All right, it's confession time. I'm a closet hippie. I secretly have this desire to live on a farm with all of my closest friends, with cows and chickens and a large garden. (As long as I don't have to touch or even get close to the chickens.) I think it would be cool to work together to provide for each other. Somebody could teach the kids (not me), somebody could cook, somebody could sew our clothes, etc. etc. etc. Am I crazy? I also do things like can fresh produce, make most of my own cleaning products, use coconut oil for everything, I've used cloth diapers and I stopped washing my hair. Yep, you read right, I don't wash my hair. With shampoo, that is. When I first started looking into this no-poo phenomenon I read a ton of blogs by other people who had done it and that's what gave me the courage to try. So here I am posting my story of kicking the shampoo bottle habit so maybe somebody else will decide to give it a go.
I'm no scientist, but here's my understanding of why we should even stop using shampoo in the first place. I'm sure you've all heard about all the chemicals and nasty stuff in shampoo. But at the very basic level, shampoo seems to strip our hair and scalp of all the natural oils our body creates. In response, our body produces more oil, so we need to shampoo more often and the cycle continues. Instead, I've started using baking soda to wash my hair. It has a very low pH level so it doesn't strip my hair of oil, but it's deodorizing and "scrubby" so it cleans. After I wash with baking soda I use apple cider vinegar as a sort of conditioner. It detangles and makes my hair shiny, I don't know why, I just know it works.
So here's how it went for me. I started looking into it about a year ago but was very hesitant to try it because of the transition period. I read this transition period could last from 2 weeks to 3 months in which your hair could be greasy and nasty. I just didn't see how I could go to work and church with a greaseball head! Finally this summer I decided to try it during my girls trip. I figured at least I would be on vacation with girls that would love me even if my hair was nasty. I took hats and scarfs and headbands expecting the worst. On that trip, my hair wasn't that bad and I figured this was going to be way easier than I expected. Even the next week wasn't so bad. After that, though, I noticed a nasty greasy feel to my hair as if it just wasn't getting clean. It looked pretty clean, it didn't smell, and it held a curl like no other, but it had a funny texture I wasn't fond of. At this point, though, the itchy scalp and dandruff that had been plaguing me since I had my 2 year old had disappeared. I figured it was worth it even if the texture was a little funny. Another month down the road, I still had the weird texture and decided to wash my hair with shampoo. It was amazing, it felt so silky and smelled so good and I thought I'd probably just give up on the no-poo thing. BUT, the next day my hair was limp and lifeless and my scalp started to smell. You know, that smell you get when your scalp is oily and dirty? I had been going 4 days in between washing with no smell. So I persevered. All in all, after 3 months of transition, my hair turned a corner. All of a sudden, I have that silky hair back, no weird texture, I wash it every 4 days with the baking soda/apple cider vinegar and my scalp is not itchy or flaky. AND, I don't use any product. No mousse, no straightening cream, no gel. No nothing! I was a slave to product before. I am SO happy with it!
Here's how I do it. I have a squeeze bottle in my shower I use for the baking soda. I put about 1 Tablespoon of baking soda to 1 cup of water, mix it together and pour it in the squeeze bottle. I squeeze it all over my head, making sure to get underneath and then I scrub. This is very important! Scrub, scrub, scrub until every inch of your scalp has been scrubbed. This is mainly for your scalp, I don't even try and get it all the way down my hair. Then let it sit for a minute. Rinse. I keep a spray bottle with straight apple cider vinegar in the shower. I spray it all over my hair and then comb it through with a pick. Leave it on for a minute and rinse well. Yes, it smells!! It even smells a bit when your hair is wet, but the minute it dries the smell disappears. I promise! That's it. It's cheap, it's chemical-free and it works. I hope you decide to try it!
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Screens
It feels like a lot of pressure to post something amazing here since it's been months since my last post. I'm sure I'm the only one even thinking about that, though! Every time I get an idea and start "writing" in my head, I dub it as not good enough and continue to put off writing. I finally decided I just need to start! So here I am, with a post that I'm sure will be far less than spectacular. Mostly this post is about my husband and I finally doing something in our parenting that worked!
Last spring I read a little blurb in a magazine about television time. The author described an idea they had to cut down on the amount of time their kids spent in front of the tv. She was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked and I really liked the idea so I presented it to my husband. He agreed it was worth a shot, but was less than confident that it would work on OUR kids. The idea is this: no "screens" Monday thru Friday. That's right, no tv, no movies, no video games, no computer, no PSP, etc. etc. etc. The catch is that on the weekend they get unrestricted screen privileges. We talked to our kids about it just to get their take and they surprisingly agreed it was a good idea.
I think it's important you know why this seemed necessary in our house. We had already set a rule that they get 30 minutes of screen time to use however they wanted. The problem was they would come home from school and immediately race up to get to the screen of their choice first. Then they would fight. You know the drill, "he's not giving me a turn!", "I'm not going to get as much time as him", "he's playing the game I want to play". This would go on and on. Instead of making dinner, I would spend this part of my day refereeing, aka yelling. I would inevitably forget the time and let them stay on their screens so I could get something done and then it would be dark, they would have a ton of energy and would inevitably start wrestling in the house. Then, more yelling. We tried many different ways of dealing with this, but nothing seemed to work for us. A change was definitely needed.
So the first week went as expected. They didn't complain about the lack of screen time, they did homework, played outside, complained of how bored they were, but definitely far better than before. The weekend came and they vegged. It was all I could do not to shut the tv off and make them go outside. But I didn't. They spent all day Saturday in front of screens and I seriously began to wonder what we were thinking. Sunday was better as we had a full day planned and they didn't get any screen time. The next week they didn't complain of being bored and never even asked about screen time. The weekend was jam packed full of stuff and they got very little screen time. The weekend after that they watched some tv and played some video games then went outside to play. Fast forward to November. They never ask about screen time during the week and never complain, it is just accepted. Weekends are surprisingly free of fighting and stress about how much time they spend in front of screens. We're so busy that they rarely have a free day on the weekend to spend in front of the tv, but they don't complain about it!!!
Here's why I think it works. Kids have so little control of anything in their lives. As parents we try to give them more control, more responsibility, but they don't always recognize it as such. The minute we told our kids they could do something as much as they wanted and we would not stop them they were all in. It didn't matter what they had to give up, they loved that they could have that control. We, of course, gave them the caveat that as parents we would always have the last say and when we said to turn it off it still had to happen, but they've never questioned that. It's so hard for me to let go and let them have some control, to trust that they are capable of making wise choices. This screen time experiment has been such a good parenting lesson for me. My job is not to make them act a certain way, be who I want them to be, or control every aspect of their lives until they're out of my house. My job is to slowly give them more and more freedom, act with grace when they don't use that freedom wisely and allow them to experience consequences that will help them learn what happens when we make poor choices. Right now, when they're young and in an environment where they are loved and accepted is the time for them to practice what they'll do with freedom. When they move out and have the opportunity to make all the decisions, I want them to already have that practice. I want them to know what it's like to make mistakes and still be loved and accepted even while dealing with the consequences. I want them to lean on Jesus and His grace because they've seen the example of grace in our home. We have a lot of work to do, but it's a start!
Last spring I read a little blurb in a magazine about television time. The author described an idea they had to cut down on the amount of time their kids spent in front of the tv. She was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked and I really liked the idea so I presented it to my husband. He agreed it was worth a shot, but was less than confident that it would work on OUR kids. The idea is this: no "screens" Monday thru Friday. That's right, no tv, no movies, no video games, no computer, no PSP, etc. etc. etc. The catch is that on the weekend they get unrestricted screen privileges. We talked to our kids about it just to get their take and they surprisingly agreed it was a good idea.
I think it's important you know why this seemed necessary in our house. We had already set a rule that they get 30 minutes of screen time to use however they wanted. The problem was they would come home from school and immediately race up to get to the screen of their choice first. Then they would fight. You know the drill, "he's not giving me a turn!", "I'm not going to get as much time as him", "he's playing the game I want to play". This would go on and on. Instead of making dinner, I would spend this part of my day refereeing, aka yelling. I would inevitably forget the time and let them stay on their screens so I could get something done and then it would be dark, they would have a ton of energy and would inevitably start wrestling in the house. Then, more yelling. We tried many different ways of dealing with this, but nothing seemed to work for us. A change was definitely needed.
So the first week went as expected. They didn't complain about the lack of screen time, they did homework, played outside, complained of how bored they were, but definitely far better than before. The weekend came and they vegged. It was all I could do not to shut the tv off and make them go outside. But I didn't. They spent all day Saturday in front of screens and I seriously began to wonder what we were thinking. Sunday was better as we had a full day planned and they didn't get any screen time. The next week they didn't complain of being bored and never even asked about screen time. The weekend was jam packed full of stuff and they got very little screen time. The weekend after that they watched some tv and played some video games then went outside to play. Fast forward to November. They never ask about screen time during the week and never complain, it is just accepted. Weekends are surprisingly free of fighting and stress about how much time they spend in front of screens. We're so busy that they rarely have a free day on the weekend to spend in front of the tv, but they don't complain about it!!!
Here's why I think it works. Kids have so little control of anything in their lives. As parents we try to give them more control, more responsibility, but they don't always recognize it as such. The minute we told our kids they could do something as much as they wanted and we would not stop them they were all in. It didn't matter what they had to give up, they loved that they could have that control. We, of course, gave them the caveat that as parents we would always have the last say and when we said to turn it off it still had to happen, but they've never questioned that. It's so hard for me to let go and let them have some control, to trust that they are capable of making wise choices. This screen time experiment has been such a good parenting lesson for me. My job is not to make them act a certain way, be who I want them to be, or control every aspect of their lives until they're out of my house. My job is to slowly give them more and more freedom, act with grace when they don't use that freedom wisely and allow them to experience consequences that will help them learn what happens when we make poor choices. Right now, when they're young and in an environment where they are loved and accepted is the time for them to practice what they'll do with freedom. When they move out and have the opportunity to make all the decisions, I want them to already have that practice. I want them to know what it's like to make mistakes and still be loved and accepted even while dealing with the consequences. I want them to lean on Jesus and His grace because they've seen the example of grace in our home. We have a lot of work to do, but it's a start!
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