Happy St. Patrick's Day

I can't think of anyone who needs to memorize square root approximations anymore, except perhaps carpenters and math tutors, but here's a trick I learned from a student ten years ago - for those of you who like kickin' it old school!

The Giggle Game

SAT prep for fun and rice

Use your brains to help others:
get started!

Yvie's smile

Finally, after being thwarted for eight weeks, we manage to capture the mega-smile!

Merry Christmas from Yvie

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night's sleep!

Baby Science Part 2: Lipase

When Yvie was about a month old, I started pumping milk so I could build up a frozen supply. The books all say that breastmilk stays fresh for about 4-6 days in the fridge, but it seemed that mine went sour much faster, usually in less than 24 hours. By the time I made this discovery, two months of diligent pumping had gone by, and I ended up having to trash my whole frozen supply of milk, as it had all spoiled before being frozen.

I figured the problem was:

a) the containers the milk was stored in
b) the sterilization of the pump
c) the conditions of the fridge
d) my bad habit of storing milk in the pump (not airtight) overnight

"Maybe it's you," my husband joked, after I established an elaborate scientific process to test each of the possibilities. None of the conditions I listed seemed to explain the problem.

Turns out my husband was right. Some women produce an excess of the enzyme lipase in their breastmilk. Lipase is responsible for breaking down fats during digestion - we all have it in our bodies and all breast milk has some to make the fats easier for baby to digest. My milk had so much of it, the fat in the milk was being digested in the first six hours after it was pumped, before it got to the baby or to the freezer.

The solution, fortunately, is fairly simple: scald the milk before storing it, and the lipase is inactivated. The drawback to this is that some of the immunological properties of the milk are also killed off during scalding. This would be more of a problem if I were relying on pumped milk for full-time feeding, but since Yvie only gets a bottle once at day at the most, I am not concerned about it. Since I started scalding milk, I notice it separates less and reconstitutes much more easily than it did before. And it no longer tastes sour, soapy, or metallic, even when it's a day or two old.

Yvie has been complaining about my reintroducing bottle feeding after almost three weeks off, but I am bigger than she is and I have more stubborn in me, so gradually she is getting used to having a bottle once a day. I breath a sigh of relief knowing that I will be able to leave her with Papa or with a sitter for more than two hours at a time.

Inspiring Glass/Mixed Media Art

Check out this cool project! This is the work of Crystal Schenk.
Link to Schenk's work at Sculpture.org

Anyone know where I can get an antique shopping cart?

Baby Science Part 1: Jaundice

Baby has jaundice, so I have learned a little more about it in the last few days. In the womb, babies need a really good oxygen supply so their blood is really thick with red blood cells. After birth, the blood needs to be thinner in order to flow into the smaller capillaries. (That's why newborns have bluish/cold feet and hands for the first few days of life.) As the red blood cells break down, a byproduct called bilirubin is produced, which is what makes the skin and eyes yellow. It is very common for newborns to have jaundice. At high enough levels, bilirubin can cause brain damage.

Bilirubin can be removed from the body in two ways - it can be processed by the liver and excreted, or it can be broken down by light through the skin. A newborn's liver is typically immature and cannot handle the large amount of bilirubin that is produced after birth, so one form of treatment is to feed the baby frequently (every two hours or so) to get the liver excreting waste (including bilirubin) more quickly.

The second form of treatment involves exposing the baby to light, often in a hospital setting in a light box. We did home phototherapy with our little one, as seen above as she napped in a sunny spot by the window. Her jaundice peaked on day four of life, and after a lot of sun time her levels were well past danger by five days old. Her eyes are still a little yellowish, but her skin tone is much more pink today.

Project Mini-Me (Latest Construction Project)

Look what we made! Yvie Rae was born Wednesday morning. (Pronounced "E.V.")

My mother says all newborns fall into two categories: the ones that look like Abe Lincoln and the ones that look like George Washington. So, is Yvie an Abe or a George?

Nursery Mural

Yikes, it's been a long long time. My life has been more about art than science, since chemistry class ended in May, so this is what I have to show for my absence of the last few months. I found a photo online of a quilt, which was based on a Tiffany stained glass design, which I modified (to fit the proportion of the wall and accommodate the crib) and freehanded. It took me about 20 hours, I think, since I listened to the new Harry Potter audiobook from start to finish.