the worst natural disaster I've ever heard of...
Yahoo! News - Tsunami Kills 22,000 in Nine Countries
There may have been worse, but not in my lifetime. Unbelievable. Unfathomable, the number of people dead from this deep ocean earthquake and resulting tsunami.
Want to help? You can. Donate to the
International Red Cross. They need all the help they can get...this is going to be a massive undertaking.
the Christmas Eve reports...
(in no particular order)
...I clogged up our sink with week-old Pho noodles and spent most of the morning taking apart the plumbing under the sink trying to figure out where the clog was. No luck. And I had a typical amateur-plumber event when I unscrewed one joint and had water gush everywhere! Gads.
...The wee one's surgery went great. He charmed the socks off all the docs and nurses while we were waiting to go into prep, and he passed through with flying colors. There was a little bit of blood on his sheets last night, but they said that might happen, so I'm keeping an eye out. There hasn't been any more.
The best thing about it? After coming home from the hospital and sleeping 3 hours, he was up and happy, and chattering. He's been talking much more now...cooing and babbling. And he walks better! He's more steady on his feet. I'm very pleased. =)
Special thanks to Jennifer, who privately emailed me with words of support. Thanks hon, you helped ease my fears!
...Christmas Eve with my parents tonight. My mom just loves playing with the wee one. It's so nice to see her glow over him...it's a side of her I haven't seen much in all my life. She tells me that Dad is just thrilled about the new baby coming. He hasn't mentioned it to me, but he's like that...reserved with his feelings. I can tell he dotes on the boy, though. =)
...Merry Christmas to all you folks out there.
surgery for the wee one...
Well, we've reached the end of what we can do for his ear infections. Five in a row now, and everything we've tried hasn't worked. Poor lil guy. Three different kinds of antibiotics, no good.
So...he's going in on Thursday to have tubes put into his eardrums to let them drain and air out. Supposedly it's a very short procedure, and he'll be "good as new" about 2 hours after it's done. I sure hope so. He's been living with pain for so many weeks now and really been so patient and non-cranky, considering. It'll be so nice to know he isn't hurting all the time anymore.
Merry Christmas, booga boy...freedom from pain!
Oh...my...GAWD!
Yahoo! News - Baby Taken From Mother in Good Condition: "KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A 4-day-old girl who was cut from her strangled mother's womb was in 'remarkably good' condition Monday, a hospital spokeswoman said, and the alleged attacker faced an initial court appearance."
Did you hear about this? A woman 8 months pregnant was strangled by a crazy bitch who cut her open and stole her baby! OH MY GOD! Just what I need to hear right now.
I'm appalled. I'm flabbergasted. I mean, how in the HELL does someone justify doing something like this?!?!?!
The lady who did this is the latest addition to my "People Who Ought To Be Taken Out Back And Shot...RIGHT NOW" list. Scott Peterson is real high on that list too. I'm SO glad he got the death penalty.
I just don't understand these kinds of people. GAH!
so it turns out...
I can take Sudafed! OMG! What a joy! To be able to dry up my streaming nose, and in turn, alleviate my cough somewhat from the post-nasal drip! Aahhhhhh.
Last time I was pregnant, I was so pure. I took NOTHING when I got sick...I think I took Tylenol ONCE.
But I've been so miserable these past weeks, the discovery that I can take Sudafed and it won't harm the growing baby, well, I gotta do it. Now maybe I can get more than 4 hours of sleep...what a concept!
The doc asked me to come back next week for my first pre-natal exam. And we'll get our first internal ultrasound pictures too. How exciting. =)
the booga boy...
That's what we call him. It's a long story, heh. Anyway, I was just sitting here watching TV and thinking about my wee one, and I realized something...
Everywhere I take him, he makes people smile. What a wonderful gift.
sick yet again...
I am SO sick of being sick...I've been sick pretty much consistently for 4 weeks now. No I'm not talking about morning sickness. I'm talking about cold/flu. Congestion, sore throat, hacking cough.
I was up at 3am yesterday because I couldn't sleep from the congestion and cough. This morning I have been up since 2am for the same reason. How in the hell am I supposed to get better if I can only get 4 hours of sleep a night?? And of course, because I'm pregnant, I can't take anything for it.
I go in to see the doc today for a checkup. I'm going to ask her if there is any way I can get some baby-safe antibiotics or something. This is just miserable. Four weeks is way too long to consistently be sick.
here we go again...
Well, I went in to the Dr. today and had a test...the wee one is going to have a sibling! Yes, I'm pregnant again!
I'm only 4 weeks along, and according to popular social norms, I shouldn't really make it public til the 12-week mark, but screw it. I've never been able to keep news like this to myself anyway - I'd probably explode if I had to hold it in another 8 weeks.
I guess 12 weeks is the point after which you're "out of the woods" in terms of spontaneously losing the baby, which is pretty common so I understand. But I haven't had a problem with that before, so I'm not too worried this time.
So...assuming everything works out, the babies will be 10 months apart. Whew! This one wasn't really planned, but I'm happy nonetheless. And we won't have to buy all new baby clothes or gear or toys. =)
I'll keep you posted as things progress. I have an appointment with my OB/GYN on Friday to start the ball rolling.
first walking casualty...
Our first boo-boo, aww. The wee one was out at the park with grandpa on Monday wearing his new shoes. Takes some getting used to walking in those things...he tripped and fell flat on his face, scraping up his nose! Poor little guy now has a big red scrape on his nose.
The first of many owies, I'm sure. Such is the way of being a kid.
His walking continues to improve. He looked kind of like a drunk penguin at first, but he's gained a lot of confidence and is getting better at it every day. I'm so proud!
I kind of feel bad for our two kitties though, because now they're in real trouble. Now he's faster, and can really give them a run for their money. Interestingly, one of the kitties, Zephyr (the older) is skittish and wants nothing to do with him. The other one, Cirocco, is so starved for attention (she was "my" kitty til the wee one came and took all my time) that she'll let him grab fistfuls of her fur and "gnarl" her - his way of petting...he hasn't gotten the open-handed petting down yet, he grabs and pulls.
They'll live. He hasn't gotten scratched yet, but I think it's only a matter of time.
how do you feel about it?
Yahoo! News - Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies "A hospital in the Netherlands — the first nation to permit euthanasia — recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives."
When I read the title of this article, I was initially outraged, saying "OMG, WHAT?!"
But, after reading the whole thing, I was forced to revisit my own feelings about euthanasia. Why? My Aunt Martha ended her life a practical vegetable after years of Alzheimers, brought on by brain damage caused by years of domestic abuse. She was only in her 50's, but at the end, she could do nothing for herself. She sat in her wheelchair, blankly staring out into the world, living in an antiseptic sterile environment of a nursing home with overworked and unsympathetic caregivers. She had to be fed, bathed, dressed, and taken care of the same way one would an infant. But even an infant has more interaction with the outside world.
She'd get bruises when the caregivers dropped her while trying to bathe her. She had teeth knocked out from similar accidents. The clothes we'd brought to keep her warm were stolen by the very people there to take care of her.
It was so depressing to visit her...I wondered whether her mind was trapped inside the body that had failed her, or whether she was even aware of her surroundings. The former seemed like torture...the latter, well, just incredibly sad.
Had I been in her place, I would have wanted to die. It would have been a relief.
Yes, I am a supporter of euthanasia, and doctor-assisted suicide. If someone wants to die, who are we to say no? How can we (as a society) have the arrogance to say "No, you must continue living in constant agony." I've already told my husband that if I become a vegetable from some accident or other that I want the plug to be pulled, so to speak. There's no way I'd want to live if my existence was one of constant agonizing unrelievable pain, or one of life sustained only by tubes and machines. If the only thing keeping my body alive were machines, and my brain was non-functional, I'd want it to end.
As for "people with no free will", like newborns with horrible agonizing deformities who might only live days or weeks anyway, well, all you have to do is put yourself in their shoes. Would YOU want to live a life like that? I can't imagine anyone saying yes. And as a mother, there's no way I'd want my child to suffer like that.
IMHO this issue is similar to the abortion issue in it's arrogance. Most of the anti-abortion and anti-euthanasia activists seem to me like people who self-righteously want to impose a standard of morality on the rest of us without empathy or sympathy for the people in these situations. THEY never had to worry about these issues, but by God they know what's best for the rest of us regardless.
I HATE people like that. And we have 4 more years of them. I can't tell you how many people I've run into out here who are really dreading what horrible freedom-smashing things are going to come out of the government in the next 4 years.
Rant, rant, rant, I know. But this issue got under my collar today.
