This week my lovely children introduced the flu into our household. Now as a mother I love when my kids share. But not a cold. And as I think I have mentioned before, my family is made up of a majority of boys. So the cold progressed quite quickly and violently into a full blown death flu for part of our family. According to some of our family, really they are all lucky to be alive. I mean the kids were snotty and sad. My daughter and I got snotty noses and headaches. Bad head colds. And the boys, well they are young men, got really “Bad” head colds. So bad that they couldn’t reach for the drink. But thankfully I believe they will live through it.
And having snotty noses, makes you really appreciated breathing. Breathing easily and happily clean fresh air is something that I hope never to take for granted. I am not back to big breaths yet, but I am working on it. At the moment all I can smell (and not very well) is Vicks. But I can remember how wonderful it feels to walk out onto my lawn and take a great big breath. The clean oxygen filling my lungs and helping me to face the rest of the day.
And I can thank my lawn for the awesome clean fresh air that I breath everyday. The air purifier, that I call my lawn, converts enough carbon into oxygen for our family of five. And a family of four needs just over 200sqm of lawn to take great big clean breaths everyday. And in my experience Mother’s and Father’s of a family of four need 200sqm of lawn to go outside away from their children to take big breaths. Or an area to send their children out onto.
My mother always used to tell me to have Chicken soup and go outside when I had a cold. She would send us outside with a blanket or towel to sit on the lawn in the sunshine. I have heard all the good benefits of a homemade chicken soup. I believe its meant to have have all the good minerals that you need to be able to recover. But I never really understood the outside part. This week I do.
I think that a large part of the “going outside” is to get you out of the stale air of the house that has all the coughs and sneezes just sitting within the four walls. I swear that my kids rooms have a smell of sick to them. When I walk into their room and air, I get why I see people wear the medical face masks. So yesterday, I sent my kids outside. I packed them up with a blanket, and a book and put them on the lawn. The air was so much nicer than inside. And with them outside I had the chance to clean our germ filled house. Now it smells like Pine-o-clean. (FYI – This also helps unblock your nose.)
So on the lawn, on their blanket, the kids sneezed, coughed and expelled the germs from their bodies OUTSIDE. And the lawn was there to support them. It proceeded to expel clean fresh, not germy, oxygen out so their lungs could absorb it and help them get better. And like a sporting field, the lawn absorbed all the bodily fluids, like sneezes that didn’t really make it into the tissues. ( I have boys, so there are lots of these)
The sun kissed their faces. And the smiles started to return.
Today my boys went back to school. Most likely it wasn’t all the chicken soup that I gave them. Or that I made them go out in the sun. And perhaps it is not even because of the lawn. But I will continue to send them outside in the sun on a blanket on the lawn when they are sick. Even if it is just a chance to clean without sad voices behind me.
If you have a cold this year, to have families with sneezes, send them outside. And if you do not have a air purifying lawn, get in contact with us to have one put one in for you.