Pretty freakin' adorable!

Dontcha think?

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"Doesn't anyone love us, mama?"

Henry pointed out earlier that I hardly ever have comments on my blog. Except sometimes from Will (thanks, man). So maybe leave a comment occasionally so I'm not just talking to myself. Love you.

Liberal hippie? Me?

Sarah and I were talking the other day, and I mentioned to her that within the past couple of months, Dennis has accused me of being both a liberal and a hippie. I never thought those words could be applied to me. I can't even remember why he said I wasn't conservative, but I've been thinking about the hippieness. There's a cute little quiz, "How Crunchy Are You?", that's been floating around the internet for a while. So now we can all see how crunchy (aka granola, aka hippie) I truly am. And see what you are, too, for that matter.
"Let the troof be told!"

How Crunchy Are You?

The crunchy factor indicates how much of a natural mama you are. Take this fun little quiz, and then see my score below!
*I starred my answers.

Do you have homebirths?
15 points for “yes” (unassisted)
10 points for “yes” (with a midwife in attendance)
5 points for alternative birthing center
2 points for “thinking about/would like homebirth”
0 for “no” (wouldn’t consider it). *

Will you circumcise future sons?
5 points for “no”
0 points for "dunno"*
-5 points for “yes”.

Do you use cloth diapers?
20 point if you do Elimination Communication (no diapers)
15 points if “yes” (wash and make your own) *
10 points if “yes” (wash your own)
5 points if “yes” (diaper service)
2 points if “thinking about it”
0 points if “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

Do you observe your fertility signals using Natural Family
Planning/Fertility Awareness and use that for birth control/trying to conceive?
10 points for “yes” (observe and use for birth control/ttc) or you use ecological
breastfeeding/lactational amnorrhea
5 points for “yes” (observe for trying to conceive) *
2 points “thinking about it”
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

Do you breastfeed exclusively for the first 6+ months?
10 points if “yes” *
5 points for “no” (use occasional bottles of expressed breastmilk)
2 points for “no” (use occasional bottles of formula)
0 for “no” (don’t breastfeed by choice).

Do you co-sleep/family bed?
10 points for “yes” (all night every night)
5 points for “yes” (part/all of most nights) *
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no”.

Do you use a sling/soft carrier?
5 points for “yes” *
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it).

Do you believe in/practice child-led weaning
(even if that means breastfeeding for several years)?
15 points for “yes” (complete child-led weaning)
10 points for “yes” (up to 3 years)
5 points for “yes” (up to 2 years)
2 points for “thinking about it” *
0 points for “no” (you’ll wean the baby at 1 year or earlier).

Do you tandem nurse/nurse during your pregnancy?
10 points for “yes” (nurse during pgcy and tandem nurse)
5 points for “yes” (nurse during pgcy, but wean before birth)
2 points for “thinking about it” *
0 points for “no”(wouldn’t consider it).

Do you eat organic/whole/natural foods and limit your meat?
15 points for “yes” (grow own/buy organic, shop only at health food store,
grind own wheat, vegetarian, etc.)
10 points for “yes” (grow some of own food, buy organic,
use whole wheat flour, bake own bread, eat some meat occasionally)
5 points for “yes” (try to buy natural, whole grain foods, etc.)
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it). *

Do you use herbal/homeopathic remedies?
10 points if “yes” (very rarely see a regular doctor)
5 points if “yes” (but use a doctor occasionally)
2 points if “thinking about it” (see a doc for now)
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it). *

Do you homeschool?
10 points if “yes” (currently homeschool)
5 points for “yes” (will homeschool)
2 points for “thinking about it”
0 points for “no” (wouldn’t consider it). *

What's your take on childhood vaccinations?
15 points for no vaccines
10 for delayed, selective vaccination
5 points for selective, on schedule vaccination
2 points for thinking about not vaccinating
0 points for vaxing on schedule. *

Would you/have you ever breastfeed/fed someone else's baby
or have someone else bf your child?
10 points if yes (have or someone has bf your baby)
5 points if yes (would)
2 points if maybe
0 if no (wouldn't consider it). *

Do you use cloth/re-usable products for mom?
10 points if yes (make own)
5 points if yes (buy own)
2 points if thinking about it *
0 points if no.

Ratings
120 – 140 Super Nutty, Ultra-Crunchy Granola Earth Mama
90 – 119 Mmm! Love that whole-grain crunch!
60 – 89 Pretty Crispy
20 – 59 Sprinkled with Granola
5 – 19 Instant Oatmeal
0 - 4 Jell-O

My score was 46, sprinkled with granola. Therefore barely even hippie, right? ha.
Mostly I got points for the diapers and exclusively breastfeeding.

But I bet no one that reads my blog has a crunchier score than I! Feel free to post your scores.

Our new digs

Not a great photo, I know. Yet another ranch. But a nicer ranch than we have now, I guess.
I did have a link to the listing, but my husband is PARANOID, so I took it down. I'll be happy to email it to you, if you care. Not that it's very exciting. :)

We found a house!

It's not our dream house, but probably our in-between house. I would link you to the listing, but it's not on the market yet. Well, it was technically listed at 7 pm on Friday, and we signed the contract at 3 o'clock Saturday. And of course we didn't take any pictures. But you'll get to see it soon enough. We're closing by June 23rd hopefully.

I did have very (okay, too) high hopes about an older home downtown that's being redone. Once we got there, though, we realized it was not at all what we want. Yes, it's old, but it's not in good shape, and the new kitchen and baths don't really fit with the feel of the house. Plus the wood siding is in awful shape. So the old house dreams go on the back burner for a while.

We hung out with Jacob and Kelly this weekend. Henry had a good time. I think there may be a resemblance:

Here's Henry in his brand new Bumbo seat.
Doesn't he look so grown up? *tear*

And the fancy play tray:

Who needs two anyway?

Kidneys, that is. We finally know that Henry only has one.

In case you don't know the backstory, here's the catch-up: We've known that Henry's right kidney was atrophic (aka, tiny and underdeveloped) for a while. (I did have about 40 ultrasounds, you know.) At about 3 weeks of age we did a renal ultrasound, which confirmed a small right kidney that didn't look functional.

Today was the Mag-3 renal scan, which is a nuclear medicine study that can be used to evaluate kidney function. It showed what I was expecting, absolutely no function on the right side. Another renal ultrasound was also done, which showed that the right nubbin was smaller, but the left kidney is growing bigger than average to compensate. That's actually a good thing. His total renal function (measured by BUN and Creatinine blood tests) is also totally normal.

So what does this mean for Henry? Not a whole lot, except he needs to avoid NSAIDs (like Motrin or Aleve), he'll have yearly checkups on his blood pressure and probably repeat renal ultrasounds to check on the left kidney. And if he wants to play contact sports, he'll need a special super-expensive custom molded kidney protector. If only we didn't have that ultrasound in our office, we could have gone on blissfully ignorant of this. Lots of people walk around with one kidney their whole lives and never know it until they get radiologic studies for some other reason and happen to find it.

It certainly isn't keeping him from growing.

Sorry no pictures today, just talk.

My diaper model

weighs 17 pounds!
He's wearing the big boy diapers now!

We have hair!

and general adorable-ness