Because breastfeeding a college student is frowned upon

So, You have to actually feed them.

For the first time ever folks. I'm participating in a blogging contest. Is that even what they are called? Well it is today. This is my entry for the blog contest at The Parent Bloggers for Deceptively Delicious

I'm trying to win a $250 gift card to Williams- Sonoma. So here it is.

Since Breastfeeding a college student is frowned upon, you have to get them to eat!

You'd think with 6 kids I'd have heard it all. Growing up I was the pickiest eater on the planet to the point my mother had to search high and low for those military plates that had partitions so that my food would never touch. If for some reason it DID touch I couldn't bring myself to eat anything on the plate. It really wasn't any wonder I didn't hit 100 lbs until 4 months into my first pregnancy.

I've been pretty lucky with my kids. Christian, who is now 9 has been my one child who has a deep aversion to anything green and vegetabl-ey. He has convinced friends and family that he has a cooked carrots allergy (apparently something happens to the carrots when you cook them, making him allergic). He will be a wonderful chef some day with his wonderful mastery of stuffing a pork chop with vegetables....

The other night at dinner we were all carrying along in our obscene, not-dinner-appropriate coversations as per usual when Christian excitedly looks up from his plate and exclaims "What happened to my beans?"

Now. He might have gotten away with it if A: he weren't so obvious in his statement or B: the dog weren't sitting under his chair on alert. Both things alerted the hubbster and I that Christian had finally thought of the trick that kids have been using for centuries...... feed your veggies to the dog.

It didn't take long for the small fry to realize he was busted. He spent the next 5 minutes trying to make himself cry but failing miserably in the attempt due to the insane elf-like laughter speweing from his mouth at every attempt. Until we informed him that now he had to eat another helping of stuffing hehe *insert my own evil elf laugh here*

What he doesn't realize is that he's playing the game with the lady who wrote the book haha.

Not nearly as entertaining as the year he convinced everyone he was Jewish...... but that's a story for another day.

Bumbo seat recall.. Or Why you should need an IQ test to create life

I'm sure you've all heard of the Bumbo seat recall. If not inform yourself HERE

When are we going to start taking responsibility for our actions? When you purchase a baby seat that has the words "DO NOT USE ON ELEVATED SURFACE" permanently imprinted into the seat, and you then decide to put the seat with child in it on a counter top and said child falls out and cracks his noggin who is responsible?

In this country, apparently the maker of the seat! Parents! Heads up! WATCH YOUR CHILDREN! Stop blaming other people for your failure to supervise your children. What else should we recall? Food? Gosh your child could choke when you leave the room! Baths? They may drown!

Come ON America. If you can't read and follow simple directions maybe you should leave the parenting to someone else!

One way to get out of going to the dentist...

So this morning didn't go well.... Ok all day didn't really fit in with my plans.

This morning starts with Craig waking me up to tell me he's going to work to put the order in. Next thing I know he's waking me up again to tell me it's nearly 9:00. I have to be at the dentist office at 9:50 and it's a 45 minute drive. You do that math.

So, mad dash around the house getting dressed, brushing and flossing (can't forget to floss on dentist day!) and fly out the door thanking God the car has 3/4 of a tank of gas in it. I get about 3 miles from home and realize I have no wallet and since we've canceled the cell phone contract and not gotten around to activating our old pre-paid phone again I also have no phone, which always makes me nervous.

For about 1/4 of a mile I contemplate turning around for my wallet. What if I get pulled over? Oh well. What if I'm in an accident and knocked unconcious and they can't identify me and give me penicillin and send me into an allergic reaction and I die a horrible anaphylactic death? I know....... who thinks like that right?

I decide I'll take the chance. I'm already going to be late, I can't turn around now.

So I drive and listen to my favorite morning station 104.5 WAXX morning show

I get about halfway there and while entering a tiny one store town with an insanely polish (i think) name I hear this strange noise, almost sounds like the rumble bars you run over to alert you to stop ahead. As soon as it starts it's gone and as it ends I hear the sound like when you run over a small object and it bounces up and hits the underside of your car. My car seems to be driving fine, runny smoothly and nothing is different so I continue on.

About 3 miles later while going around a corner I hear another noise. A noise that I cannot explain away, almost a wobbling sound. I decide it best to pull over and just take a walk around the car to be sure there aren't any pedestrians hanging from my bumper that I failed to see. Sure enough...... I get out and my eyes immediately fall upon.............. it......

A FLAT TIRE!

Ok, no problem right? I mean I spent my formitive years sitting on top of 350 big blocks. I learned to change oil before I learned to write my name. I can DO this. Never mind that as I look around my PTSD from 1999 when I saw a man get hit by a car while helping out a stranded motorist is slowly rearing it's ugly head. I can DO this.

I pop the trunk and.......... wait..... there's no spare tire in the trunk. Well I'd never seen one there before but I guess my mind thought that since I now needed one that one would automatically be there when I opened the trunk. I don't even see a jack in there....... uh oh. Where the HELL is the spare?!

Now what? I pace the length of my car in the weeds a couple of times and decide that I need to walk to the nearest house. I start walking and realize I don't SEE any houses. I turn around and walk the other way (no, really I'm not blond lol). On my walk I contemplate who I can call.... seeing as how I have no money. I remember that my uncle owns a service station a couple towns away and hope he will be nice enough to come and help his penniless neice who never calls him. I approach this tiny white house that could well belong to a serial killer but maybe not. As I walk up the driveway there are NO LESS than 52 dogs barking at me from behind fences. Tiny dogs, but I'm sure if they ganged up I'd have been toast.

I approach the door and knock and hear what sounds like another 86 dogs inside ( I may be UNDER estimating here)............. oh lord let me live through this.....

A woman answers the door wearing nothing but Wisconsin Badgers t-shirt. I tell her my dilemma and she invites me in to use the telephone. I ask for a phone book and look through it and cannot find the phone number to my uncles station...... seems in my years of using the internet for everything I've done forgotten how to use a phone book or something. So I call my husband and ask him to look up the number. I tell him how I can't find the stupid spare and he tells me it's "underneath".....

I get my uncles phone number and get lucky. Not only is he at the station but he will come and get his estranged neice out of trouble, whew. I call the dentist and explain why I am not, at this moment, walking in thier front door for my appointment.

I kindly thank the lady (still wearing only her skivvies and t-shirt) and make my way back to my car, breathing a sigh of relief that not only did I not happen upon the home of a serial killer, but I wasn't mauled by a pack of angry chihuahua's either. Once back to my car I look underneath the back of the car for the spare..... no tire there! HA! Shows what he knows!

A bit later my dear uncle pulls up in his tow truck. He immediately pulls this nifty little flap up in my trunk and finds the cute never-been-touched-since-factory-install tire and quickly changes the tire. Thankfully he didn't give me too much of a hard time for being automotibile challenged and I have an uneventful drive home where my husband has a good laugh at my troubles and my 5 year old incessantly accuses me of popping the tire due to speeding and running red lights.

THEN. A couple hours later I get a phone call from my mother telling me she's going in for an urgent MRI scan on her lungs. An x-ray revealed a spot on her lung. She's never smoked a day in her life. We end up sitting at the hospital for 2 HOURS waiting for her scan..... joy A little prayer that the results come back great would be appreciated!

Anyway. So that was my crazy day.

A little poem

My teenage son didn't appreciat this poem NEARLY as much as I did hehe

Don't mess with mothers....

My son came home from school one day, with a smirk upon his face.
He decided he was smart enough, to put me in my place.
Guess what I learned in Civics Two, that's taught by Mr. Wright?
It's all about the laws today, The "Children's Bill of Rights."
It says I need not clean my room, don't have to cut my hair.
No one can tell me what to think, or speak, or what to wear.
I have freedom from religion, and regardless what you say,
I don't have to bow my head, and I sure don't have to pray.
I can wear earrings if I want, and pierce my tongue & nose.
I can read & watch just what I like, get tattoos from head to toe.
And if you ever spank me, I'll charge you with a crime.
I'll back up all my charges, with the marks on my behind.
Don't you ever touch me, my body's only for my use,
not for your hugs and kisses, that's just more child abuse.
Don't preach about your morals, like your Mama did to you.
That's nothing more than mind control, And it's illegal too!
Mom, I have these children's rights, so you can't influence me,
or I'll call Children's Services Division, better know as C.S.D.
Of course my first instinct was to toss him out the door.
But the chance to teach him a lesson made me think a little more.
I mulled it over carefully, I couldn't let this go.
A smile crept upon my face, he's messing with a pro.
Next day I took him shopping at the local Goodwill Store.
I told him, "Pick out all you want, there's shirts & pants galore.
I've called and checked with C.S.D. who said they didn't care
if I bought you K-Mart shoes instead of those Nike Airs.
I've canceled that appointment to take your driver's test.
The C.S.D. is unconcerned so I'll decide what's best.
I said "No time to stop and eat, or pick up stuff to munch.
And tomorrow you can start to learn to make your own sack lunch.
Just save the raging appetite, and wait till dinner time.
We're having liver and onions, a favorite dish of mine.
He asked "Can I please rent a movie, to watch on my VCR?
"Sorry, but I sold your TV, for new tires on my car.
I also rented out your room, you'll take the couch instead.
The C.S.D. requires just a roof over your head.
Your clothing won't be trendy now, I'll choose what we eat.
That allowance that you used to get, will buy me something neat.
I'm selling off your jet ski, dirt-bike & roller blades.
Check out the "Parents Bill of Rights, It's in effect today!
Hey hot shot, are you crying, why are you on your knees?
Are you asking God to help you out, instead of C.S.D..?

Pregnancy makes women live longer!

Interesting! This report is a couple years old i'd be interested to see what further research has been done. Throw away your birth control! Husband's get busy! You are saving your life.

This is LONDON 09/07/04 - News and city section Pregnancy 'makes women live longer' By Rebecca Smith, Evening Standard Health Reporter Scientists believe they may have unlocked the secret of why women tend to live longer than men. It is all down to motherhood. The cells from the developing baby pass into the mother's bone marrow during the early stages of pregnancy.

The scientists say these cells may rejuvenate the mother's own, repair damage and fight disease, prolonging her life. The findings, in today's Lancet, could explain why women who have had children are less likely to develop arthritis, multiple sclerosis and breast cancer. Professor Nick Fisk, a specialist in foetal medicine at Queen Charlotte's Hospital, said they have found that stem cells from the foetus are stored in the mother's bone marrow and some had changed into bone. All the women in the study who had sons had male stem cells in their bone marrow.

Professor Fisk said: "Every time a woman gets pregnant she gets a shower of stem cells that can fight disease." He said more research needed to be done to find out if the stem cells in the mother's body protect against some disease but contribute to the cause of others.

©2004 Associated New Media

Middle school to offer birth control to students

Has anyone read this story yet? If not, take a minute to do so and then come back...



http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/10/18/middleschool.contraception.ap/index.html



I respect the intent. Really I do. As a former teen parent I can tell you that it is not fair to parent OR child to bring a child into this world when you haven't finished growing up yourself. Even the teen parents that make it tend to look back years later and realize that they wish they could have done it differently, if only in the realization that they could have given their child so much more if they had been able to grow up themself before trying to raise another person.

Having said that, I have to say WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING AMERICA? When the SCHOOL has to do OUR jobs.

For instance I was asked one day what the appropriate age might be to have "the talk" with kids... WHAT? Why does the word SEX make us squirm so much? If we can't say the word SEX in conversation with another adult, how the HELL are we suppose to talk to our kids about it? Say it with me people.......... S-E-X SEX. Get comfortable with it.

We shirk our responsibilities as parents it seems, right about the time they enter kindergarten, earlier if our children attend a preschool program. It seems that we walk away from them that first day of school, dust off our hands and say "whew, now someone else can do the hard stuff". It is YOUR JOB, until THE DAY YOU DIE people. I hear it all the time, teachers saying the one thing they love is when they get that one student who's parent is interested and involved in their children's education. How sad is it that it's one child.....

Now, we get to get out of "the talk" too! If our kids want to talk about sex they can go to school and talk about it, heck they can even get birth control!

Some of you are saying "but they are going to do it anyway, you can't stop that". Really? I don't buy it anymore than I buy that if you talk Joe Schmoe down from the roof he's about to jump off of, and be his friend and help him realize that his life is worth something that you've done nothing..

There is a fine line we, as parents of pre-teens and teens must walk. The fine line between being their friend and being their parent. I think if you drift too far to one side you are in trouble. We must constantly walk that line.

It's not easy. Parenting wasn't meant to be. The labor pains are just the beginning. It's silly to think that giving birth to a child is the hard part. But WE SIGNED UP FOR IT, and now a lot of us aren't stepping up to the plate.

Don't let the school confidentially give your children birth control. Don't allow yourself to be taken out of that equation, as it's one of the most important things you will ever do as a parent.

Step up America. Take the time, find the time. TALK to your kids. Open the door of communication and LEAVE IT OPEN. Let your children know how you feel about the choices you know they will face as teenagers and young adults. TELL them about your teen years, open and honest.

That way, when the time comes that they have the hard choices to make, you just might have the honor of being INVOLVED in that decision!

Dear Mr President

I want you all to listen to this song, it's very powerful. Thanks Ang!

The wintertime pinch

This time of year, every year it happens. After a summer where the tourists come and have more brains that money and overtime is abundant..... eventually they all go home and the money pinch starts.

This year seems to be hitting harder than most. This pay period we will live on $100 for 2 weeks. *sigh*

It will all work out, it always does. But it's frustrating inthe meantime!!!

This evening will be busy. We will have parent teacher conferences from 5-6, then I have to get home and get Hailey dressed (well, she dresses herself hehe) and prettied up for her choir/band concert at 6:40. We are gonna end up eating dinner at like 4:30 so assuredly we will spend the second half of the concert hearing "I'm hungry" from the small set. Maybe I'll stuff some snacks in the diaper bag........ that'll shut 'em up.

Had to take Hailey into urgent care last night. She has pneumonia..... how great. So she's on zithromax for 5 days and codeine to sleep at night. She still wants to go to school, bless her litlte heart. She's loving school now that she's really busted her butt and gotten her grades up. All A's and B's! She's in special education but has done all of this in the MAINSTREAM classroom! Couldn't be more proud of her.

Anyway. Sorry the updates have been sporatic lately. I've been spending a lot of time working on Alex's new site. Go check it out! And don't forget to print off a few copies of the Random acts of kindness graphic..... giving is good! www.alexandersheart.blogspot.com

The little surprises you find.....

When you have a child with sensory integration dysfunction with "autistic tendencies".

I went to use my bathroom this evening and upon walking into my bedroom, I see THIS

Yes, in my bedroom. Our bedroom is in the basement and so is our family closet/grocery overflow. Apparently the "must line everything up or I'll lose my mind" bug hit Jack as he was scoping out what he could snack on and this is the end result.

Never a dull moment!

Welcome to the world baby!

Brayden Edward arrived at 11:13pm last night weighing 7 lbs 13 oz. His mommy had a very difficult labor and did it 100% drug free and was AMAZING. I am forever indebted to you, Allen and Rissa, for allowing me to be a part of something so miraculous......... Thank you

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RISSA! What a great birthday present to be holding your perfect little boy right now!

Guess what I'm getting tomorrow?!

A brand new baby nephew, that's what!!!

I'm so excited. Mommy to be goes in at 1pm tomorrow for induction and I have the honor of being invited to be her doula! Can't wait!

This has been a crazy week. I'm not sure why, I've gotten nothing accomplished, but it just seems to have been rather chaotic.

We have a new goal in our "get out of debt" plan. Starting January 1, all "extra" moneay (what's that?) will go to pay down our truck loan. Our goal is to have it totally paid off within a year. Then, the next year we'll start on the car. Both vehicles should last us quite a while so we could have a few years with NO VEHICLE PAYMENT! Wouldn't that be nice!

We also turned off our cell phones saving us $160 a month. We are just trying to cut out any extras, as we have gotten a bit caught up in the world and the things we think we need that we don't.

With all the cuts we've made so far we right now have an extra $260 a month in our pockets. Doesn't sound like much but when you live paycheck to paycheck it's a lot!
Too bad we need heat and lights and insurance or we could really be swimming in extra cash hehe.

Must go finish making dinner!

Life aint always beautiful

Isn't that the truth. 2 children who's websites I frequent died yesterday. They both had a brain tumor called a diffuse pontine glioma. It is inoperable and treatment is aimed at slowing it's growth. The average life expectancy is 6-12 months.

This morning Hailey and I were talking about hard subjects, as we frequently do. We talked about Alex and how he fought so hard to be here and how people aren't always perfect but sometimes the least perfect have the most to give. I wonder sometimes what the greater plan is for us all. The why's are so difficult to deal with sometimes. I don't think I will ever understand why Alex died. I don't know that any parent who loses a child ever gets that moment of clarity.

I think about all the children who are simply denied the chance. The babies who are lost to "medical termination" upon their parents finding out they have down syndrome, or some other abnormality that makes them "less than perfect" in the eyes of the world. It makes me angry. I wish I had my disabled child, I WISH I could push him in a wheelchair, I wish I could hug him, kiss him, and sing him to sleep.

I am comforted in the fact that we did everything we could. He was in an amazing hospital and every medical opportunity was available to him. We could have "let him go" as some would have. HE chose when it was time to go, I'm grateful for that.

Every one of us is less than perfect in some way. If we ought to abort a baby because it's not "normal", where is the line? Aborting one who has a cataract? who will need a brace for scoliosis? And when is the line drawn? If they are taken before birth it's ok, but when will we start moving on to sacrificing 2 year olds who contract a disease? I just don't understand how we think we have the right to decide who lives or dies. It doesn't make sense.

I was once reminded that God gives us free will, but he also gave us a brain. But did he intend us to use that brain to make decisions best left to him? Where is THAT line? You have to draw it somewhere.......... so where?

I struggle with these questions. A few days before Alex died I finally broke down completely and relinquished control to the lord. Right there in front of the dormatories of the University, in front of the busy hospital. I'm sure I looked like a lunatic but the weeks of what felt like running through water finally caught up with me and I had nothing left to give, I had no fight left in me. I told God he wins, I give him control. It was then that the put my son out of his misery. I never gave up on Alex but I gave up my selfish fight for him with God.

Some people don't understand the decisions C and I make regarding our family. It's difficult sometimes because it would be senseless for us to learn the lesson we did, to give up control, and then try to take it back now. But what does God intend for us to have control of, and what does he solely take control over? I just don't know.

To some people it's all so simple. It's just not for us. I don't think things will ever be simple again. Things use to be so simple even though we didn't realize it, now the seemingly smallest things just aren't anymore.

It's exhausting sometimes. This post probably makes no sense either hehe, it's one of those that I'm just typing as I'm thinking so I apologize for that. It's one of those more for me than you kinda posts.

President Bush vetoes SCHIP bill

It's official, our lovely president has vetoed the SCHIP bill which would have doubled the number of insured children in this country. Way to go! Hope you sleep at night! It really was a brilliant bill too! And had over a 70% approval rating.... a helluva lot more than ole Georgie himself has!

He encourages all middle class Americans to "buy health insurance". Really? Cause we never thought of that?! Life must really look that simple when you have cash to spare....

Next week we'll send a couple million more overseas, and a couple thousand more men and women to die, meanwhile some kid will be in the ER dying of pneumonia because no ped would touch him because his parents couldn't pay. BRAVO America!

Here's a thought? Instead of spending billions fixing Iraq, why not fix the USA first! What a concept!

Ok, I said there would be more. Here it is. There has been a lot of buzz about this today of course. I actually read on one blog someone say, and I'm paraphrasing... When are people going to stop looking for a handout and take responsibility for themselves. There's always planned parenthood. Really? WOW. Planned parenthood gives prescriptions for medications for 6 year olds? Subsidizes the cost of leukemia treatments? Interesting. I guess I'll have to read up more on Planned parenthood!

It's easy for the insured to be a bit clueless. It's easy when you have insurance and you go to the doctor and most of your bill gets paid. It's easy when your children are healthy. What if your son got cancer? What if your son needed a cancer treatment not covered by your insurance? Would you have $160,000 in your pocket to pay for that? Or would your child die in that hospital bed waiting for donations from friends and family to get the treatment? Have you ever seen a million dollar hospital bill? Because I have. I have held one in my hands, with my name on it. Have you? What would you do if you did? Would you ask for help? Do you think you'd be deserving of help? Or would you sit back and say that you made a mistake by having a child when you didn't have the means to provide for him, even though you had no idea he'd get cancer, or be born sick?

Planned Parenthood is great. It's easy to say "don't have kids if you can't afford them"....... if only life were that simple. If only having a child ensured you the finances you have at that moment, for the rest of that child's life. Wouldn't that be great! I want to live in THAT World!

Stop being so arrogant in beleiving that YOUR health coverage will always be there. Insurance companies are struggling, yours could shut down tomorrow and where would you be? Your child could get cancer or meningitis tomorrow, where would you be? Don't be so arrogant to think that the people who aren't insured or are underinsured are less than you or don't try hard enough, it's not always that simple. Planned parenthood isn't going to pay for a bone marrow transplant or stem cell transplant, no matter how hard you want to try to beleive it.

And to say that not having children in the first place is the answer is laughable at best. YOU COULD LOSE YOUR JOB TOMORROW and where would you be? Go ahead, call planned parenthood and see if they will pay for your childs hospital bill. Let me know what they say....

I am thankful that that million dollar hospital bill was nearly ALL paid by insurance. But I would NEVER sit here on some pedestal thinking that the kid who laid in the bed next to us didn't deserve his care because his parents couldn't afford it.

It all boils down to what I always say. We are failing our own. Some of us like to sit in our own little bubble and say "i'm ok, I don't know what's wrong with those idiots" ....... it's easy to take that road. To think that other people have the problems they have because of choices they made. But just once why not think about it..... are Jane and Joe homeless because they lost their house when their son died of cancer and they couldn't pay? It's easy to say they are losers who dont' take care of their children and don't provide for them but it's far more difficult to actually find out WHY. And it's extremely difficult for some of us to see ourselves and part of a whole, to leave the "every man for himself" mentality that plagues this country.

Every child in this country is entitled to a free public education through grade 12, yet no child in this country is entitled to a doctor visit, a simple vaccination, or surgery to remove cancer from their stomach yet we pay taxes on everything from our homes to chewing gum. Heck we even pay tax on our medications and surgeries! How is that for irony!

I surely hope that none of you up there on that pedistal ever lose your jobs, your coverage, and I certainly hope your child never gets cancer. But I do hope you remove your head from the sand at some point and think that tomorrow, the unthinkable could happen and you could find yourself in the street with a sick child and no way to pay for his treatment. You are not above tragedy and I would gladly take an increase in my taxes to get YOUR child his medication.

So, if the solution is that everyone who cannot afford a million dollar hospital bill, or heck lets even just say if you don't have $100,000 in savings RIGHT now to pay for a doctor bill if you lost your insurance tomorrow......... you shouldn't have kids. I'm not sure what you should do if you've already had them, but you should run to planned parenthood right now and get some hormone pill to prevent you from having a child because you cannot afford one and WE should not be having to increase our taxes to pay for your "mistakes". Got that?! I don't care if you have a good job with good insurance, what if you don't next week? How are you going to pay for that bill?! Yeah........ I don't know either.

I must say that I've heard some arguements on things that make me roll my eyes and giggle. But for someone to say that the answer to our healthcare crisis is planned parenthood.......... I think that might be up there with the STUPIDEST things i've heard in my entire 31 years.