Manic Motherhood at it's FINEST!!

Why "I am NOT a VOLCANO!"

Why "I am NOT a VOLCANO!"
click the volcano for the due explanation
"In all of living, have much fun and laughter. Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured." — Gordon B. Hinckley
Exaggeration is the spice of life

Book I am Currently Reading: Peter and The Shadow Thief

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Letters From Listeria










Dear Arch-nemesis,





I hope you know that you only narrowly escaped my clutches this morning as you (not) so delicately licked the blueberry muffin batter from the bowl and wooden spoon.








I am sure that the batter tasted delightfully slick against your tongue, grainy between your teeth, and just oh, so delectable. But raw eggs are one of my favorite hiding places.








Yes, yes, I slithered amongst your taste buds and in and over your gums, just ever so slightly redder and more swollen than normal, due to your pregnant state. Such things only make it easier for me to infiltrate.








Alas, I was thwarted this time by that ridiculous thing called an immune system.








Work is hard for my kind. We have a hard job, and we're rarely caught on the radar.








You have won the battle, my friend. But beware. For I shall win the war.




~Insert evil laughter here~








Love, Listeria.



******************************

Join me every Thursday for more Letters From Listeria, and don't forget to grab my button!!!!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Wordless Wednesday!!!

LOL- Yes, I'm trying to catch up for my months of absence!!!


Scarlet on our camping trip- happily playing in the...ahem...dirt...incase you couldn't tell.

Our new puppy, Molly.

Molly, having a bath after she rolled in the mud. She's a fast learner, though. She hasn't gone NEAR the mud since.
*************************************
A few things to request of you and remind you of:

PLEASE vote for my blog on Top Mommy Blogs by clicking on the proper button located at the left sidebar. I'm lacking in readers since I took a leave of absence for my morning sickness to take over, and I'd love for you to help me earn them back by getting my blog onto the top 12 once again!!!
Tomorrow is my first Letters From Listeria instalment!!! Don't miss it! (And grab the Listeria button, ALSO located on the left sidebar!) Hope you enjoy!!!!





Monday, August 9, 2010

Touchy Topic Tuesday: Peanuts in Schools









Yes, friends!!! Touchy Topic Tuesday is back by popular demand!






Many weeks ago, one of my wonderful readers requested that I do a specific TTT as she was wondering about my feelings on the matter. So, today, I'll be covering Peanuts In Schools. Also, I'd really like to invite anyone who has a great touchy topic for my (in)famous Tuesdays to drop me a message or email! I can only be just so snarky on my own. I'm going to need some ideas soon!






So, here we go!!!






Touchy Topic Tuesday: Peanuts in Schools






Everywhere you turn, if you're like me, you're hearing more and more about peanut allergies. It used to be believed that eating certain foods while pregnant or breast feeding could help a child avoid an allergy. Now-a-days, pregnant and nursing women are cautioned to eat such things as strawberries and peanuts sparingly so as not to CAUSE them.






Yes, the peanut allergy has become a terrifying thought to many a new mother, and, she may add it to a growing list of fears and things to be guilty about. As a result of the growing epidemic of peanut allergies, schools around the country are banning peanuts and peanut products from schools altogether.






This means no peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, no nutty bars in the lunch boxes, no Reese's peanut butter cups on Halloween, or peanut M&M's. Absolutely NO peanuts.


For some, this is a controversial matter.



Luckily I have never had a child with a peanut allergy, and I am not yet sure if Lilly's school is a "Peanut Aware School", but if it is, I will be perfectly fine with this. Yes, it will take a bit more thought, but let me explain.



There are many many things that kids can be allergic to. Strawberries and cheese/dairy are some very common ones, and I have known several parents of allergic children. There was/is a decent mix of parents who either refused to let their child participate in activities where there happened to be a food containing their allergy, and those parents who taught their children that though, throughout life, the foods that they weren't able to handle would be around, they needed to avoid them on their own.



For the most part, I would ignore the parents who treated their children like a fragile set of precious china, with nothing more than a sarcastic thought, and admired the parents who taught their children how to handle real life situations. After all, a child will grow up. And an office or a spouse's family at a holiday dinner is not going to cater to an adult, who, like the over protected child they were, cannot handle cheese or strawberries or any other number of foods on a table. (Yes, I do actually know adults like this too. You'd be amazed and impressed at how much more childish an adult can be than an actual child.) Not to mention, it kind of knocks out a heck of a lot of great Mexican restaurants if you refuse to be anywhere near cheese.



I think, for the most part, it's very important to teach children how to deal with things that are going to stare them in the face their whole lives. Including foods that they may be allergic to. I think it would be positively ridiculous to ban such things at cheese or milk or strawberries.



However, if a child who was allergic to dairy were sitting next to a kid who had cheese cubes in his lunch, his life would in no way be threatened. Even if he ATE a cheese cube, he'd have a bad bout of diarrhea or severe constipation, and then be right as rain once it was out of his system. If a child who was allergic to peanuts were sitting next to a child with a peanut butter sandwich, that child could easily slip into shock simply by touching them. Eating them isn't even necessary.



I feel that, because peanuts actually pose not just a health risk, but threaten lives, that a school's choice to keep them out altogether is justified. If it were MY child, I would like every precaution to be taken to protect their lives. And since the allergy to peanuts seems to be growing, I want to protect other people's children too.



BUT...that doesn't mean they can stop me from eating this:




at home.

Let us all know what YOU think about schools banning peanuts!!! Not only do I love to debate, I LOVE comments. So bring 'em on! Tell us how you feel!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Not Me Monday!

Mckmama- Not Me Monday


I have NOT been slacking off on housework and laundry lately and using morning sickness as an excuse when I really don't feel that yucky anymore.

I do NOT still get tired easily, though.

I am NOT in LOVE with Reese's Puffs cereal, and most certainly could NOT eat it for every meal.

I did NOT deny to my children that there were any snacks left in the backpack, and then excuse myself from sacrament meeting just so I could eat the last strawberry rice crispy treat in peace.

I am NOT starting to show my baby belly now.

It is NOT super adorable either! ~wink~

***********************

DON'T FORGET FRIENDS!!!!!

Coming this Thursday, we have a new saga to follow:
"Love Letters From Listeria"

Button soon to follow.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Feel Good Friday, Letters Of Intent, and a new development.

This is the explanation of my Letters From Listeria, and is NOT my most current post on it, which happens every Thursday. Please feel free to grab my Letters From Listeria button at the left of the screen to share in the joy of pregnancy sarcasm, and then don't forget to click on my header to refresh my blog and get to the newest installment of Letters From Listeria.




First, The New Development:

Love Letters From Listeria

(Look for this on Thursdays)
Yes, this IS in fact a sick joke. Many women who read this may be appalled. Especially pregnant women who were told by their doctors or the all-knowing women they have met on their birth boards to stay away from anything that can possibly cause Listeria.
What is Listeria? The tag on my delightful little Giant Microbe states:

Facts: In 1867, English surgeon Joseph Lister published a scientific paper proposing that his fellow surgeons clean their hands and instruments before operating on patients. While overcoming scientific skepticism regarding novel ideas can sometimes be challenging, when post-surgical infection rates took a nosedive, Lister was vindicated.

In 1927, on tthe 100th anniversary of Lister's birth, scientist Harvey Pirie was looking for a name for a food-borne bacterium he had isolated from a dead gerbil found in South Africa. As Lister had also had an interest in the isolation and growing of microorganisms, Pirie chose to honor the bacteria, and Lister, with the name Listeria monocytogenes.

In addition to dead gerbils, Listeria can be found in raw meats and vegetables, unpasteurized dairy products, and processed meats like hot dogs and cold cuts.

While everyone is vulnerable to Listeria, the consequences are particularly dire for pregnant women and their unborn children: if Listeria spreads from mother to fetus, it is fatal to the baby 20 percent of the time. (For other with weakened immune systems, Listeria is fatal in one of every four cases.)

the best way to avoid the bacterium is to make like Lister and keep things clean. Cooks should wash their hands and cooking instruments carefully before operating. And at -risk individuals should monitor their diets for at-risk foods.

And after the meal, you might try a little oral hygiene: the mouthwash Listerine was named for D. Lister in 1879.

So, why in the world am I, a pregnant woman, joking about this?

Well, to be very honest, it's a long story that spans the last 4 months of my life, in and out of morning sickness, absolute exhaustion, violent bouts of dramatic eruption between those who claim to be "No Drama Mamas" and the "Drama Mamas" about cupcakes, pies and rainbow pissing unicorns on my own birth board. (You all know how I feel about birth boards. But I can't help it. It's a train wreck I can't avoid. Blood and guts everywhere. Very disturbing. And I can't break away.)

For the most part, it really just started out with so many of us being told that we, essentially, can't eat ANYTHING for fear of food borne diseases. No, I mean for real.

A list of things that we can't eat because it MIGHT contain listeria:

Lunch meat (gung ho mamas say it's okay if heated to steaming, but for reals, who wants to eat nice crunchy lettuce and tomatoes on a steaming heap of greasy turkey?)

Mayonnaise

Sunny Side Up Eggs

Raw Veggies- including salads

Hot dogs

Rare steaks

Soft Cheeses

Hummus

Soft Serve Ice Cream (which, since it is due to the possible lack of cleanliness in the machine also includes fountain drinks, Slurpee machines and other such situations.)

Okay, that's really a lot of things to have to avoid. On top of that, there's a new thread on the forum every single day about something that isn't safe- for example, today's bigge: Ice burg lettuce. really? I mean, maybe Ice burg lettuce doesn't have the kind of nutrients Romaine lettuce has, but aren't there worse things I could be stuffing my face with? Like Ramen noodles, or frozen prepared meals (two of the other things on the latest list along with the ice burg lettuce.)

And don't even get me started on the number of women who insist that any mother who drinks a can of caffinated soda is going to give birth to a child with an opposable tail, crossed eyes and bat teeth, or that having even one tunafish sandwich will give them Mercury poisoning and make them miscarry their baby. OH! Never forget the whole group of them that are honestly convinced that the ingredients in SKITTLES CANDY causes Autism. Yes. That logic is so perfectly sound. (Insert irritated eye roll here.)

The point is, the list is endless. We are constantly told that we are to eat double what our bodies are physically capable of holding at any given time because we are eating for two, and we need proper nutrients to grow our little parasites, while in the same sentence, we are given a list that eliminates anything that might be even remotely healthy or available for us to eat. Not only can we not eat a fresh salad, but we need to stay away from frozen foods, sugars and salts.

Looks like bread and water are the only things on the menu. (unless you have a problem with glucose, in which case, you may fill your belly with water only.)

And all it took was one thread full of pictures of pie, cookies and cupcakes for some smart alec to make the remark that we should be careful because cupcake batter will give us listeria (raw eggs) which turned into cupcakes giving us listeria, which turned into listeria being a hilarious, overused, under appreciated and severely denied possibility in our pregnancies.

Yes, I was involved. Yes, i think it's devastatingly hysterical. I won't deny it.

In fact, even Brandon is involved, and he isn't even ON the birth board- though he IS subject to having to listen to everything i find funny, debatable, stupid, uneducated, dimwitted, or far to serious to contemplate on my own.

The story is wonderful, actually. Brandon came across a website called http://www.giantmicrobes.com/ where you can buy cute little plush germs that look just like the real thing. (My favorite, by the way, is the chickenpox one.) So, being the wonderful, involved, supportive hubby he is, he ordered me a stuffed listeria germ, thus proving that he does, in fact, listen to what I ramble off in reference to my pregnancy and my birth board.

For the record, I am careful about my lunch meat and cannot resist a subway on occasion. But I don't eat it regularly. I don't eat soft cheeses, and hot dogs are only a problem if they're not cooked. But I'm not going to cook my salad. I mean, really. what are our options if everything healthy contains a possibility of listeria?

When it comes down to it, about 2500 people in the US catch listeria per year. Out of those cases, about 500 of them are pregnant women. Yes, that's 1/4, which is high in THAT scheme of things, but when you take into account the fact that, in the US, somewhere over FOUR MILLION babies are born PER YEAR, 500 cases of pregnant women having listeria is really LESS THAN MINUSCULE.

It's a scare tactic, and we're tired of it.

So, in honor of my delightful, spunky, and ridiculously entertaining friends on the Due In January 2011 Baby Center Birth Board, I give you

"Love Letters from Listeria", where our dear friend Lister the plush Listeriosis will write us letters about all the delicious things he is infiltrating.

Enjoy friends!!!!





FEEL GOOD FRIDAY

1. Today, I'm feeling good. And that's that. I mean, after 4 months of morning sickness and severe exhaustion, that's saying something.

2. My daughter (scarlet...did you need to ask?) swallowed a penny yesterday...and didn't choke on it and die, by the grace of God. (Yet another patch of gray hair)

3. My cute puppy, Molly, our new little black lab, is doing SO WELL! When we got her, a lot of people warned me that she'd be a hyper, naughty, chewing thing for 2 years...and THEN she'd be the best dog we'd ever have. But she's not all that hyper, and she has an excellent grip on which toys are hers and which toys are the kids. I also think Hunter is a mellowing influence on her. Apparently, even with dogs, peer influence is priceless.

4. I can feel the baby move. It's my little rock star.

5. I have fallen in love with The Office. I love Jim and Pam. I love Phyllis. Michael makes me want to throw up with every racist, bigoted, sexist comment he makes. At first, it horrified me. And now, I can't miss it. Yes, I know they're reruns, and not in any particular order. But I love it nonetheless.







Foursons src="http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n308/juliechinni/letterbutton3-1.jpg">


Dear Health Guy On TV.

I did not watch much of your show, but I simply HAVE to address the part I did see.

You stated that studies show that children who are given any kind of sugar every day demonstrate more violent tendencies when they become older.

Forgive me when I call your bluff on this one. I really would like to know where you got your "study" from. Really, in order to find any kind of outcome for the idea that children who eat sugar may or may not be violent as adults, one would require a fairly detailed and extensive study on a vast group of continuous and permanent subjects. Somehow I doubt that this happened, and if it did, I'd love to know exactly where you found the 5 children in the WORLD who have never had sugar and were able to study them in a valid, controlled way in comparison to other children who DID eat sugar on any given basis. And that's the real reason I don't think this statement is valid in any way. How could there possibly be a valid study about this?

I'm all for healthy eating. And no, I'm not perfect. But my kids get their fruits and veggies and while they do get candy, they don't gorge themselves, and are very healthy. They're not violent either. But then, I feel that that has more to do with environment and parenting than it does with sugar. (Not that I'm denying sugar's involvement with behavior AT ALL, just not to the extent you imply.)

Anyway, maybe I'm sensitive, though, why this would really matter, I don't know. It's just really irritating to hear scare tactics that make no sense at all.

Signed,
Skeptical.

Scarlet-isms

In October of '09, we were driving, and there is a letter T on the mountain where we live for the name of the high school. I was trying to get Mahone to tell me what letter iwas and he was being defiant and would tell me, so Scarlet said "Mom?" and I said "what?" and she said "It's T MAHONE! T! Tuh-tuh-tuh!"
***************
In part of my mom's house, she has old record albums framed and hung on a wall. One is Dan Fogle. And Scarlet thought he was Jesus.
******************
Scarlet told me once that she was going to marry Jesus in the temple.
************
In November of 2009, Brandon got Scarlet out of bed in the morning and she said "Watch this trick!" and then blew a raspberry and giggled. When we asked her what that was about, she said "It's a funny trick!" She was not yet 2.
***************
March of '10, when I wasn't looking, Scarlet took off her diaper and colored all over her private parts with red marker. I told her "Honey, we don't touch down there." she said "Yeah, but we color there, huh?"
*******************
In June of '10, Scarlet was leaning over the pew at church talking to an older lady behind us. She said "What's your name?" the lady said "My name is Wendy!" and Scarlet looked to the older gentleman and said "Is your name Peter Pan?"
**********************
In July of '10, I was doing Scarlet's hair and she said "Mommy you're a fairy!" and I said "Why do you say that?" and she said "Because you're putting knots in my hair!"
*****************
In September of 2010, we went to my grandparents' anniversary, which was at a park. Scarlet refused to put her shoes on and I couldn't find them. I asked where they were, and she said "I'm saving them for later."
****************
When we found out that our new baby is a boy, we told our children, and then at bedtime, we asked Scarlet what her happy thought was and she said "cute baby girls!" and when we asked what her sad thought was, she said "Baby brothers!!"

************
"And it came to pass that the man with the yellow hat came, and Jesus cried mightily that George should STOP FEEDING THE ANIMALS..."

*****************

"Mommy, hurry and get me a bandaid! My owie is leaking."

***************************

Scarlet: Lilly, do you know what "service" is?
Lilly: Yes...
Scarlet: Go put these (shoes) in my room.

************

Brandon: What part of NO don't you understand?
Scarlet: The "O" part.

*******************

I'm the three year oldest girl!!!!!

*************************

Scarlet: (while taking care of her baby doll with a doctors kit) My baby is sick.
Me: Awwww. What's the matter?
Scarlet: She's crazy.

*****************

Mom, they should call it a uni-HORN, not a uni-CORN. It has one HORN on it's head, not a CORN!!!

***************************

(Book of mormon stories) "Elmo was rebellious in his stinking liverty...."

******************************
Singing "No Woman No Cry" by Bob Marley- "I remember when we used to sit...in the elephant guard at French town."

**********************************************

Mom, I had a bad dream last night- An egg cracked and the yolk was pink instead of yellow and it had a tooth in it. Then I turned my pink piggy pillow pet into a monkey pillow pet instead. But I'm getting braver about it.

*******************

Mom, can we go play at Edward Scissorhands' house today?

********************

In Beauty and the beast where the woman takes off her hat and wig and she's actually bald, Scarlet says "Mom, she's wearing dress up hair!"

******************************

Mom! Mahone and Lilly are tattling on me!!!

*********************

Do you know what a daughter is? It's a girl-son.

******

Me: Where did you get that glitter?
Scarlet: Oh, it's just fairy dust falling off me as I fly.

********************


Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Wordless Wednesday and You Know You're a Mom When


I'm not doing a photo today- but a video instead. Have fun.




You know you're a mom when.....
~You write a check to the ballet teacher in purple crayon because that's all you can find in your purse....
~When your "purse" is ACTUALLY a diaper bag.....
~Boogers don't gross you out....
~You can recite ANY Dr. Seuss book without reading the words.
~You are a stay at home mom, but on taxes, your husband lists your profession as BFP.











Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...