Thank you! It will also be beneficial for those of us who live in relatively rural areas where it can be difficult to find specialty items in the stores.

I love this list! Thank you!

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Thanks that looks very interesting!

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What source of information does the new mom use when she needs to learn about a new topic? Maybe appropriate book/video/website gentle recomendations would help without being threatening. Obviously, the time to look at these sources would be difficult to arrange. Maybe a trip to the library or a book store and helpwatch the twins while she looks at new resources?

I think that some people are healthier with high quality meat in their balanced diets and some are healthier on a high quality vegetarian diet. You may have to use trial and error to determine what works for you. I find alot of yummy vegetarian recipes on the once a month mom site. I am not a member and have never tried to cook a whole month's worth of meals at once but that can be helpful for some. Some of the recipes my dh actually requests and he is a major carnivore.

PTSD from a traumatic birth is sometimes misdiagnosed as PPD. I think doctors would just rather blame it on your body rather than their actions or insensitivity:glare:.

Cute!

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Thank you for all the information! I am currently doing more research on various options.

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Thanks for the information. I am open to animals that require a larger habitat. Our hamster ran on his wheel at night and it did not bother us.

Thanks for the information. I think I will eliminate rats from consideration since they require a larger habitat and don't live much longer. A tendency toward a long drawn out end of life period is a downside too. Chinchillas are cute but when I looked them up it said that they are vulnerable to heat and humidity and could even die from too much heat and humidity. We live on the Gulf Coast so outdoors is humid all year and hot for much of the year. Indoors is climate controlled but I don't want to lose a pet in the aftermath of a hurricane or due to a power disruption of some other type. One or more ferrets might be a good option that I had not considered. This is the first time that I have heard of degus and they sound really interesting.

Last night I checked on dd7's hamster and he was no longer living. It looks like he curled up to sleep and never woke up. When I thought about it I realized that we have had him about 1.75 years. He was a winter white so his expected life span is 1.5-2 years. I think he died of old age. Dd and dh both are very sad so I have been researching to find small pets with longer life spans. We probably won't get a new pet right away but we definitely want one that will live longer. I discovered that several breeds of hamster have slightly longer life spans (2-3 years) and wanted to ask if that is accurate in the experience of others? Also what is your experience with the life spans of other small pets? Is a life span of 3-5 years accurate for rats? What about 5-8 years for guinea pigs? Are there any other small pets that I am missing?

We almost did not evacuate for Katrina because we had just evacuated for a non-event hurricane a few weeks prior.

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I definitely don't think it is wrong at all. I have completed most of my shopping for dd.