Monday, August 2, 2010
Can't Get That Earworm Outta My Head
So, I read this article on CNN.com about what it possibly the 'nets next Rickroll. The article is not about Rick Astley or "Never Gonna Give You Up", but it did mention it. Now I can't get "Never Gonna Give You Up" out of my head. It's like I've been rickrolled by Anderson Cooper. Thanks, guys.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Sometimes I feel a little bit like Kermit
This post is for Michelle over at Plus One. Check out her blog in general and, specifically, her contest for unpaper towels.
When we have kids we think about many, many things – from giddy, happy things like baby’s first Christmas and starting new family traditions to the ugly side of parenting like loss of sleep. But one thing we never think about beforehand is the environmental impact of having one or more children.
What exactly is the environmental impact of children?
Diapers are the first thing everyone thinks about and disposable diapers certainly add tons, quite literally, to the waste stream. But what about water? Electricity? Gas?
As I sat down to write this post I smugly thought about all the great things we’ve done to lessen the environmental impact of adding one more person to our family…and realized that we really haven’t done all that much.
I recycle glass, plastic, metals and paper products, but I did that before The Punkin got here. (I need to take a moment to brag on The Punkin here. The other day she put her father’s coke can in the recycling can and told me she was “de-cycling”. I was so proud of her.)
I’m a little bit of an electricity-nag, always going behind my husband and cutting off lights, sometimes getting yelled at if he’s still in the room when I cut the light off. And I wash all our clothes except towels in cold water. (I do make the allowance of washing towels in warm water.) But, again, I did those things prior to having a baby.
As far as water consumption, I’ve made one small change recently. Our bathtub faucet drips and I’ve started putting a bucket under it and using the water collected to water plants. Better than it going down the drain. But that’s the only change.
Our one bright spot is our gas use. I’ve not measured it, but I’m sure our gas consumption is about even, if not less, than before we had a baby. Driving to daycare does add another mile or two to our daily commute, but overall we’re not driving as much. We don’t go out to eat as much, we stay at home more in the evening, and I plan trips to the grocery store and KMart instead of going out for one thing at a time.
But aside from gas, our overall consumption has increased. Heck, just through toys alone, our consumption has increased. I’m sure Grammy was responsible for the demise of an acre or two of forest last Christmas simply from the packaging and wrapping paper around all the toys. I did make a valiant effort to collect and recycle as much of the wrapping paper as possible and all the boxes. But still, I was a little appalled at the amount of STUFF my child received at Christmas. But my feelings about the overabundance of toys in her life will be saved for another post.
So this post is not so much about what we’ve done as what I’m going to do.
And what am I going to do? I’m going to take it one step at a time. Right now I’m doing research on cloth diapers. I had big plans about cloth diapers with The Punkin, but ultimately ended up going for the convenience of disposable. With He-Who-Is-Not-Yet-Named, I’m making a commitment to cloth diaper at least part time (and by part-time, I mean weekends) or full time if our day care is open to it.
Ultimately, I would like to have a garden with a compost pile to further cut down on our waste stream and provide fresh produce for my family. That feels like a big project that will take a couple of summers to fulfill. So, while I’m greening up my family one-step at a time, I may come up with a five-year plan of ideas. If anyone reading this has any ideas they’d like to contribute, let me know and I’ll see about incorporating them into my family.
When we have kids we think about many, many things – from giddy, happy things like baby’s first Christmas and starting new family traditions to the ugly side of parenting like loss of sleep. But one thing we never think about beforehand is the environmental impact of having one or more children.
What exactly is the environmental impact of children?
Diapers are the first thing everyone thinks about and disposable diapers certainly add tons, quite literally, to the waste stream. But what about water? Electricity? Gas?
As I sat down to write this post I smugly thought about all the great things we’ve done to lessen the environmental impact of adding one more person to our family…and realized that we really haven’t done all that much.
I recycle glass, plastic, metals and paper products, but I did that before The Punkin got here. (I need to take a moment to brag on The Punkin here. The other day she put her father’s coke can in the recycling can and told me she was “de-cycling”. I was so proud of her.)
I’m a little bit of an electricity-nag, always going behind my husband and cutting off lights, sometimes getting yelled at if he’s still in the room when I cut the light off. And I wash all our clothes except towels in cold water. (I do make the allowance of washing towels in warm water.) But, again, I did those things prior to having a baby.
As far as water consumption, I’ve made one small change recently. Our bathtub faucet drips and I’ve started putting a bucket under it and using the water collected to water plants. Better than it going down the drain. But that’s the only change.
Our one bright spot is our gas use. I’ve not measured it, but I’m sure our gas consumption is about even, if not less, than before we had a baby. Driving to daycare does add another mile or two to our daily commute, but overall we’re not driving as much. We don’t go out to eat as much, we stay at home more in the evening, and I plan trips to the grocery store and KMart instead of going out for one thing at a time.
But aside from gas, our overall consumption has increased. Heck, just through toys alone, our consumption has increased. I’m sure Grammy was responsible for the demise of an acre or two of forest last Christmas simply from the packaging and wrapping paper around all the toys. I did make a valiant effort to collect and recycle as much of the wrapping paper as possible and all the boxes. But still, I was a little appalled at the amount of STUFF my child received at Christmas. But my feelings about the overabundance of toys in her life will be saved for another post.
So this post is not so much about what we’ve done as what I’m going to do.
And what am I going to do? I’m going to take it one step at a time. Right now I’m doing research on cloth diapers. I had big plans about cloth diapers with The Punkin, but ultimately ended up going for the convenience of disposable. With He-Who-Is-Not-Yet-Named, I’m making a commitment to cloth diaper at least part time (and by part-time, I mean weekends) or full time if our day care is open to it.
Ultimately, I would like to have a garden with a compost pile to further cut down on our waste stream and provide fresh produce for my family. That feels like a big project that will take a couple of summers to fulfill. So, while I’m greening up my family one-step at a time, I may come up with a five-year plan of ideas. If anyone reading this has any ideas they’d like to contribute, let me know and I’ll see about incorporating them into my family.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
And the Waiting Begins…
A few weeks back I told you about going in for our first trimester Down Syndrome/Trisomy 13 and 18 screen. We had to wait about a week for the results. (Which I neglected to post, btw, but the results were good. My risk of Down Syndrome was halfed to approximately that of a 31 year old and my risk of Trisomy 13 and 18 was something astronomically in our favor like 1 in 7800.)
But waiting that week for those results was nothing like the eight hour wait I have today.
Here are the facts:
1) I went to the doctor this morning for an ultrasound.
2) At 17 weeks along, the baby is big enough to determine its sex.
3) My husband couldn’t come to this appointment.
So what’s a girl to do? We want to know the baby’s sex, but I thought it would be sweet for us to find out together. So I asked him last week if he was OK with me finding out or if he’d rather I get the ultrasound tech to write it on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope for us so we could open it together after work.
At first he said either way, he didn’t care; but this weekend he developed an opinion on the matter and said he liked the idea of us finding out together after work. I have to admit, at first I was (selfishly) glad he said he didn’t care. Instant gratification—I could know as soon as the ultrasound tech knew. But a little (ok, a sizeable) part of me is glad he wanted to find out together. It will be sweet. … But instant gratification went right out the window with his decision.
Right now two people on this planet know the sex of my baby – the doctor and the tech. I’ve got the Top Secret Information in an envelope which I sealed so I wouldn’t be tempted to peek. And I’ve got a seven to eight hour wait until I can share this information with my husband. Today may be the Slowest. Work. Day. Ever.
One hour down…
One last note: I want to go on the record here as saying I think it's going to be a boy. We'll know if my spidey-sense was right or not in a few agonizingly long hours. If you want to go on the record with your guess, leave a comment.
But waiting that week for those results was nothing like the eight hour wait I have today.
Here are the facts:
1) I went to the doctor this morning for an ultrasound.
2) At 17 weeks along, the baby is big enough to determine its sex.
3) My husband couldn’t come to this appointment.
So what’s a girl to do? We want to know the baby’s sex, but I thought it would be sweet for us to find out together. So I asked him last week if he was OK with me finding out or if he’d rather I get the ultrasound tech to write it on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope for us so we could open it together after work.
At first he said either way, he didn’t care; but this weekend he developed an opinion on the matter and said he liked the idea of us finding out together after work. I have to admit, at first I was (selfishly) glad he said he didn’t care. Instant gratification—I could know as soon as the ultrasound tech knew. But a little (ok, a sizeable) part of me is glad he wanted to find out together. It will be sweet. … But instant gratification went right out the window with his decision.
Right now two people on this planet know the sex of my baby – the doctor and the tech. I’ve got the Top Secret Information in an envelope which I sealed so I wouldn’t be tempted to peek. And I’ve got a seven to eight hour wait until I can share this information with my husband. Today may be the Slowest. Work. Day. Ever.
One hour down…
One last note: I want to go on the record here as saying I think it's going to be a boy. We'll know if my spidey-sense was right or not in a few agonizingly long hours. If you want to go on the record with your guess, leave a comment.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Headline Hijinks
I'm convinced that the people who write headlines do not always read them aloud. For example, this gem from MSN.com: Utah's lack of size spells big problems. The story is about the Utah Jazz basketball team. However the headline makes it sound like the wives of Utah are ready to revolt because of, ahem, unsatisfactory size issues.
Happy Monday, everybody.
Happy Monday, everybody.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Down Syndrome...to Test or Not to Test
Time flies. I know, it’s a cliché. But it’s true. It seems like just a couple of months ago I was bringing my baby girl home from the hospital and now she’s a bright, active, talkative 3-year-old. When a friend with a new baby asks a question about what her 3-month-old is doing, I have a hard time remembering what the Punkin did at that age. This should still be fresh in my memory! But, no, it was three years ago. A thousand days have passed and with them a thousand new stories have come and gone.
My child continues to grow and somehow along the way, I continue to grow older, too. I am now 36 and pregnant. How did this happen? Wait before you answer that…I know exactly how the pregnancy happened, it’s the 36 that I’m questioning.
The doctors have a term for being over 35 and pregnant. It’s called Advanced Maternal Age. Yeah… I guess it’s better than “knocked up old lady” or “antique stove with a bun in the oven” or…well, you get the idea. I’m above the average age for a preggo.
With Advanced Maternal Age come a whole slew of potential complications. But perhaps the one everyone thinks of when you’re over 35 is Down Syndrome. Of all the things I worried about when I was pregnant with the Punkin and any worries that I had started to consider with this pregnancy, Down Syndrome was not even on the list until the doctor mentioned that as a woman over 35 I was in the target group for screenings.
I like to think that I’m not a big worrier. I just worry about the wrong things, like whether or not I locked the door or left the oven on. And although I wasn’t overly worried about the possibility of Down Syndrome, I did elect to have the first trimester screening. I didn’t invest a lot of energy in worrying about it, but I rationalized that if we have the medical technology available to get an answer early on, it was one more thing I could cross off my list of possible worries. That would free up time to try and remember whether or not my curling iron is still on.
Part of the reason I elected to get the first trimester screening is because it’s non-invasive. Once upon a time, the only way you could get this information was through an amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling. Both of these procedures involve sticking a needling through your abdomen into your uterus. No thank you. Not unless absolutely necessary.
But this screening is completely non-invasive from the baby’s point of view. The nurse drew some blood from me, but that was as invasive as it got. They also did an ultrasound to check nuchal translucency – or how thick the tissue is at the back of the fetus’ neck. Then they put the results together from these two tests and come up with a risk factor.
This is not the same as a diagnostic test. Only the aforementioned amniocentesis or CVS can tell you one way or another for certain whether your child has a chromosomal disorder or not. The results from the first trimester screen simply slide you up or down on the risk scale. A good result would mean I could move from a 1 in 200 chance (the average chance for a 36 year old) to, say, a 1 in 1,000 chance. A not-so-good result could move me to, for example, a 1 in 50 chance. While not entirely foolproof, it has a 90 to 95 percent accuracy rate. I’m comfortable with that.
So, when will we hear the results? The blood test won’t come back for about a week, so we won’t know the official answer until then. But the doctor said the ultrasound measurements looked perfectly normal. I’ll let you know when we hear back with the final results.
My child continues to grow and somehow along the way, I continue to grow older, too. I am now 36 and pregnant. How did this happen? Wait before you answer that…I know exactly how the pregnancy happened, it’s the 36 that I’m questioning.
The doctors have a term for being over 35 and pregnant. It’s called Advanced Maternal Age. Yeah… I guess it’s better than “knocked up old lady” or “antique stove with a bun in the oven” or…well, you get the idea. I’m above the average age for a preggo.
With Advanced Maternal Age come a whole slew of potential complications. But perhaps the one everyone thinks of when you’re over 35 is Down Syndrome. Of all the things I worried about when I was pregnant with the Punkin and any worries that I had started to consider with this pregnancy, Down Syndrome was not even on the list until the doctor mentioned that as a woman over 35 I was in the target group for screenings.
I like to think that I’m not a big worrier. I just worry about the wrong things, like whether or not I locked the door or left the oven on. And although I wasn’t overly worried about the possibility of Down Syndrome, I did elect to have the first trimester screening. I didn’t invest a lot of energy in worrying about it, but I rationalized that if we have the medical technology available to get an answer early on, it was one more thing I could cross off my list of possible worries. That would free up time to try and remember whether or not my curling iron is still on.
Part of the reason I elected to get the first trimester screening is because it’s non-invasive. Once upon a time, the only way you could get this information was through an amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling. Both of these procedures involve sticking a needling through your abdomen into your uterus. No thank you. Not unless absolutely necessary.
But this screening is completely non-invasive from the baby’s point of view. The nurse drew some blood from me, but that was as invasive as it got. They also did an ultrasound to check nuchal translucency – or how thick the tissue is at the back of the fetus’ neck. Then they put the results together from these two tests and come up with a risk factor.
This is not the same as a diagnostic test. Only the aforementioned amniocentesis or CVS can tell you one way or another for certain whether your child has a chromosomal disorder or not. The results from the first trimester screen simply slide you up or down on the risk scale. A good result would mean I could move from a 1 in 200 chance (the average chance for a 36 year old) to, say, a 1 in 1,000 chance. A not-so-good result could move me to, for example, a 1 in 50 chance. While not entirely foolproof, it has a 90 to 95 percent accuracy rate. I’m comfortable with that.
So, when will we hear the results? The blood test won’t come back for about a week, so we won’t know the official answer until then. But the doctor said the ultrasound measurements looked perfectly normal. I’ll let you know when we hear back with the final results.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Yay, Kate, you go girl...Now please go home
One thing I told myself when I started this blog was that I wasn’t going to be a hater. It would be very easy to write about the things that bug me, but that serves no purpose. It just fuels negativity within myself and brings attention to things that I don’t like. If I don’t like something, why should I pique your interest in it?
Having said that, I’m now going to bend my own rules a bit. I’m going to talk about Kate Gosselin on Dancing with the Stars.
I am not a Kate Gosselin fan. Never have been. Don’t anticipate ever being one. We’ve watched bits and pieces of the now-defunct Jon and Kate Plus 8 and it wasn’t a program either my husband or myself enjoyed. Having a bunch of kids does not make you a parenting expert. It just means you have a bunch of kids. I’ve got enough chaos in my life, why do I want to watch someone else’s chaos? Plus – remember the title of my blog here – if I’m going to watch “reality” TV, I’d rather be watching Ghost Hunters…or Mythbusters… or Destination Truth.
Even though I don’t like her, I’m not a Kate-Hater. There are plenty of people in this world that I don’t like, but I hate very few of them. To actually hate someone means you are emotionally invested in him or her and, frankly, I don’t care enough about her to hate her.
I just want her off DWTS because she’s not entertaining. She can’t dance. She’s so awkward it almost hurts to watch her. And the rehearsal montage they show each week usually highlights her talking about how her life at home is so stressful that she can’t help but bring her emotional baggage with her. With so many clever and fun contestants, why are we still watching the sad sack attend her own personal pity party each week? We should just put Tony out of his misery and let them go home.
Now that I’ve vented about why I want her off DWTS, I’ll take a moment to defend her decision to join the cast this season. Many of her detractors say that she shouldn’t be on the show because she should be spending time with her kids. Give me a break. Talk about double standards. She’s not the only parent to appear on this show; she’s not even the only parent this season. Pamela Anderson and Chad Ocho Cinco both have kids and no one has criticized their decisions to participate in the show.
The only difference is that Kate Gosselin’s career is centered around the fact that she is a mom. For Anderson and Ocho Cinco, their careers are independent of their parenthood. That difference does not mean Kate has any more or less of a responsibility to her kids than any other parent on the show. So, while I do not want to continue watching her each week, I respect her decision to participate.
But each week, I hope, will be her last on the show.
Having said that, I’m now going to bend my own rules a bit. I’m going to talk about Kate Gosselin on Dancing with the Stars.
I am not a Kate Gosselin fan. Never have been. Don’t anticipate ever being one. We’ve watched bits and pieces of the now-defunct Jon and Kate Plus 8 and it wasn’t a program either my husband or myself enjoyed. Having a bunch of kids does not make you a parenting expert. It just means you have a bunch of kids. I’ve got enough chaos in my life, why do I want to watch someone else’s chaos? Plus – remember the title of my blog here – if I’m going to watch “reality” TV, I’d rather be watching Ghost Hunters…or Mythbusters… or Destination Truth.
Even though I don’t like her, I’m not a Kate-Hater. There are plenty of people in this world that I don’t like, but I hate very few of them. To actually hate someone means you are emotionally invested in him or her and, frankly, I don’t care enough about her to hate her.
I just want her off DWTS because she’s not entertaining. She can’t dance. She’s so awkward it almost hurts to watch her. And the rehearsal montage they show each week usually highlights her talking about how her life at home is so stressful that she can’t help but bring her emotional baggage with her. With so many clever and fun contestants, why are we still watching the sad sack attend her own personal pity party each week? We should just put Tony out of his misery and let them go home.
Now that I’ve vented about why I want her off DWTS, I’ll take a moment to defend her decision to join the cast this season. Many of her detractors say that she shouldn’t be on the show because she should be spending time with her kids. Give me a break. Talk about double standards. She’s not the only parent to appear on this show; she’s not even the only parent this season. Pamela Anderson and Chad Ocho Cinco both have kids and no one has criticized their decisions to participate in the show.
The only difference is that Kate Gosselin’s career is centered around the fact that she is a mom. For Anderson and Ocho Cinco, their careers are independent of their parenthood. That difference does not mean Kate has any more or less of a responsibility to her kids than any other parent on the show. So, while I do not want to continue watching her each week, I respect her decision to participate.
But each week, I hope, will be her last on the show.
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