November 01, 2004
endings
first of all, check out this entry from Michelle. a classic story. catacombs alums, pay close attention. Michelle's having a blast with the blog, and we're both loving it.
and now, some endings to some previous stories:
the big ol' tree that fell in our yard:
EPB finally came and cut down the other half that was threatening our neighbors and the general public. and they left (literally) tons of wood in our yard. but brush collection to the rescue! they helped themselves (with their front-end loader) to all the wood. our tax dollars at work. there's actually still a 6-foot "stump" left, and they came back to take it down, but for some reason I like it there, so I told them not to worry. hopefully we'll put some birdhouses on it. anyway, we're very thankful we didnt have to pay the $1000 to take the tree down. and now we have a great view of lookout mountain, just in time for fall.
the bald spot on the back of my head:
the good news -- the hair is growing in again! the bad news -- it's blond. weird. but I'm told that it's darkening. thankfully I dont really care how weird I look. someday soon I'll go into the story about how I really learned this painful lesson. it involves vanity, eye surgury and vomit. later.
our 5th anniversary:
 this was August 28th, which was just about the hardest parenting day we had. so we didnt do much to celebrate. but I did make michelle a "mother's necklace." inspired by the "mother's ring" concept (a band with birthstones of each family member), I wanted to give her a necklace with each of our birthstones involved somehow. I knew that Katie does jewelry, so she sent me to a good beading website and gave me some advice on how to put it together. so I chose the jeweled beads and chain and tried to make it work. but I broke the chain trying to get the beads on, and besides, one of the beads was messed up and wouldnt go on, broken chain or not. but I found an old chain and made it work with 2 of the 3, and then very recently we got a different chain and finally convinced the 3rd bead to cooperate. here you can see the results, and we're all very pleased. thanks katie!
baby formula:
caleb's on soy still and doing quite well. but dang that stuff is expensive. always looking for a bargain, and never with too much pride, michelle asked our nurse if we could have a case of it, since we know they get literally truckloads of the stuff to give away (to get as many kids as possible hooked on it of course). and the nurse said something like: sure, we'll keep you supplied, we'll even CALL YOU when we get a shipment. wow! it sure seems like she intends to keep us well-supplied, which is a huge blessing.
ending pending:
we were hoping to refinance our house to take advantage of lower rates, but it's not working out. very frustrating. we're praying that it will work out somehow, b/c if it does we could save quite a bit per month.
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these are all not-so-huge things in our little lives, but God has chosen to bless us in all of them. when the crappy days come (and they do), His faithfulness in even the little things lifts us up.
Posted by bobw at November 1, 2004 11:07 PM
Some interesting endings Bob. I'm glad Michelle's mama necklace is working now. Jewelry can be soemthing you envision in your head but it doesn't come out the way you want it to without some sweat. It looks great! Good job!!
Bob, I don't know if you are using powdered or liquid formula, but we went through a whole slew of formulas before finding that the canned liquid (premixed) soy formula was what Isabel tolerated the best. You are right, though, that it can be very expensive compared to regular formula.
Last week, however, Pam was in Boston with her parents for a medical conference. She met a representative from Similac and they discussed the problem that we had with powdered formula. The rep said that he had gotten a lot of complaints and had talked to people at his company who recommended mixing the formula and refrigerating it for several hours, like say in the evening before you go to bed. I think the packages usually say to use it within 24 hours, so this would work if you made a days worth each night.
He said that when you mix up the formula and use it right away that not all of the powder dissolves completely, which in some babies can cause them to spit up a lot (which is what happened with Isabel). We've been trying it for about a week now and it seems to be working.
thanks for the tips. he's done the best with the liquid concentrate soy, but we've just introduced the powdered soy, using 1/2 liquid and 1/2 powdered. and we've heated up the water, as well as used a hand blender to mix it, and he seems to be doing ok. a little more gas, but not too bad. thankfully spit-up has never been a problem.
I think that's what 'Bel was doing, that is, the cause of the spit up was gas. You'd burp her, but then the undesolved formula would later gas her up. It's been way better, too, for us using soy.
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