snuffly snorty baby nose...

Baby was a fitful sleeper last night...she's usually my buddy, my little warm bean and we sleep so nicely together...but last night I needed to be up and about - trying to finish up a special birthday T-shirt  and breakfast muffins and hang the birthday banners for my 6 yr old Birthday boy (!) and I needed Baby to sleep in her basinet - which she did, but fitfully.  Was she missing me? No.  Turns out, she was just trying to breathe, is all.  Boogers blocking the blow-hole.  Yup.  Happily, we own one of these:

Not for the faint of heart, but then, neither is motherhood! You put the mouthpiece in your mouth and suck the boogers right out of baby's nose!  Never fear, no boogers get anywhere near your mouth - they hardly even make it inside the chamber where the tissue is waiting, mostly they cling to the sides of the 'soft comfort nose tip' and then you need to take it apart and rinse it out.  But it WORKS, and I think it's worth a few minutes of gross-out cleaning so Baby can breathe.  Goodbye old nasal bulb, hello BabyComfyNose!
Does she love having her nose sucked out? No, she does not. She cries.  (Kind of a wimp, this kid) But this thing, this BabyComfyNose is gentle, (I tried it on my own nose, it really is gentle, probably just startles her a bit) and it really works, really cleared her right up so she could go back to sleep, (and breathe!) and I could finish my projects.  Hallelujah! 

Baby talk...so far so good.

So, I had another baby.  Yup, I made a real baby, not another doll, though she is a doll!  That makes 6. (So far.)  I'm amazed.  Here she is sleeping. On her stomach.  (Oh my goodness.)

Do I need to explain here why I put her on her stomach? You want to hear my reasons and rationale? Well,  aside from the fact that over the last century doctors kept changing their mind about whether stomach, side, or back sleeping was/is 'best' and I doubt we've heard the last of that debate, suffice it to say that she's on flat, smooth bedding, I'm never far from her, and this is how she prefers to sleep. Unless it's night, and we're co-sleeping (oh dear) - then she prefers to sleep with her cheek on my breast after nursing (oh for goodness sake).
That's right, that's how we roll around here.  Co-sleeping, exclusively nursing, belly-lying babies -  every last one of 'em.  Well, really, so far, so good.
Would you like to meet her? Here she is: Veronica Autumn Pelagia Sousanis.  7 weeks old. With a bow on top.

She nurses, and BURPS, and nurses some more.  I've FINALLY learned the burping is super important.  Only took about 4 babies to figure that one out.  (They need to be burped? But not if you're breastfeeding, right? Wrong. Burp the baby!) Right from the very first feeding.  Don't bang them on their back, just put the baby upright so the burp can work it's way out.  Pat gently, maybe.

The best burper in our house (and by this I mean the person who can get Baby to burp the fastest and best) is big sister Aurora.  She's 7.  Big for her age, and clever, and very compassionate with the baby - she can't stand to hear the baby cry, and loves loves loves to carry her around.
Here's big sister A wearing baby sister V in a wrap.  (I Love it!)

So far, so good.  Probably Aurora won't be able to do this much longer, as the baby grows, but for now, it sure is nice to have another back to strap the baby to - mine's aching! :)

an Etsy Christmas (dolls dolls dolls)

Dolls dolls dolls dolls dolls I've got doll's on my mind and all over my table in my studio and slowly but surely dolls are finally showing up in my Etsy shop - hip hip hooray!!!!!!
Here are some sneaky peeks:

I'd show you my studio but it's a mess - which really, is kind of a good thing! :D

How I lost 65 lbs in 4 months (and got my life back!)

Hello.  My name is Autumn Sousanis.  I am a proud mama of 5 little kids.
 I also have a secret.

Until VERY recently, I used to be quite heavy. About 200 lbs. After the birth of my 5th baby I was heavier than ever and nothing I tried, not diet, not exercise, was working to bring my weight down.  And then, amazingly, I found an online 'fat cure' that promised to release my stored fat and - it DID!

Here's a before and after pic of me mid-way through my weight loss (after one round)...in the 'before' pic on the left I weighed 200 lbs, and in the 'after' pic on the right I weighed 160 lbs.



 
This picture of me and my family, was taken just this past Mother's Day (May 9, 2010).

That's the me that WAS.  Surrounded by my lovely family, but full of bitterness that I was so heavy, unable to be very active...some days it was hard to enjoy my lovely family...felt like life was passing me by...

here's another pic...me holding Olivia and Lucy...

We were flying kites, it was a beautiful, warm spring day in Michigan, a beautiful Mother's day...except I was about 200 lbs and hating myself...had to sit and watch, my knees were killing me...

Now, fast forward to October of the same year - after the happiest of Google searches led me down a path to rapid weight loss and total transformation, here's me NOW!

I feel like I have my life back.  If you want to know how I did it, go to this link here.

It will take you to the Trim You site (formerly known as Ketomist, and My Fat Cure before that.) where you can check out many many other success stories and where you can purchase the same homeopathic spray and follow the same Dr Simeon's Pounds and Inches Protocol and get the same online support that I did.  I can vouch for this homeopathic spray and program - because it WORKED!!!  And it worked without willpower! without hunger! and I feel better than I have in YEARS!  And, the best part? It's permanent.  At least, it sure seems to be - I did not gain weight over the holidays and it's been 3 full months of regular eating for me so far!

(Update July 13, 2012: Please check out my blog all about this subject called 'Autumn Weighs In' which is where I give you all the nifty details of my journey, including how I had another baby, gained another 65 pounds, and then, most happily, came back to my pre-pregnancy weight of 135 which is where I am again today.  I could not have done it without the spray, or at least never could have done it this fast, in time for bathing suit season!  Yay!!! I'm so happy for me, I wish I could help the whole world reach their goal weight!)

"Metabolic Syndrome."
Did I suffer from metabolic syndrome? Probably.
Following this protocol is supposed to permanently re-set your metabolism and 'fix' what is going wrong with your hypothalimus - Dr Simeons believed that obesity is a symptom of a larger problem, not the problem itself, and he was very successful in using injections of the pregnancy hormone HCG to help people easily and rapidly shed weight.  He found that 70% of his patients could expect their weight loss to be permanent but at the end of his life (d. 1970), he still could not explain exactly why it HCG worked, just that it DID work, and so he wrote his 35 pg book and left it to future generations to figure out the why of it all.  So, here we are 40 years after his death and many people are diagnosed with 'Metabolic Syndrome' these days and yet, really that is just a catch-all phrase that just refers to the metabolism not functioning well and the person is usually overweight and has a very hard time losing weight.  (Sound familiar?)
Interestingly, the metabolic hormones ghrelin and leptin that control appetite were only very recently discovered in 1994 and 1999, and we are still learning how the metabolism and hypothalimus function, and the complexities are mind-boggling.

My favorite part of all of this, though, is that I did NOT have to get the actual HCG hormone injections.  Instead, I took the homeopathic version of the hormone in a oral spray (Ketomist).
My mom thinks I've discovered the fountain of youth and my friends tell me I don't just look thinner, I look younger and seem revitalized!

It took me 2 rounds of the homeopathic 'Ketomist' spray to release 65 lbs of my 'forgotten fat stores'.  Each round took 6 weeks and I lost weight at the rate of nearly 1 pound per day for the first round, and .6 lbs per day for the second round!!! (the more weight you have to lose, the quicker it comes off)

And now I weigh 135! From size 'elastic' to size 8 in only four months!!!

I feel like a walking miracle.  So I want to tell the world: there is hope! There is a 'cure'! You don't have to be heavy!  You CAN release that extra weight and do it without killing yourself on the treadmill! Give your knees a break!  Heck, if I can do this - anyone can.  I had to take care of and feed 5 rascally kids the whole time I was losing weight and now I'm keeping the weight off easily and eating really well and not counting calories at all - it's just the BEST thing I ever did for myself!!!

So now, 65 lbs lighter, I go to yoga class, I bike with my kids, I go sledding, I take care of the house - I do all of the things I need to do and want to do and my knees don't complain anymore!

And this year, instead of sitting by and watching -  I'm flying my own kite.
:)

A brief history of Matryoshka, Kokeshi, and Daruma dolls

Matryoshka Dolls...Babushka Dolls...Dolls without arms or legs...Weird, right? But no, we accept this form of doll almost without question.
And a doll inside a doll inside a doll? Neat idea! From Russia, right? A long time ago?  Well, not exactly...

The very first 'Russian nesting dolls' as we think of them date back to just 1890.  And, although we tend to think of them as Russian, they owe quite a lot to Asian doll-making traditions!

Apparently the story goes that Sergei Malyutin, a painter from a folk crafts workshop in the Abramtsevo region visited the estate of famous Russian industrialist and patron of arts Savva Mamontov,...

...and there he saw a set of Japanese wooden dolls representing Shichi-fuku-jin, the Seven Gods of Fortune.

The largest doll was that of Fukurokuju 福禄寿,

a happy bald god with an unusually tall crown. Inside, nested the six remaining deities.

Kokeshi dolls are generally thought to have originated earlier, sometime in the 1600's.  Did you know Kokeshi dolls were/are often nesting dolls too? 

And 'lucky' Daruma dolls! These have no arms or legs because they are created in the likeness of Chinese Zen Master Bodidharma, who meditated in a cave for 9 years, losing the use of his limbs.  He doesn't look too happy.

And check out this progression of sweet-faced young boy to a grumpy old man! Ha!

ANYway, back to my story, Sergei Malyutin was so inspired by the treasures he saw at Mamontov's estate that he began to sketch...

...and he drew a Russian version of the doll. He then had Vasiliy Zvezdochkin carve 8 nesting dolls which he then he painted. The outermost was a woman in an apron, then the dolls alternated between boy and girl, with the innermost a baby.  This set (above) was presented to the Worlds Fair in Paris in 1900 and won a Bronze medal, as well as sparked a worldwide craze for the dolls and created a new Russian icon. 

These were mass produced, and yet I still find them charming...

The wonderful Russian nesting eggs of Faberge, were created during this same period, beginning in 1885...

And today, artists around the globe create their own version of these dolls. Some are wacky, some are beautiful, some are abstract concept pieces...   

this one is by Art. Lebedev Studio...

I too have been inspired by Matryoshkas...and Kokeshi...and all! 

These are some of my Matryoshka Mamas.  I call mine 'mamazakkas'. Like Malyutin, I find I'm more inspired by the idea of family and heritage than by the idea of Japanese deities or Chinese Zen Masters... :) Like many artists today, I am having fun creating my own versions.

The idea that we, the children, are embraced...literally, figuratively...the idea that we go on to embrace our own children...that they are inside us...and we are inside them... is such a lovely, lovely concept. Inspiring, really.

An idea that has legs, after all.  :)