The Cure is in the Cupboard

We were over at some friends' home this weekend and I spied this book laying under a coffee table.

Oooooh.  Yes, please.

Not wanting to seem overly weird, I casually asked where she got it and if I could borrow it.  She graciously let me take it home- even though it was her mother-in-law's- and so I read through it.

Oregano, hmm? I have some of that growing in my backyard.

But, I learned, it is not that oregano.

"Oil of wild oregano is an herbal oil derived from certain species of oregano plants.  The medicinal oregano is different from the type usually found in the garden.  It is also different than the commercial spice, which is often only a small percentage true oregano.

It is important to realize that wild oregano is not the same as the one found in the spice section of the grocery store or the type found in pizza...be forewarned that it would be difficult to accrue its curative powers by eating pizza and spaghetti.

Medicinal grade oregano arises from a unique species of plants which grow wild throughout the world.  The highest grades are found in the Mediterranean.  This "wild" oregano is rich in essential oils, which may be extracted by distillation...the result is an amber looking oil possessing a powerful and hot tasting flavor.  Its odor is similar to that of camphor.  The oil blends readily with fat in which its strong taste and odor is modified.  With time oil of wild oregano turns brown and may eventually develop a darn brown hue. "

Here is the most useful part for mommies:

"Researchers havec tested a variety of spices for purported antibiotic activity.  This research was performed in the hope of finding spices that could halt or impede the spoilage of food. Of all spices tested, oregano was the only one to exhibit significant antifungal and antibacterial activity.  The ability to destroy both bacteria and fungi makes oregano unique in the spice kingdom.  Finding it difficult to believe that a natural substance could be this powerful, the federal government also tested oil of wild oregano.  In an attempt to prove it didn't work, they found the opposite- oil of wild oregano killed every germ against which it was tested.  Nice pathogens succumbed, including salmonella, E. coli, listeria, staph, pseudomonas, and molds."

The oil can be taken, up to one drop an hour, until the cold or flu is gone.  Interesting.  I have been researching a bit and found that while I can buy it online, I will probably purchase mine through our local health food store, Cone's.  The book says to get a high-carvacrol (the medicinal compound) oil, which Cone's says they have. 

Apparently you can use it on athlete's foot, psoriasis, and ringworm, too. I will be keeping it in my ever-changing medicine cabinet and will report if I find it useful!

Happy Birthday, Rebecca Sky!

Notice anything?

Rebecca lost her first tooth two days before her fifth birthday. I wasn't quite ready for that! Jackson didn't lose a tooth until halfway through kindergarten, for heaven's sake! It is not time yet. 

Slow down...please?

 She will be at school in a few short months. I will miss her so much! But, as happened with Jackson, we are beginning to naturally ready ourselves for this first separation.  When the time comes, it will be time.  Right?

 This has already been such an eventful summer. We drove up to Tehachapi and found an ostrich farm.  That was quite the experience. 

 We have attempted to participate in the Rio Bravo Swim Team program.  Alas, we are not very good members of a team.  We have been away from the pool more often than we have been in it.  But it has been so much fun to spend time with our cousins each day that we can!


Happy birthday, my dear Rebecca Sky! You truly are a summer birth-day.  Sunny, warm, breezy... every good thing about the respite the Lord gives us from "normal" life.  We pray you grow into a wise and lovely woman of God.  We love you so very much.

Out with the old, in with the new!

A month!

It's been too long. How are you, blog world? It's nice to see you.

Roman has just been diagnosed with a severe casein allergy.  He is also allergic to eggs.  He is also allergic to chlorine.

How does this affect our family?

Well, for starters, our pool was just finished last week. That's a bummer.

Roman has had these horrible, scaly patches on his feet and legs for 6 months. I was sure he had a soap additive allergy.  Soap is easy to change, right? I thought my trusty Dr. Bronner's soap was working.  But after a week or so, the patches were back, mad as ever.  It seemed that the moment he even entered the bathtub or shower, the patches flared up.  We thought maybe it was residual cleaning products.  But we used only tea tree oil and vinegar.  It couldn't be the water he was allergic to, right? That would be crazy.

It is crazy.  And true! Who is allergic to WATER? Roman Bradley Woodward, that is who.  And how, pray tell, does one avoid water? In Bakersfield? In the summer? With a brand new pool?

Thankfully, the pool will be saltwater.  However, a small bit of chlorine is still necessary in a saltwater pool.  The house will need a filtration system.  I thought we could get away with spigot filters on all the kitchen sink and the bathtubs.  But I realized I wash the kid's clothes in...water.

 "I suppose I could wash his clothes in the bathtub", I told a friend.

"Jennie", she said.  "That's dumb".

Yup.

I wouldn't stick with it anyways.  Come the next round of stomach flu, I would be tossing clothes into my nonfiltered-water happy washing machine with abandon.

I have also been on my nutritional high horse for quite some time.  Eat eggs for breakfast.  They are so sugar free and healthy. 

They are also destroying my kid's intestines from the inside out.  Nice, mama.

Well, there is no place to go but forward! His diet will get a complete overhaul (thank you, family, for your willingness to undergo yet. another. diet. overhaul).  He has eggs and milk for breakfast, yogurt kefir for a snack, meat and cheese for lunch, and something with cheese or eggs in it for dinner. Whoopsie.

Thankfully, as our food gets more GM and processed (oh, he is also allergic to BHT, found in every packaged food out there), more and more children are being diagnosed with allergies such as these.  Which means more and more cookbooks are being written.  So this mama will eventually be armed with plenty of resources to aid her son.  I also have two dear friends who have paved this path before me and are fantastic wellsprings of inspiration and help. 

So, here begins our dairy-free, egg-free journey!

Crunchy Tutorial #2- Fabric Softener

               I do two loads of laundry a day.  Beau insists that I use Tide with Bleach detergent.

It is, after all, what his Mama used. I don't mess with that. 

But I did have to cut out additional fragrances and additives elsewhere.  Roman breaks out in angry hives every time a fragrance even comes near his skin.  Chase started to develop red and bumpy rashes on his face.  

My first plan of attack was to switch our bath products.  I tried five or six different kinds of soap and special washes. I even spent $20 on a special organic baby shampoo.  Of course, it still made Roman break out.  Dummy. :)

Then I bought some Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap.  It comes in a huge bottle for $10 and has only a few natural ingredients- saponified coconut, jojoba, hemp and olive oils, and peppermint oil.  Success! It does not make the babies break out.  I am using it on my hair and body as well.  I love it! It stings the eyes like a mother, though. Use caution.  I figure I will save about $15-$20 a month by using only one product on all of us.  It will take probably three or four months to break even after my special-soap-hunting spree.  Oh, well.  

As I read further about dyes and fragrances, I realized a likely culprit in the boys' breakouts was this:

oops.  No, this:

 

I had been using the cheapest dryer sheets I could find. I didn't even like the smell.  They were just inexpensive.  I was trying to save money.  But we were not living better...

So I chucked the sheets, searched the internet, and found another use for white vinegar.  

When added to the rinse cycle of your laundry, white vinegar does a fantastic job of softening your clothes. Amazing. 

I added this as well:

I really love this peppermint oil! It has so many uses.  The bottle is less than $5.00 on Amazon and it lasts forever, through many homemade experiments. 

I pour a half of a cup of vinegar to my rinse cycle, and add a generous shaking of peppermint oil to the vinegar.  While I thought I loved the smell of dryer sheets, there is nothing like opening the washer to the fresh, minty smell of clean laundry.  

I have experimented with adding this mixture to a washcloth and putting it in the dryer, but the clothes come out no softer, and a faint smell of vinegar lingers.  There is no vinegar smell when I use the concoction in the rinse cycle.  

I won't claim it is as cost-effective as cheap dryer sheets, but it is really close.  The gallon of vinegar lasts three weeks, and the peppermint oil lasts probably six months.  Like I said, that is with two loads every single day.  It costs about three dollars a month.  Not too bad.  

Have you ever used this method? Would you like to try? Let me know :) 

Crunchy Tutorial #1- Natural Mouthwash/ Teeth Whitener

'Round here, we like our teeth-whitening mouthwash.  We both use it every single day.  It costs about $6.00 per container of this:

We were going through about one container every four weeks.  They don't sell it at Trader Joe's, and I rarely have time to go to any store but Trader Joe's each week, so I decided to buy more on Amazon.  As I read through the reviews, I started to get a little worried.  Some excerpts:

1. If I use the full dose, my tongue goes numb and stays that way for over an hour. And yes, my sense of taste is also diminished.

2. The product removes the inner membrane of my lips and cheek. It sloughs off right after the swishing. This is unpleasant and, needless to say, disconcerting. The amount of skin that comes off is in direct relation to the amount of product I use.

3. The longer I use it (I'm up to about 5 days and am only using it at night now), the more temperature sensitive my teeth become. At 5 days, they are mildly sensitive.

and:

I've used this product 4 times in the last 3 days. My gums first started to die and peel away ONE HOUR after I first used the product. I didn't know what it was, so I used it a few more times, each time thinking, "Surely this product woudln't be on the market if it was that bad..." This morning, sheets...SHEETS of my gums peeled off! Gross, white, slimy, dead mucous membranes all over my mouth. To make things worse, my taste is nearly gone and my allergies have been killing me!

Eeew.

To be fair, neither Beau nor I ever experienced anything like this, and we used the product almost every day.  However, I decided to discontinue use of this particular product.  Naturally, there had to be a way to make it at home.  Naturally.

So I did a little research and rediscovered this:

 I have used it as a gargle and a rinse before.  But it tastes...gross.  Like a fizzy, tasteless wetness- lighter than water and not refreshing in the least.  (By the way, never drink hydrogen peroxide.)

So I decided to add this:

and this:

and all of the sudden, I had a product that tasted similar to the expensive, tongue-hair-growing Listerine.  It is more concentrated, so I use less. Just a small capful each day. 

Here is the recipe.  Use it if you feel like it. :)

1 8 oz. container of hydrogen peroxide
20 drops peppermint Stevita
1/4 teaspoon organic peppermint oil

shake and store.  Enjoy.

Ranch Outing

 We made a trek over to Santa Maria this week- myself, Rebecca, Roman, and Chase. We visited a friend at their vineyard ranch. It was beautiful and surprisingly, somewhat relaxing.

I am not sure if I will travel in the near future without Beau, but the trip went as well as it could have gone.  We picked blueberries the first afternoon. I have never tasted anything quite like them- huge, warm, sweet as can be.  We picked all we wanted.  We filled a shoebox full! The plan was to make pie or muffins, but our stash did not last that long.

Chase will officially be two months old this week. Guess what? He slept from 10:30-6:15 on Thursday night. We were elated. At 6:16, Beau turned to me and said, "Well, he will be sleeping through the night from now on". Ok! What this means: I feed him at 9:30, put him to bed right after, close the door to his room, and go get him at 6:30 in the morning.

Doesn't he cry?

The first two nights, he did. I had to pray and put my pillow over my head as I dealt with Mommy Guilt. But last night, he didn't make a peep. He slept 8 full hours, no problem. What a sweet baby!

As I recently read in a book, by allowing babies to eat in the middle of the night, we basically train them to eat in the middle of the night. It makes sense. He is gaining weight, is plenty chubby in the cheeks, and takes good feedings throughout the day. I need to sleep a full night to take care of my family. He needs to sleep a full night to grow and thrive. It is a good time to implement these changes. I have always been a proponent of the "cry-it-out" method of sleep training, but I have also always been hesitant to go full steam ahead with the process. I couldn't take my baby crying. Now I know that the process works, and that it is beneficial for all involved. Any hesitancy or guilt is gone, and we have a happy baby and a rested mama.

While nursing, I get a chance to read on my iPad. There is a free online library called Chest of Books. There is a huge, free section on health and nutrition. I have been so excited to explore! I read a book from 1921 by a holistic physician who claimed that his contemporary Americans ate an average of 125 pounds of sugar each year. At that time, diabetes and heart disease were beginning to be problematic. He warned his readers to cut down on their consumption of carbohydrate-rich foods and take in a diet rich in protein, vegetables, and fruits. How telling! 90 years later, we are reaping the poor health our great-great-grandparents sowed generations ago. And here we thought "paleo" was a hot new buzzword....