Saturday, April 17, 2010

Danger, Will Robinson!















"Danger, Will Robinson! Willow can climb the stairs!"

That's the note from Linda that we came home to on Tuesday. Willow can now get a knee up and get up the first stair. Josh's project this weekend (or one of them; his other project is our compost bin) is to get that baby gate up at the bottom of the stairs! Linda says that Willow hardly even wants to be held by her anymore- she just wants to crawl laps around our house with Linda following her. When we're home, we hold her a lot more often because we're always rushing around trying to get stuff done. I guess that's how it is when both parents work.

Willow has decided that she doesn't really like pureed food anymore. She prefers to feed herself. She's finally sort of starting to catch on to chewing. She's not quite ready for, say, cheerios yet, but I did take some cereal and soaked it in breastmilk until it got a little soggy. She liked that a lot. She loves those yogurt bites they make for babies. She loves regular yogurt and blueberries too. Here she is with a food she does not like very much: cauliflower.















Here are some other things that Willow likes and doesn't like right now, other than food:

likes: "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", her toy motorcycle (she can even make motorcycle sounds), walking while holding on to your hands, her pop-up dog book, any book with pop-ups, flaps to lift or other activities, taking off her socks, getting tickled.

dislikes: her vitamins, getting her face and hands wiped, the doctor's. She is scared of the pop-up cow in one of her books, and also the dragon puppet on her exersaucer.

Here are some pictures from Easter out at the camp. The Easter bunny got Willow a little easter "basket" with some gifts.















One of her gifts was a cute pair of shades. They have a strap on them so babies supposedly can't take them off. That was not effective on Willow.



















Can anyone guess what my parents are doing in this picture? If so, you win the contents of the bag:















Last weekend Josh and my dad's big project was transplanting Willow's willow tree. Josh planted it last summer when we brought Willow home. It seemed to like the spot just fine, but after doing some reading, and from what people have told us, willow trees love water so much that as they grow, their roots search out your pipes and find any tiny crack. Then they go into the crack and wreak all sorts of havok. The place where Josh planted the tree was right by our main water and sewer pipes. So we decided to transplant it out at my parents' camp, in the swamp. It'll be nice and wet there and will hopefully thrive with no pipes to damage. Here's Josh taking out the tree...



















...and here it is after being planted in its new home:




















Willow's been enjoying the nice weather. She loves to be outside and loves to play with the grass, rocks, flowers, etc. You have to watch her like a hawk though, or she will try to taste whatever it is she's playing with.


















I sent out another two coolers full of milk last week. I can't believe it - I still have over a chest freezer left. It's hard to imagine what a milk machine I was a year ago. I'd fill up a gallon zip-loc bag (and sometimes more) every day. Now, supply is much more in line with demand. I pump once in the morning before I go to work (while Willow is still asleep), and then once at work. I'm not freezing any - we use the milk I pump for Willow to eat the next day. We usually have to add a little frozen too.

Shipping the milk is quite a production. One of us has to take an hour or so off work. We have to go to this place that sells dry ice, pack up the milk, bring it to the shipping place and ship it overnight. Shipping something overnight that weighs 85 pounds is not cheap! Of course, the recipients pay for it. Before, I stressed about the fact that my milk is reaching, and some has passed, the year mark. But the guy I shipped this batch to is fine with that, and he's a doctor, so now I feel better about it. I asked him if it'd be OK to post their photo on the blog and he said OK. They are just the cutest family.















Donating milk is a great feeling. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a surplus. It's more common than you might think- I've had a few different people tell me they had too much milk after reading my last post about donating. The website I used was www.milkshare.com. When I tried to explain to my boss why I needed an hour off work to ship milk, he said "I've never heard of that before...isn't that why they make that Similac?" Ha. Some people don't get it!

Well, I better go. Blogging can suck up half a weekend afternoon if you let it!

4 comments:

Abby said...

What a wonderful donation! I always thought of doing it but both of my boys exclusively nursed so I had nothing left to give.

Andi said...

Thanks for posting the picutre of the family you've donated your milk to. It's so nice to have a face to make the situation more real. You guys are wonderful people! Hope to see you soon :)

Unknown said...

Your milk donation seems so much more .....I don't know.....normal than mine was!!! Willow looks great! Ellen is a mischief machine these days. Tons of fun. Glad to hear things are going so well! Happy spring.

Lauren and Nate

Emily said...

Are your parents making syrup? Or beer?