Antibiotics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I strongly dislike antibiotics... For such good intentions they might carry, they're pretty harmful... but... what scares me is that not many people know how dangerous they can be!  Some people do, but there are SO MANY people that are hacking up a lung and saying, “Don’t worry, I’m on antibiotics, so I’ll get better soon.”  Or, “My immune system must be pretty great with as many antibiotics I’ve been on!”  That one about knocked me over.  And I’ve heard it SEVERAL times.

Antibiotics are very dangerous things.  Let me tell you what’s going on in our guts:

Adult humans have about 3-4 POUNDS of bacteria and yeast in our intestinal tract.  Yuck, right?  Wrong actually, you may think of bacteria as a bad thing, but in this case, they’re very very good!  They do a lot of things for us, one of them being create Vitamin B out of the food we send through our intestines.  They also keep the yeast in check, which is a very good thing, because if those little guys get out of control, oh boy… look out… Trust me from my personal experience, it’s not pretty.  These guys can eat away at your intestinal walls too, changing the very structure of them, and leaving you weak against things you used to be strong against (they can lead to food allergies!), and to make matters worse, they cause us to crave unhealthy things like sugars and carbohydrates in breads and pastas, as these are the very things the yeast feed off of to grow.  See how important it is to have the good bacteria in your system?  These little wardens are keeping the balance to help you stay healthy.  Some examples are Lactobacillus and Acidophilus, which are acid-forming bacteria you can find in yogurt.  There are some that are good AND bad too, like E. Coli, which is in EVERYONE’S intestinal tracts and even on our skin!  It helps us extract nutrients from the food we eat.  But if we come in contact with it in bad meat, then it’s not such a nice bacteria…

Unfortunately, some bad bacteria can find their way in that you never want there in the first place, such as Streptococci (which causes strep throat) or Pneumococci (which causes, you guessed it, pneumonia).  And we get really really sick, which is no good and no fun.  Enter in antibiotics.  Okay, okay, so in these cases I guess they’re a blessing in disguise, until we find safer ways to combat these dangerous illnesses.  I would experiment with it and look for natural remedies to fight off the dangerous bacteria, buuuutttt that’s way too big of a risk to take right now.  I’m much more comfortable experimenting with the common cold, or things that won’t kill me.  In the meantime, I guess I’ll take an antibiotic if I contract something evil and deadly.  I had to recently, actually.  I came down with a urinary tract infection (horray for the life of a new mom…) and did everything I could think of to fight it off naturally (which, by the way, has worked in the past) such as cranberry pills (since I hate cranberry juice, yuck), Echinacea and vitamin C, increased probiotics (getting to that in a moment), and mannose supplements I found at the health food store in town.  Nothing was working.  And I know not to mess around with these things – these infections can travel up your ureter and into your kidneys, and then you’ve REALLY got a problem.  So I finally, reluctantly, went to my OBGYN (not to an MD, partly because I don’t have one of those and didn’t want to go through the process of becoming a new patient, and mainly because after my penicillin incident I’m a little leery of MDs…) and she ran a culture, and E. Coli happened to be the intruder.  And it was getting pretty out of control.  So out came the antibiotic prescription (NOT penicillin, since that can kill me now) and off to the pharmacy I trudged.  With a pretty little snarl on my face.

So, if these antibiotics can kill off those evil deadly bacteria, why do I harbor such a hatred towards them?  Because they don’t JUST kill off the bad bacteria.  They kill off ALL the bacteria.  EVERYTHING.  Even those happy little guys keeping the yeast in check and making us some nice vitamin B.  Dead.  Now if you’re someone that rushes to get an antibiotic for yourself or your kid at the first sign of a possible infection, think about what your intestines must be looking like by now… Craving some pasta or candy, are we?  Or getting sick more often than you think is normal?  Know what else can happen when these bacteria are all gone?  Your whole system can lose balance.  Dormant cancer cells (yes, we all have them) don’t have anything to keep them dormant, and they are free to fester and grow.  Food allergies you may have developed from the lining of your intestines getting messed up can develop into things like diabetes or Crohn’s disease or what have you.  Or horrible yeast infections (*raises hand to represent*).  Scary, isn’t it?  And if something this serious doesn’t happen to you, you still risk missing out on important nutrients your body needs to stay healthy because the good bacteria aren’t there to extract it from the food you eat.  You also risk getting sick again and again and again, as there’s nothing to help your body learn how to defend itself on its own to prevent sickness the next time around.

Okay, so what do we do about this?  Well, first of all, don’t jump to take antibiotics so quickly unless your life is in danger.  Find alternative methods to get well.  But if you have no immediate choice other than to surrender to antibiotics, like I experienced when I was at risk for my situation turning into a kidney infection if left unchecked, then what? Replenish the good bacteria, of course!  Now you already learned that good bacteria is in yogurt, but you’re going to need to eat a LOT of yogurt to get your gut back in check – eating yogurt kind of only gives you a maintenance dose of probiotics.  Fortunately, you can get them in capsules in the refrigerated section of your local health food store.  I take a multi probiotic, the bottle says there are 20 billion live cultures in them… that’s a lot!  And when I was on antibiotics, I was taking about 8 capsules a day.  Hopefully that was enough…  Another good idea when you’re on antibiotics is avoid sugar (yes, carbohydrates too, they break down into sugar), since yeast feeds on sugar and without the friendly bacteria keeping them in check, you don’t want to help their situation that much more.  Taking immune-boosting supplements like Echinacea or garlic are good too, to help feed the good bacteria and nurse them back to health so they can report to duty and keep those yeast at bay.  But definitely definitely definitely take probiotics!  If the antibiotics are killing everything off in the first place, then your immune-boosting supplements have no good bacteria to support, and avoiding sugar will only give you grief.  Take those probiotics!!

Are they safe for kids?  Absolutely!  I’ve got Harlee on one every day and have since he was born.  When he was a baby I only gave them to him if he was taking a bottle of my pumped milk by pouring half a capsule of the probiotic powder into the bottle with the milk and shaking it until it disperses.  It wasn’t all that often, but being breastfed helped his system anyway so I wasn’t that strict about it.  If you’re doing formula they actually make probiotics for babies that you can mix in with it.  Now that Harlee is a little older I’ll put a whole capsule into his juice or milk every day.  He’s been going to daycare, playing outside as the weather has been dropping, and carrying on his daily life with nothing more than a bit of a runny nose.  Knock on wood!

A side note, before I wrap this up, think about where else antibiotics are used… Yes, in livestock.  Sure, it makes the farmer’s life easier not having to worry about their cattle dying from infections, but these antibiotics lock their evil little bodies into the cattle’s bodies, and also pass through their milk… So think about that when you buy that sirloin steak for dinner tonight, or that carton of milk for you and your kids to drink.  You’re consuming all the antibiotics (and steroids, and artificial growth hormones, but I’ll save that for a different day) that were injected into that animal while it was alive.  And they can have a similar effect on you as though you just got a bottle from the pharmacy.  Yummy!  In this case I feel it’s worth the extra few bucks to buy organic milk rather than the cheaper, “regular” stuff.  Grass-fed, organic meat too.  Fortunately my hubby is a deer hunter and stocks our freezer fairly well every year, and I’m pretty sure nobody’s out there shooting antibiotics into the wildlife!  I’ll admit I’ll take the easy way out and not buy organic when it comes to beef or pork or chicken… but I (hopefully) justify this with the thought that we don’t eat it THAT often… I’ll probably end up doing a little more research on this and decide to only buy organic meat too, even if it means driving an hour to Whole Foods to get it!  I do buy organic milk, though, because (thank God) IGA stocks it.  I need to ask them to stock organic meat too…

Anyway, just some food for thought!  Here’s a great article to read about bacteria and antibiotics, and a little history too.  Now go get some probiotics and boost your immune system!  It is cold and flu season, after all!

Guilt-Free Friday

I’ve read other’s blogs and a lot of them have this really cute “theme” idea, where one day they’ll focus on the same topic each week, like a joke on Monday or a recipe on Wednesday, or Confession Friday is one I’ve seen a few times.  All these cute ideas.  I’ve decided to copy off of all of you with your cute ideas and have a theme of my own.  Welcome to Guilt-Free Friday!

This is stemming from my attempted lifestyle conversion.  I just want myself and my family to be healthier, at home first and foremost but eventually even when we’re out and about too.  I’m just tired of living the Standard American Diet.  Or SAD for short, ha ha ha.  All the processed crap, the refined crap, the GMOs, the artificial colors and flavors, the Yellow dye #50 or whatever.  What is all this crap and what is it doing in my food?

It all started at the end of spring this year when Justin and I decided to cut out [bad] carbs for about a month or so.  We were eating meat and veggies and fruits every. single. day.  We threw in some cheese or sour cream or different oils like olive or coconut to mix things up a bit here and there, but other than that it was bye-bye sandwiches, dinner rolls, pizza crusts, crackers, pastas, potatoes, cakes, cookies, etc.  It sounds painful and torturous I’m sure, but it wasn’t too bad, I’ll admit, especially going at it with a buddy.  And Harlee’s fortunately a really good eater, he loves veggies anyway so we didn’t have any trouble with him, he just joined in the fun and didn’t think anything different of it.  We dropped so much weight.  My pre-pregnancy pants were feeling loose!  I felt so GOOD!  I felt clean, healthy, more energetic… But then we went on vacation, and “enjoyed” all the guilty pleasures of before, and blew our diet all to hell.

Now it’s fall and I’m ready for that “season of change” thing.  I joined an exercise program, but diet has SO much to do with it too, and I want the exercise to pay off, so therefore I need to eat better.  Well, I already know what works, for me anyway, so I need to get back on that.  But somehow it’s not as easy as it was before…  I’m finding myself MISSING all those guilty pleasures… I don’t WANT to give up pasta and pizza and biscuits… What if I want pancakes for breakfast?  What about Christmas cookies??  This is too intimidating now!

But being healthy is more important.  Don’t worry, this research-a-holic already looked up why avoiding carbs is so good in the first place.  Allow me to share what I’ve learned!  There are good carbs and bad carbs.  Good ones are found in what Mother Nature provides: fruits, vegetables, brown rice, whole grains, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, beans, seeds and nuts for example.  Bad ones are found in things Man and Technology got their paws on: flour, milled corn or white rice, fruit juices, sugared soft drinks or other beverages with sugar, and processed foods like chips and cookies and white bread, and alcohol (everyone make a sad face with me… *:-(*).  Carbohydrates are the body’s main fuel source for energy.  There are simple carbs and complex carbs.  The complex carbs are made of longer chains of sugar molecules that take the body longer to break down and digest, which gives you a more even amount of energy throughout the day.  Simple carbs are basic sugar molecules that are quick to digest and don’t provide much value to your body.  That’s the basics!  From here on out, when I refer to or mention carbs, you may assume I’m talking about the bad ones – the sugars and white flours and cakes and cookies and whatnot.

Okay, so back to my mission of eating healthier.  I needed to solve my problem of pancakes and pizza and Christmas cookies! :-(  So I’ve started looking for substitutes – sticking with what nature has to offer, avoiding weird additives, steering clear of bad carbs, and still achieving the desired result of yummy “guilty” pleasures.

Last Sunday I shared muffins made of coconut flour, but I’m sure that’s not something everyone has just lying around.  On Guilt-Free Friday I’m going to try to offer recipes with ingredients that everyone should have easy access too, or may already have stocked in their pantries.  Otherwise I’ll try to offer insight on where to find certain ingredients, to help you out.

Today I’m going to feature pasta.  One of my favorite pasta substitutes is the spaghetti squash.  It mimics spaghetti noodles, but it’s a vegetable!  It’s bland in flavor, and works wonderfully with whatever sauce you like!  Ah that thing has been a lifesaver for me…

It’s really simple to prepare, too!  Just cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and gunk inside, place cut-side down in a baking pan filled with about a half inch of water, cover with foil, and bake at 375°F for 20-30 minutes (depending on how al dente you want the “noodles”).

Let them cool a bit, then drag a fork through the meat and be amazed as spaghetti-like strands form before your eyes!

Dump all the noodles into a pot and mix together with your sauce of choice – spaghetti sauce with meatballs, alfredo sauce with chicken and/or broccoli, cheese sauce either by itself or with chili on top, the sky’s the limit!

Can’t beat eating vegetables when it feels like you’re eating pasta!

Guilt-Free Cinnamon Roll Muffins

These are super good... And Harlee ate like 3/4 of a muffin with Mom's approval!  I already ate, like, three muffins myself... But the greatest thing is I don't FEEL like I ate that many, because nothing in these weighs on you heavy and makes you feel like crap!  Yay!

We've been trying to make better eating choices at home lately... Ever since I cut out carbs for about a month and lost quite a bit of weight from it I've been feeling more motivated about making this a lifestyle change.  But it sucks not being able to enjoy all the guilty pleasures my former carb-a-holic lifestyle allowed me to eat like pastas and breads and pastries...

So I started looking into ways to still enjoy these things without "breaking the rules".  I mean, this is just a choice for me, but there are people out there who HAVE to live this way due to health reasons.  I'm sure they don't want to feel restricted, so what do they do?  I discovered the blog Against All Grain which was written by exactly that kind of person - a woman with a health issue who didn't want to feel restricted.  She's got some great recipes!  From there stemmed a search for other recipe sites, and there are tons out there!  Suddenly I'm feeling more ambitious about this - a whole new avenue of cooking/baking has been opened up to me!  I'm experimenting with almond flour and coconut flour, which are great alternatives to wheat flour and they're gluten free (and carb-free :-D) and baking with stevia or other alternatives to refined sugar.  But NOT Splenda or Sweet 'n' Low or Equal or Nutrasweet or whatever.  Those are man-made and not good for you.  Just because they're zero calorie doesn't mean they're not having any affect on your body!  Aspartame is in a lot of those zero calorie sweeteners (and diet soda too).  Here is a great article about the dangers of aspartame and how it damages brain cells and leads to all kinds of problems, the least of which are headaches and migraines.  But anyway, this post isn't about all the scary crap that's in the food we eat, I can save that for another day or two!

This is about some yummy cinnamon roll muffins I made today with coconut flour and butternut squash.  I took the recipe from Paleo in PDX, and here it is:

Topping:

• 2 Tbsp melted butter, ghee or coconut oil (I used coconut oil)
• 2 Tbsp raw honey
• 1 Tbsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients and set aside.

Muffins:

• 1/2 cup butternut squash puree (fresh or canned, but to make fresh just halve the butternut squash, scoop out the seeds, place cut-side down in a baking pan of 1/2 inch of water and cover with foil, and bake at 375 degrees F until soft, about 30-40 minutes.  Scoop out the "meat" and puree in a blender)
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup melted butter, ghee or coconut oil (I used butter)
• 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup raw honey
• 1/4 – 1/3 cup raw pecans for topping, optional

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients together — except pecans–in the food processor and process until a smooth, fluffy batter forms. Alternatively, you can mix all the dry ingredients together, whisk the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl, and then whisk the wet ingredients into the dry.
2. Grease muffin cups or line with parchment paper liners. Fill each with approximately 1/4 cup of batter.
3. Spoon cinnamon mixture over each muffin and top with pecans, if using.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean.

Enjoy!   Justin suggested I find a recipe for a cream cheese frosting to put on top next time... I think I agree with him!  I think next time I'll also mix cinnamon into the batter as well, so the flavor is more even throughout, though they were pretty yummy already anyway.  And now my house smells yummy too!

Drug Free is the Way to Be!

Perfect timing for this post, since it’s Red Ribbon Week and all!  Today I’ve decided to give you some back story as to why I prefer to do things naturally.  I was raised on homeopathic and naturopathic medicine due to my mom’s interest and accumulated knowledge.  Cold and flu season, we didn’t go running to the nearest pharmacy to get a flu shot, rather Mom gave us immune-boosting supplements such echinacea and vitamin C.  Goldenseal and pau d’arco are good ones too.  Voila, we made it through cold and flu season with nothing more than a bit of congestion, if anything.  What’s interesting to me is that she got a late start in working with natural remedies with my sister and I, but started right off the bat with my brothers.  Guess which kids were the healthiest all throughout their school days?  I’m not saying none of us had our issues, but I can say that hospitals haven’t seen any of us and our doctors had some preeeetttyyyy out-of-date files.  Anyway.  So this was my upbringing.  Then one day when I was I guess 18-19 years old I got sick.  I don’t know what it was, or why I got it, but I suppose it could have been some form of flu.  Throwing up, dizzy, feeling like c.r.a.p.  For the first time I caught something more powerful than whatever naturopathic stuff I had on hand could handle.  I had already missed a week of work and didn’t want to miss any more, so out of desperation I called a doctor.  A real MD.  I hadn’t been to one since my mandatory high school physical.  I was in the waiting room forever, of course, and only in to see him for like 5 minutes.  Of course.  WTH??  You can’t assess something like this in just 5 minutes!!  This was so aggravating.  Obviously he didn’t care that much.  He just scratched out a prescription for penicillin and sent me to the pharmacy.  And out of desperation, I obliged.  About a week later I was no longer throwing up or feeling horrible, so it either ran its course, my naturopathics finally worked, or the penicillin did.  But I’ll tell you what the penicillin also did.  I broke out in the most hideous rash I have ever seen/experienced.  I was covered in little red blotches on every inch of my skin, and every 5-10 minutes a random patch on my arm, or my leg, or my stomach, or wherever would erupt into welts and burn and itch like CRAZY.  Um, bring back my throwing up and nausea, please!  This is WAY worse!!  Everyone who looked at me kept their distance, and then would either tell me to call the doctor or take some benedryl or something.  I tried benedryl.  It put me to sleep.  I woke up to hideous welts and itching.  I searched online, but couldn’t find anything.  And hell no I was not calling a doctor, it was a doctor that got me into this mess in the first place!  I’ve never had this problem with natural medicine!!  I later came to find out I’m allergic to penicillin.  The rash was my body’s way of detoxing itself from the poison, which makes sense, with skin being your body’s largest organ.  The rash finally went away, but I was never the same since.  I developed a respiratory sensitivity – I couldn’t handle smoke as well and I’d wind up wheezing if I did too much physical exercise, and worst of all my pre-existing cat and dog allergies (which were just sneezing and itchy eyes) progressed into my windpipe swelling and constricting and making me feel like I was breathing through a straw and gasping for breath after a short period of time with the animal.  Not good.  I also developed chronic yeast infections.  That’s probably TMI so I’ll stop there, but anyone who’s had one before knows how HORRIBLE they are, and imagine having them at least once a month for YEARS.  Eventually I saw a local massage therapist who did a lot of natural work along with manual therapies, and I explained my problem to her, not even sure if she could help.  She did a lot of really fascinating things involving muscle testing and pressure points, and we learned that I really needed to get some probiotics in my system.  The penicillin killed off any/all of the good bacteria in my system and I was left defenseless, therefore a breeding ground for things like yeast and weakened against things in the environment like smoke and pet dander.  I started taking probiotics.  Slowly but surely my yeast infections dissipated, and my breathing became easier.  Holy crap.  I needed to know more.  And I needed to share this!!

That’s kinda why I’m a massage therapist today.  My main goal in my career is to assist people in making natural, healthy choices for their wellbeing and to avoid drugs and even surgery.  I’m only 3 years in, and I’ve helped a LOT of people in simple ways.  I refer to this career as a diving board – with this license I have access to a WHOLE lot of other avenues in natural healing that I can dive into, and I’m so excited to see where I’ll have gone with it in 5, 10, 20 + years.

After the penicillin incident I vowed never to take a drug again.  It was natural or bust for me.  I know it’s not the doctor’s fault that I’m allergic to the prescription he gave me, and neither one of us knew it when he prescribed it, but I’m sorry, he only spent 5 freaking minutes with me in that office, as crappy as I felt I would have liked a little more care than that!

I became more adamant about living my life naturally after that, learning more about supplements and remedies to ward off different things, but fortunately I never came across anything quite so severe as whatever that bug was that led me to the penicillin ordeal.  My immune system has been compromised ever since then, but I’ve been doing fairly well treating myself naturally when I do catch any bugs, given my circumstances.  Before I ever had kids I knew I’d raise them the same way.  In massage school I became friends with people who lived life similarly, and I learned from their knowledge base and also got support.

In the meantime I looked at a lot of different things like cancer (does anyone other than me feel like chemo just kills you slower than the cancer does??) and how chemo patients suffer so horribly.  And it was definitely an eye-opener when a friend of mine from massage school did some volunteer chair massage for stress relief for cancer patients, and when she asked different doctors if they would administer chemo and radiation to their own loved ones, they said no, they wouldn’t… um, red flag?  Then I watched as a good friend of mine found out her elderly father had lung cancer, he decided he’d rather die of cancer than chemo, and after opting against any western “therapies” she took matters into her own hands and helped him boost his immune system naturally.  About a year and half later he was completely cancer-free.  Yes, I’ve seen some pretty awesome stuff with naturopathic medicine.

Enter pregnancy, and now you can see why I made a lot of the choices I made?  Aaaanddd why I was so disappointed in the birth outcome.  I’ve said before, though, that it was humbling.  I learned a great sense of balance – that maybe being so ANTI-Western medicine isn’t the best way to be.  It has its place, and it’s a good thing when needed.  But I was still going to continue to avoid it.  I reversed a positive Group B Strep test into a negative one by ALL natural ways, and now, after a year of battling some really rough postpartum depression, I’m beating that in natural ways too.  More about that in future posts.

It’s been an interesting learning experience and I’ve really enjoyed it, and so far I’m really impressed with my son’s immune system as he’s growing.  I’ve been doing a LOT of different things to keep him healthy, such as visiting the chiropractor regularly, using essential oils in every day life, adding probiotics to his juice (I’ve told you how gung-ho I am about probiotics, and I intend to tell you more too!), using side-effect-free homeopathics when he does experience any kinds of issues, and trying to keep meals and snacks as healthy as I can.  I’ve been doing the same for Justin and myself, too.  Lots of vitamins, natural supplements, and healthy eating habits as well as my regular use of oils and probiotics, and we visit the chiropractor too.  All these wonderful things to stay well, and with no hideous side effects or harmful toxins that can be detrimental to our lives or lifestyle in the future!  See?  Drug free really IS the way to be!

I’m excited to elaborate on a lot of these choices we’ve made, and educate you to help with decisions you may need to make regarding your own or your family’s health.  I hope you’re as excited as I am!

The Season of Change

Happy Fall everyone!

I've been thinking I need to switch up this blog.  I kept thinking of great posts, and then never got around to writing them.  Yes, I'm busy, so I can use that as an excuse, but times like right now (Harlee is napping, Justin is hunting, the house is actually still clean from yesterday (whoa!!)) do actually happen every great once in awhile, so why am I playing on Pintrest rather than getting my thoughts out there for you all to read?  Okay Pintrest is pretty great too... but not as productive.

After some contemplation I realized it's because the concept of my blog has been waaaay too "run of the mill".  And I'm not a run-of-the-mill kind of person.  I love my little family and what I've got going here, but writing about our day to day happenings just didn't seem that exciting to me.  But, while I was pregnant, I did have a lot of fun sharing all my new findings and thoughts and feelings about natural pregnancy and birth.  But the whole "Once Upon the Papenbergs" title wasn't matching up to that kind of "natural lifestyle" theme.  So today I ditched the old title, even the old domain, and I am now officially converting over to Naturally Jami.  Yay!

I changed the About My Blog tab too, that way you have a little background on what brought about the change.

So.  Continuing on.  I have a napping 15-month-old that has taught me SO MUCH and I've been really excited to share some of my findings and experiences with you.  I have lots of plans for this blog, so hopefully I'll stick with it and get to share everything.  Things like natural ways to help tummy aches (and not just for baby, but for grown-ups too!), relieve sinus congestion or runny noses (currently dealing with that with my little guy...), and I hope to share recipes for healthy snack alternatives as well.  I'm also planning on educating and explaining, too.  This small-town rural southern Illinois family of ours has proven to be pretty unconventional when it comes to the "norm" in child-rearing, and I'd like to use this as an opportunity to explain why we do what we do.

But PLEASE know that I am NOT in any way trying to TELL you what to do.  If I want to tell you what to do, I'll just come right out and say, "You need to do XYZ."  But that won't happen very often unless it's a special circumstance because a) it's annoying and b) it's rude.  Seriously, I only want to share my thoughts and opinions, radical as they may be, simply for education's sake.  I truly believe our differences are what makes the world go round.  If everybody thought like I think and did what I do, life would be pretty boring.  But I wanted to make sure you all know that's how I feel.  Believe it or not, a couple of "friends" actually deleted me from Facebook because of my blog posts about natural pregnancy and birth, I'm guessing because they felt I was being pushy about it?  I have no idea, but it did make me realize that I don't want anyone to think that I'm trying to tell them to be just like me.  I just aim to educate, and then you may do whatever you want with that knowledge.

Alright, I think that about sums it all up.  I'm excited for this change, I hope you enjoy reading, and I hope you learn something too!

An Update on the Papenberg Life

I haven't blogged in awhile, so I thought I'd take advantage of Harlee's nap time to catch up on that.  Hopefully he sleeps long enough!

I've been pretty busy lately (hence the long delay in blogging!).  Some friends and I have successfully pulled off a surprise birthday party bus for Justin and his friend Ryan who are now at the ripe old age of 30 :) and it was a much-needed BLAST.  I've kind of been planning this since Justin turned 29, and then I got Ryan's girlfriend and some other friends in on it shortly thereafter, and we went all out with personalized t-shirts and bus decorations and crazy birthday hats and buttons and sashes that the guys happily wore all night long.  It was awesome!

It was Harlee's first sleepover too... he stayed at my mom and dad's, and mom reported that while he did pretty well with his first overnight trip away from us, my she was a little sleep deprived... Harlee sported his "What Happens at Grandma's Stays at Grandma's" shirt the next day too... I, on the other hand, felt GREAT (and fortunately not hungover).  I love co-sleeping, but it sure was nice to have one little break to sleep all through the night just me and the hubby.

Yes, we're still co-sleeping.  I get asked that a handful of times, along with being told that's going to be a hard habit to break.  I hope not, but I've decided not to worry about it.  We'll cross that bridge when we get there.  It's working for us, as it has been since he was born.  I'm not sleep-deprived (except for those few nights during this teething period that he's gotten up WAY more than I prefer), it's actually much easier having him in bed because when he does wake up wanting to eat I don't actually have to get out of bed to tend to him.  Plus, he's not going to be little forever.  I want to take advantage of having this snuggly little thing next to me as much as I can, because he soon enough he won't be snuggly and little anymore.  The one thing I've heard the most from parents is that time goes by way too fast.  First you've got this tiny newborn in your arms and before you know it they're asking for the car keys.  So many parents are so sad to see their kids grow up so fast, or cry on their first day of school, and I don't want to be like that.  I want to embrace every passing stage and phase that he goes through and build up as many fond memories as I can during each one.  I've had myself braced since the day he was born for time to fly by, and I think it's helped.  He's six months old, and that actually feels about right, rather than "Oh my god where did the time go??"  I don't feel like I missed anything, I don't feel sad that he's growing so fast, I feel like we're just where we need to be.  I was excited when he learned to roll over, I'm excited that he can sit up now, and I'm super excited to start him on solids next week (although I'm not excited about the stinky poop that comes with that...).

Nope, he's still not on solids.  That seems kind of odd, beings most babies are on some sort of solids at three-four months lately, but I guess it's kind of rare that they're breastfed past that time too.  I know everyone's case is different, but I'm beginning to think I'm one of very few moms left still breastfeeding, which is odd because really I'm still in the beginning of it.  That's another thing I get asked a lot - "Are you still breastfeeding?"  Sadly, I've been asked that since he was three months...  Yes, I'm still breastfeeding - I brought him into this world, I should probably keep him fed while he's here, huh?  I hope to still be breastfeeding when he's a year, too.  Just because he's eating big people food doesn't mean he should be done breastfeeding - I've got the best nutrition for him right now, and he needs to be supplemented with that probably for the first two years of his life.  I don't know if I'll nurse that long, though - I figure I'll play it by ear after he's a year.  Breastfeeding can definitely be hard and demanding, like on the party bus this weekend, having to take a break to pump isn't really the most fun, but it's worth it.

I guess sometime soon I need to find an ideal blender, either one specifically for baby food or a regular blender that I can use for baby food as well.  I'm excited to start making my own baby food.  It seems easy enough, and much cheaper!  Plus a lot more trustworthy - I like having complete control over what's in it and what my kid consumes.  I've had my eye on the Baby Bullet, but there's a handful of other blenders out there too.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Speaking of saving money by making our own baby food, oh my goodness do I love cloth diapering!  That's been our biggest money-saver so far!  I'm sooooo glad we switched.  I went on GreenMountainDiapers.com and ordered the Thirsties Duo wrap and I love it - I now have 8 of them and that lasts us for 2-3 days - and I use their Cloth-eez Prefold Diapers inside the Thirsties cover - only folded in thirds too, so I don't need to fumble around with folding and pinning and all that.  You can, but you don't have to.  I got two dozen of those.  I change out the prefold when I change him, and the cover can usually be used about 2-3 times.  No leaks, and best of all no blow-outs (and if anyone follows me on Facebook and remembers my posts from before our cloth diaper days, Harlee had LOTS of blow-outs and that's just a nasty mess that I don't think anyone cares to deal with!).  It's so easy, nothing like what our grandparents messed with when they were using cloth diapers.  Much better for the environment too :).  And they're super cute!

 He's pretty cute, too :)  And laundry isn't bad at all - that seems to be a lot of people's concern.  Since he's not on solids yet I don't have to rinse anything - I just dump them all into the wash, run a rinse cycle on cold to flush them out, and then a full cycle on hot to clean them.  Voila!  When he is on solids, though, I'll be investing in some rice paper liners from Cotton Babies.  They collect the mess, you dump those into the toilet and flush - they're natural and biodegradable so no worries there, and go about washing like usual.

Alright, well, kiddo is awake so I'm going to go play with him.  Here's one more picture of the cutie pie though:

Photos courtesy of Be Lovely Photography, which were taken at our house yesterday.  He did soooooo good, we had such a great time!  JJ makes it a lot of fun anyway, she's become more of a friend than our photographer!