Mama to Mama and Teeny, Tiny Caps

In the spirit of the coming Thanksgiving, I decided to take part in a little project through a new blog, Mama to Mama, which was created by one of my favorite blog authors, Amanda Soule of SouleMama. The purpose of the new blog is to reach out to other moms throughout the world using craftism...giving through making, rather than monetarily. The first proposed idea was the Caps to Cap-Haitien Project, and it's goal was to make cotton jersey hats for newborn infants, which would be put in home-birthing kits in Haiti. To learn more about the project and why this is needed, see the above link, or check in my side-bar. It's such a great thing.

Here are my completed hats. Despite some initial insanity with sewing knit fabric on a regular machine, I had such a nice experience doing this. It felt so good to take part in a project which I knew would help other mamas...women like me. Although our backgrounds and needs are different, we all need help sometimes. As I was working, I was thinking about all the little children who would be wearing these caps, and sewing those little thoughts into each one.

Trick-or-Treat

Halloween this year was completely awesome! I realize that I'm a serious slacker for blogging about this in November, but here I am.

We went to three different trick-or-treat festivities on two separate weekends, and although the first one ended up being on a cold, rainy, and dark evening and the second one almost resulted in a mom and grandma double-time smackdown of some older kids (and their parents) with no manners, not to mention some seriously long lines...Freyja was all about it this year, and her excitement made it great.

If you recall, last year we had a festive pumpkin outfit and a pea-in-a-pod ensemble which she wore while I walked her around the neighborhood while the older kids were trick-or treating. She was only 5 months old at the time and obviously clueless in regards to why she was dressed like a vegetable, but she was still super cute.

This year I picked a very adorable bumble bee suit for Freyja's costume. I even thought ahead and bought a size bigger so she could wear it again next year, if I can get away with it. What I didn't realize when I picked it out was that when it came time for her to wear it, she was going to understand exactly what it was.

We have a book called, Time for Bed, by Jane Dyer and illustrated by Mem Fox. It has some beautiful watercolors inside, and Freyja likes to point out the animal on each page...first by name, and then she makes it's "noise". She's particularly excited about the horse, cow, sheep, duck, dog, and cat. One of the lines in the book is, "It's time to sleep little bee, little bee. Yes, I love you, and you love me." I didn't think she had really grasped what a bee was yet because she was always quiet when I came to that page, but apparently I was wrong. When I put on her costume, she started yelling "Bee! Bee!" So, I took out the book, turned to the page with the bee, and she immediately pointed at it and said "Bee! Bee!" Pretty amazing stuff. I think it's so awesome how these little ones are learning so much and storing it away, and then one day they just decide it's time to use it. I wonder how long she knew what a bee was before she actually said anything?

I love that last photo. She's looks like she wants to tear the camera ot of my hand.

So, since we live in a city which overlaps with a second one, we went out on two different nights to trick-or-treat in the business district of each downtown area. On the night went to Bloomington it was rainy and cold, but Freyja didn't seem to mind. There weren't many kids out, but the event was still going on, so I pushed her in the stroller through the misty rain and we had fun anyway. On the night we went to downtown Normal, it was absolutely beautiful outside and not cold at all. It seemed like every child around here was there! So, the lines to get candy from different merchants or free food and drinks were quite long and the wait was making the kids stir-crazy. Freyja was pretty chilled out though...she seemed satisfied to check out all the different people and costumes, and was super happy when I let her eat her first lolly-pop. There was sticky stuff all over, but she loved it. On the actual night of Halloween, grandma and grandpa took Freyja around the neighborhood for door-to-door trick-or-treating while I relaxed at home, ready to hand out candy to the kids roaming the neighborhood.

What should Freyja's costume be next year? A fruit? An animal? Something off the wall? I guess we'll see...

I love Halloween! I'm totally excited that someday there will be parties, spooky cupcakes, pin the hat on the witch, bobbing for apples, and all kinds of fun stuff, but not yet...

More Pumpkin-ing

Here are some photos of us pumpkining and gourding and such at our usual produce stand, and at a brand new pumpkin patch which just opened in our town. I'm so grateful to the random lady who happened to tell us about this place. It's part of a small, family-owned farm, and they have a really nice and very accessible pumpkin patch for little ones, a fantastic playground, a sandbox (minus the sand and plus dried corn kernels...pretty nifty), a petting zoo (always a crowd pleaser with this little girl) and all sorts of animals running around, not to mention all kinds of varieties of pumpkins and gourds, wild corn, and fall plants and herbs...and super cool wagons to put all your stuff and your kiddies in while you're there. Awesome! As usual, Freyja was having fun and enjoying the beautiful weather!

Lemon Pistachio Biscotti

I recently tried out a new biscotti recipe, and they were dangerously good. It came from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but there is an identical recipe here. I am a huge, HUGE fan of both pistachio nuts and lemons, so this particular biscotti had me yelling with happiness.

A Zoo Review

If you haven't figured it out yet, Freyja is crazy about animals, hence the plethora of photos featuring her checking out some creature and/or playing with the cat. She also likes to point out every animal possible in books, pictures, etc. and yells in excitement when she sees one in public. Future veterinarian? I suppose it's possible. Or, maybe all little kiddies are pumped about animals.

Regardless...

At the end of September we took Freyja to the zoo. Obviously, given her animal fascination, she loved it. I forgot to post the photos at the time, so here you have it...

This first photo cracks me up because these little guys are looking straight at her!


Our local zoo is the middle of a huge park with a large pavilion, a lake with paddle boats, a miniature golf course, and an immense playground, among other things. Since it was a ridiculously hot day, we took her to the fountain park, which is also a part of the whole complex. I don’t know how to describe this place, except to say that it’s a big concrete pad with sprinklers and fountains sticking up out of the pavement for kids to run through and get sprayed by when it’s hot outside. At first I was just going to let her walk around the edge and get her feet wet, so we both took our shoes and socks off and I rolled up my pants and walked her over, but she seemed completely happy and wanting to go in further, so I figured, “Why not?” and we just walked all the way in and got completely soaking wet in all of our clothes. We were laughing hysterically by the time I finally picked her up and carried her out. It was so much fun. All of the other parents looked at me like I was crazy. I wanted to scream, “Hey, lighten up!” but figured it wasn’t worth it.

So, I guess we did have another hot day after all!

Feet

Freyja is now officially walking. She's been taking two and three steps here and there on her own before sitting down and crawling the rest of the way to wherever she wanted to go...but today, she finally got up the courage and started walking all by herself. Yay!

Tanner's Orchard

On the 6th we took a family trip to Tanner's Orchard to celebrate the beginning of the Harvest season. In the past, we would have gone to the local orchard, The Apple Barn, but it closed some years back and now it takes nearly an hour to reach one. Last year Freyja was pretty tiny and most likely wouldn't have enjoyed the experience much, so we decided to buy apples and pumpkins and other seasonal things at a farm produce stand in town instead, but this year we thought she would like it, so we took the trip. We'd actually never been to Tanner's Orchard, and it was nice! There were all kinds of things to do. They had covered wagon rides into the apple orchard for people who wanted to pick their own fruit, and lots of children's activities....a corn maze, a huge playground, a petting zoo, and lots of cute displays using pumpkins and gourds to recreate popular cartoon and book characters (such as a Wizard of Oz scene with Dorothy, the Tin Man, the CowardlyLion, and the Scarecrow...all with pumpkin heads....pretty hilarious!) They also had a nice market which sold apple products made from the fruit of their own orchard, as well as other farm-prepared foods, harvest decorations, and a huge selection of pumpkins and seasonal flowers, mostly different varieties of mums.

Freyja seemed to enjoy herself! She spent a lot of time walking around in the huge field of pumpkins, touching them, leaning, and climbing on them. One of her new words is "ball", and she kept yelling it every time she pointed at a pumpkin. What can I say? It looks like a ball! I also took her on the wagon tide into the orchard, and at one point we got out and walked across one row together while she held my hand. She's not quite walking by herself, but almost! She carefully walked from one tree to another, touching the fruit and saying "apple!"...also one of her new favorite words. I think she picked that up from all the applesauce and apple slices she eats! But, it was cute to see that she understood what was hanging from those little trees. We also had a chance to see some animals, and she was totally psyched (although I think a little freaked out too!) about the Emu, which she'd never seen before.

Although Tanner's had some great pumpkins, we decided to stick with apples and farm goods from the orchard and buy our pumpkins locally. But, we did come home with a lot of goodies and spent some really nice time outside in the fresh autumn air!

15 Month Check-Up

Last month I took Freyja in to see the doctor for her 15 month check-up. Due to some random insanity with our appointment, we had to see a different doctor instead of the pediatrician she's had since birth, so we had to wait a bit longer so he could squeeze us into his schedule. She was all over the place, trying to play with all the interesting instruments on the wall behind the examining table, walking back and forth and listening to her feet crackle the paper on top, and yelling so she could hear her little voice echo in the room. It was pretty hilarious. I was laughing to myself, thinking that all I needed was for this guy who has never met us to walk into the room while Freyja is tangled up his blood pressure cuff. Oh well, I guess he's probably used to this kind of thing!

The result of our trip was finding out that Freyja is super healthy and quite the little smarty pants. Both nice things, but what I'm most pleased with is that she's happy, which from the massive amounts of giggling she's been doing lately, I'd say mission accomplished!

During the course of the appointment, he asked whether Freyja had allergies to medications, or had seemed to show allergies towards any specific foods so far. I said that it didn't appear so at this point.

He then asked me about myself, and I mentioned that I had a severe allergy to the drug Phenergan, and as all physicians do when I say this, he asked me what happens to me when I take it. I told him about the hallucinations I was reported to have had has a child from taking it (I don't remember this, but I've been told), and then about the hallucinations, paranoia, and manic behavior I had when taking it as a teenager, despite telling the nursing staff at the hospital that I couldn't take it (nice, huh?).

I said that this allergy has been a real bummer for me during pregnancy because I suffer from Hyperemesis Gravidarum during my first trimester and beyond. Two of the most common medications for the treatment of this are Compazine and Phenergan, and I can take neither, since Compazine contains the same active ingredient which I have an allergy to. This left the medication Zofran, which is often given to cancer patients to relieve the nausea and vomiting experienced during chemotherapy. It was absolutely unaffordable, and out of the question, even with insurance. So, I turned to other options. I tried changing my diet, and using certain foods to combat the problem. I tried herbal remedies. I even tried a doxylamine and vitamin B6 therapy, which has been reported to give some women relief. Nothing I tried worked, and thus I had to spend the first half of my pregnancy feeling pretty horrible. So horrible, in fact, that despite the fact that I really, really want to have more children, the thought of going through that kind of spine-wrenching pain and discomfort all over again had me wondering if I could actually do it.

I mean, the nausea, fatigue, and constant vomiting was far worse than having Freyja. Can you imagine?

So, when the doctor non-chalantly told me that the pharmaceutical company had lowered the cost of Zofran, and specifically mentioned how much, I wanted to jump up, run over to him, and give him a kiss.

If it's in the cards someday to have another child, I'm definitely going to spend some time researching other ways to deal with the very real possibility that I'll have Hyperemesis again, without having to turn to Zofran. I don't certainly don't want to take a prescription medication every day during my pregnancy! But the fact that I can take it if I can find no other relief takes some serious fear and doubt away, which feels so good.

Yum Yum

I like to call this photo "Whose Snack is This, Anyway?"...Ha!

I'm so glad that these two are buddies. Sometimes they hang out and play together, and other times Peanut lingers around Freyja like she's actually her kitten, and needs protection. She even snuggles up next to her while she naps. It's the cutest.

The Last Day of Summer...

Two weeks ago it occured to me that if Freyja was going to enjoy her backyard swimming pool, I'd better get it out and let her use it, before the summer weather was finally over and there were no more chances. She looks so cute in her little swimsuit! Sure enough, just a couple of says later the warm, sunny days were gone, and there's no chance we'll have any more days in the pool. Ah, but there's still indoor baby swim to look forward to! Here are some photos from our last day of summer...