Sorry, for not posting!

I am greatly sorry for not posting these past few days but I have been trying to update the store with new products! I will make up for it in the next few days! I am working on a few pieces for the blog but waiting to hear back from the people in them. I am going to have to start way ahead on these to keep up! I promise not to let you guys down, I know I have a few dedicated readers already. There is someone that works at Kaiser Permanente in Walnut Creek that reads the blog and goes to my site, I'd love to give them a family & friends discount since I used to work there pier diem with SSI. If you are that person please email me at Ana-Lidia@Boobba-Baby.com and I'll email you the permanent discount link. I am also extending to all the blog readers an opportunity to also get a permanent discount link. All you have to do is sign up for the Boobba Baby store newsletter and indicate in the sign-up questionaire that you are a blog reader. Once you have confirmed your newsletter sign-up by clicking the link in an email that will be sent to you, I'll email you the discount link. Thanks again for your patience and for staying tuned to the blog, I'll blog 2 you later!

Give them the titty!

okay, so you've gotten over that initial time in the hospital and the first couple of weeks at home and the breastfeeding has been going great. All of a sudden you realize that everytime this little perfect human is hungry or needs comforting you either pick him up or the hubby brings him to you. It starts to dawn on you how overwhelming it is to never be able to run away from this child. Yupe! You pretty much have to be there for him especially if you hav not introduced a bottle to him with either formula for supplementing or expressed breast milk. Yes, I know the last thing you want to do is go and hook yourself up to a pump after baby has been on you 24/7! So, by now you've probably gotten a swore nipple or two maybe even some cracks! Now you wan tto cry, you want to give up and brestfeeding might not sound as glorious as all the feminist once told you. For heavens sake your not a cow! Those are your breasts why does the hubby tell you to feed him everytime he cries? Why does he keep bringing to you? Okay, calm down. I know I have been there and it is overwhelming and I wanted to quit too! I yelled at my hubby and told them that they were my breasts, that I wasn't a cow and to give the baby a minute to cry, I needed a minute! The thing is the second to fourth months of brestfeeding can be the worst. I am at month ten with Davin and sometimes I still feel overwhelmed. It isn't easy being a food source. Human nature has in these days become more about our consumption not our production. You are made though to be able to feed that baby. You just have to stick it out and the negative feelings are normal. If you have a way of getting them out so you don't feel like you have to keep them inside, please do so! Each day you add to your breastfeeding resume will make it easier for you to add another week then another month. Before you know it the baby will be weaned and you'll have your breasts back. I have to find the link but I read somewhere about a culture (I think it was in Japan?-where the A Bomb went off) that each time the baby cried he/she was given the breast. Babies in this culture were allowed to breast feed as often as they wanted throughout the day without much concern when the last time was they nursed. On this island all babies were breastfed and there was no incidences of depression, in fact they had no psychologists on the island. I found this info to be very interesting and it keeps ringing in the back of my head when everyone comments how happy Davin is. He is pretty much a super smiley baby, mostly happy, never colicky and if he gets upset I nurse him. Just as the mom's from that culture did. If this gives him a chance to grow to be a confidant, independant and content man that does not suffer from depression, I'll have given him a great gift; even if it means a year or so of being a milk maid. When I find that article I'll link it here! Blog 2 you Later!

The Truth about Breastfeeding, part 1

So, today I feel like talking about something most of us mothers do or at least try to make an attempt to do, breastfeeding. I want to share my truth about breastfeeding here candidly so that other mom's can know that they are not alone in their struggles with motherhood. From time to time I will do this since I have found that we girls like so much to paint pretty pictures and not share the ugly drafts with one another. Motherhood isn't easy and it can be pretty lonely sometimes, especially inside our own heads where we obess about our abilities as mom's. I have three sons with each I had a different brestfeeding experience and with each I had different circumstances that may have influenced the relationship between child and breast. Read on to learn my truths about breastfeeding... When I had my first son, he was taken to the ICU for about 8 hours for observation. When he got back to me he had been given a bottle or two and would not latch on to the breast. I also delivered him via C-Section in a military hospital where there was not one nurse to be found that was a lactation consultant. None of the OB nurses showed much interest in helping me learn how to put baby to breast and I wasn't born knowing how to do that. I unfortunately did not have my mom near either so after about a month of crying and giving him bottles I found a lactation consultant in my area through the internet. She was wonderful and helped me get him to latch on. I even used a bottle that hung around my neck and had a silicon tube attached to my nipple to supplement my almost depleted milk supply, with formula. I soon had to return to work fulltime. Breastfeeding him did not last very long. I pumped milk for awhile but it was too frustrating and he mostly got formula. This experience made me feel like a complete failure. I had wanted so badly to breastfeed him and I had failed mesirably. It really hurt and to this day I feel very guilty about not having found a way to make it work for him. With my second son I had the most incredible team of doctors and nurses in the world. My second baby seemed much easier to breastfeed. He and I had some struggles at first but we got it after much help from an OB nurse or two. I returned to work 3 weeks post-op because we desperately needed the money since I had been on bedrest for about 3 months. I had a wonderdul breast pump that I used but working in the OR did not permit me to pump regularly. I breastfed him and formula fed him until he was about four months. The more time I spent at work the less breast time he got. Yet, I still pumped until he was about nine months old for him to get occasional feedings throughout the day of breastmilk. With him I had less feelings of guilt because I knew I tried harder and knew more as a mother. Well, now my third son is 9 months old and he has not gotten one bottle of formula yet! I am a stay at home mother which helps emmensely with breastfeeding. The keys this time were how much I wanted to breastfeed him, how easily he took to the breast and how much support I got from the hospital nurses. It was so incredible to have my C-Section in a hospital that has a small OB department. The nurses made me feel at home, partly because I used to work with some of them, but mainly because they are true professionals and many are breastfeeding advocates! Not one time did any of them run in bombarding me with bottles of formula. Not one time did they try and enable my quitting when it got rough. They stuck by me and helped baby and me get through the first day which is the roughest. By the day I left the hospital we had it and the visiting Pediatrician commented on how I was a breastfeeding pro since he was my third. Internally I laughed if she had only known the troubles I had before. My youngest is still on the breast and I haven't found any need to supplement with formula, but the last nine months of breastfeeding have not always been easy. In another post I will tell you about the ups and downs we have had the last nine months. For now I hope that you new and experienced mom's got something from this post. I know how it is to suffer in silence about whether or not we are doing what is right for our children. I guess that is part of the reason I share here with you guys. Just know that if you breastfeed or formula feed however you do it that is the right way for you, that child and that particular moment. Don't let anyone make you feel like you are not doing it right and don't think that you have to do it like the others. Mothering is an art form we all master in a different manner. I bet that some of the best babywearing breastfeeding mommas can't bake cookies and some of the best cookie makers are stroller pushing formula feeding mommas! If you get my point I have yet to meet the perfect mom but I have meet some awesome moms who all do the best they can! I am very grateful that you continue to read my words, even on days like today that I ramble! Blog 2 you later!

One Mom’s Quest for a Flexible Work Arrangement

For years Robin Bengston had worked for a Fortune 500 company and truly loved it. When children were added into the mix she still loved working for the company but found the lack of flexible work arrangements a hassle. When their second daughter was born both Robin and her husband were looking for ways to adjust their lifestyle from the hectic chaos that having both parents work full time outside the home presented them. They wanted to spend more time with the kids but still maintain their lifestyle. Robin knew that the sacrifice would have to be going part time but that was easier said then done. Her solution was an idea she had years before when her first daughter had been born that involved wonderful clothes from South Africa. She yearned to start her own clothing boutique, she even had a name, but how would she do it, when would Kaboodle Kids become a reality?



Robin knew that if she just did it the clothes would sell themselves, she remembered how much she wanted the clothes when she first saw them. She first noticed the beautiful clothes on the children of her husband's business associates they socialized with. Their children were dressed in the most adorable clothes that were so unique and fun. Robin's first question was “How do you get these clothes?”. She begged her husband to bring clothes home from his business trips to South Africa back for their baby girl. All of Robin's friends and family always wanted some for their own kids, so Robin thought that she could probably find them some on the Internet. After looking all over the Internet she became frustrated that she could not find them. She resorted to being content with the clothes her husband brought back.



The hectic lifestyle was becoming more of a rat race when her youngest was approaching the age of two. Robin was consumed with the idea of bringing those clothes to the States. If she loved the clothes so much, many other moms would too. The risk and timing was never quite right until…she realized that staying in the rat race and losing out on her dream was riskier than not taking the BIG leap. Kaboodle Kids would become reality in December of 2005, when Robin quit her full time job. She went to South Africa and brought home for our shopping pleasure only the best. The web site http://www.kaboodlekids.com/ went live in late March 2006, quite by accident I hear. Oops, she wasn't ready for her first sale but she was very happy that the clothes were now selling themselves as she once thought.



I am very grateful that Robin's husband encouraged her to start blogging about her journey along the road of small business ownership. In fact she didn't even really know what it was until her husband told her. He sat her down one day and they set up her blogsite and she was left alone to start blogging. At first she didn't know what to say. She was cautious about expressing her feelings out there where everyone can read them? Why would anyone want to hear about how she made Kaboodle Kids or really care about what she had to say?---Well, I for one was very fortunate, as I started my own journey I secretly read about Robin's. I found much encouragement and guidance along the way each time I read her blog, until I contacted her recently and thanked her for sharing. To read more about Robin's journey visit her blog Play At Home Mom! I am sure you will relate to her honesty and humor even if you are not a business owner.

You too could get free money...

Okay, so you've heard those stories about people suddenly finding this large amount of money that the state was holding for them and you think, Bull#*@!. I know, I know, I was right there with you until the other day. I have to first give a shout out to my little bro, thanks for the free money AJ! I always knew mommy had you for a reason! Okay, so the story goes like this. I'm on the phone with AJ (the little brother) and he is offering to take the kids so, Doug and I can go on a date for our anniversary. I said no and he said well, we can watch them so you can work on the web site before Doug comes home. I asked to talk to his girlfriend and we chit chat a bit then I hear AJ in the background. He's asking her to tell me to go to some web site. He gets back on the phone and asks if I can go to the state web site where they post who's got money waiting for them to claim. Thinking he's full of it, I say sure sweetie what's the address. He gives it to me and tells me that he has gotten a letter twice now when he has gone to the DMV that someone by his name has money that needs to be claimed that is being kept by the state treasurer. I'm thinking well, there might be some reality to this because although we call him AJ, his real name is very different and I think my mom might have made it up, so he must have money. We look and to all my surprise after filling out forms and waiting for a PDF download I have the pleasure of telling him that he has to claim $70.24, from some old job that never paid him. He said thanks, I'll get the form from you later, we chatted some more and got off the phone. I sit in front of the site page about to click it closed but I start thinking about how much I wanted to avoid working on the web site. I figured why not play around on this new site by entering the names of people I knew. Why not start with my last name, it is unique enough that how many Bjorkquist's would pop up? Low and behold, Lidia A Bjorkquist pops up. Holy SH*$, I think, little ol'me? Yes, so I start filling out the forms and call my sweet little brother back. I tell him and as he is telling me, "If you get more than me I am going to be MAD!". I tell him hold your horses we don't know how much yet and then I break into a hysterical laughter. AJ had to just get used to being mad because I had $975.05, waiting for me from an old job, too! Yes, nearly 1000 dollars that had gone unpaid to me for over five years that the state was holding. I couldn't believe it. So, for you go and check your state's website of unclaimed property. Goggle the state you live in and the words unclaimed property for example: CA Unclaimed Property. Check out the site! Each state does it a bit different, I've come to find out. Oh, yeah I checked the other sates I had lived in too! No more money for me though. You might have some cash from insurance, real estate, a job you left, or an inheritance, who knows. You might have nothing, but the state charges you nothing for checking or claiming your money, so why not give it a try? If I hadn't played around thinking I'd find nothing my money would have gone unclaimed for who knows how many more years. Good luck to all and I hope you find more than I did. If you pass this information in an email to friends and you might just be helping them find free money, also. Thanks for taking the time to read my words. Blog 2 you later! See below Non-believers! TOM GALLAGHER CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER STATE OF FLORIDA CLAIM NUMBER : C1457810 Form DFS-UP-107 LIDIA ANAIN BJORKQUIST Claim for Unclaimed Property Pursuant to Section 717.124, Florida Statutes - CLAIM FILED BY OTHER THAN THE APPARENT OWNER NAME OF OWNER(S) : BJORKQUIST, LIDIA TYPE : PRIMARY NONE TYPE : DESCRIPTION OF REPORTED PROPERTY : CLAIM AMOUNT:$975.05 CASH BALANCE : $975.05 ACCOUNT NUMBER : 13591491 COMPANY NAME : JUPITER MEDICAL CENTER TYPE OF PROPERTY : WAGES, PAYROLL, SALARY TO FILE YOUR CLAIM, FOLLOW STEPS 1 THROUGH 8.