Vitamin C and Neti Pots

I'm just gonna to tell you, this post falls under the category of too much information.  But it's too good to pass up.  

As I've expressed, there has been a plague on my home for about the past two months.  Every time we all get well, someone starts coughing again or wakes up with a scratchy throat, and the whole cycle resets itself and descends upon us like a mudslide.  Doctor flippantly calls it "Daycare Nose," but we know it as The Scourge.  (And we're counting on this to be over the precise day R.L. turns one, one month from now, February 14th, just like she promised.) 

We haven't been passive victims in this war either.  We've actively resisted the evil forces at work here.  For instance, I've become the vitamin king.  Every morning I'm religiously taking a whole foods supplement, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, an Aspirin, and Glucosamine Chondroitin just in case cartilage and colds are interconnected.   I know the very best over-the-counter cold and cough medicines on the market right now.  Extra Strength Mucinex DM for the cough with a tall glass of water.  Take it to the bank.  I've taken two different kinds of street-sweeping antibiotics.  I've had a steroid shot.  I'm using a Symbicort inhaler for bronchial dilation.  I've taken Tussin w/Codeine capsules, and as a result we had a midnight fire drill because I saw and smelled smoke filling the upstairs of my home and ran into the street in my underwear clutching a discombobulated boy and screaming fire. I've taken more sick days than the previous 3 or 4 years combined.  Whined and complained.  I've tried sucking it up, being the tough guy, using the power of positive thinking.  I've slept for hours thinking rest might be the key.  None of it has worked.  H has experienced similar frustrations.  

This past weekend, we hit the wall.  We started reading up on alternative therapies for the common cold.  "What would they do in India," we asked ourselves, "or ancient Greece?"  

Yogis pour warm saltwater through their sinus cavities to wash away impurities.  In one nostril, behind the eyes and ears, into the back of the throat, and out the other nostril in a steady stream.  It feels great, and it has the most immediate gratification of any cold treatment I've ever tried.  After a Neti Pot (the name-brand that's sold at Walmart) I feel great for an hour or so.  I highly recommend it, twice a day.

Hippocrates invented a version of a treatment that we in alternative medicine now call the Ascorbic Acid Flush (also known as a Vitamin C flush).  This one takes the cake.  Generally the way that it works is that you take a teaspoon of Ascorbic Acid diluted in some water or juice every fifteen minutes until it induces fully fledged diarrhea.  No soft stools here; it has to blow.  The "evacuation" as it is known by some (the "event" by others) is supposed to be an expulsion of all the toxins in the body.  The ascorbic acid molecules bond or something to toxins and take them away when they leave.  As we grew closer and closer to the event, the stuff started tasting nastier and nastier.  H wasn't sure whether she would puke first or just die.  It began with a little rumble in the gut, and then after a mad dash to the can, it was over.  For H anyway.  Me?  I must have been purging demons dating all the way back to my rock-n-roll days cause I'm still experiencing cleansing blasts, and it is Tuesday morning.  

The cool news is that H feels great.  She said yesterday that she feels five pounds lighter, and her cold symptoms are almost gone.  I am finally on the mend.  At first, I think I let myself get dehydrated during the flush, and I had to learn to pound water nonstop.  Ever since I've been loading up on l'eau, I'm feeling better and better.

The latest lesson in Parenthood 101:  Water is the nectar of the gods.  The Truth.  Drink it like your life depends on it cause it does.  

--MJF

King Crab Legs, Oysters on the Half Shell, Shrimp

You know, baby food. 

Being a boy-dad has its perks.  

• When R.L. mashes his finger in a cabinet door, I get to say, "Dry up boy.  It's a long way from your heart."  (And I kiss his 10 1/2 month old hand.)
  
• I lie on the floor on my back with him at my side tossing a tennis ball in the air over and over and over and over.  He's already trying to catch it.  
• I spray him in the face with the hose on the kitchen sink.  He loves it, and Mama does too, now.  Just says, "You boys."  (I catch her doing it sometimes.)
• I buy baseball cards for his collection, guns for him to shoot with me someday.
• I will always own a truck so I can give it to him when he starts to drive.
• I will laugh when he picks up a dried dog turd and chases me with it, and I call his poop doo-doo.
• We'll discuss the differences between centipedes and millipedes in depth.
• We'll have thousands of nicknames for each other.
• I'll teach him about beer and bats and fire and traps, sharp knives and boots and go-karts and hats, jock straps and girls and edible plants and DIRT BOMBS!

So when Dad took us out for supper at The Flying Fish, it was high time to start the kid in on some serious family-boy eatin'.  The joint has fabulous, fresh seafood and great atmosphere any time of the year.  We ordered half the menu and watched Bobby Bowden and the Seminoles win another bowl game.  Romulus ate King Crab legs, raw oysters, fried shrimp, boiled shrimp, hushpuppies.  And crackers, crackers are good for babies.  He devoured all of it and begged for more, but Mama grew increasingly adamant that enough was enough.  When we put him down that night he was pleasantly fatigued and slept like a log.

He arose especially chipper (a nickname I'm toying with--Littleman's already a huge Braves fan and he does look like his daddy).  The look in his eye seemed to say, "Are you experienced, Dad?  I am."  And then he took his first poop since the momentous occasion.  He didn't sit in it long.  I knew when he had done it.  But when I changed his diaper, it looked like someone had taken a blowtorch to his ass.  That seafood doo-doo was radioactive.  Chipper didn't even know it yet either, until it was time to wipe.  

When Mama took him to his pediatrician yesterday, the lady had to leave the room for a minute when she saw.  She was nice about it and all, but there was no mistaking it, I had messed up.  She advised H to sharply advise me to EDUCATE myself about the foods a 10/11 month old should be eating and to acknowledge that what I had done was "not very smart."  The doctor cooked up a little potion that she named Butt Balm and sent H on her way to straighten me out.  

Last night, R.L., Dad, M.C., K.C., H, and I were in the dining room at dinner passing dishes family style.  I started to feed the boy some Italian Chicken, an old family recipe and staple menu item in our home.  I was quickly put in check by the entire table--in unison, and we had a good laugh.  But Chipper didn't think it was so funny.  That boy wants to eat.

I can't wait for him to scrape his knee for the first time.  I'm ready.  When he comes to me crying, I'll smirk and say, "Rub a little a dirt in it Son."  (And then I'll clean it up and teach him his first lesson in Basic First Aid.)    

--MJF