Family Portraits

Yeah, that picture yesterday? I mainly posted that as a little balm to my bitchy Friday post. Really, things are pretty OK, but sometimes it's better to spew a little venom into the ether instead of at your husband, son, or animals. Even when they barf on your rug. (Cat, not husband)

I had a photographer come to the house on Monday evening because we have no family portraits since this one, really:

And it's a little out of date.

Plus, I am rarely in photos of Finn because I am taking the photos of Finn. From the looks of our album, I never spend time with him. Which is totally true, but no one needs to KNOW that.

I found our photographer through a newsletter from a women's shelter.  She had come by to offer her services for free, so the families there could have some portraits done. How excellent is that? I checked out her website and wrote to her. For a very reasonable fee, she came to our house with her equipment and followed us around. It was simple and fun. Pete still had time to get to rehearsal, and Finn got to show off for a new person as well as flex his "Smile for the camera" muscles. He's a ham.

She put up a few photos on her blog, so I'll send you there to look at them if you want to. Her name is Crystal Leipa, and she's going into this business full-time starting soon, which is brave and exciting.

(We hope to have Mattress come by sometime and do some different family photos... we just have to decide a theme... Plus, I hear his fee is astronomical.)

Family

Crystal Liepa Photography

It's always nice to be behind at work, behind at home, have people pissed at you, find the cat in the closet (having ruined a brand-new towel and possibly numerous other items INCLUDING YARN), be by yourself with your candy-demanding child, unable to find the pumpkin that is full of the candy being demanded, and have to clean up cat barf once the closet cat is done re-eating the other cat's barf.

It must be great to be in a band.

Give Me the Chickenpox, or Give me Death

Until it was time to vaccinate my baby before he left the NICU, and I had my subsequent fear-based freak out about vaccine danger, I had no idea that there was such a thing as a chicken pox vaccine. And when I heard, I thought, well, "Meh, why do we need that? Chicken pox is not so bad. He doesn't need that one."

It was part and parcel to my weird reluctance to vaccinate. The fear had gotten to me in my highly emotional state. babywhumpus was extremely premature and in the NICU. Even though we knew relatively early that he would survive, it was still a state of heightened existence. I tried above all to hold it together and not be too emotional. Consequently, I think I may have put all my fear regarding his very real condition into other areas: vaccines, bottle-feeding, toxins in the products they used at the hospital. Though I still have my issues with the bottle feeding and the products, I was hysterical at the time. Not hair-tearing and raving, but overly panicked and fearful about these small things, having denied the emotional reaction to the very large one. And in a situation where you feel you have very little control, you cling to what you can control.

I look back, and it's embarrassing. Let the damn nurses give your baby a bottle when you are away and get him home earlier (I did, eventually). There are more important things right now than the possibility that he might not adjust to the breast. Calm down about the diaper cream and the petroleum jelly. The dose makes the poison, and, again, there are more important things on which to focus.

And then the vaccines. I had this still very tiny baby, who had survived so much, so early, and I wanted him to stay exactly how he was. Those stories about babies regressing or becoming damaged after vaccination had wheedled their way into my subconscious. After all we had done, I was not going to lose a part of him.

Never mind the other side of that coin: pertussis, hepatitis, and other vaccine-preventable diseases that could take all or most of him away.

People can say a disease is not that bad, or that "only a few people die of it every year, anyway," but if it's preventable, then isn't that statement just a little unethical? What if you or your child is one of the few? It's all OK when it's happening to someone else, I guess.

I didn't think about those things back them.

By the time babywhumpus came due for his chickenpox vaccination, he was all caught up and got his shot. Because even though "only" 50-100 people die every year from varicella, I'd rather it be none.

Side by Side

One year in between, walking and talking, truly a little demon.

Hallowe'en pictures

Submitted for your approval...

This was Finn's first Hallowe'en trick-or-treat experience, and the candy monster has been created. This is last year's costume because I did not have time to make a new one, but the adorable-ness translated well.

The candy rationing and bursts of tears begin...

Vaccine Awareness Week (The Evidence-based Version)

This week has been declared an unofficial Vaccine Awareness Week by anti-vaccination advocates, so a bunch of evidence-based bloggers are writing about vaccines. I guess it's taking them at their word, and working to make the public more aware of the facts about vaccination. Many of these individuals were very helpful to me, getting me out of my fog of irrational fear and putting me back on track.

"It's also important to realize that most parents who buy into anti-vaccine views do so out of ignorance, because they have been misled, rather than due to stupidity." - Orac, Respectful Insolence

"Vaccines stimulate and increase the function of the immune system – that’s how they work. They provoke an immune response. Stimulating the immune system is healthy for the system, which needs exposure to antigens to remain active." - Steven Novella, Neurologica Blog

Vaccine Central, vaccine information by parents, for parents.

A post from last year, by Mark Crislip, on the flu vaccine.