52 Acts of Random Kindness, Week 10, 11, and 12

You're how far behind?

I know I'm running just slightly behind on getting these three weeks posted, but alas Piper has been developing so quickly these past few weeks that I've barely had the time to absorb it all, which I am trying to do so I don't miss a single moment, and that's where my priorities have been focused.  This growth spurt she's been going though has been astounding!  Crawling at top-notch speeds with no more wobbles, pulling up to standing on anything that gives her even the utmost of support, cutting two teeth, and saying mama and what sounds an awful lot like boobie. (She also, since I first started writing this post, has also been trying out Nana, bye-bye, and uh-oh.  She hasn't perfected these as much as she has mama, but they're close enough to count).  And that's just a smidgen of her developmental milestones she's been pummeling through in the past week, yes I said week!  So as you can see, I've been bombarded with capturing baby moments rather than focusing writing on my acts of kindness.  Even though I've been otherwise preoccupied, that doesn't mean they haven't been accomplished.

To cut down on much needed time, I've decided to do a combo post which will cover weeks 10 through 12. Normally I wouldn't, but this time I think I need to give myself a much needed break and just go with the flow.  So here goes...

Week 10:

Week 10 was a bit odd.  I had pledged to support someone in a charity event, but that fell through due to me not being contacted in the end.  I was kind of disappointed, but oh well.  It was probably a good thing as Arkansas Children's Hospital called seeking donations.  I've had a pledge page set up for them for a little over a month now, and I need to get back hounding people to offer their support, but I had not recently contributed my own donation to them.  Since my other pledge had kind of vanished, I decided to take that money and offer it to Children's.  It was nothing astounding, but every little bit helps.  If you want to help out by offering a small donation yourself, here is a link to my personal fundraising page where I'm trying to raise $1000 for ACH.  The money goes directly to them, just an FYI.

Arkansas Children's Hospital Donation Page

Now I'm going to jump to week 12, just to mix things up a bit.

Week 12:

I had another busy week and hadn't really had much time to seek out a deed.  Luckily for me, the universe presented me with an opportunity.  This past Tuesday a  little boy came into our offices looking for donations to help support his youth football team, the Arkansas Avengers.  He was so dang adorable and shy.  Of course I had to help out!  For a rare change I actually had some cash on me, so I gave him what I could.  He was very polite and let me know he plays running back for the team.  I encouraged to keep working hard and dreaming big.  And then he left the building with a huge grin on his face...priceless!

So there you go, week 10 and 12 over and done.  It's probably best I decided to combine the posts of these three weeks just because week 10 and 12 don't really merit any huge write-ups on their own.  Not all deeds deserve pomp and circumstance, but they are all appreciated regardless of the hoop-la associated with them. Week 11, however, was a combined effort that tied into the giveaway I hosted on my Facebook page.  It needs some good old fashioned hoop-la, so here it is!

Week 11: 

Week 11 began several weeks before it's actual official 11-week status was decided upon.  You may have seen my previous blog about a little local mother/daughter team who began their own business handcrafting baby goodies, such blankets, burp cloths, binky holders, bibs, and other such awesome stuff.  Their tiny yet totally terrific shop is called Shaybee's Babies, which is named for Shay, the rockin' mom who manages to create amazing baby items while still handling a myriad of other responsibilities in her life.  After having the pleasure of communicating with her, I'm amazed at not only her crafting skills, but also her gumption and practically superhero momness!  Funny enough, her mom was my lactation consultant at the hospital when Piper was born, and I can see where Shay gets her awesomeness from.  Her mom is also terrific and I couldn't have asked for a nicer person to help me get my lactation in gear from the get-go.

Anyways, Shay has been following the blog for some time.  Once I started the 52 random acts segment, her and her daughter got inspired and wanted to help.  She contacted me privately and wanted to offer some items for me to use for one of my weekly acts.  How amazing is that, huh?  She asked me to decide on an item for either a boy or a girl, and I asked if she could do one of each and I would pay for the second item. Then I would giveaway one item to a needy mother and the other I would giveaway on my Facebook page. This second item would be given away contest style and would be used as a way for me to help drive my fan base towards her business.  Let me state here, I would never push a product I didn't believe in.  Having seen her craftsmanship, I so knew she needed to get her name out there because her products are second to none!

The dachshund minky blanket for both the NICU baby
 and my friend's baby shower gift. 

The boy binky clips!

Shay, being the awesome person she is, decided to give me both the boy and girl items instead of having me purchase them, wow!  She also made Piper a minky Razorback blanket and two binky clips, one red with black polka dots and one Halloween one that is purple with black bats on it!  I was seriously surprised, flabbergasted, and  so appreciative of her generosity.  Piper adores her blanket and clips, she uses them daily and they go everywhere with her!

Piper loves her blanket!

For the giveaway items, Shay made a minky blanket and two binky clips, one set for a girl, and one for a boy.  As she finished them up, she sent my photographs.  I fell in love with the boy set that had dachshunds on one side.  I was getting ready to go to a baby shower of a girlfriend whose husband and her are huge dachshund fans.  So of course I had to order a matching minky blanket and binky clip as my baby shower gift.  I also ended up purchasing some burp cloths, one of which went to the baby shower, one I used as the second prize in the Facebook giveaway (along with a binky clip) and one I gave to Piper because I just had to have on myself!

The girl minky blanket and binky clip for the giveaway.

I was going to let the Facebook giveaway entrants choose whether they wanted the girl or boy set Shay made, but then I got wind of a mother who had a 28-week-old NICU baby boy in the hospital.  I then chose to go ahead and give the boy set to him and use the girl set for my grand prize in the Facebook giveaway. Sometimes the universe steps in and makes decisions for you, and this was one of those times.

The Halloween clips.
Left one is Piper's and the right one was for the contest!

In the end, Shaybee's Babies and I gave an awesome minky blanket and two corresponding binky clips to a needy mom and baby boy in NICU.  We then gave a girl minky blanket and corresponding binky clip as the top prize in the Facebook giveaway.  Then I decided to offer up two more prizes for the giveaway, a burp cloth and binky clip combo that I had purchased, and a Halloween themed binky clip which Shaybee's Babies donated for the cause.

The burp cloth and binky clip for the second giveaway prize.

It was many weeks coming to actually get to this post about week 11, and it was well worth the wait.  I was so thrilled to be such an inspiration to someone that they wanted to help out and become a part of my random acts.  It allowed me to give more than I could normally, helped me discover an extremely talented woman and her amazing baby products, which I am totally obsessed with now, allowed me the opportunity to host my first and hopefully not last giveaway, and gave a small gift to help a woman and her tiny baby boy, a little boy who is oh-so-young to already be born.  I hope the gift let's them know someone is thinking about them, which I do everyday now, wishing for his speedy growth and wonderful, full life ahead of him.

All the giveaway products in one pic.
Please visit Shaybee's Babies and check out her other items!

I hope you all didn't too much mind the wait over the past few weeks while I was busy with Piper's stupendous growth spurt!  I so wanted to get these out quicker, but dang life can go by so fast!  She is now sleeping soundly beside me, recovering from a high fever brought on by her 6-month vaccinations and flu shot yesterday.  This weekend I am going to get her 6-month blog post written that will catch everyone up about what all she's learned this past month and what all the docs said about her current stats and stuff. Believe me, you don't want to miss that one when it comes out!

Piper says you best pay attention! :)

For now, I will leave you with the usual spiel to drop me a vote over at both Top Mommy Blog and Top Baby Blogs.  Then come join me on my other social sites.  Remember, Facebook is where all the daily action happens, so I highly recommend that one for all things Piper all the time!



  

• 
  
• 
  
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

52 Acts of Random Kindness, Week 3

Makes you want to smile back, right?

Due to an unexpected event, I am now rewriting this entry.  Wednesday morning I decided for my act of kindness this week, and this was completely on a whim that occurred whilst taking my morning shower, to send big Mylar smiley face balloons to all of the 23 toddlers who have the unfortunate pleasure of staying at Arkansas Children's Hospital (ACH) here locally.  I have been very blessed to have such a healthy little girl, and I thank my lucky stars for that everyday, as many things could have gone wrong had fate not smiled upon Piper and me during my pregnancy and her delivery.  She had no genetic disorders for which she ran a very high risk due to my age, and her unusually short umbilical cord, which gave her 6 times likely of a chance to be a stillbornm posed no threat greater than decreasing her heart rate every time I contracted during labor.  Had anything gone slightly in the opposite direction, Piper may have not survived and thrived the way she has.  I'm lucky, she's lucky, and that's something that we will always remember.

They have a great sign!

With that being said, I know there are many children out there who aren't so lucky.  My goal this week was to make a handful of those children smile for a day.  While sending a balloon to a sick child might not seem like much, it was just a small something I could do.  Once I decided this would be my act of kindness for the week, I made several calls to the Infant/Toddler Unit at ACH, got the head count of the toddlers currently staying in rooms, contacted the gift shop, and had each child delivered a smiley face balloon with a card reading "someone is thinking of you today."  I wanted nothing to remind them of their illnesses, so I kept all "get well soon" phrases, or other things of that nature, far away from the surprise each of them received.

I know this was one of the balloon designs sent!

After I had ordered the balloons for delivery, I began reading about ways to help out the hospital.  One of those was by starting a individual fundraising page.  I thought this was a great idea, and it's free to host and all donations are tax deductible.  I have set my page with a small goal of raising $1000.  I've never done anything like this before, so I figured starting small was the best plan.  I will get back to more information about this fundraising page here in just a minute.

After all that I had done throughout the day regarding helping out the children at ACH, an unfortunate turn of events occurred.  It was one of those coincidences that you'd rather not run across, but things happen that we cannot control.  The following day, my niece Maggie went in to emergency surgery at this very same hospital.  She has had a swelling on her neck which was initially thought to be a salivary gland issue.  Actually it was thought to be a lot of things along the way, from mumps to mono and other not so pleasant possibilities.  In then end, after many go rounds with various doctors, she finally ended up with the ENT specialists as Children's.  It came to light that the swelling was from a very infected cyst that had to be surgically removed. The core was the size of about half a baseball and it had about 21 mL of fluid surrounding it.  Now don't quote me on the specifics, this was the last I heard before my brother went running to the hospital yesterday afternoon.

This pic is from last Saturday, and it got much worse from there.

Last night my mom heard from my brother and Maggie had come through the surgery fine, but they had to remove a lot more tissue than expected.  She was in tremendous amount of pain, to the point where they had her on the maximum of everything allowed for pain and they also had her on oxygen.  Every time she woke up she woke up screaming in pain, she couldn't hardly swallow, and last I heard they were maybe going to have to intubate her.  I have yet to hear anything today, as her immediate family is busy speaking with doctors and others on staff at the hospital regarding the surgery, her recovery, and whatnot.  All I know is that the amazing staff at ACH did a remarkable job possibly saving the life of my niece, and that is something that can not be repaid with mere thank yous.

The coincidence of me sending balloons to patients at Arkansas Children's Hospital, setting up a donation page for them, and then having Maggie go into emergency surgery there the following day when we had no inkling this would happen, like I said before, some coincidences you'd rather not have happen.  But all is getting better, Maggie is receiving some of the best care in the nation, and all will be well in the end.

Here is where I'm going to ask you all for a small favor...

When I set up the fundraising page I started the donations with a small $25 one of my own.  Now I am not asking for others to drop $25 into the pot.  But if I could get everyone I know and everyone who reads this to donate just $1, I could reach my $1000 goal within a week, probably even sooner.  I might even go over my initial collection goal.  I didn't expect my act of kindness this week to turn around and hit so close to home, but it has and it makes it that much more dear to my heart.  I hope I can encourage others to also make it dear to theirs and click on the link below which goes to my donation page, and make even a $1 donation today to help ACH continue to save children's lives and provide some of the best care available to children in this nation.  If you can spare more than $1, that would be awesome, too.  And just so everyone knows, the donations do not go to me and then onto Arkansas Children's Hospital.  All donations go directly to the ACH.  And just think, this could be your random act of kindness for the week!

UPDATE:  It was just brought to my attention that the way the ACH has their donation pages set up requires a $5 minimum donation.  I apologize for not realizing this sooner.  They also only take credit cards online, no Paypal.  I'm sure all of this is due to avoid unnecessary fees that would cost them precious dollars and end up as transaction fees, but I really wish I'd known this before asking for $1 donations.  I sincerely apologize if I misled anyone due to my lack of information regarding this issue.  Hopefully I will still be able to raise the funds, it might just take a bit longer. :)

So if you all would, please follow the link and help out if you can!

http://archildrens.kintera.org/singlemodernmom

I'll wrap up this entry with a great big thank you to all who have helped Maggie over at the ACH.  Also, thank you to anyone who sends a donation their way or who simply send Maggie good thoughts for her recovery.  I'm a believer in positive vibes, so vibe away if nothing else!

And to all those children who received a balloon from a stranger on Wednesday, I wish I had a picture of your smiling faces but I am fine just with the knowledge that your day was hopefully brightened a small bit.  I wish you all the best of luck, and I'm sending positive vibes to each of you that you'll be up and out of the hospital in no time!

Thank you ACH for all you do!

And the spiel...

If you enjoy my blog, please do me a random act of kindness and drop a vote for me over at Top Baby Blogs by clicking the button below. Also, feel free to join me on my other Social Media sites by clicking on the additional buttons below that.  I update about all things Piper daily on Facebook, so if nothing else come join us there!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•