Oh, oh! There’s that “pain” cry! I did a quick visual check of my 5 week old son’s little body, and found the source of the problem.

Turns out an ingrown toenail (the nail begins to grow into the skin at the corner of the nail), had left his big toe red, hot, and inflamed; a sign of an infection.

After carefully snipping a very tiny, triangle shape out of the corner of the toenail, any bacteria under the nail was then exposed. I made a solution of warm water, with a few drops of tea tree essential oil and allowed his little foot to soak for several minutes.

After making another solution of olive oil and fresh garlic (garlic is a “staple” in my home**organic is best), I gently swabbed this onto the inflammation. (Warning- Garlic may burn the skin! Always accompany garlic with an another oil, such as olive oil). I repeatedly offered both solutions; the garlic/olive oil, and the tea tree/water solution until all sign of infection was gone.

Children’s birthday parties nowadays are a veritable landfill with all the garbage they produce… between the streamers, balloons, wrapping paper, and disposable tableware just one party can produce more garbage than an average family would in a week.  Yikes!

The idea of having a ‘green’ party is definitely catching on, and while we’ve probably all at least heard of it, I’m sure I’m not alone in having wondered how doable it really was. 

The first concern to cross many minds, (well, mine admittedly) is the cost associated with having an eco-friendly party.  It’s just so easy to run out to the nearest dollar store to pick up all your party supplies, and with it being a ‘dollar’ store the price can really only get so high, right? What’s the incentive to go to all the work of seeking out eco-friendly items, (if they’re even available in your locay, or then paying to have them shipped from somewhere) and then coughing up top dollar for them?

Convenience is another consideration… if you’re making your own snacks/treats, like many of us do, it is way easier to swing in and out of your local grocery store with all your ingredients, rather than having to seek out and again fork out a premium for local/organic food stuffs. 

And what about the gifts?  The invitations?  The goodie bags?  How does one make those things ‘green’? 

Well, fellow mamas, we’re all about to find out.  Join me as I plan my very first ‘green’ birthday party for my own little one’s upcoming first birthday, to be held on September 18th.  Stand by for weekly updates on what I’ve found, what I’ve tried, what’s good and what’s not so good.  I’ll bring you tips and tricks and the real juice on all that’s green, and at the end I’ll be posting all the pics of the event…

Get your party pants ready!

The stats are now in! This is my fourth breast fed baby out of our 8 children to experience colic. You would tend to think that I would be used to the persistent crying by now. Yes and no.

After trying various methods of trying to alleviate my baby’s suffering, I now avoid the constant panic of thinking, “what am I doing wrong?”.

What have I tried?

I stay away from cow’s milk, not in all of it’s forms, but for me, drinking milk is something of the past. I do avoid broccoli and cabbage, just in case (and really those are not that hard to skip out on).

Way back when, someone tried convincing me of the super effects of gripe water, but that only seemed to offer my babies a pickle-y/caraway smell, it did not seem to help with the crying.

With the birth of my last two babies I have learned to wrap them in little cocoons when they have a crying spell, all according to the methods of Dr. Harvey Karp (www.happiestbaby.com). Is this a cure for colic? No. But for my little ones, it has been a way to sometimes help them calm down enough to fall asleep and get the rest that they need (and the rest that “I” need too!). I’ve had enough practise with wrapping babies and having had some amount of peace and quiet, that I am NOT willing to give up this method of calming them (even if it doesn’t work every time).

Am I finished with looking for other methods that may help my little ones? No.

My latest attempt will be to try to treat the crying with daily doses of probiotics, or “good bacteria” (such as Lactobacillus acidophilus or Lactobacillus reuteri).

I recently had some positive results after my chiropractor friend gently adjusted my baby. I had another adjustment booked for my son this morning, but realized that with my lack of sleep (another result of having a colicky baby), I was just too exhausted to even make the drive over to her house! Yikes! Sounds like a vicious circle.

What have I not grown used to, after 4 colicy babies? Maybe it’s the lost chance of moving full-speed ahead. I tend to move around so slowly toward the end of my pregnancies. So, you can imagine the excitement of giving birth–not only to see my little one face to face, but also to have a crack at getting all those jobs that I have been putting off for so long. Slowing down to a snails-pace to look after a crying baby is quite the challenge when I look around and see so many jobs left undone!

All in all the crying cannot last forever, and “this too shall pass”. If nothing else, I am able to practice the virtue of patience!

No fat.  No carbs.  No calories.

High protein, high fibre, high Omega 3s.

Trans fats, saturated fats, cholesterol, sucrose, dextrose, soybean oil…  I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find the absolute plethora of ‘health’ information out there completely overwhelming.  What’s right anymore?  It all changes so fast I can hardly keep up. 

Vegan.  Vegetarian.  Meatitarian.  And the organic craze… what does ‘organic’ even mean, anyway?  Is it really worth dropping the extra dough, or is it just another money-grab from some crafty marketing team?  (The Hollywood-drink-this-and-drop-10-lbs-over-the-weekend, anyone?  Detox-your-way-slim, ladies?  Eat-nothing-but-this-soup-for-two-weeks-and-lose-a-pound-a-day, girls?  It’s okay.  We’ve all done it, whether we all admit it or not.)  (I, however, shamelessly admit it all.  I’ve done everything, including the maple-syrup-lemon-juice-and-cayenne-pepper-in-water-only cleanse… no, I didn’t lose anything, and yes, I nearly passed out on more than one occasion.  Fun for everyone.  )

As every new (and old – haha) mother knows, the very idea even of being ‘healthy’ takes on new meaning once there’s a bun in the oven.  The moment that plus sign shows up on the pee stick, a woman’s life is changed forever…

Join me, then, as I embark on my mission to navigate the world of what’s really, truly, healthy, what’s best for you and your family in this age of misinformation and McDonalds.

Welcome to the KFM

I was standing with a couple of new mothers the other day, both with babies several months younger than Lovebug.  The first mother, her face scrubbed, hair pulled into some semblance of a ponytail, shirt stained and askew, was clearly exhausted and frustrated.  She spoke about her little guy never sleeping for more than 20 minutes at a time and that while she knew he’d eventually sleep through the night, or even a nap, it felt like that time was never going to come.  She opened up and lamented about carrying the bulk of the workload, the wake-ups, the feedings, the laundry, despite her husband thinking he was doing a great job of ‘pitching in’. 

More empathetic, I could not be.    Haven’t we all been there, haven’t we all felt like we were never going to sleep again, that this tiny creature was born with the sole purpose of seeing how fast it could destroy us?  Haven’t we all resented our husband’s full night of sleep and escape into the world of work, while we’re left at the mercy of a pint sized dictator?  (Followed, typically, by wretched guilt at not being 100% in love with our little Lovebugs 100% of the time.  Mother Guilt hovers always in the wing, ready to deliver a good lashing at a mere moment’s notice.)

 I nodded sympathetically, making all sorts of murmuring, comforting noises, knowing there was nothing I could say that would make her feel better, and that anything I did say would probably make her feel worse. 

But the other mother, face made up and sporting a chic bob and clean, fitted shirt, clearly could not empathize.  While she too nodded and murmermed her sympathy, she was unable to mask the pity she so obviously felt for this woman and countless others like her.  She caressed her baby’s sleeping head (sleeping – of course – why not salt the wound) and said she was so lucky because she had such a ‘good’ baby, who’d been sleeping through the night from 6 weeks.   

Discheveled mom’s face fell at this news.  Tearing her gaze from Chic mom’s sleeping baby, she looked back to her own bundle who was putting up a cranky fuss in his stroller.  I watched, my heart breaking for this poor girl, wanting to wrap her in a big hug and tell her that it really does get better, and that this pompous bitch with her perfect baby will get hers too. 

The incident left me thinking about the term ‘good’ baby, how it’s thrown around so much, and how awful it really is.  I can’t count how many times people, from immediate family to perfect strangers, have stopped to admire/inquire after Lovebug, and inevitably they always look at me and say, rather than ask,  ’She’s a good baby?’  And what can I say – she is, indeed, a good baby.  She sleeps well, she eats well, she can entertain herself, she’s happy. 

But what if she wasn’t?  What if she’d been colicky? What if she wasn’t yet sleeping through the night?  What if she’d been difficult or fussy or sick, what if I’d had Post Partum Depression?  What, then, is the implication, when one can’t immediately say yes to the inevitable good baby question-  that theirs is a ‘bad’ baby?  That they’re doing a bad job of mothering?  That something is wrong?

Obviously, no one intends for such conclusions; most people probably wouldn’t even draw such conclusions, but as anyone who’s had a newborn knows, those first few weeks (even months) are a time of incredible highs and lows on the emotional scale, and even the tiniest of triggers can send one off the deep end- perhaps even opening the gateway for the Mean Reds.  Even if none of that happens, even if, despite her sleeplessness and/or colicky/fussy/what-have-you baby, a new mother of a ‘non-good baby’ is able to maintain a sense of calm and reason, what is the good baby question going to do for her then? 

It’s just going to make her feel bad.

Alas, I’m taking on a personal mission of eradicating this awful ‘good’ baby term.  All babies are good, in their own special way, and all new mothers deserve to feel that their baby is every bit as ‘good’ and wonderful as the next.  Wouldn’t you agree?

good morning.

this is to test the theme and graphic on this post.

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