Well The Way I See It...

2010-12-12T11:26:00.000-08:00

Now through Christmas Eve 29 Diapers is having one giveaway a day. If you are considering trying cloth diapering you do not want to miss out on this event. See that button on my sidebar? Click on it and you gan start entering...but your not allowed to win because if you do that means i didn't lol just kidding

A chat about circumcision

2010-08-05T16:56:00.000-07:00

So what is circumcision, anyway? Don't they just take a little bit off the top?

It's surgical removal of the foreskin, frenulum and about one-third to one-half of the skin of the penis.

Wait, one-half of the skin of the penis? How can that be?

There's no precise point where the foreskin ends and the skin of the penis begins. During a circumcision, the skin of the penis is peeled back like a banana to expose the mucosal tissue of the head and shaft - tissue like the inside of your mouth. The two types of tissue can be clearly seen on the circumcised penis and the tissue covering the head and upper shaft is very different from the skin below the circumcision scar.

But it just slides back and then they clip it off or something?

No, actually it doesn't even begin to slide back until around age 2 or 3 at the earliest, and frequently much later. In a newborn, the opening of the foreskin is big enough to let urine through and the foreskin itself is tightly fused to the head and shaft of the penis - like a fingernail is fused to the nail bed. It doesn't slide back at all.

Then how do they get it off of there to cut it?

They use a blunt probe to separate them. It's about like having a fingernail ripped off... except it's on the most sensitive part of the body. The head of the penis looks like the finger minus the fingernail too, very raw and bloody.

Eww.

Yeah.

So then they just cut it off?

They cut a slit in the side of it and then they usually crush it with a clamp for a few minutes. Then they cut it off. Alternately, they put a plastic bell over the head, and tie a ligature around the foreskin, then cut the foreskin off leaving a string and part of the plastic bell to fall off after a few days.

I'm having a tough time visualizing this.

That's understandable. Here's a description of the procedure, with photos.

That all sounds really painful! But they use anesthetic of course.

Um, most often no they don't.

Oh come on! That's barbaric!

It is, isn't it. Sometimes they use a topical cream and even less often they use a shot of stuff like Novocaine. Well under half of all circumcisions are performed with any pain relief at all, and most of those are not especially effective. Here's a video of a circumcison performed with a topical anesthetic, for instance.

It's just skin though. It can't be that important.

It's not "just skin". It's skin on the outside with a thin, sensitive muscle sheath underneath and the same sensitive mucosa as the inner edges of your lips on the inside. Right around the edge of the foreskin is a ridged band of tissue which attaches at the frenulum to the underside of the glans. (Together, that band and the frenulum are considered the primary erogenous zone in males - the head of the penis is secondary and much less sensitive.) Not to mention tens of thousands of nerve endings and specialized immune cells.

Hey, most circumcised guys say if they were any more sensitive they'd explode! How is more sensitivity a plus, here?

Probably because the term 'more sensitive' isn't defined. Men needlessly circumcised as adults have reported the sensitivity and sensation before and after as the difference between color vision and only seeing in black and white. Using this analogy, a man circumcised at birth might say "How could I possibly see any better? I can see everything so clearly as it is, and it's beautiful! If there was any more light, I'd go blind!" because without experiencing color, he cannot conceive of how it could be different, richer or better - only brighter.

Well, at least it's beneficial medically. It's much healthier to circumcise, right?

No. There is no medical reason for routine infant circumcision, and no national or international medical health organization recommends it. It doesn't stop urinary tract infections, it doesn't stop HIV infection, it doesn't stop cancer of the penis or of the cervix. It doesn't stop (or even significantly reduce) any disease.

Doesn't everyone need it done eventually?

Nope. In countries where nonreligious routine infant circumcision is rare (like the UK or Denmark or pretty much everywhere but the United States) at most one in 200 men is circumcised later in life, and the actual number who need it because they cannot be treated in any way but with amputative surgery is 1 in 18,000. Even here in the US, where many doctors recommend circumcision needlessly because they do not know how to treat the foreskin, the rate is less than 8 in one hundred. Circumcising all boys at birth to prevent later need for circumcision is somewhat like removing the breast tissue of all girls to prevent later breast cancer... except the risk of getting breast cancer over a woman's lifetime is one in eight, whereas the need for circumcision for any reason is at less than one-half of one percent.

I read that it prevents AIDS - doesn't it?

There have been studies in Africa that appear to show that circumcised men contract HIV from HIV positive women at a slower rate than men who have a foreskin. So saying it prevents AIDS is inaccurate; it just slows the uptake, so to speak. If an intact man decides the potentially lessened risk is worth the price of his fully functional and highly innervated foreskin, he can certainly choose to be circumcised as an adult. Most guys would probably opt for condom use over radical amputative surgery.

But, still, it could prevent, uh, something?

Whether there is any true preventative value in amputating the foreskin may never be known, as all of the studies that have ever been done are very ambiguous. What is known is the fact that we don't remove healthy, normal, functional body parts on baby girls, or any other part of baby boys on the off chance it will prevent some nebulous health problem. Presumably if we amputated the toes of newborns we would have far fewer cases of athlete's foot each year, and toe cancer as well. But of course we don't do that - we treat the body if it gets sick, we don't amputate normal bits to prevent possible problems. The foreskin is much the same, and, as the American Academy of Pediatrics has found, the complications and risks of the circumcision procedure outweigh any potential benefits.

It doesn't do any real harm though, beyond the initial healing period.

Assuming you mean other than the harm of removing the foreskin itself, which causes the glans of the penis to become dry and desensitized every time, and the meatus (the opening of the urethra) to scar up and frequently narrow, requiring surgery to fix it about ten percent of the time, yes, it causes harm. The latest statistics show that circumcising is actually the cause of more medical expense over a child's lifetime versus not circumcising. It could easily be said that circumcision essentially turns the penis permanently inside out, and it has about the same effect as it would if we cut off eyelids, or nostrils, or lips. Complications are rampant. Even if circumcisions were free, it would still cost more to circumcise than to leave the penis alone.

OK, so there are no medical reasons, but it's cleaner, isn't it?

It's not cleaner or dirtier to be circumcised or not circumcised. Either way parents should teach their children to wash their genitals the same way they teach them to wash their ears. The foreskin requires no special care.

But I have to keep it clean for him before he's old enough! That sounds complicated!

It's not complicated at all! Here's the three steps to cleaning the intact child too young to attend to his own bathing:

1. Wash the outside of the penis like a finger.
2. Don't try to pull the foreskin back or retract it.
3. The End.

Won't other kids make fun of him?

It's not too likely, seeing as how barely half of the boys born in America today are circumcised (52% in 2003 and decreasing each year) and worldwide around 85% of men and boys are not circumcised. Besides, kids make fun of lots of things. Best to raise a child to be happy with his normal body, rather than cut healthy parts of it off.

I think the foreskin makes the penis look... weird.

That's mainly because a circumcised penis is what you are used to seeing. We don't carve up other healthy, normal parts of our kids' bodies without their consent because they offend our personal aesthetics - the genitals should be the same!

He'll just want it done when he gets older though.

If men actually preferred being circumcised versus being whole and intact, then most of the men in the world would be circumcised as adults. But the thing is, they aren't, because they don't. Cultures where circumcision is common circumcise sexually immature infants and children, or adolescents on the cusp of puberty - all people who cannot give consent. Now, that said, should your son decide he wants to be circumcised he can be, and the operation is much less traumatic and less prone to complications as an adult with a mobile foreskin and an adult-sized penis.

There has to be a reason why people are doing this then?

Well, really there are many "reasons", but the main reason babies and children are genitally cut in any culture and for either sex is because their parents were genitally cut, and thus think of their altered state as normal. It's crazy when you think about it, but there you have it.

Yeah, what about when the father or older brother is circumcised? Shouldn't they look the same?

There are so many inborn differences between fathers and sons and between brothers. Some will have brown eyes, some will have blue, some will have their mother's nose and their grandfather's hands. A child will never be a carbon copy that looks just like his father and it is silly to insist that the son have cosmetic surgery on his normal penis so it will look like Dad or big bro. What if the father is missing a finger or has scars from an accident or any other surgery? We don't mark the son similarly then! If older brothers are circumcised it's easy to tell the boys that when the older brother was born his penis looked like the younger boy's penis but back then the parents thought it was a good idea to cut off his foreskin (and that they thought that was a good idea when Daddy was born, too, if that's relevant) but now we don't do that anymore. It really is that simple!

It's traditional in my family to circumcise the boys.

In America (unless you're Jewish or Muslim) your "family tradition" is likely about two or three generations old at most and involves your father, possibly his father, and you. The real tradition is to have a whole, normal penis, not one with an amputated foreskin. Newborn circumcision was unknown in the U.S. outside of Jewish families until the beginning of the 20th century, and the circumcision rate peaked in the 1970s at about 90%. It's been dropping ever since, and is now right around 50%. Many Jewish and Muslim families are opting to leave their children intact and let them decide whether they want to be circumcised, as well.

So let me see. No medical reason, in fact it can actually cause more harm... hmm, not any cleaner, and and we don't perform cosmetic surgery on any other normal body parts without consulting the owner of the body... Well gosh. There's really no reason to do it at all!

Exactly.

More information can be found here:
Hey! It's A Boy!
Dr. Dean Edell on Circumcision
Circumcision Information Resource Pages

NOCIRC

Catholics Against Circumcision

Jewish Circumcision Resource Center

links for car seat safety

2010-07-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.cpsafety.com/ I like this site because it has good basic info, and photo galleries that show correct use, it also has a active forum so you can get your questions answered.

http://www.car-seat.org/ another great active forum

http://www.carseatsite.com/ this page has good info and alot of good links

http://www.safekids.org/in-your-area/car-seat-check-up-events/ find a child passenger safety tech. in your area to check your seats.

there are also a lot or youtube videos on correct car set installation and use and also some with cute pics and awesome facts two of my favorites are

Couldn't have said it better myself: birth and LDS faith

2010-07-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

Heather is a doula and wile I was randomly looking at "birthy blogs" and doula websites I stumbled upon her doula service web page, I noticed she was originally from Idaho falls, so I looked to see if she had any other blogs and she had an awesome woman in the scriptures blog where i found this post and alot of other AWSOME posts but this one and one on fertility were my faves. three things in common From IF, LDS, and LOVE OF BIRTH!

Women in the Scriptures: The Importance of Birth
http://womeninthescriptures.blogspot.com/2008/12/importance-of-birth.html
"This is Eve's gift to us... "

About me and my passions

2010-07-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

I am making this one of my pages and it will be something that I add to and maybe take away from in the future

I'm Katie, I am a Christian,
a wife,
an auntie,
And a wanna be mommy,
doula,
and Child passenger safety tech
(I am on my way)
there are a lot of things I am passionate about and I am working hard to "walk my talk" and be more authentic. You will find that that most of these things are centered around family, babies, mothers, and birth. If you don't agree with what I believe then I hope we can agree to disagree and still be friends. the world would be a boring place if everyone was the same.

This is an ever changing list of things I am really passionate about and as I write blog posts about them I will add links I am not a writer and a lot of the time my thoughts are jumbled and random so bare with me :)

I Am for (in no specific order)

Car seat safety is my big one. I think it's absolutely inexcusable when a parent can't use a carseat properly or refuses to take the time to learn how to use it properly. It's the ONE thing a parent can do to ensure their kid's safety. I just can't understand why it's not a big deal to everyone... Don't get me started on it, I could go on for HOURS.

true informed choice/consent/refusal
baby-wearing
breastfeeding
expectant management of birth
midwifes
cloth diapers
basic human and animal rights
attachment parenting
Birth choice
Cruelty free living ...

I Am against (also in no specific order)
routine infant circumcision (both male and female)
crazy food additives
spanking
abortion in most cases
child abuse (but I think that falls under pro human rights)
racism
ageism
sexism
ok pretty much all the isms
abuse of power and brutality ...

what are you passionate about are any of my "fors" your "againsts" or vice verse?

amber and babylegs from INSPIREDBYFINN.COM

2010-07-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

This promotion is only for:

THE PURCHASE OF YOUTH AMBER NECKLACES size 11” TO 16”, THE BALTIC AMBER NECKLACE ALTERNATIVE, LEG WARMERS or TIGHTS. All other items (including hazelwood jewelry and adult amber are not eligible).

BEFORE YOU ARE ABLE TO USE THE DISCOUNT CODE we need your help advertising this sale! We need you to post about this sale somewhere online and post a link back to this page. You can post your link on any online board(s) where you are active. Once you have posted link(s) to help us advertise our sale, post to this thread with links to the posts you’ve created. The more places you post, the greater discount you earn!

Here is the discount code to use once you’ve done this. If you create:

ONE link online to advertise our sale, the code for you to save 20% is: onelink
TWO links online to advertise our sale, the code for you to save 30% is: 2links
THREE links online to advertise our sale, the code for you to save 40% is: 3links

This code can be entered during the checkout process.

This offer is good through July 7. Our round-bead styles are our best-stocked items.

Be our guest to share this post with friends and family who might like participate.

Our youth jewelry is at @http://hyenacart.com/inspiredbyfinn/index.php?c=11
Legwarmers @ http://hyenacart.com/inspiredbyfinn/index.php?c=40
Tights @http://hyenacart.com/inspiredbyfinn/index.php?c=159
Footless Tights @http://hyenacart.com/inspiredbyfinn/index.php?c=170

Thanks!

MOM SUIT

2010-04-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about this post for a wile... wondering whether I should post it, much less write it. I don't know if it will make seance to anyone but since its my blog i guess it doesn't really matter. This post helped my bring some of my feelings to words in this post she said

"I feel like wearing this mother suit is getting less uncomfortable and foreign everyday. It slowly but surely doesn’t feel like I’m trying to wear pants as a shirt anymore."

OK now to try to explain how I feel... I guess I feel like I am already wearing a "mom suit" I feel like a mother that doesn't have children yet. not like a mother who has lost a child or had a miscarriage, because I haven't, and I don't ever want to experience that kind of pain.
I feel like all I was ever meant to be is a mom, But to be a mom you have to have a child first. I feel like i am whereing the "mom suit" to the wrong party or something like that
like a person who always wants to were a Halloween costume but there are in church.(weird comparison I know, but thats the best I could think of)
I feel Like someone who is window shopping. I see the beautiful "suit" and I can look at it, imagine myself in it, I can even try it on from time to time (with the help of nieces and nephews and other children) but I always have to take it off and give the "mom suit" back to its owner. I can wait until I can start to sew my own mom suit.

car seat safety

2009-04-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

this is what one of my favorite bloggers (also a Child Passenger Safety Technician ) El from http://www.profoundlyseth.com/2009/04/finally.html .

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

FINALLY!

UPDATE: I forgot to include this link. If you want to get your carseat inspected, go here and fill in your city, state, etc. A list of certified technicians will pop up. Another option would be to call your local fire station or police station and ask if they have a Child Passenger Safety Technician on staff.

It seems a carseat blog is in order. Or, you know, another one.

First off, I am so excited! The American Academy of Pediatrics just revised their stance on rear facing! This has been a long time coming and I am so thrilled. The LAW is that infants must rear face until one year of age AND 20 pounds. However, that is just the law, and as many laws do, it falls short and is outdated. It is MUCH safer (we call it Best Practice) to keep your baby rear facing until the age of two AND the limits of their carseat...five times safer, in fact. The AAP has finally put it in writing here.

Now, now. I know what you're going to say. If their feet touch the backseat, won't their legs be broken? What if they're not comfortable? But they want to face forward like a big kid!

None of those things are true, I promise. Number one, there has NEVER been a documented case of a baby or child's legs being broken because they were rear facing. Not one. Even if it was a concern, I would choose a broken leg over a broken neck any day. Two, they're comfortable, no matter how big they are. My older kids are off the charts (above the hundredth percentile) for height and weight, and they both stayed rearfacing until the limits of their seats. Jace until he was two, Ava until she was two and a half. They both had long legs and were perfectly comfortable rear facing. Jace usually sat criss cross applesauce. Third, they don't want to be forward facing. They don't know what forward facing is. I find a lot of times as parents, we project our feelings on to our kids...we want to see them forward facing like a big kids. We wouldn't be comfortable facing backwards all scrunched up, so they must not be either. It's important to remember that kids are not little adults and that they don't act like adults.

So...point one. Keep your baby rear facing. It's worth all the hassle, I promise. After they outgrow their infant seat, they should go into a rear facing convertible seat until they reach at least 2 years of age. They are so much safer it's not even funny. Here is a comparison of crash forces rear facing versus forward facing...it's definitely worth taking a look.

Now let's move on. After you child turns forward facing, they should stay in a five point harness until a minimum of four years of age AND 40 pounds. Again, that's a minimum. My children, at 3.5 and 4.5 are still in 5 point harnesses (in a Britax Frontier and Graco Nautilus, for trivia fans), and they'll stay in them until about age 6, when I think kids begin to be more capable of self control in the car.

The thing about booster seats is that they simply boost the child up to make the seatbelt fit them correctly. I like to say that putting a kid in a booster is like putting them in charge of their own safety in the car, whereas in a 5 point harness, you are still responsible for them. If they unbuckle, wiggle, lean, or fidget, they're probably not ready for a booster, or at the very least, they need booster training.

So how to do you keep your child harnessed until they're around 6? With a seat that is extended harnessing friendly. You want to get a seat that has a high weight limit (50-80 lbs...don't waste money on a 40 lb seat unless you have someone to pass it down to), and tall top slots.

The bottom line is, who want's to parent by the minimums? If you were told that you could either do the bare minimum and your child would get by in school, or you could follow best practice and help them excel, what would you choose? I know I want to be a Best Practice Parent. in every area.

The great thing is that every day, more and more cost effective car seat choices are coming out! Brands are not the most important part, but longevity and ease of use is. I try very hard to counsel my parents on how to spend their money wisely and buy the right seats that will get them through their child(rens) carseat years. In many cases, when there are multiple children involved, we try and make sure that a current purchase will be a suitable hand me down seat later.

As a disclaimer, seats are only safe to hand down if you know their history, they are not expired, and if you have all the pieces and the manual. Most seats expire after six years from the date of manufacture, not purchase, although there are some that are good for less or more time. There will be a date on a sticker or stamped into your seat that will tell you either when your seat was manufactured or when it expires.

What seats do I like? Well, I'm glad you asked. I love any seat that fits your budget, your car, and your child and is installed and used correctly every single time. =)

That being said, I do have some favorites. For an infant seat (seats that are rear facing only), the Chicco Keyfit and the Graco Snugride 32 are great choices, although Seth rides in an Orbit Infant Seat because I fell in love with it and got it as a shower gift.

Convertible seats (seats that convert from rear facing to forward facing) I enjoy are the Britax Boulevard or Marathon , the First Years True Fit, and my very favorite, the Sunshine Kids Radian . The Radian does an amazing job fitting kids all the way from their first trip home from the hospital until they're ready for a booster.

Combo seats (Seats that forward face then turn into a booster) I like are the Graco Nautilus and the Britax Frontier .

My favorite dedicated boosters are the Sunshine Kids Monterey , the now discontinued Britax Parkway, or the Recaro Vivo .

Again, the most important thing is that your seat fits your child (they are under the weight limit and their shoulders are below the top slots forward facing), your car (less than an inch of movement side to side when installed), and your budget, and that you buckle them properly each and every time. This means no slack in the harness. =)

I hope this was helpful! Please feel free to ask any questions.

How to Hug a Porcupine

2009-04-17T02:50:00.000-07:00

"Is it possible to hug a porcupine and not become a pin cushion?" How to Hug a Porcupine: Dealing With Toxic and Difficult to Love Personalities ©
By Dr. John Lewis Lund

I think I'm a porcupine! I often find myself wondering how my husband (and other family members) can love me, much less put up with me, when I'm so cranky and critical all the time. I have no clue why I get like this.
ok
so Maybe do,
I think its because I get scared that i wont be able to handle the next problem that pops up...
that's my best guess..
I definitely have a love hate relationship with the whole grown up thing. Life was easer when all you had to worry about was what to where to school and how you were going to convince your parents to let you out of the house like "that"

10 Things I Want To Accomplish Before Its To Late

2009-03-08T19:26:00.000-07:00

10. Learn not to say yes when I really mean no.

9. Take a ballroom dance class with my hubby (may have to hog tie him )

8. Make enough money so i don't ever get credit cards.

7. Buy a house

6. Fill said house with babies :D

5. visit family more often

4. go to school to be a doula (labor coach), lactation consultant, and certified maternity massage therapist .

3. learn to be more organized

2. manage my moods better and try not to turn fear and frustration into anger toward loved
ones
1. learn to love my self