Mama Dani's Musings

Friday, September 30, 2011

Pregnancy Update: 26 Weeks 3 Days and Ultrasound!

Today I'm 26 weeks and 3 days pregnant. For the most part, I feel pretty good! The heartburn has started but someone suggested peppermint candies and boy do they work! Another plus is they are much more tastier than Tums. The lower back pain has also started but it's getting better thanks to my chiropractor and using a birth ball more. I wish I had thought to go to a chiropractor during my other two pregnancies! Jellybean is still such an active baby! Well, until someone puts their hand on my belly and then all is still. lol I'm loving every minute of it. It's such a wonderful feeling. Names...we're really slacking that. We have a couple girl names but nothing we're 100% set on. Thankfully we still have time. Today I had my ultrasound. The tech told us to look away at the right times so Jellybean's sex is still a mystery to us. I'm really looking forward to discovering that on his/her birthday. I'm still leaning toward boy though.

Here's the pictures from today:
Side profile:

Feet:

Hand waving "Hi!":

In 3D

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Maddy's Update: Dairy Free

**Warning- this update includes a normal mommy topic that others may consider tmi. That's right, we're talking about poop! Don't say I didn't warn you!

Maddy has been battling constipation since around November of last year. At first we thought she was holding it in so the doctor suggested Miralax and time. We were told that it may take a few months for her to forget that it hurt to poop. That was in April. Miralax did help but after months, she still would only poop regularly when she was on the Miralax. For some reason, I started wondering if the milk she was drinking could be the problem. That was sometime this past summer. I switched her to a lower fat milk. Things got better but she still needed the Miralax at times. Also, most of the time that she went on her own, she had waited too long and it hurt her. Something just wasn't right

A few weeks ago I brought her to the chiropractor for the first time. They had talked to me about seeing children when I started going and what stuck in my mind was that constipation issues was one of the reason parents brought their kids in. Along with getting an adjustment, we talked about her constipation. The chiro said that she believes in mommy instinct and if I have a feeling that dairy might be a problem than it's something worth looking into. She gave me info on allergy testing (even though Maddy's on the young side for accurate results) and mentioned doing an elimination diet instead. I went home and did my research and talked to some mommy friends that have experience with dairy problems. After talking to Richard, we decided to give the elimination diet a shot.

It was in the middle of the week so I had to do our normal milk and bread grocery store run so I picked up almond milk. That night Maddy started on almond milk instead of cow's milk. The plan was after we did the week's grocery shopping, she was going to be completely dairy free. She was cow's milk free for 2 days before going completely dairy free. After just a few days cow's milk free, she was going regularly and without problems. Today is day 16 milk free and day 14 dairy free and she's continued to be regular and has not had any problems pooping! I do not think this is just a coincidence. I believe she has a problem with dairy.

Now we just need to figure out at what level. I'm hoping she does not have to be completely 100% dairy free. It hasn't been nearly as hard as I thought it would be but cheese is the hard part. Dairy free cheese is very hard to come by so we just completely cut it out. I miss it! I do think she will be able to handle some dairy since we saw a change before going completely dairy free. We're now going to add in the not obvious dairy and see if there's a change. If there is no change after a week, we'll add in a little obvious dairy...like maybe try pizza for dinner again! Hopefully we'll have this all figured out in a couple of weeks!

Flutter By Friday 9-30: Come Link-up!!

Welcome to this week’s Flutter By Friday blog hop!
The reason:
For readers to find other neat blogs to read and follow.
For bloggers to find readers/followers.

Here’s what to do:

Follow the host (Mama Dani's Musings) and co-host (I'm Bloggin')
Use the linky at the bottom of this post to post up to 2 posts per link-up.
Come back and see what other bloggers have been linked to.
Comment on a post you like.
Follow a new blog.
Come back next week to do it again!

I’ll randomly pick a link from this week’s blog hop to feature in next week’s blog hop!
Please take a moment and check out this week’s featured blog:
Eco-Crazy Mom

I'd also appreciate if you placed this blog hop button on your blog.

This linky will end Sunday evening.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Sean's Update: Our trip to the ER

Yesterday started pretty much as a normal day. It was a late drop off day for my daycare kid so the kids and I slept in a little. After getting up and feeding everyone, I started getting the diaper bag packed and clothes out for the kids. The plan was to get everyone in the van once my daycare kid got here and go to my midwife appointment. I was in the living room and called to Sean in his room to finish getting dressed. That's when I heard his cry. I immediately knew he had hurt himself. Moms, you know that cry!! I ran to him and met him at his door. I immediately saw that he had hurt his forehead but at that point the bleeding hadn't really started. It looked more like just a scrap. As I got closer, I saw that that wasn't the case. By the time I got him to the bathroom (next room over) the blood was everywhere. He had cut his forehead open. It wasn't long (maybe half an inch) but it was deep. The blood was freaking him out so I got him cleaned up and taped gauze to him. Thankfully, the bleeding stopped pretty quickly. I got a hold of my dad and he drove us to Patient First. That's when the adrenaline wore off and I started feeling sick: light headed and nauseous. They said he did need stitches but he needed to be sedated. So, we were sent to the children's hospital's ER.

But first, Patient First made this headband for Sean:

Sean was already feeling like his normal self because I had to constantly tell him to stop running, jumping and climbing. I won't be surprised if I have some grey hairs after yesterday! We were there forever. Sean got two different sedatives: an oral one and a local numbing cream. We waited for them to take effect. I knew it had when Sean started swaying, grabbing invisible things and then asking me why they turned on another tv. Drunk Sean is pretty funny. He even told me that he wanted a cord sandwich for lunch?? They finally came in to do the stitches and it was horrible! The tech wrapped a blanket around Sean so that his arms were by his side. She then held his head still while I held his body. He screamed and cried through out the whole thing. It broke my heart! He ended up with 3 stitches. They'll be in until Monday and the doctor said he will have a scar. Right now, he's pretty excited about the Cars band-aids he gets to wear.

It doesn't look too terrible 24 hours later:

Update On Me

Whew! It's been crazy around here lately! I've been keeping up with my posts but I feel like I've been MIA in the blogging community. Many apologies for the lack of comments, following back, ect. I swear I have good reasons!

The biggest thing occupying my time has been my home daycare. I've been below capacity for awhile now. This was mostly because of Keme's surprise pregnancy; I didn't try to fill spots while there were puppies in the house. Once they were gone, I started up again. The income from just 1 full timer is not cutting it. And I'm very sad to say, his last day was today. We are ending on good terms but it's still difficult. Needless to say, filling daycare spots has been top priority! I'm even looking into other ways to bring in income, such as weekend elderly care. Timing just stinks b/c no one wants to hire someone so pregnant.

I have a couple of update posts on the kids that are waiting in draft. Sean's will be finished today. Maddy and Jellybean's will be finished tomorrow.

A neat little tid bit: The mornings after a few of my most stressful days, we've had butterflies emerge and a couple have hung around longer than normal.

3 in 30: September: Week 4 Update and Month in Review

Here's a look at my progress for September's goals:

Me- Simi success- Again, no sewing but I did get craft time in and made Maddy a scrap tutu. I didn't really make my sewing goal for the month but I did make my goal of doing something I enjoy, even with the lack of time lately. That's a success in my book!!
Kids- Success! Again, nothing big but Maddy and I did spend some one-on-one time through out the week and on Tuesday we both had chiropractor appointments again. I never wanted our one-on-one time to only be big things like our mall date. So this has definitely been a success!!
Family- Fail. I knew this was going to be the difficult one so it's not a surprise that this one was not a success this month.

Again, this week wasn't perfect but it was a good week! Over all, this month has been good! I've started brainstorming on goals for next month, which starts Saturday!

Maddy's scrap tutu:

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