Category Archives: Parenting

Magnesium Salt Baths: Our Family Routine

05/05/2016 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

Almost every day for the past two weeks, Going Mom has been making a magnesium salt bath for us to soak our feet in at night. Our family has been well-informed of the benefits magnesium has to offer for a while, but only recently started the magnesium salt bath.

Most of the general population is deficient in this vital element; yes, that means you probably are lacking! Poor food quality from low-nutrient soil, excess caffeine, chemicals like fluoride and chlorine, and stress all play a role in depleting our magnesium levels. Do you have any of the signs in the graphic below? If so, magnesium might be all you need to relieve your symptoms.

Finding a natural source of magnesium is better than resorting to medicine which only masks your symptoms and never cures the problem. My wife and I were taking an oral form of magnesium from Natural Vitality called Natural Calm.

We like the unflavored version, but they have Lemon, Raspberry, Orange, Cherry, and Raspberry Lemon flavors as well. All Non-GMO and free of sugar. Whatever you choose, all you do is add 1 1/2 teaspoons of powder to a small 4 ounce glass of water, let it fizz, then drink. Just be careful, if you up the dose, you’ll have a little….eh hmmm, gastro issues. I speak from experience. 🙂

The thing is, is that magnesium taken orally may not be the best way for our body to absorb the mineral. Poor gut health and the aforementioned stress (I know we all deal with it!) are the major reasons for this malabsorption.

Plus, since our skin is our biggest organ, it has a super ability to absorb nutrients and deliver to the body, and rid the body of toxins from the environment or the vast array of cosmetics that people use. Thus, we’ve created a new nightly routine of magnesium salt baths.

magnesium, deficiency, anxiety, salt bath

Every night, while I prepare dinner, Going Mom, prepares a magnesium salt bath using Epsom Salt (which becomes magnesium in water) or Magnesium Flakes. There’s a long list of benefits, but here are a few of the most important ones.

Magnesium Epsom Salt Bath Benefits

As much as I hate to face the fact, we are all getting older, and kids sure can put a toll on us from playing with and caring after. Giving our body a break with a simple magnesium bath just might be the answer to rejuvenate us and prepare us to face a new day of kids, work, and life in general.

While I don’t have any quantitative measurements to give you, I will say that our family of three have all been sleeping better lately. Yes, even our crazy toddler sleeps fairly soundly all through the night. Soaking our feet for around twenty minutes (unless someone has an unexpected potty break) sets the tone for a peaceful dinner (usually) and an overall calming night (again, usually).

I’m no doctor, so I can’t promise your ailments be relieved when you introduce either oral, topical, or both forms of magnesium, but I am confident you will notice some form of beneficial change. The best thing is that there little to no side effects for at least trying, so give it a shot and see how your life improves. It certainly has made us a happier family!

magnesium, deficiency, anxiety, salt bath

Food, Going Healthy, Life, Parenting

Healthy Cooking With Daddy

05/02/2016 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Finally, the time has come to teach our little girl the ways of healthy cooking! In our house, pants are optional….

healthy cooking with daddy, toddler, kids, teaching, food

I’ve thought of this before she was even born, and it warms my heart now that it’s becoming a reality. Oh, wait, that’s my shirt on fire!!

Okay, all better. So she’s not exactly ready to start slicing and dicing ingredients, but with a little help, she can add spices pretty well.

healthy cooking with daddy, toddler, kids, teaching, food

This was us making a lunch for Mommy to bring to work. Now if she calls sweating from a little too much cayenne, I can blame Avery. She knows that we add fresh ground black pepper to all of our meals and made sure she had a “hand” in that part too.

I had to hold the dish lower since her new non-slip Froggie Step Stool is not quite high enough for her to reach the counter. It’s called the Mommy’s Helper Step Up Froggie Stool, but looks like we just changed that to Daddy’s Helper, huh? Time for a product name change!

Product naming conventions aside, our growing toddler is using her stool for potty training and cooking training. Yes, we use a butter knife to stir in this house, but don’t worry, I was supervising.

I usually tackle several meal preps at a time, so I took the time to get her dinner plate ready as she posed for the camera. Or maybe she was watching the cat walk by….

Either way, she gets so excited if I ask her to help me, and even though she has a way’s to go before I can really trust her to do a few simple things, this is how it starts. For anyone who has cooked with kids, I’m sure you know they are more likely to eat the healthy food if they have a roll in helping prepare/cook it. This includes quality control of whatever we make.

And the verdict?

It’s an underwear-iffic win for dinner tonight!

Avery continues to put a smile on our face every day, and she seems to learn/grow more faster than we can keep up with. Soon, she’ll be stating things to us that we never knew. To those with older kids, when should we expect this?

When time allows, get your kids in the kitchen and explore a new food/recipe together. It will pay dividends well into the future in the form of bonding, healthy eating, and cooking skills.

Life, Parenting

How The S Word Helps With Potty Training

04/30/2016 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

We’ve been in the midst of potty training for about two weeks now and have been seeing slow but steady progress. Hopefully we’re through the initial phase which I assume is the hardest part. Thanks in part to the S word, and of course a few healthy treat incentives like No Sugar-Added Lily’s Dark Chocolate Chips sweetened with stevia.

I’ll admit, Daddy got a treat every time she went potty too. They’re just too good not to sneak a few bites!

There are many potty training methods, and while we haven’t followed any of them to the T, the method we practiced most was the Two-Day Method a neighbor friend shared with us. Yes, the fact that I stay home with our daughter was a big factor here, but it can be done over the weekend too. As our friend recommends, aim to try when you have an extended weekend from a holiday or just take an extra day off.

Since I’m not here to lay out a full potty training program, I’ll spare you the minute details. Just know that within the week, after having our daughter in the house with diapers off, asking “Do you need to go potty?” more times than there are days in a year (Every. Day), and listening to a very unhappy kid who wanted to poop in her diaper, we actually made progress.

We felt hopeless at first, but many puddles and plops, a few successes with chocolate chip rewards, and use of the S word later, our little girl is going to the potty all by herself.

No, I’m not talking about the multitude of books on Socialism, Secrets, Suicide, Submission, and S**t with the title The S Word. I’m talking about snakes!

zoo, family, snake, reptile, kids, learning

Kids are fascinated with all kinds of creatures, and since she has a reptile-loving daddy, she started using “snake” to describe what she made in the potty. After her first BIG success in the potty, she stood up, turned around, and proclaimed “Ooooo, it’s a big snake! Hissssss!”

This was a proud dad moment on many levels. I mean, she freakin made a successful poop in her potty! After cleaning several plops on the floor and couch, I was beyond happy to see this milestone. As for the smell, not so much. Since that first snake, she’s made an entire family snakes almost every day.

Mommy snake, daddy snake, and several baby snakes have all been spotted in the potty. If she’s reluctant to sit on the potty but my wife and I see that she’s overly squirmy, we just ask her to try and make a snake. 8 times out of 10, she will at least give it a ~~shot~~ squeeze. And 9 times out of 10, a snake, big or small, makes an appearance.

She now knows to pull her underwear down and sit on her potty by herself. If we are outside or not at home, she sometimes says she needs to go potty, but this is still a work in progress. For that we are using The Honest Company Training Pants at night time and while out and about. Gone are the days of our cloth diapers, it’s Elmo undies and training pants here on out. Eventually going to just undies of course. I’m not sure what turned her on to liking Elmo so much though….

potty training, sesame street, elmo, the s word

Ohhhh yeah, nothing like watching Sesame Street on the pot. #ToddlerLife

We are proud of our little semi-potty trained girl. There’s nothing like being in the kitchen and all of the sudden hearing her going “Hisss-hissss-hissssssss!” after making a “snake” in the potty. True story, I heard her hissing and thought she was just making animal sounds so I chimed in and hissed too. Then I turned around to an odd smell and her undies down. Go Avery!

If you’re in the process or getting ready to start potty training, either get your kids excited about snakes or some other poop-shaped creature and learn the sound they make to use it as a form of victory call after pooping in the potty. Oh, but don’t forget the chocolate chip rewards. I know, it’s an ironic treat to have for poop, so feel free to use your own reward system.

After a week or two, they’ll be so proud of using the potty, they may not care about the rewards anymore. But they’re never proud enough to want pictures taken, so don’t do this….

potty training, toddler, poop, funny, humor, parenting