7QT: Mastitis, fruit flies, and other fun

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Mastitis. Ugh! WARNING - if you don't care about what I did to cure this...move on to #2...and, don't worry the rest are actually "quick" takes.

I was blessed to never have mastitis with my first 3 babies, not even so much as a clogged duct! Well, 6 weeks postpartum with Anthony and I awoke to much soreness and by that evening...bam! Fever chills, the works. Did the whole antibiotic thing because I didn't really want to be taking care of 4 kids for days while feeling like I've been hit by a truck.  After a week and a half of being finished with the antibiotics...I got it again! On the other side this time. Once again I went to the antibiotics, thinking "Okay, now after we cure this side, it should be done, right?" Wrong. I woke up on Wednesday to a very sore right side...What, again?! I really could not believe that this was happening again! I have not been doing anything differently now than I did with my other kids. The strange thing is, each time I am not engorged and I don't feel a clogged duct or anything. Just soreness and a little redness.

Well, this time since I didn't have a fever yet, so I was determined to try to fight it on my own. Then, only resort to the meds if I developed a high fever and wasn't making any progress. So, in addition to taking the advice from household sisters (christian sorority from college), I went to the internet. So, after searching and figuring out what I was willing to try, this is what I did, maybe it will help some of you in the future...

All day Wednesday I swallowed raw garlic sliced into pill size pieces. You can read about how raw garlic acts like a broad-spectrum antibiotic here. I did around 2-3 cloves every 4-5 hours. Warm rag, massaged the red area (again, I could not feel a clogged duct, so I had to just go with where it hurt), nursed him as much as he would allow. Tuesday night when I got to the natural food store I introduced echinacea, high doses of Vitamin C, and probiotics.  I also started nursing Anthony leaning over him on all fours. The gravity is supposed to aid in dislodging anything that is clogged. It was weird, but I did it anyway. I made sure to nurse him every 2-3 hours through the night Wednesday night. This pained me so much because Anthony only wakes up once a night and I didn't want to mess that up. But, had to risk it. One other thing that I did, once on Wednesday night, and once Thursday, was I put a cold thinly sliced potato in my bra all around the redness. I left it in there for an hour each time. It is supposed to draw out infection. Again, weird, I know, but I think it definitely helped. I also ordered sunflower lecithin, it's supposed to help in recurrent plugged ducts. You can read about it here. I chose sunflower lecithin rather than soy lecithin because is is healthier for you. When it arrives, I will take it for prevention while I am nursing. I don't know if plugged ducts is what is causing my mastitis problem because I can never feel them, but this site (which was very helpful) said you may not feel it, so I am hoping it will help. I also learned that you shouldn't sleep on your stomach. This made me sad because I love sleeping on my stomach, but I'm trying.

Anyway, I never developed a fever and the redness and soreness kept getting better. As of this morning, the redness and soreness were gone! I am going to continue with some garlic, Vitamin C, and echinacea for a few days to be sure I am cured. I can't say if one thing cured me or all. But, if it ever happens again, I will do all of these things again to fight it! Wish I did these things the first time, but hey, now I know, it works!

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I have every intention of writing more than just once a week for quick takes, it's just going to take some time I guess. Besides, this week I was very preoccupied with #1.

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I very stongly dislike fruit flies! I kinda want to say hate, but I have to be careful saying that because I have heard my kids starting to say it about ants, flys, and spiders. Woops! Yes, I do the apple cider vinegar with dish soap thing, and it works, but they are still here.

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I think I am going to make these rosary hangers with the kids soon. Joey and I have been meaning to start praying a decade of the rosary with the kids each evening after dinner, and I think this will be just the thing to jump start us and get the kids excited about it!

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Joey's parents have a pool and on Sunday we were enjoying a Labor Day celebration with them. Gianna and Dom both love swimming...I think I want to do swimming lessons with them next year...Anyway, Gianna was enjoying her Daddy being able to swim with her and throw her in the air! We got some cool shots!

Flying!

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I have been snacking on these almonds the last few days. Oh my! They are so yummy and addicting!

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Any other mommas out there sometimes just stop and look around at your house in awe of how quickly it goes from clean to a complete disaster? I do. After 4 kids, it still amazes me!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes Friday

So in an attempt to get my blogging juices going, I'm linking up with Jen for...

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Gianna got her haircut last Saturday. Other than a few trims here and there, it was her first big cut! When I talked about getting her haircut, she was apprehensive and didn't want to do it. While I love her long hair, this was not acceptable, as I was done brushing the tangled weave of curly locks. To help calm her nerves, I took her the week before when I got my haircut, so she could watch and accustom herself to the idea (she is a child who does not do well with new experiences). After that she was excited...the moment she woke up Saturday morning, she got dressed, went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, ate breakfast, and put her shoes on almost without us having to ask a single time. She was ready to go! I told my hubby we have to do these single dates with them more often, she was so excited to go out with Mommy and get her haircut!

I tell you though, if you saw her in the chair when she got her haircut, "excited" would not have been the word you'd have used to describe her. She barely cracked a smile the whole time. At the end though, when we left, she was jumping up and down and couldn't wait to show Daddy, Dom, and Emma...such is our life with our very shy child.

Before

After

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Thursday was Dominic's first day of 3 year old preschool... He was so excited! He kept saying "I'm going to school all by myself, just like Gianna!" He did so great, I had to steal a kiss from him before he went in. Not a tear was shed (which was quite the contrast from Gianna last year who I had to pry off me and leave her screaming, while I fought the tears myself)!  When I picked him up he said "Mommy, that was so much fun!" God bless my sweet little guy, I hope he always has this much fun learning!"

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Today was Gianna's first day of 4 year old preschool. She was excited too, but not nearly as much as Dom. She's an old pro at this school thing now! She went right in smiling and giving her teacher a hug! No tears this year, woohoo!

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Emma is a 3 year old trapped in a 18 month old body, she tries to do so much more than she physically can and it frustrates her most of the day. Should I or should I not help her...you just never know what she will allow! 18 months...it's a good thing that children at this age are so cute because the screaming fits are enough to drive a momma crazy!

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I have spent too much time for my liking this week helping my children making little felt bears... Thank you Creative Galaxy! It wouldn't have been that bad if I would have made the effort to get my sewing machine out instead of choosing to hand sew them.

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Dominic happened to be using our bathroom the other night and was sitting waiting for me for a few minutes because I was ironing on patches to their school bags.

Dom: Hey, Mommy, do these fings shoot fings out?

Me: Huh? What things?

Dom: (holding up a box of "women's products") These fings, do they shoot fings out of thum?

Me: Ummmmm... no...

Dom: Then what do they doose?

Me:            ....... I don't know, Dom...put it down.

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Has anyone heard of Accountable Kids? It's a positive parenting program helping to teach children accountability, responsibility, and good behavior. I am very drawn to trying it, as it is very organized and I need a little organization in my life. I'll let you know what I think after I have tried it.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Mmmmm...smell that holy baby smell!

Anthony Lawrence was baptized on Sunday, August 17th. With 4 kids 4 and under, you can imagine the craziness that is our house when we are trying to get out the door to go anywhere. On any given day there are always things that come up...feeding the baby, changing the toddler's last minute poopy diaper, going potty, someone needs a drink, someone needs a snack, finding that one toy that just has to come with us, finding socks that match..."No, not those socks!", deciding who is going to sit in what car seat, demanding to buckle themselves, which can be a blessing when they can actually do it, but when they can't, the song from Jeopardy plays in your head while trying not to lose it (we wouldn't want to stifle their independence now, would we). Oh, and if we're lucky the baby will poop right as we're lifting him into the car...

...That is why when we finally got in the car to go to the baptism, I was just glad that we weren't going to be late, even if we weren't going to be as early as we had originally wanted to be. My hubby thought we were late, but I was just glad we would be there when it started. The baptism was to start at 1:45, we pulled up at 1:40. Woohoo! 5 minutes before it was to start was a victory for us, but I didn't celebrate too much because we still had to get out of the car, into the church, and put Anthony's baptismal gown on. Thank goodness for our dads who met us at the entrance of the church to park the car and get the rest of the kids out while we took the baby in.

We walked to the back of the church and they were starting already, calling families forward (at our church each family starts in the back and they call you forward to "present" your child for baptism).

Wait...

...What!!!

They were starting EARLY?...Yes...EARLY!

Not something that goes well for families with young children (at least not our family, we need every minute we can get)! Needless to say, our victory quickly turned into defeat as we threw poor Anthony into his gown and didn't even button it up so we could begin...

Ugh! What a start to the ceremony!

Anyway, onward we go to what really matters...

There is such a sense of peacefulness that comes from having your baby baptized and wiped clean of that original sin he is born with. I always tear up when my babies are baptized. The feeling of peace and joy that washes over me when the priest or deacon pours the holy water over my baby's head and says those words "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." It is always a reminder of the beauty of belonging to "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church," and God's amazing gift of His unending mercy.

The best we got...blurry, but not terrible

A little side note...During his homily the deacon said to the fathers, "The most important thing you can do for your baby is love their mother."... Well, my husband has mastered that! He is so good at loving me! My children are so lucky to have a such a wonderful example of selfless love as their father! I am so blessed to call him my husband!

Anthony with his godparents, Joey's sister, Maria, and brother, John. Look at him, smiling up at his Godmomma! He was smiling at John a lot during the ceremony, too. He's happy they are his godparents.

Anthony did wonderful the entire time! I was impressed, as I thought for sure he was going to demand to be fed at the most inconvenient time, but he didn't! He got a little fussy, but nothing that a little bounce and pat didn't fix.  He was giving away smiles through much of it too, which had me convinced that he knew something special was going on.

Welcome to the Catholic Church, Anthony! We hope and pray that you always feel Christ in your heart and know how much He loves you and we love you!

This cake was AMAZING!

*Not really happy with the amount we captured on film, but hey, he's number 4...I guess it comes with the territory.

Making Moments into Memories

I mentioned in my last post that I would write about what inspired me to re-start my blog. As some of you may know, a few weeks ago a young mother, Sarah Harkins, died unexpectedly. I did not know Sarah, but she graduated from my alma mater, Franciscan University. You can read about her life here. As I said, I didn't know Sarah, but she has very much been a source of heartache, inspiration and prayer for me these last few weeks since her death. She was a woman of great faith, strength, and hope striving every day to lead her family and others to Christ in any way she could. She wrote about her life on her blog The Clay Rosary Girl.

Mother's Day 2014

The sudden and unexpected death of this young mother really struck deep in my heart. As mothers, we are called to be the heart of our family and the heart of this family was just ripped from them with hardly a moment's notice. I ached thinking about having to leave my children without their mother at such a young age. How confused and sad they must be. These children's whole lives were just turned upside down and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Nothing.at.all. Except pray. Prayer and faith is the only thing that saves us in these situations. We beg God for explanation on how such a tragic event could really be His will, yet we don't always get one, except for the answers we get in just having faith. Faith in God is the only answer that we can lean on. Faith that He is writer of the story of our lives. Only He knows how are lives are going to go. He will take care of us as long as we give our lives fully over to Him in complete trust. Needless to say it opened my eyes to how precious and fragile our lives really are and to how quickly life can change, and more importantly how much I need God.

Me and Anthony

As a stay-at-home mom of 4 little ones remembering to "enjoy every moment" is a challenge. The days can be very long and the endless demands of 4 little lives who are completely dependent on me in so many ways can be draining. Since Anthony's birth I have been in "survival" mode. It's that time after a newborn arrives that you do what you gotta do to get through the day.  I am always nursing, changing, holding, nursing, holding, changing. It's a hard time for everyone and doesn't always make for fun days for my bigger kids. Holding a baby (who is no small load at 14 lbs 10 oz at 2 months old) all the time often makes it hard to do things with the older ones as easily as you did before. Sarah's death has jolted me into being sure to enjoy as many moments and memories as I can with my children, if they may not be enjoyable, then to appreciate them for what they are because at least they are moments that I get to spend with them. I want to store these moments as the memories that they are whether or not they are the fun, joyful, inspiring moments of motherhood or the oh so tiring, draining, make you want to cry moments of motherhood, because that's just what they are. These are moments, whether good or bad, I have with my family and I don't want to forget them, so I better write them down. I better bring myself to the foot of the cross with trust and thanks for the time I have with the ones I love, especially my babies.

kissing babies never gets old

Let's try this one more time...

So, here I am trying to this blogging thing again. I am not sure why I stopped, I guess it just became the last thing on the list. There are a few reasons why I am giving it another shot, but we'll get to my inspiration next time.

Some of you may remember that previously my blog name was "Brown Eyes and Blessings." Well, that was 3 years ago and quite a bit has changed since that last post! The biggest change being that we have added 2 new blessings to our family. Emma Joan is 17 months old, and we recently added number 4 in June, Anthony Lawrence is 2 months old, today, actually.

The reason for the name change is baby number 3, my Emma Joan! When she came out we were a little shocked, she looked so different than our first two. Joe and I just assumed that we would probably always have dark haired, brown-eyed babies. Well at birth, Emma's hair was light brown with all these blond highlights and her eyes were much lighter gray/blue than Gianna or Dominic's ever were. We were not sure if she would keep those blue eyes or not, but did know that all 4 of our grandfathers had blue eyes, so the recessive genes could be there. Well, she did keep those beautiful blue eyes! And her hair lightened quite a bit. Everyone always asks where she came from. Well, she is our grandfather's gift to us, we guess! More on our little spicy thing another time, she has quite the personality that keeps us on our toes!

Emma about a week old

Emma this past Mother's Day

Blessing number 4 is Anthony Lawrence. He is our "super surprise" baby. But an amazing gift from God. I keep saying that God has big plan for this little man because his a miracle! He is such a good baby (other than the typical "hold me, Momma and don't evvveeerrrrrrr put me down, EVER" stage that he is currently going through) and I thank God for that everyday! His big sister and brother could not adore him more. They still get so excited to see him, hold him, kiss him, hug him, and talk to him.

Anthony, about 6 hours old

Sweet baby boy!

On to the new name now...

As those of you who have multiple small children probably can guess and sympathize with is that I get that comment "Boy, you have your hands full, don't you?" all.the.time. Well, the truth is, yes, my/our hands are full, and yes, we have MANY hard days, and I often make comments to my husband like "Man, our life is crazy!" Yes, there are challenges on top of challenges to having 4 children ages 4 1/2 and under, but it is so so worth it, and my/our heart(s) are overflowing with the joy and love these 4 little ones bring to our lives.

I mentioned earlier that Anthony was our "surprise" baby. Many people may view that as a terrible thing, and while having 4, 4 and under was really hard and overwhelming when we found out, we knew it would be okay. That this child was God's will. That is the beauty of NFP, you know that you have allowed God to work through your marriage and your love to bring about these lives that you may not have planned, but He sure did and He wants in this world! God has big plans for each of these little lives, how blessed we are that God has entrusted them to us and to have them as our children.

So, there we are...yes, our Hands are Full, but our Hearts are Overflowing with love, joy, and God's blessings!

All our little blessings: Gianna (4.5), Dominic (3), Emma (15 months), and Anthony

Trick-or-Treat

Well, I think we have another year before Gianna really gets into Halloween.  This year she was less interested in dressing up and trick-or-treating and more interested in the people coming to the door and our candy were were handing out.  Before we left she was loving going through our box of candy and moving it from the box to a bowl she was playing with.  Seeing this, I thought she was going to love trick or treating and getting her own candy... Wrong!  She didn't want the candy people were giving her, she just wanted to run as fast as she could down the sidewalk.  Once we got home, she did end up liking the candy in her bag.  We tried to get pictures, but didn't really succeed.  Gianna was a cat.  I made her some ears to attach to her pigtails because I didn't think she would keep a headband on.  They worked pretty well at the beginning, but with all the running they kept falling off.  She was pretty cute, even if we didn't get a smile (she pretty much hates the camera).  Oh, and we had one very cute giraffe too!

 

This is the best one, and I like it because Gianna is holding Dominic's hand.

This is when  I gave Gianna the first box of candy I could find to try to get her to sit still so we could get the candy.  There is a sequence of pictures where Dominic discovers the box, grabs the box, Gianna realizes it, yells at him, and then pulls the box away.  It's really funny, but there are too many to put them all up here. Here are a few of the key pics to give you an idea of what took place.  

Dominic spots the candy

Dominic grabs the candy and Gianna notices what he is doing

Gianna yells and pushes him away

Oh, and right after this, I realized I gave her Dots, the worst candy I could have, said aloud to my husband "what did I just give her?" I then quickly subbed them for something else.

Here are some more pictures from the night...

         cute little kitty cat

best Mommy and Gianna picture we could get

Family picture

Mommy and our sleepy giraffe

Gianna running with her bag made by Mommy

We stopped to see Pearl!

All 3 cousins - the best we could get!

Happy Halloween!

So, here I am again, a bit behind.  But I wanted to share our Halloween craft with you before it's not Halloween anymore.  Oh, and I added a picture of our fall tree here.

I found this pumpkin art project on Pinterest and thought it would be the perfect project for Gianna!  I knew that she would not be able to paint within a circle, so I just let her paint all over the paper with orange paint. 

Here are some pictures of her painting...

Concentrating very hard

 

 

She's never sure how she feels about getting paint on herself.

Caught this cute smirk!
 

After it dried, I cut out the shape of a pumpkin and glued it onto another paper.  Then, used her hands to make the leaves of the pumpkin.  I finished it off by painting on the stem and writing Happy Halloween.  I think it turned out well!

Here is our finished project! 

I couldn't get a good picture of Gianna holding it, so I had to settle for this. 

Happy Halloween!