Would you like some boric acid while you wait for that baby?

So no baby yet, in case you were wondering. Round 2 of “Bring on the Birth!” begins tomorrow. Larms is “resting up” right now, or whatever one does whilst confined to an uncomfortable bed, contracting intermittently, and trying not to move too much so as not to disturb the growing collection of wires attached to one’s body. I’m sure she’ll have a GREAT night’s sleep!

In the meantime, I will distract and amuse you with this amazing natural remedy taught to us by our baby sitter. (She is that kind of experienced caregiver who’s seen it all in her 30 years in the field and whose advice you kinda sorta trust more than your pediatrician’s. You know the type.)

A few weeks ago our daughter was beset by something that I’m sure was technically termed a “cold” but more accurately should be described as a “mucus plague from hell”. Seriously, she had had a few “colds” before and you know, there was a stuffy nose, we threw a vaporizer in her room, and badda-bing, badda-boom, in a few days all was back to normal.

But this thing. This thing started in her nose and then just sort of mutated and morphed until it had taken over her entire face and mucus was literally streaming from everywhere, including her EYES, at a near-constant rate. When she was awake they were almost completely glazed over with freshly-squeeze gunk, and when she managed to sleep she would wake up with eyes completely glued shut by layers upon layers of the dried, caked-on yellow crud. I’ve never seen anything like it, in myself or anyone I know.

And I’ll admit, it had me a little concerned. The pediatrician said to give her Zyrtec. Which we did. I have no idea what, if any, effect that had on her sinuses, but it did nothing to alleviate the eye-goop. So we just lived with it for an entire long weekend, trying to wipe it away with warm water and a cloth whenever we could, but never able to clean her up enough so that she had better than say, 50% visibility at any given time. Not surprisingly, the whole situation really started to wear on the little lady.

Then finally she headed back to the sitter’s when the week started and arrived home that day with beautifully, mercifully, clean and clear eyes. The crust-monster was gone and my child was back! WHAT HAD HAPPENED?

Boric acid, apparently. It seems you can easily create this solution at home and voila! Totally alleviate a whole array of eye problems. The sitter had performed the simple cotton ball cleaning in step 4. Magic.

In summation, while Larms was busy discovering all the ways that boric acid can help make her toilet clean and sparkly, we were discovering all the ways that it can keep your child from looking like a spawn of the Swamp Thing.

If it keeps this kind of versatility up, vinegar is gonna have a fit.