Mattel Recall – Check the list
Aug 15 2007

Many of you have probably heard about the Mattel recall.  Well, the list is growing.  My sister and a mom in my neighborhood mom’s group sent me more info on the recall.  For the latest list of what items have been recalled please check http://service.mattel.com/us/recall.asp frequently.  They just put up some items today: 8/14/07. 

Fortunately, our son’s birthday was after the initial recall announcement and I don’t think he got any of the toys mentioned in today’s posted list:

08/14/2007	Mattel Playsets with Magnet Hazard Recall
08/14/2007	Barbie® Doll and Tanner™ Magnet Hazard Recall
08/14/2007	Pixar Cars Sarge Lead Paint Hazard Recall

Musings of a Texas Gal in NYC – Exploring Power Dynamics in the “Executive Suite”
Aug 14 2007

At the Working Mother Multicultural Conference (POWER: OWN IT. — USE IT. SHARE IT.), I attended a fascinating workshop called Exploring Power Dynamics in the “Executive Suite.” Some very high level women discussed their experiences on their way up the ladder.  The workshop was coordinated by Dr. Vanessa J. Weaver of Alignment Strategies, Inc.  Dr. Weaver is wearing the wonderful royal blue suit on the very far left of the picture below.  I’m the 6th person to the right of her wearing the lighter blue/turquoise top (in a future post I’ll mention this top again).

The primary thought leaders of the group were:

JoAnn Heisen, Chief Diversity Officer and former CIO at Johnson & Johnson
Susan J. Onuma, Partner at Kelley, Drye & Warren, LLP and President of the Japanese American Association in New York
Aida Sabo, Director of Diversy at EMC
Sheryl Tucker, Executive Managing Editor at Time, Inc.

They shared openly and honestly about their experiences in corporate America…the good, the bad, and the ugly…from personal to professional stories.  I was fortunate to shake hands with each of them and have since exchanged email with some of them.  I wish them all continued success and appreciate them sharing their POWER with us during this workshop!

We discussed:

Austin milk bank celebrates National Breastfeeding Month
Aug 13 2007

UPDATE on 8/15/07:  Kim Updegrove just sent out a a correction to this story.  Tammy Duclow actually donated 12,000 oz (which is still an amazing number) and not 200,000 oz.  She donated 12,000 oz in a year where they processed 200,000 oz.  Makes my 500 oz seen so small…

As some of you know, I am an avid supporter of the Mother’s Milk Bank at Austin.  In honor of National Breastfeeding Month, they highlighted an amazing donor!  See below for the story.

Austin milk bank celebrates National Breastfeeding Month

Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin helps babies grow with donated breast milk.

By Andrea Ball
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Tammy Duclow is a master milker.

After the birth of her last two children, the Dallas woman decided to donate her excess breast milk to the Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin. She pumped in the morning. She pumped at night. She pumped so much that her friends and family started calling her the Duclow Dairy.

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

(enlarge photo)

By the time she retired from active milking duty in 2005, Duclow had donated 200,000 ounces — about 1,562 gallons — of breast milk to the Austin milk bank.

“I felt blessed and honored to be able to do that,” said Duclow, 43.

August is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, a time for advocates to push the health benefits of nursing infants. Doctors say breastfed children get fewer infections, score slightly higher on IQ tests and have reduced rates of diabetes, obesity and allergic diseases. Health benefits to nursing mothers include reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

But some mothers can’t provide milk for their babies. That’s where the nonprofit Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin comes in.

The milk bank was created in 1998 by two Austin neonatologists who wanted to ensure that breast milk could be provided to premature and sick babies, who are six to 10 times more likely to contract life-threatening intestinal infections when fed formula instead of human milk.

In 1999, the Austin milk bank collected about 40,000 ounces of milk from 50 donors.

Last year, the bank had 280 donors. The milk bank sent more than 57,400 bottles of milk to 30 hospitals and 44 outpatient babies.

“It’s used to ensure the health of the next generation,” said Kim Updegrove, the milk bank’s clinical director. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Duclow started donating her breast milk after the birth of her second child in 1999. The Dallas mother noticed how much milk she was producing and didn’t want to dump it. A lactation consultant suggested that she work with the Austin milk bank.

After an intense screening process that included taking a blood test and providing an extensive medical history, Duclow started donating. She loved the idea of helping sick children through something that came so easily to her.

“I will never be a brain doctor or save anyone that way,” she said. “But this was one time I could say, ‘I’m helping save a life.’ ”

But it took a lot of work. Duclow had to watch what she ate and avoid alcohol and certain medications. She took blood tests every six months. She also had to pump milk two hours a day.

The result is that Duclow has donated more breast milk than any other person in the milk bank’s history.

“It’s God’s blessing,” Duclow said. “It’s not something I can take credit for.”

For more information about the Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin, call 494-0800 or go to www.milkbank.org.

aball@statesman.com; 912-2506

Do You Need A Wife?
Aug 13 2007

A friend sent me a link to this article: Wedded to Work, and in Dire Need of a Wife in the New York Times by Shira Boss.  My husband is great and does a lot of things to help with the kids and the house, but I’m still the one making sure the parties get planned, the thank you notes get sent, the gifts are bought for other kids parties, schedule the kid’s doctor’s appointments, etc.  Mostly because my schedule is more flexible.  I have to say I do love planning their parties though.  Our son just had his 5th birthday party (I’ll blog about it later) and it was so much fun! 🙂

Now that women have solidly earned their place in the work force, many find themselves still yearning for something men often have: wives.

“The thing I most want in life is a wife. I’m not kidding,” said Joyce Lustbader, a research scientist at Columbia University, who has been married for 29 years. “I work all day, sometimes seven days a week, and still have to go home and make dinner and have all those things to do around the house.”

It is not just the extra shift at home that is a common complaint. Working women, whether married or single, also see their lack of devoted spousal support as an impediment to getting ahead in their careers, especially when they are competing against men who have wives behind them, whether those wives are working or staying at home. And research supports their argument: it appears that marriage, at least marriage with children, bolsters a man’s career but hinders a woman’s.

One specialist in women’s studies dismissed wife envy as something women “are usually joking about” and another called it “a need for a second set of hands, regardless of gender.” But therapists who work with couples on equality issues say it is no joke.

“I hear it all the time,” said Robin Stern, a psychotherapist in Manhattan and author of “The Gaslight Effect.” “It’s a real concern. Things that used to be routinely taken care of during the week are not anymore.”

With two-income families now the norm, and both men and women working a record-breaking number of hours, the question has become how to accomplish what used to be a wife’s job, even as old-fashioned standards of household management and entertaining have been relaxed. Many men are sharing the work of chores and child care with their wives, and some do it all as single parents, but women still generally shoulder a greater burden of household business (or fretting over how to do what is not getting done). 

According to 2006 survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in five men engages in some kind of housework on an average day, while more than half of women do.

more…

Baby Say Cheese!
Aug 10 2007

It’s close…it’s close!  So close I can taste it!  We will soon be launching our new photo album/family tree application that integrates with Baby Manager called Baby Say Cheese (version 1.0). 🙂

We were lucky enough to obtain the domain www.babysaycheese.com using the GoDaddy discount at eMomsatHome.   Anyone who purchases a subscription (for themselves or as a gift) from now until August 20, 2007 will have access to this new feature for their subscription period for Free!  So even if you want to buy a gift for a baby shower you are going to next month or for a co-worker, a customer, a vendor who you know will be having a baby even 4 to 6 months out if you purchase now the subscription will automatically include access to Baby Say Cheese because the subscription period does not start until they activate it!  Please check out our coupon page for any additional employer negotiated discounts. 

After launch, anyone signing up for a FREE account will also have access to Baby Say Cheese.  We have also made a few updates to Baby Manager which include:

• Inserted hyperlinks from home page summary boxes and Mom & Baby summary pages to the appropriate entry pages
• Added a copy down feature for the Add 10 pages for our users who don’t have a mobile device and use our custom forms for breastfeeding, pumping, bottle feeding, medicine, and diapers…this makes entering info MUCH easier if you have to do it all at once!
• some minor bug fixes

Unfortunately Safari 3.0.2 has presented some UI challenges for us because it is different enough from all the other browsers out there.  Although the applications work on prior Safari versions without a problem.  I think this all has to do with the iPhone.

We also plan to update our Babble Soft web site but given everything going on, I think that might take a bit more time to fit into the schedule.  😀

Now for some pre-release screen shots of Baby Say Cheese.  The final version will have a few cosmetic changes.

Family Tree

Album

Slideshow (all information noted below ‘Age: 4 weeks’   is optional)

 Email to a Friend (all information noted below ‘Age: 4 weeks’  is optional)

Baby Tip by Babble Soft – Increasing Milk Supply
Aug 9 2007

When helping my cousin with her new baby during my trip to NYC, I was reminded of some tips to increase milk supply.  When my first was born, my milk didn’t come in until over 10-14 days later.  I was recovering from an emergency c-section and was exhausted.  I was so distressed that I wasn’t able to provide enough food for my son that I often broke down in tears.  When he was a week or so old, my mom, husband, and I took him to a local mother’s store and with the help of a wonderful lactation consultant I weighed him, fed him, and weighed him again.  I freaked out because he weighed exactly the same as before!  Talk about feeling like a bad mommy.  However, after a few minutes we all realized that we had forgotten to put his socks back on when we weighed him the second time, and he had actually gained some weight!  Phew!  I can laugh about it now but boy at the moment…

Well-meaning lactation consultants and nurses told me repeatedly that I shouldn’t supplement.   I felt guilty (ugh!) about doing it, but I had to and I’m glad I did.  A few weeks later once my milk was in we no longer needed to supplement.  When my daughter was born, I had no qualms about supplementing the first couple of weeks of her life because I knew with certainty she would breastfeed exclusively and it gave me some time to recover a bit faster.  This time my milk came in within 3 to 5 days.  So here are some ideas from my experience and my cousin’s:

Fenugreek. This seed is commonly used in pill form to increase milk supply.  Fortunately for me, it is often used in Sri Lankan and Indian cooking and since my mom was here the first couple of weeks my kids were born I got to eat lots of tasty curries cooked with fenugreek.  I’m convinced this is what helped bring my milk in faster.  I’ll never know for certain but it was a yummy endeavor nonetheless!

Dark beer.  My cousin was advised to drink dark beer to help increase her supply.  We were both discussing how it was too bad that she wasn’t advised to drink a lot of red wine…which we both love.

Garlic.  I also ate a little more garlic than normal in the curries my mother made, but I have heard that some people will eat so much that their milk starts smelling like garlic!  They say that babies like the flavor/smell of garlic in their mother’s milk so they suck harder and eat more.  Go figure!

Whole grains/Oatmeal.  I’m not sure how this works but it’s probably related to why dark beer is helpful.

Rest. Sleep. Warm Showers.  Although it’s very hard to get any rest those first several weeks home, it’s probably what the body needs most to help stimulate milk production.  When you sleep, relax, and rest your body has time to make milk without added stress.  Stress has been shown to decrease milk supply because your body is using it’s energy for things other than making milk!

Aruni

***

Note to new readers: these tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers.  Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby.  If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to babblesoft blogger for possible inclusion.  Please check the ‘baby tips’ category to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted.  If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip.  We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because as is noted in our inaugural baby tip ‘everything is relative!’  We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!

Pimp My Blog
Aug 8 2007

Randa Clay at randa clay Design is running a Pimp My Blog contest and a lucky winner will win a custom blog logo with a custom header!   Oh I so hope it’s me because I desparately need to figure out a better blog design but I don’t have the time or more importantly the design skills to do it properly.  As I mentioned in my 8 Random Things About Me post, I love Randa’s lime graphic in her header.  It’s so vibrant and makes me think about sitting on the beach sipping margaritas!

I’ve been keeping up with her blog for a while now and she writes such informative posts for us new bloggers!  Her post on The Ultimate Guide to Free Website Analytics is a MUST read.

I have even added her blog to My Technorati Faves and joined her community on MyBlogLog.

Randa – please, please, oh pretty please pick me! 😀

Aruni

Musings of a Texas Gal in NYC – Working Mother Conference – Instant Polling
Aug 7 2007

Soon after the Opening Keynote with Dr. Bertice Berry at the Working Mother Multicultural Conference (POWER: OWN IT. — USE IT. SHARE IT.), they did a fascinating Instant Polling session sponsored by Ford Motor Company.  To view the pdf version of the full PowerPoint presentation courtesy of Working Mother Magazine, please click here: Instant Polling Presentation.

Some of the slides I found most interesting are as follows: 

I was thrilled that over 55% of attendees made more than $100K!  We’ve come a long way baby!  I am in in the 7% group making under $49K because I’m starting my own business.  In the early days of a startup you are lucky if you make anything!  If luck smiles on us, then I will be in the > $100K category some day!

Women feel most powerful at home because that is where they have seen/been told their role is in society.  Even top executive women generally feel the same according to this poll.  Also, unfortunately if they feel they do have power in the workplace, it presents challenges in their intimate relationships (i.e., we have a hard time finding an equal partner who is comfortable with our power.)

It was interesting to see what super power each person would like.  I think I voted for the ability to time travel, but I remember it being a toss up between that and reading people’s minds.  I guess I figured if I could time travel I would figure out how to read people’s minds. 🙂

Other things I found interesting:

+ 42% of attendees did not have children (despite it being a Working Mother Conference)

+ 32% were mid-level executives and 15% were senior level executives

+ 43% of Asian-Americans, 41% of Caucasions, 35% of Latinas, 40% of Multi-racial women, and 46% of Men felt “My confidence in my skills and knowledge makes me powerful.”  Whereas 38% of Black/African American, 100% of Native Americans, and 46% of Men felt “My belief in my purpose in life is my source of power.”  Keep in mind I think there were about 5 guys and 2 Native Americans.

More posts to come on the conference…

8 Random Things About Me
Aug 5 2007

A blogger I admire a whole bunch, Connie Reece of Every Dot Connects, tagged me for the 8 Random Things About Me game (meme?).  I’m not sure what a meme is but it seems like a ‘tag your it’ kind of game and then you have to spend a bunch of time crafting a respectable blog response. 🙂

She helped me get up and going with my first blog and has given me advice and suggested connections that I should make in the blogosphere.  All out of the kindness of her heart.  What a big heart!  I still have no idea what her “I’m my own first cousin” statement means.  I made the mistake of commenting on her post as follows:

Me: What an interesting post! I don’t even know if I could come up with 8 random things about me because none would be as interesting as yours.

Connie: Oh, Aruni, of course you could come up with 8 random things about you that would be interesting! Consider yourself tagged. Write that post, link back here, and tag 8 others — some of your fellow mom- or dad-preneurs or other Austin Business Bloggers. I bet that if you  get started on it, you’ll have fun.

Me: Yikes! You’ll see from reading my blog that I’m up to my ears in software testing, but I will certainly give it a go later this week. I think some of the people I have met in the blogosphere have already been tagged in this game.

So here it goes:

1. I was born in Sri Lanka.

2.  I used to ride on the University of Texas at Austin Equestrian team (which apparently does not have a working website) in undergrad.  I always seemed to pick the craziest horses during competitions!

3.  I used to work at Mr. Gatti’s Pizza my junior/senior years in high school and the summer after my freshman year in college.  I love their parmeson mix.  My co-workers had a nickname for me: Pep-Aruni.  Get it?

4.  I have lived in Sri Lanka, England, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Texas.  I have traveled to many more places than that.

5.  I have lived in Texas now for 27 years.  8 years in Lubbock (Happiness is Lubbock, Texas in my Rearview Mirror was my favorite Mac Davis song), 4 years in Austin, 4 years in Dallas, and now 11 years back in Austin.

6.  My first paying job was a paper route in Lubbock when I was 13 years old.  I remember the cold, icy mornings delivering the Saturday and Sunday papers and the sometimes hot, dusty afternoons delivering the evening paper.  I did this all on my 10 speed bike with one of those shoulder bags with pouches in back and front to hold the papers while I pedaled.  I threw the paper with one hand and tried to avoid crashing with my other.  Ah, those were the days…

7.  I like to sing but right now I usually only sing in the car to the Top 40 tunes.  After Babble Soft makes it (crossing my fingers), the next thing I will pursue is a singing career…probably won’t get too far since I’ll be in my 40s (or maybe 50s) by then. 🙄

8.  I’m married to a White guy named Erin who grew up in Mexico City and who you would never know is 100% fluent in Spanish.  He was born in the US and then moved to Mexico City with his parents because his grandmother (who is 86 years old) runs a restaurant there.  He’s sometimes smarter than me and that’s why I married him. 🙂

Now I am not sure if I know 8 bloggers to tag since I’m still a new blogger (4 months and counting) and I’m not Marc Andreessen, but here we go (in no particular order).  I’ve included links to the posts of those people who have already been tagged:

1.  Carole Hayes – Alias Tex: Telling thier story to every stranger that arrives.  Carole happend upon our company site by seeing a blog post at The Lactivist.  Carole is one of our biggest fans and she is awesome!  A news station in Dallas, WFAA, ran a story on Babble Soft on August 2, 2007 and she was the subject of the story.  Interestingly, one of my friends in Dallas saw the piece and called me to tell me that she and Carole where in the same Mom’s group when her eldest daughter was born almost 7 years ago!  Small, small world…

2.  Clay Nichols – Daddy Clay’s Blog: it’s only pee – A fellow Austin, Texas entrepreneur demonstrating that it’s OK to be a great dad!  He is co-founder of dadlabs.

3.  Maryam Scoble – Maryamie: Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble’s musings about Life, Love and Everything Else… I heard about Maryam from none other than Connie Reece.  She met Maryam’s husband, Robert Scoble, during SXSW, a music and film festival to end all festivals, held in Austin every year.  Connie actually gave him a 6 month gift subscription to Baby Manager because apparently Robert and Maryam announced their pregnancy on twitter (still haven’t figured out what twitter is yet) but as of today we don’t know if Robert lost it or left it somewhere or even remembers meeting Connie.  Maryam is so nice and responds to my comments on her blog.  I’ve commented a few times on Robert’s blog but he seems to think I’m not worth acknowledging….probably because I’m not Marc Andreesseen.  I just saw that he got Faceslammed by Bill Gates which makes sense if you think about it.

4.  Thom Singer – Some Assembly Required  – Thom is a fellow Austin blogger who I’ve known for years.  He writes books on networking and how to be the best networker around!  He recently got back from a trip to Ireland and said he kissed the blarney stone.  My challenge to him is that the next time I see him, he has to demonstrate his newfound ability to persuade people to do things he wants them to do.

5.  Mack Collier – The Viral Garden: blurring the line between company and customer.  Mack has given me some links to some informative articles about business blogging and much needed words of encouragement!

6.  Randa Clay – Randa Clay Design (already tagged) – I love her current ‘juicy’ lime graphic on her blog!  I know I need to change my blog header but I haven’t had time to figure out how to modify the css file.  I would love to have one as vibrant as hers someday.  Her lime graphic makes me wish I was on a beach sipping margaritas. 🙂

7.  Jennifer Laycock –  The Lactivist: nursing out loud! (already tagged) – I admire her ability to get the word out about breastfeeding and offer her support and insight to so many of us who need it.  I like the fact that she’s not preachy and aims to highlight the facts and the laws surrounding breastfeeding.  She acknowledges that breastfeeding doesn’t work for everyone and we should not look down on women/families who choose to bottle/formula feed.  I totally agree!  I found her site, while doing follow up research on our launch press release and she posted a “not so flattering” post about Baby Manager.  I think I have since recovered…barely…  😯

The following are ‘long shot tags.’  They are people who I know are extremely busy at the moment but would I’m sure have great responses if they have the time to respond.  However, if one of them does answer (or points me to the post where they have already put down their answers to this game), then I would have met my requirement of 8!

8.  Wendy Piersall – eMomsatHome: starting, running + succeeding in home business and blogging.  I have learned SOOO much from her blog about ‘how to blog.’  She’s amazing.  I will be doing a guest post for her in the near future.   I heard about Wendy from again, none other than Connie.  Connie met her at a conference and told her about me and later told me about her.  Thank goodness because I wouldn’t have made as much progress on this blog without Wendy’s tips!

9.  Marc Andreessen – Blog.Pmarca.Com: Often Wrong. Never in Doubt.  I am fascinated by his writing on high-tech business start-ups especially since I’m on my second high-tech startup.  When he was accepting comments, he actually replied quite often to my comments which was like ‘wow, Marc Andreessen responded to me on his blog.  Totally cool.  I matter in the universe now!’  He recently wrote a post called Why a startups initial business plan doesn’t matter that much.  I totally agree.  Now I can just mention Thomas Edison when someone asks me for a business plan.  I emailed him to see if he would mind me tagging him, but haven’t heard back.  I so enjoy his thoughts on startups that I’m hoping he will have the time to tell us 8 Random Things about himself.  I even created a category just for him. 

I think the protocol is that you link back to this post when you make your post.  It has taken me days to construct this post from contacting people to see if they would mind being tagged, to determine if they had already been tagged, to adding links, etc.  I’m cross-eyed now.  I’m not sure I can handle another tag but I hope it’s clear why I could not leave Connie’s tag unanswered!

Musings of a Texas Gal in NYC – Working Mother Conference – Dr. Bertice Berry
Aug 3 2007

The opening keynote speaker at the Working Mother Multicultural Conference (POWER: OWN IT. — USE IT. SHARE IT.) on July 23, 2007 was Dr. Bertice Berry, Educator, Lecturer, Sociologist, and Author of:

When Love Calls, You Better Answer
I’m On My Way, But Your Foot is On My Head
Straight From the Ghetto
You Might Be Ghetto If
You STILL Ghetto 

She is downright hilarious!  She had us practically rolling on the floor laughing!  Oh and she’s also a beautiful singer.  She sang for us and the room was still.  She is famous for saying “When you walk with purpose, you collide with destiny!”

I was only able to speak to her for a few seconds.  Sadly another woman blatantly interrupted our 45 second conversation making my conversation with her a bit disjointed.  I’m not sure why people do that.  I try to stand back and let people open and finish a dialogue with a speaker out of respect.  I also try to find times when the speaker is not so overwhelmed with people trying to talk to her to introduce myself. 

Despite the interruption, I could just feel the POWER she exuded.  I plan on getting her recent book When Love Calls, You Better Answer.  She was selling books at the conference but the table was so crowded, I figured I’d better buy it on Amazon.com later.  Maybe she’ll see this post and let me buy an autographed copy directly from her! 😀

Pictures by: Rohanna Mertens of Doug Goodman Photography

More posts to come on the conference…

The Go-To Mom
Aug 3 2007

Kimberly recently reached out to me to tell me about her new venture TheGoToMom TV where she publishes a series of videos for parents.  She has some great stuff on her site.  We chatted on the phone for a while and we discussed each of our business goals.  I will be checking out her site from time to time to learn new things about parenting.

I found that the most compelling reason to visit her site came from my phone experience with her.  The entire time she was on the phone I barely heard her baby in the background.  She told me that she has her baby with her all the time and most people don’t even know it because he is so quiet and keeps himself preoccupied.  Wow!  I think his great behavior might have something to do with his personality because I know that if I’m on the phone or trying to do something on the computer, my kids find every excuse to come ask me things and whine about something.  OK…do I have to admit that I might have something to do with that?!?  But just in case she has some advice on how to accomplish that feat, I’ll be sure to watch her videos.   She even has a video called Stop the Whining! 🙂

About The Go To Mom:

www.TheGoToMom.TV is a How to show for families with young children (newborn to 6). The ‘Go To Mom’ addresses parenting issues, discipline strategies, development activities and much more. The show also presents cutting edge research about the development of the young child’s brain. Call into the Talk Show and get your parenting questions answered live!  Various specialists will be featured periodically. Los Angeles based, former preschool teacher and licensed child development therapist, Kimberley Clayton Blaine, is the Go To Mom. Kimberley is dedicated to teaching parents how to adopt a positive child-rearing stance and to use their authentic self in deciding what type of parent they would like to be. This last decade, Kimberley’s main research efforts have been focused around the Impact of Trauma and Aggressive Child Rearing on Childhood Brain Development. Kimberley currently teaches Early Childhood Brain Development and Positive Discipline Strategies at UCLA Extension Education Department.

Kimberley is well known for her warmth, ingenuity and willingness to reach out to families in need of state of the art child rearing resources. In her own words, “I am here for children, every time I try to branch out I end up back in the preschool classroom – that is were I’m destined to be.”

Kimberley Clayton Blaine, MA, MFT
www.TheGoToMom.TV

A Record I Do Not Wish to Break! Quintuplets.
Aug 2 2007

In nearby Cedar Park, Texas a couple just had quintuplets (yes 5 babies).   I wish them luck and will contact them to see if they would like a  a free subscription to Baby Manager.  I wonder if she will try to breastfeed or pump…

Cedar Park couple gives birth to record-breaking quintuplets

Babies and mom are healthy

By Melissa Mixon
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, August 01, 2007

A Cedar Park woman gave birth to quintuplets Tuesday morning, breaking a national record in the process.

The three girls and two boys weighed a combined 21 pounds, 7.2 ounces, besting the previous heaviest quintuplets by 6 ounces, according to doctors at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix.

MORE ON THIS STORY

• Meet the Wilkinson quints

Dave Cruz

(enlarge photo)

Rachelle Wilkinson of Cedar Park says hello to one of her newborns moments after delivery Tuesday morning at a Phoenix hospital.

Rachelle Wilkinson and her babies were doing well after the Caesarean section birth there, family members said, and people across the country were already calling Tuesday to congratulate and offer donations.  

It’s Central Texas’ second set of quintuplets; the first was born in 2002 to a Kyle family. “It was kind of overwhelming,” said the babies’ father, Jayson Wilkinson.

“They started bringing all of these babies, and they were all crying and wiggling. It was one of those sort of surreal things to think all of these kids are mine.”

The couple already had two young children but had been trying to have another baby since early 2005. After four months, Rachelle Wilkinson, 31, was told by doctors that she was not ovulating and would need to try fertility drugs. Every night, Wilkinson injected a shot of Gonal-F, a hormone that stimulates egg production, into her leg.

They knew there was a chance for multiple births. Twenty percent for twins, 5 percent for triplets, they were told. The prospect of quintuplets never came up.

In December, the couple learned Rachelle was pregnant. Three weeks later, they went in for her first ultrasound. When the doctor started moving the device over Wilkinson’s belly, one beating heart appeared on the monitor. He moved it again, and another appeared.

“After a few seconds of looking at it, he just kind of held out five fingers and said, ‘There’s five,’ ” Jayson Wilkinson said.

Shock followed.

“I said, ‘How can this happen?’ ” Rachelle Wilkinson said. “There really isn’t even a word to describe that feeling when they tell you have five babies in there.”

The couple quickly contacted Dr. John Elliott, an expert in multiple births in Phoenix. Elliott has helped deliver 88 sets of quadruplets and seven sets of quintuplets in 20 years.

In April, Rachelle Wilkinson moved in with family near Phoenix so that she could be close to Elliott and his staff.

Her belly soon ballooned so big that her 4-year-old daughter, Kaiya, couldn’t get her arms around it. Instead, Kaiya would kiss it five times.

Though the average time for quintuplets to be in the womb is 28 weeks, Elliott said, Wilkinson wanted to carry the babies for 34 weeks to ensure they were healthy. That lengthy term itself was just a few days shy of another record.

Family and doctors say all of the infants are healthy — two are on respirators, and the largest has been moved to the regular hospital nursery. The smallest baby weighs 3 pounds, 6 ounces, and the largest weighs 5 pounds, 1.2 ounces.

The Wilkinsons said they expect to stay in Phoenix for two weeks before coming back to Cedar Park.

Jayson Wilkinson plans to take a little time off from his job with National Instruments, an Austin software company, to help care for the babies. Rachelle Wilkinson used to teach statistics at Austin Community College but plans to stay at home for now.

A fellow mother of multiples, Susan Friar of San Antonio, has some advice for the Wilkinsons: create a schedule, and remember that each child is an individual.

“Life with multiples is so much fun because of the bond that they have together — and the fact that it’s rare. You’re like a traveling circus everywhere you go,” said Friar, a mother of triplets and a board member of the San Antonio Area Mothers of Multiples group.

In 2004, 86 sets of either quintuplets or higher were born in the U.S., according to the National Organization of Mothers of Twins Club, a support group for families of multiples.

Rachelle Wilkinson said she and her husband always wanted a family that was big enough to fit comfortably in a minivan.

“I guess we’ve outgrown that,” she said.

Learn more

To contact the family or make a donation, visit www.wilkinsonquints.org.

mmixon@statesman.com; 246-0043

Musings of a Texas Gal in NYC – Working Mother Conference Opening – POWER
Aug 1 2007

What a fabulous opening!  I don’t think I have ever attended a conference with such an energetic opening.  Believe me…we were ALL awake at the end of it.

The Drum Cafe got the audience involved by asking us to use these wonderful different colored musical tubes called Boomwhackers that we had in front of us.  The leader of the group had each table use their boomwhackers to create harmony in order to help us begin the process of getting in touch with our Power.  The theme of the Multicultural Women’s conference was POWER: OWN IT. — USE IT. SHARE IT.

The flower girls from Drum Cafe were beautiful!  Several of us felt quite confident that we would not be able to wear those outfits and look as great as they did! 🙂

The picture below is of the dancers dancing to the music we were making with our boomwhackers.
 

Pictures by: Rohanna Mertens of Doug Goodman Photography

More posts to come on the conference…

Baby Tip by Babble Soft – Babies (or Snakes) on a Plane!
Jul 30 2007

I was reminded of this tip during my trip to NYC.  I’ve only recently begun traveling more without the kids.  So far my husband and I have always been together when traveling with them making it more manageable.  While on the flight to NYC there was a baby boy who looked anywhere between 14 and 21 months old flying as a lap child.  He was screaming and crying non-stop for the first 30 minutes of the flight resulting in looks of annoyance from nearby passengers.  Those of us who have kids looked on with sympathy. 

After a while, I passed up a mostly empty box of white tic tacs which when shaken miraculously calmed him down.  It was the only thing I had in my purse that I knew my kids loved to play with.  My kids are old enough to eat them now, but we often used them as mini-shakers when they were younger to distract them.  His father passed it back after a while when the baby had gone to sleep, but I don’t think he or his wife realized it came from me.  Of course after the baby woke up he started screaming again just before we landed.  I again passed the tic tac box up and again the baby calmed down.  I did not receive the box back and the family I guess decided to take the box with them which I was hoping they would do given it worked for their baby at least two times.

Other easy things to do or keep handy when traveling with a baby (especially on take off and landing to help them clear their ears):

• breastfeed or bottle feed (my husband helped me breastfeed on a plane by holding up a blanket or re-positioning it if the baby kicked it off, which happened often)

• give her/him a pacifier

• give him/her a small lollipop to suck on (only if they are old enough to eat hard candy!)

Happy flying!

P.S.  In case you are not in the US and didn’t see all the hype about the movie Snakes on a Plane, rest assured I was trying to be funny when I say (or Snakes) in the title. 😀

***

Note to new readers: these tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers.  Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby.  If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to babblesoft blogger for possible inclusion.  Please check the ‘baby tips’ category to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted.  If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip.  We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because as is noted in our inaugural baby tip ‘everything is relative!’  We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!

Speaking of Software Testing…
Jul 30 2007

Since I’m now home in Austin, it’s back to software testing for me.  I subscribe to the Dilbert comics email and I just had to share the last two comics.  Oooh, I just love Dilbert. 🙂

Updated Sep 20, 2007: Well it seems as if the source of the Dilbert comics I had originally displayed has disappeared so all you see now is a box with a little red x. I have emailed Comics.com asking if I could display them directly on this post, but have not heard back. I’m sure they are probably laughing while reading my email. Suffice it say, I guess you’ll have to imagine what they looked like.

The first one was of Dilbert and his pointy-haired boss discussing software testing. Dilbert asks pointy-haired boss why he took out his entire automated software testing budget for the new project he’s working on. The Boss tells Dilbert that he and his team can develop the automated software testing…since they are after all developers. Plus since the Company already pays him then it should be free.

The second one shows the Boss asking why the project won’t be done on time and Dilbert says ‘because you eliminated our software testing budget.’ Boss then says something like, ‘don’t look at me, I’m not the one who can’t get his job done.’

Well a picture is worth a thousand words and I didn’t memorize the comics so I’ll leave the links up to the dilbert site on the off chance they put the comics back up because I’m sure it will make much more sense than my description!