for him now.  I just haven't seen the need yet.  MacGyver, on the other had swears by cold when he's sick.  Frozen juice pops and sorbet.  Each to his own, I suppose.

      Ginger Ale - with actual ginger in it.   I've never understood drinking "ginger ale" that doesn't actually have ginger in it when you're sick.  Kinda missing the point, right?  Not to mention swigging down a whole lot of high fructose corn syrup.

      The list goes on and on.  A paste made of ground mustard seeds does wonders to ease congestion and stimulate circulation in kids old enough to follow the "don't touch this" directions.  So many remedies I can't possibly think of them all right now, and this post would be super long if I did.

      What remedies to you use when you or your little ones are feeling under the weather - for colds or other ailments?  I have a hiccup cure that works every single time . . .

      Tell me about your home remedies, and don't forget to check out my new Mama's Cold Remedy Soup over at the Recipes page.  It worked like a charm.

A Reason to Skip

      As we all know, I'm not one for skipping Holidays. It frustates the heck out of me when I walk into a store that's all fancied up for Christmas/Yule/Chanukka/Festivus and all other holidays on or around Winter Solstice before we've even hit Halloween (or even Patriot Day in some cases!).

      But I'm breaking my cardinal rule and skipping ahead a holiday. This skipping, however is necessary and is only preparatory. Heaven knows I would never fully gloss over Halloween/Samhain! But poor Thanksgiving really gets short shrift anyway, being sandwiched right between Halloween and the Soltstice holidays . . . READ MORE>>

"Turn That Trash Down!"

      Sometimes, I think my taste in music kinda dates me.  I listen to a lot of classic rock - Meatloaf, Bon Jovi, REO Speedwagon, and Blue Oyster Cult rock my socks, just to name a few.  At work, I mostly listen to classical music on NPR (though I do occasionally change it up with my YouTube playlists).  At dinner, we listen to classical, smooth jazz, blues, or new-age-y soothing nature sounds classical stuff.

      Based on that, my taste in music seems to scream "Old Person."  But I'd like to think my taste hasn't totally passed over into that realm just yet.  Because I do still love current music - rock, punk, some alternative, and, yes, Top 40 Pop.

      I love Top 40 Pop, and that's usually what I listen to on my short commute.  And while my age hasn't yet wiped out my taste for this stuff, it has definitely had an effect on my thought processes listening to it.  Just a couple of examples:

      If I Die Young by The Band Perry - I really liked this song the first time I heard it.  The voice, the melody, the whole package - it's a very pretty song to listen to, and very catchy.  Which is probably why it became so popular.  The problem is, after hearing it just a couple times I knew all the words to the song and one verse started to haunt me: 

"Lord make me a rainbow, I'll shine down on my mother
She'll know I'm safe with you when she stands under my colors, oh and
Life ain't always what you think it ought to be, no
Ain't even grey, but she buries her baby"

      The first time I caught that verse, it kind of gave me the shivers.  The next time, it almost brought me to tears.  Just copying it here threatened to choke me up.  And you know why?  Because I'm a mom.  The thought of burying either of my babies is the most horrifying proposition in the world to me.  That very last line is like all my worst fears rolled up into 8 words.  And it made me instantly hate the song.

      But I couldn't escape it.  The damn song is on ALL THE TIME.  At one point, it came on so I flipped the station, and it was also on the next station, so I flipped again, and IT WAS ON THAT STATION TOO!  Then it would get stuck in my head.  Eventually, falling asleep with the song in my head even gave me absolutely aweful nightmares.  (As I've mentioned in passing before, I have been diagnosed with "obsessive thoughts" when it comes to anxieties about my kids' safety).

     And 10 years ago, I never would have had this sort of reaction to this song.  But now, I'm a mom.  And maybe that means I'm a little old and silly pop songs can make me cry.  Deal.

      E.T. - by Katy Perry w/ Kanye West - I love this song.  I makes me smile every single time it comes on.  Probably partially based on my unnatural affinity for anything remotely X-Files related, and also because the song just all around amuses me.  But I can tell I'm old because I am straight up ASHAMED that I love this song.  It is an awful song.  It's perverse and weird and dirty and weird.  So I was relagated to loving the song in secret, because seriously - I can't believe the crap they'll put on the radio these days:

"Infect me with your love and

Fill me with your Poison."

Just WRONG!

      But the last straw may have come last week.  There was a new song out that I really enjoyed, but I couldn't quite make out the words.  I even told MacGvyer one day when it was on, "I really like this song, but I wish I could make out the lyrics.  It's no fun if I can't sing along (which may be yet another sign I'm getting too old for Top 40 Pop)."

     I heard it a few more times and continued to like it.  I could peice together some lines, but the main parts of the chorus remained a mystery to me.

      Until I caught the title of the song (which also happened to be the words I couldn't make out) from a DJ:

      Pumped up Kicks - by Foster the People.

     

"All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet"

      Oh my effing bob, seriously?  I CAN'T say that out loud.  What the eff does that even mean?  Pumped up kicks?  Really?

      Crap.

      I think I'm too old for this . . .

Sex Ed: Amazing!

      When I was pregnant, Punky started asking questions.  Nothing too risqué, nothing particularly specific, but it was clear that she was curious.

      The first time she asked, I was completely unprepared a little surprised.  I pulled up some handy internet images of the good old female reproductive system (internal) and promptly bored the curiosity right out of her with talk of cells and tubes and gestation.  I also answered her question of just how the baby would get out of my stomach.  That pretty much quelled the curiosity at that point.  But it didn't hold it off for long . . .  READ MORE>>

Food Day!

What could be better than a day all about food?

A day all about using food to make the world a better place!

Check out my Food Day Post!  (Includes an opportunity to be a featured blogger here on Cheap Wine and Cookies).

Reunited

      The 10 year High School Reunion was a smashing success.  I know everyone's dying to see pictures of me with random people I knew 10 years ago.

      Leading up to it, I was super excited.  I had been looking forward to my reunion for 12 years.  Yes, I'm such a nostalgia junkie that I was already looking forward to my reunion before I even graduated high school.  But then when the day of the reunion actually rolled around, I became completely apathetic about the whole thing.  I was having fun hanging out with the Fam.  We went to the local Harvest Festival and the car show, and we were having a really nice, chill day.  I was really surprised at my lack of excitment. 

      We finally pried ourselves away and got ready for the reunion.  And, let me tell you, I looked GOOD.  Sure, it's conceited, but whatever, it's true.  MacGvyer bought me a new dress for the night (he's even better at shopping for me than I am!), and it fit just right.  I put on just a touch of eye make-up, and we were off.  We decided at the last minute to check into a hotel nearby that some of our other friends were staying in even though it worried me leaving Flintstone without either of us overnight.  In the end, I was SUPER glad we did. 

I swear I looked a lot better than I do here .  . .

     We met up with a couple friends at the hotel and walked over to the piano bar where the ruinion was taking place.  When we walked in, I looked around and thought, "WTF?  I don't know any of these people."  Which is a little strange given the fact that I had a very small graduating class and I know half of them on Facebook.

      So we went upstairs to where the reunion was :-) and the first person I made eye contact with when I walked in was an old friend I used to party with - who also happened to be an old friend of Evil Ex's.  A moment of panic struck me.  I know at least a couple people from high school read my blog even though it's supposed to be anonymous and whatnot.  The LAST thing I wanted was to deal with any Evil Ex drama that night - or ever.  But the moment washed away quickly as a huge smile broke over that friend's face and he greeted me excitedly.

      From then on, it was a whole bunch of happy, excited greetings, reminiscing, and catching up.  There were so many people there I was so happy to see and there wasn't a single person there I didn't want to see.  It was so great to see so many of my old friends from high school, and I was thrilled that there wasn't any of the drama I had been worried might present itself.

      Well, almost.  There was one bit of drama, but it stayed very low key.  A friend of mine from high school who had always had a crush on me (who is WELL aware that I am happily married and was there with his fiancee), who has always viewed our relationship as a sort of a "star-crossed" thing did push the boundaries a little.

      I wasn't wuite sure how seeing him would go down.  Though we never dated, we flirted heavily in high school.  We came very close to getting together a couple times, but the timing just never worked out.  I've mentioned this particular friend to me.  He's the one who played me the song Drops of Jupiter by Train while waxing poetic about unrequited love.  I was dating a friend of his at the time, and even though we both knew exactly what we were talking about, even then I dispised the idea of cheating.

     Shortly after we graduated, he declared his deep love for me in a letter, but alas, the timing was off again and "it was too painful" for him to stay in touch with me.

      A few years after that, we started sending some friendly emails back and forth, but he put a stop to it saying that he felt that being in touch with me was a threat to his new relationship even though I lived 500 miles away and was not interested in being in a relationship with him.  Surely, I told him, I wasn't a threat.  "You'll always be a threat."  And that was it.

     SO, now we've been Facebook buddies for a year or so.  As it turns out, I'm friends with his fiancee through other channels.  I'm happily married.  Things are cool.  Finally all the drama - for as much fun as it is to get a little nostalgic about - is over.

      We said a fleeting hi to each other in passing, then went about our nights.  Later - after much drinking had been done by all - I was standing, talking to a friend and her husband about who knows what, when a hand slides across my VERY LOWER back and a person I assume to be MacGyver stands next to me.

      Except it's not MacGvyer.  Ahem.  I was so taken aback, I didn't even know how to react.  I didn't exactly want to draw attention to it.  After all, I had had a few glasses of wine and thought maybe I had been imagining it.  But then, as he's talking to us, his hand keeps brushing my bare thigh, just below my skirt.  I immediately saw someone I just HAD to talk to and was off.  Didn't think much else of it.  It was probably a mistake, and no one had noticed it.

      At least, I thought no one had noticed it.  Later, my friend's husband told me that they had both very clearly seen it.  And apparently I hadn't hidden my thoughts quite as well as I thought I had.  "I thought you were going to smash your wine glass on his face!"  he told me.  Ha.  Oops.  Well at least I DIDN'T . . .

      And honestly, I was a little flattered, too.  Actually, I was flattered a lot of times over the course of the whole night.  I mean, isn't that what these things are all about?  "Oh, my gosh, it's so great to see you; you look amazing; I can't believe what you've been up to," and so on.

      I took it all with a grain of salt.  Flattery is enjoyable, but not very substantive.  There were only two compliments I received that I took seriously, and I am STILL super tickled by them.  An old friend who is super smart, extremely pretty, and has done great things with herself education and career wise since we graduated told me that in her opinion I was the most successful person at the reunion.  How amazing is that?  I don't care if there were only 10 people there, that is such a super sweet thing for anyone to say, I probably squeezed her guts out hugging her.  I am NOT trying to say that was true.  Just how happy I was that someone thought so.

      Then, a few days ago NotDonna told me that I was the hottest female at the reunion.  Now, I don't actually believe this for a second.  I even pointed out to her who the hottest female at the reception actually was.  But it was so sweet of her to say.  And being with everyone from high school, I will say this (braggy though it may be): I have aged well (so far!).  There are a lot of days when I get down on myself, feeling old, feeling out of shape, feeling like I have huge circles under my eyes.  But really, standing in that room, and looking at pictures, I haven't changed much since high school.  I really haven't.  I weigh the same as when I graduated (even though it's distributed a little differently - better, if I do say so myself); I don't have "mom hair," I've stayed fit.  No, I wasn't the hottest female at the reunion, but I've taken care of myself pretty well.

      Not that that means much or makes me any better than anyone else, but come on.  It was my high school reunion!

Chatting with NotDonna

      Really, my favorite meaningless triumph of the night came a few hours in as I was standing watching MacGvyer, NotDonna's husband The Engineer, and the husband of another friend (the one who made the comment about the wine glass above) talk to each other.  And it dawned on me.  They were EASILY the three hottest guys in the room.  Seriously.  If you had told me in high school that I would be thin and successful at my high school reuntion, I would have been happy but not shocked.  But there is no chance in Hell that I would ever have believed that NotDonna, ShortOne, and I would have the HOTTEST husbands at the reunion, bar none.  Even hotter than ANY guy in our class.

Hottest guys at the reunion

      But, man was it true.  And that tickled me more than anything else could have.  Shallow and pointless as it may be.  It's just one of those crazy tricks that fate plays.  We weren't popular.  We weren't unpopular, but we weren't the prettiest girls out to get the handsomest husbands.  What an interesting turn of fate.  (Not to mention an enjoyable one).

      After the "official" reunion ended, the party continued and MacGyver and I found ourselves on the dance floor.  A whole lot of our history is tied up in dancing.  MacGvyer and I dance very well together, though when we've both been drinking it tends to get somewhat provacative.  I'm told there was a fair bit of watching going on.  This maybe should flatter me, but really I just find it embarassing as hell.  Even if our dancing was super impressive, I'm not thrilled at the idea of being watched. C'est la vie.

      After we retired from dancing, we decided to hang out back at the hotel with some friends, but were stopped on the way out. 

THIS is the last thing I remember at the reunion.  Then suddenly we were back at the hotel . . .

       I did a couple shots, then we were miraculously back at the hotel.  Don't know how that happened . . .

      We hung out with ShortOne and her hubs for a while before turning in for the night only to enjoy a wonderful complimentary breakfast (I am a complete sucker for complimentary breakfast) and a late check out in the morning.  Flintstone had a fine night, well taken care of by Uncle Boo and Nan.  Nan was ready for a nap since Flintstone apparently decided he wanted to walk from the house to the Crick and back (which is not a short walk) - over and over again.

      Now I can't wait for the 20 year!



I was also possibly the least photogenic person at the reunion.



Pumpkin Pancakes and Flinstone's Take on Weekends

Check it out here!