Best. Joke. Ever.

Were were telling knock knock jokes in the car the other night, teaching Bear when to say "who's there" and "lettuce who?", when he made up this joke of his own:

Bear: "Knock Knock"
Us: "who's there?"
B: "It's me, Bear!"
us "it's me Bear who?"
(pause)
B: "Butter!"

Ok, so it's not the play on words that a knock knock joke is typically comprised of, but it's my new favorite joke.

And here I thought we were doing so well

Bear had an intake evaluation this week to place him in a social language group. The speech therapist called me today to discuss his placement. She is willing to try him out in a small group with 2 other speech-delayed preschoolers, but based on his inability to sit still and have a back and forth conversation in the interview, she is concerned that he may be in need of one-on-one therapy before he could benefit from a group. So basically she is saying that my son does not have the social or language skills to participate in a social language therapy group.

Great.

Faith

When I left my job to become a stay at home mom 4 years ago, I didn't realize how out of touch I would become. Instead of reading the morning paper on the BART train, I scan the headlines while making breakfast. I no longer share a cube with a chatty co-worker, rehashing the latest current events, but spend my entire day talking to 2 little ones with not the best communication skills. During the evening news hour, I am watching Fireman Sam.

Tivo has taken me even further out of the loop. Because I no longer see commercials, I have no idea who is going to be on Oprah this week of what new movies are coming out. I had no idea that Johnny Lee Miller was going to be making a foray into American television, or that the unaired pilot for the show is already causing a big controversy, until I did a google search for autism news today and found the following article by Julie Deardorff, a medical writer for the Chicago Tribune:

Eli Stone: It's not about autism

Unlike officials at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and many pro-vaccination bloggers, I've had a chance to watch the entire pilot episode of ABC's fictional comedy/drama "Eli Stone."

The already controversial program, which debuts Thursday at 9 p.m. and subjects viewers to fanciful scenes involving pop singer George Michael, depicts a lawyer who argues in court that a mercury-based preservative in a flu vaccine made a child autistic.

The AAP, after watching a seven-minute trailer of the show and reading media reports, was so outraged a sacred cow had been attacked that it demanded that ABC cancel the episode. Ironically, the move is drawing even more attention to the show.

While the program includes statements that science has refuted any link between autism and vaccines, the AAP complained that "the episode's conclusion delivers a contrary impression; the jury awards the mother $5.2 million, leaving audiences with the destructive idea that vaccines do cause autism."

I disagree.

For starters, the AAP ought to give television viewers a little more credit. Like most television, it's a show that is meant to be entertainment. Will we, for example, really believe Eli Stone is a prophet who hears songs by George Michael every time he has a vision?

Moreover, the autism in the story line is almost incidental given all the other loopy things that are packed into the pilot. It's not about whether vaccines cause autism. It's about the redemptive powers of faith. What the episode's conclusion really asks is: Which is the greater force in life: science or faith?

If the AAP had watched the whole program (or scanned the Web site), it might have seen that Eli Stone's brother, the doctor who diagnoses Eli's brain aneurysm represents science. Stone's acupuncturist friend, Dr. Chen, embodies faith.

And as Dr. Chen tells Eli,

"Everything has two explanations: scientific and divine. We choose which one to believe."

This is how the autism-vaccine debate is playing out. The majority of parents dutifully vaccinate their children without giving it a second thought. Parents who are concerned about the safety of vaccines have already made up their minds. It won't matter how many studies show there is no link between vaccines and autism. We all believe our own truths.

Vaccines can be life-saving, but like any medical procedure, they carry risks, even if autism is not "officially" one of them. The one-size-fits-all approach means it's up to every individual to get educated on vaccine safety and to consider benefits versus risks.

I applaud ABC for trying to keep the conversation going once the television has been turned off.

Ah, yes, faith. I remember faith. It is what I had in the AMA and the AAP 4 years ago. I had heard horror stories about vaccines causing autism, and they scared me. In the end I decided to have faith in the my doctors and the medical community, held my breath and prayed that it would be ok. I have no idea if vaccines caused Bear's autism. There has been no proof of that. Then again, nobody seems to know what causes autism. There are only a lot of theories.

Thumper has his 1 year appointment coming up, and again I have to weigh the pros and cons of another needle stick. Again, I am being asked to take it on faith that more vaccinations will do more good than harm. I don't know if I have that much faith left in me.

January.

We are 4 weeks into the new year and have had 2 cases of pink eye, 1 roseola, and 1 croup. This is not an indication that we are under the spell of an evil eye. We are not doomed for eternity. They are just viruses. It is winter, people get viruses. There have been zero visits to the emergency room and that itself is better than last year. Our stocks have plummeted, but hey, so have everyone else's. We are all in this together.

Things are going to start looking up soon.

Happy Birthday Thumper

I love birthdays. More specifically other people's birthdays, as my own have an awkward tendency to go awry, and in particular children's birthdays. 

Before I had children of my own, I nosed my way into my niece's birthday parties, transforming ordinary paper party hats into fairy-princess steeple hats and wrestling butterfly and teapot cakes from my sister's well-meaning frosting-covered grasp. 

Having Bear presented me with the opportunity to fully unleash my theme-party planning goddess within. His second birthday was a circus spectacular, featuring a circus tent, carnival games, circus-themed food, circus music, and the infamous 3-dimensional circus train birthday cake which took 8 hours to frost. I immediately realized that I had blown my wad. How would I ever be able to keep up that kind of momentum through 2 children and who knows how many years of birthday parties? Bear's subsequent parties were slightly pared down, although I have always insisted on maintaining a theme throughout the invitations, food, cake, games, and music. What, you don't spend weeks creating mix cds of appropriately themed music before your children's birthday parties? Wimp.

Then I got lazy. 2 weeks before Thumper's 1st birthday, I was just getting around to printing invitations. Even though I had begun to plan out all of the details in my head in July, I had done nothing toward putting my plans into motion. Months I had spent scouring the web for the perfect cupcake sprinkles, only to settle for whatever they had at the party store. The chocolate bunny lollipop favors turned into molded truffle bunnies (due to an inability to find bunny lollipop molds in January), which I then realized were too much chocolate for kids and would have to use as decorations instead. Days before the party I still had no idea what I would serve for food, other than the ginger-carrot tea sandwiches that I was obsessed with more because this would probably be the best opportunity I would ever have to serve carrot-ginger tea sandwiches at a party than because I thought anyone would actually eat them.

Days after the party I began to remember all of the little details that I had let slide, like forgetting to set out blackberries. Blackberries! How can you have a Peter Rabbit birthday party without blackberries? Even though I know that Thumper will never look at pictures of his birthday and wonder where the blackberries were, I will always feel guilty about not putting the same effort into it that I did for his brother. After having the misfortune of being born only 3 weeks before his brother's diagnosis, and patiently taking a backseat to all of Bear's needs during his first year on earth, that was the least he deserved.

Crappy New Year

Thumper was born on January 19th, 2007. After an emergency c-section with Bear and much stress and anxiety over having a VBAC, Thumper's entry into the world turned out to be free of complication and actually rather pleasant (thanks to an excellent epidural.) As expected, his birth was the high point of our year. I just didn't expect it to be the ONLY high point of our year.

2 1/2 weeks after Thumper was born, a psychologist observed Bear for what we thought was a speech delay and posed the question "How much do you know about autism?" I thought she was just making conversation. Turns out, she was talking about Bear.

The rest of 2007 was filled with visits to specialists and emergency rooms. At his 1 month appointment, Thumper was found to have a heart murmer. It was most likely while we were at Children's Hospital getting his EKG that he acquired bronchiolitis, for which he had to be hospitalized. Immediately after he came home, Bear came down with a stomach virus that lasted 10 days. (10 Days of throwing up and diarrhea, during which we learned that stomach acid can bleach mommy's favorite turquoise gap t-shirt white.) In June,Thumper had a stomach virus for which we visited an immediate care clinic, where he picked up an MRSA; Bear had his speech and developmental delays; Not So Surly Dad injured his back playing soccer, then stupidly went and did it again; I myself racked up emergency room points with 2 MRSAs, suffering an acute allergic reaction to the heinous antibiotics required to treat an MRSA. Thumper had a rash-causing food allergy for which I eliminated nearly everything from my diet over the course of 2 months before figuring out that cashews were the culprit. We were audited by the IRS. Through it all, I tried to maintain a sense of humor and perspective - at least we aren't homeless, nobody is dying, things could be worse - but by the time a tree fell on my car in October, I was ready to write off 2007 completely. I drifted through the Christmas season, throwing up decorations the week after Thanksgiving and dragging my family to every Christmas event I could find, all the while never really feeling the Christmas spirit. I invited the families for Christmas, then did all of my shopping online, hired someone to clean my house, ordered Christmas dinner, and when it was over wished I could rewind and do it one more time with feeling.

As New Year's drew near, I became more and more anxious. Although we were invited to my sister's house to celebrate, I just wanted to hide out until it was over. Bring on 2008! Then, the final insult: all 4 of us came down with colds, and Bear with pink eye. Happy New Year!

We went to the party and even though I was worried about drunk drivers the entire night, we all survived 2007. Now, 10 days into 2008, nobody has required a trip to the emergency room. Although a tree did fall on my parent's house, none have fallen on ours. This is already shaping up to be a good year. I'd better go knock on wood.