Introducing Sammy Squirrel The Newest Nutter to Clan Peterson

The following is a video of Sammy Squirrel SNORING! Poor little guy(?) gal(?) was found in my parents' lawn with no sign of Momma Squirrel or siblings. My Dad brought Sammy in and through the wonderful interwebz they figured out what and how to feed him/her and about how old he/she was. Sammy was found on July 26th, and was about 3 weeks old, and since then has been hand reared by my parents. Turn up your volume to hear Sammy snore!


Aww, isn't Sammy sweet?!

Nestle-Free Week is Coming Up-Mark Your Calendars-Starting Oct 4th!

http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/

We are approaching International Nestlé-Free Week, which this year marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of the current boycott, on 4 October. In the UK children will be returning to school next month (September). Investigating Nestlé and thinking about Nestlé-Free Week and how to make change in the world, may be an interesting activity in the remaining days of the holiday and coming weeks.

The week is an opportunity to change our own behaviour and influence those around us, with the aim of changing Nestlé. Nestlé is the worst of the companies when it comes to pushing baby milk. It uses tactics that break standards agreed collectively by Health Ministries at the World Health Assembly and which undermine breastfeeding, so increasing the risk of sickness in babies, which, in poor settings, mean those babies are more likely to die.

According to the World Health Organisation, 1.5 million babies die around the world every year because they are not breastfed. Nestlé is the worst of the baby food companies and drives down standards for other companies. For example, when Nestlé ran a campaign advertising its formula in South African supermarkets at the end of 2007, the other baby food companies complained and the Department of Health said it was against such strategies. Yet Nestlé says it will continue to advertise its formula with claims that it 'protects' babies, even though it knows babies fed on it are more likely to become ill than babies who are breastfed. See:
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/07/nestle-driving-standards-down.html

Nestlé is a very big and powerful company. It cares more about making money for its shareholders than it cares about the lives of babies and their families. So what can we do?

In the UK don't buy any of these products:
Coffee - Nescafé including:
Alta Rica
Black Gold
Blend 37
Cap Colombie
Cappuccino
Caro
Decaff
Expresso
Fine Blend
Gold Blend
Kenjara
Nescafé Ice
Organic
Partners Blend

Dairy products
Carnation
Coffee-Mate
Extreme Viennois
Fussells
Ideal
LC1
Munch Bunch yoghurts
Rowntree yoghurts and ice creams
Simply Double
Ski yogurts
Sveltesse yogurts
Tip-Top

Confectionery & snacks
Aero
After Eights
Animal Bar
Baci Chocolate
Black Magic
Blue Riband
Breakaway
Caramac
Chocolate Cuisine
*Colgate Dental Gum
Dairy Box
Dairy Crunch
Double Cream
Drifter
Fab
Fruit Pastilles
Heaven
Henri Nestlé Collection
Jellytots
Kit Kat
Kit Kat Chunky
Lion Bar
*Lyons Maid Ice Cream
Matchmakers
Maxibon
Milky Bar
Munchies
*Nestlé Ice Cream
Polo
Quality Street
Rolo
Rowntrees Fruit Gums
Smarties
Toffee Crisp
Toffo
Tooty Frooties
Walnut Whip
Willy Wonka
Yorkie

Contact lens care
Alcon

Mineral/bottled water
Aqua Panna
Aquarel
Buxton
Contrex
Perrier
Pow-wow
San Pellegrino
Santa Maria
Valvert
Vittel

Other drinks
Build-up
Milo
Nesquik
Nestea

Processed meals
Buitoni pasta & canned foods
Herta
Maggi
*Osem/Tivall
*Rowntrees Jellies

*Cereals
Cheerios & Honey Nut Cheerios
Cinnamon and Golden Grahams
Clusters
Cookie Crisp
Shreddies
Fibre 1
Fitnesse
Force Flakes
Fruitful
Golden Nuggets
Nesquik cereal
Shredded Wheat including: Bitesize, Fruitful, Honey Nut
Shreddies: Coco and frosted


*Cosmetics
Biotherm
Body Shop
Cosmence
Garnier
Helena Rubenstein
Innéov
La Roche-Posay
Lancome
L'Oreal
Matrix
Maybelline
Metamorphosis
Plénitude
Redken

Pet Foods
Arthur's
Bakers
BETA
Bonio
Felix
Friskies
Go-Cat
Go-dog
Gourmet
One
Pro Plan
Purina
Spiller's
Vital Balance
Winalot

I Am So Looking Forwards To This Breastfeeding Program (Progamme)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1048622/Kate-Garraway-faces-outcry-provocative-photoshoot-shows-breastfeeding-calf.html

Kate Garraway faces outcry over provocative photoshoot which 'shows' her breastfeeding calf Crouched next to a calf which she pretends to breast-feed, Kate Garraway presents an unsettling image.

The GMTV presenter posed for the provocative picture to promote a documentary on women who breast-feed other people's babies.

'I'm on a journey to find people who believe milk has to be from the breast, people who buy it, sell it, people who give it away and people who even feed each other's babies,' said the 41-year-old.

'To many this might seem weird, but they challenge us that it's actually much weirder to give our babies cows' milk than it is to drink milk from another woman.'

For the programme, Miss Garraway met sisters who cross-feed their babies and surrogate mothers who produce two gallons a week for donation.

-AND-

“Because of the sexualisation of breasts, we don’t see them as the clever, brilliant things they are. . . . I want to go as far as possible to be provocative and shake people up, without actually being so offensive that I upset GMTV viewers.”

--Kate Garraway

-AND-

If she had another baby and couldn't breastfeed, she still couldn't see herself letting anyone else - but she would buy human milk from a milk bank.

"Before, I wouldn't have, because I'd have found it a bit icky. But I think now that's crackers, because why are we happy about giving it something from a cow's breast, which is another species? The women kept asking me, 'Why are you happy to give your baby milk from another species' - which is what formula is - 'but you're not prepared to give it from another woman?' And I said, 'I don't know. You're absolutely right. I've never thought about it. I'm bonkers.' "

--Kate Garraway

I can't wait to watch this program, which I believe airs Sept 9th. When my daughter was little, I took an Amish woman and her daughter, born a few days after my daughter, to an appointment at the dentist, at which time I had an appointment there as well just 20 minutes before her appointment. I wanted so badly to nurse her baby when she started to root around for some food, but I was worried that the mother'd be upset that I fed her at my breast. Come to find out later, She had thought about feeding my daughter when she fussed for food.

I'd love to be a wet nurse, I'd also love to donate milk, however like my blood now, and that I have lived overseas in a land that has had out breaks of bovine spongiform encephalophy, I cannot donate.

I'll have to report back on what I thought.

She's Free!

L can ride her bike without training wheels now! She can go where ever she pleases (with in reason, of course) I am so proud and so happy! I loved the freedom that bike riding gave me. It was my 5th birthday that my parents gave me my "Desert Rose" bike, complete with banana seat and basket. The basket didn't last long, but as soon as I could, I learnt to ride that bike and it was my friend for 5 solid years. It had many tire changes, fixed chains, oiled chains, and new paint jobs. It took me to and from 3 different schools from 6 different houses, and around 3 different towns and one farm, to and from midweek sunday school, and caught A LOT of air time over the bajillion dirt ramps and curbs I'd jump. It took me to friends' homes and around the block a million times, and numerous adventures. It took me straight to Skinned Knee-ville and Road Rash Town and (gasp) Thunked Noggin City where there were no such things as helmets. I'd crash and burn, but would ride that banana-seated bike, with my wounds bleeding, scabs healing, bumps and all with pride.

I saved that bike for many years at my grandparents' farm for if I had a little girl and she'd want to ride my banana seated bike, but alas, my aunt Toni, in her infinate wisdom, deemed it only suitable for the junkman and threw it away about 5 years ago. (sigh)

So my Dear Dear L, enjoy all the adventures that your 2 wheeled freedom will take you. Enjoy the ride!

Ahh Take a Stroll With Me Down Educational TV Memory Lane

I love that you can find almost anything on youtube. I started singing the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 song to Alex and thought to look it up on you tube. It was how I learned to count to 12. After 12 it became a bit fuzzy for a while. From the Sesame Street song, it lead me on to Schoolhouse Rocks--I loved schoolhouse rocks and I learned about how my heart worked from these simple songs and cartoons to how to multiply. My favorite by far is the Electricity song, and I startede singing along with it, whilst M looked at me like I had grown two heads and a third arm. Poor him, I learn him! I'll learn him good! LMAO!!!!

Random pictues-just because I can!

Baby Sign Language

Nods to Alex's Auntie diana, this site, My Baby Can Talk is awesome to learn some basic American Sign Language (ASL) and then start using it around and to babies. Babies, even those with perfect hearing, benefit from sign, and some even start to communicate with signs before they can pronounce the words.

We use the signs "eat, Mommy, Daddy, play, diaper, toilet, kitty, and bath" with Alex and although he has yet to sign them back to us, there is definite recognition of the signs at what we are talking about. I have chosen to use the sign "eat" rather than milk as the sign for milk looks like milking a cow. I am not a cow, nor drinking another species' milk (bovine) should be normal for human babies. Alex gets excited when we use the sign for eat, and will quite literally go from crying to giggling in a blink of an eye, quickly followed by a good long breastfeeding session.

I am really happy with the baby signing and I plan on learning a lot more signs to teach Alex AND Z and L.

Pacifiers--M'buh-bye Now!

Most Breastfeeding experts agree that introducing pacifiers to infants before breastfeeding is fully established can be detrimental to the breastfeeding relationship by causing nipple confusion. I agree. I am not a huge fan of the plastic, latex, silicone artificial comfort devices, however I have given them to all 3 of my kids. I can handle comfort nursing, to an extent, however after a while *I* feel twitchy and my nipples will feel twitchy, itchy, and sore. So when all the kids were a day or two old, I gave them pacifiers as a sanity saver.

Now one of my pet peeves with pacifiers (besides them being called 'dummies' over here in the UK) is seeing 2, 3 even up to 6-7 year olds walking around with them in their mouths, and talking around them like Pop-eye the Sailorman talking around his pipe, Blech!

I can say with Z and L I have been very fortunate and they gave the pacifiers up themselves at about 6-8 months old. I am happy to say that Alex, at 7 months, no longer wants his Yay! I can toss them out! M'buh-bye!

TV Ramblings

So here I am, flipping through channels and I paused for a second on Boobwatch, er, I mean Baywatch and it actually got me thinking (cut to gratuitous Pam running slow motion shot) No no no Not THAT way! I thought about all the "Hit" TV shows that I never watched and if I really "missed" out on popular culture.

I have never watched a full episode of afore mentioned Boobwatch, or Full House or even Beverly Hills 90210, not even a smidgen of Melrose Place. I have lived quite happily not watching Survivor or its spin offs. Couldn't stand Fear Factor the one time I saw it. I can't stand A Baby Story or any of the like, and I'd rather poke my eyes out than to watch more than a moment of Friends-another show I have never watched a full episode.

I also never got caught up in the boy band craze that was New Kids (puke) or any of their follow-ups of 98 degrees of backup boys. Never did like M Jackson, he never Thrillered me. I never liked anything by Stevie Nicks or Tom Petty as they sound like billy goats singing and evils of all evils- they did a DUO! Blechetty Blech blech! Billy Ray never made my Achey heart break. And the Marcarena was heinous. I never found Madoona sexy-ever. She was (is) too whiney for me.

Did I miss out? Ahh but I did (do) have some TV shows that I love to watch and some are purely garbage food for the brain. I Love love love ER, I miss Dr. Green, but all in all, I love ER. I like watching anything with Gordon Ramsey in it, sometimes for recipe ideas, sometimes for the bollicking that he hands out to idiot restaurant owners, as his swearing and particular unique to Gordon hand gestures make me giggle. I really like the UK version of Big Brother and the funny and unique presenter Davina McCall (who by the way homebirthed her children and said that if she wasn't a BB TV presenter, she'd be a homebirth midwife!) I even have an entire season of BB UK on DVD. I love watching formula 1 racing with M and his family, and I cheer for Lewis Hamilton. I like Buffy and Charmed, and have yet to start watching shows like FireFly and Angel, but I want to.

And, dun dun dahh, in spite all my efforts not to want to watch, I am getting into the English TV staple of the last 40 years or so, in it's various reincarnations, Doctor Who! To borrow from another Sci-fi favorite, Resistance is futile! Z and L's dad is a big Doctor fan, Z is a huge Doctor fan and loves any Doctor toys that I send over. M, being the proper Brit that he is, grew up watching Doctor Who and as a kid, being grateful that Daleks couldn't go up stairs (not the case of newest, badder Daleks that fly now a days) and now Alex, yes the 7 month old baby, will stop whatever he is doing just to watch the opening or end credits and gets excited during the credits. So I started watching and I enjoy it as well as Torchwood.

To make up for the junk food TV that I do watch, I watch a lot of the discovery channel and history and other educational programs And I love cooking and do-it-yourself home make over programs.

And then there are days, much like today, that I like the TV off, and just sitting on the floor playing and singing and nursing my baby.

Oh, and my naughty little secret popular music like that will likely ruin all music creds with my brothers--I like to listen to Nickleback.... Oh the shame.....

The Newest Member of the Family

With the help of my folks', and some wonderful sellers, we have a pretty green minivan back home. She's got all the bells and whistles and a good motor and transmission. I can't wait to drive again.