Marla’s Journey

While I was delivering papers early this morning, I was listening to an informational spot about being informed voters. The woman being interviewed was from www.votesmart.org and explained that the website is an unbiased source for information about candidates for public office. The point that resonated with me was that she said, numerous times, we are choosing candidates for a very important job and we should review their credentials as such. President, vice-president, congressman and senator, these are truly life-impacting positions and instead of just listening to what they have to say and what they tell us their position is, based on time and audience, we must educated and inform ourselves as to what they REALLY stand for and vote for and against.

The votesmart site is an AMAZING resource for real, true voting records, position information, and who is bending their ear and funding their elections. A MUST read for anyone who wants to get away from the rhetoric, eloquent as it may be, and find out what the candidates really do when in a position to take a stance in a meaningful and impactful way. Check it out.

So asked the ENT today after he removed the popcorn kernel from Max’s left ear canal! Max was AMAZING!! We had to go into a Procedure Room with a microscope thing and Max laid down on the table. There were three nurses to help hold him down, and me. Max was still as a stone, smiled at me the whole time as I held his hands and one nurse kept his head in her hands, though she didn’t even really have to hold him. I was SHOCKED, pleasantly so! NOT at all what I expected from my Wild Child!! The ENT said he was the “best behaved 3 year old I have seen in my practice!” Wow!! I was very proud of my little trooper, and we have had a LONG talk about not putting anything smaller than his elbow in his ear.

He and Benjamin spent 10 minutes trying to get their elbows into their own ears, then moved on to trying to put one another’s in their ear. Things around here are NEVER dull!!

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Wow, you really do have to be careful when you say, ” I couldn’t do another thing this week! I have too many appointments!” That is pretty much a guarantee that you WILL have more! After taking Max to the dentist yesterday for his 1st check up (Did GREAT!! NO cavities, no tears!!) and the pediatrician today for his check-up (90th percentile for height, 95th for weight!! No shots, so no tears! ), and having my first of 6 interviews for an interim pediatrician, I was appointmented out!! I think I even said something to the effect of “Wow, I am SICK of doctor’s offices! I’m SO glad I don’t have another appointment til next week!!” HA! Of course, 10 minutes later, in walks Max, followed by Benjamin, talking about the popcorn in Max’s ear. Yes, an unpopped kernel, in his ear. Call the doctor, who thankfully says I don’t have to take him to the ER, call the ENT. We have an appointment for 10:30am tomorrow, when they “will get it out, hopefully without sedation.” Great….Just Great! The nurse did say that the “good” news is that is not a bean, which could begin sprouting. WONderful! SO lucky, we are, we are!

Onto the Benjaminisms…the child comes up with the FUNNIEST things…he just cracks me up!! Yesterday, he told me his “leg circles” were wet. What? My leg circles. After a number of questions, I learn that “leg circles” are the cuffs of his pants, wet from standing in the bathtub. Today, he asked me to throw a string cheese wrapper away for him. I told him no, he needed to throw it away and could take a couple other pieces of trash on the counter.

“It’s called helping, Benjamin, and performing a helpful service! It’s awesome!”

“It’s not so awesome for ME!” says Benjamin, with a rather icky look on his face.

Oh, and his pet. Fret, the locust skin. Yes, just the skin. I found 3 the other day and brought them in for the boys to see. Thomas would NOT touch them, and was NOT interested in looking too closely at them, either. Max crushed two of them, in the first 2 minutes they were here. I think we had gotten to “This is the old skin of a bug” in our science lesson when he started smushing them. Benjamin adopted the last one, protecting it from Max, naming it “Fret”, asking for a home for it. Fret now lives in an old baby food jar, sleeps with him, gets tucked in under blankets (in his jar) for naps, and is pretty much his constant companion. I have picked some extras off the trees and put them away, because Fret is now down to 2 of his 6 legs, and I expect the rest of his crunchy self parts to start falling apart any moment, given the rather rough treatment a bug (skin) in a jar receives in my house.

I’m thinking of taking up wine drinking again. In moderation, of course. Soon.

Got this e-mail today! Good news, though you’d be hard-pressed to find it reported in the main-stream media!

“Dear Friend,

Thanks to your calls and the combined efforts of scientists, legislators, concerned parents, and other conscious citizens like you, dangerous plastics are getting kicked out of the playpen. On August 15, 2008, President Bush signed a ban on six toxic phthalates, bringing Americans one step closer to toxin-free toys. Used to soften plastics, these chemicals have been linked to breast cancer, decreased sperm counts, birth defects, and other health problems. This legislative victory comes at a time of growing public concern about unsafe chemicals in consumer products – a movement spearheaded by parents and public health advocates. This victory demonstrates how rallying around a cause we believe in really can bring about change, and make our world a safer, healthier place to live.

Thank you again for your partnership in protecting the health of our children.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Rogers
President

PS. If you would like to do more, your contribution to Earth Day Network will increase and strengthen our ability to impact this issue and others like it.

I cannot believe my sweet, wild, surprise child, Maxwell Jordan, turned three years old today! It really seems both so recently that he arrived, and that he has been with me forever. He is truly my spirited child, the one that can go from total joy, to meltdown, to happiness again, quicker than I can even begin to adjust! He is a challenge to mother, but such a delight and joy, so funny and sweet. Always the first to give me hugs and kisses, loves to cuddle, and tackle me if I am not quite paying attention! He was not at all planned, but I simply can’t imagine how less rich my life would be without him. Mama loves you, Max, now and forever more!!

Things in my world have entered hyperdrive and many days, I seem to be just holding on to avoid being flung wildly around! We have started applications for our Homeschool Co-op Fall Electives, and as the Administrative Coordinator, I have been busy formatting forms and writing guidelines with the other amazing women on our Leadership Team. We started over with brand new participation guidelines and application processes, so we have done A LOT of work this summer, though it is now paying off and coming together, which is a good thing!

Thomas’ end of year testing results went to the County a couple weeks ago. Overall a 95percentile composite score, meaning for the whole test, he scored better than 95 % of the kids that took the test. Both his math and language skills were strong, and we are very pleased! We have been unschooling much of the last couple years, and I am pretty convinced it is working well! Thomas has requested a bit more structure this coming year, which I am happy to provide for him, with the understanding that, at almost 16, the responsibility for structure and achievement rests mostly in his hands. I am his instructor and guide, but I think it is important for him to “own” HIS education. He is excited by that idea, and we have worked together to form a basic schedule and curriculum guide for this coming year. He can hardly wait til basketball season starts and has been doing push ups, situps,and LOTS of jumping in preparation! He LOVES basketball and even convinced me to play a game of HORSE with him Saturday afternoon. Me out on the basketball court is amusing. NOT pretty, but amusing!

Benjamin and Max continue to be great sources of excitement and laughter. Benjamin is quite the thinker, always trying to figure things out. He is our official “popcorn criminal” finder…Max had spilled popcorn the other day and Benjamin was finding lots of unpopped “criminals” (kernels) on the floor. Now it is his job, everytime they have popcorn, to make sure all the criminals are thrown away where Abby Grace cannot get them! He has started his “schoolwork” and is very serious about getting his school folder out each day and “doing my work!” The child has an AMAZING memory and rarely forgets anything he’s been told. A blessing and a curse!!

Max is really coming into his own personhood. He talks CONSTANTLY it seems, and wants to do EVERYTHING Benjamin does, except pee pee on the toilet on a consistent basis. I’m ok with that. I am much more about potty-learning than potty-training. Training to me is taking them in there every hour and waiting til something happens. Learning is giving them the opportunity to go if they want, when they ask or answer yes when I ask. Benjamin taught me SO much in this department, in not forcing it, and that mom being trained to take them to the bathroom every hour is NOT potty-training, it’s mommy-training. Anyway, Max is doing great and is so cute, and learning to use that cuteness to his advantage, it would seem. He is known, when about to get in trouble for doing something he KNOWS is wrong, to walk up, fling his arms around my legs and say “I LOVE you, mama!!” with the biggest smile….so sweet, and nothing but trouble!! He is great with Abby Grace, loves on her and gets upset when she gets told “NO”, usually for biting me while nursing!!

Speaking of trouble, Abby Grace is EVERY inch the Princess. She is SO sweet and everyone just adores here. The boys don’t like to hear her cry, and resort to all kinds of silliness to bring back her smiles. Thomas has developed the magic touch with her, being the only one who can consistently get her to sleep without feeding/nursing her. Her turns on You Tube music videos and hums to her and boom! Out she goes!! It’s sweet to see big, strong Thomas take such good care of his little sister. She has developed a formidable screech, much like Max at this age, and is not afraid to unleash both it and her sweet pout when things don’t quite suit her!! I think we have our hands full with little miss Gracie Blue Eyes!

Well, that’s about all happening here. I am posting some pictures my mom took. I went to take a bunch the other day and the rechargeable batteries were dead! Until I get back around to taking some, these are here for your viewing enjoyment!!

Was what I was told a few days ago at the park with my 3 littles. I had Abby Grace in her sling, to keep her happy and keep my hands free, and Benjamin and Max were off playing on the climbing/slide apparatuses (apparatii??). I was talking to a friend who I was there with, discussing immunization and the choice I have made to delay and selectively vaccinate Benjamin, Max, and Abby. This woman had apparently heard me say that Abby’s 9 month check up was coming up and I had been working up the schedule on which I plan on vaccinating her. When she interrupted our conversation with her statement, complete with eyeroll, I decided it was a perfect opportunity to share with her, a complete stranger who’s opinion means nothing to me personally, my reasoned decision to not follow the standard immunization schedule.

When Thomas was a baby and young child, I did my parenting “by the book” of common opinion and practice at the time. I had him vaccinated on the AAP schedule, and gave him new vaccinations as they came to my doctor’s office. Eleven years later, when I was expecting Benjamin, I did more research, and through that reading and real-life experience, came to my decision about vaccinating. Benjamin had all his shots on schedule until his mmr shot. He had a HORRIBLE reaction and cried for like 24 hours. NOT a normal occurrence. I decided to delay his remaining shots and while he has had subsequent shots, he has not had a second MMR.

With Max, I did a delayed and reduced schedule, choosing which few vaccines I find most important. Abby, at 9 months, has had no vaccines and will be on a MUCH delayed schedule. I have gotten much “feedback” about it, and feel very good about our decision.

I think immunizations can be a wonderful thing and that they DO help to save lives. My problem is the sheer volume and schedule under which they are given. The immunological response of our bodies is an amazing and wondrous thing. The sheer brilliance of injecting small amounts of toxins to evoke a defensive and protective response is just genius. I just don’t in ANY way believe that injecting babies from birth to 12 months old with 27 doses of toxins is a good idea. That is the number of vaccines recommended for children today. I do NOT find it at all surprising that the rise in incidences of auto-immune and immune-system disorders, along with behavioral and sensory disorders, in the past 20 years corresponds directly with the increase in the number and amount of immunizations administered to the children of America.

I do not in any way believe that our immune response was meant to be assaulted by such a vast amount of toxins in such a short time period. The increasing number and bundling of vaccines has been done under the guise of making it “easier” on children, as they have to have fewer needle sticks, and  “more convenient” for doctors and parents, needing fewer office visits and time off work to tend to little ones, which also just *happens* to improve the bottom line for drug and insurance companies, doctors offices, and the workplaces of working parents. I think that, given the AMAZING design of our bodies by our omnipotent creator, the majority of children miraculously walk away from immunizations relatively unscathed, but that the damage done has been grossly underestimated. I simply choose not to subject my children to what I consider unnecessary risks that cannot be undone to immunize against diseases that, for the VAST majority of children, are NOT life-threatening.

That being said, I have my revised schedule for Abby done and will present it to her doctor at her 9 month check-up tomorrow. I LOVE the littles’ pediatrician, who is compelled to point out the positives of immunizing, but respects my position on the matter! I hear SO many stories of parents who feel strong-armed into giving their kids shots they TOTALLY don’t believe in by doctors who refuse to acknowledge a parents’ right to make health care decisions, based on belief and conviction, for the children they love and dedicate their lives to. THAT is a sad statement on our supposed support of parents today, and happens way more often than one would like to believe.

The woman in the park, I will give her credit, listened to what I had to say, and told me a number of times, “I hadn’t thought of that!” and “I hadn’t looked at it that way.” I like that!!  I don’t pretend to believe that everyone should think the way I think or believe the things I believe (though it would make MY life MUCH easier and less tense!!), but I do take it as a challenge to lead people to think about things they might not have considered before, and look at things from a different perspective.