Medical impossibility.

I was digging through the cabinet last night, scrounging for something to eat, as I was feeling unusually picky last night when normally I couldn't care less, but that's really irrelevant. Raiden came in the kitchen with me and started looking through the cabinet as well. He saw the bear-shaped honey container and asked, "Is this for Weston?" (Mel's baby.) I told him no, that's for us.

"Daddy and me and you and me?"

I chuckled and said, yes, Daddy and me and you and me.

He thought it was silly that I repeated it that way and expanded it, something like, "Daddy and me and you and me and Daddy and you and Daddy and me and you and Daddy and me?"

I laughed and replied with something fairly similar.

He asked, "What about the rest of us."

I said, "That's all of us. You and me and Daddy."

He asked, "Can you get a baby in your tummy sometimes?" (He almost always says "sometimes" rather than "sometime.")

I asked something like, "You want me to, huh?" and he said that yes, he does, and that when he's older, he'll have a baby in his tummy. I told him that only girls can have babies in their tummies, so he'd have to help a girl get a baby in her tummy. AND THEN QUICKLY MODIFIED that only grown-up bodies can do that. Then I chuckled a little and told him to go tell Daddy what he'd asked me.

(As an aside: my son knows probably more than most 12 year olds are comfortable with about the whole Where Babies Come From process. He doesn't know the specifics, but he asks questions and I give him real, age-appropriate answers. Over several talks about this he knows that it takes a mommy and a daddy to make a baby, that the daddy helps put the baby in the mommy's tummy, that it's a different part of the tummy than where your food goes [which was clarified when he informed me that "When I was a little baby, I was in your tummy, and you ate me!"], and that then the baby has to grow until it's healthy enough to live outside of the mommy's tummy, and it comes out a special kind of baby door that only women have, and that babies are supposed to come through the door head-first, and when he was in my tummy, he turned around and had his feet at the door, so the doctors had to cut open my tummy to get him out instead. To this he said, "NO!!!" and I said, "Yeah, I wasn't thrilled about that either, kid.")

He ran in the living room excitedly and asked, "Daddy! Can you help Mommy get a baby in her tummy sometimes?" He smiled and asked him a few questions about if he'd like having a baby around, and if he wanted a boy baby or a girl baby. He said he wanted a boy, and Rich asked, "What if it's a girl?" Raiden said NO, he wants a boy. I yelled in and told him to explain that we don't get to choose, which I then heard him do, and he re-asked if it would be okay if it was a girl baby, and Raiden said yes, it was.

Several minutes later when I was back in the living room, having finished eaten the bowl of cereal I settled for as dinner, Raiden came to sit on my lap, and I asked him again if he'd like a little brother or sister, if he'd prefer a girl or a boy.

He replied *drumroll*:

"Can it be a robot?"

...

*laugh*

I told him that no, it couldn't be a robot, that humans grow human babies. He said, "NO!! Please please PLEEEEAAAASE can it be a robot?"

I said, "You want the baby to be a robot." It wasn't a question. It was an eyebrow-raised statement.

"Yes! Like THIS BIG!!" he said with his hands held high above his head.

I yelled into the kitchen, where the husband was foraging for grapes, that Raiden has now requested that the baby be a robot. "A BIG robot!" Raiden clarified.

We finally settled on: Okay, we'll try to grow you a robot brother, but, you know, no promises.

My life defined in internet comics.

I find myself thinking of this comic often: This is Why I'll Never be an Adult

I can especially relate to that with my job. I did eight things yesterday! Eight! My goal is only five! That means I don't have to do anything today and then maybe I'll do something tomorrow. And not wanting to email people back for fear of reminding them that they emailed me in the first place definitely sounds familiar.

I've caught myself applying this same methodology to a recent health goal I've set for myself, as well. I've had urinary/reproductive pain/infection/who-knows-what issues for the past 11-or-so years, and occasionally I'll hit a point with it where I decide I'm done living with it and I'm going to do all this research and try all these diet modifications and go find all these supplements and change all these lifestyle habits and ask my doctors all these questions to try and figure out what the cause is, and at least try to minimize symptoms. I'm in one of those phases right now. Since I'm at least aware enough to know that I tend to go through these phases and then take about four pills out of all the supplements I've bought and "cheat" on the new diet plan after about three days, I'm giving myself a couple of weeks to think everything over before impulse-spending too much on things that might possibly have a chance of maybe doing some good.

The only thing I know for sure I am going to purchase is a stock of GladRags cotton pads. May as well wait for the next paycheck before grabbing those, though. Plenty of time before the next time I'll need them. But in addition to (hopefully) being less irritating than disposable (bleached, chemical, plastic) pads, I like that I won't be throwing stuff away several times a day for a week out of every month. I've tried the Moon Cup before, but we just didn't get along.

The latest habit I'm trying to acquire is tracking my food/beverage intake and pain symptoms. It started out awesome for several days with me tracking, by exact minute, every single thing I would ingest, every little twinge of pain and every moment without it, and would even total up my water intake at the end of the day. I was tracking it on Google Docs since the internets are everywhere and I'd never remember to carry around a little note-pad all the time.

Then the weekend came, and the internets weren't everywhere. (See: More Reasons I Really Really Really Want a Droid.) The habit turned into making mental notes and jotting down what I could remember at the end of the day. My mental notebook isn't terribly accurate and it doesn't auto-save. There was a lot of guesswork. When the weekdays started up again, I was defeated by my lack of tracking over the weekend and pictured myself with the cartoony sadface thinking, "Oh. I should write this down. Sigh :(."

I haven't fully recovered.

I have a follow-up appointment with my primary care doctor this Monday and I was really hoping to show him something tangible. More cartoony sadface.

I'll keep trying. All I have to do is remember to jot stuff down. It's easy at work - the internets are right in front of me, all day. I just have to do it.

On a related note, I had been using the pain scale on nutraconsults.com to track the amount of pain I would have from one moment to the next, but I think I like this one better. I had been questioning the "8" I gave them at Urgent Care a couple of Saturdays ago, but no, I think that's about right. And what's awesome is it makes an 4-on-a-scale-of-10 kind of hilarious while it sucks (and while you're simultaneously happy it's down from an 8).

More better.

We've been very busy this week -- the husband and I both took an extra couple of days off over the holiday, and spent some family time together, doing extra fun things with the little guy. (We really like our kid.) There was a theme park involved, and a discovery that we really need to take two loaves of bread to the park when we go feed the geese instead of one.

Point being, all the extra quality family time didn't lend much "work on the last project I need to finish to get my life coach certification" time. And I'm actually okay with that rather than feeling guilty. I needed the extra little guy time, and every second of every nap I took with him. Family naps are awesome.

And though I wasn't thrilled about coming back to work, even for just two days this week, I had a realization yesterday at work, too. You know those moments where you realize something completely perception-altering that is so simple you can't believe you never realized it before? It was one of those. I know I haven't written much about my job, but what I typically mention is an obvious inequality and Us vs. Them dynamic. What I realized yesterday was, I am better than this. I've been articulating things lately around that idea -- that I don't feel they're using me to my full potential, that I have a lot more to offer than they're taking advantage of, etc. -- but it's always been more of a negative phrasing of it; like, the feeling of resentment surrounding that I'm wasting away here. It dawned on me yesterday that a lot of what bothers me about it is that I know I'm better than this. Which is actually pretty huge. Instead of feeling like I'm not worth valuing, I know I am valuable and that they just don't see it. That's their loss. "What they think of me is none of my business." Along with this realization came another: keeping my productivity low due to being disgruntled is just proving them right. If I don't like my job because I'm better than it, rather than not good enough for it, it means I can kick my to-do list's butt instead of pretending it's not there until 4:15 every day and skirting by with as little as possible. It's not that I'm out to prove them wrong; it's more, I just feel dirty being a slacker, because I'm better than that. This whole concept has shifted me from being angry that I'm not getting praise for hard work, to feeling self-motivated to be my best just because I can.

I kind of kick butt, and I forget that sometimes in situations where I'm not reminded occasionally.

So on that note, in an effort to continue being "better than this" and (grammar aside) even more better in general, I restarted my Mindbloom life tree with more appropriate goals in mind. Okay, so part of my want to restart my tree had to do with a glitch in my account that gave me an extra 18,000 seeds (points) that I didn't have to earn, which took the fun out of completing tasks or reaching goals, so starting over gave me motivation to earn seeds correctly again, too. With better goals. On this tree, I added a "Spirituality" branch, and started small with the two actions, 1) Take a few minutes for a relaxing meditation, and 2) Reflect on your spiritual health by journaling on paper. I scheduled the items for every day. I'm hoping my love of check marks (I do love me some check marks) and earning points correctly again will kick my butt into actually taking those few minutes for myself, which I've always seemed to have a hard time doing. Check marks are highly motivating. (You should see my work to-do list. It has boxes for check marks. And is color coded by day. And then I count the check marks and log them into daytum.com so I can keep track of my check marks and work toward a higher average.)

(Side story about spirituality, really more about my kid: Since my grandpa died last November, I've been working with Raiden on understanding death. I explained that Grandpa died because he got very sick, and instead of his body getting better the way Raiden's does when he gets sick, it couldn't get better and it stopped working. That took several explanations before he got it, and then I realized I'd left out the spiritual component and explained to him that when you die and your body stops working, your spirit -- the part inside you that thinks and learns -- goes back to the spirit world for a while, and when it's ready, it goes into a new little baby's body in their mommy's tummy, and comes back for another life in that body. We're still working on this one, understanding that it doesn't go back into the same body again and that the person doesn't really come back as the same person. But he's getting there. So the real part I was getting at is this -- when he was playing with a little boy (about 10 I guess) at Kung Fu last night, he would pretend-hit the other kid with a "sword" (a foam bat), the kid would fall over and play dead, and after checking his pulse the way Obi Wan does Luke when the Sand People knock him out, he asked him, "Is your spirit still in there? Are you dead? Does your spirit need a new body?" I chuckled to myself and just hoped that no one in class was anti-reincarnation... )

Anyway, where was I? Right; using check marks to encourage myself to remember that it's okay to take time for myself. Because I'd sure hate to have to mark those a red X instead of a green check mark. My real goal on that? Is to prove to myself that the world will not, in fact, crash into rubble around me if I take 10 whole minutes for myself once a day, rather than feeling like I have to keep its weight on my shoulders. That will be an excellent thing for me to learn.

Accidental adventure.

(Long but entertaining.)

Last night our Kung Fu school was closed, for as many who wanted to (including our instructor and his family) to go to Branson, to see The Legend of Kung Fu. It was area appreciation night, so the tickets were only $10 each if you live in the surrounding area, dropping an additional $5 for each canned good you brought to donate (one per person). We never eat canned corn anymore so I dug three cans out of the back of the pantry, and then remembered that I didn't have gas in the car and, wow, how much worse timed could this night be because payday isn't until Tuesday and due to Drama That Is Not Ours But Which We Helped To Solve we're kind of tight this month. So okay, I just got a little gas, enough to make it down there, and with the tickets only being $15 total, that's still not terrible and we should've been fine without touching savings that way.

We left with juuuust enough time to swing by and grab cheap drive thru on the way there (one McD's extra value meal fed the 3 of us -- mostly fed Raiden, actually, but kept us from starving), and to make it to the theater right on time if not just a few minutes early.

I sped like crazy on the way there, actually, even through all the Ozark hills my 4-cylinder SUV consistently hates, and I'm kind of surprised I didn't get pulled over as I passed by two cops while I was going appx. 80 in a 65. Made me wonder how fast traffic normally drives on that highway if I didn't get pulled over for going 80.

We got to Branson, and as we'd both remembered seeing the theater it was at (and trust me, there are bajillions of theaters in Branson, omfg) we hadn't bothered looking it up before we left, as we were in a hurry. Since pretty much everything is on 76 in Branson, we continued along 76 all the way through Branson's everything, with the sun shining directly in our eyes the entire time making it particularly difficult to, like, see. As time was approaching for the show to start and we were getting really far through town, I started wondering if we'd somehow missed it.

Me: Did we pass it?
Rich: There's no way.
Raiden: DID WE PASS IT?
Me: I don't think so.
Rich: Keep going, maybe it's just further than we remember.
Raiden: DID WE PASS IT?
Me: Raiden. I don't think so. We're looking. I don't remember it being this far...
Rich: Maybe it was, there's still more out this way I think.
Raiden: DID WE PASS IT?
Me: I don't know! We're looking!
Raiden: Okay. Did we PASS IT?
Me: Raiden! You're not helping! Shush, I'm trying to look!

Once we got out past pretty much everything, we figured out that, yep, I guess we passed it, and turned back around. It was three minutes until the show was going to start. We couldn't even call Si Fu at that point since they'd be in the theater with phones silenced. At a close-by red light I sent a text to Google to find their address and phone number, so we could at least call them and get directions. Google texted back.

Me: Gretna. It's on Gretna. Which is right here!

I jerked over into the left turn lane, and said, "Left I guess?" We looked right while the light was red and figured left was as good a guess as any. We passed several run-down motels and restaurants that did not look like anything that would be on the way to a theater and also didn't look like anything we'd ever passed before on previous trips where we know we have seen the theater before.

I almost turned around again to try the other direction on Gretna, but Rich said to try this way a little longer because it was turning soon. We finally found the theater, only 15 minutes late. Rich grabbed the 3 cans of corn, I grabbed the Kung Fu shirts (just in case we were supposed to be wearing them) and crammed them into my gigantic mom-purse, and we ran (as much as one can run in 4" heeled boots while carrying a 35lb human) to the theater. We bought the tickets without incident and slipped in to find our seats (usher with a flashlight ftw). Raiden was given a fortune cookie at the ticket counter which Rich rattled the paper to open for him and which Raiden quickly announced loudly during a quiet moment, "I'm all done!" Yeah, we were that family.

About 20 minutes after we got there, I glanced around and noticed that our Kung Fu school was only a row or so behind us, the next section over, with plenty of room around them if we wanted to move closer.

We settled in and watched. Raiden was on the edge of his seat and behaving. It was nice :).

There was an intermission around the time Raiden started getting antsy, so that was perfect. Our instructor had brought his 3 year old daughter as well, so Raiden and she got to play and do Kung Fu together during intermission in the lobby, which was adorable.

I'd noticed that most everyone else in our group was not wearing their Kung Fu shirts, so I figured I'd save the room in my purse and quickly run the shirts back out to the car. I laid them on the counter to dig through my gigantic mom-purse to find the car keys and um. Uh. You're kidding, right? Rich's keys were in there. My keys were not. Rich does not have my spare car key on his key chain anymore.

Fuck.

Most aggravatingly, I knew it was going to just piss Rich off even more. He was already annoyed that we were late and that I didn't run fast enough from the car to the door, and was already grumpy that we were spending any money on being there that night, so add to that the inconvenience of having locked my keys in my car (which means wasting time) and the need to call a locksmith (which means wasting money) and I knew it wasn't going to be pleasant.

It wasn't. Luckily he doesn't have a temper and hates in-public displays of anything but total happiness, but he does have The Look, and that's enough.

I fake-optimistically said that maybe they were by our seats? They weren't. He went out to check and see if they were in the car. They were. He checked his keys to see if there were any chance they would work. They didn't.

He was outside doing this on his own while Raiden and I were in the gift shop. I saw him come back in and walk through the lobby looking around, but he didn't see me. I noticed the lobby had cleared back out and told Raiden we needed to hurry and get back to our seats. Upon entering, I saw that the show had already resumed. I'd lost Rich, and the fact that it was dark meant I couldn't see and the fact that they were performing meant that when my child ran away from me on the way back to our seats, I couldn't yell for him. He ran all the way to the front of the theater, then across the first section of seats, right in front of the stage, then he stopped and I thought he was going to run back up the aisle to the back of the seating but no, he turned and continued to run across the front of the middle section of seating and then turned to run back up the aisle to the back. By then he'd realized I wasn't running behind him and was yelling "MOMMY!" I saw one usher notice him and I caught another and said, "That would be my three year old running wild." The other usher saw me pointing to him and pointed Raiden my way. He was all, "Hi Mommy!" and I was all you're embarrassing me! in my head but had the get-on-his-level Do Not Run Away From Mommy In Public Ever talk for a moment and then went to sit down next to our Kung Fu group. Yep, I have that kid.

It wasn't until after we sat down that I noticed Rich sitting alone in our actual seats. I wasn't getting up and moving again and I knew he was pissed at me anyway so I kind of didn't want to, but when he looked over and caught my eye I motioned him to us. It was fine. Raiden was sitting next to our instructor's 3 year old and they were having so much 3 year old fun that eventually her mommy had to pull her onto her lap and I had to pull my kid onto mine. He wasn't happy about it but I told him, "We can play when it's over, right now, we watch," and he settled back down.

The show was pretty good, though believe it or not, I was distracted.

As soon as the show was over I texted Google again to get a number for a locksmith, and called the first one they texted back. I asked if Rich wanted to call them instead of me since he almost always thinks I asked something wrong or didn't ask something important, but he gave me The Look and said that no, I would be calling. Rich was guessing it would be $50-100. It was $45, and they could be there in 20 minutes.

Rich: Did you ask if they take check or card?
Me: No, but surely a company whose prime responsibility is to get people out of emergency situations will take one of the two.
Rich: *The Look*
Me: This is why I told YOU to call!

I called. Yes, they take cards.

Rich: Do they take checks?
Me: I don't know! I asked if they take checks or cards and he said cards would be fine! I just left it there!
Rich: *The Look*
Me: This is why I told YOU to call!

I'd wondered briefly about knowing that we had just transferred enough for gas and tickets that evening on our debit card, but figured Rich knew what he was talking about. It turned out he'd brought the credit card we only use for travel and emergencies, just in case of an emergency. Good thing. (Also amazing, given that he's prone to take everything out of his wallet to keep himself from spending money.)

Our instructor and his family stood around talking a while, and Raiden and their daughter played, until his dad decided it was time to go and they left. A couple of other classmates hung out talking until the locksmith got there. We said goodbye, but they pulled up next to our car and said they weren't leaving until we were officially in the car. I appreciated that, and told them so.

The locksmith got to work while Raiden told me that he was Darth Vader but he lost his helmet, so we had to look around the parking lot to find it. Eventually our car was unlocked. Darth Vader got in Raiden's car seat, but Raiden was still inside the theater, he said, so I yelled for him and said "Here he comes!" and Darth Vader told me that Raiden wanted to help me drive. I said it was fine for Raiden to help me drive as long as you, Darth Vader, stay safely in Raiden's car seat. It was a deal.

Rich paid the man, and we left the theater.

Since we'd come from such a weird direction to get there, it made sense to us to turn left to get back out and to the main strip.

*Sigh*

A half hour later, still having no clue where we were or how to get where we wanted to be...

Raiden: Are we lost?
Me: We are, yes. I could've sworn this road intersected with 65. I remember seeing signs for it from the highway. Where does that come out?
Raiden: Are we lost?
Me: Yes, we're lost, but we're working on it.
Rich: We're just getting even further away from town. This doesn't look right.
Me: Turn around again?
Rich: Yeah.
Raiden: Are we lost?
Me: Yes! Yes, we're lost. But we're working on it.
Raiden: Do you know where our house is?
Me: Well, yes, I know where our house is, I just don't know how to get there, from here.
Raiden: Do you know where our house is?

Fifteen minutes after that, we came to the place at the far end of town where we'd originally turned left onto Gretna to get to the theater. The good news is, the insanity went on for so damn long that we stopped being angry about it and started laughing about it. Because it was truly ridiculous. I asked Rich if we'd accidentally taken the pretzel route and wondered how many times we'd been thisclose to the highway before we'd turned around. (At one point I said, "Well, this has (I was going to say sucked)... been an adventure." His mind went to Flapjack and K'nuckles; mine went to Charlie the Unicorn.)

Today, I pulled up a map. B is the theater. C is a Kmart I happened to remember passing before we turned around. Which was apparently about three inches from the highway. Follow it down 65, west on 76, up to 376 where we turned around, then east on 76, north and around on Gretna to B. Then follow the route with the white dot closest to the B up to C, past C, turn around at the loop, onto Expressway Lane, back onto Shepard of the Hills and to 376 again, then east on 76 until we got back to 65. I don't think we could've been less efficient if we tried. Note: I had to stop for more gas on the way out of town, and it took us about as long to figure out how to get out of Branson as it did to get home from there.

*Cleansing sigh*

I didn't feel like putting sheets back on Raiden's bed by the time we got home at 11:30 or so (he'd had an accident the night before), he'd already fallen asleep in the car, I couldn't wake him up enough to potty, so we luckily had one more pull-up hanging around that he woke up just enough to help me get onto him before I put him in bed on the futon in my office. Good enough. I moved the baby monitor into there and went downstairs and to bed in my own bed. I ended up on the futon with him by morning, anyway.

Rich and I are tired today. Raiden seemed in good spirits when he woke up. And we now know to never ever go to Branson again without having a good Branson map in hand.

Happy Friday :).

The Great Lakes Retreat

In three days and ten minutes from now, I will be leaving for Michigan for six days, to make my grand return to The Great Lakes Retreat, after a three-year absence. Last year I was unable to attend due to an already-high travel budget and already-busy travel schedule for iPEC coach training. The year before that, I had a 15 month old, who I was still somewhat nursing and was not ready to leave for a week. The year before that, I had a 3 month old, so apply the previous reason and multiply it by seventeen. The year before that, my husband went to Retreat with me, and our son was conceived. The year before that was only my second year there, and the year before that was, obviously, my first.

My first year there, I already felt like I'd found a new family and had discovered the happiest place on Earth. It's a spiritual retreat, full of all levels of psychics and healers and numerologists and (literal) tree huggers, and I freaking loved it. In normal life, I'm just far enough into hippie and outside of normal that I feel just a little bit odd and like it's best to dial myself down. There? I almost feel out of place being so low-level odd. There, it's "normal" to be really, really far out there, which is a totally different mindset, and one I enjoy adopting. There, everyone has different spiritual beliefs, and can direct their "prayers" or "energy" or what have you toward God, Goddess, Mother Earth, Mother Nature, Jesus, their Higher Self, the Creator, or Whomever They Choose and everyone else is simply okay with that. There's discussion about what others believe and why, that is discussion and not argument, brought forth from genuine curiosity rather than skepticism or an intention to convert or ridicule. In short: it is so happy there, with such a feeling of love all around you at (almost)* all times that it makes you want to cry with happy at the end of the week because it is the very manifestation of "can't we all just get along?" and you see that yes, actually, we can, so why can't we?

*(I mean, there is the occasional Odd Duck who is really, really odd whom you kind of want to avoid if you can. But then, sometimes, those Odd Ducks are the folks you end up learning a lot about yourself from by the end of the week. Usually about judgment from calling them Odd Ducks and then watching them have a life-altering realization and transforming themselves by the end of the week, when you'd written them off at the beginning. Or seeing someone you thought was closed off and negative be incredibly loving and positive. You just never know, and sometimes it's good to be reminded of that.)

I'm going to miss my family like crazy. My husband, though, is looking forward to some Daddy Time while Mommy's away, to catch up with the little guy a bit while we're not in default Mommy Just Handles Everything mode. I'm sure that popcorn and pizza will be consumed in abundant quantities. I also figure that tents will be built, and sleeping on the living room floor will be done. My husband, I have to say, turns into Superdad when I'm away, and while sometimes I lament that it'd be nice if he were Superdad while I'm here, too, it's good to know that they'll have a great time together while I'm gone.

The little things that I'm looking forward to:

• Morning meditation -- something I keep meaning to do for myself at home, but which never seems to happen.
• Having three meals per day provided for me without the "I dunno, whadda you wanna do?" conversation taking long enough that there's no more time to cook.
• The healing center -- even if you take a total skeptical point of view about energy-type healing, you'd still have to admit that going to a relaxing room where you have the full attention of someone only intending good for you, is a good thing.
• Taking the same seat at the morning and evening lectures that I've taken every other year I've been there, just because.
• Having real, thought-provoking discussions that give me a chance to explain and challenge my ways of thinking.
• Popcorn, and bad karaoke.

I just hope I remember to pack pictures of my kid.

Au natural.

For no apparent reason, I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to share with you all the natural, chemical-free stuff that I use on a regular basis.

Hair

Washing

I currently mix 2-3tsp of baking soda with 8oz of water. Don't laugh; I mix it in the peri bottle I got from the hospital when I had Raiden. And I only use about 1/4 of the bottle when I wash my hair.

This took a lot of trial and error, and seems to have finally decided to work perfectly, after I cut nearly a foot of hair off my head. My long hair seemed to feel like there was build-up on it a lot, and my short hair doesn't at all. I don't know if my long hair was damaged or just not rinsing cleanly or what, but it felt yucky, and I'd still have to use shampoo every fourth shampoo or so to get rid of it.

Since getting the hair whacked off, I haven't used shampoo once. The way it gets dirty now is completely different than how it got dirty before. With shampoo, you're stripping away your body's natural oils and your scalp freaks out and overcompensates by making itself more oily. With baking soda, it just sort of removes the excess oil without stripping anything, and it feels like a cleaner oil. I can go 3-4 days without washing at this point, and even when it starts looking like it needs to be washed, it doesn't look gross, and it doesn't feel dirty when I run my hands through my hair. Just a totally different world.

Conditioning

About 2tbsp of apple cider vinegar (ACV) in about 8oz of water. Typically I slosh some ACV into a cup and hold the cup up to the shower head until it looks like about a cup or so. After washing and rinsing well with the baking soda, I pour the entire cup of water over my head, massage it in, and let it set until I'm ready to rinse it out. My hair is the softest it's ever been.

I have definitely learned to use a higher quality, more natural ACV. Braggs is good, though there was another natural, organic variety right next to it at the health food store for a dollar or two cheaper, so I got that instead. Before, I used Kroger brand cheap ACV, and it made my hair feel really oily. Also the smell isn't as strong, and goes away faster, with the higher quality ACV. Yes, the smell goes away when it dries. It kind of smells like, um, nothing.

Styling

This is a recent one. I tried making homemade flax seed hair gel (boil flax in water and then strain; I've seen varying amounts of flax/water suggested online). Hahaha, fail. Trying to "strain" this mixture of goo was absolutely ridiculous and looked totally inappropriate, dripping out the bottom of the strainer. I'll say it: I nicknamed it "flax jizz." I was able to salvage enough to put in a little bottle and it doesn't suck to use, but oh man, not a process worth repeating. I saw a suggestion somewhere online that said to put the flax in some old nylons and then boil, so you don't have the problem with straining, but we'll see.

My next try -- lemon hairspray -- worked much better. Cube one lemon, or orange, or half of each (something, somewhere said that the orange is better for dry hair) (I used a large lemon), and boil it in 2 cups of water until the amount is reduced by half; strain and pour into a spray bottle. This, I love. I probably ought to strain it a little more thoroughly, as a bit of pulp came through the wire mesh strainer, but I'm not bothered by it enough to do anything about it.

I've used this a few times now, both having sprayed it on when my hair was wet and letting it dry along with it, and spraying it on when dry, and it seems to work well either way. It's just enough to keep the flippy-outty part of my hair from falling flat, and helps it keep some of the wave, without feeling yucky later.

Coloring

I use henna, instead of dye. Check out http://www.hennaforhair.com/ for all kinds of info. The color looks more natural (it stains each hair individually rather than dying it one certain shade, so there's still a natural color variance), it makes your hair stronger and softer, and it's an anti-fungal, which means anti-dandruff. I mix mine with tea (what kind depends on what mood I'm in, but it's been apple-chamomile the past few times), and you can get a different color shade depending on what you mix it with, as well. Turns out mixing it with chamomile is supposed to make it more golden. I wish I'd read that before I mixed it with chamomile and hoped it'd turn out a cooler red rather than warmer. Oh well, now I know.

Face

You'll see some repeats here.

Washing

The same baking soda and water mixture I use on my hair. I squirt some on a wash rag, and wash my face. The end.

Toning

A 50/50 mixture of ACV and water. I keep a mixture in a tiny Gladware tub in my medicine cabinet, and dip in a corner of a wash rag then run it over my face.

Moisturizing

Raw, unrefined coconut oil, with a few drops of Rose essential oil and Sweet Orange essential oil. Coconut oil is good for pretty much everything and is supposed to be a good anti-wrinkle product, too. Rose oil is good energy, sweet orange oil is supposed to be energizing, and mostly, I just like the combination of scents. I'll use a little of the mixture for lip gloss every now and then, too.

Deodorant

Another repeat: while I'm slathering the 50/50 ACV/water mixture over my face, I do the same for my underarms. The acidity in the ACV raises your pH so bacteria can't grow. No body odor. No chemicals giving me breast cancer. I still sweat (it's not an anti-perspirant), it's just not stinky.

---

Next up, I want to try making my own natural bug repellent from essential oils as seen here (at the bottom) and here. The little one and I can attract every chigger and mosquito within a 12 mile radius. My poor kid, he even had chigger bites on his scrotum recently. I can't imagine that would be pleasant.

I'm looking into some natural flea remedies today, too, as I don't like the idea of spraying my cats or carpet with chemicals and poisons that "should" be safe when they dry. So far I've found Diatomaceous Earth that I could sprinkle around the house, and a few more natural options to use in/on the pet, that I need to do a bit more looking on, but it's a good starting point.

The no-penis discovery.

I've been waiting for this age and this discussion, and it was as cute and hilarious as I expected.

Raiden has been practicing going peepee standing up (and there is much less cleaning up afterwards involved nowadays than when we first started this endeavor), and is very proud of himself every time he "hits the target."

Earlier today, after he'd gone peepee, I had to go, too, and I told him so.

Raiden: "You're gonna go peepee standing up?"
Mommy: "Nope, I'm a girl so I don't have a penis, so I can't aim like you can. I go peepee sitting down."
Raiden: "You don't have a penis?"
Mommy: "Nope."
Raiden: "What happened??"
Mommy: "Nothing happened; I'm a girl, and girls don't have penises."
Raiden: "Why?"
Mommy: "Boys and girls are just made a little differently."
Raiden: "...Daddy has a penis?"
Mommy: "Yep, Daddy has a penis."
Raiden: "You don't have a penis?"
Mommy: "Nope."
Raiden: "Because you're a girl?"
Mommy: "That's right."
Raiden: "You go peepee sitting down."

This was a command; he left the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

We had a bit of a review of this topic at bedtime, after he went peepee standing up again.

Raiden: "The little boy at JumpMania has a penis?"
Mommy: "Yep."
Raiden: "The little girl at the fireworks, she doesn't have a penis?"
Mommy: "That's right, she doesn't."
Raiden: *holding up Bunny Bear* "Bunny Bear has a penis?"
Mommy: "Yep, because he's a boy."

Best not to confuse him with the non-anatomy of stuffed animals at this point, I think.

Personally, I just can't wait for him to ask MIL and FIL about it tomorrow, without them having any clue that we've had this discussion *grin*.