Happy World Breastfeeding Week!

WOW! It's only 2 days until August!! I can't believe the summer is almost over already--then again, my girls are already looking forward to getting back to school.

This coming week (August 1-8) is techinically World Breastfeeding Week, although many people all around the world celebrate World Breastfeeding "Week" throught the entire month of August.

I am so glad that I made the decision to give my girls the *best* start in life by nursing them! I wish I knew how to help more people to know how perfect breastmilk is for their babies--it seems that because of the hype from formula companies, some naive, albeit well-intentioned moms have been lead to believe that formula is 'just as good' or 'just like breastmilk'. How could it be?

• Breastmilk is constantly changing to suit the specific needs of the nursling -- the composition of mother's milk changes as the baby gets older and his/her needs change.
  
• The exact composition of human milk can NOT be replicated or synthesized -- you've probably heard about how the formula companies have added the long chain fatty acids DHA and AA (or ARA) to formula? Well, in human milk, DHA and AA is natural and is essential for baby's visual health and brain growth; but in formula, DHA and AA are CREATED or synthesized from algae and soil fungus! Are you okay with putting that in your baby's system?? See http://www.cornucopia.org/DHA/DHA_QuestionsAnswers.pdf
  
• When mom or baby is exposed to something, mom's body begins making antibodies and passing that to her baby through her milk within approx. 24 hrs! You can't do that with any other form of infant nutrition!!
  
• Mother's milk matches more than 50% of her baby's genetic material! Of course baby can digest it easily!
  
• Human milk is species specific! It is the perfect food for human babies!! There is no other way around it, it is medical/scientific fact, and just as God & nature intended.
  
• There is even a fabulous component of breastmilk (alpha-lactalbumin) that kills tumor cells!!! See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9925761
  
• The nutrients in human milk are also more bioavailable to baby -- meaning: the iron in breastmilk is easily absorbed and used by baby's system whereas most of the iron added to artificial baby milks does not even get into the baby's system!
  

And how about Mom:

• Studies have shown that mother's who don't breastfeed are more likely to be at risk of several female cancers.
  
• Mothers who breastfeed can have approximately 10-12 days of postpartum bleeding (lochia) but mothers who don't breastfeed have their bleeding continue for up to 24 days! This can put formula feeding mothers at higher risks of anemia, hemorrhage, and other serious conditions.
  
• Mothers who breatfeed also have a quicker time losing their pregnancy weight than mothers who don't.
  
• and insulin-dependant diabetic moms who breastfeed have found that their body regulated blood-sugars better while they were nursing than when they weren't. Some times their need for insulin is decreased!
  

Babies are Born to Breastfeed!

"Formula feeding is the longest-lasting, uncontrolled experiment lacking informed consent in the history of medicine." ~~Frank Oski, M.D. retired editor, Journal of Pediatrics

Mommy's Naptime

Tuesday was a royally yucky day! I was cranky/moody and tired. Thinking perhaps, that my staying up late to study after the kids have gone to bed is really catching up with me!

I was SO excited on Monday night because my parents invited me and my oldest to join them for the Drums Across Kansas performance! My mom has always enjoyed drum/bugle corps and used to take us to see them when we were kids....I have fond memories of watching the Sky Ryders perform Somewhere Over the Rainbow and other fabulous songs and loved it when the drumline would bounc tennis balls off their drums. So to get the chance for the first time in YEARS to go see the drum corps again, I was so greatful and delighted to share the experience with my oldest daughter! I justified it thinking that she was the oldest, so she would be the only one old enough to stay up 2 hrs past bedtime.....and she's in band so she might especially enjoy it and appreciate what she was seeing these musicians perform.

Sadly, though, I learned the following morning that even at 11 yrs old, she is NOT ready to stay up later! She was definitely showing all kinds of signs of being OVER OVER tired! So add that to my already cranky mood......and my youngest who stayed up late waiting for mommy because she missed me, thereby making her overtired on Tuesday, too and those are some prime fixin's for a rotten day! We came to work, there was so much drama and noise! I was dealing with extra stress from some work 'issues' and we had record-high heat yesterday, so Nathan was also miserable! At lunch time, I decided that we were done! The good thing about a family business, is the flexibility to say, I'm sorry, the kids aren't handling things well today, so we've gotta take off and head home. I implemented 'Mandatory Nap Time' for everyone when we arrived home.

Well, perhaps it was the 64 ozs of Diet Pepsi, perhaps it was the foul mood I was in, I don't know, but I simply couldn't sleep! I was tired, don't understand why, but I couldn't get to sleep. So, I decided to do the next best thing--one of my de-stressing activities: Sewing.

I had a project that I started months ago, and after reading my friend, Amy's blog Raising Arrows where she did the same project; I was inspired to finish it. I was re-purposing/recycling a man's button-down dress shirt into a dress for my youngest. Here's the finished project:

Change and Control

"You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you." ~~Brian Tracy


I am a daughter, a sister, a mother, and a wife. There comes a time when at least one of those roles gets me to wishing for control &/or change. It has been quite the growing curve for me to get to the place where I am finally able to say to myself, "I can't change him/her, I can't control him/her, now it's time to give it to God!" I think it is a human-natural instinct to think "if I just show him/her the error of their ways, they'll have to realize that I'm right and change!" or to think, "I can handle this one, I'm a big girl, I don't need your help!" How many times have I heard that one, as a mom??

But the thing is, God's not there as *just* a paramedic to revive us and carry us when we can no longer walk on our own. He's also a "primary care physician", if you will, who can help us STAY healthy if we'd just allow Him to.

I'm still human, imperfect and fallible, but it is amazing the changes that can happen when we allow God to shoulder our burdens and accept that we can not change the person or the situation that is irritating us! We may not always be able to solve the problem, but He can. Try it! You might be surprised by the way you can sleep better if you're not worrying about things you can't change and I'm sure you'll be pleased with the closer relationship you'll have with your Savior if you'll lean on Him in all things rather than just running to Him when there's trouble.