I was all prepared to spend a slow day in the office, filling in for my unit, fielding errant emails and rogue phone calls.  I was going to do some updated independent internet research on the dangers of petroleum based products because I know that Santa filled your stockings with travel sized lotions and soaps and cosmetics because Santa doesn't care about your well-being like I do.  See, it's easy for Santa to just pipe out the oil from his back yard and the elves put it in things like hand creams and chap sticks.

I've been (almost) petro-free in my routine for years now.  Slowly finding new products to replace the old standbys.  It's been a few months since I got on that soapbox.  Time to revisit.
Jake's skin is especially sensitive to petroleum based products (baby oil, diaper creams, Vaseline, Aquaphor, Cetaphil {which was especially hard for me to give up until I found Dr. Bronners}, etc) so it was a quick and easy decision for me when it came to what I use on him.  Most lotions contain petroleum, listed as mineral oil or paraffin.  Most products that contain petroleum are listed among people's favorites.  They make your skin feel less flaky and itchy and tight, sure.  But it's what they are doing under your skin that's total horrorshow.

Dudes, it's PETROLEUM.  Petroleum.   Ground up dinosaurs and plankton and stuff should be used to fuel our cars (not really, but that's a whole nother post, plus I can't afford an electric car so I will keep my mouth shut on that front) not our outermost dermal layers.  Would you dip your babies in kerosene?  Wash your face with asphalt?  Because that's basically what's been going on in the cosmetic industry.

I meant to get around to listing some sources, but it's not going to happen.  So, if  you are interested in what petroleum does to your body, Google it yourself.  Science is pretty much on the side of Petroleum-based Cosmetics are Evil, no matter how liberal or conservative the researchers are.  I'd gather arguments from both sides for you today, but I'm suffering from something larger today.

Jake is sick.  Really sick.  For the first time in his life, I have to take him to the pediatrician's office for a non-routine visit.
Either that makes him the healthiest kid around or makes me the worst mother in the world.
I vote for the healthiest kid option, though I know that normal some moms jump to the doc's for things that I can cure with a cuddle and a cup of warm chamomile tea with lots of honey in front of too many hours of television while I take the opportunity to get something done around the house.  I'm not a Going to the Doctor person.  I'm not a Going to the Doctor mother.  No little snots or coughs or aches or pains have ever lasted more than 24 hours in my house.  That's the benchmark for Jake.  72 for grownups.  96 for the cat.

Jake puked two days ago, but I chalked it up to rich holiday food and too many cookies and chocolates and late nights.  He was a little sluggish yesterday, but ran around for two hours at the playground with his buddy.  I knew we were in for a rough night when Jake started holding entire conversations with me that were not in English.  We have these little word games that we play, that we've played since before he could really talk, and I pretended for five minutes that he was playing one of those (it's basically sound and word association, and totally awesome if  you are me or Jake, but probably kinda creepy if you aren't) but I realized when he went on and on and on and didn't answer my questions with real words he wasn't doing so hot.
Last night he was in tears.  Giant tears, and his eyes were so big and scary and he kept saying to me over and over again things like "I don't know what to do, the pain is so bad" and "I just can't do it, mommy, I need to give up, how can I just give up?" and "my head feels like someone is inside there with tools" and "why are my ears trying to fall off my head?" and my heart broke a million ways and all I could say was that I was sorry and I wish there was something I could do.

Tylenol and Triaminic weren't cutting it, and those are my big guns. 

So I took him downstairs and let him stay up all night and watch Sprout.  Until yesterday, I never understood why the hell that was a 24 hour channel.  What kind of parent would let their brats watch Barney ever at 2am?
Ones who don't have a working DVD player, ones desperate for a little sleep, who know that the boy doesn't have the energy to get up and cause trouble, not that he is the Get up and Cause Trouble type anyway.

When I was little, I guess about Jake's age, I suffered from terrible ear infections and headaches.  My mom and dad would hold me and tell me stories interrupted a million times by them telling me that they wish they could take away the pain, that I should concentrate on breathing and pretend that I was blowing the pain out with every breath.  It didn't work for me, and it didn't work for Jake.

My mom and dad would also blow cigarette smoke in my ears and plug it with a cotton ball.  That helped.  But I don't smoke.
Of course that isn't recommended anymore, instead you are supposed to use your hairdryer.  The hot air (set on low, of course) supposedly melts the fluid build up.

I don't own a hairdryer.
I'm considering buying one so I can buy that film that you seal your drafty windows with, but then what would I do with it once the ear ache is gone and the windows are sealed?

So, I spent a half hour or so breathing into Jake's ear and telling him that I wish I was the one who was sick and I was so sorry.  He laid still for a bit, so I'm guessing it worked.

I know that most moms deal with earaches and the flu and all sorts of maladies from the time their babies are just a few weeks old but I never had to.  A snotty nose here, one or two pukes there, sure.  But nothing bigger than that.  I'm taking this a little harder than I should.  It's not my fault that Jake is sick.  It's not the end of the world.  It's an ear infection, most likely.

My mind is telling me that this is where it starts.  That he will have to have the same surgery I had to have to correct chronic ear infections when I was 5.  That this is the start of a lifelong pattern of migraine headaches.  That this is what I get because I don't allow anti-bacterial soaps or sprays or gels or lotions in my house or on our bodies, and this is what I get for not nursing my baby until he is in the fourth grade, and this is what I get because I never made anyone wash their hands before they held Jake as a baby and I don't make him wash his hands after playing at the park or riding the subway.  This is what I get for my "it only makes you stronger" approach at communal germ sharing.

I'm such an over-reactor.

My brain is telling me all those reasons up there is why it's taken 3.75 years for Jake to catch something that puts him out of commission like this, and that I'll drop by the pediatrician at 4, and leave with a script for the bubblegum medicine (the over use and under effectiveness of antibiotics, another thing I could take an hour long stand on...) and by this time tomorrow Jake will be playing with his new racetracks given to him by his grandparents and rocking out on the guitar that Santa brought.