Fast-forward to 1995…

One afternoon, my toddlers were wayyy out-of-hand. Tearing wallpaper off the walls, intentionally pouring an entire box of nails on the floor, peeing on the carpet—crazy things little kids do.

It became too much for me.

So I put them in their room where it was safe and child-proof, and gave myself a mommy time-out.

But I had forgotten…

...Earlier in the day I had made what I thought was an environmentally sound decision. I always used natural products in our home. We used cloth diapers, and I customarily put vinegar in the diaper pail water.

But that morning, I was cleaning out an old cabinet, and found about a tablespoon of Lysol concentrate leftover from my pre-kids life and decided instead of pouring it down the drain, I should just use it up in the diaper pail.

So when I returned from my mommy time-out, I looked in the doorway to discover my 2 toddlers, prancing around the room with dirty diapers draped over their heads, and Lysol chemicals streaming down their little faces and bodies…

I was devastated.

I lost it and started yelling at them, “are you crazy?! What the heck are you doing?! These chemicals can really hurt you!”

I proceeded to get them in a cool shower (which is customary when exposed to chemicals), to get their bodies rinsed off.

It was in that moment that the realization and fear of what I had just exposed my children to, hit me like a ton of bricks.

My frustration with the overwhelming demands of motherhood and always trying to do the right thing, along with my inability to control my emotions, took over my whole body…

Motherhood was a tough job, even with all my babysitting and staff management experience. Feeding them well was a super challenge because I don’t have kitchen skills.

And kids were tough on me emotionally. I wanted them to always be happy and get along, however, they would argue, meltdown at a moments notice, get scared, feel unconfident, not want to get in the car or go to bed at bedtime.

They wanted to do what they wanted to do, versus following my schedule or rules. And when they got sick, which is normal for toddlers, it was worse. So I spent a lot of time and energy trying to apply all the natural things I knew to do to help them be strong physically, as well as emotionally...

...I wanted them to feel more confident, and have the extra edge I could give them physically, mentally, and emotionally with my large toolbox of remedies. 

I knew what nutrition, herbs, aromatherapy, flower essences, homeopathics, color and sound could do to help stabilize their emotions, on top of strengthening their bodies and helping combat illness.

The problem was, each had to be done individually. And doing them every day, took a tremendous amount of time, especially with everything else such as meals, laundry, reading, the park, baths, grocery store errands, etc.

It was overwhelming.

I fell to my knees and started screaming at God:

“Why? Why did you have me study all of these natural things for healing? Why did you have me spend 17 years learning ways I could help my family, but there aren’t enough hours in a day to make that happen? I am at the end of my rope. Please help me. Please help me help my family.”

And the response from God?

…crickets.

But then a week later, I was at my kids’ pre-school. And you won’t believe what happened.

I’ll share with you in the next couple of days.

Look for the subject: [Ch. 4 of 9] The Screaming Toddler

Hugs,

Kaliana