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A really (really) long story about Morgan

2011-05-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

This is one of those posts that is really for my own memories and record keeping (such as it is). If anyone is really interested of course read it--I would be interested to know the details of what certain friends are up to and such--but I wouldn't be surprised if no one besides our moms read this. :) It's a detailed record of Morgan and all the stuff going on with her over the past 9 months or so.

Our little Morgan Josephine has been dealing with all kinds of food issues for a long time. We knew she was allergic to dairy since she was 8 or 9 months old, so I stopped eating it as well since of course she gets anything through my milk. We somewhat suspected there might be other issues going on, but never had anything definite. Well, a lot of things sort of came to a head while I was pregnant. One is that around 14 weeks in the pregnancy I noticed that I was no longer making any milk. Morgan, being the little nursing and mama addicted child that she is, was not deterred. So she continued to nurse with nothing there. I didn't really mind, except for the pain. When I was newly pregnant and nauseated, I actually felt sicker when she would nurse and I'd sometimes have to stop her to throw up. Not so much fun. But we pushed through that, and then right around when the nausea subsided the milk stopped too. So the pain of mid pregnancy wasn't terrible.

What did happen at that time is we started noticing her having reactions to other foods. When we were in Mexico she ate a hard boiled egg and got red splotches all around her eyes and mouth. She'd never reacted to eggs before. Then over time she started reacting to more and more foods, until it got to the point that she had flare ups of red bumps all around her mouth almost every time she ate anything. That "worst stage" was probably when she was around 21 months old. So we started cutting out her foods, taking out anything that is commonly allergenic. That meant no dairy, wheat, eggs, and a bunch of other things. It was an adventure, and at that point I still didn't really know what I was doing. For example, Cheerios, though made with oats, are not gluten free, and we were eating plenty of Cheerios. She was looking better on her face reactions but it wasn't perfect.

In the meantime, she continued to nurse and I was starting to stress out about her night nursing in particular. She has never "slept through the night" though it wasn't really a problem because she would usually just nurse and go back to sleep and I never really fully woke up--just roll over, give her my breast, and go back to sleep. That stopped working while I was pregnant, though. I couldn't sleep through her nursing, partially because it was painful and partially because it just made my skin crawl, which supposedly is common in pregnancy (I was doing plenty of reading on tandem nursing). So we started trying all kinds of things: having her sleep in a twin bed next to ours, sleep next to Adrian instead of me, and it didn't seem to work. As I became more and more pregnant I was really getting worried because I had no idea how I could nurse two babies at night. I didn't even know physically how I could do it, let alone how I would get any sleep at all. Add that to the stress I was feeling in general of how on earth I'd take care of two children when Morgan was still so intense and I felt totally incapable and unprepared. I cried many times.

So we got progressively stricter with Morgan on the whole thing. We moved the bed away from ours, against the window, trying to create some sort of separation thinking she'd get the idea. I am completely and absolutely opposed to the idea of letting babies "cry it out" to sleep, but oh my was I tempted many a time. Eventually, at some point, I did just refuse to nurse her at night, and we'd talk lots about how the nummies were going to sleep and would be awake in the morning. She'd nod her head and get it, but it was a different story in the middle of the night. She'd cry and scream, so in some ways she did I suppose wind up crying it out, but it was while being held or laying down in between her parents so I had to tell myself that I wasn't deserting her. There's still a difference between being angry and feeling scared and alone, and we could tell she was angry. When she would get upset she wouldn't even let us touch her, so she would just scream and kick in the middle of our bed. No fun, and of course all this led to more tears from me too. Pregnant and hormones and a really sad bigger baby is no good. Once I even walked her around for about an hour and a half while she screamed. Adrian would get her water and she'd calm for a minute and then start up again. Finally she calmed down and started falling asleep...and then all of a sudden she threw up all over both of us. That's right, my baby cried so much she barfed. Of course THAT made me feel like a terrible mother. And then it happened again another time, and one of them was during the month our washer was broken. Sad stories. We went through a short phase where her being in her twin bed in our room worked, at least for about the first five hours of the night, but then to get her back to sleep I'd have to walk her around the room for about thirty minutes and then half the time she would just wake back up when I put her down. This was in the third trimester, and I was dead exhausted. Adrian of course tried to help, but if he tried to ever pick her up she'd completely flip out. I felt more tired then than I ever remember feeling when she was an actual infant awake at night. This was more or less how it was up until Eleanora was born. I couldn't see how we were going to do it, and was kind of regretting the whole concept of a family bed. I promised myself I'd have the next baby sleep in her own bed. Heh.

As a much smaller issue, Morgan didn't really speak. She was an amazing non verbal communicator, but said very few words. I wasn't all that worried about it. Sometimes I'd wonder about it, but it was so clear that her comprehension was really high, and she could communicate what she needed. My mama intuition didn't tell me it was time to address it, so we didn't do anything about it.

We finally decided that my attempts at figuring out her dietary issues weren't working and it was time to be more proactive on it. So we set an appointment with a naturopath we'd heard a lot of good things about. Our insurance is absurd, so we finally just had to bite the bullet and start paying cash for all this stuff (which due to our silly insurance we would have done anyway, and we were partially putting it off until the new year when we'd be done making midwife payments...) We had an appointment for Monday January 31st. We figured if we liked her we'd just keep her as the doctor for both girls.

Well, at 7:45 on January 30th my water broke, so wound up rescheduling it for the next week. :)

The first couple of days with Eleanora as well were of course a blur now. Adrian or my mom could probably remember more than I could. I do remember that Eleanora slept way better than Morgan. When Eleanora was a couple days old the midwives asked me with some concern how long of a stretch of sleep I'd had and I said maybe two hours. As they exchanged worried looks I said, "Hey, it's no worse than it was before she was born, so it's really not that different. I'm functioning the same."

So we went to the doctor. Morgan happened to have the blowout diaper of the year while we were there, which was probably good so the doctor could see how crazy that had gotten too (she would have poopy diapers about 5 times a day, many of them crazy sticky nasty stuff). Dr. A. put us on a bucket load of supplements and restricted our diet further. No wheat or gluten, eggs, dairy, corn, soy, sugar, berries, citrus, nuts, peanuts...and I think some more things that I can't even remember right now. Anything we'd noticed Morgan having a strong reaction to, like tomatoes, were a no. Also realize that by this point my milk had come in, which meant none of these things for me, either. So yes, I was nursing two kidlets while eating a super restricted diet. I was constantly hungry. I lost all my pregnancy weight by 3 or 4 weeks postpartum, I think. By 8 weeks I was about 5 pounds below. It was a little nuts.

However...

All of a sudden, we saw some huge changes in Morgan. The biggest one: she SLEPT. As in, she goes to sleep (eventually, it takes her a long time to fall asleep), and if she wakes up at night she just sorta rolls over and goes back to sleep. This would have been entirely unheard of before. We also made a few changes to her routine, such as not nursing to sleep (thereby not creating conditions she feels she needs to recreate in the middle of the night... the No Cry Sleep Solution books were great help here). But I am absolutely sure that without fixing the food stuff there wasn't much we could have done that would have solved the sleep issues.

Also, she started talking. Lots.

Next, she decided she was going to use the toilet. She did fairly often even before Eleanora was born, but was never really ready to go on her own and I didn't push it since she wasn't even two yet. And I was tired and pregnant. :) But then she just decided she was ready and said she wanted the underwear and that was that. She still sometimes chooses a diaper, but generally wears underwear and is fine.

The other thing is that she was slightly less clingy to me. She still loves her mama and gets very nervous when I'm not around, but it was different than before.

All this was within the first month. She was doing way better but would still have some flare ups on her face. The red bumps would go away for about a week and then she'd eat something and react (pineapple was one thing) and then she'd have the bumps for a few days. It was weird. So we saw the doctor again and she upped her glutamine (which is supposed to heal her intestines), and we knocked out more foods, including sesame (we were eating a fairly large amount of tahini since we couldn't have any nuts, nut butter, or peanut butter) and some other things. I eventually stopped using olive oil, carrots, salt and pepper... basically anything that seemed like a possibility. Yes, I've heard of people with all those as issues. The world of allergies and intolerances is completely crazy once you get into it. Oh, we started eating a bunch of dried apples because we didn't have much to snack on (did I mention we couldn't have chocolate? I think I forgot that one. Now you really feel sorry for me, right?), and she had a bunch of stuff come up on her face. Which led us to sulfite problems, so no dried fruit or even raisins. It's a ridiculously frustrating guessing game, trust me. We got down to nothing processed at all, so not even rice pasta or rice milk, which since we couldn't have anything else we'd been eating plenty of.

She was still seeming better, and making even more improvements on her speech, and we finally did some testing after two months of this. We didn't start with testing because the doctor said that with her inflamed system she'd basically respond to anything as an allergen, so we had to get her a little cleaned up first. So we did the testing and she came back with three pages worth of allergens. She showed allergic to things like chicken, rice, black, pinto, and kidney beans, beef, bananas, peaches...LOTS of normal, healthy foods. The only okay grains were oats, amaranth, spelt, and wild rice (since it's technically not rice). The only normal meat is turkey. Elk, buffalo, etc. are okay but who's eating that anyway?

She did come up clear on lots of things that I got really excited about, like eggs, but she had very obvious reactions on her face to some of them. I was highly frustrated, and had to accept that the world of allergy testing is very imprecise, and it's common to not react to foods that you haven't eaten because they're no longer present in your body.

So what we do eat is: oatmeal (steel cut, preferably gluten free but they are really really expensive comparatively so I just cross my fingers that the regular stuff has such trace amounts of gluten that it's okay) with walnuts and brown sugar or maple syrup, ground turkey, onion, spinach, sweet potato, any kind of squash, wild rice (also very expensive, and hard to find when it's plain and not in a rice blend), salmon, potatoes, garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon, olive oil (did you notice those last four? they equal HUMMUS! which is a staple of our existence), avocado, chocolate (plain dark), mango, pear, apple, raspberries, pistachios... I think that's it. Anything I didn't list is either a no-no or too rare to really be a reasonable food choice. Like elk meat. Notice the complete lack of fruit or veggie options? Or grain choices? Even quinoa was no, another previous staple.

The bright side is that most of these no-nos are actually probably okay once we get her body all cleaned up and working right. We're supposed to reintroduce foods now every three days. I keep a very detailed journal of everything she eats and how much, what time, and then how often she poops and any sort of other reaction we observe. For example, I made some whole wheat crackers to test out wheat individually and she was awake crying and screaming three times that night. So that was a clear issue! It also made me feel a lot more patient with her in retrospect over all her sleep issues before; they were most definitely related to the food I guess. It's not like she was only being stubborn or something.

Even in the past month, since we did the testing, we've seen major improvements. She went from saying lots of words and a few phrases to speaking in sentences and having conversations within about two weeks. She says her own prayers now [AWWW...]. She also now sleeps on the twin day bed in our room. It's right up next to our bed, and she'll sometimes wander into our bed in the early mornings, but that's really completely fine with us. Having the extra bed gives us more space and means we don't get whacked in the head by a toddler who likes to move in her sleep a lot, but still keeps us all close together, which we like.

The next big thing adventure is no longer nursing. It's been coming awhile. Honestly, it's really frustrating to have to eat such a restricted diet. If it were a diet like to lose weight and I could have a little indulgence every now and then that would be great, but it doesn't work that way. Until her system is all better and figured out, she and I have to be perfect. And it's really hard. I feel like I'm whining, because of course there are much bigger issues to have, but it has been tough. So that's one factor. We had to stop nursing before bed and first thing in the morning because the glutamine supplement should be on an empty stomach to work right. Once we understood that, right around when we did the testing, we had to stop those nursings. She cried for the first couple of nights and then stopped even asking (which is almost even sadder--I feel like the poor kid is just beat down. She doesn't ask for food anymore either if it's not what's on her plate because she knows the answer is that it's not good for her body). So that was probably step one. Suddenly she wasn't really nursing quite so much. Then last weekend we went to California and I thought we'd run a little experiment where we'd keep her distracted as much as possible and see what happened. She didn't nurse the entire weekend, and really without any fuss. I think she only asked to nurse once, and that was in the car, so I said we couldn't then. Of course getting back home in our own routine has been harder, but I decided that it was time. Last night I ate a bunch of bread and chocolate cheesecake so that I couldn't go back on my decision. I know it would be bad for her now if I nursed her, so it's easier to stick with it.

Yesterday when I decided that's what we were doing, I asked Morgan to come sit in my lap and I cried. I wanted to nurse her one more time, but I knew it was better to just let it be. And now of course I'm still not entirely sure about it (but at this point I'd have to go back on the perfect diet for about a week before she could nurse, so I can't do much at the moment anyway). She's still a baby in so many ways, and she likes to nurse so much. I'd much prefer to let it sort of naturally fade, but with her diet I have to eat precisely as she does all the time for the sake of one nursing a day or have no nursing at all. Oh man, as I'm writing this I'm thinking I should go back on the diet and let her go back. Honestly I feel like I'm being selfish because it's just that I want to eat more food. It's so hard to balance everyone's needs as a mother. I actually weigh now what I weighed in high school, and as much as I whine about the lack of food I confess to the vanity of liking the weight loss. :) It's not easy nursing a toddler, especially not with a baby, but I also know it was good for her. That emotional comfort is important for toddlers just as much as the nutrition is. I've been giving her lots of snuggles and hoping that she doesn't feel neglected. I feel terrible nursing Eleanora in front of her, but there's not much to do about that. I try to comfort myself that I did nurse her for 2 years and 3 months, which is still a lot. And I know from how she's been that she doesn't NEED it all the time anymore. As long as she's busy she doesn't even ask.

Anyway, so that's where we're at. My little baby is growing up, and having to deal with all kinds of annoying things that her body is needing at the same time. She's really handled everything so well. I hope we can solve this, heal her body, and let her eat food!

Sister love

2011-03-09T16:07:00.000-07:00

One of the most touching things since Eleanora's birth has been seeing our two girls together. Morgan absolutely loves Eleanora. She kisses her all the time (and lays on her, tries to pick her up, and inexplicably has on occasion licked her face...sometimes this sister love is a little smothering!). When Eleanora starts to make noise at all, Morgan points at my breast--especially when she's currently nursing on the other one--and insists that I feed her. She is a huge helper in getting a diaper or blanket or anything we need when it's for Eleanora. And she now calls her Rora, which of course makes us melt. The other morning she woke up and said, "Hello Rora, hi! Mwah!"

I was snuggling with both of them a couple nights ago, trying to get Morgan to sleep, and was wondering how we made two such lovely kids. We're okay and all, but they seem to be much nicer than the average of us. I have a feeling most parents look at their kids and feel the same way. :)

I like how Eleanora has a bit of a "oh dear, what is she doing to me?" look here. Hehe.

Eleanora Hope...a daddy's story

2011-02-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

Emily already put up a great, and detailed post here about the birth, but like with Morgan's I thought I'd put up my recollection of the events as well.

So leading up to the weekend, I kept joking with Emily, "this may be our last weekend to go out and eat, so we better hit up where we want to while we can." Everybody knows that we like to eat, and I was saying this only half-jokingly, since I would always follow it up with, "we may be able to next weekend, but who knows." So we went to Chipotle, Cracker Barrel and Chino Bandido.

Saturday we went to Target as well, we walked around a bought a few items. On our way through the toy section, we picked up some more chalk for Morgan (since she loves to play with chalk on the driveway and sidewalk) and Emily decided to see if she could super pregnant hula hoop. Does this play into the events that happened the following day? I'll let you be the judge of that. ;)

We went to sleep Saturday evening. La-di-da...

EARLY, EARLY Sunday morning (for me early is defined as anything before I wake up) I hear Emily crawling out of bed and saying how she is all wet like she um...went #1 in her pants. Side note: it is one of my goals in life (seriously) to have somebody pee from laughter. I still have not been able to check this off of my list, and you'd think with Emily being pregnant again that would've given me another great chance. Nope. Okay, so back to things. She stumbles to the bowl, and says, "Adj, my water broke." Of course, me being asleep-ish and it being pre-dawn (aka. 7:30-7:45), I was a little dazed and honestly, my first thought was "it's too early, just sleep a little more."

Yes, that was actually my first thought. Let's move on.

So we start to get things going. I begin to clean up around the house a bit, fix up the kitchen, let out Toby, wake up Twinkie. The usual morning stuff, but knowing that I need to do it quicker than usual because we're running against the clock here. With Morgan, Emily's labor (end-to-end, from first signs to delivery) was under 8 hours, so this time it was pretty certain that it would be much quicker. Our midwives and doula up in Washington all suggested we consider a home birth this time, for that reason. Good thing we did.

Emily had to force Morgan awake, which is never a great thing because nobody likes to be forced awake (especially anybody related to me, or anything like me, both of which Morgan is). But at that point Emily began having contractions. I took Morgan out to the kitchen and helped her with some breakfast. They then took a shower, and I shaved and showered right after (I usually save a shave for Sunday mornings - it was also Ward Conference that day, and didn't want to have a daddy's scratchy face for the newborn). After all of that, Emily needed some food (since she never actually crossed the threshold of our bedroom and I made her a smoothie. She asked for it, peanut butter, mango, other stuff. It wasn't appetizing to me. Apparently, it wasn't appetizing to really anybody since by the time I brought it back to her (about 10 minutes to make this thing - peanut butter in a blender isn't a neat ordeal, yes...ordeal), she was using the birth ball and had little interest in consuming food. So on to the coconut water.

I kept asking Emily to not only let the midwives know things were starting, but to get them over here. I knew she was moving along, and pretty quickly, but sometimes one takes a bit longer to realize they are in a particular stage of a situation. So I do what I normally do, and just kept asking/prodding for it to happen. She did that while I was smoothie-ing.

The birth ball usage is pretty interesting to watch. It begins with Emily using it as a support, just there on her hands and knees relaxing (well, relaxing as much as possible while during early labor) and then proceeds to Emily slowly rocking back and forth with it, then the deep bassoon-ish noises are added to the mix. At that point, for any male out there who reads this, is the point where communication sort of turns sparse. If your midwives are not there at that point, they should be very shortly, or your doula should at least. Now seeing this similar process twice, I can see how Emily was so far along by the time we arrived at the Birth Center in Washington, and what to expect this time.

Pretty soon, Shell (one of our midwives), like a ninja, appeared outside of our bedroom door. She could tell things were at a pretty healthy (ie. advanced) state and since I had the tub started, and that was basically the first thing Emily asked her about, we moved the whole 10 feet or so to the bathtub. I had set up Emily's computer with Baby Songs for Morgan, so she was going back and forth and I was keeping my place in the middle as well to make sure both ladies (Emily and Morgan) were doing okay. Those of you who knows Morgan, she is really attached to us. So we had planned to have Pam (Emily's mom) and the twins (Tyler and Trevor - usually people say Trevor and Tyler, so I decided to mix it up this time) come the following week so that they could help distract/occupy Morgan during labor. We prepped Pam early in the morning to start getting a move on, but by this point I had called back and left a message so they knew that their arrival would definitely be post-birth. Fortunately, Morgan really enjoyed Baby Songs, and since it has basically become her favorite thing ever. She watches it a few times a day, wakes up and wants to watch it. Goes in the car and wants to watch it. Does anything, and wants to watch it.

I don't remember if it was Shell or Emily, but somebody suggested I get in the tub, or at least sit in the back corner, so I changed into my bathing suit and hopped on the back ledge. Morgan would come around every now and then to see what was going on, but remember she was thrown for a loop since she couldn't have her normal morning routine. At one point, Mani (our other midwife) also showed up and saw that things were pretty advanced as well and began bringing in more stuff (oxygen, stuff, etc. stuff). Then came our student midwife (Tracy) and we had a full house. It's nice to have help during all of this, I recall asking Tracy to help Morgan with her Baby Songs because we could tell that it had to be started again because Morgan kept coming back into the bathroom and asking for Babies. Maybe she was asking for Emily to be done already, but let's just assume it was the DVD. :)

Emily's labor was totally different this time. Her lower back was feeling it a lot more this time, and the labor process in the tub was different too. It was faster. And seemed more intense, probably because it was faster. Morgan knew something was up and it was time to plop her on daddy's lap for a front-row view. I am so glad that the midwives made that suggestion and asked Morgan if she would like to sit on my lap. At that point, I wasn't even thinking that was a possibility, but it worked out great and Morgan was really able to be a part of the entire process. So I sat cross-legged (Indian-style for those non-PC folks) and Morgan was on my lap, I held her with my left hand while Emily did her best to squeeze the life out of my right. Really, it wasn't too bad. TV always depicts it like it is bone-crushing. Maybe Emily just doesn't have the vice-grip, but I can still grip a pen.

Like I said, things moved quickly. Emily was mostly laboring cross-legged as well, and I began to think, "um, she's gonna have to either flip, or get up for a baby get out of there." During all of this, Shell kept pushing like crazy on Emily's lower back during each and every contraction. EVERY contraction. Mani would intermittently listen to the baby to make sure things were doing well (which they were) and Tracy was taking notes of everything and helping out as well.

Then Emily started to push. Shell took a look and baby was making it's way out. Next one baby's head was pretty out-ish, and Shell told Emily she'd have to stand to deliver, since there was only a bit of water in the tub at that time, not enough to fully submerge in (so we couldn't do a full water birth this time - the tub was being filled/drained during labor depending on what Emily needed - filling is a lot faster than draining). She started to stand up and I leaned over to see the head sort of stuck there, sticking out. Visualize it.

Did you? I was basically staring baby in the face, but just the face since that was all that was out. And baby was purple. PURPLE. That honestly concerned me. I quickly looked at Shell and she looked at me and looked calm and okay, so I thought, okay, Morgan wasn't purple, but you're calm and okay so okay, I guess we're good. Then one more push, Shell helped with a sticky shoulder by getting her fingers in there for some help and pop, out of the egg came a tiny, and very hungry caterpillar. No, it was a baby. A purple little baby. I was leaning and helping Morgan lean to so she could see what was going on. She couldn't lean as much as me, but she could still see. Then baby started to make little baby noises, and I was like, "okay, baby is out, baby is purple, but baby is good, so that's all okay."

Emily sat on the ledge of the tub, Morgan and I moved over. Morgan was SO interested, she was practically on top of the baby, which was in Emily's arms. We didn't even look to see what it was. With Morgan, we found out at an ultrasound, but still didn't confirm for a bit. Really, it didn't matter at all at this point. AT ALL. We eventually did look and saw it was another baby girl. Hey, as long as it was a baby, that's all that mattered to me. Plus we had WAY more girl's names on our list than boy's names. It's so much more difficult (for us at least) to come up with boy's names that fit what we're looking for. We have a good process of coming up with a name, that's worked for these two. Of course, we didn't really have a strong idea what to name her (unlike with Morgan, where we were pretty certain going in). Either way, didn't matter. Baby was great.

Then came the placenta. Plop. If anybody would like, we have two in the freezer now, you can take a look. We scared Emily's dad Ken with Morgan's before. Placenta's look really interesting, and since I have a super keen sense of smell, very little odor.

We moved over to the bed and rested. Like Emily said, she had some bleeding and Shell had to scoop (literally) some pretty big clots out. How do I know they were big? I asked to see them. They looked pretty cool as well. Newborn exam happened on our bed. Midwives cleaned up, did laundry, checked in to make sure everything was kosher. We took pictures. Oh, that reminds me, we also took pictures and videos during the whole process. Those are for British eyes only. FOR BRITISH EYES ONLY!

Midwives left, we all chilled in bed. It's really nice to do that. I'm super glad that we have gone the midwife route with both of our babies. Moving to Washington put us in such a great place, and really helped lead us to where we need to be in so many areas of life. I really wish that more people could experience and learn what we have been able to, so I'm glad that Emily is able to share her knowledge and experiences with friends. Not just about pregnancy and labor and birth, but life in general. Did we have the same birth each time? Nope. I'd say almost everything was totally different. Different midwives, different plans of birth (birth center vs. home), different start of labor, different laboring, different tub action, different delivery. But same result, cute looking (to me at least), healthy baby girls.

I will have had the opportunity to be home for 5 weeks before I need to return to work. That is awesome. I love being able to be around, the entire time, as baby is getting used to a bright, dry new world, and making those connections with baby just being around. Emily already touched on subsequent events (Pam and the twins coming, our wonderful ER visit, getting sick), so the 5 weeks has really flown by (one week of ER/Pam/twins, two weeks of sick, then one other week and this week). Like last time, it took us a good few days to solidify and finalize a name. I don't think we'll go into the details of our process, how we come about the name and everything behind it, but having to rush to the ER sure did cause us to speed up and nail down that name once and for all. Really, it was having to give her a blessing (for which you need a name) that did it. I want to thank Nate Easton for coming over on zero notice in about 10 minutes flat to help with that.

And that's about it. I'm up late because we all fell asleep helping Morgan fall asleep (it happens) and woke up to clean up the kitchen, put things away and take care of Twinks. I wanted to get this post up earlier, but you may have noticed we don't really blog anymore. Facebook. Way shorter, way easier, way more frequent. If you aren't our friends on there, you should be. :)

The First Week

2011-02-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

Picture time!! If you're one of those people who doesn't like a lot of pictures, stop reading now. :)

We had Eleanora's "birthday cake" (in fact Godiva chocolate cheesecake we froze from my birthday) when she was two days old.

The big adventure of Eleanora's first week was a bit of a scare when she was two days old. At our 24 hour home visit Shell had noticed that she had some stuffiness, which she said is normal in Arizona babies because of how dry it is (and it was particularly dry and windy the week she was born). So we were trying to spend time near the steamy shower, got the humidifier going, etc. The next day we could tell she was still stuffy, but nothing too huge we thought. By the evening we could tell her breathing was a little labored, and luckily Mani was already on her way over for another home visit. By the time she arrived Eleanora was having some pretty deep retractions (chest sucking in basically) with each breath. It was too deep to clear out with a bulb syringe, and she could hear wheezing with the stethoscope and wasn't able to tell whether it was just nasal or in her lungs. So we decided we needed to get her to the hospital. By the time we left her upper lip was turning blue, which is an indication a baby isn't getting enough oxygen. Clearly that's a big issue. So we went to the children's hospital near downtown. It was my first ER experience, and one I'd like to definitely avoid in the future. It was a cold (for Phoenix) and crazy windy night, and the ER was a complete zoo. I got in the line to check in while Adrian parked. Just to check in took about 10 or 15 minutes, and then more time for them to call us (though we were called ahead of probably 20 other kids, I assume because we had a two day old with breathing issues). They took an initial reading on her oxygen intake and respirations as we stood there, and they weren't good (though possibly not too accurate from that particular machine or something) so they took us back. As we were walking, someone said to me something like 'they're going to do a lot of things to the baby but don't be scared' and then walked away. Um, helpful?? They couldn't find a place for us to actually go though. Finally they put us on a bed set up in the hallway, where it was still cold because it was right by a door. They started getting her rates again and then finally moved us into a room, which actually turned out to be the trauma room.

Once we were in they were actually quite helpful, explaining what they were doing and letting us hold her as much as possible, but it was still totally stressful for us. Luckily the midwives were with us (Shell had come to meet us and Mani had driven down with us) so they could answer the questions about birth and her post-birth condition. Anyway, so they stuck some tubes up Eleanora's nose and sucked all the gunk out, and even put it down into her lungs to get anything out there. They swabbed her nose to get a tissue sample to check for a bunch of viruses. As soon as they finished with the tube stuff though she was breathing just fine. Her oxygen saturation level was back at a good place, and she seemed normal. We were transferred to a private room when one opened, and after I fed Eleanora she fell right asleep. They also decided to do x rays on her to make sure this wasn't caused by a heart condition and to make sure her lungs were okay. That came out all clear as well. She did have some liquid in her lungs, but that can be fairly normal for a young baby. (also especially because she was born fairly quickly, and for most babies it's time in the birth cabal which squeezes the liquid out of their lungs. So maybe that's what caused this whole thing? Who knows.) We were there about three or four hours. They wanted to keep us all there for observation but by then she had been perfectly fine since the tube suctioning and all the tests were negative. We opted out in favor of getting home. Except for getting the cold we all got a week later, she was just fine after that. We've just continued with home suctioning and trying to add moisture in this crazy dry environment.

Of course the whole experience made us paranoid about her breathing. I wish we'd been more proactive about suctioning her before, but we didn't know and who knows if it would have made a difference. My birth preferences stem in large part from wanting to protect my babies from lots of poking and shocks when they've already had the huge shock of being born. A large part of what I like about out of hospital or home births is the gentleness of it. So I was personally frustrated by the whole hospital-ness. I understand that they deal all day with very sick kids and that they have to do everything to make sure it's not a bigger problem, and given the situation we needed to do it all. I just felt very protective of Eleanora. When we got into the room she flinched at all the bright lights and I whispered to her, 'this is why you were born at home!' I felt frustrated as we had to strip her down and Adrian had to pin down her legs to do the x rays, her teeny body on this big machine. I was thinking about how I prefer to have pat downs at the airport instead of the scanners when I'm pregnant to expose the baby to less radiation, and here we were blasting my two day old with it. I suppose if anything had come up on the tests I'd be grateful for it, but I just couldn't help feeling that mama protection rearing up in me.

Anyway, so that's the story of our ER adventure. I'm hoping that will be our only one (ever...do you kids hear me?), but I realize that's not likely with children :) When we got home we all showered and bathed and anything we had with us got washed or sanitized. The lecture the nurse gave us about it was crazy. She told us to bleach everything we could. We felt like we'd been exposed to the Ebola virus or something. For the next week part of my paranoia was that we had exposed her to something worse just by being there (like the kid with croup sitting by us and coughing in the waiting room!). Fortunately no serious diseases developed.

We spent lots of time in the sun to help with Eleanora's jaundice, and because it was a good place to doze :)

Eleanora was held prettymuch constantly by someone...she was put down for at most 15 minutes total

Snuggled in mama's lap

Morgan played lots with Trevor and Tyler, my brothers. It was good for her to have friends to play with while we were in total newborn mode

My mom, Eleanora, me, and Morgan. It was so helpful to have her here to help! She cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed, helped me cook the food I was supposed to make and freeze before Eleanora was born, took care of Morgan when we went to the hospital (no easy task with a little girl who really really likes being with her mama)...lots of things!

Why are newborn babies so fascinating to watch while they sleep??

Eleanora's Story

2011-02-20T12:17:00.000-07:00

You want the brief version?

Eleanora Hope

30 January 2011

11:52 am

7 pounds and 19 inches

I know I have a few friends who, like me, enjoy detailed birth stories, so here's the much longer version...

I woke up a little before 8 am on Sunday morning and got up to go to the bathroom. As I moved I felt some wetness, and thought I must have peed a little (which wasn’t exactly uncommon during pregnancy...). More kept coming though as I rushed to the bathroom, and by the time I realized I was dripping all over the bathroom floor I knew it had to be something else. I called Adrian who sleepily stumbled to the bathroom and told him that I was pretty sure my water just broke. I was a little worried about the timing more than anything. I was at 38 weeks and two days, which isn’t premature really but I’d still generally prefer to have babies fully developed and ready before they come. Luckily we were all ready with the things we really needed: the birth kit had arrived in the mail that week and I had baskets ready with all the towels, baby clothes and blankets, and bowls and baggies for labor stuff. I had also done a big bathroom cleaning earlier in the week just in case, so at least the tub and shower would be ready. All the towels were stacked nicely near the tub for “relaxing in labor” (to which I say “haha!” in retrospect--there was definitely not any relaxing by the time I got there).

We had been planning on having my mom come the following weekend so that Morgan would have someone who could take care of her while I was in labor. Though I wasn’t feeling any contractions at all yet, I still knew things were likely to happen soon, so I called my mom and asked her to start getting going just in case. While on the phone I sent texts to the midwives. I didn’t want to wake anyone up as long as I wasn’t actually having contractions, so a text seemed like enough. Adrian started getting a couple things ready like plugging in the cameras to charge the batteries. At 8:20 or so Morgan started waking up so I got back in bed with her to nurse her and after a few minutes could feel light contractions, but nothing huge. Mani called me while I was laying down and I told her they had in fact started but they weren’t regular. A little before 9 I could tell they were getting more intense and soon enough I’d need to be able to move and not be laying in bed stuck. So I started talking to Morgan to wake her up gently. Mornings are not always the easiest for her, and normally we start the day pretty slowly, so getting up in a rush and moving fast I knew would be hard. I got in the shower with her while Adrian timed contractions. They were something like 4 minutes apart then, and by the end of my shower I needed to lean against the wall a little during them.

Adrian wanted me to tell the midwives to come then but I still wanted to hold off a little. He was bustling around getting things ready but by this point I was already more or less worthless for helping. I positioned myself on my knees leaning onto the birth ball and gave him directions. I did get a diaper on Morgan, but no clothes. During this time Adrian took a shower, put bags and another pillow case on some pillows to waterproof them, opened the shower curtain for the bed, got a DVD of Baby Songs set up for Morgan, and tried to get Morgan some food. I could tell I was past the food eating point so I just asked for some coconut water since I hadn’t eaten anything and going into labor with no energy is no good.

While Adrian was out of the room getting things ready, I was continuing on the birth ball and timing contractions, and then started needing to vocalize through them a little. Also, Morgan was mostly with me, asking to nurse and crying, which was a little hard to deal with when I was trying to relax. I tried taking to her about my body needing to do a lot of work, but I could also tell she just wasn’t ready to wake up and probably was feeling a little confused by us rushing around in the morning. All that, in addition to how quickly I could feel myself progressing, made me feel a little overwhelmed. I was thinking something like “I’m not ready for this!” but mostly it was that it was coming on a little fast and I didn’t feel like I had time to catch up. So I called Mani as soon as I finished a contraction and asked them to come. That was at 10 (and checking the time on my call log, it was only 19 seconds long. I guess I was more down to business than I realized by then!). It was probably a mistake to wait to call until I wanted them there, because they all live about 45 minutes from our house, so then I realized I’d have to wait and wasn’t thrilled with that. I also started wanting to get in the tub for some relief hopefully, so Adrian began filling it up. He also called my parents to tell them my mom was definitely not going to be here before the baby came so tell her not to drive too drive too fast and get in an accident or something. Between the time warp of labor and the fact that they were already prepped to come it didn’t feel like 45 minutes until Shell (midwife) came.

Shell came and talked to me a bit
and then started pressing on my back which felt lovely. About 10 or 15 minutes later Mani arrived. I had my eyes closed most of the time by this point, but I do remember peeking out and seeing Mani carrying in some equipment like the oxygen and put it in the corner, so I knew there was activity around but I wasn’t really paying attention. Around then I also got in the tub, and then a few minutes later Tracy, the student midwife, arrived too. I tried to maneuver in the tub to get comfortable, with Shell holding my left hand and pressing on my lower back still during contractions. Adrian got his swim shorts on and climbed into the back corner of the edge of the tub and held my right hand. Morgan was going back and forth between the bathroom and the DVD set up in the bedroom, and eventually she came and sat on Adrian’s lap in the tub corner.

The midwives had checked my vital signs and listened to the baby a few times, but never did check my dilation or anything. Apparently it was clear enough that we were moving right along. I was in the tub for probably 45 minutes (maybe less, but I’m pretty sure not more than that) in the routine of grabbing hands, Shell pushing on my back, and vocalizing through each contraction. At one point I tried explaining the back pain. It wasn’t a true back labor, but it was painful. Contractions are incredibly intense, but by moving and finding a good position they’re manageable and not painful per se. The back stuff was not fun and definitely more painful. Shell suggested I try a different position and helped me move into it but the second the contraction started I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. I said, “Nope! Not working” and went back to where I was. It’s amazing how the body knows what will work or not. She explained it was the baby moving down and touched my back where the baby needed to move and told me to open and help push the baby there, and somehow on the next contraction I did it. I felt the pressure lighten and sort of felt the movement down. Pretty interesting.

Some contractions were coming right on top of each other, and I’d say things like, “Another one already? That’s just not fair!” Then I started wondering if it was time to push. I had a little conversation in my head that went something like, “I should maybe have someone check if I’m fully dilated. I think I might like to push. But it seems a little quick to be there. [Another contraction starts] Okay, yep, going to push NOW. I don’t care whether I’m ready or not.” Apparently I WAS ready. I started pushing, and wound up standing/squatting above the water. I reached down and felt the baby’s head. Adrian was planning on catching the baby, but he still had Morgan on his lap and I really needed his hand to squeeze, so I asked him to stay where he was. Asked is probably too nice. I moreso said that’s where he had to stay. A couple more good pushes and the baby was out. Shell passed her to me and I sat on the edge of the tub, where Adrian and Morgan came to join me. She was very slippery, still covered in vernix and of course wet. We all sat there kissing her and looking her over for a couple minutes before we bothered to look and see what we had. In fact, I’d even thought about looking and thought that I’d rather wait. Maybe it was just a way of taking everything in slowly. Either way, it was fun to discover then that we had a girl! She was born at 11:52, giving me one rather quick and intense labor.

After a bit we moved to the bed so we could keep getting checked over and all that. These details are less exciting, so I’ll just give the jist. I was having a bit more bleeding than is best so I got a shot of pitocin, but even then it was still a little weird apparently so Shell said we should probably manually try to get some clots out because it looked like that’s why I was bleeding more. Having someone stick a hand up and sweep your uterus clean is...very weird feeling. I’ll leave it at that. But besides that my recovery was so easy after this birth. I had absolutely no tearing or anything, and I was feeling basically back to normal by the next day. I had to force myself to relax, knowing it would be better in the long run if I did. I didn't have a particularly hard recovery after Morgan was born, but this was still definitely way easier.

I called my mom (who was on her way) 30 minutes after Eleanora was born, laughed, and said, “So do I sound more normal now?” “Emily...” she said, in a rather unbelieving voice. I guess she wasn’t expecting me to call quite so soon with that news. Hehe.

And now a couple pictures. We have some great ones that have way too much showing for public consumption. Birth is no time to worry about modesty! So anyway here are the ones I can somewhat reasonably share:

All of us just after we returned to bed, about fifteen minutes post birth. We were all rather fascinated. :)

See? Still a very fresh baby.

Later that night, when Morgan officially held her for the first time... but I think that was something like kiss number 50 or so.

I'll try to share some birth reflections later!

End Radio Silence

2011-02-20T11:22:00.000-07:00

I don't think anyone will see this post unless it's through a reader because I seriously doubt anyone checks the blog. :) But we have good exciting things happening (like a baby!!) so it seems like a good time to do a few posts. I'll start with the birth story because there have been some requests, and then I'll at least post a few pictures.

I stopped blogging because I just didn't feel like doing it. I feel like a blog should be fun, and if it's not fun then I'm not going to feel guilty about not doing it. There are enough things one is obligated to do without creating more, right? Part of me would like to go back and blog the past nine months, because I do like it as a journal. But I'll be honest that I probably won't do any more than a few posts. Either way, I make no promises!

Hey, we haven't blogged in 2 months (plus the previous 1 equals 3)...

2010-08-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

So if you don't want to count the last super brief blog post that I put up, we haven't blogged in over 3 months. If you are a generous soul, it's only been 2. Either way, Facebook and Twitter are where the action happens, so here's a quick synopsis of the past 2 months (maybe in chronological order, but my brain is always jumping around, so probably not)...

We bought a house out here in AZ, in Phoenix proper, but still a far ways away from the airport (also in Phoenix) or downtown.

That means we were finally able to unpack/put together all (yes, ALL) of the furniture we bought from our buddy Scott Parkin over 2 years ago (before we moved to WA). If anybody needs furniture, let me know and I'll put you in touch with him. We actually forgot what our sofa and love seat for the living room looked like (only ever saw it in color swatches that we picked).

The house is nice, a flipper (failed) to flip and we bought it from him at a loss. We also bought a cool fridge (open box baby!) that can fit a small adult inside and a washer/dryer (open box baby!) that plays a song when it's done (because you need music to let you know it's time to switch the load).

We became Redfin Phoenix's first customers. I secretly found some pages on their site that they didn't lock down sufficiently, posted something (I do not know what led me to do that) and we became friends with the market manager here.

I forgot (no I didn't) how awesome it is to move. By awesome I mean not awesome. It's a lot of work, especially in a billion degrees. Also, make sure the day you move in, your neighbor, who keeps bees (yes, bees) does not decide to stir them up in preparation for moving them to a more permanent location, thereby upsetting them greatly and causing them to attack anything that moves. Bee stings are no fun, especially when they are angry and attacking (yes, they would attack, even taunt us). Neither are 5 stings (ask Ken - father-in-law). But receiving huge jugs of the localest honey you could imagine is not too shabby.

We have two HUGE (when I say huge, I mean H-U-G-E) cactii that we're slowly getting used to. They're kind of like totem poles.

Also, make sure that your AC doesn't break, especially in the summer. Or you won't be able to go to that portion of the house at all. Fans do not help.

Our ward at church is enormous. A little too big. They are going to do a split soon. If you don't show up 15 minutes early, you have 0% chance of a cushion. 30 minutes early probably gives you a 25% chance.

Also, the announced, but yet officially locationed (I think I just made up that word) Phoenix Arizona Temple will be built on the lot next door to our meeting house. That makes it less than 10 minutes from our house. We found this out our first day at church. That's pretty cool.

I had a birthday, so I'm a year older. We went to the outlet mall and I found a dark grey suit (I've been looking for one for a while) and ate Bobby Q's BBQ for dinner. I took the day off work, I told people if they called me for work-related matters I would bring them a very bad present.

Luckily, nobody called.

My mom came out to help with unpacking and getting the house settled. We had 10 bags of lawn waste from one of the projects we did. I need to pour concrete over the whole yard.

Morgan likes Shirley Temple, in particular Heidi, in particular the "little wooden shoes" song from that movie.

Morgan now runs around the house and we play chase. She usually falls down laughing.

She also likes to play hide-and-seek in our closet underneath the stairs. Emily wants to turn it into a playroom.

She can also signal to us whether she went pee or poo in her diaper by either tapping on the front or the back. Pretty clever, I think.

It's hot. REALLY hot. You don't go outside hot. It makes the inside pretty hot too. But you can't go inside from the inside.

Tiersha and Josh came to AZ and were able to spend a couple of hours visiting us. It was nice to see them. Tiersha did well there.

We have one less car. Emily gave her car to her sister, Sarah...which means she just turned 16. If people see a person other than Emily driving the car in and around Ladera Ranch, don't be alarmed. Or maybe be alarmed, she is 16 afterall.

Toby is doing fantastic. He's still crazy though, don't worry.

Twinkie is also doing great, and loves taking baths.

Morgan still loves Toby and Twinkie the most. We as parents follow closely behind.

Did I mention Morgan loves to run around now? She's an extremely happy baby.

We haven't taken a ton of pictures. We never got aorund to it.

I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but I'll end it for now...

We haven't blogged in over a month

2010-06-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

Now we have. :)

Things are busy.

Morgan is great.

I still want/need a vacation.

Emily is still busy with projects.

We still like to eat food. A lot.

Toby is still crazy.

Twinkie is still ruling the roost.

They are both Morgan's favorites.

Lot's going on.

On life and how it's lived

2010-05-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

I find myself intrigued by people who live differently than the mainstream in various ways, and it certainly has affected the way that we live. The internet is really such a good resource for things like that, opening my eyes to ideas I never would have thought of or never would have realized people do. This could cover a very large range of topics here but I'll try to keep it brief.

Really the crux is living intentionally, and choosing to live a certain way rather than just doing what is normally done because you don't bother to decide for yourself what you want. (How very Thoreau-like, isn't it?)

The sort of 'natural living' concept is awfully broad and full of individual interpretations, but I'd say we try to be somewhere in there. I'm still figuring out where I think we should be and how we should do things, and of course as life changes the choices we make change too. I've learned to set very little in stone, because what works at one time may not work at another, and we learn new things and try new things it all changes.

I was reading about this family that lived without electricity for over two years and all the things they learned to do without. They now do have it, but grow most of their own food, trade services with neighbors to get things they need, etc. Like I said, I find this sort of thing intriguing. I don't think I'll ever be at that point, but some of those principles I think are very admirable and I like to incorporate them somewhat.

Reading about Waldorf philosphies and the idea of having natural materials (wood, cotton, silk) in toys for children really resonates with me. I cook a lot of food from scratch, though that varies with how much I feel like I can handle at any given time. It's just a process, and it's interesting to me how when I read about things some of it just feels right. I suspect this interest somewhere deep in me to do things a little out of the mainstream comes from my grammom through my mom, both of whom have their own cool things they do out of the mainstream. (My grammom, for example, does woodworking and has an awesome wood stove to heat her house, which she designed and built. And the idea of cloth diapering came from my mom, who did it in varying degrees with all of us.)

Anyway, all that said, we're not really ready to go too far out of 'normal'. When we moved we didn't get cable as an experiment, and we do sometimes miss it. So we'll see on that one. And I may try to eschew TV and such (my feelings on media could be a very long post that no one wants to read, and I don't want to be so opinionated on that anyway), but then the phone or internet (well, internet on the phone) is omnipresent. And, honestly, I like nice things. I think the people who live in old farmhouses are cool, but I could never do it. I like clean and the conveniences of the modern world. Like washing machines. So am I contradictory? Probably. Who isn't? But maybe it's a matter of incorporating principles more than adopting full lifestyle changes? I don't know. We're working on it. And someday, maybe, we'll arrive where we want to be. But of course like many things the point (the growth, the aim) is in the journey, not the destination.

Ubiquitous is a fun word

2010-05-06T08:18:00.000-07:00

Well, hello world. I'm all about blogging when I feel like it. I wish I did do more because I love going back and reading it, but I have very little computer time (almost everything I do is from my phone, including this post), so I don't beat myself up over it. That said, quick update:

-Phoenix is good. Getting hot very quickly. I might die. Also we need to get our grill set up because having the oven on is already getting quite uncomfortable. (It's only May 6th. Yikes.) However, we do like it here, and it was the right decision for us. Life is good.
-We spend all our free time dealing with house related things. Whenever we do move we're not sure what we'll do in our free time. Hehe. Hopefully we'll have good things to announce on that front soon.
-Morgan is a blast. She's also getting at least seven teeth right now (no joke--eyeteeth and first molars), so some days are not as easy. Poor kid. Toby is still her favorite member of the family.
-Probably as an internal defense mechanism against stress over the aforementioned house hunting stuff, I'm filled with ridiculous crafting energy again. Anyone else get that feeling? It's also that my mind has to be constantly planning something, and right now it has settled itself on quilts and fabric. It's the funding that's stopping me right now. Oh, and time. So in my head I plot and calculate and dream that someday I'll have an unlimited supply of lovely fabric. And time, again. Hehe.
-Anyone else's brain work like that? Planning constantly? In my head I often am mulling over multiple things to work on. With each house we've considered I lay awake at night thinking of furniture arrangement. I plan logistics of things a lot, meal plans and shopping lists in my head, and then sometimes crafting. I get in these modes where it's on my brain constantly. What's up with that? I do that with a lot of things. I'll get stuck on some topic to read about and devour it and store it in my head for possible someday use. Huh.

Okay, that's all for now. :)

Stop. Right here.

2010-04-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

For some reason I was trying to remember what street a store in Orem (Utah) was off of and I started flashing back to so many things at BYU and in Provo. I was picturing campus itself and places I liked there. Of course everything so often does look better in hindsight, but I find myself figuratively kicking myself for not having enjoyed it more at the time. BYU campus really is very nice. And there's a Jamba Juice in the student center! How much better does it get? Hehe. Smoothie locations aside, there were a lot of really wonderful things around me, and I just didn't appreciate it as much as I wish I would have. I think I spent a lot of emotional energy on being single or silly friend drama or whining about the fact that I was stuck in Provo--which now doesn't seem so bad. Now, we also had some ridiculous fun and of course that's what I remember most (Phase 10, watching Pride and Prejudice, the dollar theater, football games, or a million other things). I'm just saying that I don't remember stopping in the moment to really soak it all in.

I look back at the time before Morgan was born a little that way too. We were so free to do whatever we wanted and vacations were really vacations. But of course I spent emotional energy wanting a baby or wanting more purpose...blah blah blah. Again, I just wish I would have appreciated how great it was while I was there.

I love the age Morgan is at. I've tried very hard to take mental pictures and cement them in my memory as she's grown up. Many center around nursing, incidentally, because those are the hardest to get an actual picture of--like the way she likes to have her foot in the air by my face or the sideways look and huge grin she often gives me. Right now I'm just loving seeing her learn and explore and be so incredibly happy and silly. I have wished repeatedly over the last few weeks that I could freeze time right here. At the same time I'm wishing I would have appreciated the time more when she was younger rather than stressing out, so it's the same story there as with everything else!

Every phase, either of a baby growing up or our own stages of life, has its plusses and minuses. There are always challenges, but there are always things to appreciate, too.

Somehow it's so hard to really stop and appreciate life in the moment when it's happening. We can be happy, certainly, but some of that clarity seems to only come later. I hope I can stop and soak in a little more wonderfulness while I'm in it, and then enjoy it again a few years from now when I'll probably be having this same conversation with myself. :)

On second thought...

2010-03-29T03:49:00.000-07:00

Honestly, it takes too much time for me to put up most of my blog posts. I like to be really detailed if I can, but that leads to more than just a few minutes. Grand plans go the way of the dodo bird. You can follow my Google Buzz/Reader shared items at this feed or follow me on Google (first name + last name @ gmail).

I'll still be putting stuff up here, but I'd rather be spending time doing other things (working, family) than writing a blog post. Maybe I'll just find a plugin to import my Google Buzz/Reader shared items into the blog too. Who knows...

Really, U.S. children are obese? Surprising...

2010-03-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

Is this article really any surprise to anybody living in America right now? There is an audio interview on the page as well...

Study: Extreme obesity affecting more children in US than ever before

Extreme obesity is affecting more children in the United States than ever before, according to a new study.

More than 700,000 children aged 2-19 in southern California were included in the study by healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente.

According to the study, more than 7% of boys and 5% of girls were extremely obese and one in twenty are a full 50% above what doctors consider healthy.

The organisation says obese children face a shorter life span and health problems in their twenties, unless they change their lifestyles.

The World Today's Ed Butler talked to overweight teenager D'Vonte Pullen and obesity expert Tami Foy.

More pockets of hope...courtesty of India (again)...

2010-03-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

Another uplifting article I read about educating the underprivileged in India...

Indian school helping the brightest Muslims

In a congested part of Patna, capital of India's Bihar state, stands a striking yellow building - a 100-year-old mansion that has clearly seen better days.

Inside it, in a small dark room, a young bearded cleric is reading out sermons from the Muslim holy scriptures to a group of boys seated cross-legged on the floor.

They are in their late teens, some are wearing skull caps and they all listen to him with rapt attention.

At first glance, this could be any of the region's hundreds of Islamic seminaries or madrassas, where young Muslims receive religious instruction.

But this is no ordinary seminary.

After prayers, the boys head out to a classroom, pen and notebook in hand, where they listen with equal attention to a lecture on advanced mathematics.

This is the unusual setting for Rahmani 30 - a training institute which prepares talented but underprivileged young Muslims for entry into India's best engineering colleges - the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).

Only the top 2% make it through the stiff entrance exam.

Getting ahead

India's large Muslim minority is consistently placed at the bottom of social and economic rankings.

Part of this has to do with education - most Muslims end up studying in madrassas, which means they have little chance of being employed in the private sector or government.

So the significance of Rahmani's initiative is not lost on anyone.

It is the brainchild of a senior Bihar police officer, Abhyanand, who takes time off from his day job to teach the boys physics.

Rahmani was inspired by a similar school - the Super 30, where Abhyanand used to work and which is also aimed at poor children but not Muslims exclusively.

"In our country, any difficult examination is very fearful because a huge number of students take part but only a few get in," Abhyanand says.

The advantage at Rahmani, he says, is the kind of students they get - mostly from poor backgrounds and determined to get ahead in life.

"They come from a rural background and that is their strength. They become competitive because, for them, it is a win or lose situation.

"If they don't make it they don't stand anywhere [socially and economically]."

Great chance

Irfan Alam, 15, the son of a barber who is preparing for the IIT exam due to be held in 2011, says it is a great opportunity.

"I wanted to make something of my life, become someone," he says smiling shyly.

"It's the perfect platform. The teachers are amazing and the best part is that it's completely free."

It is a chance that few others where Irfan comes from will ever get.

His village is a good four hours drive north of Patna, with lush green wheat-fields, narrow dirt tracks and few proper buildings.

Most people here work as farm labour and a large number of the men are barbers by trade.

I meet Irfan's father, Mohammad Shafiq, outside his modest, two-room hut made of mud and straw.

Now recuperating after an eye operation, he tells me how his son displayed flashes of brilliance as a child and soon outgrew his village school.

So he decided to send him away.

"Nobody studies here. Most of the teenagers waste their time or start drinking heavily.

"I can't read and write myself and it was always my dream that my son should be educated and not become a barber like his father and grandfather."

Back at Rahmani the classes are done but the studying continues late into the night.

Irfan sits with three of his friends inside his little dorm room, poring over textbooks and brainstorming.

In another room, one of the teachers uses a webcam to conduct a tutorial with students in another part of Bihar.

Cultural debate

It's a fascinating mix of the traditional and the modern.

"The basic philosophy of a madrassa is that the boys live, eat and study together. There is no distinction between rich and poor - everybody is equal," says Maulana Wali Rahmani, an influential cleric who heads this institute.

"There's also a culture of open debate. It's something I experienced myself while growing up in a madrassa. So we thought, why not channel these strengths in a whole new direction and see what we can achieve."

To find out how spectacularly they have succeeded, you need to travel 1,000km (625 miles), to the national capital, Delhi.

It is a completely different world in the tree-lined, sprawling IIT campus.

Young men and women stroll into their classrooms, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, back-packs slung over their shoulders.

These are India's brightest brains, many of whom will go on to work in the country's top software companies or head to Silicon Valley.

Among them is a shy, earnest young man - Shadman Anwar, part of Rahmani's inaugural batch of students last year, all 10 of whom made it through to the IITs.

"It's been a dream come true, being here with all the other students. And I don't feel as if I'm any different," he says.

His is the kind of confidence that has helped raise expectations at Rahmani, whose administrators now want to establish 10 similar schools over the next couple of years.

India's Muslim community is often said to have under-achieved, plagued by poverty, low education standards and a conservative outlook.

Now in one of India's poorest states, a small initiative is trying to break the mould.

Pockets of hope...always nice to see...

You know what's funny?

2010-03-18T10:31:00.000-07:00

When you have one of those fancy shmancy atomic clocks. And you live in Arizona, the only state not to follow Daylight Savings Time. And you have an alarm set on said fancy shmancy atomic clock. And your wife (Emily) also has a backup one set for a few minutes later on fancy shmancy iPhone just in case. And the fancy shmancy iPhone alarm goes off in the morning, but the fancy shmancy atomic clock alarm does not. And you are all confused, because the fancy shmancy iPhone is now reading an hour ahead of the fancy shmancy atomic clock, but before the time that the fancy shmancy atomic clock had its alarm set for. And you go to Church. And when you get there, you realize hey...the iPhone isn't so fancy and shmancy afterall.

Yup, iPhone sprung forward (incorrectly), while the fancy shmancy atomic clock held its ground as it should. We salute you atomic clock, and all your fancy shmanciness. iPhone, you both (Emily's and mine) need to learn that Arizona does not support Daylight Savings Time. You will be turned off in the Fall. And the subsequent Spring. :)

Enjoying the sunshine

2010-03-17T04:31:00.000-07:00

While it still feels great to be outside I'm trying to be outside more often. Last week we brought some blankets and toys outside and just enjoyed the warmth and sun.

I worked on sewing the binding on the quilt I am FINALLY finishing. It's very slow moving. Either I need to learn to sew faster or I might just give up and machine do it. I really don't want to though so it'll probably just take me another two years.

Morgan had fun playing with some blocks, putting them back and forth between the basket and their box.

I sewed a simple bag to hold clothespins, and Morgan likes to play with it, taking them out and putting them back in.

Toby wasn't sure what to think of all this and kept trying to eat the grass/clovers.

One thing Morgan likes to do is play with this lid. About a month or two ago I think she figured out it looks funny to squish it against our faces, and of course we ham it up a little.

She has also started squishing it against her own face and trying to look through it...

And while we were playing she tried to put it towards Toby. Figuring he wouldn't go for face squishing (kinda hard when you have a snout) I made it a hat for him instead.

Poor dog looks so tortured in this picture. I imagine he's wondering why we humiliate him so much by making him look ridiculous. It's all for the sake of kid play, Toby. Sorry my friend!

Your Weekly Wednesday Dose of Real Estate and Finance Knowledge

2010-03-17T03:06:00.000-07:00

I am going to start theming my posts. As previously discussed, I have a lot of interests and try to keep current on what's happening in the world. None of you may give a hoot (don't pollute) about what I may share, but if one person makes a more informed decision partly because of it (I love more information) then it'll be worth it. YWWDREFK is a lot shorter than typing that big title out. I'll be using that acronym to title these posts.

I'm not going to try and get too deep here, at least not initially. Nor will I try to interject my opinion unabashedly. So here it goes...

Have you heard of dollar cost averaging? The folks on financial TV like to throw the term around in regards to investment strategy. What it all boils down to is this: if you own 5 shares of a stock that you bought for $10, you are in that investment for an average of $10 per share (duh). Now the stock is worth $5. The proponents behind DCA will say it is a great time to buy.

This is how. Now you buy 5 more shares at this new $5 per share price. When added to your existing 5 shares, you now own 10 shares for a total cost to you of $75. This makes your DCA $7.50, or 25% LOWER. That is the selling point. You are now in your investment for a lower average cost. So you can "break even" if the stock only goes up by $2.50 now rather than $5.

But what is never mentioned is that this costs EXTRA money (duh). For some, it is a wise strategy, for others it is not. Something very very similar occurs in the Real Estate (RE) market.

You will keep hearing that home values are rising. I read reports of it everyday. If you pay attention to the details backing many of these statements, you will recognize a similarity to DCA, albeit the opposite.

Let's say 5 homes sold last year, each one for $200,000. That would make the average price of each home sold $200,000 (duh). Now let's say this year 5 more homes sell for $400,000 each. When you add them all together, you now have 10 homes sold for a combined $3,000,000, or an average price of $300,000 per homes.

Did prices go up? Well, on average they did. On DCA a home "increased" in value by 50%. You will hear this about many markets, without further explanation behind it, but we will delve into that in later posts. Some RE indices try to take care of this by focussing on "same home sales" rather than the example I provided above.

There is no perfect model though. Repeat sales could go like this...a flipper buys a home for $250,000 all cash. They don't need to do anything to it other than flip it to somebody else who will be financing their purchase. They received a discount due to paying all cash. They also expect to make money when they sell it, and they do in only 1 month for $300,000. Did home values just increase by 20% in a single month? With that model, they did. What this model has a hard time with is applying increases in price over time and the impetus behind the increase (annual inflation premium, cash discounts, etc.).

Until next week...you can make any piece of information support any side of the claim...

We only hire deaf workers...

2010-03-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

How cool is this?

Indian courier service hires only deaf workers

India has one of the largest deaf populations in the world, but social stigmas have eliminated many job opportunities for the roughly 6 percent of the population that is affected. Aiming to empower this isolated group economically, Mirakle Couriers is a service provider that hires only deaf workers.

Mirakle Couriers offers a pickup and delivery service in Mumbai. The company puts a heavy emphasis on the training of employees—right down to the finer points of professional grooming—and has grown dramatically since its late 2008 launch. Its client list now includes Johnson Controls, Bain Capital and the Indian Hotels Company, among many others.

Founded by former investment banker Dhruv Lakra, Mirakle Couriers stresses that it is "not a charity but a social business, where the social element is embedded in the commercial operations". The firm plans to expand beyond Mumbai to other cities and countries around the world. Social entrepreneurs hither and yon: time to get in touch...?

Talk about doing some good and making a difference. This has to be one of the coolest things I've heard about since Kiva. We should all have ideas this purposeful.

The music corner

2010-03-15T05:22:00.000-07:00

This is the "music corner" I previously referred to. It's next to the desk and yes, that's the basket of Toby's toys there as well. I took a picture because I failed to mention the rain stick we bought in Mexico, which I also consider an instrument. We also bought a nice ukelele when we were in Hawaii (not hundreds of dollars, but not bright pink nor cheesy painted), but for some reason I can't find it. I know it's just in one of the many boxes we opted not to unpack and left in the garage. Anyway, so it was good to remember that we're doing a little better on collecting instruments than I first thought. :)

I have been building a massive list of instruments I want while drooling over this site of kids' toys and craft stuff that I really like. Too bad I already have next Christmas and birthday completely planned present wise. I'll have to come up with some excuse. Hehe.

The Intent of things...

2010-03-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

I heard a guy on ESPN Radio of all places speaking about intent. Do you view somebody based upon what they did, or the intent with which they did said action? It's a tricky thing.

It's the question behind manslaughter. Somebody was killed. But the intent to kill them was not there. So maybe you still go to jail, but you don't go for too long. So there, obviously, you primarily judge based on intent, but secondarily on the act.

What I heard this morning was trying to completely and entirely separate the two. I do not, personally, believe you can make this distinction. They are intertwined. By ignoring one, you are making the other much too important and perhaps irrelevant at the same time.

But which should be the primary and which the secondary in the way that you view things? Should it be like the court system where intent is primary and action secondary? That is for everybody to decide on their own. To me, if you are careless, you had to make the decision (or lack there of - aka. carelessness) to perform or allow said action to occur. By working on the intent (cause), you can eliminate future occurrences of the action (effect), or at least lessen them to some degree. Conversely, if you try not to perform the action, your carelessness may still exist, and if you slip up (inadvertently) the action will yet again be performed.

Let's use the manslaughter example. Vehicular. Person A is driving and talking on their cell phone and runs a red, hitting and killing Person B who was crossing the street. What happened? They were careless. Consequence? Somebody was killed. Now let's try to eliminate both the intent and the action from this scenario. Option 1: Person A does not talk on the cell phone, thereby paying more attention to the road and stops at the red light, Person B safely crosses the street. Option 2: Person A is talking on the cell phone, still runs the red light, but now the action - either Person A or Person B notices before it is to late, there is some swerving going on, death is averted.

What do you think Person A would do afterwards in Option 2? Would they think "I need to avoid people in the road when I drive" or would they think "I should have stopped at the red light?" To me, that's how I look at things. You either fix the problem (Option 1), or you fix the consequence (Option 2).

The rain in Spain...Phoenix...somewhere

2010-03-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

11:00 am

1:30 pm

I DO like rain. I like the sound, the fact that it makes things grow... it's just also nice when it then makes way for clear blue skies two and a half hours later! I like how it was absolutely pouring, but there's barely a cloud to be seen and the sidewalk looks dry in the second picture.

Planters or Charles Schultz? Somebody may be NUTS...

2010-03-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

Here's this article I found today. I think the title alone shows that it's a little skewed...

Glenn Beck to Jesus: Drop Dead

Glenn Beck said last week on his eponymous show that Christians should leave churches that preach "social justice." Mr. Beck equated the desire for a just society with--wait for it--Nazism and Communism.

I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes.

This means that you would have to leave the Catholic Church, which has long championed that aspect of the Gospel. The term "social justice" originated way back in the 1800s (and probably predates even that), and has been underlined by the Magisterium and popes since Leo XIII, who began the modern tradition of Catholic social teaching with his encyclical on capital and labor, Rerum Novarum in 1891. Subsequent popes have built on Leo's work, continuing the church's meditation on a variety of issues of social justice in such landmark documents as Pope Pius XI's encyclical on "the reconstruction of the social order,"Quadregismo Anno (1931), Paul VI's encyclical "on the development of peoples," Populorum Progressio (1967) and John Paul II's encyclical "on the social concerns of the church"Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987).

The Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church, published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, says this:

The Church's social Magisterium constantly calls for the most classical forms of justice to be respected: commutative, distributive and legal justice. Ever greater importance has been given to social justice., which represents a real development in general justice, the justice that regulates social relationships according to the criterion of observance of the law. Social justice, a requirement related to the social question which today is worldwide in scope, concerns the social, political and economic aspects and, above all, the structural dimension of problems and their respective solutions....

Social justice is not just some silly foreign idea. American Catholics know that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have an Office of Justice, Peace and Human Development. On that website the U.S. bishops say: "At the core of the virtue of solidarity is the pursuit of justice and peace. Our love for all our sisters and brothers demands that we promote peace in a world surrounded by violence and conflict."

Get it? Social justice is an essential part of Catholic teaching. It's part of being a Catholic. So Glenn Beck is, in essence, saying "Leave the Catholic church."

But Glenn Beck is saying something else: "Leave Christianity." Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus mentions our responsibility to care for the poor, to work on their behalf, to stand with them. In fact, when asked how his followers would be judged he doesn't say that it will be based on where you worship, or how you pray, or how often you go to church, or even what political party you believe in. He says something quite different: It depends on how you treat the poor.

In the Gospel of Matthew (25) he tells his surprised disciples, that when you are meeting the poor, you are meeting him. They protest. "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

But our responsibility to care for "the least of these" does not end with simple charity. Giving someone a handout is an important part of the Christian message. But so is advocating for them. It is not enough simply to help the poor, one must address the structures that keep them that way. Standing up for the rights of the poor is not being a Nazi, it's being Christian. And Communist, as Mr. Beck suggests? It's hard not to think of the retort of the great apostle of social justice, Dom Helder Camara, archbishop of Recife, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

The attack on social justice is the tack of those who wish to ignore the concerns the poor and ignore the social structures that foster poverty. It's not hard to see why people are tempted to do so. How much easier it would be if we didn't have to worry about the poor!

But ignoring the poor, and ignoring what keeps them poor, is, quite simply, unchristian. For the poor are the church in many ways. When St. Lawrence, in the fourth century, was ordered by the prefect of Rome to turn over the wealth of the church, he presented to him the poor.

Glenn Beck's desire to detach social justice from the Gospel is a move to detach care for the poor from the Gospel. But a church without the poor, and a church without a desire for a just social world for all, is not the church.

At least not the church of Jesus Christ. Who was, by the way, poor.

Um...okay? Let's totally forget that this may be taken out of context. But am I the only one who thinks that "social justice" sounds a lot like "the law of consecration?" (if you are not familiar with what either up, just do a quick search on Wikipedia for them) Don't ALL churches/groups/pacts/whatever-y0u-want-t0-call-it that promote some sort of "higher law" believe in social justice to a degree?

The recorder

2010-03-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

On an impulse we spent a whopping $2.50 on this recorder at Target. I want to be able to expose Morgan to more music and musical instruments, and while the recorder is often sort of pushed aside as that pseudo instrument they make you play in elementary school music class (if there even is such a program anymore), it is technically an instrument.

While trying to remember the notes and how to play, our conversation went like this:
Me: hmm, I wonder what key this is in.
Adrian: um, it's plastic.
Me: right. Good point.

Regardless, Morgan likes it. I'll play a few notes and hand it to her, and she will put it in her mouth and start singing some notes. A few times she has even figured out to blow and make some noise on the recorder itself, but I kind of love it even more that she puts it to her mouth but uses her voice to make music. We're thinking she might like a kazoo.

She's into music and I enjoy that. The other day I had some music playing on the computer and she went over and pat the record player and made her 'I want this' noise. So I turned off the computer music and put on a Rachmaninoff record, and she sat back and moved a little and sung her little song. Smart kid, already preferring the quality of vinyl over digital. Hehe.

I want lots of REAL instruments around. As of now our music corner is just a guitar and the record player--and now the recorder! Adrian's old clarinet is in the closet, it's just not a take out and goof off with sort of thing. I do encourage percussion play on tins and pans and with vitamin bottles as much as possible. Someday it'll move on to the bigger instruments assuming we can get them and remember anything about playing them. :)

Why am I posting more...?

2010-03-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

Well here are some reasons (in no particular order):

I do a lot of thinking.
- For anybody that knows me in any depth, they know that I have to always be thinking about something. Regardless of what it is and how it relates to WHATEVER may be going on around me, my brain needs to stay full and active. So I read a lot. I actually do. I never really thought that I did since I don't read what you normal people would call "books" but more of articles and just little things that pique my interest. I think it's because I like to know a lot about everything, and not focus on only a single thing, which I feel is what you have to do with a book. Of course, you can read multiple books at once, but then you are just stretching yourself thin and for a very extended period of time. The way I go, boom boom boom done, next. By the time you could read one book (I'll assume one week), I could've read over 500 articles and other pieces of information on many different subjects. I'm probably not exaggerating either. So I have a lot going on in my head and feel like I have a lot to share. Will I be sharing a lot of that here? Maybe. A lot of what I read is just random stuff that interests me, sometimes I'll feel like blogging about it, other times I'll just throw it up on Facebook or Twitter. I'd like to lean more towards just throwing everything (no matter how brief) up here and since it also publishes to Facebook and Twitter, kill three birds with one stone.

I like technology.
- I mean, I put this blog together after all. Blogger was too boring for me so I did this whole custom self-hosted Wordpress thingamajig. Of course there are some drawbacks to it, I'm not hosted in the cloud like Google Services are, and when something goes wrong I have to fix it. But there are also some benefits, like we can customize it more, and it doesn't look like EVERYBODY ELSE'S blog (sorry, but most blog layouts all look boring to me, at least Google Reader evens out the boring playing field by stripping all of the floating babies and auto-play music out). It's fun for me to tweak with things, so this is another outlet to do so.

The Shark thinks that only wives blog.
- Yes, you heard that right. The Shark, aka. Shark Gillins, aka. Mr. Famous Editor (check out his own IMDB page here) said to us previously that 99% of "family blogs" are just posts from the wives, that the husbands don't do anything with it. Well, I am like the Wizard of Oz. I run the show behind the scenes! Except now I'm out and you can't handle it! Where are my flying monkeys? And Shark, your IMDB page doesn't have your latest endeavor on BYU TV listed! And no, don't worry, his parents didn't actually name him Shark. He just likes Seafood a LOT.

A good suggestion by Shayne Holmes.
- Our good friends up in Redmond, Shayne and Stephanie Holmes (who inherited our fancy shmancy bookshelves, the 1 (er, 2) items we could not fit in our 26' moving truck, or the 12' trailer, or the 8' trailer, or the SUV, or the Sedan) had an idea, or maybe just Shayne did. He takes the Microsoft Commuter to work. It's a bus service, paid for by Microsoft, that runs routes all over the Puget Sound, to pick up and drop off people for work. It's part of their effort to reduce carbon emissions and be earth friendly and hippy (as they assimilate you into the Borg with Windows and Office). So on his bus ride in, he took it upon himself to create a new blog and try to put up a post each day. About whatever. Random.

And now are are here. So if you find what I write irritating, tough, there will be more of it. There will be more quick little links to articles, more random thoughts, more whatever. I like to share what I'm thinking, so now instead of just Emily or a select few, I'm making it known here to. Or not. We'll see. I might get bored of it.

A, B, C, Vitamin D

2010-03-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

For anybody looking for additional reasoning as to "why in the world would you leave Microsoft and the Redmond-area" here is an answer...

(Reuters) - Vitamin D is vital in activating human defences and low levels suffered by around half the world's population may mean their immune systems' killer T cells are poor at fighting infection, scientists said on Sunday.

The findings by Danish researchers could help the fight against infectious diseases and global epidemics, they said, and could be particularly useful in the search for new vaccines.

The researchers found that immune systems' killer cells, known as T cells, rely on vitamin D to become active and remain dormant and unaware of the possibility of threat from an infection or pathogen if vitamin D is lacking in the blood.

"When a T cell is exposed to a foreign pathogen, it extends a signaling device or 'antenna' known as a vitamin D receptor, with which it searches for vitamin D," said Carsten Geisler of Copenhagen University's department of international health, immunology and microbiology, who led the study.

"This means the T cell must have vitamin D or activation of the cell will cease. If the T cells cannot find enough vitamin D in the blood, they won't even begin to mobilize."

Scientists have known for a long time that vitamin D is important for calcium absorption, and that there is a link between levels of the vitamin and diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis.

"What we didn't realize is how crucial vitamin D is for actually activating the immune system -- which we know now," Geisler wrote in the study in the journal Nature Immunology.

Most Vitamin D is made by the body as a natural by-product of the skin's exposure to sunlight. It can also be found in fish liver oil, eggs and fatty fish such as salmon, herring and mackerel, or taken as a supplement.

Almost half of the world's population has lower than optimal levels of vitamin D and scientists say the problem is getting worse as people spend more time indoors.

Geisler and his research team said the findings offered much needed information about the immune system and would be of particular use when developing new vaccines.

"This is important not only in fighting disease but also in dealing with anti-immune reactions of the body and the rejection of transplanted organs," they wrote.

Active T cells multiply at an explosive rate and as well as fighting infection, can also mistakenly attack the body itself.

After and an organ transplant, for example, T cells can attack the new organ as a "foreign invader," and in autoimmune disease, hypersensitive T cells mistake parts of the body's own cells as threats, prompting the body to attack itself.

Geisler said there were no definitive studies on the optimal daily vitamin D dose but experts recommend 25 to 50 micrograms.

Not that we were overtly sick or anything, but you definitely feel the difference. Synthesized vitamins will only do so much, you need actual sun. And from October to May, you don't actually get any Vitamin D from the amount (or lack thereof) of sunlight up there. Nothing like the real thing, which we'll get plenty of down here.

If Microsoft had something larger a little more southernly, we'd be having a different conversation right now. :) Of course we've had rainstorms down here the past few days, and it's interesting to see how much more difficult it has been to get out of bed and feel energized.