Well K has made some progress in the potty arena. Few weeks ago, she finally peed in the potty! She's gone a few times since then but is still very strigent in going in her training pants. She has since informed me that when she turns 5 she will wear underwear. I also started her in therapy last week. I really like this Dr. and hope that she can help us get through to K and her control issues and help her "loosen" up a bit on life. I do have to say K has been improving socially in the past few months. She's gone up to kids at the playground that she's never seen before and having an almost converstation with them and playing with them. She also played with some friend of mines children for the first time in like 2 years. We go over to her house for LLL meetings like at least once a month and see them at other times and she never conversed with them until the other week. Both me and my friend were both shocked at this development.

Just plain sad http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070924/NEWS01/709240344/1002/NEWS01

What makes it even more sad is that the mom wanted to delay and the doctor pushed scare tactics into her. This so infuriates me. What is so wrong in wanting to wait to vaccinate, but no we got to push so many when they are still so young and their bodies still developing.

Just UGH....

http://www.hapihealth.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemi

what wonderful ingredients, I especially love the little touch of arsenic added. I still wonder if the vaccines K got somehow messed with her brain :(

K had so many fits past few days, I cant' even remember what they were about anymore! I do remember one and I ripped in half a big piece of paper for her to draw on like I always do, and well I didn't rip it evenly enough and well she had a fit. She refused to draw on it, it had to be perfectly even. (newsflash K, i'm NOT PERFECT!!!!!!!) aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

Program backfires- total understatement

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/22/AR2007072201204.html?

You know I'm not even an "expert" and I could tell you that could have happened. How very sad :(

Well got back from Chicago the other day. It was fine, nice getting away but boy was it exhausting! It was nice sleeping alone though and not having a snoring husband or a squirmy toddler waking you up. Some of the sessions I attended were duds, others were pretty good. Have to say my favorite was Jack Newmans, and Linda Smiths. They both are great public speakers.

Anyways girls missed me and it was great to see them again. Megan when she first saw me was a bit confused I think. Then when we sat down as daddy was searching for the car, she stood there staring at my shirt, lol. I knew what she wanted, so I asked and she nursed like crazy. It was good since I was feeling quite a bit full at the moment.

Yesterday was such a rough day for me. K was just insanely crying and whining all day. My voice is coarse today from all the yelling/talking I did yesterday. It's wearing me thin for sure. I'm gonna start writing out all the things that set her off so I can have some example to give to the physchologists (if I ever get in that is)

This morning K wanted to draw w/crayons. I get out paper and crayons for her. I was in bath room and she comes running in crying hysterically. Couldn't understand why, she walked back to playroom crying still and I guess the paper fell on the floor and Megan was trying to give her another piece of paper but it was the wrong kind of paper (already had something on one side, she has to have both sides cleared) So I finally got her to calm down from that and then Megan started ripping the crayon and K flipt big time. I tried to get Megan to stop, then she did and k just couldnt' calm down. Then Megan got made and threw crayons on the floor. Then K cried even more about it.

I live for Chicago in two days! I'm so excited, can't wait to see Ina May!

http://www.10tv.com/?sec=10investigates&story=sites/10tv/content/pool/200706/156241063.html

"We need to sit down and take a good look at how these vaccinations are manufactured and find a better way,"

yes that is so true, amongst other things

sad story, poor baby

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/you/article.html?in_article_id=468243&in_page_id=1909

We had Ella's bday party the other day. I was pretty pleased with Kaitlyn, she actually played with her and at the end, sorta interacted with the other kids. Megan got her finger stuck in the door and got a nasty cut on her finger, thank goodness for milkies ;) she was quickly recovered. She's also obsessed with bandaids now, so in some ways it's like she likes her little boo boo!

Blueberry picking the other day also. Yumm my favorite fruit. Still early in the season, so we had to scrounge a bit but the girls totally had a great time. Will definitely go back until there are no more blueberries to be picked!

I live for Chicago next week!! yahoo

Baby Stone is here
http://www.uclick.com/client/new/ss/2007/07/10/

I love that she was a 9lb + at home!

Now this is what America needs to start showing!
Good for Canada!!!
http://www.gov.ns.ca/hpp/repPub/Family_Friendly_Pledge.pdf

We went to a local ice cream stand and K was sitting eating her vanilla ice cream and said "it's so yummy tastes like marshmallows and mashed potatoes" Think she just said that because they are all white because I can't imagine potatoes tasting like vanilla ice cream. I think K's going through a growth spurt, she's been sleeping in to like 8:30 and normally she gets up at 6:30 and she's always saying she's hungry!

I'm loving the comic strip stone soup!
http://www.uclick.com/client/new/ss/2007/06/30/

Our first warm day of the year! gotta get the kiddie pool out.
K made up her first joke:

Why did the chicken cross the road?
to get away from the bee

some great articles on maternity care
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/tag/politics-of-childbirth

A quote from one of the articles Why Women Deliver?Why Now?

The fact of life is that huge disparities exist between rich and poor countries, and between the rich and the poor in all countries.

One in 30,000 women in Sweden will die of pregnancy complications.
One in 2,500 women will die of these causes in the United States.
In sub-Saharan Africa, one in every 16 women will die in pregnancy or childbirth.
In Afghanistan, such complications kill one in every seven women.

Sad to see the US has such a high rate of mortality for an industrialized country and even sadder is that most American don't realize there's a problem.

Busy week! we went to new york last weekend for our neice's Bat Mitzvah. We had a great time overall. Then we had roofers come this week, so i pretty much tried to get out each day since it was so noisy. Alas today I just wanted to stay in and now I feel bored, guess I can't win.

My girls decided to play dress up today and called themselves "Mrs and Mr Bunny" and of course they needed to eat bunny food, so I got them a bowl of carrots and lettuce and they actually ate it all up.

Strawberry Picking!

It's that time of year again, strawberry time! Girls had lots of fun

saw some interesting cloud formation, they were sorta pointing downwards

• So yesterday, took the girls into Boston to go to the scooper bowl festival. Went on the train with a friend. Girls had fun on the train. We were going to go to bosotn commons and let them play on the playground and have a picnic before going for some ice cream. When we go to the playground, it was closed, drat! so we decided to do swan boats, went there and it was packed with school kids on a trip. So we managed to find another playground a bit away to play in. Then we finally get to the scooper bowl (whilst K asking for strawberry ice cream the whole 15 min walk over) It was packed and just insanely crazy. Very poorly designed for efficiency thats for sure. So we got all the kids and put them in one spot and herded them in, while we got some ice cream and brought it back. had one scare when megan ran off but luckily someone spotted her. After our tummy's were full of junk we headed back to train and stopped at some park with a fountain of water. Well girls jumped right in, oops have no dry clothes! just one pair of pants. So megan went pantless the rest of way but we did have her in stroller. K was complaining that her feet had no socks, well i told you if you went in water i had no dry socks! But overly a good day, pretty stressfull for mommy though.

So I finally got my little old hands on the book Born in the Usa by Marsden Wagner. Been dying to read it! Of course the stuff in it, isn't all that shocking to me but yet it still is shocking and makes me even more infuriated. It's a good read and I'd recommend it.

Went to jury duty and luckily there was no trials! I did get to read in quiet for a few hours, so it wasn't a total waste of time. I started reading Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber, depressing for sure.

New hats!

I tie dyed the girls new hat. They really liked them and was very pleased to display some sisterly love for the camera.

No drug/vaccine is ever 100% safe

I'm sorry but if any doctor or anyone said "oh it's totally safe" I wouldn't buy it for a minute. Any drug, vaccine can have a potential risk and side effect. We humans aren't a one size fit all mentality. Some people react to things differently than others, it's just the way it is. Everyone should fully understand the risk associated with any drug or vaccine. If the doctor say's there isn't any and 100% safe, don't buy it.

Just another yet case of potential vaccine side effect:
http://www.thanhniennews.com/healthy/?catid=8&newsid=28201

Thursday May 31st!

Last day of May! Oh my where did the month go? Can't believe it's June tomorrow. I have to call for my jury duty tomorrow, hoping I don't have to go in. They really should excuse moms who take care of their kids. I mean if I did get called in for one day, not a huge deal but if some rare chance it was a case that took days, or weeks? I mean really Larry can't take all that time off from work and I have no one else that can concievable watch them all that time!
Someone I knew was giving away a guinea pig, so I offered to take it in. The girls are just loving her. They sat by her all afternoon. K has decided to name her Bessy. Let's see how long it will take for this novelty to wear off.

BOLD

check out birth on labor day!
many cities this year are putting on a play, check it out if you can

http://www.birthonlaborday.com/bold/bold_film.html

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?show=localnews&pnpID=730&NewsID=805997&CategoryID=16718&on=1



I loved this article. I can only hope that the future is definitley brighter in the birthing world.

Yesterday was a fun day. We went to an organic farm. The girls had a blast. Kaitlyn especially enjoyed feeding the goats leaves, and who knew goats just love love oak leaves! Then we went out for ice cream and came home and played in the yard. Megan fell asleep at 5 pm and woke at 7 am! this is a record for, she never sleeps that much. So it was a relaxing night for us as well. I got some reading done. Nothing like reading about comfort measures during labor on a Saturday night, lol.

Deaths may have been caused by Gardasil
http://judicialwatch.org/6299.shtml

I wouldn't touch this vaccine with a ten foot pole. It is so new, how do we really know for sure what the effects are and the effectiveness. No way would I ever allow my girls to be guinea pigs. As far as some states so quick on the bandwagon to mandate this vaccine, tsk tsk.

FDA info on Menactra vaccine
http://www.fda.gov/cber/safety/gbs102006.htm
Interesting how while researching vaccines that GBS comes up so often but yet they aren't readily coming out and saying that theres a possible risk to the general public