I am so glad to have found this rice cereal for baby.

My first two children didn’t have any gas or digestion problems, but Llany did.  He started with really bad gas at about 2 months.  I tried changing my diet several times to see if it was something coming through into my milk that was affecting him, but I never had any success pinpointing what it was.  When I looked online to see what foods might be upsetting his stomach, it seemed like the possibilities were ridiculously endless – could be: meat products, milk products, wheat products, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, beans… and on and on the list went.

Even when I cut my diet way back and stuck to the simplest foods I could, he still had the gas and from cutting back calories and nutrients in my own diet, I started to lose my milk supply.  I ditched changing my eating and started giving Llany Mylicon drops after feedings to help with the gas and help him sleep.

There are a lot of moms who swear by Gripe Water which seems better for baby because it is all natural.  Llany hated Gripe Water.  I think perhaps because of the taste, but also because it was so cold since it has to be kept refrigerated.  It was impossible to get him to consume two dropper fulls of Gripe Water every time he had gas.  He would just dribble it out of his mouth, all over himself, and cry.  Whenever he saw the Mylicon drops coming his way he responded anciously and seemed to really enjoy the taste of it.  So that’s what I stuck with.

Around 4 months, because Llany still was not sleeping through the night… EVER… the doctor suggested that I start introducing rice cereal into his diet.  I started giving him basic organic rice cereal made by Earth’s Best.  Adding the rice didn’t help or worsen his gas, nor did it help him sleep through the night.

At 6 months I added apples, bananas, and sweet potatoes to Llany’s diet.  I added them one at a time, one per week, and at first he seemed fine with all of them.  However by 7 months Llany’s gas had worsened and it seemed he was needing Mylicon drops after every meal, all day long, otherwise he was in pain. It got so bad that at times, even the drops wouldn’t work.  Not knowing what else to do I took him completely off of all solids and went back to breast feeding alone.  This caused the gas problems to go back to their normal state and he only needed drops after nursing before bedtime to help him sleep comfortably.

So now, at eight months of age I knew I needed to get solids back into Llany’s diet and progress with adding a variety of foods, but I didn’t know how to do it without upsetting his stomach.  I was afraid that my son might have food allergies or digestive problems which were causing his system to react both to my breast milk, as well as the solid foods I was trying to give to him.

Then… finally… while expressing my frustrations over this dilema with a dear friend, she told me about Happy Bellies Cereals with pro-biotics.  She told me that the pro-biotics assist with digestion.  So I headed out and bought a can and found this written excerpt on the back.

Happy Bellies cereals are organic and include DHA for brain and eye development and Iron.  They also include pro-biotics which are the live micro-organisms that aid in digestion which you may have seen advertised in yogurts like Activia and Dan-active.

At eight months I started slowly adding Happy Bellies cereal into Llany’s strict diet of breast milk only.  After a week of no gas problems at all, I started to add in apples, sweet potatoes, and bananas mixed with the pro-biotic enriched cereal, and still there were no gas problems.

I am happy to say that ever since I started using the Happy Bellies cereals with Llany at the age of eight months, I have never again had to give him Mylicon drops or any thing else to help with gas.  His digestive problems seemed to disappear overnight once he was eating the cereal and now he eats anything and everything with no problems.

I can’t say that the cereal caused him to start sleeping through the night.  The solution to that issue came after he turned one and I stopped nursing him.  Since he couldn’t have milk in the middle of the night anymore I guess he decided there was no more reason to wake up.  Each of my three kids have started sleeping through the night at entirely different stages with different solutions (that is a whole new post in itself… maybe I’ll work on that one for another time.)

What I can say is that I really believe Happy Bellies helped improve my son’s digestion and may have eliminated some intolerances he was developing towards foods.  With the huge increase in food allergies amongst children these days such as reactions to peanuts, lactose, and gluten, I highly encourage parents to try starting their children on pro-biotics in their infancy to help strengthen their digestive and immune systems.

Check out the array of Happy Bellies cereals and products…

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In two months of making my own homemade baby food instead of purchasing it ready made in jars - I have saved $228

Here’s how:

Llany is now one year old.  He has been eating more than one jar of baby food per meal.  Typically he can eat two, stage 2 jars per meal which was coming out to a consumption of six jars per day.

I had been buying Earth’s Best organic baby food which ranges in price from $.74 – $.99 per jar.  For the sake of this comparison I rounded up to $1 per jar because in my state there is also added sales tax to consider.

So at $1 per jar, consuming 6 jars per day – I was spending $6 per day on baby food.

To keep this up, in two months time, this would cost me:

$360 for a two month supply of jars of baby food.

Since making all my own baby food, and providing even more than the portion equivalent of two jars per meal, it has cost me:

$132 for a two month supply of homemade baby food ingredients.

The following is a shopping list of products I used to provide TWO MONTHS of meals for baby:

(Not all items were purchased in one shopping trip.  Some of the fresh produce was purchased separately each month.)

Fruits

2 Bunches Bananas             Costco             $4 ea.               $8

2 Flats Pears                          Costco             $6 ea.               $12

1 Frozen Strawberries       Costco             $10 ea.             $10

2 Flats Apples                       Costco             $10 ea.             $20

I also picked up a couple cans of organic pumpkin and sweet potatoes at Trader Joes.  I’m not sure the cost, but it was only a few dollars and 1 can lasted me for a whole week mixed amongst all these other options.

Veggies

1 Orgn Frzn Grn Beans       Costco             $6 ea.               $6

1 Organic Frozen Peas       Costco             $6 ea.               $6

1 Organic Frozen Corn      Costco             $6 ea.               $6

4 Bags Avocados                 Costco             $6 ea.               $16

Base Mixers

4 Cans H.B. Cereals – Albertsons       $4 ea.               $16

8/32 oz. Org Yogurts    Wal-Mart          $4 ea.                $32

You can also use scrambled eggs, pasta, and rice that you already have for bases to mix with purees.

From the above shopping list I’ve been able to mix and match ingredients to create meals like this:

Breakfast: Fruits and Yogurt or Cereal

Lunch: Fruits, Veggies, Yogurt and/or Cereal

Dinner: Veggies and Cereal and/or Meat from family dinner – pureed fish, turkey, chicken, or beef

Snacks: Finger food fruit pieces, crackers, dry cereal

To find out more about how I prepared and stored my homemade baby food, click here.

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One of my home school philosophies is “Inspire and Require.”

I am thrilled to see the amazing things my kids come up with for school projects or their playtime, that comes from having been inspired by a story or idea. I am also thrilled to see their growth in foundational concepts because they have done the work I have required of them. If I can work some inspiration into the required things, that is the ideal situation.

Inspiration really is the best method for helping anyone learn anything.  When someone is inspired to pursue further knowledge in a subject, they take ownership of it and commit to learning it because of personal passion.

But, there is also a great deal to be said for the things we “had” to learn, and are now grateful that we did.  I wish my mother had “required” me to learn piano.  I took some lessons as a small child but I didn’t like taking them. My mother stopped making me go.  I wish she had “required” me to continue. Once I had gotten beyond the first few boring years and acquired some foundational skills in piano, I would have begun to appreciate it, own it, and pursue it on my own, looking for inspiration from the Masters.  Instead, I can only play Mary Had A Little Lamb, Heart and Soul, and part of Axel F… the theme song from Beverly Hills Cop.

Each week our home school time is filled with lessons and work that is required, as well as free school time when the kids are allowed to explore the books on our shelves, including the constant influx of library books, and to discover and come up with whatever kind of activities they are interested in, excluding television and video games.

Today was Columbus Day.

I probably should have done some sort of lesson on Colombus… but I didn’t.  In history we have been studying ancient times, so Columbus was nowhere on my radar… or my bookshelves.  Beyond that, truth be told, today was a free school day entirely, because Momma – that’s me –  needed to get some overdue cleaning done.  I mean the works! Corners and crevices, baseboards, nooks, and crannies.  It was just time!  I could not go another day with such an ignored mess lurking about me.

Remy spent most of the day drawing pictures, except for when she took a break to paint some pictures.  In addition, we read one chapter together from Return to the Hundred Acre Wood.

We also had a major breakthrough playing with Leapfrog letter magnets on the fridge while I was feeding Llany dinner.  Remy sounded out the words, “pig”, “bug”, and “big” completely on her own.

Leo spent the day building with Legos, defining Latin nouns, reading books about Egyptian Pharaohs and boy detectives, playing outdoor games with some friends, and… with my permission… helping Nana do some housecleaning upstairs…. In the home school world we call house cleaning “working on life skills.”

For me the day was a total success… except for the recurring guilt that I was completely ignoring Columbus.

I didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything but focus on cleaning.  Both Remy and Llany took three hour naps… extraordinary!

I didn’t even have to stop my house cleaning to make dinner, because Nana offered to make homemade Chicken ‘n Dumplins for the whole house.  She usually does this when the fall days start to turn cold, and today was the first fall day filled with gray skies here in good ol’ Southern California.  Tomorrow we are expecting rain.

I’m ecstatic! !

I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the rain!

Maybe because in these parts it’s so rare.

In addition to all of that, I weighed myself this morning and have dropped two pounds from last week.  Thanks Gilad. We won’t talk about the fifteen pounds Einstein has dropped in the last month with absolutely no effort.  Yep.  Just a freakish drive-by pound dropping for him.  No change in his eating.  No exercising…. I better just stop right there before this post becomes a rant about the things in life that just aint fair.

What was I saying?  Oh yes… total successs….

And to top it all off, after my entire day of guilt for not giving a history lesson on Columbus, Leo surprised us all with a dessert he and Nana made.

He called them New Land Cookies.  The sails are made from won-ton wraps, on toothpicks.

Nana said it was all his idea, which I entirely believe because typically we don’t allow the kids to have dessert on week nights.  Leo however will find any excuse he can to try and wiggle into a treat after dinner and of course today his excuse was Columbus day.

I must say I was thrilled however that he ended up acknowledging Columbus on a day when I completely dropped the ball and didn’t teach about him.

I just love great days like this.

Life is most certainly sweet!

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We live in a guest house, downstairs from Nana and Papa.  It has been a joyful experience living with my in-laws for the past seven years and one that comes with plenty of benefits, wonderful memories, and lots of laughs.  We couldn’t do what we do without them.

And ohhh the FUN we have!

I’m Rachymommy – a stay-at-home- / home schooling / soccer Mom.  If you want to learn more about me, check out my detailed profile here.

I refer to my husband as Einstein, and in posts about him in his younger years before we were married, I refer to him as “the boy next door.”

He’s a software engineer who writes code and is a whiz with all things electronic and technological.  He and I grew up in this town and had secret crushes on each other from a distance.  In college we ended up at the same bible study and finally started hanging out.  After six months of a blossoming friendship we began a courtship, and after six months of that, Einstein proposed and we were married a month and a half later.

We have three AMAZING children… so far!

Leo is our gifted firstborn.  He began reading at age two.  He is the reason I started home schooling.  At age four when I was considering the idea of starting him in kindergarten early, he tested into the second grade.

Though he is brilliant he is also a typical boy; he plays soccer and baseball and is obsessed with video games, Legos, and all things Star Wars.

His nickname is a reference to Leonardo da Vinci, one of the many inventors that fascinate him. Leo devours books and is constantly jotting down ideas for songs, stories, and inventions.

Rembrandt is our second-born.  She is a true girly-girl with the exception of her love for Lightning McQueen. Yes that racecar is on her sheets and comforter… No we are not NASCAR fans, just Pixar fans.

Remy is preschool age and is an entirely different creature than Leo.  She just began reading this year at age three and is interested in reading at least one “BOB book” (available in the teaching reading section of my store) each day, as long as she gets a piece of candy for it. She flits from one activity to the next at a mind boggling pace and nearly everything she spends her time doing has some kind of connection with art.

She is a lefty who began drawing little characters like this one at age two.

We find scribbles and doodles like this on notebooks, bills, mail, and any type of paper that lays around our house unclaimed.  Her nickname is a reference to her love for drawing, painting, coloring, sculpting (play-doh of course) and all things artistic.

Magellan is the newest addition to our bunch.  He is our toddling explorer who is still trying to get his sea legs. He is busy discovering this new world and trying to get a grasp on what everything is and of course what everything tastes like.

Llany LOVES his freedom during those short daily moments when I release him from the confines of his playpen or high chair and just let him roam.

Papa was born in Norway and has taught all his children and grandchildren to proudly boast about their Viking blood. Grrrrrrrr!!! He runs a construction company and builds office buildings, custom homes, churches and such.  He is a no nonsense hard working guy who knows nothing about pop culture… and that’s the way he likes it.  He loves to laugh and have fun and throw a line in the stream every chance he gets.  He has a deep wisdom that he keeps to himself unless one of us comes seeking.  He doesn’t watch movies and he doesn’t read books but he does love a good old fashioned game of darts or a day out in the hot sun on a boat or Seadoo.

Nana is an encourager.  She is the dearest, sweetest spirit you’ll ever meet who can’t stand to see our little ones without a tasty treat in their hands.  In her younger years she was an actress and a model and her face still shines with a beauty worthy of the silver screen.  Now she is the matriarch of this ever growing family and her prayers and spoken blessings cover all of us as we come and go.

We have one other member here at the commune (We used to have four other members until the spring of 09 when Einstein’s sister, her husband, and their two kids moved out of state to start their own business. Yes – if you’re doing the math – at one time there were twelve of us all under one roof.  But now there are only a mere eight.)

The Professor is Einstein’s younger brother who is living here while working on his Master’s degree in education… and ladies… this one is single. (And we are trying to get him married so we can have more cousins for our kids… shhhhhh)

He loves our little munchkins and they see him not just as an uncle but like a fun big brother.  He’s not really a professor stereo-type at all. He surfs and snowboards and just about every night of the week he is off playing some kind of sport… soccer, baseball, basketball, tennis, football, etc.  He does love to read though and he is working towards becoming a teacher of math and science.

Yep… we’re quite a clan!

If you stick around and visit often, you can look forward to many more posts about our jolly lives together.

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