Tuesday, October 2, 2012

tub of grease

I'm a sucker for home health remedies.  I'm trying to clean up my diet by not eating foods with lots of fake stuff in them (but baked Doritos are SO TASTY), trying to watch my sugar intake (oh my gosh these little pumpkin scones I got at Kroger today are amazing...), and trying to just eat a lot of raw fruits and veggies (and by the way made some veggie dip using plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream and it wasn't too bad, thank you Pinterest).  I'm 33 year old and I'm borderline diabetic.  I want to be healthy on the inside and outside.  I want to set a good example for my kids.  I don't understand the rationale of 'my kid can eat all this junk because she/he has enough energy to just run off all those calories' ...sure, that might be true.  But your kid is going to slow down sometime, yet keep the same eating habits.  Then you're going to have a fat teenager hiding in his/her bedroom listening to Owl City crying into a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos because he/she can't fit into clothes at Hollister like the cool kids.

But I digress...

A few blogs ago I wrote about the homemade oatmeal mask mess.  Well lately my obsession has been coconut oil.  Once again you can thank Pinterest.  Sometimes I wonder if some random dude is sitting in his basement snorting over some of these posts that have gone viral, laughing to himself because thousands of woman are ravaging the cooking aisle looking for virgin unrefined coconut oil to lather on in the shower.

I don't blame him, it would be pretty darn funny.

A few weeks ago I bought some coconut oil.  A big tub of the stuff.  I got in the shower and felt a little weird about having a container of something I found next to Crisco, ready to crack it open and slather on my skin.  I rubbed in on my arms and legs and it was just WEIRD.  So greasy.  And it doesn't really wash off.  When I got out I was sticking to myself and felt greased up and ready to be served on rice.  And the best part is that Michael took a shower after me and accused me of trying to kill him because the tub was so slick. 

Pfffft like I would kill him.  His life insurance isn't THAT great yet.

So I asked some of my health nut friends what I did wrong?  They all asked 'did you buy organic unrefined coconut oil?'

uhhhh...noooo....a small jar was $9.99 for the organic unrefined and the big tub of refined was 5 bucks.  The ingredients were the same... I thought it would be fine.  Not so much.

So today while Michael was at work and wasn't there to judge me for buying more coconut oil, I dragged my kids to Kroger and bought organic unrefined coconut oil from the healthy market section.  When I got home I opened it up and smelled it...it smells like a freshly cracked coconut (and can be used in pineapple upset down cakes according to the label).  In the shower I rubbed it on my arms and legs and there was no greasy fast food french fry feeling.  It absorbed into my skin and left a nice light coconut smell (there's a slight possibility I might gnaw on my own arm while asleep, I smell that good). 

I found a use for the tub o' oil.  I love to make my own body scrubs, and I was due to make a new batch, so I mixed together sea salt, olive oil, peppermint essential oil, and the coconut grease oil for a foot/leg scrub and it's AWESOME!

Monday, October 1, 2012

the big bad skunk and other lovely tales

Sometimes I feel like I'm a contestant in some reality show about parenthood, testing to see if I can make it through each day.  Every night I sigh with relief and say to myself 'I survived another day' and know that it's not my day to get voted off the show.

My parents came to visit this weekend and Michael and I took advantage of having babysitters and went to a baseball game in Pittsburgh (my husband is more than addicted to baseball...Cincy Reds...it's a severe obsession, he even bought Jack Cincy Reds diapers...personally I think if you're a huge fan you wouldn't want your infant to poop on your favorite team but what do I know).  My parents fell in love with what a good baby Jack is, and the moment they left he cleared out his lungs.  He must have been holding in those screams for the 24 hours my parents were visiting, hoping his good behavior would earn him a pony for Christmas.  And all day today Morgan has been explaining what all Mimi is getting her for Christmas (I'm sure 99% of it is news to my mom...)

Morgan is picking up some awesome habits at preschool, like severe attitude, and asking 9093482302 billion questions about everything.

'where did the sun go?'
'to sleep.'
'where?'
'behind the clouds.'
'why?'
'because it was sleepy.'
'why?'
'I DON'T KNOW!  Because you asked so many questions you made it's brain explode!'

Jack has been secretly injected with some sort of growth hormone and is quickly turning into Baby Hulk.  He's 3 months old wearing 6 month old clothes and his favorite activity is 'standing up' which is pretty hilarious because he looks like a little old man that lost his dentures. 

Morgan is uber excited for Halloween...even though she doesn't really understand what it is.  But after this year she'll understand it's the beginning of what I call 'fat season' (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Easter) where it's candy candy candy for months.  She is going to be Little Red Riding Hood this year.  She picked it herself!  She said it was either that or Rapunzel and personally I'm a little Disney Princessed OUT right now so I have really encouraged the LRRH idea.  She has a really cute little dress and cloak.  She wants Jack to be the Big Bad Wolf, but he's going to wear this adorable (and expensive...) skunk costume Morgan wore for her first Halloween 3 years ago (it's size 6-12 month but Baby Hulk can fit into it) so I'm trying to convince Morgan there's a Big Bad Skunk in the story but she's not really buying it...

Morgan's latest obsession is Play Doh.  It keeps her so busy, like for an hour at a time, which makes Play Doh like squishy gold in my book.  The only problem is that I let her play with it while I'm busy with Jack....and a bit ago I noticed the yellow container is empty...so I need to go on a Play Doh hunt.  If my mission is a failure, I'll know to be expecting yellow poop tomorrow....