Category: Uncategorized (Page 114 of 188)

Time for another quick update on the kiddos. Because I’m a failure at baby books, this is where I’ve been recording the events of the family, specifically the milestones and makings of the children. So even if you’re not interested, I need it logged somewhere.

H Boy

• Though with a somewhat limited vocab, he’s becoming quite conversational. Lots of talk about what we’re doing, what he sees, what he wants to be doing, or what he wants YOU to be doing. As in, “mommy! play!” 
• Jump around, jump around! This boy jumps up, jumps up and falls gets down. Most recently daddy has taught him how to leap from footstool to couch or dad. He finds it hilarious.
• The christmas gift of a kitchen proved successful. He serves tea with the best of them. 
• What is it with child-sized seats that kids love? He also got a table and chairs set from Grandma Marj and he loves to sit there to eat or play. 
• Last week we had friends over for dinner who’s son Kyle is close in age. The boys wrecked havoc in the basement while we enjoyed a semi-chaos free dinner. Win win. Win. 
• We have a new sitter. You know she’s great when it only takes about 10 minutes before he just says “bye bye mommy!” and continues on with the playing. No, no… my heart didn’t break. 
• His addiction to the bink seems to be progressing to the point of obsession. I continue to pretend it’ll be fine and disappear on its own. I’ll let you know how that works out for me. 
• We’ve been wearing big boy undies on a semi-regular basis, when we’re home. We’ll drink a good cup of milk, wait, then sit on the potty to read 5 books and sing 3 songs, only for him to be “all done” and then 30 seconds later peeing on the floor. Boy, I love parenting. It makes you feel so… effective.
• H can name yellow and pink. I think he recognizes the other colors, but yellow and pink are the answers to “what color is that?”

Miss M

• MOBILE is the key word of the month. She’s got the crawling thing down and is getting quicker. Now she does a army crawl hybrid/real crawl, and then when she gets to her destination, she automatically goes to her feet in a down dog position. She’d like to just stand up but she’s still a bit topheavy and doesn’t quite know how. I give her 2 months. 
• She loves standing and playing and has climbed a stair or two in her time. Up she goes. All. the. time. 
• Like her brother, she’s inherited the good eating genes. If her mommy would get it together and offer her a bigger variety, I think she’d really take off and enjoy a lot of foods. We just need to get them introduced. 
• On that note, she was able to feed herself some blueberries. Not so much a pincer grasp as a poke with her index finger, like a single prong fork. But whatever works. 
• M has won the super sleeper award as of late, frequently going the 7-7 distance without requiring that we enter her room. Her brother, on the other hand…. ugh. 
• Clap, clap, clap your hands! she says. She loves a good clap. Brother loves to get her to do it. 

Bathtime continues to be a highlight for 3 of the 4 people in the house (though I take my bath separate from the kids).  It’s amazing to see what 2 inches of water will do to a short-tempered kid. And it gives me a chance to catch up on my reading.

So that’s the update, in short.

Thanks to an unknown parental source, I have inherited a sub-par blood clotting gene. My sister tends to blame all physical maladies on my mother, and seeing how her mother had a blood clot not long ago we might have just heard someone call Bingo. But no matter the source of the fault, I am heterogeneous factor V (that’s five for those smart ‘ns in the world who use letters rather than numbers) leiden.

Whilest slow to do many things, it seems I’m speedy to clot.

For the average, healthy 30ish-year-old, this does not pose much risk nor even really require medical attention. But for the gal growing another human, it seems we must be cautious (did you know precautious is not a word? Per google spellcheck, it seems you can be cautious, inferring a timeline of pre-ness; you can also take precautions. But one is not precautious. Just cautious. Enough grammar). While a clot can be quite pesky in the leg or butt (not that anyone I know had a clot in her butt…), it’s downright worrisome when in the placenta or any of the feeding and nourishing mechanisms of the womb. So cautious we become.

Which leads me to treatment options, per my hemotologist (becase, as JE says, “every 30 year old should have one.”): 1) Daily injections of Lovenox. Yes, I said inject. As in, sharp, pointy object becoming embedded in my flesh. 2) Baby asprin 3) Cross our fingers that this pregnancy is like the last 2 and we have no problems. Because I’ve done this twice and the only difference this time is that we actually know I am leiden (haha!) with an abornmality, as opposed to most people’s strong inclination to guess it is such the case.

The doctor left the final decision to me. Well, this is always the case, but he actually vocalized it. The Lovenox is the “better safe than sorry” route and an easy pick for someone who loves the world of medicine. But for someone like me who’s become a bit skeptical and wary of what seems to be a trend toward over-treating for the sake of preventing lawsuits (not just because it’s the best course of action), it’s a bit tougher to decide.

In my brief consultation with Dr. Google, I read that it’s becoming more known that a daily dose of cod liver oil and a few of the B Vitamins also shows to thin the blood to a preventative level. But that’s not what the medical literature, the mainstream, points toward. And though I love a good home remedy, I have trouble anticipating similar results without some sort of proof.

But here’s the breakdown: who’s going to pay to study cod liver oil? Who will make money off that? Certainly not the pharma groups. They’d LOSE  money if that came out (right now it seems that the options for this kind of thinner are few and I’m sure Lovenox has quite the corner market). And who pays, at least in part, for a majority of the medical studies on these products? Well, the drug companies. They prove it works and then they market it like crazy, readily providing the studies to the doctors so the prescribers can take confidence in the anticipated results.

Our mainstream medical system operates off economics. My Intro to News Writing professor always said, “follow the money trail.” Someone, somewhere makes money off of it or it’s probably not a readily-available option. The suppliers of our drugs and medical equipment operate off of a supply-and-demand scale, like the rest of the American world. (That is, until it can be made into a generic). No one markets what is readily available and cheap.

So what now? Taking the low-risk chance, even if over-medicating, for the sake that “something could happen”? Or do nothing, returning to a state of “ignorance is bliss”? One shouldn’t make decisions based solely on fear, but also should avoid getting sand in her ears when trying to bury her head in the ground.

I suppose I just need to be grateful for 2 major things: that I have medical options and treatment readily available AND that my options lack the fear and side effects, in comparison to the treatment of other patients I saw today, as the hemotologist is also an oncologist. That can certainly put it all in perspective.

Random confessional for the day: both of the words “defense” and “offense” require me to mentally do a high school cheer before I’m able to spell them correctly. I don’t do the motions, just the words. Well, in this case, syllables, because the cheers previously mentioned were just a spelling of the word, followed by “let’s go de/offense!” with an off-beat clap. But enough about me and my shortcomings in the world of spelling.

I’m reading a new old book. It’s new to me, thanks to the 50% off sale at Stately Raven, but come to find out, it’s 10 years old. In the sociology research world, I think that’s a qualifier that the book should’ve been on a 30% discount prior to the going-out-of-business sale. Which, if I may take the liberty, I’d like to tell the SR is the reason they’re going out of business. Just some personal opinion commentary. Enjoy it for free, someday ESPN might want me.

So, the book. The Overspent American. The author should’ve bought a lottery ticket when she wrote it as she nailed it on the head. It’s about the progressive spending and the socio-cultural influences our our economic behavior. I know, I know, why can’t I just enjoy some trashy romance novel like the normal girls do?

But here’s what I can offer society, other than just the 10 minutes back they’ve spent reading this post: we need to a bit of a defensive educational attack in the world of econ. Like a full-court, trapping press.  Allow me to expand.

Marketing is an optional course offered by many high schools. I know this because my husband is licensed to teach it. It focuses on how to brand and market a product so to get people to buy it. If one were to want to invent something, or go into the world of publicity and advertising, this would be a helpful starting ground. Or perhaps help you change your mind. I could come up with several other benefits a high school student might gain from the course: how to get elected class president, how to convince the school that fried cheese is not an acceptable main course for the cafeteria lunch, or as a way to successfully sell black market school spirit t-shirts that say “We Will Ram Ewe.” Just to start.

But what if we were to use a marketing curriculum to help teenagers defend themselves from campaigns that, in their limited rational times of thinking, they realize they need not be a part of? What if we helped students to learn how others are preying upon their fears of failure, their insecurity when it comes to their appearance and their aptitude for success? What if we helped them become indignant about the fact that other people are getting rich off of their lack of critical thinking and blindly believing everything they hear and see about what is right, cool and necessary for a happy, successful life?

We can teach kids to be part of the problem, or part of the solution. Perhaps I should talk to a business education teacher about this…