Milo and His Bag of Tricks

Milo is feeling much better now. Hallelujah! And so is Jesse, who caught the flu right after Milo.

Here's a video I took earlier this week, pre-flu. Milo is now 14 months old and he's a little ham. He loves to make everyone laugh with his "cheezer" (where he smiles and wrinkles his nose), his "Home Alone" (where he slaps his hand to his face) and his famous "squint" (which he does really well at the end of the video.) Here, he does all three and shows off his talking skills ("dada").

Licensed to Ill

I've got a sick kid on my hands and we all know there's nothing worse than that. (Well, nothing worse that can be considered ordinary.) He's such a doll, though, and is still smiling and playing games with me between throwing up. I don't know what to do. He can't eat (not that he ate much anyways) and all I can do is nurse him and give him water, which doesn't stay in his tummy. Blech. The countdown is on until I come down with this nasty bug...

Milo was fine yesterday up until last night. Why do viruses always strike before bedtime? Seriously. Are viruses nocturnal or something? I probably should be napping with him... and maybe I will...

Btw, my blogroll disappeared with the new layout and I haven't gotten around to adding everyone's blogs back. So don't think I hate you if your blog link disappeared.

The Choice to Not Vaccinate

To vaccinate or not? That truly is the question.

My child is fourteen months old and hasn't received one vaccine. Not one. Nada. It hasn't been an easy decision to make. There is so much propaganda and skewed science on both sides of the debate that parents are left completely confused. For every study that says vaccines are safe, I can find one that says they're dangerous. For every child negatively affected by a vaccine, I can a child who caught a virus due to not being vaccinated.

There is no easy answer here. Just a lot of questions.

My son had a pediatrician appointment today for a well-visit checkup and the doctor, who was seemingly open about us not getting my son vaccinated, immediately launched into pro-vaccine rhetoric upon entering the room. She said I'm doing some rights things: breastfeeding into toddlerhood and avoiding daycares, but that he should be vaccinated nonetheless.

She asked why we chose not to immunize my son and all the sudden I went blank. I turned to Jesse so he would speak up instead. I have a bad habit of freezing up when put on the spot. Even when asked about issues I'm passionate about, I freeze and look like a total flake. It's annoying. It makes me looks (and feel) dumb.

Anyways, he talked about the link between vaccines and autism and how vaccines haven't done as much good as proponents claim. I added that the ingredients were controversial and that I didn't want anything containing fetal pig serum, aluminum and thimerosal injected into my sweet baby boy. I think she took us for people who got their medical info from tabloids (you know, the ones at the supermarket with "Man Marries Half-Sister Alien" stories on the cover).

I just kept repeating that, "You know, it's such a hard decision," which I fully believe is true. Unlike veganism, the decision to not vaccinate is difficult to explain and I can see the side of people who opt for delayed or selective vaccinations. Yet, doctors want to make us feel like irresponsible morons. Can you really blame parents for non trusting pharaceuatical companies? Those greedy bastards are never up to any good. I may have gotten my son vaccinated if the vaccines were safer. If there wasn't so much secerecy surrounding them. If I felt I could trust that the vaccine manufacturers/large pharmo companies would actually put human welfare over anything else like, say, money and profits.

But, no... I just can't. Inside Vaccines posted a wonderful opinion piece giving advice to vaccine proponents. It's definitely worth the read and sums up just why so many parents are questioning vaccines.

By the way, my peditrician recommended that I read literature from some Offitt guy. I did some research on him and it turns out he's a co-patent for the rotavirus vaccine. Hmmm...

Buying or Selling a Home?

If you need a real estate agent, please use Jesse Parsh from The Advantage in Real Estate (a local company! holla!).

He is: Honest. Fair. Everywhere.

Seriously, he's a go-getter who works hard to get people the house they want (or sell the house they've got). Plus, he's my boyfriend. He puts food on the table. But I'm not just advertising him for those reasons--I'm really proud of how well he's done. He works for people in any price range and is totally honest--not all slimy and schmucky like those other agents! ;) He's blue collar to the core!

Anyways, just have to get the word out!

Email: jesseparsh [at] yahoo [dot] com for more info.

Snatch up those $1 houses while you still can!

Know Anything About Creating Your Own Website?

Well... do you?

I'm planning to create my own website to advertise my writing. Right now I have a generic Wordpress site that I want to upgrade. I need my own domain (no "www.whatever.wordpress.com" anymore) and I need a place to host my site. Does anyone have tips on this stuff? I'm planning to run Wordpress--I just need to find a cheap place to buy my domain and host the site. I can design it just fine.

Speak up, geeks! =) hehe.

What White People Like

I've stumbled upon this site before and thought it was funny... but now I find it hilarious. It's painstakingly true. All the descriptions (the "white people") perfectly describe the people I went to college with: the people who want to learn tons of useless academic shit just so they sound smart, whose drive in life is to forgo everything "mainstream."

God, I hope I'm not like that.

I don't want to be against something just because someone deemed it as "mainstream." I may have done a little of this in the past, but I'm much more aware of it now. My boyfriend has really opened my eyes to this sort of non-conformist hypocrisy. In my eyes, he is a true nonconformist--an anarchist who isn't afraid of doing dumb things like watching TV or making money by becoming a real estate agent (not the most edgy/hip job out there...). He wears ripped clothing, and not the trendy kind of ripped clothing. He has really helped me see things for what they are and not to follow a prescribed alternative code of ethics.

I didn't intend on this being "Ode to Boyfriend." I'm just proud that he isn't so white, as "white" defined by What White People Like. Many of the white people described in those posts (the people I went to college with) loved to look down on people who, say, watched TV but I know for a fact those same people had no trouble wasting hours upon hours perfecting their Myspace (or Facebook) profiles. But are useless time-wasters IMO. Both are full of propaganda. Both are full of shit.

Anyways, my favorite posts are #106 Facebook (I love how they say Myspace is full of "the wrong kind of white people," calling it "Digital Detroit.") and #28 Not Having a TV and #47 Arts Degrees.

So funny.