This is Bullshit

This whole H1N1 vaccine thing is bullshit.

In the state where I live, it is illegal to give a shot that contains the preservative thimerasol (mercury) to a child under the age of 3. Except for within the next 6 months. Our secretary of health lifted the mercury ban in response to getting more H1N1 vaccines to the population.

I get it. The single-dose preservative-free shots are more expensive, take longer to manufacture and are - by virtue of being single doses - less economical. The drug companies can respond faster with the larger dose vials that get more vaccines to more people. This is a good thing.

However, the momma in me - and specifically the hippie momma in me who is already skeptical of THE MAN and so many of his vaccines that we now give our kids (chickenpox, Hepatitis B to infants, you don't want to get me started) - is like, why the fuck would I give my baby something that is illegal to give her in any other circumstance?

Don't get me wrong. We vaccinate. Mostly. We are on a slower schedule. Missy did get her regular influenza vaccine this year. And I totally would give her the H1N1 vaccine except I cannot find a thimerasol-free version. Apparently I don't have the hook up.

Our friend's pediatrician in the next town has a few precious vials of the perservative-free vaccine but she is doling them out to her patients who also happen to be invited to her young son's birthday party next week. Alas, we are not on the guest list.

So what we've been doing instead is being social pariahs. We go to the park a couple of times each day for fresh air and a change of scenery but I chase Missy around with CleanWell hand sanitizer like a complete germ-a-phobe. Otherwise, no children's museums, no shopping, no zoo, no library.

Of course we are taking Missy into the lion's den tomorrow for her surgery. The staff have assured me they are on heightened alert for the flu and have very strict procedures. Still, I worry.

So I guess what I'm admitting - and I apologize and beg your pardon and all that - but until I can find someone who will give us the mercury-free version, I will be one of those people who relies on other kids getting their vaccinations to keep mine safe.

I really don't like playing it that way. But I like injecting my daughter with mercury less.

Sleep is for the Weak

Or for those with normal-sized adenoids.

We have endured nearly three months where we have not co-slept. Two months of no more night nursing. One month of no more early-morning momma "snacks" with the hope that doing so at 4:30 a.m. might give me a few more precious hours of sleep.

I use the word endured because that is what we have been doing.

"Sleep training, my ass," I think as I stumble down the hall for the third, maybe fourth time that night. Out of sheer desperation after one particularly brutal night, I looked up a local pediatric clinic specializing in sleep disorders. I suspected...well, I mean, you start grasping at straws when you haven't cobbled together more than 4 hours of sleep at a time for a year-and-a-half.

Then our new nanny commented to me that Missy stops breathing occasionally when she goes down for a nap. I had noticed this, too, but it took an objective perspective to make me realize that it wasn't just me looking for something else to blame other than myself for completely fucking up my kid's sleep. Something that could cause my daughter to still wake so much in the night and look in the morning like she hadn't slept a wink, even after 12 hours in the crib.

"Oh, yes," said the doctor, "Just as I thought." A tiny camera is up my daughter's numbed nose. She is handling it - like she handles everything - like a champ. Her chin out, jaws clamped, narrowed eyes but no crying.

The nasal passage 98% blocked by an oversized adenoid.

Her brain isn't going into deep sleep because it may need to react quickly to not enough air. When she gasps for air, her body moves as an involuntary response and she wakes. Missy, it turns out, has been subsisting on light REM sleep for who knows how long.

It's not a huge issue now (except for if you are the mommy who gets up to comfort her each time she wakes) but school-aged kids that have undiagnosed sleep apnea have trouble focusing, get frustrated easily and are often improperly diagnosed with ADHD because they are wired from being chronically overtired.

With that in mind, day surgery to have the offending body part removed will be scheduled shortly.

"I can't guarantee she will sleep through the night," said the pediatrician, "But I can guarantee that she will get better quality sleep when she does sleep."

Yes Ma'am

I can't sleep again. I think my body just got used to Missy's every-other-hour-night-wakings stint (I kid you not. It sucked. Sigh.) and now my body is like, "Uh-uh, sister. We are so not going to sleep only to have that g-damn baby monitor wake us up in 45 minutes."

So, we don't have T.V. but we still watch T.V. Thanks to Net*flix, I get to revisit all sorts of gems I never could stay up for in a previous life. Now I have a major crush on Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights.

I know. Major hotness.

I think it is the Texas girl still in me. I mean, I now live in a place where I hardly wear make-up or jewerly and my ever-present Patagucci fleece vest actually looks cool instead of frumpy - like it would in Texas. I love where I live but I sometimes get nostalgic for big skies, serious football and men and boys who say, "yes, ma'am" and "no sir." So hot.

Save for Cowboy, no one calls me "ma'am" here. And I am at the point in my life where I kind of want them to. Maybe that is yet another reason I married him.

Harvest Season

I am exhausted. I should be sleeping. But I can’t. Every time I get close to falling asleep, I hear a "thwock" coming from my kitchen denoting that another jar of delicious, organic applesauce from Eastern Washington has sealed itself. And I get all proud and giddy.

So far we’ve put up:
- 15 quarts of peaches (see above)
- 16 quarts of pears
- 10 quarts of apple sauce...with more to come
- 15 pints of roasted tomato sauce, which is no small feat when you consider that it takes 10 lbs of tomatoes roasting for 6 hours to make 3 pints of sauce.

It is my first foray into canning. I am quite hooked.

This year, our family Earth Day goal was to join a CSA. At a local meet-the-farmers night, I got hooked into a locavore food network run by a young farmer wife who networks with other farms to bring local products to market. It is major off-the-grid grocery shopping. In addition to our weekly veggies & berries, now we now eat local cheese, yogurt, honey, grass-fed beef, pastured chickens & their eggs, pastured pork and have access to the yummiest organic pears, peaches, apples and nectarines for a fraction of what we would pay in the store.

It takes a bit of extra effort sourcing all this stuff and organizing it into meals but it is worth it when I watch Missy devour half a peach that we canned and then sign "more please."