September 2004 Moms - Happy April! Mobile babies in the near future! - Page 5

[FeministFatale]

oh man, those puppies are SO cute!

[Cuddlemama]

I can't possibly catch up at the moment. You are one prolific group of women! But, I did want to subscribe so I can try to get my head above water eventually.

~L

Edited: spelling errors

[JenInMpls]

I hate it when he gets up this early!



that's all for now,

j (will he fall back asleep!?!!!)

[Subhuti]

hi all
quick note
big floods, Lulu and I and DH were evacuated. Spent night in monastery. Lulu thought it was a blast! Basement a mess, river flooded all the way up here!


we're going to NYC because its not clean here (no running water, lots of standing water). See grammies.

Love

Liz and Lulu

[leomom]

Love the puppies...especially the pool one!

Savannah, your Easter cuties are very adorable....big smiles all around!

FF, i picked my fabric. I'll email you in a minute.

Liz, I hope you make it to NYC safely.

Hoping to make it to a playgroup this morning, but I never know what kind of mood my princess will be in or when she'll wake up or when she'll sleep or when she'll be hungry...

[3boobykins]

Wow, busy thread already! It's so easy to get behind and then it's a challenge to reply to individual posts 'cuz I don't want to leave anyone out!

As always, I'm loving all the photos! Here are just a few more of mine. The two of Leela and Shankar sleeping happened at the same time--couldn't believe it! Leela has started falling asleep in her highchair after lunch almost every day. Not the most comfy napping spot, but she'd wake up if I tried to move her, and she'll only go to sleep if she's "restrained" in the carseat, stroller, or high chair.

http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeIOWLZm3cNmEJ

Fat babies--Love 'em! They are so yummy and edible-looking! Leela was my only really chubby babe. She was 18 lbs at 6 months, after being just 5 lbs. 11oz at birth. She was on the short side, too, so that made her even rounder. Her knees were even fat. Bhavani is just tiny in comparison, and both sizes and all in between are healthy and perfect. So poo to MIL's and their comments! I got really lucky in the MIL department--she minds her own beeswax and never criticizes our parenting! Loved your comment about your husband's MIL, Chrissy! :LOL

DH and I talked and agreed that I needed a bit of a break everyday, whenever possible. He works at home, so he's going to take a couple of hours in the afternoon to hang out with the older two so I can go grocery shopping or just go hang out at the bookstore, or whatever. How cool is that?!

Gotta run --sorry to just talk about me-me-me! I'll try to keep up a bit more so I can respond more to individual mamas!

Happy Monday!

Heather

[JenInMpls]

This is off topic to Stacy in particular but I thought it would give you all a smile.

When my dad lived in Louisiana way back when (in the 60s), he bred boxers too. In one litter he ended up with a pure snow-white bitch. I don't know if she was albino or just totally white, but AKC wouldn't let my dad sell her as a purebred because of her color being wrong, so he was going to keep her.

One day a man drove up in a huge (think 60s era cars, now, folks) red Cadillac convertible to get a puppy. He had an appointment to buy one of the papered dogs, but the second he saw the white puppy, he insisted that he had to have her. My dad tried to convince the man that she was not for sale, but he would not be dissuaded - he had to have the white boxer, and he didn't care if she had papers or not. He paid my dad $500 for that puppy, which, in the early 60s, was a LOT of money, I think close to 5x what my dad was charging for the papered dogs. And my dad said that when the man set the puppy down on the front seat of his red cadillac convertible with white leather interior and drove off, he understood why the man wanted the white dog - she matched his car and looked absolutely beautiful in it!

Just an aside to make you smile. Leigh and Liz, stay dry. We had horrible flooding here (well, northwest of here, in Grand Forks) several years ago and it was nightmarish, so I feel your pain.

How are other babies adjusting to daylight saving time?

j

[Mama Bear]

Originally Posted by JenInMpls

I have to say that the "how crunchy are you?" quiz makes me sad. If I hadn't had a c-section, we both would have died, despite me having wanted a homebirth, and I feed him formula because otherwise he would starve on my Tbsp of milk per breast per feeding. Still, I find myself plenty crunchy. So I have to say : to the quiz, sorry. I do what I have to for your child, and if that makes me "jello" in someone else's book, well, tough.

I apologize that I upset you. I did not intend to offend anyone.
I had gotten the link from another board I belong to and thought it was cute...

[Cuddlemama]

It's so wet here. The rain is gradually slowing down, but the waters are still well past flood-stage. We are blessed to be on the UP side of the hill, so we don't have personal issues with our house flooding. But, our poor cross-the-street neighbors are below us on the DOWN side of the hill, and they're having some serious trouble.

I hope you make it safely to NYC, Liz. There are tons of roads closed here in Broome County, as well as several surrounding counties here in the Southern Tier and in NW Pennsylvania.

Thankfully, though, the weather guy says the rain is going to stop till the weekend.

I'm still in bed. I didn't get to sleep till nearly 4am. The big kids brought their breakfast up to my room and have been playing in here today. Anna slept in till 10:30, since she has not adjusted to daylight savings time. Now she is rolling around with toys.

~L

[bunsmom]

Good morning mamas!

Liz, hope you are doing o.k.

Thanks for the support on the MIL issue, and those that have wonderful MIL's you are soooo lucky!

The time change is awful for us. Buns was up until almost 2 am, but back to sleep now. We were going to go to a NFL meeting, a new group for us,but that isn't going to happen.

Yesterday was a really lazy day. I made some sweet potato bread, and buns tried some mashed sweet potato before I made the bread, she had this look on her face like "are you trying to poison me?" and gagged a couple times, so we stopped. This was the first solid food she hasn't really liked, I wonder if it could be the texture? She loved bananas, avacados, b.nut squash and pumpkin...We were going to go for a walk but it was raining, so all of us relaxed. I am reading "the gift of fear" and loving the information.

FF- I love the materials you are using. I too do not like having to deal with those comments. I am going to talk to my sweetie (he is a sweetie!) about talking to his Mom about buns. I really can not stand for people to talk about a baby/child like they don't exist or just because they can not talk they don't understand. I do NOT want her growing up with an eating disorder, or feeling bad about herself. I also am tired of his Mother (who was a social worker and for some reason thinks that makes her an child expert) trying to tell us what to do, or rather tell me what to do. She has made several comments about buns not having a pacifier, and also is always saying that "babies need spend time alone so they can learn to be independent" Whatever. It is getting reaaaly old.

Part of the issue is that she has never offered to help us with anything. Nada. Ever. But then wants us to do things for her, so my relationship with her isn't great to begin with, so it isn't easy for me to take her crap. Not that it would be, but when there is already and existing issue, it makes it worse. The day after we had buns, she brought over beer for her and DH, you know because of all the hard work he had to do. GRRRR. And (I am sure I have complained about this before because it makes me so angry) made several rude comments (this is about 18 hrs. after giving birth so I am not looking so good) about my body, and when I said I loved being a Mom she said "don't write the book it has only been one day" and wanted me (again, right after having buns) to come and help her paint her new house. WTF? Sooo, as you can see the woman is not easy to deal with.

I shouldn't even get started on my in-laws I can't shut up about how weird they are.

We didn't do too much last week, it was nice having DH home, but today when buns wakes up I am going to run some errands, pick up some meds for our sweet pup and try and go to the Body Shop. I need some face lotien and body butter. I just can't stand going to the mall so I have put it off.

Have a wonderful day you great Moms.

FF, I hope you get that ceiling fixed.

[banana girl]

hey hey hey

Hi mamas!

Just popping in to say hi! Mielle wants to say hi too!
(g gggfg l ii fttthjjmihyds)

No time to post it took too long to read!!!!
Later

[JenInMpls]

Christine - don't fret, it's all right. I just sometimes get really sad that there are folks out there who might automatically discount me as a "crunchy" natural parent because of things I do or have done in which I had little choice. Particularly having to feed Tristan formula has been a life lesson for me in that I must never make assumptions or judgements about what another person is doing, since it might not be a matter in which they have a choice. When I saw women buying formula at the baby store, I forced myself to push the thought "why the h* are you buying formula when you could breastfeed your beautiful baby?!!" out of my head and made myself think "maybe their baby is adopted." or "maybe that mom has the same problem that I do."

But you know, I stopped and took the quiz and actually counted this time, and I came out in the top category, Super Nutty, Ultra-Crunchy Granola Earth Mama! :LOL to our Anna Banana I give much credit, as I counted using her milk in the SNS the same as allowing another person to breastfeed Tristan.

So Christine please don't berate yourself

bunsmom do you think you could post your sweet potato bread recipe?

It is 71 here and I think I will call my doula - who has turned into my pal - to go for a walk. Be well, stay dry,

xo, j

[StacyL]

Originally Posted by FeministFatale

I'm amazed at how many of you also had your ceiling fall down! I guess this is pretty common. And StacyL, I live very close to Sherman Oaks, if you still lived here we could've been irl friends.

FF- Yep!

What part of LA do you live in? I miss some things about LA, particularly the weather and the food!

[StacyL]

Originally Posted by JenInMpls

And my dad said that when the man set the puppy down on the front seat of his red cadillac convertible with white leather interior and drove off, he understood why the man wanted the white dog - she matched his car and looked absolutely beautiful in it!

That's a great story! The little white one is a girl, and she is actually my favorite. She has the best personality. She is classified as a "fawn" because Boxers only have two coat color classifications (fawn & brindle) and so for a white Boxer it is based on whatever color their "spot" is - in her case, fawn. She is officially called an "ultra-flashy" fawn. I think they should just call it white!

Yep, Maggie is exhausted from all the nursing and is really thin and eats & drinks like crazy. Now she is basically looking to get away from her pups at every opportunity. It's kinda funny. The swimming pool was great in the beginning, but now they can get in & out of it, so it doesn't keep them corralled very well. I have a baby gate blocking the kitchen off from the rest of the house to keep them on the tile. They slept outside in the sun in the play yard for a few hours this afternoon - all stretched out long in the sun, so cute!

[bunsmom]

nak

jen I will post the rec. tonight!!!!

[mum2tori]

Originally Posted by JenInMpls

But you know, I stopped and took the quiz and actually counted this time, and I came out in the top category, Super Nutty, Ultra-Crunchy Granola Earth Mama! :LOL to our Anna Banana I give much credit, as I counted using her milk in the SNS the same as allowing another person to breastfeed Tristan.

SEE!! I just KNEW you were crunchier than me. :LOL :LOL I think there is a big difference between having a c-section because your labor stalled and you were getting totally exhausted & being pressured because of your "past due" status and deciding to just schedule a c-section because it is much more "convenient" to know when the baby will be born and not having to deal with labor at all.

Okay I'm not getting hardly ANY of the email notices now. I haven't since the move to the new servers. : How rude.

I read some more of the old thread the other night. Still have a few more pages (5) to go. : But I WILL get through it all. :LOL

Okay here's a little of what I've had a chance to reply too. :LOL

Aidan is magnetically attracted to the underside of the couch! Every time I turn around… his head is under it. And he doesn’t like it either.

Our house is pretty much baby/toddler proofed since I’ve got Tori and Jack too. Though its amazing what Tori will get into. She’s always been my uber-engineer with her siege engine building.

Cats can be satan. Okay I love my cats… okay one I don’t so much but I do love the other two. One of those is the WORST at being obnoxious when it’s the most inconvenient time. I try to always throw some food down late at night so they don’t wait us early in the morning… unfortunately the dog that DH just HAD to have sometimes takes care of that. I’m really not a dog person anymore.

Slings/Carriers & Pouches.
I have waaaaay too many slings/pouches/carriers. I really need to sell some of them off. I don’t use most of them hardily if at all. I tried to find a carrier that Jack would be happy in when he was a newborn/infant. He hated just about all carriers until he was about 6 months old. He liked (and still does) the stroller better. Now, he does enjoy the Ergo on my back occasionally. Aidan is okay with being in the pouch, he likes the Kelty that David uses-- LOVES to swing those legs! but it hurts my back if I use it for too long. I love the look of those Thumblina pouches, always liked the look of the Zolo slings but luckily (for my wallet) I've given up on slings, I just can't get them to feel comfortable and stay snug. I'll stick to pouches. I like my PeaInAPod, my KKAFPs and my NewNative (which is khaki and matches almost everything :LOL). I keep thinking I should try an ABC carrier... :

FF your pouches look awesome. How much fabric do you need to make a "medium" sized pouch? I might need you to make us one. I love the look of pouches done in batiks. Love batiks now.

Becca-
Sorry to hear about that experience with the woman and her baby same age as Bryn. I couldn’t go 5 hours without food either. Maybe you’ll be able to influence her with better choices and guidance. J

Falling off the couch…
Aidan fell off the couch about a month ago. I felt horrible. Of course he bumped his forehead on the coffee table too. Nice little bump. And then last week, he was laying on the changing table (pad sitting on top of an antique dresser. I was getting ready to change him. I leaned down and opened a drawer to get a new outfit out of it. I suddenly had something landing on my head. I grabbed real quick (got his legs) but he still bumped his cheek a little on part of the drawer. Of course this was right before we were going to try to get some pictures taken the next day. LOVELY quarter size buise on his cheek. I felt horrible. Bad mommy.

Dyson
We have the “low reach” one. Purple and Red. David was very skeptical about it when I first ordered it a year ago. I was able to get it before they raised the prices but it was still $$. And that it took almost 2 months to get it… until he used it. He LOVES it now. It is amazingly well designed. There isn’t a single place that can get clogged that you can’t access to get stuff out. Totally awesome!

Easter
Easter was a bust here. We missed the neighborhood Easter egg hunt because it was rainy on Saturday. I woke up with the worst headache. Actually the headache didn’t kick in until a few minutes after I started nursing Aidan sitting up. I still make myself presentable and we did the Easter baskets for Tori and Jack. Aidan slept again. I made pancakes for breakfast for everyone and then went and laid back down. I ended up sleeping off and on most of the day. I never did truly get rid of the headache Sunday. Still felt a little achy late Sunday night. DH decided to passive aggressive since I “planned” on being sick and out of commission on Easter to totally bail on cooking Sunday dinner. He went and got the kids Taco Bell. :doh :doh Since I wasn’t up, he didn’t dye the eggs with the kids either, he didn’t hide the plastic eggs all over the yard for the kids to play with. He didn’t do ANYTHING “Easterish”.

AND he threw away the bag with the 3 packages of mini Cadbury Crème Eggs (my favorite Easter candy)!! The man can’t throw away an empty drink bottle or the empty Starbucks coffee bag that he always leaves on the counter for me to take care of but he threw away MY Easter candy. I searched four different places this past weekend looking for creme eggs... all anyone has left is Peeps.

Cars &SUVs.
We love our Discovery. David takes it off road (ALL over the military base) all the time. It blows people away with what it can do. Hey, its what the British military use. I really not a minivan kind of person. I’d rather have an SUV that we can take off-road to go camping in.

MILs
We're both pretty lucky that neither of our mothers make comments like so many deal with. Our big issues is getting them to follow through with showing up and being a part of the kids lives. Mary (my MIL) is bad about saying she'll come for a visit and then cancel at the last minute. It was really bad when we still lived in Houston (where she lives) she just wouldn't show up. At least now she lets us know she isn't coming. I don't tell Tori that Mawmaw is coming for a visit unless she's actually on the way. My mom just has so much to do with her Greyhound rescue... that she doesn't have time for us (even when we lived 15 minutes from the dog shelter) or she can't leave her dogs to come visit us. :

Okay naps are starting to end. Got to love when the next door neighbor decides to mow is lawn on the side of the house near the kids bedrooms when they are taking a nap. Yep, Jack's crying now. Got to go.

I'll try to check in again later... and finish the other thread. :LOL

[mommykof5]

Just wanted to say hi and introduce my darling bouncing baby boy. Our son was born on (9-4-04) I say several other babies born on that date.

Mason is seven months old. He was born early and weighed in at 3lbs. 15oz. We stayed 2 extra days in the hospital then they sent us home. He is doing great right now other than a staph infection (whole other story). No teeth yet although he chews on everything. He will roll over onto his stomach but then gets stuck and cery mad. He scouts all over the floor by pushing himself around with his legs on his back. This has caused a big bald spot. He loves to sit up in the jumparoo. Well gotta go and get oldest ds to Boy Scouts.

[jilly]

Wow, we are a prolific bunch! We had to go to a bunch of stuff yesterday and then had company overnight and so everyone is exhausted today. Dh is sleeping onthe couch and ds is sleeping on the bed. I probably should be sleeping or memorizing my lines. Oh well.
Very cute babies and puppies, all!
Haircuts: Andrew doesn't have enough hair to trim yet, but he has a great baby mohawk. I think he's going to be strawberry blonde.
Sleeping: we are working on standing and cruising and ds is so wired that he kicks his legs all the time when I'm nursing him. I've started giving him leg massages at night to relax him so he'll go to sleep. He still wakes a lot.
MIL's: My MIL is obsessive-compulsive and apparently "allergic" to everything - wheat, refined sugar, mold, yeast, etc and spends all her time cleaning. When Andrew was a fussy baby she was convinced it was because he had a wheat allergy and I should stop eating all wheat products. I checked with the health nurses and they said this was not the case because babies with wheat allergies have very distinct smelling poops and he didn't have the smell. Then she insisted it was because I was daring to sleep him in polyester. And when she was visiting, she would say things like "Oh, I really like THIS sleeper you've got him in right now. Do you know why? Because it's cotton and it just breathes so much better." Finally I had to tell her that I was NOT buying my son a new wardrobe just because she thought he needed to be in cotton. And it was super warm, like inthe mid-20's celsius and she kept covering him in blankets because babies need to be warm. I would come back from a nap and find him burried under 3 blankets (only my COTTON blankets, mind you) and sweating to death. Then when they heard he was standing supported at 3 1/2 mos she kept nagging me (over the phone) about how this was going to damage his ankles and I shouldn't let him stand. Like I could stop him from pushing to standing whenever there was a flatish surface under his feet. Anyway, I'm glad she doesn't live close becuase it would drive me crazy. She is super controlling. My mother is also crazy and also lives far away. But that is another story. I have great respect for anyone who lives close to their difficult relatives. I just move away.
There, I found a use for it!
Um. .. what else . . . We just hauled the metal frame back carrier our friends gave us out of the basement and dh loved taking Andrew for a walk in it (he finds the sling too complicated now that I switched carries). IT was Andrew's first time outside where he could really see everything and he loved checking out the world. I'm so glad spring is finally here.
Hope the rain stops soon in NY and you are all safe and dry soon.

[sistermama]

Check out my latest announcement
http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeNuXDJqxx4
Isn't it so cute?

[bunsmom]

Jen, Here is the sweet potato bread recipe.

I am going to give you the recipe I used, but here are the variations I used:
For Milk, I used Vanilla Soy Milk (silk) and used about 3 T. because it seemed dry
For eggs, I use energy egg, the equiv. to two eggs.
I also increased the cinnamon to 1 tsp. and added some powdered ginger and powdered all spice.
Here is the ORIGINAL (hee) recipe:

1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup veg. oil
2 Tablespoons milk
1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup golden raisins (optional, and I didn't have so didn't use)

Prehaeat oven to 325 and Grease a loaf pan

Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg cinnamon (other spices if using) and sugar. Add eggs, oil and milk, mix until well blended. Stir in mashed sweet potatoes, peacans and raisins. Put into the prepared pan.
Bake for aprox. 1 hour (mine took about 50 minutes). Allow bread to cool in pan at least 15 minutes before removing.

I let the bread just sit in the pan overnight and it was YUMMY this morning!