Yeah, it's the kids that stress me out. Riiiight...

Have you ever had one of those conversations that aren’t really about what you’re talking about? The true meaning is conveyed through innuendo and subconscious body language, etc. Sometimes we just blurt out a phrase that’s not the truth at all.

This morning, when the teenager woke me because she missed the bus, ‘You kids are KILLING me!’ was what popped out of my mouth.

We’ve all laugh at the sitcoms and comedies that depict a frazzled parent. As I add kids to my own family, that stuff gets even funnier.

Who could get mad at a 'Steampunk Mad Hatter?'

It was mostly in jest that I said ‘You kids are KILLING me!’ But it also had nothing to do with them…

The past three days at work have been nothing but, for lack of a better term, sheer hell. Murphy’s Law was not only in full effect, but it threw me on the ground, kicked me in the ribs, spit on me, picked me up and knocked me down again.

Nothing seemed to go right. The associates under me didn’t seem to want to follow direction, and what’s worse, they didn’t want to think for themselves and come up with their own solutions. For anything.

After 3 15-17 hour days of this, (without a full lunch break mind you, I’d finally break down and have to get something to eat and sit for 15 minutes) one gets a bit … irritable.

So when I got home last night, and Calli ran to me and said, ‘Daddy home!’, I was very happy to see her, but I also felt like collapsing into bed. So, as these things go, last night was one of those nights where she was awake every ten minutes asking for milk or a toy or just generally not wanting to sleep.

At one point I remember, in a sleep deprived haze, saying, ‘Can’t we just got to sleep?‘

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The thing that kept me going through those tough days of going in early and staying late was the fact that when I was done, I would be off for nine days of vacation. Awesome. The first day I planned on sleeping in until dinner time.

Alas, I have kids. So when Kat shook my foot, wrenching me from blissful slumber, and I saw her hovering over me, I knew it meant one thing: she missed the bus and needed a ride. Go away kid, ya bother me…

The point of this post isn’t to complain, rather, I’d like to point out the dangers of bringing home the attitude you may have gotten from work. Don’t take it out on the kids.

As a general rule, I don’t. I usually unload everything on my wife, (which is fair, right?) and play with the kids to relax. I don’t yell at them because I’m frustrated with something else … most of the time…

So I’m throwing this out into the Universe to remind myself, I’m off work now. I’m on vacation. Time to exhale!

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Anyway, this area includes the shampoo aisle, which we reset last week. I had never really paid that much attention to it before, but there is a LOT of ‘flavors’ of shampoo out there! I started thinking about that. Is all that shampoo really necessary? Just for cheap giggles, here’s a run down of what I have found in the shampoo aisle:

There is a special shampoo for long hair! Really? Does long hair have a different chemical makeup than short hair? I had no idea. 

Axe makes a shower scrub for men called ‘Snake Peel‘. Have you ever been walking in the woods and found a bit of shed snake skin? Did you then pick it up and rub it all over your body, knowing that it would wow the ladies? Me niether.

Herbal Essences has a ‘self-targeting’ shampoo. This one I’m all for. All I’d have to do is open the bottle and the shampoo would find my hair?! But then I pause, what sorcery is this? What maniacal technology has Herbal Essences employed? Nanotechnology in hair care products sounds like a step toward world domination. With a trembling hand, I place the bottle back on the shelf, being careful not to disturb the other bottles…

It makes me think of Lewis Black’s routine about Milk and Water (not for younger listeners!)

Really, I love a good variety, but is all of this really necessary?

Did you know Mountain Dew has different varieties now? There’s a Peep for every holiday, not just Easter? I saw Valentine candy corn this year. Valentine. Candy CORN!?

It’s not that I’m against capitalism or consumerism. I’m an American, after all. I enjoy loud music too, but I tend to turn the volume down every now and again.

On the ‘Daddy’ side of things, I tend to spoil my kids, but still try to instill some sense of, ‘Maybe you don’t need that!’ I swell with a sense of pride when my two year old understands that life will go on without that bobble that will just wind up on a shelf. But when she does recieve something, her eyes light up and that thing is her favorite thing for a good long while. AND she doesn’t forget to include her old toys in the fun as well.

Maybe the repetitive viewings of Toy Story has taught her something!  ;)

My hope is that we as adult consumers, being faced with these tough economic tomes, will be forced to take a step back and think, ‘Maybe I don’t need that…’ Then maybe, just maybe, when things do turn around, the corporations will have spent some time thinking, ‘Maybe we don’t need to develop new flavors of fruit flavored energy drinks that slowly kill you. Maybe we won’t develop the animal excrement body wash. Maybe that’s not what the world needs right now.’

One can only hope.

Can we really go from this...

My two year old does not get sick. In her close to two and a half years of life, Calli has been sick twice that I remember. But when she does get sick, it’s usually a doozy!

When she was about eighteen months old she caught a flu that had her vomiting so severely that she became dehydrated. She looked pale and her eyes looked sunken. We lived in Missouri at the time, and the doctor gave her an I.V. of fluids and medicines to make her feel better. The I.V. succeeded in hydrating her, but it still took about another week for her to get 100% better.

When my fifteen year old stepdaughter was little it seemed like the doctors were always telling us to use different over the counter drugs for the differing symptoms of her illnesses.

Well, Calli’s sick again, this time it seems with the common cold. She ran a slight fever for a couple of days, she has a runny nose and a cough. We gave her some Motrin meant for children her size of 27 pounds for the fever, but we really wanted to do something about that cough. I went to my local pharmacy and started scanning the shelves.

Children’s Tylenol Plus for colds said DO NOT use for children under 4.

Children’s Mucinex said DO NOT use for children under 4.

Children’s Dimetapp said DO NOT use for children under 4.

…and so on until I started getting offended by all the capital letters. Hey, medicine company bullies! I just want to help my kid feel better! Don’t YELL AT ME!!!

So I found a bag of Little Colds Saf-T-Pops by Little Remedies Products and walked to the ‘Pharmacist Consultation’ window. I asked the pharmacist what I could give my two year old for a cough.

Her answer was simple enough: Nothing.

“There’s a lot more literature about parents overdosing their kids these days.” She told me.

I showed her the Saf-T-Pops. “What about these?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s perfect!” she said. “Any kind of lollipops help get the saliva going and lubricate the throat. Where did you get that?”

I laughed, “Right over there, in your cough and cold section.”

“I might just buy some for my two year old!” she said.

She also recommended a humidifier, since we live at a high altitude and it’s so dry here.

So I bought the Pops and when I got home, I really studied the package. The directions read, ‘Adults and children 2 years and over: allow to dissolve slowly in the mouth. Do not chew.’

Adults too? Since Calli had so graciously shared this cold with her mother and I, I allowed her to share her Pops with her parents. We all sat around sucking on lollipops and watching movies. The lollipops do taste great. They have Vitamin C and Zinc in them, but unlike other Zinc cough drops I’ve tried, they don’t taste like your sucking on a nickel. The bag has cherry, watermelon, orange, and grape flavors, so there’s something in there for everyone!

...to this?

We’ve also all been sucking down the orange juice (I prefer Simply Orange) and just generally taking it easy, which is the best way to get out of the way and let your miraculous body do it’s thing.

I can’t help but think that even as adults, we can all make do with a little less medicines in our lives. They generally just treat the symptoms anyway. So just use your cold as the perfect excuse to kick back, read that book you’ve been meaning to get to, and let your body take care of the rest.

To quote Little Remedies’ slogan: Sometimes the best medicine is no medicine.