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Have any of you ever heard of the children’s videos called “Hip Hop Harry”??? My friend lets her little girls (ages 6 and 2) watch it. It’s kind of like a Barney deal, there’s a guy in a big mouse suit. The mouse is wearing baggy clothes and a gold chain around his neck etc…and the kids on the show are all dressed kind of “hip hop” or whatever, and they rap. Instead of singing the little songs about numbers or cows or whatever they sing on Barney, on this show they rap. I’m sure this is great for some people. And her kids love it. Her little 2 year old gets down there on the floor and shakes her little booty. They LOVE Hip Hop Harry. But Miss H will never watch it. My friend runs an in-home daycare, and the kids she watches watch it while they’re there. She wanted to watch Miss H, but for this and many other reasons I told her thanks but no thanks. What bothers me a little bit is that she didn’t even know about Hip Hop Harry…the way they found out about it, is her girls were watching it at their sitter (before she quit working and started her own daycare). I asked Miss H’s sitter if she’d ever heard of it, and thank goodness she had the same reaction I did, that she wouldn’t want her kids watching it. There isn’t even a TV in her daycare room though anyway. Ok here’s the website for this Hip Hop Harry thing… http://www.hiphopharry.com/
Do any of you notice how they’ve got the little girl on the left posed, it makes her have all this cleavage!! Good lord….
Well I got a new bathroom set last night. I’m going for dark blue and yellow. I already had the dark blue shower curtain so I just added a couple accessories and I got yellow rugs and a few decorative hand towels. I got the cheapo stuff at Walmart, but I love it! I finally got a toilet seat cover, to match the rugs…so hopefully Miss H won’t chew on the toilet anymore BLEGH so gross.
So I just checked the weather and it’s supposed to get even warmer than I thought today! In the 40’s! I wish it would stay…but it’s supposed to get colder again the rest of this week. It looks like next week should be in the 30’s all week though, if they’re right, so that’s nice.
Ok so I just have to brag about Miss H for a little bit. Last night when I got to the sitters she was taking the balls from the ball pit and filling up the seat of some ride-on toy. The moment she saw me she got all excited, like she always does (makes me feel so loved!) and tried to rush over to me. I went and picked her up and right away she started waving bye bye to everybody in the room. Then she pointed across the room to her coat on the top of the bookshelf. And pointed and pointed, and waved bye bye. I walked over to the shelf and she grabbed her coat, and waved bye bye again. She’s so smart! She knows she has to put her coat on to go bye bye. I know this might seem silly to some people, but this is my little baby…and she’s growing up…she knows bye bye, and she knows putting her coat on means going bye bye and that just amazes me. Well this morning she was in the living room and I told her to go put her coat on so we could go bye bye. She got really excited and crawled into the dining room where her coat was on the floor, started poking at it and waving bye bye. She amazed me all over again.
I do have to mention something embarrassing that happened last night. We were in Walmart and Miss H was in the cart. We walked by a lady and she smiled at Miss H…and Miss H gave her the meanest look. Oh I felt so bad. The lady gave me a look like I was a bad mom or something. I can’t control who she likes! And she was being a little toot last night anyway, feeling sassy I guess. She INSISTED on holding onto the shopping list, which was fine except I needed to see it and she wouldn’t let me. And then eventually she tried eating it (why???) so I took it away from her, which of course made her yell at me. Then she kept saying “uh oh, uh oh!” over and over and we had no idea why, until we got up the registers and realized her pacifier was nowhere to be found. Guess we’ll listen to her better next time. So we heard that all the way home, “uh oh!” She’s such a little stinker. I love her to pieces.
I thought this was very interesting...I had never thought of the idea before, of using PDG not only to have "designer" babies but to also use it for making sure you have a baby that has a defective gene like you such as dwarfism or deafness.
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- The power to create "perfect" designer babies looms over the world of prenatal testing.
But what if doctors started doing the opposite?
Creating made-to-order babies with genetic defects would seem to be an ethical minefield, but to some parents with disabilities -- say, deafness or dwarfism -- it just means making babies like them.
And a recent survey of U.S. clinics that offer embryo screening suggests it's already happening.
Three percent, or four clinics surveyed, said they have provided the costly, complicated procedure to help families create children with a disability.
Some doctors have denounced the practice. Others question whether it's true. Blogs are abuzz with the news, with armchair critics saying the phenomenon, if real, is taking the concept of designer babies way too far.
"Old fear: designer babies. New fear: deformer babies," the online magazine Slate wrote, calling it "the deliberate crippling of children."
But the survey also has led to a debate about the definition of "normal" and inspires a glimpse into deaf and dwarf cultures where many people do not consider themselves disabled.
'Playing God'
Cara Reynolds of Collingswood, New Jersey, who considered embryo screening but now plans to adopt a dwarf baby, is outraged by the criticism.
"You cannot tell me that I cannot have a child who's going to look like me," Reynolds said. "It's just unbelievably presumptuous and they're playing God."
Embryo screening, formally called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, is done with in vitro fertilization, when eggs and sperm are mixed in a lab dish and then implanted into the womb. In PGD, before implantation, a cell from a days-old embryo is removed to allow doctors to examine it for genetic defects.
The entire procedure can cost more than $15,000 per try.
The survey asked 415 clinics to participate, 190 responded and 137 said they have provided embryo screening. The most common reason was to detect and discard embryos with abnormalities involving a missing or extra chromosome, which can result in miscarriage or severe and usually fatal birth defects.
The survey is being published in an upcoming print edition of the medical journal Fertility and Sterility. It appeared in the online edition in September. Clinics were asked many questions about PGD, including whether they'd provided it to families "seeking to select an embryo for the presence of a disability."
"We asked the question because this is an issue that has been raised primarily by bioethicists as something that could happen," said Susannah Baruch of Johns Hopkins University's Genetics and Public Policy Center.
"It's sparking a lot of conversations," she said. "These are difficult issues for everybody."
While it's technologically possible, whether any deaf or dwarf babies have been born as a result of PGD is uncertain. The survey didn't ask. Participating clinics were promised anonymity, and seven major PGD programs contacted by The Associated Press all said they had never been asked to use the procedure for that purpose.
PGD pioneer Dr. Mark Hughes, who runs a Detroit laboratory that does the screening for many fertility programs nationwide, said he hadn't heard of the technology being used to select an abnormal embryo until the survey.
"It's total nonsense," Hughes said. "It couldn't possibly be 3 percent of the clinics" doing PGD for this purpose "because we work with them all."
He said he wouldn't do the procedure if asked.
"To create a child with a disability because a parent wanted such a thing ... where would you draw the line?" Hughes wondered.
University of Minnesota bioethicist Jeffrey Kahn has a provocative response.
"It's an ethically challenging question and certainly it will trouble people, but I think there are good, thoughtful reasons why people who are deaf or ... dwarves could say, 'I want a child like me,"' Kahn said.
They say money can’t buy happiness…ok whoever said that obviously wasn’t poor. And I know there are unhappy rich people out there, and poor people that are more than happy…but one thing’s for sure, money may not buy happiness, but it sure can help!! I was thinking this morning on the way to work of a show on TV I saw quite a while back…you know that movie Super-Size Me where that guy eats nothing but McDonald’s for like a month and gets all sick and stuff? Well the guy that made that movie used to make shows on TV too, and one was about living on minimum wage. Him and his girlfriend(or wife, whatever) moved into a cruddy tiny apartment and worked 2 jobs a piece for minimum wage and had to make ends meet on that. They used public transportation and ate very little etc. and the show was all about how that affected them and their relationship and how hard it was to make ends meet with so little money even when they didn’t have any kids. The whole process really took a toll on their relationship. They said they normally NEVER fight, and they fought a lot doing this show, because of the lack of money. It’s so sad that money is such a stressor these days. We shouldn’t have to bust our butts just to stay alive, I mean what on earth are we living for if we don’t get to have some fun and enjoyment along the way? I know a lot of couples that have the problem these people did making this show…they would be a really happy couple if they didn’t have money issues to fight over. And I know if the money issues weren’t there, then maybe there would be other issues in some of their cases. But I know in the case of my husband and I, we wouldn’t really have any issues if it weren’t for the lack of money. Our financial situation makes up about 90% of what we bicker about(which honestly we don’t bicker that often, but I would prefer to hardly at all). And the rest of that is stupid stuff like don’t leave your dirty britches in the middle of the dining room floor, or quit throwing your dirty clothes at the end of the bed when the hamper is five feet away, the kitchen counter is not a trashcan, etc. But the money issues just suck. We both dream of having “normal” lives where we don’t have to think too much about money, where we know all the bills will be paid, we know we can go to a movie if we want, where grocery shopping is a normal thing to do. It just doesn’t seem fair to me that people like Paris Hilton run around spending their daddy’s money not having a care in the world and the rest of us have to work so hard just to barely scrape by. I mean she’ll spend more than I make in a year on one shopping trip buying clothes. It just seems like the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And yea I know the rich supposedly donate to all these charities. But when you make millions doing one movie and you’ve made how many movies over the span of your career, it seems to me like you could donate a lot more than a million dollars to a charity. Seems like they could do a lot more if they weren’t busy buying 200$ T-shirts and 10 million dollar homes. What in the heck do they do with all that extra room?? If I won the lottery, I mean the big one, a LOT of money, no way would I go out buying thousand dollar outfits or fancy expensive cars…I’d shop the same places I always shop, and fill a whole closet full of clothes for like 1000$!! Or way less even. Sigh…I guess I should just keep dreaming, seeing as how I don’t even play the lottery LOL. Anyway, it was just something that popped into my head this morning. We just can’t wait for hubby to be out of school so he can get a full time job!!
Well my mom kept Miss H Friday night. We splurged and grabbed a few burgers and went to a movie. I don’t even remember the last time we did that! We saw Night at the Museum. It was actually pretty darn funny! I snorted at least twice I was laughing so hard. We like Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Then we checked out the new Walmart that opened up by our house. Just like the other two Walmart’s we have in town LOL…we were out of everything baby, so we stocked up even though we didn’t have the money(come on tax refund!!). Saturday my mom and I drove up North to visit my aunt and uncle at their new place. My cousin and her husband and daughter had driven into town so we got to see them too, which was nice. Their daughter is going to be two in July, so she’s about 9 months older than Miss H and they hadn’t met yet. So that was really cute. They gave each other kisses.
Saturday night we got stuck at my dad’s. My sister, cousin, hubby and I were going to run by the mall and we went outside to cars covered in snow and slick roads…we went anyway, left Miss H with my dad and stepmom, and decided we weren’t getting Miss H out on the roads because there were already a bunch of wrecks. So we slept over there, Miss H did ok but didn’t sleep quite as well as normal, and all her moving around kept me up. We finally got home late afternoon yesterday and boy were we happy to be home. She crashed at 8:45 last night and slept all night! She was definitely worn out.
Today hasn’t started out too great. After my husband left for school this morning before dawn, I started having these really crazy scary dreams. I was so freaked out when I woke up that I tried to get ready but I just couldn’t take it, I was so weirded out…I packed up our stuff and went to my mom’s. I figured a cup of hot tea and talking to her would calm me down, and it did. Then I get to work 30 minutes late and find out that sometime yesterday a ceiling tile fell right on my desk from being so soaked with water leaking from the roof…so I have ceiling crud and water everywhere, a trashcan on my desk catching water, all my papers and procedures manual are all wet and nasty…my allergies will be having a party!! This building is so old and cruddy, even without the leakage we all feel like crap the minute we step in the door, so this is just making it 10 times worse for us. BLAH!!!!! Hopefully they’ll get it fixed soon. In the meantime we have sanitizing spray and antibacterial wipes. Can’t do anything about the air but, oh well. Hopefully the day will get better as it goes on!
At work I'm in the process right now of calling vendors that we haven't received a W-9 form back from, even after sending them a second request. Most of the people have been so nice, but this one lady who just happens to be the AP person for both St. Louis Envelope Co. and SL Graphix, has been so snotty to me both times I called...she acts like it's such a huge inconvenience that I'm calling her, and that she has to fax me the form. I had already called her about St. Louis Envelope Co...she said she'd fax me the form and then she hung up on me. Then I called SL Graphix. Little did I know it was the same building...she said "you just called me!!!!!!"...I asked if this was SL Graphix, and she said "oh you need one for them to?!?!" and I told her I'm sorry I didn't know it was the same company(completely different phone numbers and vendor names, how in the hell should I know?!?) and she proceeded to tell me it is NOT the same company, both companies are just under one roof. I wanted to ask how in the hell she got the job of AP clerk for BOTH companies when she is so darn stinkin rude, but of course I didn't, I was very nice and polite. So she faxed me the forms and that's that, but jeez why are people so rude these days? Another company I called cut me off right in the middle of me saying I'm so and so from such and such company calling about a W-9 form we sent back in December...she cut me off right in the middle and said "hold please" and that was it. Have these people had NO customer service training whatsoever? And how on earth did they get their "operator" jobs with such a bad attitude? This reminds me of the receptionist at Miss H's dr. office. She will NEVER crack a smile, she is so rude it's rediculous...to everybody that comes up to that window. I was absolutely shocked when I saw her at Walmart one time with a husband and 2 of the cutest little kids...how on earth she ever charmed a man into marrying her and how on earth her kids were so darn cute and well-mannered is beyond me. She recognized me, I know she did, because she knows me from my sister in law who used to work in that office....as we passed I smiled and said "hi!" and of course, in her usual lovely manner, she frowned at me and looked the other direction. That has to be a horrible existence, being so snobby and un-friendly like that all the time. But then again, maybe she was raised differently. I know when we lived in KS for a while people looked at us like we were nutty if we spoke to them when we didn't know them. Here in MO, at least in the smaller towns, you talk to anybody, the lady in line behind you at the grocery store, or the guy in front of you with a kid asks how old your baby is...just last night a lady had me hold the door for her at Walmart because she had a cart and it wasn't an automatic door and I had my hands free...she just said she was going to take advantage of me having to open the door, and I told her no problem at all and she was just so nice and polite. This is what I'm used to. Oh another instance...my mom and daughter and I were in Dillards a few months back looking for some tennis shoes for Miss H(she has the fattest feet and they do not make infant shoes to fit fat feet??) and we had just bought a pair of little white Keds(which we took back because they fell off her fat feet btw) and an older couple stopped me and the guy said "I just have to stop you so I can admire the little one, she's so adorable, how old is she?" I told them how old she was, and showed them the new shoes we just bought her, and they said thanks for letting them admire her etc. etc. and we walked away and my mom asked "who was that?" and I told her I have absolutely no idea. She said "from the way they came up to you I thought you knew them" and I told her "nope, they were just friendly old folks." Why can't all people be that friendly?? The world would be a much nicer place...
