2014 - 52 in 52 #1 Homemade Electrolyte Drink

Our household is sick right now.  Definitely a less than ideal way to ring in the New Year.  We have that same crud that everyone has that is going around - cough, congestion, runny nose, etc.  I think every third person in the Metroplex has this junk right now. 

This morning when my son woke up, I looked at him and could instantly tell that he was considerably worse than the night before when he went to sleep.  He was coughing but you could tell that the mucus in his chest almost sounded solid.  He was acting ridiculously tired even though he just woke up and he was VERY shallow breathing.  I am not proud to admit, but I do use Dr. Google more than I would like to say to determine how serious the internet feels like mine or my children's symptoms are.  Now, of course, I know to weed out all of the 'you might have brain cancer' rulings that several websites tend to come up with.  I was reading a few things and it sounded like if we went to the doctor for a diagnosis that there wouldn't be anything that they could do for him that I couldn't do myself at home, i.e. hot shower, vaporub on the feet with socks, etc.  I am more than capable so I decided to forgo the hour long drive to the doctor, the long wait in the waiting room with other sick kids and the more than one hour long drive back home from the doctor in rush hour traffic and just handle it myself. 

After a small dehydration scare that we had this last year with Silas I am super nervous that we would run into that again, so I knew that I wanted to make sure that even though they weren't interested in eating that they kept drinking.  Normally they drink milk and watered down juice.  Separately, of course.  Of course, since they are super congested and coughing, I don't like them to drink milk.  I know that some parents aren't from that same school of thought but I don't believe that people should drink milk in that situation.  It just makes it worse.  So, because of that thought I wanted to give them something special to drink to make sure that they drink enough liquids. 

My kids love sports drinks.  Normally if we are out and about and stop for a drink we will get them a sports drink and water it down for the two of them since I don't give them sodas or anything like that.  However, I want to get away from that because I have been reading a lot of articles about ingredients that you shouldn't drink that are in sports drinks.  A few weeks ago, I saw a bunch of posts about a Homemade Electrolyte Drink and wanted to pin it because I knew that it might come in handy in a time like this in the future.  Little did I know this would happen sooner than I thought...

Now, I cut down this recipe a lot since this blogger used 12 oranges and I only had four, but I used the same proportions except I added probably double, if not triple the water.  I water down any of their drinks, except milk, so it was only natural for me to put extra water.  The kids seem to like it.  I think that it has too much salt for me but I am not the least bit dehydrated, so maybe it's fine for that time.  This is really convenient if you have a large volume of fruit laying around, but it's not often that I have at least 4 oranges laying around.  Maybe you could do this with pineapple juice, apple juice or orange juice from the bottle perhaps that you could buy a larger volume of just the juice from the store. 


Homemade Electrolyte Drink
Prep time: 10 mins

Juice of 4 oranges
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp. sugar
6 cups water

Add all ingredients into a jug and mix together until sugar and salt are dissolved.  Refrigerate and serve. 

I will definitely be making this again anytime that my kids are sick and I want them to stay hydrated. 

Enjoy!

We need our own cow(s)

It amazes me how much children like milk.  Wait, not like milk, love milk.  Especially my kids.  They really just need one of those water bottles that you put on the side of hamster cages just full of milk, so in essence like a never-ending supply.  I can't feel bad though because above all else it's healthy for you and has vitamins and minerals.   

When you deliver a baby they really should tell you that in a few short years it will be more financially beneficial to you if you just buy a cow for all of the milk and cheese that your children are going to consume.  For just adding two small children to our family, it seems like we buy at least twice the amount of milk and cheese that we did before we had kids.   

On a normal week where the kids will be at home the majority of the time, we will need 3 gallons of milk.  Now granted during the week days we are supplying three children two and under with milk, but that still is a lot of milk.  And Isabella could eat cheese morning, noon and night so we always have a drawer full of cheese in our fridge.  I swear that we are single-handedly keeping the dairy industry alive right now with all of the milk that we drink. 

Corry and I have never really been into milk as adults.  Every so often one of us will get a craving for milk but rarely.  We would be good to drink a half gallon before it would go bad.  We really only bought milk if we had a recipe that required milk.  I knew once we had children that we would consume more milk as a family but I never anticipated that we would drink this much.  We really only ate milk with cereal and things like this.  I used to LOVE milk growing up and I don't care what anyone says - there was nothing that beat a cold glass of chocolate milk.  But as an adult, I just found milk to have this odd taste and left this weird film feeling in my mouth - blech. 

We have been having conversations recently about looking into local or raw milk since there are currently attempts to add aspartame to milk products without notifying the consumers.  We are vehemently opposed to this because we are trying to keep out kids away from aspartame as much as possible.  Unfortunately, with milk that is local or raw milk comes a rather large price tag and we would be looking at spending almost $100 a month if not more just on milk.  I would love to be able to do it and we would do it if we had to but it would be a stretch. 

If you have cows for sale, let me know!