And a bowl full of mush.

It seemed for a while like I was the only Mommy on the continent who didn't have the book Goodnight Moon to read to her child every night at bedtime. Hence, when I saw it at Barnes & Noble several months ago (when I was actually there shopping for a birthday present for my dad, but just had to wander over to the kids section), I snagged it, plus a book of nursery rhymes with a velvety spine. "For his birthday." His birthday came and went and I forgot I'd bought the books and put them back, so instead, they became Easter presents. He already had a couple of books that were his bedtime staples - Curious George Rides a Bike, The Very Busy Spider - so Goodnight Moon took a while to work itself into his rotation. Actually, I think I just snuck it in one night when he refused to decide on a book. "If you don't choose, Mommy will choose." Mommy chose something different, because Mommy was tired of George and Spider.

It's still not one of his favorites, really - those are George, Spider, The Little Engine that Could (or "train book") and Mother Goose for Babies ("mudder doose") - but it sneaks in a few nights a week if he's just not quite ready to sleep yet after we read one of the other main books. His favorite part is the kittens; I explained one night that a kitten is a baby cat, so when we get to "Goodnight kittens," he says, "Goodnight baby dats." He also likes "Goodnight nobody." Go figure. And a few nights ago I was especially proud of him when he pointed to the picture of the phone, which does not have its own "good night" in the book, and said "Goodnight moh." Moh is phone. He speaks toddler, work with me here.

The part I am actually intending to get to is this: "And a comb, and a brush, and a bowl full of mush."

Mush.

When I was a kid, Mom worked a lot and didn't cook often, so the meals that I do remember having with her - especially the ritual meals, like the time period where every Sunday we'd get 3 orders of biscuits and gravy from Hardee's and split them between the two of us - ring a special happy-childhood bell for me. As I've grown up, I've discovered that two of my favorite mom-breakfast foods were apparently pretty uncommon. One was rice - cooked rice, flattened on the top rather than lumpy, with enough evaporated milk poured over it to juuuust reach the top, and a sprinkling of sugar on top of that, then you stir it all up to mix in the sugar, and flatten it back out again, because that's just how it's done. The other was cornmeal mush, eaten about the same way, only I usually skipped the milk on that and just stirred in a little sugar.

Since reading Goodnight Moon with Raiden more often, I have started craving "a bowl full of mush." So finally, the other morning, I called my mom. "Mom, I'm sorry to bother you at school, but I have a very important question." "I'm not at school yet," she said, "what's going on?" "How do you make cornmeal mush?"

She laughed, and then hemmed and hawed because, apparently, it's one of those things that isn't really measured - she just tosses it all into a pot until it looks right and cooks it until it looks right cooked. The recipe I got from her was:

- A cup or two of water

- Three or four soup spoons of corn meal

- Oh, and salt it, not much, just like you would macaroni

Cook it on high until it boils, then turn it down low and let it cook until it looks done.

Amazingly, that recipe was pretty accurate. Though as it turned out, it would've taken longer to cook than I had time before work, so instead, it was my dinner that night. Rich looked at me like I was crazy, and asked if that's even good for you. Probably not, but he's the one who introduced me to biscuits and chocolate gravy, and I don't think that's good for you, either.

Anyway, I'd made a little extra, too, so I'd have leftovers to use for fried mush.

Yep, fried mush. Am I the only one who's heard of any of this? It doesn't matter, the fried mush didn't turn out quite right, anyway. Not crispy enough. I'll have to ask Mom on that one, too.

The mush tasted so good to me that night, though, that I've also had it for breakfast the past 2 mornings, tossing it all together on the stove as I'm getting ready for work, then dumping it into a bowl, rushing out the door, and eating it when I get to work. 

I'm sure this odd craving will get out of my system soon, but everytime I read, "And a comb, and a brush, and a bowl full of mush," especially now that I've reminded my mouth how it tastes, it just sounds so good. And every time, it has been, except I think it would taste better if I were eating it with my mom.

Big kid swing.

I intend to fully catch up at some point, but right now I really need to say:

Where on earth did this large child come from and what did he do with my little baby?!

Gash.

So, yesterday was pretty much the scariest mommy day thus far.

The short version: We spent 4 hours at the ER, and Raiden has 10 stitches in his forehead.

The long version: I got a call from MIL at 10:something yesterday morning with Raiden crying in the background. She said he was running, "and I told him to slow down, and he didn't," and he tripped and fell and hit his head on FIL's gun cabinet. (Side note, he's been wanting to move the guns to a gun safe and take down the cabinet, anyway, before Raiden gets big enough to know what they are and get interested in touching them. Even though it's locked, he just doesn't want them around him. Good call. But this really has nothing to do with Raiden falling into it.) MIL said she thought I ought to come look at it, so I grabbed my stuff, told my coworkers what was up, grabbed Rich, and took off. Rich called his mom on the way,  we ended up meeting her at Urgent Care, and OMG, Rich is actually a little mad that she didn't just take him first thing. I can agree with him, though I can also totally understand wanting to calm him down and stop the blood before trying to wrestle a screaming bleeding baby into a car seat by herself. Luckily Urgent Care is only about 1 block from her house, so not much time was wasted, anyway. But yes, we met her there and as I said, OMG. He had a GASH in his head that was 1.5" long and a good 1/4" deep. It was AWFUL and I felt weak just seeing that in my BABY'S head. But he? Was happy. Drinking milk. "Hi mama. Hurt!" He freaked out more when they tried to put gauze and tape on his head, than he was freaking out about the GASH in his head hurting.

The receptionist and a nurse, I think, at Urgent Care said that with how deep it was and how much he was fighting them, they weren't equipped to possibly sedate him if needed and that we had to go to the ER. (I'm wondering in the back of my mind if we'll still get charged with an Urgent Care visit even though we never left the waiting room and just got gauze, tape and ice. The ice, by the way, was pointless, because the gauze was an inch thick.) The car ride there? He was pointing to his head saying "hurt," telling me that Daddy was wearing sunglasses, that I was wearing a coat, and all kinds of normal things that a baby with a gash in his head would not be expected to do. Acting totally like himself. I seriously couldn't believe it and kept telling him how proud I was of him being such a brave boy.

The drive from Urgent Care to the ER too approximately seven years. We had to wait a few more minutes at the ER before being called back to take information and try to check his vitals, which he also freaked out about. We waited a few more minutes before seeing a nurse practitioner, who said that as feisty as he was we may have to do a "conscious sedation" to get the stitches done, which meant being transferred to another area to see another doctor and having another series of waits before officially deciding anything. The trauma doctor made the sedation sound like a much bigger deal than the nurse practitioner had, and made it sound much more possible to just have nurses wrap him up and hold him without bothering to sedate him. In the end, we decided that a local anesthetic and 10 minutes of screaming would be healthier than medical sedation knocking him into lala land and waiting for that to kick in and then wear off and hope that he didn't have a reaction to it. (And now I wonder, if we'd decided that in the first place, if we could've just done it with the nurse practitioner instead of having to be transferred.) I was holding it together on the outside but kept getting light headed due to freaking out internally about it, especially once they took the gauze off his head and the gash was right there in plain sight, and the light headedness was not making me happy. Rich and I decided that it would probably be better overall if he and I were to step out while they did the stitches, so that I wouldn't pass out watching it. We gave him hugs and kisses and told him, "We'll be right back!" while he was reaching for us, and left him with strangers to bundle up his little toddler body and hold him still to do the stitches. I had to walk away where I couldn't hear him, and cried for a few minutes over hearing him yelling "Mama! Mama!" while I was walking out the door and away from the room. Rich went over to check after 9 minutes (not that I was obsessively watching the clock or anything) and heard him yelling. He wasn't screaming much at all, he was simply saying to them, "Mama! Dada! All done! Alllllll done!" which, after they were finished, the nurses confirmed and seemed to find amusing. Immediately after they were done, he was perfectly fine. Definitely the correct decision to not do the sedation.

They took a couple of x-rays, which he was not happy about, either, and then waited an hour and a half (watching cartoons, walking the halls, drinking orange Gatorade) for them to be reviewed; they were perfectly clear. The doctor wasn't even concerned about him napping or sleeping at night. We finally got to leave after 4 total hours in the ER, lots of cartoons, and 10 stitches in my baby's head. 

We got take-out on the way home because we were ALL starving, and Raiden took a very late nap right after he ate. He slept for about 3 hours, but a lot of it was broken; the cut was finally starting to hurt him, it seemed. He would yell for me occasionally, but didn't seem to really be awake while he was doing it. I laid with him for a good portion of the nap, and that seemed to help. He woke up happy, though, and went to bed easily (albeit, late) at night as well. I fell asleep with him, which I was okay with :), and when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep, I was perfectly content to just lay with him, listen to him breathe and feel him squirm. I was even okay with his feet digging into my side.

MIL kept apologizing, but it wasn't her fault. He's a little boy, he runs, and he falls, and this time he just hit something just right on his way down to cause a good sized gash that needed stitches. The only thing that bothered us was that she thought we needed to look at that GASH before taking him to the ER, but on a good note, we got this out of the way early so now if something really serious ever happens, we have a "we'll meet you at Urgent Care" protocol. 

Rich stayed home with him today, but Raiden is really doing well enough I felt okay coming on into work. He was trying to be a daredevil this morning, and seems confused with us telling him to walk instead of run, and not to sit on his kick ball so close to the door frame. Our parental eyes can only see sharp corners, hard surfaces and trip hazards right now. (Rich wants to get Raiden a pillow suit for a few days.) We explained to Raiden that he just needs to be very careful for a few days until his owwie starts to heal, and then things can go back to normal. He pointed to his head and seemed to understand, but he gets excited and forgets. And then we have heart attacks :).

It's a really clean cut, though, and I don't expect there to be much of a scar in the long run. My mom informed me that this won't be my last trip to the ER for stitches, and my boss said a very similar, "At least you got that first ER trip out of the way." Really, it could have been a lot worse. I'm just so proud of my brave little boy being. I think he did better yesterday than I would have.

Added later:

Blurry fonecampic from lunch today.

Ow.

Remodeling.

The husband has been working on the downstairs bathroom for a few weeks now. I could explain to you what's going on with it, but instead, I think I'll let the little guy do it for me.

Slosh slosh.

A few minutes ago, I overheard an I.T. guy telling a coworker how to get to a network location by going to Start, Run, and then typing "whack whack, networkaddress, whack, folder." 

Whack whack? 

That reminded me of my recent personal confusion over slash vs. forward slash vs. back slash. I have to tell people fairly often, as well, how to get to a different network location, and I'm always concerned that in telling them "backslash" I'm confused and telling them wrong (and I usually end it with, "the one above Enter"). I decided to look it up today and as it turns out, I was using the term "backslash" as being "the one above Enter" correctly. Good.

As it further turns out, "whack" is a nickname for "slash" (or "forward slash," though a lot of internet sources say that "forward" is redundant and unnecessary).

However, "slosh" is a nickname for "backslash."

So he was still saying it wrong. He should have said "slosh slosh." 

Personally, I'm considering referring to the (forward) slash as a "sepratrix" from here on out, just to see who I can confuse by trying to look smart.

Then again, it's not "smart" to use words you're fairly sure your audience won't understand, as it simply hinders communication and makes you look like a wiseass. So perhaps not.

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 :).