I mentioned yesterday that I’d been reading some interesting child-related articles recently. One such article was Healthy Child, Healthy World’s recent blog entitled, “The Top Ten Toxic Products You Don’t Need”.

I’m going to highly recommend that you read this article yourself – it’s short, easy, and filled with ideas for substitutes for supposed can’t-live-withouts like oven cleaner (which I have never in my adult life used, and as you know I’m quite the baker). And you know that I’m probably on the left side of the earth-friendly, tree-hugging, make-your-own-everything spectrum. But these things aren’t all difficult to give up, I promise, and the benefits are enormous.

I feel like I spend every Monday apologizing for clocking out of the blog thing while my family dealt with yet another cold the week before. Last week Cora and I both came down with another cold on Tuesday night – while I was STILL suffering symptoms of the last cold! It’s completely insane, I tell you. And Cora had a double ear infection while I only had a single one – I swear we’re identical twins when it comes to illness.

We spent a couple days feeling like death warmed over, and were back in the swing of things a bit by Friday. Sunday night found me with a new tickle at the back of my throat which I’m steadfastly refusing to acknowledge. And yes, I know it’s at least partly allergies, but I’m already on allergy medication every day of my life so I’m not sure what more can be done.

If that weren’t enough, the weather’s turned cold and rainy after a few teasing days of glorious sunshine and balmy temperatures. I’ve been cleaning out closets and updating wardrobes and have swimsuits and shorts on the brain, not sweaters and fleece.

Wherefore art thou, good weather and good health??

I spent part of last week reading a couple really interesting child-related health articles – I’ll fill you all in on that over the next few days. Really interesting stuff, I promise.

During Christmas break, the family took a trip to the GapKids outlet to get a few necessities. Big mistake, of course, because we were still in “heck, it’s Christmas, let’s spoil ‘em!” mode, and what I had thought would be a ten dollar visit for socks ended up costing us almost eighty bucks. The girls found a whole line of spring rain gear, put on the rain jacket and rubber boots, and danced around the store twirling their matching umbrellas. They looked so darn cute in the yellow-with-green outfits, like big sunny daisies, that we put up only a token fight. I reasoned weakly that they’d need SOME sort of rain gear here, so it might as well be matching. With bonnets. And umbrellas.

Brian and I are recovered, though I can tell that Cora’s hovering on the edge of falling into the nasty cold he and I both had last week. But even though I was out of commission, I managed to jot down a few funny comments during the week – you never know when I’m listening with a paper and pencil.