Yesterday was a bit rough for our youngest three . . . So before bed, I prepared this snack for them:
Obviously, you can figure out the homemade pumpkin pie with whipped topping, but what’s with all the pills and the glass of water???
Let’s see . . . . the big one, that is just ½ a pill, is Vitamin C to put in the glass of water, 
and the smallest one is a chewable multi-vitamin. We’ve been on a “keep away the H1N1 virus” kick around here lately . . . . drinking lots of orange juice, taking our vitamins, washing our hands in warm water with soap (and counting to 10), trying to keep our fingers off our faces and out of our mouths, and Mattias is even following numbers 3 and 4 on this list that was sent to me by a friend:
While you are still healthy and not showing any symptoms of H1N1 infection, in order to prevent proliferation, aggravation of symptoms and development of secondary infections, some very simple steps, not fully highlighted in most official communications, can be practiced (instead of focusing on how to stock N95 or Tamiflu):
1. Frequent hand-washing (well highlighted in all official communications).
2. "Hands-off-the-face" approach. Resist all temptations to touch any part of face (unless you want to eat, bathe or sleep).
3. *Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine if you don't trust salt). *H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the throat/ nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one. Don't underestimate this simple, inexpensive and powerful preventative method.
4. Similar to 3 above, *clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water. *Not everybody may be good at Jala Neti or Sutra Neti (very good Yoga asanas to clean nasal cavities), but *blowing the nose hard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton buds dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population..*
5. *Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C (Amla and other citrus fruits). *If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also has Zinc to boost absorption.
6.* Drink as much of warm liquids as you can.
*Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm.
The other 2 pills (the purple ones) are Children’s Tylenol . . . these 3 did get the H1N1 vaccine today. It was an agonizing decision to make, but in the end, the opinions that weighted on me most heavily were those whose children have actually had the swine flu and they said it was absolutely horrible.
So, today, the 3 youngest have sore arms . . . but so far, no other reactions to the vaccine.
In other news (I use that phrase a lot . . .) . . . I had a bit of a breakthrough with Sofia on Wednesday evening . . . After cleaning up the dinner dishes, and waiting on the pies in the oven, I was heading downstairs to do laundry when Sofia came and stood against me. I figured she wanted a hug because her arm hurt, so I wrapped my arms around her. She started sobbing so I picked her up and rocked her and tried to comfort her (still thinking the problem was her arm). Then she said through her tears, “If I tell you, you’re going to be mad.”
?????
Eventually, I coaxed her into telling me the problem: she had broken her Christmas figurine (I had just bought the 3 of them some inexpensive Christmas trinkets because they’d been such good sports about the shots). So, she went and got it, and I glued the legs back on . . . “See?. It’s okay!”
If you’re wondering why I think this is a breakthrough, it’s because, in the past, Sofia has never told me if something has broken . . . I come across it by accident, and then have had to deal with it – that we need to take care of our “stuff”, especially other peoples’ stuff. (She has never purposefully hidden something, it’s simply been that’s it’s never occurred to her that it’s a big deal when something breaks). Anyways, this time I think she “got it”. The figurine was important to her and she was sad that it was broken . . . she wanted it fixed . . . I told her how happy I was that she told me about it so that we could fix it.
One more bit of other news . . . I’ve discovered using Windows Live Writer to do my blog posts . . . Have you noticed the nifty things I can do with photos??
