Jeaun Blogs

It is a strange day when I agree with most fo what bill oreilly has to say.

http://clips.mediamatters.org/static/video/oreilly-20060523-dailyshow.mov

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has produced two 60-second television spots focusing on what they call the "alleged" global warming crisis and the calls by some environmental groups and politicians for reduced energy use. The ads are airing in 14 U.S. cities from May 18 to May 28, 2006. These ads are a priceless example of good lobbyist propaganda at work. They even site scientific studies falsely.

A British TV Commercial for Testicular Cancer Checks
http://www.icr.ac.uk/everyman/rachelgetsfruity/flash.html

White House Celebrates Fifth Straight Year Without Oral Sex
The Onion
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43901

WASHINGTON, DC—With 2005 drawing to a close, the White House held a special ceremony in the East Room Saturday to commemorate its fifth year without any sort of oral-genital contact within its historic confines. "This administration has upheld its promise to restore dignity to the White House," President Bush said. "I can assure that no one—including myself, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, 'Scooter' Libby, or Condi Rice—has been the recipient, or provider, of the kind of unnatural, depraved, and frankly gross sexual act that, not too long ago, disgraced this office in the eyes of the world." Bush was then joined on stage by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Tom DeLay to cut a perfectly square, frostingless vanilla cake made especially for the occasion.

Here is the unedited version of the email I sent out to THE ENTIRE faculty of the school for which I work:

Last night I saw Al Gore's new movie An Incontinent Truth. It is a documentary that details his life long quest to educate people about global warming. I found this movie to be an extremely entertaining, enlightening, and assumption shattering experience. The scientific evidence that he has gathered is fascinating and terrifying. He pushes his politics aside and focuses on the moral obligation we have to give this planet to our children in a livable state.

Please consider taking some time to check this film out over the vacation. Here is a link to the preview if you are interested.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/

Have a wonderful summer,
Adam

Here are the responses that I got back:



It's "An INCONVENIENT Truth." Incontinent is something else entirely.

in just know you meant to say "inconvenient" as opposed to "incontinent." some
or our older faculty must bust you one upside the head (smile).

anyway, I TOTALLY agree with you thought i haven't seen the film YET.
i hear GREAT things about it and i look forward to seeing it soon.

Incontinent--he, he, he...I think you meant to write An Inconvenient Truth!

It looks great, Adam, I'm looking forward to seeing it. btw "inconvenient" is probably not a word that dyslexic people should be let loose on :-) David

Thanks for your recommendation to see Al Gore's film. It was one that we put on our to-see list, but now it's at the top of that list.

However, I think that your spell check did you an injustice. People who wear Depends know incontinent truths. The one that Gore is exposing is inconvenient.

incontinent? or inconvenient? 2 very different meanings...

I hope Al Gore wasn't incontinent during the filming!

Adam, it's an "inconvenient" truth. Incontinent is when you cannot hold your urine or feces.

Dear hermano, Did you mean "inconvenient" truth....I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair! Mirth aside, if Al Gore ran I would vote for him in about one milisecond...incontinent or otherwise! Ciao!

The whole subject really pisses me off, too... but I think the movie is
titled "An Inconvenient Truth", not "An Incontinent Truth". It's a humorous
twist, to be sure...

Are you pissed off too? I totally did not catch your mistake. I just read exactly what you meant.


and my follow up response.

The red faced embarrassment I feel over this particular spell check gone awry is only partially offset by the kind, supportive and humorous responses I received from our forgiving faculty. Thank you to those of you who still found the meaning behind my message. The movie is An Inconvenient Truth. Its playing at 68th Street and The Landmark Theater.

Adam

FDA Rejects Health Claim for Green Tea

By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press WriterTue May 9, 9:22 PM ET

There is no credible scientific evidence that drinking green tea reduces the risk of heart disease, federal regulators said Tuesday in rejecting a petition that sought to allow tea labels to make that claim.

The Food and Drug Administration said it reviewed 105 articles and other publications submitted as part of the petition but could find no evidence to support claims of the beverage's health benefits.

"FDA concludes there is no credible evidence to support qualified health claims for green tea or green tea extract and a reduction of a number of risk factors associated with CVD" or cardiovascular disease, Barbara O. Schneeman, director of the agency's Office of Nutritional Products, Labeling and Dietary Supplements, wrote in a letter denying the petition. The FDA posted the letter to its Web site Tuesday.

Ito En Ltd., a Japanese company that bills itself as the world's largest green tea company, and its U.S. subsidiary, Ito En (North America) Inc., petitioned the FDA in June 2005, seeking to make the claim that drinking at least five ounces of green tea a day may reduce the risk of heart disease.

A message left for a spokesman for Ito En (North America) Inc. was not immediately returned late Tuesday. A message left for the AAC Consulting Group, a Rockville, Md. company that filed the actual petition, also was not immediately returned.

Green tea is brewed from the leaves of Camellia sinensis, also known as Thea sinensis. Unlike black and oolong tea, green tea is made from unfermented tea leaves.

The FDA previously has said that green tea likely does not reduce breast, prostate or any other type of cancer risk.

Nonetheless, the belief that drinking green tea confers health benefits has driven its popularity over the last decade, the Tea Association of the United States has said.

A health claim, in the language of the FDA, characterizes the relationship between a substance and a reduction in the risk of contracting a particular disease.

___

On the Net:

Food and Drug Administration: http://www.fda.gov/

Tea Association of the United States: http://www.teausa.com/

I saw a Buddhist Zen Master speak this weekend at The Chapel of sacred mirrors. His name is Genpo Roshi and I was very impressed by the things he had to say. Here are two paraphrased quotes:

"When you allow yourself to be subjected to something, whether it is abuse, or the teachings of the Buddha, you become what you subject your self to. If you subject yourself to abuse then you can become an abuser, if you subject yourself to the Buddha, you can become the Buddha."

"My teacher said to me, 'I don't trust anyone who is not in contact with their vulnerable child.' At that time, in 1982, he was talking about not trusting me."

If you are looking for a beginning understanding of "The Way" I strongly recommend hearing Genpo Speak or picking up a copy of The Tao. A quote from The Tao:

"Intelligent people know others.
Enlightened people know themselves.

You can conquer others with power,
But it takes true strength to conquer yourself.

Ambitious people force their will on others,
But content people are already wealthy.

Prudent people will abide.
People unconquered by the idea of death will live long.
People who live according to their means last long."

Here is Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondent's dinner on Saturday. It is an unbelievable sight to watch Bush being forced to sit still with a smile on his face while a list of his failures is intelligently and accurately read aloud to him. We genuinely live in a great country where you can not-so-covertly tell a sitting President he is a screw up to his face and not end up on a CIA hit list. As my friend Dana said to me "it will make you laugh, it will make you cry. enjoy!"

Full Video

">Audio Only

STEPHEN COLBERT: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Before I begin, I've been asked to make an announcement. Whoever parked 14 black bulletproof S.U.V.'s out front, could you please move them? They are blocking in 14 other black bulletproof S.U.V.'s and they need to get out.

Wow. Wow, what an honor. The White House correspondents' dinner. To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper -- that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face. Is he really not here tonight? Dammit. The one guy who could have helped.

By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail. Mark Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert and tonight it's my privilege to celebrate this president. We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book.

Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.

I'm a simple man with a simple mind. I hold a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states. And I cannot wait to see how the Washington Post spins that one tomorrow. I believe in democracy. I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit.

In fact, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, welcome. Your great country makes our Happy Meals possible. I said it's a celebration. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it's not butter. Most of all, I believe in this president.

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. 32% means the glass -- it's important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash. Okay, look, folks, my point is that I don't believe this is a low point in this presidency. I believe it is just a lull before a comeback.

I mean, it's like the movie "Rocky." All right. The president in this case is Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed is -- everything else in the world. It's the tenth round. He's bloodied. His corner man, Mick, who in this case I guess would be the vice president, he's yelling, "Cut me, Dick, cut me!," and every time he falls everyone says, "Stay down! Stay down!" Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up, and in the end he -- actually, he loses in the first movie.

OK. Doesn't matter. The point is it is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face. So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

Now, there may be an energy crisis. This president has a very forward-thinking energy policy. Why do you think he's down on the ranch cutting that brush all the time? He's trying to create an alternative energy source. By 2008 we will have a mesquite-powered car!

And I just like the guy. He's a good joe. Obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She's a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma'am.

I'm sorry, but this reading initiative. I'm sorry, I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitist, telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American! I'm with the president, let history decide what did or did not happen.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will. As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!

Now, it's not all bad guys out there. Some are heroes: Christopher Buckley, Jeff Sacks, Ken Burns, Bob Schieffer. They've all been on my show. By the way, Mr. President, thank you for agreeing to be on my show. I was just as shocked as everyone here is, I promise you. How's Tuesday for you? I've got Frank Rich, but we can bump him. And I mean bump him. I know a guy. Say the word.

See who we've got here tonight. General Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They still support Rumsfeld. Right, you guys aren't retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld.

Look, by the way, I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire! Come on, we've got a stop-loss program; let's use it on these guys. I've seen Zinni and that crowd on Wolf Blitzer. If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle. Come on.

Jesse Jackson is here, the Reverend. Haven't heard from the Reverend in a little while. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

Justice Scalia is here. Welcome, sir. May I be the first to say, you look fantastic. How are you? [After each sentence, Colbert makes a hand gesture, an allusion to Scalia's recent use of an obscene Sicilian hand gesture in speaking to a reporter about Scalia's critics. Scalia is seen laughing hysterically.] Just talking some Sicilian with my paisan.

John McCain is here. John McCain, John McCain, what a maverick! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. This guy could have used a spoon! There's no predicting him. By the way, Senator McCain, it's so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir.

Mayor Nagin! Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center. And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a Mallomar, I guess is what I'm describing, a seasonal cookie.

Joe Wilson is here, Joe Wilson right down here in front, the most famous husband since Desi Arnaz. And of course he brought along his lovely wife Valerie Plame. Oh, my god! Oh, what have I said? [looks horrified] I am sorry, Mr. President, I meant to say he brought along his lovely wife Joe Wilson's wife. Patrick Fitzgerald is not here tonight? OK. Dodged a bullet.

And, of course, we can't forget the man of the hour, new press secretary, Tony Snow. Secret Service name, "Snow Job." Toughest job. What a hero! Took the second toughest job in government, next to, of course, the ambassador to Iraq.

Got some big shoes to fill, Tony. Big shoes to fill. Scott McClellan could say nothing like nobody else. McClellan, of course, eager to retire. Really felt like he needed to spend more time with Andrew Card's children. Mr. President, I wish you hadn't made the decision so quickly, sir.

I was vying for the job myself. I think I would have made a fabulous press secretary. I have nothing but contempt for these people. I know how to handle these clowns. In fact, sir, I brought along an audition tape and with your indulgence, I'd like to at least give it a shot. So, ladies and gentlemen, my press conference.

We currently live in an era of "Net Neutrality". What this means is that the company who provides you with your access to the internet, your ISP(Internet Service Provider), has no power over the content that you choose to view. They are a "neutral" intermediary between your computer and the content you wish to view. Internet service providers all over the country like AOL, Verizon and TimeWarner/Road Runner, are trying to get congress to legislate an end to net neutrality. A congressional committee is preparing to take the issue up next week. The ISPs feel that since they are providing you with the access, they should be able to control what websites and services you are able to view. This is a purely profit driven motive. Google is making millions of dollars by providing a search engine to people.


A scenario that could occur if net neutrality were to go away: Verizon would prefer you to use their search engine or a search engine that they have signed an exclusive agreement with, regardless of it being inferior to Google, because then Verizon would make a profit from your use of their search tool. If Verizon is your ISP they could legally block or slow down Google so that you would use their site instead. Another possibility deals with the realm of Voice Over IP (VOIP), a technology that lets you make long distance phone calls over the internet at greatly reduced rates. Vonage is the current leader in this industry, however, both Time Warner and Verizon are getting into the market. If Time Warner is your ISP and you are using their competitor Vonage for VOIP, they could choose to block Vonage and force you to use their own VOIP service instead. Even scarier are some things that are already happening.


Last year, Canada’s version of AT&T - Telus - blocked their Internet customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to workers with whom Telus was negotiating. Shaw, a major Canadian cable TV company, charges an extra $10 a month to subscribers who choose to use a competing Internet telephone service. Canada's laws may permit this, but do we want ours to?

Wenyi Wang, 47, is escorted from the camera stand by Secret Service, after she disrupted Hu's speech on the South Lawn of the White House. She interrupted the ceremony by shouting to President Bush to stop the Chinese president from "persecuting the Falun Gong."
(Charles Dharapak/ AP Photo )

An Inconvenient Truth is Al gore's new documentary on global warming. The trailer is amazing and the science is scary.

Watch the trailer and Visit the official website

"Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet’s climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced- a catastrophe of our own making. "

The weekly podcast of a question-answering ninja. I would like to elaborate, but the only explanation comes from watching...

Watch Video - Ask A Ninja: Question 14 "Ninja Gifts"

These are things I was glad to have, or we had to go get at inopportune times.

For the home:

• Bran muffins, raisin bran, bran flakes to sprinkle on other things (for constipation)
• Extra Tupperware, because people will bring you big pans of food, and it’s handy to freeze some of it, and keep some of it in the fridge. This way you don’t get tired of spinach lasagna right away.
• Milk and cereal and sandwich fixings and reheatable servings of comfort food (for me, Italian Soup and homemade mac and cheese).
• Dishwasher detergent, if you have a dishwasher. You won’t want to be doing dishes by hand, and it’s great for washing bottles.
• Quarters for laundry (if need be). You never want to run out of quarters.

For me:

• Stool softeners. I ran out. You’d be surprised at how constipated you are.
• Whatever over-the-counter pain killers are OK’d by your practitioner.
• Ice packs or peas. For your lady bits the first few days. It feels marvelous. I put peas in ziplock bags. They conform nicely and don’t leak water like ice does.
• Toilet paper. I was instructed to use plenty of toilet paper, and to not fold and re-wipe, to keep infection away. I went through more toilet paper than usual.
• Good pads. I’m not a pad girl, but I learned that Kotex pads are more comfortable and absorbent than generic. Kotex specifically isn’t necessary, but DO have pads on hand. Also liners, as you’ll move to them after a few weeks.

For nursing (*and bottle feeding):

• Comfy chair*. You’re going to be spending a lot of time sitting and feeding your baby, so having a chair that’s comfortable to sit in while feeding is important. I got an Ikea rocking chair, which is incredibly comfortable, but actually tips me backwards a little too much. I wish I had gotten a glider.
• Nursing pillow*. Your arms are going to get tired holding up your baby while feeding, and a nursing pillow helps. I had a boppy which was easy to conform to different chairs. I also had a (sigh) My Brest Friend, which has a better baby surface, but a weird wrap-around part that sucks if you’re trying to sit back. I finally figured out if I flipped the back of it up at an angle, it supported my back rather than being a horizontal lumbar gouger.
• Figure out where the kid sleeps. We had a Snuggle Nest, which was great for us, because it provided a (mostly psychological) barrier against rolling over onto the baby. We could also prop up our pillows high enough to be able to look at her while sleeping next to her. This was great hovering. You’d be surprised how often you wonder whether or not they’re breathing. We then acquired an Arms Reach cosleeper, which may have been a better choice from the start, as the Snuggle Nest makes for a very small nest in a queen size bed. The Arms Reach (and similar) put the baby right next to the bed, where you can still position yourself to hover and be able to reach over and put your hand on their sleeping chest to check for breathing. (This only really happened for about the first week, then we realized we didn’t have to be so paranoid. That cycle continued with many other things.) After six weeks or so, we moved to cosleeper to the foot of the bed, so we could sleep better since her noises always woke me up, and she was down to feeding once or twice a night.
• Nightlights*. Night feedings are MUCH easier on everyone with low light options. You don’t wake up as much, your baby doesn’t wake up as much, and anyone else in bed doesn’t either. Also, if you’re bottle feeding, nightlights that take you from your bedroom to the kitchen mean not having to flip on blinding overhead lights. We used the oven light in the kitchen, and plug-into-the-wall lights in the hallway and bedroom. At first I needed more light in bed (I nursed in bed), so I used our reading lamp. After a few weeks, 80 and I were good at nursing, and we could do it by the dim light of the plug-in nightlight by the bed.
• Prenatal vitamins. You’re supposed to keep taking vitamins if you’re breastfeeding, so don’t run out.
• Massive water bottles. I drank so much water — at least a gallon a day — in the first few weeks. My routine was to drink half a liter (at least) every time I nursed. I kept a bottle in the living room, and one in the bedroom that I filled up before going to bed.
• Extra burp cloths*. We had 12, and they weren’t enough for the first few weeks. Even if your baby isn’t a spit-upper (ours wasn’t really), you still end up with milk on them and you.
• Nursing pads. These are like menstrual pads for your boobs. They’re circular, and fit under your clothes to wick breastmilk that leaks. I have some rewashable ones, and some Lansinoh disposable ones. The rewashable ones I wear at home since they’re a little bulkier, and because they don’t have a waterproof barrier which means they can leak through. That they don’t have a waterproof barrier means they breathe, and you don’t have to worry about things getting dank. I wash them with the baby clothes, with Dreft. The disposable ones are like disposable pads–they have some sort of magical chemical that soaks up liquid. They’re also waterproof, and thin. This makes them great for when I go out in public and don’t want to leak or look like I’m smuggling yamakas.
• Easy-to-use nursing tops for at night. I bought a bunch of spaghetti strap tank tops, and pulled the one strap off to nurse.
• Nursing tops and bras in general. I didn’t have any nursing tops. I had two nursing bras. Almost all of my teeshirts were too tight. So, I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere. I still had a small chest post-baby, so lots of the nursing top designs didn’t work (they require a certain amount of curve to fold fabric below). I bought some teeshirts that fit a little looser, and were longer. I bought two more nursing bras (one fancy one and one cheap one from Motherhood [that's a store, commonly found in the mall]). I bought some nursing tank tops from Target. This was summer, mind you. My post-partum doula gave me the tip of wearing a tank top under a teeshirt (this is for us with the small chests), so you can pull up your shirt and pull down the tank to nurse, and you leave very little bare.

For the baby:

• Extra pacifiers (aka dummy, binky, nuk). Controversy aside, we chose to use a pacifier occasionally. If you’re going to have them around, make sure to have more than one. They go missing. We got a really great gift of a little pacifier holder, which keeps the thing clean in the diaper bag, and helps you put the pacifier back in the same place, thus increasing the chance that you won’t use it.
• Really good receiving blankets for swaddling. Some blankets are better than others, and swaddling tightly meant the difference between 80 sleeping or not. You will not believe how easily a newborn will wiggle their arms free, then freak out at having their arms free. They should be big enough. They should have a bit of stretch to them. Alternately, you could get swaddler thingies with sleep sacks. They are to a swaddling blanket what a sheet is to a shirt. Especially if you have a Houdini, the velcro means swaddling them up tight, and their shape means less change of wiggling an arm up out the neck hole.
• Pampers with the color strip. We decided to cut ourselves some slack for the first few weeks, and used disposables. We tried Huggies, but if 80 was in them too long, the gel would come out of the diaper and onto her butt. Pampers never had this problem. Plus, they have a magical yellow line that turns blue with urine. It was handy to know when 80 had a wet diaper without having to take it off or stick a finger in the side.
• Waterproof pads for 80 to lay on. They’re soft, but waterproof, and we laid them under her when she hung out on the couch, so none of her many liquids would end up on the couch. It also works as an impromptu changing pad.
• Thermometer and infant acetaminophen. If your newborn may have a temperature, you don’t want to mess around. You need to have a thermometer to check, and Tylenol to bring the fever down.
• Couple of baby reference books. You’ll be infinitely fascinated to read them now, and it’s handy when things happen like scratched eyes, weird poop, or what developmental things you can expect.
• 3-4 boxes of wipes (or cloth ones). We went through a lot at first–sometimes two wipes per poo diaper.
• Long sleeve onesies with mitts for night. Unless it’s 90 degrees at night, a newborn is more likely to be cold than hot, especially at night. Some long-sleeve onesie have little flaps at the end, so you can fold it over and keep their hands warm. It means they’ll sleep uninterrupted longer.
• Hats. 80 wore a hat to bed for the first week, since she got cold so quickly.
• A few onesies in kimono style. It means not having to pull a onesie over your newborn’s head, which for a new parent is one of the trickier handling movies.
• Bottoms that snap open. If your kid is wearing anything that has a bottom to it, I’d go for the ones that have a closure at the bottom. You don’t want to entirely undress your child for a diaper change. Also, I’m not a fan of pjs that have a zipper from the foot all the way to the neck–you have to completely unzip them to change a diaper, and their little bellies get cold.
• Nail clippers. I hear some people just tear newborn fingernails, or bite them off. I didn’t find either of those feasible. We have a good pair of clippers, tiny ones with a round plastic handle so they’re easy to use. We waited till 80 was asleep. We’ve managed not to cut her, but I have a feeling you don’t pass through the gauntlet of parenthood until you do.
• Laundry detergent. Before, I’d buy whatever was on sale. Now, we have three detergents. Sale stuff for the adult clothes*, the generic equivalent of Dreft for baby clothes/blankets/burp clothes, and Tiny Bubbles for diapers and covers. (Apparently Dreft does bad things to polyurethane covers.)
• Car seat! Sure, we had acquired a car seat, but we hadn’t yet tried putting it the car for the ride home from the hospital. When we got to the part where we put the baby in the car seat and, oh my god, they’re going to let us take her home, we discovered that a piece was missing. Luckily, we had friends with a carseat we could borrow to get our kid home. You can imagine you’d be someone nervous about putting your baby in a carseat for the first time, so I highly suggest you figure out how the thing works, and clip it into the car at least once before you do it with your baby. Of course, if you give birth at home, or plan on walking home, this isn’t a problem.
• Diaper/feeding app. Ok, or a notebook. Jason and I found an app called Baby Geek that let us track diapers (which specified the three varieties: 1, 2, and 1+2), as well as feedings. As we were both feeding her bottles and I was breastfeeding, it was important to keep track of. I continued to keep track of nursing until recently. I did switch to an notebook eventually.

So there you go. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

*By “adult clothes”, I mean clothes that Jason and I wear, not latex facemasks and furry animal costumes.

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First night in the crib, originally uploaded by sundaykofax.

Jason put her in the crib head-to-the-right for her first night in her room (aka: the office). This morning I woke to the sound of music. 80 had rotated herself and was kicking the foot keyboard you see here.

Some babies cry when they wake up, this one plays you a song.

Quarter roll

Originally uploaded by sundaykofax

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Hot mama haircut, originally uploaded by sundaykofax.

I told the stylist that I was getting my hair cut because my baby was starting to grab fistfuls of it, but I didn’t want a “mom haircut”. I think this does the trick nicely.

How I should have ended part 3 was to tell you that I was rushed with sweet, sweet mama-hormones that made me feel giddy and happy, that it was awesome and amazing and wonderful. It was. I am so lucky to have had such a great birth. I keep saying to Jason, “I could do this professionally!”, and he keeps cringing.

I don’t know if you can feel the pressure drop, or see the clouds looming, but now I’m going to tell you about the bad things that happened. Luckily, none of them are really all that bad. All were temporary, with no lasting effect.

80 was put on my chest by Jason, and was there for a short amount of time before someone calmly said that she wasn’t breathing real well, that she still had liquid in her lungs, and it needed to come out. They’d leave her on my chest unless her breathing didn’t improve fast enough, at which point they’d take her to the warming table just a few feet away. A nurse filliped her foot, and explained that getting the baby to cry would stimulate her breathing. I hadn’t been sure what to do with 80, other than to explain that I was her mama, so I took this opportunity to start mothering. I told her she should cry, that it would make her feel better. “Come on little baby, give me a cry. It’s OK, let it out. Go ahead, cry, baby.”

Soon there were hands reaching in, to suction out 80’s nose and mouth. She wasn’t breathing better fast enough. They told me that they wanted to take her to the warming table. If she didn’t improve quickly enough, they were going to need to take her to the nursery. This all seemed so reasonable, I decided not to freak out.

This is where the stories diverge. This is no longer the story of me and the baby who was connected to me. Now 80’s story is her own, from now on. I’ll tell hers first, then go back and tell mine.

I appreciated the calmness of everyone, and their reasonable ratcheting up of interventions, rather than panicking and rushing her off. Of course, if 80 had been in more trouble, I would expect them to take more immediate action.

They brought 80 over to the warming table, where they were able to suction out her nose and mouth better on her back (since she had been belly down on me), and they put an oxygen mask next to her, so it would waft over her. Jason stood by her while they attended to her, continuing to suction (with those little rubber bulb things). Jason must have come back over to me, because when they told us that she wasn’t improving fast enough and she needed to go to the nursery, I looked at Jason. I told him to go with her (this seemed so obvious to me), but he hesitated. I told him A’Nova would be with me, that I’d be fine. 80 needed him, and I needed him to be with her. So they left.

A great way to get more oxygen into a baby is to make them cry, and a great way to make a newborn cry is to give them a bath. So, Jason watched nurses adeptly bath 80, then take her over to a hospital crib, where they attached monitors to her, to keep track of her heart rate and such.

I’m not sure what everything is, but there’s a baby lo-jack on her ankle to thwart baby snatchers. She looks like she’s wearing sparkle eyeshadow from the ointment.

A pediatrician came in to talk to me, who said she was improving, but they’d like to keep her under observation (and on monitors) overnight. I asked if her lack of oxygen would have any lasting effect. Her answer was great. It was something like “Please, fetuses don’t get 100% oxygen in the womb, and they’re fine. It’s not enough to worry about.” Excellent.

So 80 stayed in the nursery overnight. By the time I saw her again, she was much improved. The nurse had brought her in to feed, and said she’d be back for 80 in 20 minutes or so. She indicated that 80 was doing well, and she might take her sweet time coming back for her.

I nursed 80 for the first time. It was kind of a non-event. Your milk doesn’t come in for a day or two, so what 80 was nursing was colostrum (a word I knew well from my days of bottle-feeding calves). It’s a lot thicker and there’s less of it, so I worried a bit that it wasn’t enough. I was assured that it was, that newborns’ stomachs are teeny anyway. Jason and I had gone to a breastfeeding class, there’s all this hovering of nurses, and talk of having access to lactation consultants, so I was more paranoid than usual about nursing going well.

The nurse didn’t come back for 80 for at least an hour. We got to hang out with our brand new baby. We mostly stared at her. That’s all I remember doing. When she’d be in my arms, I’d have my neck craned down so my face was inches from hers.

We stayed in the hospital a second night, then went home the next day. There was some concern that 80 was jaundiced enough to need intervention, so we were to go to our (fantastic) pediatrician the next day.

Subsequently, we spent a full week going to the hospital every day to have blood drawn, then on to the pediatrician’s to get the results and decide what to do. The course of action was to supplement her feeding (with more feeding). Besides looking yellow, a symptom of jaundice is sleepiness. We spent two weeks trying to keep our sleepy baby awake long enough to nurse, then take a bottle. That may be part of the reason she grew 1.5 inches in two weeks.

The jaundice went away, her breathing hasn’t been a problem since the first night, and we now have a very healthy, very happy baby.

Things I learned:

• If a newborn is flaring its nostrils, it may not be getting enough oxygen. It’s a handy observation.
• Don’t dress a jaundiced baby in yellow. It doesn’t help.
• If you call your parents to tell them you gave birth, don’t tell them about the breathing problem, unless you have time to update them that the baby is improving.