New Tri-City Area Holistic Mom Network Chapter

Introduced by my chiropractor, I went to the kick off event of the new chapter of Holistic Mom Network in the Tri-City Area, CA. I am kind of glad that I get to see other crunchy mamas that are in the local area as well as learn about what local vendors are around. This is their website that explains what they are about: http://www.holisticmoms.org/
I haven't yet officially join as a member, but I am liking the idea. And lucky me today too, I won a door prize for a free haircut at a salon, I guess it is time for a new hair style.

My Daughter's First Chiropractic Adjustment

I finally decided to let my chiropractor adjust my daughter as well. I found my chiropractor through http://icpa4kids.com/index.php I noticed that she is certified in the Webster Technique for turning breech babies during pregnancy and also certified in pediatric chiropractic practice. After doing several appointments for myself, I learned that she has a daughter that is the same age as mine and has been adjusting her since birth. The adjustment for babies are very different from the adults. As a matter of fact, I hardly noticed how she adjusted my daughter, felt like she only did some light pressing on her back. If I had knew that it would be this gentle, I probably would have taken my daughter in at birth also. But I kind of also wonder how the gentle adjustment would last, considering how I handle my daughter way rougher than the adjustment. I do like the idea of periodically having my daughter checked up and adjusted while she is growing up, this will ensure that everything is in line and that she will grow properly.

Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child -- Book Review

Just finished reading this book and I am impressed. This book feels like the continuation of Between Parent and Child and fills in the missing pieces in Between Parent and Child. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child focuses on using five key steps for Emotion Coaching. 1. Being aware of the child's emotion. 2. Recognizing the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching. 3. Listening empathetically and validating the child's feelings. 4. Helping the child verbally label emotions. 5. Setting limits while helping the child problem-solve. I learned about how to be empathetic to a child's feelings through all my previous readings, however, I have always felt a little permissive as a result, but this book fills in that gap with step 5. It teaches you how to be empathetic and understanding and yet still set limit and gives example of how to, setting limits is very important. Just being empathetic and not setting limits or helping your child to move on, is not going to help the child's emotions any better. I also love how the book does consider practicality, and list times that emotional coaching is not appropriate and how it can be delayed, like example when you are in a rush.
The book categorizes Parents into four types: 1. The dismissing parents, who disregard, ignore, or trivialize children's negative emotions. 2. The disapproving parents, who are critical of their children's displays of negative feelings and may reprimand or punish them for emotional expression. 3. The Laissez-Faire parents, who accept their children's emotions and empathize with them, but fail to offer guidance or set limits on their children's behavior. And of course the ultimate goal for me, 4. the Emotion Coach that follows the mentioned five steps above.
Another interesting point mentioned in this book is the strong influence of the father to a child. Even though for reasons unknown, their studies show that the father actually has a stronger influence on the child's emotional intelligent than the mother. So it is actually very important for the dad to get involve with emotion coaching too.

Arnica Gel for Muscle Soreness

All the painting and moving furniture around the house is a real workout. My arms and legs are super sore. A friend of mine tells me to take Tylenol, but taking a pain killer just for regular workout muscle soreness goes against my crunchy philosophy. Thankfully, I learned about Arnica Gel a while ago, and this thing works. Arnica is a well known plant used in homeopathic treatments for bruises and muscle soreness. It is absorbed into the skin pretty fast also. When I rub the gel on the sore areas, it doesn't feel like Bengay or Icy Hot, as in you don't feel that minty cold and then that warm heat. It feels like you just put some regular gel on, but I immediately feel a release of my muscle. I am thinking this might come in handy when my daughter is older and gets sore muscle from hiking or something.

Painting with Zero V.O.C. Paint

We finally started our project to repaint the house, we have been holding off this project mainly because of the concerns of the toxic fumes from paint. We didn't want to do it while pregnant and definitely didn't have the time to do it while my daughter was still little also. But now that she can entertain herself a little more, we decided to tackle this. I made sure that we were going to use zero or low V.O.C. paint. Luckily many major brands now make this option. One thing to pay attention to is that some of the zero or low V.O.C. paints are only zero or low V.O.C. on whites, and once you add color it doesn't matter anymore, so you will want to look for description like color is also zero or low V.O.C. The Olympic brand from Lowes is and also Kelly-Moore has it too, probably other brands have it too, but I didn't look further. We decided to go with Kelly-Moore since it has a summer deal coupon that saves you 30% off your purchase. I know there are even safer paints that are made with completely natural ingredients, but I didn't want to go to that extreme since we are on a tight budget. The zero V.O.C. paint from Kelly-Moore really is different from what  I was use to about paints. There is hardly any smell while you paint, a big difference from the nostril burning experience from regular paint. I am pretty sure it is still not that great to be constantly sniffing this thing, so it is still a good idea to ventilate the area, but it sure made the painting experience a lot more pleasurable.

Avoiding Flame Retardants in Children's PJs

http://www.5minutesforgoinggreen.com/299/avoiding-flame-retardants-in-cozy-childrens-pajamas/
When my daughter was 9 months old I learned about how all children's sleepwear from 9 months to 14 years are required to be flame resistant. I was shocked, I mean, really, why do I want my baby to be covered with nasty chemicals when no one in the house smokes, we never use the fireplace or candles. And if the house was really on fire, that flame retardants is not going to help me much as it is not even for that purpose (read link). I started to think well, maybe I can wash off these chemicals, but through my searching online, I realize that is naive thinking. These clothing are designed to be washed multiple times and still be flame resistant, it is impossible to get rid of them this easily. But there is still hope, I immediately returned the 9 month sized PJs I just bought and looked for ones that were snug fitting, made of cotton, and with a yellow tag that says not treated with flame retardants. And now, I don't even use PJs on my daughter anymore. I just buy her t-shirts and regular cotton pants to wear at night. But the sad thing is, flame retardant is everywhere, especially more true in California because of our tough safety standards. Chances are your furnitures, your carpet, and anything cushiony they are required to be flame resistant. It is only last year that California exempted strollers, nursing pillows and baby carriers from the flammability standard.

Recycling Made Easier

I am so happy to see a big recycle bin at Lowes. They take rechargeable batteries, cell phones, plastic shopping bags, and most importantly for me, CFLs, since many other places have bins for the rest of the items. I have been trying to look for a place to conveniently recycle CFLs and finally I am able to get rid of my pile of broken CFLs. For other hazardous wastes, many city also have free recycling. Like in my city there is a center that takes all your electronics, paint, etc for free as long as you are a resident. Now the only thing I am still searching for convenient recycling is all those CDs and DVDs that I want to get rid off. So far I am just collecting them in a box and maybe once I collect enough I will mail it in to a recycling center to recycle, but if they have drop boxes in stores like Lowes, it would make things a lot easier. I didn't even know that those CD and DVD disks should be recycled in the past and have been tossing them in the trash, I feel so bad now.

Is Silicone Safe?

Before my daughter was born I read up about silicone on Safbaby.com, here is the page: http://www.safbaby.com/is-silicone-safe
It kind of bothered me that there is no studies regarding it's safety, considering a lot of baby products claimed to be safe nowadays are made from silicone. But it still seemed like a safer option than plastic, so if there were a choice, I would choose silicone over plastic. But one thing about silicone products is that it tends to leave this weird chemical smell, I tried using a silicone cup to drink before, and the water just tasted awful, it really makes me think this stuff can't be good. And today I see this: http://www.safbaby.com/is-silicone-in-baby-products-and-bakeware-really-safe Now this seems pretty scary.
My daughter never took a bottle or a pacifier, so I never really had to worry much about the choice of silicone or rubber latex. But this have me thinking about then what is a good nipple to use then, silicone is made with tons of chemical, and rubber also has its chemical issue, and might cause allergy also. This pretty much leaves us with no choice besides start feeding our babies from a glass cup, well, I guess the best is still your breast, but that is definitely not practical for everyone. I guess silicone is still the safest out of all available choices so far, sigh.

18 Month Sleep Regression

I am at the 18 months sleep regression now, well, actually my daughter kind of started this regression around 17 months so I have already been in this mess for a little while now and just now finally admitting it. So, according to online resources and The Wonder Weeks, your child will go through yet another sleep regression at around the 18-21 months of age period. It can last just a few weeks, or even a few months. This is horrible for my daily scheduling, but I guess something that I just have to learn to live with. My daughter is fighting her nap everyday now, and I can't predict when I can successfully put her to sleep, she was already a horrible sleeper to begin with and now it is even worse. At first I thought I just didn't tire her out enough, so I tried to add more activities in the morning, however, I am just recently learning that it has nothing to do with it. Parenting is definitely hard work, I keep on telling myself that "this too shall pass." But I'll have to say, physically it has gotten a lot easier, I still cringe at the kind of sleepless times I had before my daughter turned 5 months. Bad news is this is still not the last sleep regression, but I'll survive. :)

Eliminating Dairy, Egg, and Gluten Cured Eczema

My husband has suffered from eczema on his hands for many years and it seems to be spreading and getting worse each year. The unsightliness of his hands is one thing, but the itch and pain that comes with it makes him a very grumpy person every time there is a flare up, which was getting more frequent also. He use to just put cortisone cream on it and it would relief him, but then the cortisone is not doing much for him anymore and the red and tenderness of the hand just never disappeared. I tried everything I could to rid him of the problem from the inside out. I supplemented him with fish oil, multi vitamin, vitamin E, probiotics, with not much improvement. I would also put fish oil topically on his hands when he has a flare up and coconut oil as lotion, which he says does work a bit. Then I started to cut out red meat from his diet and see if that helped, since I read something about psoriasis and eczema caused by pork consumption, well, that totally did nothing for him. Then I even put him on a chlorella and cilantro detox, thinking to eliminate some toxins might help, which also didn’t do much for the eczema. Finally, I read about cutting out major allergens like egg, soy, wheat, dairy, etc. But to eliminate all these common allergens for a long period of time and then reintroducing one by one seems like a lot of work and a very limited diet. I really don’t want to resort to this and cut out unnecessary food items. So I bought him a blood test kit for allergy test, hoping we could get some clues there. The allergy test tested for antibody Immunoglobulin G (IgG) for delayed onset food allergy, which is usually associate d to chronic immune problems like eczema. Probably many people have delayed onset food allergy and don't know, this makes me feel like getting myself a test too, but I have this extreme fear of poking myself for blood, I'll need more time to think about it. My husband ended up super high on dairy, egg, and certain other non common allergens, his was also showing moderate allergic to wheat and peanut. These were food that he love and eat every day. We thought he was eating a healthy breakfast with whole wheat toast with cheese and egg and a cup of yogurt. I immediately cut out these food items from his diet, and after 3 days, we saw significant improvement with his hands. We were shocked, thinking we definitely should have done this a lot earlier. He has had no major flare ups so far, still some little ones here and there, but that is partly because he has a hard time completely cutting out these food items. These major allergens are sneaky and in almost all of our processed food. He would eat a piece of breaded chicken thinking that it is okay since he is not that allergic to wheat, but he forgets that the coating might have egg in it too. He would eat a salad, and forget that ranch dressing has dairy. He would eat Asian food and think it is safe, but didn’t know that soy sauce has wheat. The list goes on. I am hoping that if his body takes a short break from these allergens and we start to eat more raw food, that his body would have a chance to repair and improve, and maybe he could one day eat these food again. But then again, we all know this is not an easy trip. However, I now strongly suggest anyone with eczema, psoriasis, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel, etc. to look into allergy testing.