Jen's Blog

Happy Halloween!

(Does this shirt look familiar? We're getting a lot of mileage out of it.)

Early Thanksgiving

Gary, Elliot, Lexi, and I flew out to the East Coast a couple of weeks ago for my sister's wedding (in Toronto) and an early Thanksgiving (in Rochester). Here are a couple of pictures Jessica took.

This was after Thanksgiving dinner (Lexi and I were already in pajamas).

Jessica took this photo of Elliot at the airport in Rochester.

Overall it was a great trip, but we're all still recovering from it. Gary got food poisoning the afternoon before we left, so he almost didn't go with us (and instead spent much of the plane ride to NY sleeping or throwing up). We saw Niagara Falls on our way to Toronto, but that's about as touristy as we got. Unless you count lunch at Nick Tahou's the day after Thanksgiving dinner; Gary had instructions to go there and have a garbage plate for lunch, which he did. While I wouldn't say it was a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, it was pretty darn good.

My sister's wedding

I still haven't really had a chance to look at the pictures on my camera (when will the unpacking and laundry cease!), but my Uncle Pete was kind enough to send me some pictures he took at Melinda's wedding.

Melinda and Chris at the beginning of the ceremony. My other sister Alana is behind them, next to the officiant.

They're exchanging vows in this photo.

They're cutting the cake, which I heard was delicious!

earthquake!

We had a magnitude 5.6 earthquake this evening! I was trying to get Elliot to bed, so we sat on the floor until it was over (we were both a little freaked out). Now he's watching tv, since I obviously couldn't expect him to just go to sleep after that. Gary was downstairs with Lexi; apparently she didn't notice it at all.

The big red square represents the quake we felt. There have been a bunch of aftershocks (the little red squares on the big red square), but they've all been really small.

more rolling over

I forgot to mention that Lexi rolled over for the first time from front to back last week, while we were in Rochester (in her sleep, no less!) So now she's rolled over once each way, and hasn't done either since.

first tooth

We discovered this afternoon that Lexi's first tooth broke through! It's a lower incisor, and she's gung-ho on using it.

Viking Hat

Finally finished it today, but it's not over until the fat baby sings!

Ribs

Elliot eats ribs.

Family Dinner

This one is kind of long, but is typical of a weekend dinner.

Laughing Lexi

From earlier this month

Early October pictures

Lexi looking at herself in the mirror

Elliot trying on a hat (in progress)

Emily and Lexi

rolling over

Lexi rolled over for the first time this evening! She's had some partial attempts at rolling over from her back to her stomach, but this evening she was already on her front and rolled on to her back. Gary and I gave her a round of applause.

Unleaded, please!

I am sick of all the recall notices for children's toys lately. Since I never paid attention to them up until 2 years ago, I can't tell if there are a lot more now than there used to be. But I'm pretty sure there are.

I recently subscribed to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission email list. The first day after I joined there were 7 toy recalls, all due to excessive lead. Nothing that we have has been recalled, but it did include a baby toy that we own (we got it when Elliot was a baby, though, so ours wasn't included in the recall. Yet.)

This morning a woman in my moms' group sent out a note alerting us to a Cub Scout badge recall; it was found to have too much lead in it. I forwarded it to my friend Eva, who has two boys in Scouts, and she told me her younger son has the recalled badge. *sigh*

Earlier this summer there was a large recall of Thomas the Tank Engine trains. All of our trains were made several years ago, so again, we weren't effected. People were supposed to send in their tainted trains and receive replacements in the mail. I recently read that one of the replacement trains has now been recalled due to excessive lead.

What are the effects of lead? Lead acts as a neurotoxin, disrupting the development of the nervous system (which is why it is so harmful to children). It can cause impaired cognitive abilities, headaches, insomnia, nausea, anemia, kidney problems, and reproductive problems. Although the government has set standards for how much lead is acceptable in household items, there really is no safe level of lead in humans. Wikipedia has a good article on lead poisoning.

I'm giving rum-soaked fruit cakes to the kids for Christmas this year. Surely that will be safer.

Programming assignment

I just turned in my second programming assignment for my C# class. The assignment was to write an application that simulates a certain number of rolls of a pair of dice, that number to be determined by the user.

The class, since it's online, doesn't have much in the way of discussion between the students and the professor. In lieu of this, though, there is a message board to which we are required to post for the class participation part of the grade. For this unit the topic of discussion was the pros and cons of passing variables to a method by value or by reference. And no, I don't feel like explaining it here, sorry.

Gut Bugs

Gary and I are giving Lexi bacteria to help make her less fussy.

There have been some studies that suggest giving babies probiotics can reduce their symptoms of colic. Gary thinks Lexi is colicky; I am less sure, but she can definitely be quite fussy sometimes (and would be daily if I were not on the no-dairy diet.) Our pediatrician said it may not help, but it wouldn't hurt, so we could give it a try if we liked. She also said she had read recent studies that suggest that when a pregnant woman takes probiotics her baby has fewer symptoms of colic (of course we're too late for this!)

So what are probiotics? The kind we are using are bacteria, in powdered form, the sort that are found in yogurt. It looks a lot like powdered yeast used for making bread; Gary says the powder has a slightly sweet taste (I haven't tried it yet). We've only given it to Lexi twice, this weekend. Gary mixed half a teaspoon in with a few ounces of breastmilk, then fed the mixture to Lexi. She didn't seem to notice a difference, and we haven't noticed an adverse reaction yet.