Purely Products - a MamaBuzz Review

I received two interesting products from Purely Products to review with MamaBuzz.

Purely Products: Responsible products for responsible living.

Purely is focused on developing eco-friendly products for clean and healthy living for families, while also helping kids.

One is the Pocket Purifier ($29.95), a battery operated germ-killing gadget that uses light to sanitize items. It also has a flashlight on one end, making it dual purpose. "Handheld germ eliminating light uses UV (ultraviolet light) to sanitize surfaces (keyboards, cell phones, computer keyboards, kitchen countertops, sinks, public bathrooms & transportation, toys, pacifiers, bottoms/interior of purses & diaper bags, etc) UV nanotechnology kills 99.9% of germs that cause colds & flu, plus e-coli, salmonella, mold, fungus, and MRSA (staph) without chemicals."

The gadget is small and lightweight, and it broke almost before we could use it. Maybe it does kill germs and the size is right for carrying in a purse, diaper bag, or suitcase, but ours flat out fell apart and we could not get it to stay together. The top wouldn't stay on, the bulb kept falling out - I was not impressed. It felt cheap. (And I wondered, is there mercury, the second-most toxic element on earth, in the bulb? Yes, there IS, and how am I supposed to dispose of the bulb?) When we held it together and tried to turn it on, the light was quite dim. I'm not sure it did its germ-killing job. I took it on a trip with us to use in a hotel, but the fact that it would not stay together was a big problem for me. Mercury exposure is another problem for me. Mercury is a known neurotoxin, not safe at any level or amount. I wish it weren't in a light bulb.

# # #

The Sun Mate ($19.95) is a handy little gadget for determining exposure to the sun, anytime, anywhere. It's easy to use - press the little button and read the meter. For parents concerned with sun exposure, this one fits in a purse or pocket and is simple and quick to use. This one stayed together and appeared to work correctly and is something I wish I'd had a long time ago. Go HERE for 25% off a Purely Products order.

A percentage of every Purely Products sale supports diaperLove, a non-profit providing diapers to children in need. For more info, go to http://www.diaperlove.org/.

Go HERE to read other reviews about these products.

(Disclosure: This is a MamaBuzz Review. I received a Pocket Purifier and SunMate, free of charge, from Purely Products, for the purposes of this review. I am not compensated financially for this review and am not obligated to provide a favorable review.)

OFF THE BEATEN PATH

Penny's much neglected flower bed...

We had a swift, heavy rain shower yesterday that left my calla lilies pretty enough to photograph:

Some of my photographs were fuzzy.

I went out later to take some more.

The heat had dried the raindrops.

This mint was transplanted from my grandparents' home more than 600 miles away. I wish you could smell its wonderful mintiness. (Is mintiness a word?)

A toad joined me. See him?

The pale yellow flower was the most challenging to photograph.

The striped ones are so beautiful!

My flower beds could benefit from a lot of little weeding.

Which Math Program???

Ruth Beechick's book continues to help me think about how skills and functions develop. I have been pondering on her words about how concepts of math develop in her book, "The Three R's", thoughts I happened to find on a web site about preschool math (so I'll provide the link for you in case you're interested).

from http://www.shirleys-preschool-activities.com/preschool-math-activities.html

Children develop through three modes of thinking about numbers:

manipulative mode – working with real objects e.g. beans, cups, spoons

mental image mode – using mental images or pictures of real objects

abstract mode – using number concepts without thinking of images of objects

Which math program that includes manipulatives as part of the program is the right program for us?

Math U See

or

Right Start Math

or

Zillio

?

That is the question.

I welcome opinions and experiences from you.

Miscellany Monday

My double-ear infections improved during the seven-day course of antibiotics, but now that the antibiotics are finished, my ears are worsening. Time to call the doctor.

* * *

A couple of years ago, we bought new bedroom furniture for eldest and moved her "old" furniture (handmade, hand painted, beautiful) into little sister's room, replacing the plain twin bed (actually half a bunk bed) in little sister's room. Little sister is on the autism spectrum with language processing issues. In recent weeks, she's told me how she misses her old bed and how we upset her by changing her bed two years ago. I am amazed that she is able to tell me that information now, and sad that she was not able to express her upset two years ago when we were moving furniture around.

* * *

My son is confident that his baseball team will not only win sectionals, but state, as well, and get to play in a neighboring state at the national level. I love his confidence! ;)

* * *

My skating princess has not had ice time in a while. Illness and travel have had us missing several weeks of lessons. Last week, she asked, "When am I going to skate again?"

* * *

The increase of "autism" with illness still astounds me. When we treat the illness, the yeast, the allergies, the pain, the "autism" decreases. Why people fight a "cure" or "recovery" is beyond me; I do not understand that perspective at all.

* * *

When "autism" increases in my girl, finding the reason isn't always simple, but is always rewarding to see her feel better.

* * *

With a niece or nephew due at Christmastime, my family is already discussing Christmas plans. Gives me five months to think about how to get us 600 + miles south of here in time to be with my sibs, parents, aunt, uncle, grandmother.

* * *

A set-top interactivity problem has occurred. Please try again after a brief time. Comcast's definition of "brief" is very different from mine. We haven't been able to use On-Demand all weekend, much to the dismay of my younger daughter.

* * *

I pray that we find a church home for all of us, not just the NTs in my family, one that "gets" autism and food allergies and is ready for us.

* * *

Dust bunnies and laundry, I think, come from a Latin root word for "eternal" or "infinity".

Caution

BLOG

CONSTRUCTION

IN

PROGRESS

1200 + Miles Later

Musings and random thoughts about a long, yet quick trip

Thursday, I drove 600+ miles south to get my daughter from an extended visit with her grandparents. Friday, she and I drove 600+ miles north to home.

I'm PooPed. I've never traveled there in one day and traveled back the next. Driving the entire time means I can't switch positions, can't cross my legs, uncross them, recross them the other way. My driving leg, foot, and heel became very tired at points. Cruise control is a help, but not in heavy traffic where speeds vary from minute to minute.

I almost always score a find for my homeschooler in a Cracker Barrel gift shop that we can use for fun, learning, and "therapy". During this trip, I found a new-to-me coloring book by Dover, with a "what's wrong with the picture?" theme.

My mom gave me another cool item that fits the fun, learning, and "therapy" category: jumbo straws from the Big Lots store. These neon colored plastic drinking straws are 20" tall, great for the HANDLE crazy straw activity, for blowing feathers or cotton balls across a table, or for drinking from a glass on the floor (while we are outdoors).

A spider bite (likely a brown recluse) at the base of an index finger is painful to the person bitten and scary to everyone close to that person. My mother's index finger was apparently bitten by a spider, which involved a midnight trip to the ER and a trip to the doctor in the following daytime hours. The multiple medications she was given seem to be controlling the reaction and the pain.

Inclusion body myositis stinks. Watching my dad's condition decline from a distance is difficult. One one hand, I'm spared the day-to-day challenges that my sister and mom see. On the other hand, the changes are more dramatic when I don't see him as often. One of the disadvantages to being a day's drive away is that I can't be there to help very often. How will my mom care for my dad while her hand is healing? She's a wonder woman, that's for sure.

I had never made the day-long drive alone before Thursday. My younger daughter, the one whom I homeschool, the one with an autism spectrum disorder, has been whiny and dysregulated lately. Getting a break from her was good. Sort of. She was sick and feverish when I left her at home with her dad and brother, though, and leaving her was difficult for me. (Now that I'm back home, she's not sleeping through the night, is even more dysregulated, both indications that she's still sick, and I'm ready to take another drive because her whiny-ness and dysregulation is almost on my last nerve already.)

I wish I'd burned more Schoolhouse Expo sessions onto CD to listen to on that long drive. I could have easily listened to nine or 10 of them. I'm kicking myself because I didn't get more of them burned onto CD. I listened to Diana Waring's session about learning styles on the way down and Rebecca Keller's session about critical thinking on the way home with my daughter. Now I want to read Waring's books about teaching, homeschooling, learning styles and am looking at Keller's science programs on-line. Keller introduces chemistry and physics from the get-go, at Pre-K levels. I'm intrigued.

I saw a jaw-dropping first on the trip back home. Outside of Dayton, Ohio, in a traffic jam during afteroon rush hour, big clear drops of what I thought were raindrops plopped onto my windshield. Except no one else on either side of me was getting the drops on their windshields. Could rain be falling on just my windshield, I wondered? And then I realized something. The drops weren't rain at all. The plops were PooP. Bird PooP. A bird was Pooping on just my windshield. Pooping. Again and again. I've never seen anything like it, so many hits in such a short period of time. Here's one of the photographs my daughter captured in the aftermath. We had to stop at a gas station and scrub the windshield because the marks from the PooP bombs were too annoying.

I ate a lot of wheat during the two days. I had foods I haven't had in ages while I was on the road. Now, I'm thinkin' I made some really poor choices and feel the consequences of my choices right now. You see, I completely eliminated gluten for six weeks beginning May 1st, and have occasionally had a hamburger on a bun or bowl of wheat-free cereal (but not gluten free) while maintaining an almost-gluten-free diet. Two days of gluten at every meal has my eye inflamed and eczema worsened. I feel sluggish and my limbs feel heavy, and losing sleep with a sleepless girl last night did not help the situation.

Interdependence

As always, Kathie Snow at Disability is Natural has wise words for us. The newsletter I received today is about INTERDEPENDENCE. When we made the switch to a relationship approach to autism intervention, I realized the importance of INTERdependence, something we'd sacrificed on the altar of independence.

Kathie, I wish I'd read this when we were heavy in our behavioral intervention and work on INdependence (although I drank that kool-ade and was firmly entrenched in it, maybe I wouldn't have heard you).

The newsletter is HERE.

And in past blog entries of mine, I talked about some of my reflections on interdependence HERE, and HERE, and HERE.

Journal Pad - sale alert

Passing along a find that might interest you, too:

Spotted at Michaels, a Journal Pad by K&Company, was $4.99, on clearance for $1.99 over the weekend.
The journal prompts are made for scrapbookers, but this homeschooler is going to use them. The colorful and fun rectangles are inviting. There are two or three to a 4.75" x 6.75" page, with a variety of journal prompts throughout the little pad. The small size of the die cuts and thus small space to fill will lesson performance anxiety and be less intimidating to my homeschooler than a big, plain, white sheet of paper, I hope.

The sentence starters and journal prompts are excellent, too.

I wish I'd had this little Journal Pad while we were on our trip.

Weekend update, a belated thank you, and an apology

My girls and I headed south two weeks ago to see family. Hubby and son stayed here because of work and baseball obligations. While the girls and I were gone, a sweet family offered to have our son during the day not one, but THREE days, while hubby was at work. Jen is a saint! ;)

By the time I got home with a severe ear infection in both ears that had the doctor chastizing me for waiting so long to see him, Jen and her sweet family had headed south on vacation.

So, the first time I saw them again was yesterday at our loooooooooong back-to-back tournament games on a hot Saturday afternoon. And my mind was elsewhere.

Doesn't help that I have an ear infection in both ears. I've been on antibiotics since Tuesday night (almost five days) and, while the infections are improving, I still feel like I'm trying to hear through water and am still experiencing a little bit of pain with fatigue.

I'd like for my attention at my son's baseball games to be primarily focused on my son and the baseball game. That's a goal, anyway.

For the tournament that began two days ago, I had no sitter for my son's twin sister, who is on the autism spectrum. Entertaining herself at one baseball game is a challenge for her; I usually wind up leaving the game for home or spending more time at the ball park play scape than watching the game. I see other children who are younger than she who are able to entertain themselves while their siblings play baseball and I try not to compare, try not to feel frustrated, try not to host a pity party for Penny right there.

When I don't have a sitter and I choose to try to bring my autie along to the game, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells at a baseball game. My attention is so divided.

Friday's back-to-back games were earlier in the day and I chose to skip the first game and take the girl to the second game. As I settled in to watch the game, I met some parents who have known my husband and son through baseball since last fall who told me they had never seen the wife and mother (me). Now they know why. I was able to park in the shade by the field and take advantage of the entertainment system in the van. It kept my girl busy so I could watch baseball.

Saturday, I didn't have the luxury of parking the van close to the baseball diamond, which means I lost the use of the entertainment system in the van to help her pass the time. We arrived about a half hour after the start of the first game, and I had low expectations, was ready to leave if necessary. We did hit at office supply store early Saturday and found some neat Crayola Color Wonder (princesses and glitter! oh my!) and markers to buy, and to my astonishment, my girl used them to keep herself entertained through not one, but TWO baseball games. We went to the play scape twice, but not for huge chunks of time.

There were other little girls around who might have enjoyed sitting on the blanket with my girl and coloring, but I was afraid to invite them, afraid it would upset my daughter so much that we'd have to leave. What a dilemma. I said nothing, hoping that something natural would happen. I probably appeared to be rude to the other parents.

Anyway, this morning, I was rejoicing in the fact that while more of my attention was on my daughter and the egg shells (hoping she wouldn't scream or screech when she was at her limit there), that a good portion of my attention was able to be focused on watching the game, on my son for almost TWO entire games.

And then in the middle of my little celebration for this big accomplishment, I realized one horribly embarassing thought.

Yesterday afternoon and evening, when we were watching our sons playing ball together, petting her dog, chatting about their family vacation, I failed to mention, acknowledge, or thank Jen for entertaining my son for three days while I was gone to see my parents. She took him to a movie, bowling, and I don't know what else - without her, I wouldn't have been able to leave town. My son had a ball with them. And with all the other stuff on my mind (ear infections, baseball, twin w/ asd), remembering that and thanking Jen didn't cross my mind - until this morning.

And thoughtless me, didn't even say a "thank you" in person. What kind of neighbor am I?

I have to repair that.