In my younger days I was carefree and laid back. I only had to answer to myself and chose to live my life to the fullest. We traveled regularly and I took any opportunity to go on vacation. After I turned 18 but before I had my daughter, I took 8 trips to Mexico, 7 trips to Florida, 5 trips to Vegas, 5 trips to Arizona, and I tanned on all of them. When you live in Minnesota and you don’t get to feel the warmth of the sun on your face for months, you get pretty excited to feel Mr. Golden Sun. Feel the sun I definitely did! I always wore sunscreen, yep a whole whopping SPF4. I felt pretty good about myself since some of my vacation buddies wore no sunscreen or just plain tanning oil.

Tanning on vacation was not the extent of it, you had to prep to go on vacation which meant tanning sessions, I convinced myself I was using the high power beds with lower UVB Rays and I was protecting myself from getting burnt on vacation and helping me to fit in with the locals. Honestly, most of the locals were not as tan as I was when I arrived, but there were the few tan ones. Tan ones like the woman I met in Arizona that had spent a full two weeks in the sunshine and laying in the pool from sun up to sundown working on her tan. She was white woman who ended up the color of milk chocolate, yes I envied her at the time, thankfully I never was able to match that tan.

I wish it was as simple as only tanning on those trips and in preparation for those trips. I also fully enjoyed every possible minute outdoors in the Minnesota sunshine. Believe it or not, but Minnesotans can get a mean tan in the summertime. Maybe it has to do with sitting by the dark water of our land of 10,000 lakes that helps bring on the tan, or sitting out on our lovely lush green lawns, but whatever it is, I learned very well that my skin can brown with the best of them!

I gave myself every excuse in the book as to why I could continue to tan. Some of my excuses were, I have extra melanin that makes me tan due to my dark complexion and have never had a serious sunburn so I wont get skin cancer. We have so little sun year round that we need to stock up on Vitamin D in the summertime so I can’t apply too much sunscreen. We only have 4 good tanning months so in comparison to people who live in the south where they can tan year round, I will be safe. Whatever my excuse, I wish I would not have made them.

Now I am 33 years old and I am starting to develop wrinkles. I have to see a dermatologist annually to get mole checks and get moles removed, which is not a glamorous experience. I feel guilty when I get sun now, I wear hormone free SPF 20 on my face every single day even in the winter. In the summer I apply suntan lotion with sunscreen after my showers so I have some protection in case I am outside without sunscreen. I want to lead by example for my children, not just by how I keep them protected from the sun.

Why do I wish I could go back in time? Do I have skin cancer? Not yet. Because of Wrinkles? Not really, I am not that vain. But instead because If I could have possibly convinced the younger me to be more careful I would save myself the discomfort of getting moles removed, save myself the humiliation of having to make excuses to my dermatologist, saved myself from developing hundreds of small moles and freckles all over my skin and irreparable sun damage. I wish I could take back the 100 plus trips to the tanning salon, now that research has found that it is much more damaging than actual sun exposure. Do I want to swear off sun and come back from vacations pale? Absolutely not, but I am going to do everything in my power to never have sore shoulders from too much sun exposure in the future. I will never use SPF 4 again, I am going to use SPF 15-30 now, I simply can’t bring myself to use SPF 50 yet.

I will hopefully pass on a healthy respect of the sun to my children who currently don’t get to go outside in the summertime without being slathered with hormone free SPF 50 sunscreen. They may be the palest kids on the beach, but that is OK. I am sure they will make mistakes and get sunburns when it is their choice to do so, but maybe in the back of their head they will think about applying sunscreen after the shower like mom did, and maybe if I am really lucky, they wont want to turn back time when they are 33.

My baby boy turned two years old today and I reflect on the awesome experience of bringing him into this world.

Our daughter had just turned 18 months old and we knew that we wanted to have one more child and that we wanted them to be less than 3 years apart based upon our research of birth on children getting along.  My husbands family had the kids 5 years apart and we knew that was too far apart, we had friends that had children 1 year apart and we knew that was too close so we wanted to start trying to keep them within 3 years we also aimed to have a baby in the springtime, the goal was to have a baby sometime around April.  Well we didn’t have to try long and we found out that we were due January 9th.  A pretty long way from April.

I knew I was pregnant right away.  I remember laying down next to my daughter in her toddler bed trying to help her fall asleep and waking up 1 hour later having crashed not even realizing I was so tired.  The next day I was at work and was so hungry I wanted to cry while I had to wait for my break to eat lunch. I knew that day I was pregnant even thou I was still 4 days from my missed period. I came home and took a pregnancy test but it came back negative.  I waited 4 more days and this one came back as I expected, positive!   I soon found out my due date was January 9th, 2008.

The pregnancy was good, I was tired during the first trimester, I did not gain any weight during my first trimester.  We found out at our regular 20 week ultrasound that we were having a boy and we felt so fortunate to be having a girl and then a boy. I did not develop gestational diabeties, I enjoyed the majority of my pregnancy until the end uncomfortable stage, my hips were very uncomfortable and would pop out of joint. My stomach was huge, large enough to hold twins for sure.  Weighing the risks and the fact that my first delivery was a c-section I elected for a c-section.  My OB gave me a 7 day window to schedule the delivery after my 38th week so weighing out the birthdates of our family members and holidays, and taking into account co-pays and medical expense account and throwing in an entire year tax deduction we selected December 31st.  We figured that would be a fun day to have a birthdate when our baby was an adult.

Christmas came and went, the question everyone asked was aren’t you excited to get that baby out of there?  I would always reply, no he is ok in there, he is much easier to take care of when he is in my tummy.  I think everyone was concerned about me being uncomfortable because my stomach was so huge but it wasn’t that bad.  My OB told me that my baby was “A Healthy 8 pounder” On Dec. 30th I had my bag packed, ate my last meal and went to bed and tried to sleep.  We drove in the truck to the hospital, Jon picked up a coffee and a donught and I did everything in my power to keep my stomach from growling I was so hungry.  We checked into the hospital at 8:00 AM for my 10:00 AM c-section.  Went up to my hospital room where I would be brought back to with a baby.  Got in my hospital gown, got on my IV placed and was wheeled up to wait in the surgical floor.  They had a monitor on me and kindly filled me in that I was having contractions the whole time I was there, I couldn’t feel them I just assumed it was nerves.   While we waited we had some great laughs when my husband and sister watching them put the white surgical jumpsuits on, they were the same size but fit them both very differently.  I was wheeled into the room and prepped while my sister and husband waited outside the door, we handed the cameras to the nurse and my sister took the video camera.  When they let my husband and sister in the room I was strapped down and numb from the chest down.  I was perfectly comfortable just nervous and excited.  They started the surgery and let my sister and husband in the room.  A few minutes later in a totally relaxed state they pushed my babies head out of the 8 inch cut in my abdomen. They pulled out the largest baby I had ever imagined.  Everyone laughed and giggled that it was a 10 pounder.  He had the roundest face and biggest cheeks and a 15 inch head, he ended up being 9 lbs 3 oz and  wonderfully healthy. The nurse told me that very few people can vaginally deliver a 15 inch head so that I made the right decision when I selected the a c-section. Looking back the whole experience was wonderful almost spa-like, I am so grateful I selected a c-section.

They never took him out of my sight, he was cleaned up at the warmer right next to me, they handed him to my husband so I could see him.  They closed up my incision within 30 minutes less than 45 minutes in total in surgery, they layed my baby next to my on my hospital bed and wheeled me back to my hospital room.  I was able to nurse him once they got him back to the room. He was a great baby, slept happily next to me which next to me was where he was for months until I went back to work.

He is such a joy in my life, such a kind little guy, he loves his sister, he is polite and is fascinated by the world around him.  I couldn’t imagine my life without him!  Happy Birthday Little Jicky, Mommy loves you!

I often why working parents who have children in daycare leave them at daycare when they have a day off from work. Is it because they don’t know what to do with their children when they are off?  Is it because they don’t want to pay for daycare and not send them?  Is it that they don’t have fun with their kids so they don’t want to spend time with their children?

I used to work at a daycare center while I was in college and watched too many parents leave their children at daycare while they went out and had fun.  Watching children be crushed when their parents would drop them off at daycare knowing their parents were not going to work.  They would ask, “Why can’t I stay home with you?”  and listen to the parents respond, Mommy and Daddy need some time to relax. When parents would pick up their children right before closing time after spending a full day by themselves and see those children be crushed, asking “Why didn’t you pick me up?”    After watching children be crushed for years because their parents dropped them off when they were not working, I vowed to never be one of those parents!  I vowed that would never send my children to daycare when I was not working.  If you have appointments to go to then that is not really a day off, but if you are spending a week of vacation relaxing while you ship off your kids to daycare, then why did you have kids if you don’t want to spend time with them?

I have heard people make so many excuses as to why they send their kids to daycare when they have a day off.  ‘I need run errands and my kids are hard to control.”  or, ” They have more fun at daycare than they would at home with me.”  Bologna!  Unless it is a special day at daycare, they would rather be with you. “I need time to myself.” Ugh!  Do you get to go to the OB/GYN by yourself?  Then you have time to yourself!  Next time you have to bring your kids to your annual appointment then you will learn what it means to appreciate having time to yourself. Learn how to have fun with your kids, don’t leave them at daycare, pick them up and go out and do fun stuff with them!   Enjoy your children when they are young and spend as much time with them as possible, quit making excuses of why you don’t spend time with them when you are off work.

If you are like me, you want to do everything you can to keep your children healthy and safe.  One of the dangerous things right now is hormones and chemicals in plastics.  I wanted to know how I could protect my children from plastics and find what plastics are safest I did some research.  In our society it is almost impossible to avoid using plastics.  Sure I could only give my children glass and metal but I really don’t want to clean up broken glass regularly from my floors.  Here are some things to look for in plastics and things to avoid to keep your family safe from hormones and chemicals in plastics.

Even with safe plastics you should not  heat food in the plastic containers in the microwave as it changes the chemical composition and may leak chemicals into your food.  Only heat food in glass or ceramic containers in the microwave. Just because a plastic container is labeled as microwave safe does not mean that they will not release chemicals into your food when cooked.

Avoid polycarbonate bottles and sippy cups, look on the bottom of any plastic container and avoid anything with the number #7  plastic products and products made from PVC/Vinyl or #3 plastics. Thankfully Polycarbonate has been made illegal in sippy cups and bottles being sold in Minnesota but if you use older bottles or sippy cups you may run into polycarbonate.  I recycled all of my polycarbonate bottles as soon as I found out that synthetic estrogen leaks into your childs food and beverages when you use polycarbonate.  There are new versions of hard clear plastic that are made from corn and do not contain hormones but unless you know exactly what to look for please be careful.

For storing and serving food and beverages use #1,#2,#4,# 5 and avoid #3 #6 and #7 plastics. Don’t throw away unsafe plastics, please recycle them!

Instead of buying bottled water from the store and filling up landfills with empty bottles and bottle caps, use a water filter and a reusable bottle for water.  Invest in an aluminum reusable bottle like the Thermos Foogo Leak-Proof Straw Bottle to avoid any hormones leaking.  For my children I invested in the Thermos metal canisters bottle for their juice and water.  The Thermos brand containers stay cold for hours so not only do they save money they keep your beverages tasting good.

Stay healthy and pick safe plastics.

With cold and flu season here and if you have a baby and don’t have a NoseFrida Nasal Aspirator you need one.  The first time your small baby gets a cold and you have to try to figure out the horrible invention of the nasal bulb sucker you will realize why this is such an important invention.

A traditional bulb nasal aspirator can damage the soft tissues of the nose.  You don’t know how hard you are sucking and you have to be extra careful not to accidentally blow air into their noses which can be very dangerous.   Now you have this bulb nasal aspirator full of bacteria and virus contaminated filled snot, how do you know it is clean between uses?

My husband ordered me a Nosfrida and told me that it looked weird but his friend from work swore it was the greatest invention for babies.  I was totally grossed out by the idea, why would I put my mouth anywhere near my child’s mucus?   It made me gag just to think about it.  I stuck it gently into my poor sick newborns nose, and put the other end into my mouth and crossed my fingers.  Even with the filter in place I was afraid I would accidentally ingest some snot but there is no way that could happen now that I used it.  I sucked gently and my baby did not flinch, I quickly realized how to suck the  It was amazing, I was able to control how hard I sucked and was able to clear my babies sinuses so that he could breathe in order to nurse. I knew it was gentle enough to use because he did not cry when I sucked his nose clear like he did with the bulb aspirator, and he just laid calmly and allowed me to clean his nose.

The suction in the NoseFrida Nasal Aspirator is completely controlled by you, I find it is most helpful to do long soft suction to clear the back of the nasal passages,  it is not a short, sharp suck like a bulb sucker that just gets small amounts of snot but can never clear the sinuses behind the  nose.  You would not believe how much mucus you can remove.  To me that difference in mucus removed is the difference between a sleeping baby and one who is up coughing and choking on mucus all night.

To clean it you simply take the end off the tube end, wash it out with hot tap water, use a qtip to loosen any crusties,  dry it with a paper towel, replace the filter, I tend to wash the mouth piece with alcohol in case I am not the next one to use it and put it back in the holding case.  I love that you can see it is perfectly clean unlike a bulb sucker, even with the bulb suckers that can be cleaned can have hiding spots that you cant access that could lead to a bacteria breeding ground.

It was a life saver when my little guy was a newborn, I even still use it when my toddler has colds, he is not the best at blowing his nose yet, he still does that mouth blowing thing into the Kleenex to make the Kleenex move and make the sound like he is blowing his nose.  So I hold down his head and suck out the snot so that he can breathe.  I would refer it to any of my friends, in fact I have bought it for many of them for baby shower gifts. It truly is a life saver, it has made what could have been many sleepless sick nights, sleep-able!