Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had as great a Christmas with their families as I did with mine.

(Raiden is seriously the best toddler ever. He is talking so much it's getting hard to keep up, and I get more and more proud of him every second.)

Clean dirty hippie.

Some months ago I became intrigued enough by a friend's talk about washing her hair with "no-poo" that I gave it a shot. Weeks and several experiments later, I got fed up with it and went back to shampoo. Weeks after that I got over my defeat and tried again, with more success. Weeks after that I got lazy and went back to shampoo just because it was there. And weeks after that, I realized that I really didn't like the feel of my hair with shampoo, after I got used to the feel of it with no-poo, and went back to no-poo again - or, at least, a combination of methods I'd read about during the earlier trial phases. 

For the actual no-poo mixture, I simplified it back down to plain old baking soda and water. If I'm feeling saucy I'll put some essential oils in it, but that's about all. For a conditioner, I realized that it was the apple cider vinegar that was keeping my hair too oily before, and decided to just stick with plain old cheap conditioner. So I guess I'm not totally "no-poo" as their definition states that "with no 'poo, you don't use conditioner," but I'm still not using shampoo. 

Why? My hair seems to get greasy faster with shampoo, and it's a different kind of greasy than with the baking soda and water. I'm not even sure quite how to explain the difference, but I'll try anyway. With shampoo, my hair actually feels greasy and gross; with no-poo, my hair has a simple oil build up that is oily, but not gross feeling. I can also go longer without feeling like I need to wash my hair - 3-4 days, rather than 2 at best.

The "no-poo" description also says, "some of us transition away from using baking soda as a wash once the scalp's oil production has subsided," and I think I've almost reached that point. The past shower or two my hair didn't feel too bad after simply wetting it down, but I chickened out on not doing anything and still used the baking soda, anyway. I didn't feel like I needed to condition, though. And again that's a feel that I'm not sure how to explain... it didn't "still feel oily" after washing it, it "already felt conditioned," and after it dried, it was a little staticky but that was it. I was actually kind of impressed.

Over the weekend I thought I'd try what I guess is referred to as the "curlygirl" method (though I don't have curls), and what I had also seen referred to elsewhere as "conditioner only" - the idea that your hair could be "washed" with conditioner. 

Yeah, fail.

I'm not sure if my hair just wasn't ready for it, or if I used too much conditioner, or if I didn't wash the conditioner out good enough, but it just didn't work out. It wasn't bad, just not great, and again my hair didn't "still feel dirty," it just felt over-conditioned. I haven't rewashed it yet, though, and it doesn't look bad, so it's not an epic fail, just a fail. Think I'll go back to baking soda and water with a little static-killing conditioner next round, and go from there.

On a side note, however, through the process of testing out hair cleansing methods, I figured I'd try the baking soda and water mixture as a full-body cleanser and see what happened. And I. Freaking. Love it. I don't come out of the shower needing to lotion myself all up - which I never followed through with before, so I'd just be terribly dry after a shower until my oils built back up - and, and, I need less deodorant than I ever have. I used to be really, really smelly if I'd have the slightest bit of underarm perspiration and now? I've tested going for days without deodorant and 90% of the time, you can't tell a difference. And believe me, I check - I have always been paranoid about body odor, and I will not allow myself to smell. I've known people who had some serious BO and either weren't aware of it or didn't care, and I promise you I am not one of those. I just don't get as smelly as often, and that's pretty dang nice. 

I use it as a facial cleanser, too, with similar results. My skin seems better, I'm not overly dry or overly oily, and on the days I do feel dry after I wash my face I use rose oil for a moisturizer, and I love that better than any other moisturizer I've ever tried, as well.

It's funny, one of my friends once told me that he doesn't like hippies because they don't use soap and they smell. I must be the cleanest dirty hippie he's ever not hated :).

Flash cards.

He's pretty much the smartest ever. Snotty nose, distractions and all.

Not my favorite clubs to have joined.

Friday night, the husband and I were indicted into the Parents Who Have Cleaned Vomit Off Their Child And Their Bed In The Middle Of The Night club. I'm not entirely sure what that was about, as the little guy isn't acting terribly sick, but there you go.

Sunday, we were given a follow-up invitation to the Parents Who Have Cleaned Up Their Child's Vomit In Public club. As a result, my blonde minihuman is forbidden from eating fries until he outgrows the Testing Out His Gag Reflex phase.

Further note that today is one of the days I'm grateful that I have a job and my MIL watches the little guy during the day, as it meant that after a weekend of vomit, I was given a reprieve on the following runny diaper.

Ahem.