Baby T: "Big puppy."
Dad: "That's an oxymoron, honey."
Mom: "That's not an oxymoron. Some puppies are big."
Baby T: "No, daddy moron."
HILARIOUS!!! Good thing daddy thought so too. I love baby talk. T goes from being speech delayed to calling her daddy a moron. Guess the speech therapy is working, lol. She's talking more. Not necessarily the words we expected or want to hear, but it's speech so "yeah"!!
I've created an online affiliate retail page of some popular stores that we all love to shop from like Amazon, Hot Topic, ebay, PacSun, Zoobooks (my eight year old son loves these magazines), and more! As I become affiliated with more popular shops, I will add them to this page. Check it out.
If your child likes those "build a" stuffed animal shops, you HAVE to try Stuffed With Fluff! Just a whole lot of fun. I bet you the little ones would love one of these in their Easter basket.
If you have a pre-teen or teenage daughter and worry about the chemicals and other unnatural products they are applying to their face and body, check out Mineral Girlz. It's a healthy, more natural alternative (and more natural look as well - no more goop!!). LOL. Check them out.
I received an unexpected letter and check from a "company" claiming they were hiring me for some secret shopping thing. Their letterhead stated their business as "Customer Service Survey Group Inc.". It said they were a secret customer employment firm. They sent a check for $2,775 with their request that I contact them right away to activate it.
DUH!
If you get a letter and check like this - RIP IT UP AND TOSS IT AWAY OR CONTACT THE AUTHORITIES.
I didn't cash it obviously. I know better than that. I also did a little research online to see if this was a common scan people had fallen for. My search brought up a few people who had been ripped off. Sad.
Don't fall for scams like this whether they come to you through email or through your mail box. Research before you do anything. There are a lot of scams out there. Dishonest people hoping to rip you off. Dishonest people hoping to prey on an elderly person or desperate mom or dad wanting to put food on their kids' table.
I've shredded mine and disposed of it. Somebody wasted a canadian stamp on me for that one.
I am going through some articles I've saved...trying to clear the clutter off my table. Since I have thyroid disease, this article about hypothyroidism caught my eye and ended up part of my clutter. It is an article from Health magazine (health.com), the May 2007 issue.
It says a thyroid needs iodine (not too much or else you'll cause other thyroid problems), selenium, and magnesium. My husband would like this - it says sushi is a good source of iodine. He loves sushi. I guess I should be popping my multivitamin more often. I will pass the sushi, seafood, and kelp to my husband and stick to my vitamin.
It talks about raw cruciferous veggies (like broccoli and cabbage) interfering with iodine and thyroid hormone production (so cook them).
I've heard some controvery over fluoride and not just in relation to thyroid. I've heard that you shouldn't be using fluoride toothpaste or drinking water with fluoride. It's one of those things where you just don't know who to believe. Our tap water doesn't have fluoride added to it so the kids have fluoride "swishes" once a week at school. This article talks about how fluoride can decrease production of thyroid hormone and how it moves thru your blood. They recommend rinsing well after brushing and not drinking too much fluoridated tap water.
The last thing was to manage your stress (good luck with that I think to myself). Keep to a workout schedule. Get enough sleep. Ha! Good luck with any of these three if you are a busy mom. Many more good luck wishes if you're a stepmom!
Well, I am still researching whether we should vaccinate our oldest daughter (11) with Gardasil (see older post here). I am still undecided.
I have come across some more interesting information that I thought I'd put out there for those who may not know:
Here are some more statistics I've come across:
The GARDASIL vaccine protects against four types of HPV (6, 11, 16, and 18). I've read that these four types cause 70% of cervical cancers and 90% of genital warts.
GARDASIL ingredients: Purified inactive proteins from those four types of HPV, amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate, sodium chloride, L-histidine, polysorbate 80, sodium borate, and water.
*sigh* This is a hard decision with all the controversy out there about vaccines in general.
While at the pediatrician's office for well-checks, I saw a mom bring three of her pre-teen and teen girls in and tell them at the front desk she wanted the Gardasil vaccine given to all of them at that visit. My daughter whispered to me that they went to her school. They were in and out quickly. The youngest of the three ended up on my daughter's basketball team. She's obviously fine - no adverse reactions.
For another opinion, check this out.
Read more...I work from home because I want to be home for my kids and available. I am always on the lookout for LEGITIMATE ways to make money. Through a friend of mine, I heard about surveys you can do that make you money. I've found a number of sites that I have actually been paid for (I don't list them on my site unless I've been paid!). Right now there is a really good offer I wanted to make y'all aware of. It is at Mermaids Sand Dollars. Usually I just do the free offers (doesn't cost me a penny to do and I make $$ doing it). However, this offer was too good to pass up. The offer is called Psychic Source. You pay $10 for a ten minute reading. Mermaids pays $30 to you for doing the offer and will pay you another $20 if you do this offer in February as their February promo. I did this so I made $40 in ten minutes plus had my first psychic reading, lol. I also get 250 PTC ads for my home business advertised on Mermaids for free! Sign up at Mermaids Sand Dollars and then do the Psychic Source offer. It was simple. I did it Saturday and had $50 in my account on Monday!!! Just click the link below!!
A couple of months ago (during the MRSA scare), my then ten-year-old daughter came home from school to tell me kids in her 5th grade class were inhaling the hand sanitizers for "huffing to get high" and she didn't know what that meant. I went online to find out if this is possible from hand sanitizers and also advised the elementary principal. This brought home to me that kids are starting out at younger ages. Ten year olds "huffing"? I couldn't find any substantial information indicating hand sanitizers could be used for huffing, however, if you suspect your child is doing this, you should consult your doctor. However, does that mean that they are huffing other things, more dangerous products? I would think so.
Kids are also using Dust Off (product - can of compressed air - used to blow dust off of computer hardware) to get high. It is killing them. There is an email going around about Dusting. You may write it off as another urban legend, but it's not. Here is the link: http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/dustoff.asp
If you have kids, be aware that they may not be using the usual that our generation is used to - marijuana, cocaine, mushrooms, speed, etc. They may be using products you keep around the house!!
Check out this link: National Inhalant Prevention Coalition
So, what do you think about them? Do you use them? Avoid them?
I actually avoided them for several years. I didn't see the point in them actually. Then, we wanted a way to keep in touch with my husband's two oldest kids so we signed up with a few of them thinking it'd be a great way to keep in touch long distance. So, did it work?
As far as the original intention, no, it didn't work. Yes, they signed up with myspace too. However, they wouldn't allow dad onto their site though their mother, uncle's personal and band site, and mother's friend has access to the children's sites (though the children do fib and deny this repeatedly). Dad isn't allowed. Hubby thinks this was their mother's choice as his daughter wouldn't intentionally lie to him repeatedly without some misguided reasons. So, here we are signed up with a couple different online sites and no kids to keep in touch with. What did we do?
We kept them. We started out with MySpace and Yuwie. MySpace is THE ONE to be on so far, but with Yuwie, you actually get paid for being there and people visiting your page. We hope once people realize that for what you are already doing on MySpace, you can get paid to do it on Yuwie. We figured you might as well make some money off of doing what you'd be doing on another site anyway. Why should the site get all the money from the advertisers? Most recently, we were invited to Tagged and joined so now we have ANOTHER social site to keep up with:).
We've found them to actually be a good way to keep in touch with family and friends long distance. So, we'll keep them for now. They can be a fun way to share news, pictures, and songs.
DOCTORS
I've made an appointment with my doctor for tomorrow for my asthma. It's not getting better and it is very unusual for this to affect me like this since starting Advair a few years ago. It's a bit scary. So, I'll see my doc in the morning and find out what the heck is going on now.
I'll also get my actual thyroid and adrenal gland test results other than being told they are "perfect" on Monday like I was - I want NUMBERS PEOPLE!! I want to know what they consider normal or perfect and keep track of these things like a good, aware patient should.
I also have an appointment for my oldest to have her finger looked at again. It's still causing her pain and throbbing and it's now been a week since she injured it.
VALENTINE'S DAY
Valentine's Day was a good day for everybody in our house. Hubby surprised me when I woke up this morning with a big teddy bear, card, and chocolate. For our four kids, we bought them each their own baby box of chocolate and small, stuffed animal and a little dollar toy for each of them. For my stepkids, we sent them each a poster-sized collage of family pics of everybody that included them too. We also created a web site for my stepchildren with their own personalized domain name. We made a Valentine's Day page with lots of happy wishes and love posted on it for them from us. We didn't hear a word from them on it or at all about anything today. No big surprise (they rarely contact dad and never contact anybody else in the house) but still somewhat disappointing. Our four kids were so grateful and full of hugs. They were thrilled with what they got and we only spent about $5 on each of them. It's good to know we are raising our four kids to appreciate and be grateful.
EVERYTHING ELSE
Speaking of this web site, we created a private forum on there since my stepkids won't allow dad access to their myspace pages. It's perfectly safe as you need to register and be approved to view and post. Did they rush and register to chat with us? Nope. Despite being online several times today, nope. The reason given why we couldn't get on their myspace was that it was only for their friends and not even their mother has access per stepkid. That's not true, unfortunately. Disappointing to be lied to. Not only does their mother have access (as she should...as should dad!!), maternal uncle has access via his personal myspace page AND band page, as well as a friend of their mother's! Yet dad isn't allowed. We've sent friend requests several times and they are all denied. Soooooo, we thought - ok fine...we'll make this private forum so they can keep their myspace (even though I think dad should light into his kids for lying to him and being so disrespectful AND send a request to their mother to be added - he IS dad!!! It's not my problem though.) so we can chat with them in our own private space. No dice so far. Let's see if they register to come into our private forum created just for them anytime soon. *sigh*
Our two year old cut her hair a few days ago. Her first haircut was given by herself to herself by stealing a pair of (blunt tipped) scissors off the bed that my daughter was using for homework and snip-snip.
I was woke out of a dead sleep at 3:00 a.m. this morning to hear somebody coming in the house! It turns out that hubby came home last night at 3:00 a.m. early because he was sick. It's a good thing I figured out who he was before using the bat on his skull!! My first instinct when I hear somebody coming into the house, at an unusual time for anybody to be doing so, was to grab my bat and be ready to swing to protect my kids. I figured it out before having to meet hubby with the bat. Good thing for his skull! A freaked out, dazed from sleep, mother wanting to protect her babies and wielding a bat is NOT a good thing to meet at 3:00 a.m. Though I know I could use it if I had to. I have no problem protecting my own. It's good to know that when it came down to it, I didn't freeze up.
I spent a few hours today putting pictures in albums. I've only done three years so far (I take a lot of pictures). That leaves my childhood pictures all the way up to the year 2000 with marriage and kids and then from September 2004 - present to print and put in albums. I've only done 2001 - 2004 so far. I have a lot of work ahead of me.
I was notified this week that I've had a couple of product reviews approved for publication. So, that's cool!!
These are some pictures I took of when my husband had a band with a friend of his a couple of years ago. I just dug them out of storage (finally) and he's just too cute so I thought I'd post a few. Listen to some of their music on myspace!
Usually, I have some idea on who I want to vote for at this point. I lean one way or the other on who I hope will be in the primary election. Unfortunately, not this time. There is not ONE candidate that stands out to me as "the one" to vote for. I guess "apathetic" is the right term for me right now.
I do not categorize myself as Republican, Democrat, or Independent. My choice on who to vote for is twofold. 1.) I vote for who I feel is most closely campaigning according to my beliefs and is believeable (because let's face it - they're saying what they think you want to hear whether it is their truth or not); and 2) Who will do the least amount of damage in office.
At this stage, I don't know who that is. How disappointing.
Let's look at my feelings on a few of them...
Clinton ~ while I liked Bill in office (not his personal life obviously but the status of the country during his time in office), I won't vote for her just because she is a woman and I am a woman. That's a stupid reason to vote for somebody. My perception of her is that she is cold and I don't get a feeling of "trust". Besides, her husband cheated on her and she swallowed it with a smile. Ugh. I'm sorry but that doesn't seem "real" - even if she did put on a front for the public and lash him in private. In public, there should've been more emotion and she just didn't have it. She feels plastic to me.
Obama ~ not sure why everybody keeps calling him black. One parent was black and the other white, right (or am I wrong)? Does that make him black or white? Eh, what do I know about that. I don't. Not sure why it matters. I don't vote based on color. I don't know a whole lot about him and nothing draws me to find out more yet.
Huckabee ~ I liked watching him in an interview. He seemed a bit more real, however, I don't like the religious aspect and I'd worry he'd run the country with religion involved and I believe government and church should remain separate. Not sure he has the experience to run a country?
McCain ~ He seems a lot like Bush to me and I am tired of Bush being in office. I didn't feel like that in the beginning (about Bush) but "in the beginning" was a long time ago. I want change.
Romney ~ He just suspended his running so I guess he is a mute point at this time.
Paul ~ I know he seems more like a real person but experience? Crotch doctor for president...hmmm...different. That's change eh? I don't know enough about him either to make an informed decision yet. Maybe not being so much a politician is a good thing because politicians are generally liars:) When was the last time an Independent was elected for President?
Where I stand at this point? Disappointed, worried, apathetic. That's me. I am waiting to see what my final choices are going to be I guess (I hope that is what is it and I haven't become totally disillusioned and disgusted with every politician out there) and then will go from there I guess. I seem a bit lazy about this election don't I? It's not laziness, it's just there is nothing about one candidate that has stood out enough for me to get behind and the candidates are disappointing to me so far.
Eh, after thinking about it, I still don't care to really yak about it. It doesn't make any difference. Short story - kid lies repeatedly. Parent does nothing. Parent encourages it actually. Nice way to raise your kid. *sigh*
Not my problem.
I called my doctor for my thryoid lab results. I was told they had just mailed them to me (so I should see them tomorrow or Monday), but that they were all perfect. "Perfect." OK. Don't know what that means in terms of numbers but we'll see when the letter gets here. I guess it means my thyroid med dosage is good. Damn. Wish the stupid symptoms would go away then. I was so hopeful too... Maybe I'm being impatient though. I guess 6-1/2 years of symptoms can do that to a person:)
I took our daughter to the pediatrician today to find out the pediatrician's thoughts on why she kept falling asleep this week around the clock and was light sensitive with headaches. The pediatrician is stumped. She said it is "odd" but that she would wait to see if it happened again. The frequency of this second occurrence (1-1/2 years after the first occurrence) is odd and she'd hold off on scans and other tests unless it happened again. She doesn't think it is hormonal related. She didn't think the fatigue would be so extreme from hormones. She mentioned migraine but our daughter doesn't usually have headaches and didn't have them all the time thru all of this - just part of the time so that was ruled out. I had migraines when I was pregnant with our son (the only time I've had migraines which is how I knew we were having a son) and what our daughter was experiencing, while some similar symptoms, wasn't close enough to be migraines. (I really hope not because week-long migraines would really suck.) She had them (headaches) periodically this past week and because of the light. While we were there, we also had her look at her finger she hurt in basketball last night. Doc thinks she stretched a ligament and it is wrapped. If her finger isn't feeling better next week, she will see her again. She probably won't be playing in the game Sunday unless her fingers makes a rapid improvement.
My asthma has been giving me a problem everyday since I had the flu a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure what the difference is now but something has definitely changed for the worse. I haven't had this many problems with my asthma in years. That scares me a bit. The last bad asthma attack almost killed me my doctor said after my trip to the ER.
That's all for me tonight. I'm tired and am going to hit the hay. I have some thoughts on parents who know their kids lie and do nothing as well as parents who encourage their kids to lie but I'll save that for another time. I'm too tired to care enough to give that issue my time right now. I'd rather be sleeping, lol.
About 1-1/2 years ago, our oldest daughter (she is 11 now, was almost 10 then) started falling asleep no matter where she was at or what she was doing. She'd fall asleep in school. She'd fall asleep in the car. She'd fall asleep at home. She even fell asleep with her face in her cereal! Her pediatrician thought it was possibly viral or atypical seizures so an appointment was made with a Neurologist. However before the appointment time came (it takes forever to get into see a Neorologist), the extreme fatigue stopped. It was thought then that it was viral.
Well, this past week, she became real sleepy again. She wants to sleep all the time. In addition to chronic fatigue, she has light sensitivity indoors and outdoors. Light gives her headaches. There is no fever, no cough - no other symptoms other than fatigue and light sensitivity. She had an appointment on Monday at her pediatrician's office with the nurse practitioner. She thought it could be a subclinical virus. They also did a rapid strep test which was negative. She said to bring her back Wednesday if she wasn't better. She wasn't so I made an appointment on Wednesday for her - which her pediatrician's office canceled because the doctor would be out of the office! GRRRRRR!!! No appointments available Thursday! So, we have an appointment tomorrow (Friday) with the pediatrician. I requested an actual pediatrician this time. No offense to nurses, but this is really serious to us and I want a doctor to see our daughter.
I sent her to school today (though I am expecting a phone call by mid-day or so to pick her up as I don't think she'll make it a full day). Yesterday, she had a period of time where she had more energy and stayed awake for several hours so I want her to go back into her normal routine today and see how she does. I also want to see how much is pre-teen drama mode to extend her illness and attention and how much is real. Sometimes, it is hard to tell with her. I don't want to minimize whatever is going on with her but I need to get a good gauge on how bad this still is for the doctor tomorrow. I need to know whether this is viral or something a neurologist or another specialist should be looking at. My neurotic fear is tumor or something along those lines. I've researched online and came up with something called hypersomnia. I don't know if hormones (puberty) can do this to this extent, but who knows. I sure don't. It doesn't seem like the doctors do either.
*sigh*
I guess we wait to see what tomorrow's doctor appointment brings. Probably blood tests for sure and possibly an appointment with a specialist. We shall see.
Cabinets that aren't cracked!
Does this look like hardwood? It's not. It's vinyl!!
Now when I look around the main level, I see the potential of this smaller home. It may not be as big as we would like (and need) or have the charm of our previous home, but it can still look nice. It will soon be ok to actually invite the neighbors in without being embarrassed! As long as they don't go to the other level and see that half of the house that we still have to fix up, lol.
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