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By Mom Unplugged, March 31, 2007 10:52 am

When I die, I DO NOT want to be reincarnated as our sofa!

Our sofa is a practical sort of sofa. I found it years ago for a great price at a consignment store. It is a good solid sofa, with nice high sides, plump pillows and cute little bolsters. It has some style, in a slightly retro kind of way. It is wonderful for reading with a cup of tea, lounging with the laptop, or even sleeping on all night. Oh, and did I mention the color? It is upholstered in a sensible, kind of baroque-like pattern of goldy-browns and dark browns.

But, look closely at our sofa and you will see chocolate milk stains (well hidden by the pattern and brown color), cat claw snags, sags in the back cushions from too many cats and kids sitting on them, and a small split on one arm that has been sewn back together (easily covered by a throw). TV-free kids can be a little hard on a sofa.

This is what happens on our sofa:

The moral of this story is that if you are not going to sit your kids down neatly in front of TV, you’d better have a sturdy, brown consignment-store sofa!

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By Mom Unplugged, March 28, 2007 11:14 am

Here’s one for you: Baby Disco Parties.

My friend Amy, who’s favorite form of procrastination is researching for my blog (thanks Amy!!), found this one at Lynne Griffin’s blog, her post is called Baby Loves Quiet.

Apparently parent-child dance parties are now taking place at a club near you. Hurry up! Wake baby from his nap, put on his best baby spandex and head on over for an afternoon of ear-shattering music, dancing, smoking, and boozing with baby! Cool! Kind of like Music Together or Gymboree on steroids (and with a few margaritas for Mom).

OK, am I weird? Does this sound fun? Lynne has already covered the “harmful to baby” angle quite nicely in her post so I won’t even go there. But my question to you is the following: does boogieing with an overstimulated, overtired, and possibly frightened baby sound like a great afternoon to you?

And what I really want to know, is where do you change the diaper? I have never been in a club that sported changing tables in the bathrooms. Ashtrays and condom machines yes, changing tables - no. My club experience is somewhat limited, so maybe I have just never been to the right sort of club.

So grab that little sleepy-head and let’s go clubbing! We’ll show baby what a good time is really like!

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By Mom Unplugged, March 23, 2007 8:06 am

One of the things I strive for in life is to make my actions match my intentions. This sounds like an easy task, but why is it so hard sometimes? One of the areas in my life that needs improvement is in my recycling and “zero impact” efforts.

I have a compost bin, but while I was quite diligent about it pre-baby, it has fallen by the wayside over the last year. Somehow, emptying the pail into the bin and cleaning it out was just one more task that I had no time for. Think of all the lovely compost I would have had for my spring garden if I had just kept up with it!

We don’t have much in the way of recycling opportunities here. There is a place to take cardboard, and the local humane society collects aluminum cans. Except for the shipping boxes that I hoard (see post on Stuff), I try to keep up with the miscellaneous cardboard. But sadly, I have not been doing aluminum. My excuse for this: My garage is so disorganized that I have no place for a recycling bin. I know, pretty pathetic excuse, and I hang my head in shame!

The Not Quite Crunchy Parent has been posting about shopping at socially responsible stores (The Not Quite Crunchy Parent: Shopping Green). I would be fine with that, if we had any of those here in the boonies! We do, of course, have a Super Walmart which I avoid as much as possible. I have ordered Seventh Generation toilet paper, trash bags, and paper towels online, but I am not consistent with this.

I have always felt guilty about using disposable diapers. My official public “politically correct” excuse for not using cloth is because of all the water needed for washing. In reality, since I am confessing true sins here, I just think they sound gross.

However, I see here an opportunity to finally make up for my past sins and gain back a little good karma! I have decided to try out the new flushable diapers (have you heard of gDiapers?). In theory they sound great: you flush the poopy ones, and you can either flush, or even compost, the wet ones. My gDiaper starter kit has just arrived and once I figure it out, I will begin “The Great Diaper Challenge.” I will post our progress online, and if it works, hopefully I can encourage others to give it a try and help our environment.

So, if you are curious about the flushable diapers, please keep checking back for daily updates as I try to improve my environmental karma score.

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By Mom Unplugged, March 21, 2007 8:10 pm

Thirteen Things I Never Dreamed I Would Ever Do

1. Discern a difference in performance between a “brand-name” disposable diaper, and a cheap “generic” diaper.

2. Bake my own bread without a machine…and enjoy it.

3. Pilot an airplane while nursing a baby.

4. Single-handedly care for three kids, six cats, one dog, and two birds.5. Maneuver an embarrassingly large SUV, toss a toy to the baby, put the favorite song on the CD player, distribute snacks, referee an argument over who called who “poopyhead,” and obey traffic rules - all at once.

6. Drink a glass of champagne that was older than I am.

7. Run around my backyard 10 minutes before my wedding scooping dog poop.

8. Become part of the “soccer-mom” demographic.

9. Get excited upon finding mysterious magenta-colored lint in the filter of my drier, instead of the usual grey variety. (Can you say “GET-A-LIFE?”).

10. Drive around town in a vehicle that should be condemned by the department of health.

11. Finish paying off my student loans.

12. Produce a perfect little miniature human being (actually three of them) from my own body.

13. Write a blog.

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By Mom Unplugged, March 16, 2007 8:31 am

OK, does anyone else think it is weird that we, the United States, see fit to designate March 16th, as National Hiccup Day? Are we celebrating hiccups? Are we supposed to have the hiccups on this day? Does anyone but me even KNOW that today is National Hiccup Day? Does anyone care? Does any other country in the world do this sort of thing? These are the questions I ask myself. Yes I know, I need to get a life.

So, what exactly is the connection between this post and the theme of my blog you ask? My answer: If I had a TV, do you think I would have had time to spend hours online doing all this important research? Please don’t be so rude as to point out that I am not exactly “unplugged.”

In honor of this very important day, I offer you these links:

Hiccup Day E-Cards:

Visit American Greetings or Greeting Cards.com (Hallmark doesn’t seem to find this holiday to be worthy enough).

Hiccups In The News:

I have just proven once again that being without TV is like living on Mars. How could I have not heard of the poor Florida teen who hiccuped for 5 weeks straight? As I research this post, I see that this news item seems to have been pretty much everywhere. Apparently there was a big debate, even here in the blogosphere, as to whether or not she was faking. See: Blogging Baby: —Is The Hiccup Girl Faking?

But who really cares about a mere 5 week hiccup when we see that there is an 84 year-old Virginia man who has been hiccuping for 6 years! It all started when he ate a bowl of Campbell’s Chunky Soup back in December 2000.

Hiccup-Related Blog Posts:

Monkeys In The News : — Baby Monkey Rejected Because of Hiccups (if you are like me, then you will appreciate knowing in advance that this story has a happy ending)

Opiniorama: — 12 Second Cure For Hiccups

Beauty and Personality Grooming: — Home Remedies For Hiccups

Hiccup Hell: A WHOLE BLOG devoted to hiccups! Today is the perfect day to go and visit this one.

I am sorry if I missed your hiccup post. Please feel free to add a comment with your link.
Hiccups And Health

For you hypochondriacs out there (you know who you are!), consider this from Yahoo Health:

“Sometimes, although not always, hiccups that persist may indicate the presence of another medical problem. Some illnesses for which continuing hiccups may be a symptom include: pleurisy of the diaphragm, pneumonia, uremia, alcoholism, disorders of the stomach or esophagus, and bowel diseases. Hiccups may also be associated with pancreatitis, pregnancy, bladder irritation, liver cancer or hepatitis. Surgery, tumors, and lesions may also cause persistent hiccups.”

(are you starting to feel those hiccups coming on yet?)

Hiccup Trivia:

Guinness World Record Hiccupper: Charles Osborne, an Iowa hog farmer who hiccuped for 68 years.

Alternative spelling: Hiccough

Also known as: Singultus

Word Origin from Online Etymology Dictionary: 1580, hickop, earlier hicket, hyckock, considered imitative of the sound of hiccupping (cf. Fr. hoquet, Dan. hikke, etc.); modern spelling first recorded 1788; hiccough (1626) is by mistaken association with cough. Replaced O.E. ælfsogoða, so called because hiccups were thought to be caused by elves.

And of course, Remedies:

A Cure For Hiccups: I could write a book the size of War and Peace of all the remedies out there. This is the site I found that seemed to list more remedies than any of the many others I looked at. Plus, they are nicely categorized under the headings “Mental,” “Breathing,” “Drinking Water,” etc. so you can try them all in a logical order. Bookmark A Cure For Hiccups for the next time you get them!

There is also another remedy that is …hem… more invasive of one’s “personal space” (I won’t go into details, but click here if you really want to know).

Failing all this, there is always the patented Hic-Cup (which credits itself with curing the Florida teen): See www.hic-cups.com for more info.

By the way, tomorrow forget St. Patty’s Day. You will find me celebrating National Submarine Day honoring John Holland, who demonstrated the first submarine in 1898!!

(Who says you have to have a TV to be connected to the world?)