The countdown has begun

I've got a little pregnancy ticker on my iGoogle page now, and it tells me that I have 220 days until my due date. Of course, it would be normal to go a few weeks before or after that, so that's just an estimate or guess, but it is fun to count down even if it isn't a "set in stone" date.

220 days to figure out whether I want to move Nathan into a crib or toddler bed instead of the playpen next to our bed, and whether I want to turn our room into the nursery and the loft into our bedroom. The advantage to that would be that we would be between babies and the stairs.

220 days to complete three baby quilts. (Nathan's is almost done!) The other two, a boy and girl baby quilt, will hopefully get done this time before baby arrives!

220 days to wonder if we're having a boy or girl!

220 days to toss name ideas back and forth.

220 days to wait until we meet this little one face to face!

8 1/2

...weeks along, that is. :-) We're looking forward to welcoming our second little one around April 6th!

C-Sections Shown to Increase Risk of Type 1 Diabetes

"New research¹ reveals that mothers giving birth by Caesarean section have a 20 per cent higher risk of their baby developing Type 1 diabetes in childhood compared to those having natural births, warns leading health charity Diabetes UK.

The research examined 20 published studies on children with Type 1 diabetes born by Caesarean section and found that there was a 20 per cent increase in the risk of babies born by Caesarean section developing Type 1 diabetes. This could not be explained by other factors such as birth weight, the age of the mother, order of birth, gestational diabetes and whether the baby was breast-fed or not.

On average 24 per cent of pregnancies in England are delivered by Caesarean section, which is significantly higher that the World Health Organisation's recommended rate of 15 per cent.²"

From this article here.

The United States has a Caesarean rate of about 30 percent, according to this article.
This article from Childbirth Connection looks at the factors going into that, including care providers who put a low priority on supporting normal labors, side effects of common interventions, and a limited awareness of the risks.

In Memoriam

more animals

My cat Oreo disappeared recently, and I've given up hope. I'm guessing she met her end. Such is life for an outside cat in the country. But she wasn't always an outside cat. I acquired Oreo about 10 years ago, and she was an inside cat then. And one of her favorite things to do was crouch in the dark and wait for me to go to the kitchen and get a glass of water at night. And she would spring.

I've heard that its good for you to have your adrenal gland stimulated. ;-)

iGoogle

If you don't have an iGoogle page set up, but you have a google account, you really should take advantage of it. I love my new iGoogle page! It is easy to customize, and I added widgets that give me a preview of my gmail inbox, let me play hangman, display quotes of the day, track Nathan's age (4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days old!), have to do lists, weather, and the latest? A great little widget that lets me post to my blog from the same page. Gotta love it!

LOL!

more animals

This is even funnier because my parents recently had a problem with a cat that killed chickens. Not even chicks, really... they were 10 weeks old.

Summer...

Hanging clothes on the clothesline. Eating dinner on the porch, sitting on the porch swing. Flowers blooming unexpectedly. The fair, and free ice cream. Perfect pasta salad weather! Green fields. Margaritas. Afternoon naps.

These are the good things I'm enjoying.

As well as the back carry in the mei tai! Which makes hanging clothes on the line, making pasta salad, etc, easier which makes more time for afternoon naps. :-)

New Favorite

If you're like me, most of your furniture comes to you in a condition which suggests that it has been either extremely well loved, or abused.

If you're like us, the furniture continues on the same path of heavy usage after we acquire it.

This is the dramatic story of a coffee table.

I was given this hand-me-down coffee table shortly before we got married last year, back when we could count the pieces of furniture we owned on our fingers. When I came into possession of this table, it had glitter and marker all over the top. Fortunately, that came off with elbow grease, and I gave it a little shine with some furniture spray. Until now, that furniture spray was the big gun in my furniture improvement tool box. Well, it's been replaced by a better solution for most of the problems. This Old English Scratch Cover (yes, this is the part of the post where it starts to sound like an advertisement, skip to the end of the paragraph to miss that part) is amazing. I like darker colored wood furniture, but scratches show up really well. And if, hypothetically, the puppy chewed on the legs? Well, all I can say is, that would be really bad.


Like, really, really bad.

So, anyway, I found this scratch cover, and I tried it, and I like it. Here is the before:


...and here is the after.




True, this is still not perfect. You can still see the tooth marks from that scourge- er, I mean, adorable puppy. But it took me less than 15 minutes, and since it darkened all the scratches they aren't the first thing I notice about my coffee table anymore! And THAT is something to smile about. :-)