The more I am in a mainstream environment the more I want to retreat back to my little cabin in the woods. Retreat may be too passive - run like heck is likely more appropriate. And Pensacola has not failed me yet, it has me wanting to lace up my running shoes.

This is what I saw as I was driving to my gran's house the other day, complete with a photo of beautifully sculpted (and airbrushed I'm sure) abs of a presumed "mommy":

Mommy

Makeover

Tummy Tuck

Breast

Enlargement

Breast Lift

Liposuction

I almost forgot to go when the light turned green.

I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, be disgusted, confused, angry, sad, judgmental, self conscious... and the list goes on.

I didn't know whether to feel these things for the "mommies" who are lured into the web, the doctors who profit from the self-concious, the marketing team who thought this was a good idea, or the society that has blasted the messages that superficial flaws are unacceptable and imperfect.

So I did a little research on the website of this fine institution offering this beauty by botulism. These are the first words in their attempt to win you over:

"Children add limitless joy to a woman’s life, and there’s not much a mother wouldn’t sacrifice for the sake of her children. But not all sacrifices are truly necessary."

So if this is the accepted truth, that mama's would do anything for their babes because the little ones provide more pure and constant joy than one could imagine, remind me again why I need to butcher my belongings - the only thing that is truly mine?

I am not opposed to one taking care of themselves, desiring to have their pre-baby figure back - obviously - but then there are some things that are just absurd. In a country that is supposedly recessing and struggling, it sure does seem that these sorts of options are more and more widely available and even sadder, accepted. And ever sadder, utilized. If you want your shape back, get your butt in the gym, hire a personal trainer, play with your kids, go outside, take a hike, ride a bike, eat better, choose a healthier lifestyle...

But alas, why put forth the effort when there's the instant gratification of a little slit here, tuck there, and voila! good as new...

It's called labor because it's painful and it's work. And I am proud of my battle wounds. When I work just as hard to get my body back as I did those ten months and one day, I'll be just as proud as my new battle marks.

And if my baby brings me endless joy - what else matters?

And I, too, will sacrifice almost everything for my son - but I think I'll hold on to my dignity, thanks.

Not-So-Happy Meal

We all know how great I am at being on time for things...
Riiiiight.
And unfortunately this usually manifests itself not so much in my arrival time to destinations (most people probably don't care what time I arrive), more in sending things like birthday cards, gifts, RSVPs... so it always appears that I am aloof and can't seem to keep my days and weeks straight. Partially true, however, to my defense, if I am late sending something it usually has more to do with the fact that I am lovingly laboring over thoughts and ideas of how to make your day extra special. Just a few days after the fact.
I am working on this.

So for Mother's Day, which these "holidays" I am particularly bad about, I decided to make something for our mothers that they would both find useful and enjoy using. There is a big "reusable shopping bag" craze right now, so I thought I would make them one that was their very own since our mamas are hip with the latest fads, you know. I finished my mom's first and sent it out the day before Mother's day-- a day late to her, not too bad, right? It took me a little longer to finish Mama Nancy's due to my week's work schedule, but alas, it too was finished and ready to be sent. It may have even sat in our car longer than it took me to make, waiting to be mailed the next time we were in town.
Chris was running some errands one day so I asked him to go on and send it... this would make my life much simpler than the time that I mailed out four items at once with a baby on my hip. I am sure it looked like a three ring circus...but it got done, nonetheless. So like the good little boy he is, he sent it on its way, note inside and all.

It just so happens that the Fords were coming up a few days later, but I thought we could get it to her before they left, and then she could proudly don her new digs when they were up. And had the "incident" not happened, that's probably how it would have gone down. But no...

Oh, no.

I got an email from N last week after they arrived home that went a little something like this:
N: we are home from north carolina. thanks for my happy meal mermaid doll for mothers day.

Me: happy meal mermaid doll? what are you talking about?

N: thats what was in the package...

Me: from me and chris? um. no, that's not what we sent you.

N: well that is what i got, indeed i thought you made something for me...but when i opened the package, mailed on may 19th from kingston, tennessee and with chris' handwriting on it, there was a long blonde haired mermaid doll inside a happy meal plastic wrap. (she is 5 1/2 inches long, teal body and purple tail)..so i thought there was some hidden message...and said thanks. was it for abigail or anne lois maybe? also it was in a ready post photo document mailer sent first class at $1.73. anyway thanks.

-----Sidenote: At this point I am thoroughly confused as you can imagine... thinking to myself: I sent Chris to do one thing, ONE THING, and he sent his mom a mermaid? What the heck...-----

Me: I have NO idea what in the world happened. Someone must have swiped your gift... we have no idea how a Barbie got in there. That is weird weird weird. Was there a note in there? We know nothing about a mermaid doll... Chris says that sounds like the packaging it was in and the price it was to ship. It was a reusable shopping bag, like I made for my mom as well. I will have to do another one. That is freaky weird... I am a little perturbed. Did the package look like it had been messed with? Maybe the labels got switched? You look around your apartment complex and see if anyone is carrying around a green flowered bag with blue edges. They stole it...

N: no note, the end with the tear strip was not tampered but the flap was packing taped closed. there was no return address on it either. my name and address was written directly on the envelope. i will save the envelope. yep sounds like someone made a switch. you may want to report mail fraud but i don't know those rules, etc.

Me: Yep. Someone definitely messed with it...ugh. Makes me angry. I will be reporting it for sure. That's so sketchy.

What the heck? Who steals a Mother's Day gift? I mean, I thought it was special and priceless and all that other sentimental stuff, but I would never expect some random person to covet my work so much that they must have it at any cost. Including mail fraud...

Really, mail thief, really? You will go down for a felony for a shopping bag? They will think you are real tough in the slammer. Maybe your cellmate will like your flowery bag... Oh, but thanks for replacing it with a HAPPY MEAL MERMAID! Very nice... wouldn't want the receiver to think that I had sent them junk.
Maybe it's a USPS conspiracy.
They really want you to insure your packages. Their budget depends on it.
Or else they will take your flowery bags hostage.
Until you break...

Holy Cow: Part One

Ask and you shall receive, right?
Well, we received alright. A swift kick in the reality rear, delivered by:

Holy cow. 

If you haven't seen it, you need to. Not so you can jump on some radical activist bandwagon or become president of PETA, rather so you can be informed, for your health and your family's health. How do we, as a country on the whole, not know or care what we put in our bodies at least three times a day, every single day? Blows my mind. 

Here are a few things the film has me thinking about:

• Did you know that there is ammonia in most of the beef you consume? Yes, a "meat filler" is doused in ammonia and then added to the beef to help reduce the risk of E.coli.  And why is there a rise (73,000 cases in 2007) in E.coli ? Because the cows are overcrowded into small confinements where they spend most of their time "knee deep" in their own waste, are corn-fed, not grass-fed, which increases the risk of the virus because their digestive systems aren't producing what it needs to fight off the bacteria. Nice.
• Corn is in everything. EVERYTHING. Thirty percent of the land in the United States is used for mass corn production. Corn products include, but not limited to: ketchup, cheese, Twinkies, batteries, peanut butter, Cheez-Its, salad dressings, Coke, jelly, Sweet & Low, syrup, juice,
  Kool-Aid, charcoal, diapers, Motrin, meat and fast food. Even better.
• Seventy percent of processed foods have some genetically modified ingredient. There are approximately 47,000 products found in an American supermarket, most of which are made by a few companies. Awesome.
• In the largest slaughter house in the country located in North Carolina, 32,000 pigs are sent to their death each day. EACH DAY. Most of the workers there are immigrants from Mexico that are bussed in daily from a 100-mile radius...and the company has an agreement with the government to turn them over for immigration violations, fifteen per day. This is the thanks they get for slinging bacteria-ridden pork for you and me to consume for the past fifteen years. Sweet.
• And this one absolutely makes my skin crawl: In 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, the FDA conducted only 9,164. In 1998, the USDA implemented microbial testing for salmonella and E.coli 0157h7 so that if a plant repeatedly failed these tests, the USDA could
  shut down the plant. After being taken to court by the meat and poultry associations, the USDA no longer has that power. Yep, that's right. Keep on cranking out that bacteria, big meat companies, we can't stop you. Are you kidding me?
• How are the farmers fairing these days, being "owned" by the big man? The average chicken farmer invests over $500,000 and makes only $18,000 a year, making it next to impossible to break free from the "man". And that's only if their contracts aren't terminated for things like refusing to build chicken houses where the birds literally never see the light of day. Then what? Farming, the backbone of our country's short history quickly dies to mass-production meat and produce factories. Heartbreaking.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, a glimpse into all that the film uncovers that I believe everyone needs and deserves to know about. Once you have the facts, you can decide for yourself what you want to do about it, if anything at all, but don't we at least have the right to know? The film mentions that we are actually buying the processed foods at a much higher cost than the price that is being sold to us: the cost of our health.

As the title of this post mentions, this is Part One. Keep checking back for what Chris and I plan to do to change our habits and routine. I will tell you this much, I have been all over the web this morning researching local beef and chicken farms. After we consume what's in our fridge, as to not be wasteful, we will no longer turn a blind eye to the source of our meat. It will cost more financially, but so worth it in the long run.

I may not be able to have Bessie in the backyard, but I will come as close as I can. I can maybe finagle a chicken or two for fresh eggs...
As anyone semi-local interested in going in on a local, grass-fed heifer? They run about $600 - 800 for a whole cow, approximately $4/lb...

These facts are all taken from the Press Materials for the Food, Inc Movie, directed by Robert Kenner.

To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate

Ugh.
Let me start with that.
We've not really had a strong opinion one way or the other regarding vaccinations for Noah. I figure that it is the responsible choice to provide him the healthiest path we can choose for him while he can't make his own decisions. We figure we will do all the mainstream ones - measles, mumps, rubella, pneumonia, hepatitis B, etc. - and discuss as it occurs whether we will do the new/optional ones - rotavirus, chicken pox, flu, etc.
I should also say that the Peds group that we go to requires the traditional shots or they will not treat your child. We really like/trust them as they are the largest and most accessible practice in Knoxville, and they didn't get that way because they are terrible doctors & nurses. But to that I also say that just because all the other cool parents are doing it does not mean that it is for us and our child. I am sure we will make many different choices for Noah than a lot of mainstream folks choose...not because we're better, just because we are different.

Which brings me to my recent frustration.

 We opted to have Noah take the Rotarix vaccine which prevents the rotavirus - vomiting, diarrhea, severe dehydration -  in children. We did this in part because my niece, AL, was very sick with it when she was a baby and had to be hospitalized due to dehydration. Scary, right? And protectively, we didn't want this for the baby boy.
We went in for Noah's six month well visit and for his next round of immunizations and lo and behold, they tell us that Rotarix (which he already completed at four months) has been pulled off the market by the FDA for further research.
Awesome.

Now, I try not to overreact, they pull things on and off the market all the time...and I would much rather they research it more than just turn a blind eye. So I did a little research of my own...Seems as though there are portions of  a pig virus, PCV1, present in the vaccine that the company doesn't know how it got in there. Supposedly PCV1 is non-threatening to humans, but PCV2 can be. They have only found PCV1, but the troubling part is they don't know how it got in there.
Seriously?
And this isn't the first time that a rotavirus vaccine has been pulled... in 1999 the CDC pulled RotaShield off the market because it was linked to some sort of fatal infection.
Disturbing.

As a parent, what the heck do you do about that? It's not like Noah can untake the vaccine. Chances are it is harmless and nothing will come of it, but the fact that he has something inside of him that even has the potential to be harmful makes my skin crawl. I can assure you that we will research and think twice before we go vaccinating him with anything anymore, regardless of what the AAP recommends. (Sorry, Erika, I know you will strongly disagree, and that's okay.)
I hate to think like that because I consider myself a pretty level-headed and practical person, but it's just not safe to sign the dotted line until you know all the details.
Not when my baby is involved.

The lesson here?
Be informed. Know what you are signing up for. Consider your options. Weigh the pros and cons and decide what suits you and your family best. Try not to overreact when things don't go as planned. Prepare yourself when it goes awry. Because most likely, it will happen at least once.
You may just have to go against the grain. If you are educated on the matter and feel strongly about it, do it. It's your life, your children, your choice.

Side-note: If it were up to me we would live deep in the woods using natural and homeopathic remedies, eat non-processed foods, and live off the land. Oh, to be one with nature and our Creator...