Buttercup & Jake Natural Skin Care for Kids

Our 21 month old little guy is just getting over his first big, yucky cold and I thought I would share with you a way I found help him feel more comfortable. The poor little fellow has had an astounding amount of mucus coming out of his nose, and is constantly trying to wipe it away with his hands. The result has been red chapped skin under his nose and on his cheeks. I found that by applying our Cocoa Calendula Balm to these areas of his face really helps relieve his discomfort. If I put it on at bedtime, the Calendula oil helps to heal his red, chapped skin and the Cocoa and Shea butters soften any dry, flaky areas. I think the yummy smell of the cocoa butter also helps him to relax and go to sleep. During the day the balm also helps as the Olive waxes and Jojoba oil form a protective barrier for his tender skin.

Being an inquisitive little boy, of course he does everything to grab the jar away from me, dip his finger in and go about applying it himself. No worries – it is completely food-safe!

If your child is suffering from a cold, I hope you can try using some of our Buttercup & Jake Cocoa Calendula Balm to help soothe their chapped skin.

The Columbus Day weekend is garlic planting time here in the Northeast and seems as appropriate time as any to share some of our experiences and a couple of tips that you might consider when gardening with your child.

One lesson that I keep learning over and over in gardening, is to be adaptable.  Plant several different kinds of vegetables and flowers. Gardening is about harnessing a little bit of nature’s power for our own enjoyment, but we can never predict exactly under what conditions she will prevail in any given season.  So, it was not a complete surprise that the cucumbers that Evelyn and I have been struggling to grow for a couple of years all of a sudden were our bumper crop this year.  The chipmunks keep devouring her grape tomatoes, and the edemame didn’t come up at all, but these little disappointments are not as noticeable when picking armloads of cucumbers. Evelyn was delighted to discover that her little brother Max likes eating her cucumbers too.

The second lesson I have learned is to let our children use their imaginations, but it’s ok to help. My daughter Shirin, who is now a tween, had a vision for a beautiful flower garden this year. She pitched in and helped prepare the bed in the spring, but when it came time to plant, she casually scattered some Cosmo and Strawflower seeds over 1/3 of the bed, and was equally casual about watering. When only a few little seedlings came up a week later, I helped out by re-seeding part of the bed and watering. Together we also tucked in a few vegetable and herb plants:  Chamomile, Basil, Anise Hyssop, Rosemary, and a Tomato. She later filled in a bare spot with one of her favorites: Edamame. I have to say that the result has been a spectacularly beautiful tapestry of colors and textures. It makes me so happy to see her going to visit her garden and preparing cups of her own sleepytime tea with chamomile from her own garden. She is able to get a sense of the power of her own imagination, and a glimmer of self-sufficiency that children of this age crave.

This Mother’s Day brings me so very much more to celebrate than ever before. In the past year the cycle of life has been laid out before my eyes with great clarity. The birth of our son, my husband’s illness that brought us to the very brink of mortality, the passing of his Father have all required me to reach deep inside and find the strength and love I needed to bring my family through this period of time.  I have been so inspired by others along the way who have shown me how to perform a Mother’s role with grace and compassion; that I now feel very grateful to have been granted a leading role in this chapter of my family’s story. Here is a poem from Caroline Kennedy’s collection of poems “She Walks in Beauty” that reminded me of how all of us mothers have experienced this amazing process.

Notes From The Delivery Room

By Linda Pastan

Strapped down,

victim in an old comic book,

I have been here before,

this place where pain winces

off the walls

like too bright light.

Bear down a doctor says,

Foreman to sweating laborer,

but this work, this forcing

of one life from another

is something that I signed for

at a moment when I would have signed anything.

Babies should grow in fields;

common as beets or turnips

they should be picked and held

root end up, soil spilling

from between their toes-

and how much easier it would be later,

returning them to earth.

Bear up…bear down…the audience

grows restive, and I’m a new magician

who can’t produce the rabbit

from my swollen hat.

She’s crowning, someone says,

But there is no one royal here,

just me, quite barefoot,

greeting my barefoot child.

This past year has brought my family numerous challenges, blessings – and the greatest joy – the arrival of our baby son, Maxwell, last April. It had been a few years since I had cared for a wee one, and I was delighted to discover that our Cocoa Calendula Balm was perfectly suited for the skin care needs of a baby. My greatest concern in caring for our babies had always been what exactly was I exposing their little bodies to? We take such great care to take baby steps in introducing foods, surely we should take the same care in introducing compounds to their skin? So I started very carefully, first using only warm water and washcloths (have you ever read the ingredient labels of most wipes? Yikes!), and then a little of our Buttercup & Jake Golden Calendula Oil on a piece of cotton. This Oil is so simple and gentle, you could eat it on your salad and little Max’s skin was perfectly lovely afterwards. We are fortunate enough to have a wonderful cloth diaper service nearby (www.idiaperservice.com, and using cloth diapers has been another way to avoid exposing baby to chemicals, and have a lighter impact on the environment. When I was comfortable with how Max’s skin responded to the Golden Calendula Oil, I introduced our Buttercup & Jake Cocoa Calendula Balm. This was very rewarding for me, because although I had originally designed the Balm for big kid issues like chapped knuckles and noses, I discovered that The Cocoa Calendula Balm was a wonderful treatment for the diaper area too! The natural barrier created by Olive Waxes and Jojoba Oil, works perfectly to lock in the benefits of the Calendula Oil. Any redness that I detected would disappear after gently cleaning and applying the Balm. Now that Max is bigger, I also use the Cocoa Calendula Balm on the chapped thumb that he sucks, and I don’t have to worry when he puts it in his mouth, because I know that all of the ingredients are food safe.

As I was making these discoveries caring for Max – I was contacted by American Baby Magazine looking for an organic balm safe enough to use on baby’s lips. To my delight they loved our Cocoa Calendula Balm and featured it as their favorite new natural balm! Another blessing!

Please let us know if you find a new way to use Buttercup & Jake Cocoa Calendula Balm or Golden Calendula Oil.