Who is Champuru? 
Aloha, I'm Donna, known everywhere on the Internet as "Champuru." I'm a Christian, blissfully wedded to my perfect match (the yang to my yin) of 15 years and a stay-at-home mom to my miracle baby, born in October 2008. Living life in Hawaii, less than 5 miles from my hometown, seeking balance in her pursuit of family, faith, recreation, and rest. Read more on the About page.
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Dot-Com Days
In the days before dot-net.
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As Baby Champuru (17mo) improves her communication skills, life gets more interesting. I discovered recently that Baby Champuru considers me her possession.
If Hubby is tenderly holding my hand, massaging my shoulders, or even touching me in the most platonic way, Baby Champuru screams, “MINE!” and waves him off. If he doesn’t heed her warning, she will attempt to forcibly separate us by pushing Hubby away from me. We may be sitting on the couch and if I’m leaning my head on Hubby’s shoulder, Baby Champuru will run from across the room and set Hubby straight. “Mommy belongs to ME. Don’t touch my stuff!”
Is this normal — or do I need to be concerned?
I am so sick of being sick.
Baby Champuru developed a fever on February 22, nearly two weeks ago, which turned into croup, and now she just has a persistent mucousy cough and a runny nose. Not long after, I got sick — then, Hubby. Now my parents are sick. Be warned: those baby germies are potent and latch on to anyone who has contact with them!
Being mostly sequestered indoors for two weeks is not good for my mental health. Yesterday, we hit the mall for a few hours, which was therapeutic for me, but perhaps resulted in us overexerting ourselves. Today, we’re all lazing around the house recuperating.
I called the pediatrician’s office this morning and talked to the nurse about Baby Champuru’s progress. Since she’s still coughing, the nurse prescribed Albuterol and advised to keep her on it for another week. If the cough doesn’t improve within a week, we will need to bring her in for a follow-up visit.
In this milieu of sickness, it feels like a long, dark tunnel and I still can’t see the light at the end.
 Thanks to @lavagal, I recently rediscovered the wonders of Alltop. They were kind enough to feature my blog in the Moms topic; it’s a great honor to be included in the illustrious Alltop directory.
I’ve created a custom MyAlltop page which features the feeds to the news/blogs on topics that matter most to me. My topics run the gamut: world/national news sites, parenting blogs, tech buzz, Mac stories, blogging/writing tips, social media tidbits, and Photoshop information. You can create one for yourself, too. They have feeds for practically every topic under the sun to feed your need for information.
Recently, mom had a hankering for banana bread. She gave me her tried and tested recipe on an old discolored newspaper clipping that was probably as old as me. I tried it and it was much better than the modern, newfangled recipe that I had been using — and this one had less ingredients. It even worked well with apple bananas. Giving it away is the hardest part. (I just want to eat all myself!) 
1 cup butter or margarine (2 sticks)
2 cups sugar
6 or 7 ripe bananas, mashed
4 eggs, well beaten
2-1/2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
Cream margarine and sugar thoroughly. Add bananas and eggs. Sift dry ingredients; blend into creamed mixture. Do not over mix. Pour into loaf pans. Bake at 350º F for 45-50 minutes. Do a toothpick test: it’s done when the toothpick comes out clean.
Enjoy!
On Monday, February 22, I wrote that Baby Champuru had developed a fever. Her fever peaked during the wee hours of Thursday morning at 103.5º F and did not break until Friday. This is our first experience with such high fevers and I was constantly worried about the chance of febrile seizures. During this past week, I was on the phone with the pediatrician’s office about half a dozen times and brought her in-office twice. At both visits, the doctor checked for signs of infection or wheezing, and assured us that it was just a cold and we just needed to ride it out.
Although her fever had gone by Friday, she started coughing — or more like “barking,” which started during the wee hours of this morning. It was frightening to hear her barking like a seal, laboring to breathe and obviously upset by it. The more she cried, the worse the coughing became. Thankfully, I’m still nursing her and was able to calm her with the Great Mommy Pacifier and she fell asleep. She woke several times throughout the night and each time I nursed her back to sleep.
All of this in between the excitement of news flooding my Twitterstream of an imminent tsunami to hit Hawaii in the morning. Needless to say, it was an anxious night for me and I got little sleep.
After the tsunami warning was canceled today, Hubby went out to buy a room humidifier. I never thought I would be buying a humidifier in Hawaii. After all, this isn’t Nevada. Isn’t Hawaii humid enough already? But advice from numerous sources and experienced parents poured in, all of them suggesting bringing Baby Champuru into the bathroom while running a hot shower — or using a humidifier. We did both and she seems to be doing better so far.
I’m hoping for a markedly less exciting night. I could use the rest — especially since now I’m the one that’s sick, too.
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