First I tried strawberry and bananna smoothies made with cow’s milk. This worked for a while, and he loved them, but I knew he wasn’t getting enough milk from that alone. My next bright idea was yogurt. This can sometimes replace milk completely if the child eats enough of it. The down side for me were the ingredients in some of these yogurts.

The heavy hitters like Yoplait, Dannon and Bryers were ALL made with High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) aka The Devil’s Sweetener.” I thought this stuff  was supposed to be healthy?  If you have ever read my blog before then you know how I feel about it. If this is your first visit, I have an entire category dedicated to it.

After doing some shopping around my sis showed me where to get the REAL Greek yogurt and I was certainly pleased. No fake ingredients. It still has sugar which makes it a little sweet and yummy, but not as much and certainly no HFCS.  I hated yogurt all of my life until I tried some of the Greek brands like Fage, Chobani, Oikos.  Chobani is my fave!!!! They are so delicious I can’t get enough now. It’s only 100 calories per serving for the plain brand, it also contains probiotic cultures (which prevent disease), 34% of your daily protein, and %20 of your daily calcium. Win, win, win.

All of this worked well but my son still needed to drink milk so I did what I had to do. I’m hesitant to confess. I can’t even say it, I’m so ashamed…I used chocolate syrup! I used the bunny brand, it has no HFCS, but still,  I’d rather him enjoy plain milk. His dad and I are in the process of scaling back the chocolate milk a little at a time so he won’t notice the abrupt change. Problem solved for now.

Damn you Quick Bunny! You’ve won this battle but this won’t be the last. I WILL get you out of my life. I promise you that.

Keep your bribes, you cocoa pusher!

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We have got to change this people. Our kids don’t even know what real food looks like anymore. They have been eating what I call non-food items all of their lives. Ellios, Twinkies, Fruit Loops, Fish Sticks, Doritios, Lunchables, and a bunch of other crap that has been modified beyond recognition. Jamie Oliver goes into an elementary school in West Virginia, which is statically the most unhealthy State in America, and tries to change their lunch program for the better. The children were being served pizza for breakfast and that made me sick!

We need to wake up and smell the broccoli. Everything that we have been told to eat by the media is killing us. Every commercial is for processed junk food. Notice there are no commercials for carrots. There IS one however for high fructose corn syrup, but I’ll address that another time.

We don’t know how to cook anymore! I saw a McDonald’s commercial the other day that lead to a 15 minute rant in my house (my hubby was amused). The mom in the commercial was black and she wore a business suit. (nice) She came home from a hard day at the office only to have her two young children biting at her ankles. She tosses them a bag of McDonald’s to shut them up and then tries to ask them about their day. The kids then reply, “We’ll tell you later mom” and she makes a sigh of relief. The message here is dangerous yet familiar. We claim we simply don’t have time to feed our kids right.

We have to make time and get creative because their lives depend on it. Jamie Oliver says in the program that this generation is the first generation in history that has a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Sad.

It’s not entirely our own fault. It’s our lifestyle that makes fast food so appealing. It IS our fault however, if we do nothing with this information.

I like to make a big pot of one dish that I can eat for a few days. I have a few dishes in rotation like, curry chicken and a meatless chili. Curry spice is extremely beneficial to the body. Its ingredients have been proven to heal skin infections, prevent heart disease, prevent and fight cancer. Recently there is research that suggests that it can inhibit the replication of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Sadly they don’t broadcast this information either. No commercials for Curry. Sorry.

As for my meatless chili…meatless does not mean that it is vegan or vegetarian although it could easily be. I just use tons of fresh veggies and 3 different kinds of beans. You don’t even miss the meat and you get all the benefits of real food. Just soak the beans in a cap full of vinegar with the water to minimize gas. Meat is fine too, I just try to cut back on my red meat intake. I feel I’ve been eating too much. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE meat, but this is a fun way to have a hearty meatless dinner. I’ll post the recipe later.

I highly recommend that you watch Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. It airs Fridays 9/8 Central on ABC. PLEASE WATCH IT WITH YOUR FAMILY.

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Nursing on the plane was easy too. I sat by the window and used a blanket to cover us. My hubby was more uncomfortable than I was about breastfeeding on the plane, with so many people around. I was so over being afraid. Whoever had a problem with it needed to just build a bridge because my kid comes first. I nursed with pride.

He didn’t cry once during the take off or the landing. I feared that his ears would be bothering him him and popping, but he was fine. I was the one in pain. It felt like a needle was beeing driven into my ears. I was very uncomfortable.

Babies ride free on the plane because they are considered a lap child, so that was great!Surprisingly though, the airline didn’t ask to see any documentation that this was in fact my baby. We did call ahead of time to notify them that we were traveling with an infant, but that’s it. We didn’t show any immunization papers or birth certificates. I thought that was odd. What if someone was trying to kidnap a child and take them out of the state or country? That needs to change.

We traveled with our car seat which was also easy. Once we checked the luggage in we proceeded to board the plane and the car seat was stored in a seperate compartment. The first flight was Delta and the returning flight was with American Airlines. Both were equally satisfactory. No complaints from me. I was just so happy to have had a safe trip with no complications.

I packed a few of his small toys in my carry on and tied a string to them so that he couldn’t drop it and I wouldn’t spend 4 hours picking toys up off the floor. Since I live in NY, I was worried about bringing liquids and all kind of other annoying regulations after 9/11. I was allowed to bring sealed jars of baby food and no formula (thank goodness I breast feed).

We had a good flight because I was prepared and packed light. Also, babies pick up on your anxiety so I just stayed calm and showed him that he was safe. After that everything worked out. I hope all the future flights will be this easy.

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Years ago I was working at the  mall, and Christmas just became a shopping event. The stores were crazy, customers were rude, and I had to sell sell sell to make commission. Ever since then Christmas was never the same. Even when I started to get deeply into my career, I would always volunteer to work holidays because it was just another day.

All that has changed. I loved watching the baby rip off the wrapping paper. He got better at it by the end of the day. His eyes lit up wondering where all this stuff came from. He didn’t know what to play with first.

He got his Elmo, but we decided to go with a classic, Tickle me Elmo because it’s more baby friendly than the Elmo Encore. He was able to cuddle with it and throw him around.  Thank you to all of Drew’s Uncles and Aunts for showering him with Christmas presents. It really made his day and mine.

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I’d rather him cry for me than for him to spend hours silently in his crib all by himself. That is just neglectful.

So many things have changed since I last blogged about Drew. He never sleeps in his crib anymore. Unfortunately we are co-sleepers. I don’t know what to do. It started out as being convenient for me to feed him in the middle of the night, but then I would fall asleep and wake up in the morning with him still in our bed. Now he wakes up in the middle of the night and expects to nurse on a seconds notice. Not so convenient anymore.

There was a time when I thought he would be a thumb sucker, but for some reason he just doesn’t do it anymore. I was looking for ways to get a baby to stop sucking his thumb, but he quit on his own. He won’t suck on a paci either. If I could get him to suck on the paci at night than that would free me up some more space in the bed, but that’s just wishful thinking. He wants nothing to do with it.

Oh, I wanted to share this next story just in case anyone is concerned about milk supply. This past weekend I worked overnight and the baby went to his Abuela’s for the weekend. I want a pumping fool. Apparently I didn’t pump as often as I needed to because on Monday I had nothing. I didn’t fill up as much as I used to and the baby was furious. He started hitting my chest and getting very frustrated with the lack of milk. I had to give him a bottle. I was so afraid that the well went dry but here we are on Wednesday and I feel it coming back full force.

This is just to show that the body regulates the milk supply rather quickly and if you don’t want to run low then you must keep up your pumping when you are away from the baby. It took about 3 days to come back enough to satisfy My Sweet so just be careful of that.

My hair is growing back too! I had so much shedding and lots of hair loss at the temples that it was embarrassing. All the hair loss was due to the pregnancy, but it is coming back. I started losing my hair about 3 months after I gave birth. Before that, my hair was fabulous. Then I had balls of hair in the sink and on the floor.

I started using a garlic shampoo which slows down hair shedding and I also take hair, skin, and nails vitamins. Spots that went completely bald now have about a half inch of hair. I will post some pics next month. I want to let it grow out a little more before I show anyone.

It feels good to get all of this out. I really missed blogging and getting everyone up to speed with me and the baby. He crawls really well now, and he’s eating a lot of solid foods. I have been pureeing his peas, squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, and bananas myself. I buy all of his meats and fruit in the jar. It is organic. He likes the jar food, but he wouldn’t eat the non-organic peas. Hmmmm. Something to think about. He didn’t like them at all.

One more thing, ever since he learned to make bubbles in his food, mealtime has gotten very messy.

Hopefully it won’t take me so long to blog again.

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Your body is constantly working to balance itself chemically. It sways back and forth between being Acidic, and the opposite, alkaline by using the foods we eat. If we eat acidic foods (food that produces acid) your body subsequently becomes full of acids. This is not good. In fact it’s fatal. As we consume foods that are more alkaline our body is able to neutralize those acids and our body is in harmony.

It is widely known throughout other cultures that having an acidic body produces an environment in which disease loves to thrive. Your immune system is compromised and disease is allowed to spread. Consuming alkaline foods do not feed your body, it feeds disease. If you routinely eat acidic foods (I use the term food loosely) then you should think of your body as a cesspool, breeding and feeding cancer and disease.

How do you know when you are consuming acid producing foods? Well, it’s very simple and easy to determine, and you don’t need any scientific equipment. The most common form of acidic foods we consume in America are what you see on TV. Poisonous processed foods and sugary treats. I know you eat these items on a daily basis without giving it a second thought, so I’m calling them out. If you like to eat or feed your kids Cheeze itz or Cheeze Nips, Totinos Pizza Rolls, Toaster Strudels, Dunkin Donuts, Cocoa Puffs, Little Debbies, Pop Tarts, Sprite, Coca Cola, Hawaiian Punch, Crunch and Munch, Twizzlers, Velveeta Shells and Cheese, Ellios, Pillsbury Cookies – Pillsbury anything, then stop. Just stop doing it. These are non food items and they add nothing but acid to your body. It throws your body all off course and breeds disease. I can’t stress that enough.

I called out all these foods because I have eaten them ALL. I know what they taste like, I grew up on them, I didn’t care or know to care that this was not food. I know you eat these things. If you are an average American family then you know what I’m talking about. If you think that a bowl of cold cereal and toast with a glass of orange juice is part of a complete breakfast then YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO!

Whew, writing that had my heart pounding.

Another source of acidic foods that ARE real food items are meats, dairy products, and condiments. Try to cut down on these things. I am not going to bash these items too much because they are food and I don’t want to sound vegan. I am not. I love steak, chicken, pork and all of the other meats, but people there are other things we could have for dinner besides fried chicken and mashed potatoes with corn. Note that this meal contains no vegetables, yet it is a typical meal for families who don’t eat veggies. We can do better than this. We owe it to our kids.

The foods that are alkaline and fight the diseases are bright and delicious. Tomato, watermelon, grapefruit, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, almonds, herbal tea, soy milk (non sweetened). Why would you put sugar in soy milk anyway? Cucumber, spinach, cauliflower, bananas, lettuce, avocado, lemon and lime are all alkaline foods that help keep away Cancer and other degenerative diseases.  

Cancer cannot live in an Alkaline body. There is lots of debate on this statement, but I believe it to be true. There have been studies done that prove this and individual accounts from people who claim to have treated cancer through diet. Suzanne Somers is one of them. I for one believe her. There are other variables like how far along the cancer is when they catch it, but the facts don’t lie. Eating well leads to a better quality of life.

If it has a commercial then don’t eat it. If a cartoon rabbit is telling you to buy it then it’s probably bad for you. More and more families are figuring this out so the manufacturers are scrambling to make us believe that their product is healthy. Look out for tricks like “Now Made From Whole Grain” and “Good Source of Calcium.” It’s all a ploy to keep you roped in to buying the stuff after sales have dropped from parents who have wised up. The manufacturers are scrambling because once we find out their making our families sick, they’ll lose everything.

Try to get away from the non food items that are making your body acidic. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results. You just might find that your face clears up without the use of Proactive Solution. Maybe that patch of hair that never grows will start to come back or perhaps your skin texture will improve. You’ll never know until you try. All you have to lose is a few unwanted pounds.

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This dad’s defense was that he was curious to see his son’s reaction to women.

I have a 6 month old son and if my Husband EVER did this I would be livid.  Kids today are already inundated with sexuality all over TV. It’s in their cartoons, Pre-teen shows, and even Sesame Street. I heard a reference to the Sex in The City movie while watching Sesame Street that should have ever been referenced.

I’m going to change my name to 1Disgusted Mom because this makes me nauseous. Why would you take little boys to a place that teaches them to call a woman’s breasts “Hooters?”

He also has a daughter and he adds…

…Her level of interest? In a grown man? This sounds ridiculous. The mother of these boys should have a talk with them to make sure daddy hasn’t turned her little boy into a flesh hungry frat boy.

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Drew saw Elmo Live Encore and went berserk! What is this power that Elmo has over our children. It’s scary. It’s like a cult. A cult for kids! He became so excited and overjoyed that I instantly thought to myself. I AM going to buy this toy. I WILL buy this toy. Even I was in a trance.

Drew will have this toy this Christmas and I don’t care how I have to get it. He was so happy to see it, how could I resist. I am still not going to go crazy this Christmas, but I’m not going to be so judgmental of parents who do splurge on the things their kids love because now I know what it feels like to want to see your child’s face light up like…well, a Christmas tree!

So far Drew has a short Christmas list and I intend to keep it that way.

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I am happy to report that around 3 or 4 months cradle cap was completely gone. To remove cradle cap from the forehead I just used a warm baby wash cloth or cloth diaper to gently wipe his forehead once a week. Don’t use a comb to remove scales from the baby’s face or forehead. If you must remove scales use clean finger tips or a wash cloth. However you choose to remove cradle cap, do it gently and occasionally so that you don’t aggravate baby’s skin.

See Ehow article on How to Remove Cradle Cap on the right column.

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I asked the Dr. if the shots were not as effective since he is getting them late. She said they are just as effective, so why do we need to play catch up? What are we catching up to?

Jenny McCarthy swears that vaccinations contributed to her sons autism and that she all but cured him through diet. There are no large studies that link vaccines to autism or any other brain disorder, but a mother knows her baby best, so I believe Jenny.

I don’t like the idea of Drew having these shots. If anyone has an opinion, please do share it.

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