For the Sake Of Halloween

This will be the first year we take our little guy out for some trick-or-treating, and to be honest I am pretty stoked about it! I thought I'd share some pretty interesting Halloween factoids I stumbled upon...

1. If you see a spider on this night, it could be the spirit of a dead loved one who is watching you.

2. To meet a witch, put your clothes on inside out and walk backwards on Halloween night.

3. If your pumpkin lantern shrivels up, you can restore it by soaking it overnight in water to re hydrate it.

4. Halloween is second only to Christmas in spending. Consumers will spend over $2.5 Billion during Halloween. That's a whole lot of candy, costumes, decorations, and party goods.

5. It is believed that the Irish began the tradition of Trick or Treating. In preparation for All Hallow's Eve, Irish townsfolk would visit neighbors and ask for contributions of food for a feast in the town.

The carving of jack-o'-lanterns originated from the tradition of carving the faces of lost souls into hollowed out pumpkins and turnips. A candle was placed inside the carvings making the faces glow. The Halloween lanterns were placed on doorsteps to ward off evil spirits.

Here's My Pumpkin Masterpiece

I love Pirates of the Caribbean, can you tell this is the Black Pearl?!

Here's little L in his Garden Gnome Costume!

I figure this is the only time I will get away with putting him in silly costumes.

It's only a matter of time before he decides it's much cooler to be some kind of big boy superhero!

I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Halloween!

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Sickening Playgroup

I'm not sure how intense the flu epidemic is, I havn't been keeping track of the cases in my area nor have I personally known anyone with the H1N1 virus. What I do know is that I do not want my son getting sick.

We look forward to our playgoup every Thursday. Little L can play with his fellow shorties while I socialize, in my normal non baby squeaky voice, with other moms. I was a bit disturbed today when we walked into a room of sniffly, snotty, green boogied babies. Why would anyone take their child out while their sick, and to be around other children for that matter!  We turned right around and back out the door, call me paranoid but like I said before I dont want my little one getting sick. With this being our first time in the mommy/playgroup scene, is it normal for mommies to take their sick babies to playgroups? I suppose we all become a little desperate at some point for normal human interaction, but at the expense of other childrens health seems a bit too much for me!

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Weaning Part. 2

I had a really hard time finding any specific information about how other breastfeeding mommies weaned their little ones. I was lost as to how I would get little L to sleep without nursing! This is why I documented every little detail of how we got through it. I must first point out that letting him just "cry it out" is not something we wanted to try. Hope this helps other mommies out there!


Night 1: I was not planning on weaning this night so baby was nursed to fall asleep
 2am
        Baby is up and ready to nurse back to sleep
       -I began rocking him and trying to get him  back to sleep without nursing. He was not too happy! Talk  
       about a major guilt trip.
 4:30 am
        Finally got him to sleep after lots of rocking and singing and a sippy cup with milk.
  5:15 am
        Baby is awake again and very very fussy.
       - I decided to let daddy try and rock him this time. Bad idea, baby wanted nothing at all to do with that.         More rocking and singing, refused the sippy cup numerous times.
   7:00 am
       Finally fell asleep, it was so very hard not to just give in and nurse him.
   9:00 am
       Baby is up and ready for breakfast, not as fussy this time. I was very exhausted and my breasts were in 
       a ton of pain already. I began trying to think of a better way to go about this.

Night 2:
   8:00 pm
       Bathtime.
   8:30 pm
       Sippy cup of milk and a story. Time to calm down.
    9:00 pm
       As crazy as this might sound I decided to put baby in his stroller and see if he would fall asleep if I
       walked him around the house. It works outside so I figured why not inside!
    9:20 pm
      Asleep in stroller! A little fussing but nothing too major.
    9:35 pm
      Successfully transferred baby from the stroller to the crib.
    4:30 am
      Baby is awake.
    5:15 am
      After 4 attempts to lay baby down after rocking to sleep baby is finally down. Breasts are very tender  
      and sore, horrible engorgement. I just kept thinking everything would be so much easier if I just started
      nursing again!
    7:24 am
      Baby is up and ready to eat breakfast.
    8:30 am
      Very sleepy and cranky baby so for an early naptime I decided to try the stroller again.
     8:50 am
       Baby fell asleep in the stroller.
     9:40 am
       Up for good.

Night 3:
  8:00 pm       Bathtime.
   8:30 pm
       Sippy cup of milk and a story. Time to calm down.
   9:50 pm
       Start stroller walking.
   10:15 pm
       Stop stroller walking.Not working, baby is very upset and fussy.
   10:20pm
       We decided to try a warm bottle of milk ( you are probably wondering why I would try a bottle while
       i'm attempting to wean my son, I was not worried about him having a bottle, there are medical reasons
       associated with why I stopped nursing). He took the bottle, after 12 months of refusing one before! I
       guess he figured it was better than nothing. I then rocked him in his maya wrap.
    10:37 pm
        Baby is asleep in his crib, no problem transferring him from the sling to the crib. This was a big shock, I
        knew he liked his sling during the day but I never thought to try it out at night.
     4:00 am
        Baby is awake.
        - I rocked him and sang, he wasn't fussy at all.
     4:23 am
        Baby is asleep in crib.
      7:00 am
        Baby is awake.
      7:20
        Attempted to rock baby and put him back in his crib two times. Kept waking up unless I was holding
        him so we both napped together for the rest of the morning.

What is it like now...
    After his bath we enjoy a story and some warm milk, under normal circumstances he will let me rock him to sleep no breast or bottle. If there are other baby interruptions involved (ie. teething, bellyache, sick) it takes a warm bottle and the maya sling to get him to fall asleep. I am looking forward to trying colic calm  to see if this helps us with those rough nights! Any questions just leave a comment and I promise to answer them!
 

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Weaning Little L from the Breast Part. 1

For anyone trying to wean their little one from the breast. I thought I'd share my two part story. I documented everything we went through during the 3 crazy nights it took...enjoy and feel  free to share your story too!

I have to be honest, during most of my pregnancy I didn't put much thought into breastfeeding little L. Maybe a month before he was born I had read into the importance of it all and what the benefits actually were...healthier, cheaper, more bonding. Sounded good to me. On paper!

Little L took right to the breast like it was something he was born to do...literally. I read all about nipple confusion, and how we should wait to introduce bottles or pacifiers. We were doing it by the books. Which was the right thing to do...right?! Wrong. For us anyways.

He was a boobie eating machine. He wanted nothing at all to do with bottles or pacifiers. I nursed what felt like every 15 minutes for the first 4 months of his life. Then he weaned down to every hour for the next few, then every two up until about 8 months of age. Insane!

I was beginning to think he was going to nurse for the rest of his life. I told myself that I could do it until he was a year old, by then I had him weaned to just in the morning and just before bed to help him fall asleep. If you have ever tried to wean any child of their most prized posession you know where I'm going with this. It was not easy. Finally one night as little L woke up for his every 2 hour feeding (about 2 weeks after his first birthday) something clicked. I just have to do it. That was the longest night of my life...

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Changes coming Soon

Alrighty! So I am working on improving my blog a TON. I finally created a facebook page, so please be sure to add me if you also have a facebook! I am planning on reviewing a product that I recently won from the blog "Take Time to  Smell the Roses" I highly reccomend reading her blog, it's one of my favs! So keep checking back, more improvements and reviews coming soon. I can't wait for the day that I will be able to start my own giveaways for my readers too!

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Knickernappies Entry Form

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Another Giveaway!

Organically Grown ends 5/18

Amber Teething Necklace ends 5/18
Bamboobino ends 5/20

Please check back for more great upcoming Reviews and Giveaways!
 BIG events coming every month!

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Display Your Advertisement on my blog

Would you like to see your ad featured on the Luvs Jurn3y blog? Please contact me and we will work something out! I have blog stats ready and available. Low rates with great outcomes! Thank you for your interest and I can't wait to hear from you!

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