Mommy School

Day One:

I am starting this blog about being a mom to help all those moms out there who are young and inexperienced, old and experienced, or somewhere in between. There are plenty of self-help guides out there and a lot of confusing misinformation. Being a mom is all trial and error and it's hard to mess it up too much.

I certainly have a lot of opinions and they're open to be changed. But there are a few simple things we can share with each other that should inspire us to make our own lives simpler, happier and healthier.

On day one, I'm sharing what's going on in my life right now: sick kids! And I'm going to tell you how I got them healthy again without taking them to a doctor and paying $80 for a new patient visit or $40 for a copay. I love my family doctor, a cash pay doctor who doesn't love pharmaceutical companies or wasting time and money on unnecessary medical tests or drugs, but I prefer to save myself a trip unless necessary because I have a wealth of my own knowledge on how to care for children to get them healthy again.

Before 1920 most mothers learned how to care for sick kids at home without doctors, and we didn't have to reteach ourselves these things or try to discover them. We didn't have hospitals for birth, we didn't have baby formula, and we didn't have pharmacies dosing out antibiotics to 90% of people who get sick.

We have a lot of useless and harmful modern practices in medicine that do more harm than good when used over and over on a broad scale. Modern medicine can save lives, but overusing it is leading to superbugs and other issues, like degrading our immune systems and causing us more pain and suffering than necessary.

The saying goes that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so for that I'll just say, it is probably somewhat my fault that they did get sick. There are things we can do to avoid infections in the first place, like hand washing, healthy diet, avoiding being in too close of contact with too many people at once, and plenty of sun. But when these fail and you're faced with sick kids sometimes all you can do is just treat it.

Antibiotics are not always necessary, because not all infections can't be cured in other ways. Before we had modern antibiotics, we had herbal medicine. We also have herbal eating, cooking healing foods like soups, and we had things like colloidal silver. Today we are lucky to have homeopathy and essential oils as well.

So recently we had a stomach virus run through our family, which was then followed by a bad respiratory infection involving cough and runny noses, ear pain, crying, fevers and sore throats. All of these are now on their way out and nobody had to go to any hospital or doctor, including my daughter who has down syndrome. Luckily, I happen to have a couple of friends who are nurses I can message if I start to get worried. One of them is in school for homeopathy, and she helped me shop for my remedies. My daughter is 11 months and she's exclusively breastfed. We've been introducing solids but not to the extent that some people do, due to her trouble with eating solids. And conveniently (thank you mama milk), she was the last to get sick. This is also her first time to be sick, and she even avoided catching the stomach thing that sent me, and everyone else into complete misery for 24-48 hours, one at a time.

With seven kids, it takes a lot of work for moms (that would be me) when someone gets sick, which is why I cook as much as possible from scratch and try to avoid letting my kids have too much sugar. My husband will sneak them candy and cake and soda when I am not looking, so it becomes somewhat difficult to control the access point to immune suppressing foods. But as a mom I can be proactive in how I get them well, and dump out the bad items when my husband isn't looking, and try to control my own cravings for sweet things as well, so everyone can benefit!

Here are a few remedies I used this time that may help you:

1) Homeopathy.

I simply headed to Whole Foods because I was all out of homeopathy at home, but you can order them online, through various websites including Amazon if you need them quickly, but not this instant.

I selected by reading the remedy to symptom descriptions on the bottle. I got one for cold and flu that was a combo, and looked up everything else individually. I gave these to my kids every day several times until I ran out.

Currently I'm out and need to buy more, but almost everyone is on the tail end of using them and everyone is also feeling much better and close to being through the illness in just about 3-4 days.

Some of the homeopathic remedies were Thuja, Hepar Sulph, a flu combo, Belladonna for the fever, and a couple of others that slip my mind.

Seriously just browse the homeopathy section and pick one that looks good for the symptoms your kids have.

You can also go to abchomeopathy.com and get a good constitutional remedy based on your individual child's symptoms and personality that will work like a charm, using the remedy finder app.

2) A garlic mullein oil supplement that is used for ear pain.

This thing worked like a charm as both an oral and an ear drop supplement. I used it on anyone who was showing signs of ear pain and I dropped it under my tongue as well, so it would get into my breastmilk.

3) My very first homemade tincture! This one I mixed together into a single bottle after brewing these for the past month. Luckily they were ready near the time we all got sick, and I just so happened to get into this a month before. It takes 28 days to make a good one. I will teach you how (later, in an upcoming post). I mixed together tinctures of garlic, pau d' arco, marshmallow, elder flower, rosemary, and mint. It is tasty! So my kids like it. And I take it so it will get into my breastmilk for the baby and the nursing toddler.

4) A homemade thieves oil I put together, diluted heavily with vitamin E and rubbed on the children's feet approximately once per day (maybe up to two times if needed). You only need a few drops.

5) Baby chest rub. This is much like a homemade body butter (I happen to make this all the time) consistency but it's available at all stores. It had eucalyptus lavender and chamomile oils in it.

6) Breast milk in baby's nose, then wipe nose with any type of soft cloth you have around you at the time (my shirt might have to do, I can wash it later!).

A friend has also suggested the Nose Frida, but I didn't have one so I just use my own method.

7) Bath time. Nothing cools a fever down like a warm bath. For extra comfort I mix frankincense EO in with my handmade body butter to put on baby after her bath. My older kids love this too, very occasionally, if I have that kind of time!

8) A loose adaptation / oral/ food version of the Thieves oil concept. Everything is based loosely on the Hot Toddy without the alcohol. In any application in the kitchen it will help. The following herbs and spices are medicinal and taste great in a lot of things:

• Ground cloves, cinnamon, ginger, & nutmeg
• You can add vanilla, which is actually also a tincture of the vanilla bean
• Honey
• Lemon

This time, I put this in hot tea (you can use any tea, or go all out and get echinacea blend with immune support, or elder flower tea) and I also put the first several ingredients (except the lemon) in a homemade hot chocolate. You can also pour these into a smoothie.

9) Incorporate coconut water or milk into a recipe such as a smoothie or a hot tea or other beverage. Coconut is very helpful for the immune system.

10) Juicing vegetables and fruit to trick your kids into drinking it:

I suggest juicing at minimum, lemon, orange, cilantro or parsley, ginger and turmeric. Then mix it into a smoothie. Add whatever vegetables you want.

11) Smoothie recipe that will taste amazing:

• Two bananas
• Handful of trail mix
• Almond milk flavored with honey
• Coconut milk flavored with vanilla
• Vanilla yogurt (also great for the immune system)
• Knob of fresh ginger
• Piece of fresh Turmeric
• Ice

After blending this you can add your vegetable juice from #10 if desired.

12) Cooking with medicinal herbs & spices and real salt

Any recipe you can incorporate fresh rosemary, garlic, lemon, or even basil and oregano into, will have medicinal properties and will taste like you're the best cook ever to be a mommy. I prefer Celtic sea salt or Redmond's real salt to other brands. I avoid anything that says 'iodized salt' because I have heard that these salts are fake or something? I like the Celtic and the Redmond's for the mineral content and the fact that they aren't too highly processed or adulterated.

Might I suggest homemade marinara, or a roast with vegetables, or baked salmon.

If you can handle the heat, anything with a red pepper flake will also boost your immune system.

13) Make your own cooking oils at home

Infuse garlic into olive oil ahead of time and use it for cooking

14) Grapefruit seed extract

This is high in vitamin C and you can add it to lemonade or orange juice. It's one of the few supplements I actually trust to use on my kids or myself.

15) Homemade lemonade with lemonade peel ice instead of regular ice

The peel of lemons and oranges has the highest amount of vitamin C. You can throw the rinds in the freezer and then add them to your pitcher of juice to cool it down. It's a little bitter but you get used to that.

16) Colloidal silver (Enough said)

17) Sun (vitamin D)

18) Mushrooms, eggs, or cod liver oil (vitamin D)

19) Avoid fake supplements and allergy meds, fake drugs like Tylenol or Motrin, and fake decongestant drugs. I say fake because I don't trust most things in a bottle made by pharma or supplement companies and I only use anything like that as an absolute last resort.

20) AVOID LIKE the PLAGUE

VITAMIN D is a SCAM! The supplemental form of Vitamin D, Folic Acid, and almost anything else that is sold and marketed as a necessary nutrient is also a scam. Those are normally synthetics that are actual rat poison that killed animals in trials, or mutate our genes and lead to future problems like birth defects and chemical sensitivities.

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE: Vaccines, Tamiflu, steroids, or anything else promoted to you by an allopath. The only thing I accept from allopaths would be antibiotics. And only if I can't cure it myself at home which is extremely rare. I'm not saying don't take your kid to the doctor if they're sick. I'm just saying that I've got 15 years of doing this all myself and I've got the confidence to know when my kid really needs a doctor and when they just need a mom that knows how to care for them. 90% of the time it's me that they need.

21) I didn't make it to needing to make soup this past couple of weeks, but a bone broth would also have been helpful. For my truly picky kids, you can even dress up ordinary junk food like ramen, by making your own broth, and adding ginger to it. This is antiviral and antibacterial and then you can also add bacon bits you make at home, chives and some other vegetable such as bok choy to the top, to make it a healthy gourmet ramen that will help them feel better faster.

Disclaimer: Although I can get almost any one of my kids well using these methods, I still have more methods I haven't mentioned. I will teach you about those later. IF none of this works for you, do what works for you. I'm not a medical doctor and this is not medical advice. This is just "momming" advice. Knowledge is free, and knowledge is healing power!