Week in Review: Week 13 - 15

I'm a few weeks behind on Week in Review so I'll just combine them. Our weeks haven't been all that busy. We started week 13 with the first batch of my milk going to it's new home. I love that I'm able to do this again! Later in the week, Emily turned 3 months and had her ENT appointment.

Green smoothies and glow sticks in the bathtub!

(click to enlarge pictures) 

Week 14 started with Maddy's 3rd birthday. She's very excited to be "3 old"! We had a special breakfast and then that afternoon, an art party. They'll be a separate post on that later! Middle of that week, I got a much needed new phone. My blackberry had died just about a week and a half before I was eligible for an upgrade. I used an old phone that seemed to be a phone from the stone age until I got my new phone: a Motorola Photon. I love it!! Though, I'm now hooked in Angry Birds and Draw Something. Also that week, we lost our pet rat, Rizzo. Rizzo had started rooming with Sean a while back and Sean got very attached, more than I had realized. When we lost the other rat last year, Sean was completely fine. Not this time. He cried...a lot. Seeing him like that was really difficult. Especially when, after we buried Rizzo, Sean asks, "When he's done being dead, can we go get him?". The next morning he asked if Rizzo was in Heaven yet and seemed ok after I told him yes. We ended the week by picking up 5 baby chicks. Unfortunately, they are not ours to keep. Our city has something against chickens. What we're doing is participating in the Rent A Chick program at a local farm. We got 5 2 day old chicks and all the supplies to raise them for two weeks. Then we have to return them to the farm. I so wish we could keep them!! I'll have a separate post on that too. That afternoon we had an Easter egg hunt at hubby's parents' house and then had Easter dinner with them.

Chickies!

 Easter Bunny came and silly kids after an Easter egg hunt

Last Sunday was Easter. The Easter Bunny came, we did an Easter egg hunt and had a family dinner with my family. We then started out the work week with adopting 2 baby rats. Sean insisted that Rizzo's cage needed more rats. Cookie and Crumbster (Sean picked the names) were 5 1/2 weeks when they came to live with us. They are adorable and oh so playful! I assumed the rest of the week would be a normal, non-eventful week. But then hubby hurt his arm at work and spent the rest of the week home with us. Since I still had daycare kids, I put him to work entertaining and feeding kids. ;) This weekend's plan is to work on the garden!

Cookie and Crumbster: 

Cookie is white and beige and Crumbster is grey and white

Stay up to date by "liking" my Facebook page.
© Mama Dani's Musings

Kids Say: March

Sean seems to have been the talkative one this month:

Let's start with some of Sean words:

fidg-e-ater = refrigerator

Engine turtles = ninja turtles

Beaner sistle = wiener schnitzel

Wha-bay ...your guess is as good as mine!!

Sean woke up from nap and Maddy and daycare baby (10 months) were still asleep. I went to check on them and Sean asks me "Are the kids still asleep?"

"When I grow up I'm going to be a cowboy. After I'm a cowboy, I'm going to be a firefighter!!"

"I'm hungry. My tummy's growling like a race car."

"Do you know why runners drink water? Because they run out of running power."

Serta commercial comes on and Sean tells me "Mama, we need that bed." Why? "My bed isn't comfortable because I keep moving around."

"When I be a dad and get a mom, I want her van to be blue."

Talking about batman- "This thing is called a slimer. It'll cut your head off and might give you a bleed."

"When I be a dad, I don't want hair." I asked where because I thought he was talking about facial hair. He answered "my head!"

I was complaining about how much pollen was in the house with only 1 window open. Sean then explained to me that a walking key opened all the windows the night before.

Sean wiped my kiss off of him so I asked him why. "because I can only have Granddad and Justin kisses."

Stay up to date by following me on twitter @MamaDaniBlog or "liking" my Facebook page. New followers: Welcome! Please leave a comment to let me know how you found my blog so that I can follow you back!
© Mama Dani's Musings

Week in Review: Week 12

Wow! I'm getting behind on these week in review posts. I should be working on this week's but have just finished up last weeks. Oops! We had another beautiful week last week. It was the first week of spring and we got to spend a lot of time outside.

Who knew! I have 2 airplanes!

And a thumb sucker!

We also started a project: worm composting. 

Here's a handful of the pound of worms we adopted:

Putting them in their new home:

Stay up to date by "liking" my Facebook page.
© Mama Dani's Musings

Emily: 3 Months

Another month with my little one is gone. She's 3 months old today. She's done a lot of growing and changing this past month. She's still very much a happy baby. She loves to smile and "talk" to people. Earlier this month (March 2nd to be exact) she laughed for the first time. As much as she loves to smile you wouldn't think she'd be so selective about her laughs but she is. Her most recent talent is she's grabbing at and holding onto toys now. She has also gone from sucking on her fist to sucking on her thumb. This is new territory for me. Sean and Maddy also refused pacis but never tried their thumbs. Emily loves her thumb.

Last month, the pediatrician referred us to an ENT. We had that appointment yesterday. The spot on Emily's neck is a branchial remnant (branchial cleft remnant) not a birth mark as we were hoping. The good news is we don't need to do anything about it now and possibly never. The ENT says that since it hasn't started leaking by now than there's a good chance it never will. That's what we're looking out for because if it does, she may need surgery to remove it. At least if she needs surgery later, she will be older and able to handle it better. I'm posting another picture of the spot. I'd done a lot of googling to find out as much info on branchial remnants and since the location of hers is a rare location, there's not many pictures to find. Maybe another mom searching will be comforted by finding my blog.

Stay up to date by "liking" my Facebook page.
© Mama Dani's Musings

Week in Review: Week 11 (video bonus!)

What a beautiful week last week was! Good bye winter, make room for spring!! I finally decided to embrace the over supply I have this time around and donate my milk again. We also signed up for rent-a-chick at a local farm. What that means is we're going to the farm on the Saturday before Easter, pick up a few chicks and supplies, raise them for a couple weeks and return them to the farm. The kids and I can't wait! ..maybe me more than them..

This week it's just the girls in the pictures and video:

Working on hand/eye coordination:

My little artist:

And FINALLY!! I captured my camera shy baby talking on camera! 

Stay up to date by "liking" my Facebook page.
© Mama Dani's Musings

Milk Donation

About 2 and a half years ago I found myself producing more than enough milk for my five month old and my almost two year old nurslings. I would pump the extra but neither of my children would drink what I pumped. They preferred it straight from the tap I guess. I couldn't bring myself to toss it so I looked around for other options. First was milk banks. Milk banks are great. Especially for hospitalized babies. But many families can't afford the $4-$5 an ounce that banks charge. That was only one of the reasons I chose not to go that route. I was also treating postpartum depression. I was on a breastfeeding safe antidepressant but I had read that banks won't take your milk if you regularly take meds.


So, I went the informal route and found a mom of a little girl named Emerson. Emerson's mom would send me a cooler and milk storage bags. I'd fill it up and the UPS man to take it to Emerson. I donated 800+oz to baby Emerson and she was able to make it to her first birthday completely on breastmilk. I'm extremely happy to say that I was one of the milk donors that made it possible. To the right is the cooler I filled a couple of times for her.


Not long after Emily was born I realized that I, once again, had oversupply. Over active letdown accompanied it and was making things difficult for Em. She would choke and pull off at let down. She'd also end up eating more than she needed and silent reflux began to show up. I could tell she was in pain. After nursing she'd gag and the look on her face told me it was coming back up in her poor little throat. I had to do something to help her out so I started pumping just to slow down the flow, hoping I wasn't making things worse. It worked. Then Em got an ear infection and had a hard time nursing off one side. That took care of the over supply on that side but since she was doing most of her nursing on the other, that side's supply increased. I'm now pumping again to make it comfortable for her and am easily getting 5 oz a day. She will not take a bottle but even if she would, she'd never drink the 81oz I have stashed in the freezer. I posted on facebook that I was ready to just embrace my oversupply and pump to donate. A friend commented saying that she had a friend that could use my milk. That was perfect because I wanted to find someone local this time. She put us in contact and now the milk in my freezer is for little baby London. I'm really excited to be able to do this again. Pumping when it was just to remove the extra milk to make breastfeeding easier was sometimes a pain. It's all changed now that I'm pumping to give the milk to a child that needs it. I'm more than happy to pump for London.

Do you have extra milk? Here's a few links for banks and informal donation groups:

Human Milk Banking Association of North America

Milk Share (where I found Emerson's mom)

Human Milk 4 Human babies

Eats on Feets

Stay up to date by "liking" my Facebook page.

© Mama Dani's Musings