Letter to Santa Claus

Dear Santa Claus,

It's been a while. Remember me?  Sara? American Girl doll Samantha circa 1993 that I never got?

But I digress.

I am now much, much older than I was in 1993.  In fact I am now in my 30s, if you haven't been keeping track.  I am Joshua's Mommy--I am sure you are familiar with Joshua, as he moves between your naughty and nice list on a moment by moment basis. In fact, I am sure you have an Elf dedicated specifically to keeping track of which list Josh is currently on.  And I am also Olivia's mommy, but she is only eighteen months old and a fixture on your nice list, unless she is stealing her brother's toys.

And I haven't written you a letter in a very long time, but I have a list this year, if you would be so kind.

#1)  I would like a bath.  Complete with bubbles, candles, and no children trying to strip their clothes off and climb in with me, all the while asking why we can't eat hot dogs in the bathroom.

#2)  I would like to go five minutes without someone asking me why or throwing a two hour long temper tantrum when I say no, we cannot build a snow bank and jump off the porch roof into it.

#3) I would love eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.  Between working overnights as a paramedic and the fact that my daughter still does not sleep through the night, I am about to lose my sanity to sleep deprivation.  If you can't accomplish this, could you at least make my children nap at the same time?

#4) Peace on Earth.  If this isn't doable, I will accept Peace in the Playroom.

#5) Could you make my wi-fi magically disappear whenever I start looking at all the pictures on facebook of all the neat and amazing crafts and games my friends are doing with their toddlers?  And remind me that their husbands don't work three or four 24 hour shifts a week, and most of them are stay-at-home moms with a little more breathing room than I have?

#6) Speaking of magic, is there anyway to make chicken fries into a well rounded, highly nutritive meal, since that is all my 3-year-old will eat these days?

And last but not least,

#7) On days like today, when my children are literally climbing the walls(and the furniture, and the stairs, and me), and cutting their hair with stolen scissors, and trying to run around naked; days like this when my children are perpetual motion and noise filled with dirt, could you make me always remember how extraordinarily blessed I am?  That these two beautiful, healthy, energetic children are mine, and I am so very fortunate to have them?  Remind me that the peanut butter sticky hands pressed onto my face are my treasure, and whenever I start to take them for granted, remind me that these two tiny faces are not going to be mine forever.  Remind me to take today, with the chaos and the mess and the sleep-deprivation and all, and enjoy every moment with them.  These babies are mine today, but they are not promised to me forever.

Remind me, Santa Claus, to enjoy every moment of this Christmas season this year, with two children who believe wholeheartedly in you, who are so excited with the magic of this Christmas.  Remind me to stop and enjoy these moments, because even though these days of toddlerhood are so long, the years will be so short.

Thank you.

Sara

p.s.  Please remember to eat the cookies and milk we will be setting out Christmas Eve. My son will be brokenhearted if you don't.

Things I have learned as a Mom

( I switched to Wordpress for a while, but it just doesn't seem to work well for me. So I'm back)

Here are some random things I have learned in my vast seven months as the mother of two small children:

 

 Toys are the fastest breeding creatures in the world. Much faster than rabbits. You can box up twenty toys and take them out to the trash or to the second hand shop, and when you come back home, there will be forty new toys sitting in your living room.

Playrooms are worthless. You will still step on matchbox cars littering your bedroom floor, you will still find crayons in the refrigerator, and you will still not have a clean living room. All you will have is another messy room in your house. If you're lucky, the playroom will have a door that you can close.


Your two-year-old will be perfectly happy, healthy, bouncing off the walls, and the moment you get him wrangled into a clean outfit and wash his face to go somewhere, he will immediately come down with the flu and start vomiting everywhere.


If your first child slept through the night at six weeks and never once woke up after that, your second child will not sleep through the night until high school.


The intensity of the temper tantrum is directly proportional to the length of your grocery list. The longer the grocery list, the louder the tantrum.


The earlier you have to be at work in the morning, the more often your children will wake up during the night.


No matter how sick you are, no matter how tired you are, no matter how recently you have had major surgery, you will not get a nap. Do not even consider it.


It doesn't matter that your toddler has insisted for the last three weeks that all he can possibly ever eat is peanut butter and jelly, the day that is all you have in the house for lunch he will decide he can only eat hot dogs.


No matter how crazy they drive you, at the end of the day, they really are the cutest, most wonderful kids ever.

saragruver.wordpress.com

(easier to post to from my phone, so I switched)

It's a girl!

We are having a daughter.
Olivia Grace.  She looks perfect, delicate, cute on the ultrasound.  We watched her kick and squirm and suck her thumb, much we saw her brother doing two years ago.

In between the looking at the pink furry blankets, checking out the sweet baby dresses, and making lists of what I will need for her, I sometimes sneak a peek at my future--the older girl's clothing section.   And then I decide that my future, and Livie's future, does not involve the wearing of sweatpants with the word "Brat" emblazoned on the butt.  Or a skimpy two piece bathing suit at the age of seven.  Or anything having to do with Justin Bieber.

This is what frightens me about raising a girl.  The world is going to try to sell her so many lies, just because she is female.
It's going to tell her that she has to look a certain way in order to be pretty.
It's going to tell her that she can't be too smart or boys won't like her.
It's going to tell her that boys liking her is the most important thing ever.

And Mom is going to be home, telling her, you can do anything.  You can be anything.  You can be a stay at home mom and raise beautiful little grandchildren for me.  You can be a teacher, an engineer, you can work in any traditionally male field you want--even emergency medicine or firefighting.
Boys are not all that important, especially until you are at least 25 and maybe then you can notice them.
How you look is not nearly as important as how you behave, no matter what the world tells you.

You are strong. You are smart. You matter.

But those are hard messages to get across in a world of Bratz and Disney Princesses waiting to be rescued.  It's a hard message to get across in a world where little girls are sexualized in beauty pageants and the tween aisle at Walmart.  I have hope, though, because I know Olivia's world will be filled with strong, solid female role models.  I know she will see the women in her life making choices that are not always traditional, but are right for them.  I trust that she will grow into a strong, capable woman who does not rely on peer pressure and modern culture to tell her what she must be.

But until then, no, there will be no emblazoned-across-the-butt sweatpants in this house.

A day in the life of Josh

Once upon a time, there was a little boy.

His name was Josh.

Josh had more energy than six little boys all put together, and he loved to play in the toilet, climb in the dishwasher, and ride on the kitty--all when his Mommy wasn't looking, of course.  Josh made his Mommy very tired.

Josh had the blondest hair you've ever seen, and dark, dark blue eyes.  He was very beautiful, even if his Daddy says that boys are handsome, not beautiful.

His Mommy knew the truth--that her little boy was beautiful.

 Josh loved his Mommy, and his Daddy, and his Poppies and his Mimis, and he always wanted to go see his Mimis, because they read him stories and gave him cookies and didn't tell him "no" all the time like his Mommy did.

Josh also

loved his blankie.  Sometimes he would even put his

thumb in his mouth and hold onto his blankie and pretend to sleep.  Once he convinced his Mommy he was asleep and that she could sleep, too, Josh would wake up and go on the greatest adventures with the kitty.  Mostly they went out to the kitchen and checked out the fridge, and Josh would try to get a drink of milk. Mostly it ended up on his clothes.  Then they would climb into the shower and try to turn the water on to clean up, but that never worked really well, either.  If Mommy hadn't discovered him by then, Josh and the kitty would go into the bathroom where the coolest toy ever--the toilet--lived.  And Josh would find everything he could and try to flush it down the toilet, because that was really, really cool.

And usually by then, Mommy would wake up and find him, and she would sigh and say, "Who told you that you could play in here?"  And Josh would look at the kitty and say, "Kitty did!"

And then Josh would have to get his clothes changed and his hands and face washed, all of which he hated, and then Mommy would clean up the milk in the kitchen and give him a drink.

The End.

Non-negotiables

There are certain non-negotiables when it comes to my children.
You may not feed them sugar before bedtime, unless you are willing for them to spend the night at your house.
You may not allow Josh to watch all the Thomas the Tank Engine he wants.
You must be an appropriate adult role model, exhibiting appropriate adult behavior, at all times, regardless of your relationship to my children or how you are related to them.  I'm not saying you can't lose your temper once in a while, but you need to show how to get it back under control, and then explain that it was wrong of you do so.

We do not yell in my house.  We do not throw things. We do not swear(well, at least usually).  We do not kick things when we get mad.  We do not hit.  
These are not just my expectations for Joshua and my other future children, but my expectations for anyone who comes through the door.
These are my expectations for Josh's father and I.

Fortunately, it's rarely been an issue.  Only once have I told someone that they were acting inappropriately in front my child, and there was the door until they could learn to act like a responsible adult.

Yes. I am kind of a nasty person sometimes.  When it comes to my kids, I really, really do not care.(Okay. Honestly. I don't care anyway.)

I think...I hope...this will, over time, teach certain things to my children.
Such as, I expect them to be kind, considerate, and respectful of others at all times.
Such as, you can be all of that, and firm at the same time.  You can draw the line.  You can stand up for yourself, and your family, and say, "This is not acceptable behavior.  You are choosing to not be a part of our lives by acting this way. You know where we are when you make different choices."  I hope this teaches them that excusing someone else's bad behavior isn't acceptable.  That if that bad behavior just continues, that they need to simply walk away.
I hope that teaches my children that walking away is perfectly fine. 

Is that rude?  I don't know.  I honestly, frankly, just really don't care.  Eventually my children will be old enough that we can discuss why people choose to act the way that they do, and that there is no justification, ever, to treat someone else badly.  But my children aren't there yet, and until then, I consider it my job to simply say, No. This is not how you are allowed to act in front of my kids.
And I stick to it.

Schooling

I went to see Peter Pan tonight, an off Broadway traveling professional group.  It was good and I enjoyed it, but I spent the evening thinking how much fun I will have when my kids are old enough for plays.  And I realized--this is why I want to homeschool.  So I can fill their childhood with music, art, theater.  So we can snuggle on the couch and read good, classic children's literature on snowy mornings.  So we can do science experiments and I can watch their eyes when they finally understand a mathematical concept.  So we can go to a Spanish immersion class, and swim lessons, and professional quality plays in the afternoon.

I want to homeschool so my little boys can run and jump and play in mud and catch frogs.  I don't want them worrying about meeting state standards or chained to a desk at too young an age.  I actually don't want them to know what desk is for a long, long time.  I want to read fairytales and do puzzles and make music and do crafts.  I want to allow for my son's need for movement and spontaneity.   I want to instill a love for learning, real learning.  I'm not interested in textbooks, but learning through doing.  I don't want them to be isolated, but a valuable part of a community.  I want them to know the world beyond our home and family, but not be dependent on a peer group.  There are exhibits and lessons and sports and places to explore, and I think homeschooling will give us the chance to do all that.

Academics, of course, are a huge part of my life.  My children, most assuredly, will not suffer academically.  Standards, though, can be high without overly focusing on tests and textbooks.  There is a time and a place for that, and my children will be well prepared for college, and expected to go.  But there is an individual path there, and it will be different for every family.  I look forward to finding ours.

Courageous

Last week, my husband and I finally got around to seeing "Courageous."  Having an afternoon off together is enough of a reason to celebrate by seeing a movie, so Josh went to Grandma's and off we went.
I have to put a disclaimer here: I was fully prepared to not like this movie.  "Fireproof" was so badly acted and the fire and rescue scenes so ridiculous that I can't watch it for more than a few minutes(Kirk Cameron, admittedly, can act. The actress who played his wife made me want to throw things at the screen.).  I'm not a big fan of the other movies the Kendrick brothers have made for the same reasons--poor acting, silly dialogue, and, really, what is their obsession with stereotypically manly men(firefighters, police officers, football players)?  Especially since some of the finest firefighters and police officers I know happen to be women.  But I knew my husband would want to see "Courageous," so I agreed. After all, he's sat through enough of my foreign art films.

To sum up the story, it centers around four police officers and a construction worker.  It's worth pointing out that the police officers are three middle class white guys and an African American, who, unsuprisingly, never knew his father and has father issues.  The construction worker is Latino, clearly living in poverty level, and can't find or keep a job.  Racial stereotypes, much?  In any case, the four police officers are good cops, busy dad.  I don't think they are "bad dads" or "uninvolved dads" as some reviewers have said; I think they are just busy in a stressful job, keeping things up around the house, and making their wives happy(more on their wives later).  Their kids fall by the wayside, until one of the children is killed in a car accident.  This is a wake up call and they all vow to be better fathers, signing a resolution in a ceremony reminiscent of a wedding.  There are a number of tangents and plotlines, but this is the basic story.

The acting in this film was much better and the dialogue sharper and more realistic.  The plotline is still a little silly, and, honestly, I've never seen a group of cops sitting around a backyard barbecue drinking soda. But the Kendrick brothers are clearly advacing in their writing and producing skills, and I give them kudos for that.  There were several genuinely funny moments and some touching moments.  As for the overall message, I can't disagree with the fact that many men need to step up and be fathers, being an active participant in their children's life and not just checking in with Mom at night.  If this movie is a wakeup call to the fathers in the audience to be a part of their child's life, then I think it will have served it's purpose.

However.
I still walked out of this movie feeling very squeamish.  One part of me genuinely enjoyed it.  One part of me was trying to imagine how I would explain it to my teenage son in the future.
The racial stereotypes bothered me on some level, but on another level, they are accurate.  African American men, statistically, are less likely to grow up in a home with their father than are caucasian men.  Latino/Mexican immigrants in this country do often hover near poverty levels and struggle to find work. 
Much more than this, though, is the portrayal of and attitude towards women in this film.  The women are little more than walk on characters who sometimes gently chide their husbands to spend more time with their kids.  The one character who is drawn out a little more, Carmen, is still shown doing nothing more than keeping house and homeschooling their children and making tortillas while her husband struggles to find work(begging one question: if they can't buy food and make the mortgage, why don't they put the kids in school and she finds a job? Never answered.).  It is insinuated that all the other wives in this movie are stay at home moms who do nothing but devote their lives to their children--all well and good, but not realistic.  The wives stand beside their husband in the vow ceremony, as the men promise to "provide for and protect our wives and children."  Children, I can see, but providing for and protecting our wives?  Really?  Why, Kendrick brothers, do you feel the need to infantilize women so much?  Do you really believe that women need to be protected and provided for?  Because if you do, I can introduce you to many, many women who do not, and would most definately not appreciate our husbands coming up with a vow to do so.  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat during the entire vow scene, because--while I totally appreciate calling men out to do their jobs as fathers--it ignored the very vital and important role women do in raising children, and made it seem that women need men in their lives as much as children do. 

In another scene, one of the police officers takes his 15-year-old daughter out on a "date."  Besides the plain ickiness of fathers "dating" their teenage daughters, he gives her a beautiful ring and asks her to pledge him her virginity, and to allow him to approve of any boyfriends before she establishes a relationship with them.  At fifteen, I expect to have some say in my children's dating activities, but he doesn't put a time limit on it.  When my daughter is 23, I have no desire to be involved in her dating life more than quick advice here and there.  Why?  Because I strongly desire to raise my children to make good decisions, and I hope I can completely trust their judgement when they are in their twenties.  No, I can most assuredly say, my husband and I will not be asking to approve our children's boyfriends/girlfriends when they are adults. 
My other concern with the whole scene is the idea of a purity ring.  If my sixteen year old comes to me and tells me that he or she has decided that they want to remain a virgin until marriage, and would like a purity ring, I would be willing to buy one.  But that is their decision, their pledge--not mine.  I am not ever going to ask my child to promise me their virginity; sexual decisions are theirs to make.  Again, I hope I raise my children in such a way that they have good judgement and make wise decisions, but I want those important decisions to be theirs alone.

So should you see this movie?  I actually would go see it again.  The dialogue was sharp and many of the cop scenes were fairly realistic.  The interplay between the police officers was often spot on.  And, overall, I do think it had a good message--that fathers need to be a part of their children's lives, whatever the cost.  I just wish that message hadn't been buried under stereotyped characters, cardboard cutout women, and an icky, icky father-daughter scene.

Fire safety

It's national fire prevention week.  I had originally planned to do a week long series on it, but then my husband talked me into picking up some overtime, so I am working 54 hours this week.  So no week long series.

Instead, we'll hit the highlights.

According to FEMA, 3,500 people die a year in house fires, and over 18,000 are injured.  Surviving is not a matter of luck; it's a matter of planning.

To start with, the most important factor in surviving a house fire are working smoke detectors.  You can buy them pretty cheaply at most stores, or if you truly can't afford one, contact your local fire department. They often have programs to get working smoke detectors into homes.  After that, check the batteries twice a year.  In order to remember, do it on the days we change the clocks.  A good rule of thumb is to have one smoke detector in each bedroom, and at least one more on each floor.  Also, have you considered checking with family members and friends that your children spend the night with?  Yes, this may be paranoid, and yes, your children's friend's parents might think you're a little weird, but consider this: a few years ago, there was a house fire in our district.  It burned down the entire house.  The pre-teen girl that lived there was having a slumber party, and they lit a candle on the kitchen table before falling asleep.  Something fell on the candle, it tipped over and ignited the papers on the table.
There was only one smoke detector in the house. It did not have  a working battery.  The occupants were alerted by a passerbyer on his way to an early morning job, and everyone got out with only a little smoke inhalation.  The house burned to the ground.  Had they had working smoke detectors, they would have gone off as soon as the candle ignited the papers.  I thought about the girls staying over--how would their parents have felt if they had all been injured or died while at a friend's house, because no one thought to make sure the smoke detectors were working?

Speaking of candles, firefighters in general are not big fans.  For starters, they cause an awful lot of house fires--around 15,600 a year.  The majority are lit too close to combustible material, and are not properly encased.  If you must light a candle, be sure it is not anywhere near something that can burn, such as paper, wood, or plastic.  Carefully supervise children around it, and only use candles that are in sturdy metal, ceramic or glass containers, and cannot be easily knocked over.

Do you have an exit plan?  Do you know how you're going to get out of the house, and have you set a designated location outside where your family is to meet?  Do your children know to stay low to the floor, where the air is the best, and to never, ever open a hot door?  Plan escape routes from every room in your home, and practice them with your children.
Exit plans are not just for the kids, either.  If you have more than one small child, have you and your spouse discussed who is getting whom?  You don't want to be deciding at 2 a.m. when your house is on fire, talk about it now.  For instance, I only have one child now, so it isn't an issue.  But when there are two, and my husband is home, we know that I will get the new baby and he will go get Joshua.  Plan now who is getting which child, so there is no confusion and someone gets left inside.

Do you keep a cell phone by your bed?  We do, because in the case of a fire, I can grab the cell phone on my way out.  Don't ever go back inside or veer out of your escape route for something, but it is wise to keep things next to your bed in case of an emergency.  For us, that is my contacts, since I'm legally blind without them, and our cell phone.  We also have a spare set of car keys hidden outside.  If your house burns down with your car keys in it, what are you going to do?

Teach your children that fire is a tool, not a toy.  Develop and enforce whatever guidelines are appropriate for your family.  For ours, it is that our children are never, ever to play with the stove or fire.  They are not to touch it, ever, until they are teenagers, and then we can discuss it again.  These may be stricter guidelines than what your family wants or needs, so decide for yourselves what rules you are going to have concerning fire, and make sure your children know them.

Fires are not always preventable.  But they are survivable, with some planning and discussion with your children.  Talk to your kids, practice with your kids, and be safe this winter season.

Birth and marriage

My best friend had a baby this week. She had to be induced, as even at 42 weeks her body wasn't showing any signs of preparing for labor.  After a grueling fifteen hours of disorganized contractions but no other response to the drugs, heart decelerations during contractions, and the baby still not engaging, she finally had a c-section.  The baby was 9 lbs 3 oz, with fat chubby cheeks and fingernails so long they had to be trimmed shortly after birth.  He was, you could say, overcooked.

But it wasn't the birth she had planned or hoped for.

Admittedly, I was also disappointed.  Not in the baby's birth, but she delivered at the hospital I will have this next child at.  I was disappointed looking at the maternity rooms, which are nothing more than a plain hospital room, converted for one patient.  A lone picture on the wall with a mother and a baby are the one suggestion that this is more than a plain old med-surg hospital room.  There's a chair that pulls into a bed for Dad, a card table, and a tiny 12 inch TV stuck on an arm that the patient can pull in front of her to watch.  I've been an inpatient at this hospital before, and I can vouch that this room is indistinguishable from the medical patient rooms.  Not only that, but this hospital discourages the dad from staying more than one night, has a nursery--something most hospitals no longer have, except for very sick infants--that they encourage you to send your baby to, and isn't very welcoming to anything but flat-on-your-back-deliveries.  The baby is stuck in a normal isolette with no cover.

In contrast, the hospital where I had Joshua had large, airy rooms.  If I had delivered naturally, I would have checked into my room, delivered there(unless I chose the large birthing tub down the hall), and stayed there throughout my whole stay.  There was a large recliner that pulled down into a comfy bed for my husband, a wooden, round dining room table by the window, a large plush rocking chair, and a cradle for the baby.  There was a flat screen television on the wall and the whole room was tastefully decorated.  It was far more like a hotel room than a hospital bedroom.  Dads are encouraged to stay with mom and baby the entire time, and not only does the hospital encourage rooming-in, they actually no longer have a nursery.  There is a room with special equipment set aside if your baby needs extra care, but other than that, they don't put the babies in there.  If Mom is exhausted and there are no support people, the nurses were glad to take care of the baby while she slept, but the babies usually never left mom's side.  While the room wasn't huge, it was large enough to easily accomodate several visitors.

Of course, that hospital is an hour and ten minutes away, and we made the decision long ago that it was too much of a drive.  We talked, briefly, today about my absolute dislike of these maternity rooms at the hospital I'll be delivering at, but decided that anyplace else is really too far of a drive to be considered.

And, honestly, it doesn't matter. 
Here me out on this.

There are a lot of women I have known who think the birth is the be-all-and-end-all.  They want their babies born their way, with minimal interventions(or maybe a lot of interventions), a certain way with certain things going on.  I know labor and delivery nurses that laugh at birth plans, because so many of them are so detailed that it's impossible to follow.  You might get the birth you want. You might not.
If you have a healthy baby, who cares?

Births, I think, are an awful lot like weddings.  A lot of preparation and thought is put into a wedding.  The dresses have to be just right, the lighting, the music.  There is nothing wrong with planning for a birth or a wedding, but so often that planning takes our attention off of what is really important--that it really isn't the event.  It's the marriage. It's the baby.  Those are the important things.  How they happen? Not so much.  You can have the most beautiful, romantic, fairy tale wedding in the world, but if you don't follow your marriage vows--not just fidelity, but love, honor, and respect--your wedding was nothing more than a joke.  You can have the most natural, calm, peaceful birth in the world where nothing went wrong, but if you're a failure as a parent, the birth was meaningless.  (And, honestly, the baby doesn't care how or where it was born. Really. They don't.)

Now I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with a fairytale wedding or a romanticized birth.  There isn't.  But placing all your focus on an event, instead of on the marriage or the baby, is wrong.  It's a recipe for disaster.  This was the main reason my husband and I chose to have a small, simple wedding--because it wasn't about the wedding.  It was all about the promises we were making to each 0ther before God and witnesses; audacious promises that we have vowed to keep.  We didn't spend a lot of time planning our wedding; we did spend a lot of time planning our marriage.  Our wedding itself was not the main event.  The vows we were making to love, cherish, honor and respect each othere were.

So in the end, I'm not that concerned with where or how I give birth.  Yeah, this hospital is definately not my ideal--but if I have a healthy baby, who cares if I'm in a cramped hospital room for three days?  What does it matter?
It doesn't.
The baby matters.
Our marriage matters.
Nothing else really does.

Surprise

Vaccinations again

There is some essential biology you have to understand before really delving deep into vaccines.  Our immune system is complex, but I'll try to make it easy to understand.

The body's immune system works by first identifying something as a pathogen--a disease causing agent.  Every pathogen is covered with tiny molecules called antigens, and it is those antigens that trigger a specific immune response.  Our bodies don't recognize something just generally as a pathogen; those specific antigens are identified as their own unique pathogens, and the appropriate antibodies are released from the lymph nodes.  We have specific antibodies to fight off specific antigens.   To develop those specific antibodies, though, our bodies have to first be exposed to that disease's antigens.  Some pathogens, specifically viruses, are constantly mutating and having different antigens--this is why when you get a cold, then someone else in your family catches the cold, they don't pass it back to you.  You've been exposed to that specific antigen and have the proper antibodies to fight it off when it gets back in your system.  However, if you are exposed to another cold virus, one that has mutated and has antigens that your body doesn't have the antibodies for yet, you will probably catch it and have symptoms until those antibodies are made and can fight it off.  

This is the science behind vaccinations.  Vaccinations contain dead or greatly weakened pathogens.  Even though they can't cause a child to get sick because they cannot reproduce due to their dead or weakened state, the body still recognizes them as a pathogen.  The body then studies their specific antigens and creates the antibodies specific to those diseases.  If that child is ever exposed to those antigens again, the antibodies will activate and fight off that disease before it gets a chance to reproduce in the body.

(For a much more detailed, yet still easy to understand explanation, check out http://www.howvaccineswork.org/)

Okay, you say.  But I know a lot of people who have been vaccinated who still got the disease, particularly pertussis, or whooping cough.  So how does that work?

This I understand. My parents are both firm believers in vaccinations, and myself and all of my younger sisters have been fully vaccinated.  Yet, several years ago, many of my sisters caught a case of whooping cough.
Whooping cough is, if you want to get technical, caused by B. Pertussis,  fastidious gram-negative coccobacillus.  In real life terms, it is a pathogen that produces toxins that damage the epithelial cells of respiratory tract and causes severe coughing.  This doesn't sound that bad, but, especially in infants and children under 2, that coughing causes a lack of oxygen to the brain, which in turn causes the brain cells to die, causing brain damage.   In classic pertussis, the coughing lasts longer than three weeks, and residual coughing can last for months.   In 2000-2004, there were 6,114 children under twelve months old hospitalized with clinically confirmed pertussis.  Out of that number, 5, 454 had apnea--periods where they stopped breathing.  1,063 had pneumonia, 146 had seizures, and 92 babies died of whooping cough.
             The greatest complications in adults, who usually don't see brain damage, is 5% suffer pneumonia and 4% have rib fractures from the coughing. (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5517a1.htm#tab2)   The biggest issue with adults having pertussis, though, is that it can be passed on to infants. 

There are two reasons for the pertussis comeback: number one, researchers have found that the efficacy of the pertussis vaccine begins to wear off after around 10 years.  Basically, the body begins to forget those antigens.  This is why you may see commercials on the adult pertussis booster--it isn't a real issue for adults, other than an inconvenience, but it can be deadly when transmitted to an infant.  This is why I got my pertussis booster last year; it isn't something I am overly concerned about dealing with myself, but I would be horrified if I passed it onto my son. 

The other reason there are more pertussis cases is simply because there are fewer people getting vaccinated, something that we'll look at later this week. 
Now why did my family get whooping cough?  Especially when some of my sisters had vaccines that shouldn't have started to wear off yet?
Most likely, they didn't have actual pertussis.  At least not B. Pertussis.  There are other diseases that are in the pertussis family, but that the vaccine does not cover.  These are usually less severe and do not lead to the major complications that the actual B. Pertussis does.  Especially one pathogen called B. Parapertussis presents clinically similar to the deadly pertussis pathogen, but the symptoms are less severe.

Later on this week we'll look at the beginnings of the anti-vaccine movement, which actually began with the pertussis vaccine.

Busy

We are too busy.
It isn't activities or hobbies, neither of which we have anymore. Its my husband working an average of 75  hours a week. I seem to always get scheduled to work on his days off, so we never see each other.
We took the boat out four times last summer. We couldnt find the time for anything more. We never did take Josh to the zoo, or put up a swing in the backyard. More and more, my husband comes home sleep, and its time to go back to work when he wakes up.

It is mostly just the simple fact that this is what firefighters and paramedics do. Everyone I know who works these kind of jobs does what we do...working forty or fifty hours of overtime or two jobs or, like Rob, both.

In the middle of the craziness, its easy to imagine what-if.  What if we didn't have to do this?
In the field across from my parents, there is a camper. The people who live there keep to themselves. They have a garden and a clothesline. Sometimes we think-yeah! We should just sell everything and go live in a camper and raise our own food and be totally self sufficient and live off the land! Except the good folks at CPS would probably (rightly) assume that I was setting my children up for all kinds of security and food issues, and give my parents custody.

If there is a middle ground, I haven't found it. Are there mothers who don't come home exhausted, toss a frozen pizza in for dinner, and who occasionally see their husbands? Are there really fathers who have time to put a swing up for their kids, build the upstairs bathroom, and are willing to occasionally take a day off work to take the toddler to the zoo?

I assume there are families like this, but I suspect they have made intentional choices to create a simple and less stressful lifestyle.  Those are not our choices, valid though they may be. We have debt to pay down and jobs that demand time more than anything else.

But the truth is, my son is never going to wish that Daddy came home every night or that we spent a week a year camping, because that isn't going to be anything he ever knows. This is his status quo, even if it isn't for his parents.

Vaccinations part 1

Vaccines have recently hit the local news for two reasons: first, there has been a small outbreak of measles in an adjacent county. All the children affected were unvaccinated. Secondly, nationally there are some pediatricians who are refusing to see children whose parents are not vaccinating them. The theory is that they don't want the immunocompromised children and babies in their waiting room exposed to these illnesses. Personally? If there was a pediatrician locally that was doing this, I would immediately switch to their practice.
I understand that my choice to not only vaccinate but to keep my child away from unvaccinated children-I actually will not allow him to be in a day care or church nursery if an unvaccinated child was present until he is old enough to have all of his own vaccines-is not popular. And that is fine. I would rather be un popular than deal with encephalitis from measels, brain damage from pertussis, paralysis from polio, seizures and death from Hib. All of these diseases, even polio, are making a comeback, primarily because the vaccination rate in many places is too low to provide group immunity. Parents, misled or not understanding the studies, have chosen not to vaccinate.
Why is that? To understand, we need to look at the history of vaccines,  the studies and propaganda ,and one vaccination in particular-- pertussis.

This week I will be exploring the  history and controversy surrounding the pertussis vaccine and explaining how the accusations against it have since been discredited. Check out these sites if you want to do your own research

Www.oregon.gov/dhs/news/2008news/2008-0117

Www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/15220.php

Whooping cough and Unrecognized postperinatal mortality , archives of disease in Childhood 63(1988):41-47

Family

I haven't seen my husband in days.  This week, I think, he is working 77 hours.  He comes home long enough to sleep and go back to work.  Partly, I was supposed to be gone to a class for three days(Advanced Medical Life Support, in case you are wondering) that got canceled because of the flooding.  Figuring I wasn't going to be home anyway, he picked up overnight shifts on the nights I was going to be gone.
Yeah.
That backfired.

But I can't complain.  I have a warm house, I have plenty of food, I have enough money to go buy my son the fall and winter wardrobe he needs, I have gas in my car, and we're able to pay cash for just about everything and have money left over to save.  Why? Because he's willing to work 80 hours a week and I'm willing to continue working part time(though anymore, I really just want to quit and find a different job).

But I do sometimes miss the family togetherness we had before he took this job.

Vaccinations

I'm a little late.
Josh is 15 months and still hasn't gotten his 12-month vaccinations.  So Wednesday we'll go and get them.
Honestly, I forgot.  I've thought about it off and on, but just hadn't called and made an appointment.  But then August is immunization awareness month, and I talked to my sister, who has a 19-month-old son. They live on an army base, and baby Nate missed his 18-month shots.  Even though he's only a few weeks late, he can't even attend Sunday school at the base church.  He can't go to base day care or the child care center at the gym.  Basically, my sister said, baby Nate isn't allowed anywhere on base around other children because he's a few weeks late on his vaccinations.  They don't care if you have a religious exemption, that's fine, don't vaccinate your kids, the military says--but they can't be around the rest of our kids.

So I called and made an appointment.

I've steered away from talking about vaccinations because it seems everyone is talking about vaccinations, some rationally, some not-so-rationally.  And I didn't want to get into the controversy. But honestly, what's another person talking about shots? And after thinking about it, I don't feel there is a controversy.  Vaccinations have been repeatedly proven safe, serious childhood illness has become rare since the advent of immunizations, and there are serious flaws in the arguments against immunizations. 

So the next few weeks, I'm going to talk about it. Wade through the science and hopefully explain it in easy-to-understand, yet accurate, terms.  Discuss the arguments against vaccination and why they don't hold up.  Look at actual scientific studies and discuss what makes them solid and reliable. 

And in case you're wondering, yes, I will talk about the very real side effects that vaccinations can come with.  I am pro-vaccination; I also had a seizure after my own twelve month shots and a serious reaction to the chicken pox vaccine at age 16.  But frankly, I would rather deal with my child having a febrile seizure than the side effects of measles, mumps, and rubella.
And you should, too.

Too many children, not enough car

There was a discussion on one of the forums that I frequent about what to do when you have more children than room in the car.  I blanched reading some of the responses, which included (a) double buckling or (b) sitting a child or adult on the floor in between the front seats.
And this was considered good advice.

It is not good advice.
It is very, very, very bad advice, and will get you traffic tickets and fined at best, and at worst, will kill someone in your family.

Here is why:
People in car accidents get hurt when their bodies strike something else, such as the dashboard, steering wheel, seat in front of them, door, or another person.  Double buckling puts two children far too close together and constrains them.  Their bodies are trying to occupy the same space.  In a crash, those children are going to go into each other at a high rate of speed, most likely hitting their heads together.  This can and does cause serious injury, including brain damage and death.  This was tested in crash tests, and the two child size dummies buckled together in a relatively low speed impact struck each other hard enough to cause severe injuries. 

 A child should never be buckled onto an adult's lap as well, because the child could be crushed by the magnified force of the adult in an accident.  I'm not kidding--at a mere 30 mph, the force of a 150-lb adult in a crash is over one ton.  You may be thinking that there is nothing for your child to be crushed into, especially if you are sitting in a row seat in a minivan or in the back seat of a car.  Crash tests, however, have proven that the massive force of an adult or older child pushing the small child on the lap into the seat belt is enough to cause death.  To put it otherwise, the force alone of the adult pushing the smaller child against the seatbelt is enough to crush that child's internal organs and cause death.

The same reasoning goes for why unrestrained passengers should never be allowed to ride in a car, whether it is in a seat or on the floor.  The magnified force and the speed at which that person will travel in an accident is great.  A child sitting on the floor up front between the seats risks flying into the dashboard, out of the car through the winshield, or into the side doors in something like a minivan.   Some of the likely injuries?  Brain injuries, broken ribs, punctured lungs, spinal cord injuries, lacerated internal organs.  And those are just the likely injuries.  A unrestrained passenger is also likely to fly into someone else in an accident, particularly a restrained passenger, causing them injuries as well.

So what do you do?  Preferably, you take two vehicles or upgrade to a vehicle large enough to accomodate all the children.  I understand those larger vehicles are more expensive, but I am pretty blunt, and if you can't afford a larger car to ensure your children's safety, you need to stop having children.  If worse comes to worse and you find yourself in a situation where y0u must travel and don't have enough room in the back, the largest child should be placed up front and the seat moved back as far as possible.  If you can turn off the front passenger airbags, do so.  In no case should a child in a safety seat ever be placed in a front seat. 

For more information, check out these sites:
Safety research
Car seat safety

A rant

So we've been trying--unsuccesfully--to have another baby.
Today I discovered that maybe it's fortunate that we've been unsuccesful, because the local hospital I had planned to give birth at is, as of November 1st, no longer delivering babies.  They are trying to arrange for their one OB doctor, my doctor, to practice at another hospital.  I suspect it will be the large hospital 40 minutes away, where I have had horrible experiences in the past and absolutely refuse to give birth.
Except I refuse to give birth at any of the other 3 hospitals in the area; one because it isn't a good hospital, one because they won't do a C-section just because I've had one previously and have no medical need, plus it is a 50 minute drive, and the hospital where I had Josh, because, again, it is just too far away.

I know it's silly to be upset about this, but I had really looked forward to having our future children at the local hospital, where our families would have easy access and I wouldn't be driving an hour for OB appointments.   I hated being so far away from home when I had Josh, not only because it made it harder for our families, but an hour long drive home after giving birth with an upset newborn in the back is hell on earth.

This upsets me to the point where we are not going to continue trying to conceive.  I honestly would rather not have any more children than be left with these minimal, and to me unacceptable, birthing choices.

Once again, I really wish we could just move closer to decent medical care.

Car seat safety part 1: Why rear-facing?

Last week, I actually started toying with the idea of turning Josh forward-facing in the car.  He's about 22 pounds, I reasoned.  And, basically, he hates the car seat, hates not being able to see Mom, and the whole thing is really a struggle.
And then I was rear-ended by a truck.

In a rear end collision, the force of the impact travels through the car.  Newton's first law of motion, An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an external force, comes into play here.  Most rear end collisions happen when vehicle one is stopped, whether at  red light, stop signing, turning, or what have you. So you have vehicle 1, at rest, with its passengers inside, also at rest.  Vehicle 2 comes along, strikes vehicle 1(vehicle 2 is your external force here), causing it to move forward.  A properly seatbelted passenger's hips and torso will move forward to the vehicle, but the unrestrained head and neck stay where they are, and are pushed back into the headrest(and you thought headrests were just for comfort).  The neck muscles, however, hold the head to the torso, suddenly "whipping" the head forward.  The head keeps moving until it is ahead of the torso, and those same neck muscles will then catch and stop the head from moving, bringing it back level with the torso.
Thus your poor, unfortunate occupant now has whiplash.

What does this have to do with car seats?

Babies are born with weak neck muscles.  Though they generally strengthen greatly by 6 months, the sheer mass of the head in proportion to a baby or todder's body is still much greater.  To put it in perspective, the mass of a baby's head is 25% of the body, compared to 6% of an adults.  A forward-facing car seat puts an extreme strain on the baby's neck, which has to hold that large head back in the event of a crash.  Those neck muscles are doing everyting the adult's neck muscle are doing in the scenario I described, but are responsible for a much, much larger mass proportionally.  A baby or toddler's neck sustains an incredible amount of force in a crash, stretching, stressing, and possible even fracturing the spinal cord.  In a forward facing car seat, the child's body, restrained by the straps, is held in place while the head is thrown forward. A rear-facing car seat, however, keeps the head, neck and spine fully aligned while in a crash.  The head is not thrown forward, but is held firmly in place.  The child is able to "ride down" the crash, as the car seat itself takes the brunt of the force(this is why you must get a new car seat after an accident, and do not ever use a used car seat unless you are sure it has never been in a car crash). 

  (University of Michigan Child Passenger Protection)

See the difference?  Same seat, same car seat, same size child dummy, same force applied--the only difference is how the car seat is located.

And this is why Joshua will remain rear-facing in the car for quite some time.


This is part 1 of my summer series on safety while traveling with children. Next week I will be talking about making sure your car seat is safe and properly installed, as well as some hints on choosing a good car seat.

Family

We have a large music festival heading our way.  Of course it can't be something cool, like a country music festival, but instead is a Phish music festival.  No, I'd never heard of them either, but apparently they are huge with the hippie/peaceloving/ecstasy and LSD doing crowd.   Oh, and glow sticks.  Apparently one of the big things at these festivals is to use a whole lot of ecstasy(which super heightens your senses) and then, with 40,000 of your friends, wave a lot of glow sticks and somehow this is "cool."

And of course I'm working up there, 12 hours on, 12 hours off, for the next 4 days. 
Lucky me.

We needed our  new udpated IDs for the fire department(both my fire department and 
the ambulance agency I work for are providing EMS coverage at the concert. I couldn't be luckier, I'm tellin ya) in order to be up there.  Rob and I hadn't picked up ours yet, so he texted the assistant chief and asked if we could get them.  Instead the chief said he had to go grocery shopping anyway and would drop them off.
After I signed for them and remarked on how terrible my picture was, I flipped them over and noticed a mistake.  On the back of mine, it had Rob's name, phone number and our address.  On the back of Rob's, it listed my name, phone number and address.  I pointed this out, that whoever made the IDs switched the backs.
The chief looked at me strangely.  "That's your emergency contact," he said.

Oh.
Right.

So if something happened to Rob, all they would need to do is flip it over his photo ID, which should be hanging on the accountability board at any fire.  There is my name and my cell phone for them to call.  There is my house number and street name, in case it is really bad, and notification needs to be made in person. Right there, easy to see, no looking up papers or numbers in case of emergency.

The truth is that it probably wouldn't happen that way.  If I wasn't at the fire, I would hear a firefighter down call on the scanner or my pager long before anyone called me.  Firefighter down activates all sorts of procedures, the first being all unnecessary radio traffic stops.  All firefighting operations cease and everything turns into a rescue scenario.
I would hear all of this, and because I also have our private, F2 channels in my pager, I would be able to switch over and listen to the radio traffic.  It would probably involve his name, because we're not the best at keeping secrets.
And I would know.

The other truth is that it doesn't matter who it is.  Whether it was my husband or not, if I heard a firefighter down called, Josh is going to my cousin's and I am going to the scene.  It might be my husband, but it would definately be one of my brothers(or sisters, since we do have several female interior qualified firefighters).  It would be someone I know. Someone I love, even if I don't always like them.
Because that is the way we are.   Even if it isn't my husband, it would be someone in my family.  Whoever's ID tag was being flipped over, it would be someone I care very deeply about and trust with my life. 
And I would be there.

And maybe that is why I don't dread the midnight phone call or the knock at the door.  If something goes wrong on a fire ground, I will probably be there or be there shortly after.  And I would never, ever be alone.
There is comfort in that.

But I am not thinking that way tonight.  Tonight, my husband is at work at his full time medic job, and since I have to be at the fire house at 0530 for my 12 hour shift at the festival, Josh is spending the night at Grandma's.  So tonight, I'm putting on a movie, going to bed early, and thanking God for all of the extra family I have in my life.