Shark!

Shark Steam Pocket Mop, that is!

I've been using a Shark Professional Steam Pocket Mop for a few weeks now in our ongoing attempt to switch over to natural ways of cleaning.  The Shark Steam Pocket Mop uses only steam to break up dirt and sanitize your floors.

No chemicals.  No soaps.  No fragrances.  Just steam!

With two toddlers, a large dog and two cats, there's is no shortage of mess on my floors.  But this past week, we also hosted a splash pool and craft play date, with lots of little wet feet running in and out of the house, smashing stickers and glue into our tiles floors.

This was the week to put the Shark to the test.

There is just no reason for anyone to clean their floors with chemicals.  Your kids and your pets will thank you.  Just an easy once over picks up sticky juice, muddy foot and paw prints, and it peeled stickers right off the ground.

A big difference I have noticed is that when using cleaners in the past our shoes would stick to the tacky floor, after I mopped.  But, after the Shark, the floors are smooth and clean.  I realize now that that sticky feeling was the cleaners residue left on the floor, when my dog could lick it up and that it's sticky nature was making my floors dirty more quickly!

One of my favorite things about the Shark is how quickly the steam dries off the floor.  It's instant.  I don't have to worry about the kids running around and slipping on the wet floor, as soon as I move to a new area, the last area is already dry.

Another reason I'm sold on my Shark, and will never look back, is the cost!  I bought my Shark, and the extra mop pads, and I'll never need another thing to use it.  Shark also has an reputation of making products that last!  With my last mop, I have to spend about $15 on solution for just about every time I mopped, plus the $15 on disposable pads every three to 5 mopping.  I could have bought my Shark a few times over, with all the money I spent on my last mop. I should have switched sooner!

Food Phobia

Twice, this week, I've had full blown anxiety attacks in the grocery store.

Heavy breathing, lightheadedness, nausea.  I'm talking, the real deal.

I've been reading and scrutinizing food labels for a little over three years now, and when you are forced to look, every single day, at what is in every single food you offer to your family, you can't help but acknowledge and face the fact that there is very little food in most of our food.

Let's be honest.  We're feeding our pets better than we feed ourselves!

Source: Zamzows.com

I worked a short time at a pet food store, and my husband also currently works in the pet business, and one of the first things you learn, in the pet business, is how to read a food label to know the difference between a premium food (a balanced diet for your animal) and a grocery store food (garbage).

(Bear with me, I know this seems like a tangent, but I promise, there's a point to all this)

First, a premium food has no corn or grains listed in the ingredients, and mid grade food, may have some corn in it, but not in the first five ingredients, and a grocery store brand likely has corn in all of the first three ingredient.

The next factor you look at, how many cancer causing chemicals are listed?

It's not that complicated is it?  Yet, it took me a good ten years, until I had my children, to read my own families food labels that way, and only because I had to.  I really thought just buying the "whole grain" and "low fat" was good enough.

I challenge you, next time you're in the grocery store, pick up any ten packaged foods and count how many of them don't fall into that garbage food category.  Go ahead and pick up "heath foods" and see if they even make the cut.  I'd really love to hear your replies too!

I have no choice in how I feed my children (I guess that's the perk of living with food allergies).  But then...in case shopping for food free of corn, legumes, dairy, tree nut, and egg for my toddlers, wasn't difficult, stressful and expensive enough already, I stumbled upon this TED video a few weeks ago by Robyn O'Brien, which has me rethinking the way our whole family eats.





And this is why I have panic attacks in the grocery store.  And why I am on day four of no soda, and if you know me, you know that is a huge deal!

I'm not one to buy into propaganda or the latest trendy diet, but combining what I've learned about food in the last three years, with these GMO statistics, I've officially developed a phobia of food.

Here's where my brain goes:  Corn is in everything.  EVERYGODDAMNTHING.  Even if a product doesn't contain "corn" in the ingredients, it almost certainly contains a derivative of corn (see, Also Known As), like vanilla extract, yeast, baking powder.  And 90% of corn in GMO.  Even if you buy "whole foods" like fruits and veggies....which are sprayed, almost always with a corn based pesticide (yes, even organic, either by their "organic spray" or by the blow over from the neighboring standard crop).

So, organic chicken and dairy the, you say!  But what was the animal fed?  Corn probably...   And if you're willing to go through the trouble to find grass fed, and locally grown (like, as in, your own) produce, you're probably going to have to travel near and far for it, and pay quite a bit more, and commit two to three times the time the time for prep and cooking.  And that's just the corn!

And....here it comes.  Another panic attack.  Like Robyn said, you just can't unlearn this stuff...

Natural Multi-Purpose Cleaner

At the start of all this, trying to learn to cook for my family without corn, soy and dairy (the most difficult foods to remove from our diets) was such an overwhelming task, that it's taken me well over a year to accept the fact that Makayla is absolutely reacting to environmental triggers as well.

After a few recent undeniable, and obvious reactions to environmental riggers like perfumes, hairspray and cleaners, we've decided to start making to move to chemical free cleaning in our home.  Yesterday was our first go-round with a homemade vinegar based multi-purpose cleaner.

The Recipe:
10oz Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar (Distilled white vinegar is derived from corn)
10oz Distilled Water
Orange or Lemon Peels

I filled a large mason jar with orange and lemon peels a few weeks ago.  I think about three oranges and three large lemons worth, and then covered them in the ACV and let them soak for several weeks, until the peels looked obviously pickled.

I noticed a lot of orange and lemon pulp floating around the jar, so I used a coffee filter to strain the ACV solution into a new mason jar, before adding it to my spray bottle with the water.

The Review:
I was hesitant about this from the start.  I like to see my cleaners work.  I don't like to use a lot of elbow grease.  And, anyone who knows me knows I hate the smell (and taste, for that matter) or vinegar!

I used it on my kitchen counters.  On my stove.  On my LCD television screen.  On the bathroom sink.  On my walls.  And on my wood furniture!

Well, I'm happy to report that you can see the solution working!  And, using it required very little elbow grease, if any at all.  It pulled up coffee and wine stains, with one easy wipe.  Added a sparkle to my stove that I've not seen since moving to this house almost two years ago.  It even lifted off all those pesky toddler finger marks form the doors and walls that the other cleared just sort of smeared around.

As for the smell, I felt pretty good about it.  It did have a vinegary odor to it, but I felt that the orange and lemon sents cut through to neutralize it, and that once it evaporated, it was really a non-issue.  The hubs however is still out.  I knew them moment he walked in the door and wrinkled his nose that I wasn't fooling him.  I think with my next batch I'll try adding some essential oils.  More lemon or orange?  Or maybe something minty?  I open to suggestions if you've got them!

The Final Word:
All in, all, I'm a happy camper.  This cleaner is just as good, if not better than all the Windex, 409, and Mr. Clean I've been using for the past 15 years.  I'll keep using it, and tweaking the oils until I get a smell that we can all live with.

How We Got Here

I didn't start out with a vendetta against corn.  I loved corn!  Corn on the cob, cream of corn, popcorn candy corn!  I even included corn on the cob in so many meals, one summer, that the hubs begged for, anything but corn.  But, a little over three years ago, corn and I had a bit of a falling out.  Ok, a lot of a falling out.  These days corn consumes most of my daily thoughts, triggers grocery store panic attacks and is pretty much my archnemesis. 

(Ok. So, the long story of how we got to this point!)

Three years ago, when we brought our twins home from the hospital, almost imminently, our daughter started violently, projectile vomiting after every feeding.  Doctors assured us, it was "normal premie reflux," and that as long as she gained weight there was "nothing to worry about," and nothing that could be done.  

So we kept on.  

We cleaned up countless messes.  We laid awake every night hanging on every burp, hiccup or cough, scared to death she was choking on her vomit.  

Until one day she started refusing my breastmilk, and every formula we offered her.  The doctors explained, it was "normal" and simple, she was allergic to dairy or soy, maybe both...no big deal, we'll put her on an elemental formula and be the time she's off formula, she'll outgrow all this normal baby allergy business and life will go on happily ever after.

So I went home, and I fed my starving baby a big ol' bottle of this elemental formula, that's supposed to be free of all things that could hurt my baby...........and, about halfway through the bottle, she turned red, broke out in an instant fever, got small, fine hives, all over the trunk of her body and projectile vomited harder and more violently then anything I had experienced before.

We both cried.

Elecare Ingredients Label

I read the ingredients to the formula, and found it was loaded corn! (Two side notes here: 1) Honestly, a little shocked at first, because, being nor a totally food dummy, I know that corn is simply a filler with no nutritional value, but whateves. 2) Doctors still fight me and argue with me when I tell them that the elemental formulas, such as Elecare, and Neocate, contain any corn at all.)  

Ah-ha!  She's allergic to corn!  So, I march right into GI and tell them my findings....and I kid you not, the doctor slapped her knee, laughed out loud and said, "No one is allergic to corn."  They insisted that it was still an intense reaction to soy and/or dairy and that we would just have to start feeding out three month old baby a diet of solids.........

While researching corn allergies, I attempted to make my own formula from scratch, using condensed milk and vitamins, and I can't even remember what else (because it was a total failure), before finding a formula that was free of corn, soy and dairy.

Alimentum, Ready to Feed.   Our lives were changed.  Finally, our daughter was happy, gaining weight quickly, and no longer throwing up.

I was told that babies outgrow these intolerences be a year or two, so we didn't hesitate to offer her dairy, soy or corn, once we started adding solids to her diet, and she seemed ok.  That is, until she was off of formula and getting all of her diet in the form of these solids.

That was at 18 months old.  Over the next year and a half we slowly removed foods back out of her diet.

First dairy, then soy.  Eggs.  Corn.  The rest of legumes.  Finally tree nuts.

Corn is an ongoing process, and the most difficult to remove from one's diet.

Makayla is still not free of reactions on most days.  We have found that as soon as we remove a corny product from her diet, she does well for a week or two, and then starts reacting again to the corn still in her diet.