lye soap love

My mom brought me a bar of Grandma's Lye Soap about a month ago. I use basic bar soap as a stain remover (works really well on biological stains like food and poops) and she thought a bar of lye soap would work even better than my random bar of zest soap. So, I opened the bar of lye soap and promptly fell in love! The ingredients include lard, water, and lye. That's it! I started out just using it to help remove poop stains from all these training pants. (Oh how I lament the decision not to try elimination communication in lieu of traditional potty training -- the extra effort when they were tiny would have been WELL worth the effort!) The lye soap not only removes the discoloration quickly, but zaps the not-so-sweet smell of fresh toddler poo in seconds! YAY!

Well, I didn't stop there. I had some onions to slice one day and wondered if it would remove the onion smell from my fingers faster than lemon juice and baking soda. It does!

Next I tried peeling a little into the wash with a cheese grater, some white vinegar, and a little Borax (simple, homemade laundry detergent). That worked too. The clothes were clean, fresh smelling, and soft without fabric softner; but it does take two rinse cycles to get the soap all out.

All of this was great! But the best happened when I decided to try it in the bathtub. Our kiddos all have excema (patches of severe dry skin) that comes and goes based on their allergies (ah the joys of living in the pollen-rich south!). As I researched lye soap I read a few threads on some sites that declared the wonder of lye soap as body wash, especially for sensitive skin and excema. The results: the two stubborn patches of excema on J's sweet little cheeks are almost clear! N's sandpaper back is becoming smoother and softer! And they all smell fabulous without any fragrance added!

Hooray for old-fashioned lye soap!

We Love to EAT

Sorry it's been so long between blogs. My camera is full of cute pics of things to tell everyone about :0) Here's one fun happening: B' enjoyed his very first peanut butter sandwich this week. Look at that smile! He thought it was great. I'm not sure which pleased him more, the brand new flavor and texture of peanut butter and pureed strawberries, or the fact that he could eat his whole lunch unassisted just like "the bigs." I had the best time watching him grab, giggle, and stuff bite after bite.


















Since I was sharing about food I thought I'd include a handy spaghetti-night help: the "bib shirt."

The bigs LOVE spaghetti (which they both pronounce "spagebsie"). I'm a stain-chaser: the kind who can't stand to let a stain linger on those sweet kid clothes. To get tomato-based stains out of fabric completely without chemical assistance, even if you strip it off and toss it in the wash minutes after they eat, can be a real challenge.

Now, N' doesn't like to wear a napkin draped under his chin, a bib, or a towel because he says, "I'm a big boy. A bib is for Benjamin because he's a baby boy." That means J' won't wear a bib either. So, I invented the "bib shirt." When we eat spaghetti we grab two of daddy's plain white undershirt-tees, pull them on, and clip them in the back with clothes pins (to hold the t-shirt collars close enough to protect even the collars on their little shirts beneath). The fun of wearing daddy's shirts works every time and the clothes pins release with a gentle pull so there's no risk of stangulation. Best of all, the t-shirts are long enough to cover them to the ankles so shirts, bottoms and all stay nice and clean! When we're done I just toss the two t-shirts in the wash with some bleach. Simple, easy, and no stain removal parties in my kitchen sink!

(Bib shirts are great for arts and crafts coverage too!)