I really feel like I'm getting back to my crunchy roots lately, but without sitting atop the high pedestal looking down on the poor souls who aren't as enlightened as I am. I really used to think I was better than you. Much better than you.
Now I'm only a little better than you. I'm only on a footstool and looking at your gray roots. You should try some henna. That's what the hippies use.
Sure, I use regular hair dye but only because I have to balance out my lifestyle. I can't be crunchy all the time. We're not rich enough for that. Only rich people can afford a completely green home where they sit on locally-made furniture comprised of renewable resources, munching on organic pumpkin seed cereal in cane-sugar-sweetened soy milk before they get into their electric cars and carpool to work.
When I win the lottery that will be me. But for now I'm what I like to call "In-Between Green".
In-Between Green isn't so bad. It's the best of both worlds, really. We get to feel good about bringing our own bags to the grocery store (incidentally they're almost all made in China, which has by far some of the lowest environmental standards in manufacturing. My gift of guilt to all of you who think you're so amazing for buying those bags. You're welcome.) We get to pat ourselves on the back for recycling (which is a process that takes up a lot of non-renewable energy in many cases). We feel proud when we shop regularly at second-hand stores for clothes (made of pesticide-laden cotton and toxic dyes and quite often sewn by children. How cute.). And yet we can still enjoy a cup o' java in a disposable cup because, hey, we can't be perfect all the time.
In-Between Green. It's a wonderful, denial-filled state of being. Try it sometime.
Anyway, my crunchiness was sparked by the wonderful Stay-at-Home-Mayhem reader Amy's idea to see a chiropractor for Spawnling's never-ending ear infections. A chiropractor? For ear infections? Really? Is Amy on crack, I wondered? I had to find out (about the chiropractor; Amy can do whatever she likes as long as she keeps making good suggestions. Thanks, Amy!)
I was also fortunate enough to know a chiropractor. A wonderful one who happens to have a toddler Spawnling's age and who also reads my blog occasionally. Sadly, she doesn't live nearby (a shame, as we could share many chai lattes together). She did, however, suggest some chiropractors in the Ottawa area. I picked one. We went. She's amazing. I'm thrilled!
I've always said that I'm an ignorant person when it comes to most things. I know about children. I know about breastfeeding. I know about addiction. I know that singing along to Justin Timberlake songs while blogging gets on my husband's nerves just enough that he'd like to say something but he doesn't, and that this means he either loves me a great deal or he's afraid of me. Either way it's loads of fun and I'm doing it right now.
I honestly thought chiropractors only helped when your back was sore. Get hit by a car? Chiropractor. Fall off your four-wheeler because you wanted to show off to your drunken hillbilly friends? Chiropractor, ya'll. Fall while trying to kick a soccer ball like the girls in Bend it Like Beckham because you hoped to look as good as Keira Knightley? You're following me now.
I honestly had no idea that back and neck experts could help with ears. My chiropractor friend had to basically draw me a diagram in a Facebook message so I could connect the anatomic dots. When it dawned on me it seemed so... simple. Why hadn't I been told about this wonderful alternative to lengthly rounds of antibiotics sooner? Had I been living under a rock? Nay, I had been living under dirty laundry, backpacks and half-eaten dinners. At-home mothers are not privy to water cooler talk which could contain information such as how the marketing manager's daughter is seeing a chiropractor for her ear infections. We are privy to animal rescues on Go Diego Go and whatever Maury guests have to say about not being the father and just maybe whatever information can be gleamed from 10 seconds on a website that is NOT Nick Jr.
I forgive me. Ignorance has been rather blissful.
Now that the Spawn is getting "adjusted" twice weekly (the nearly frightful term used to describe a very gentle manipulation of his neck vertebrae and muscles) we're also reducing dairy and sugar in his diet and in ours, too. It's supposed to help boost immunity. More importantly, I'm down three pounds. I've all but given up peanut M&Ms. I am, however, madly in love with brownies. Dairy-free brownies. Sadly not sugar-free brownies. But I'm down three pounds. Let's keep our focus on that important fact and not on brownies.
We're all on probiotics. We're all eating more vegetables. I'm drinking mostly organic, fair-traded coffee. Farmers everywhere are celebrating me.
I will continue shave my legs and arm pits, however. In-Between Crunchy allows me certain priviledges. Besides, if I ever meet and begin to make out with JT, I would like him to bypass the cellulite because he's too busy enjoying my smooth legs.