Happy Thanksgiving MTers! May your day be full of family, friends, food, and fun. We're off to spend the day with my in-laws and will eat ALL DAY long! Isn't crazy how we stuff ourselves silly on holidays like this? Its nice to step back on days like this and take a minute to appreciate things in our lives. I am Thankful for my family, for my health, for an uneventful pregnancy (so far so good), for the support of my DH in my choice to stay home to raise our children, and for all of you! I'd go crazy without my fellow parents out there in the trenches!

A friend of mine sent me this article posted on CNN.com about the recall of Aqua Dot bead toys. Apparently the reason for the recall is not lead, rather it is because the coating on the beads contains a chemical that once metabolized converts into GHB! GHB is some pretty scary stuff.

"In higher doses, it can cause people to go into a coma. It can cause seizures. It can cause something known as hypotonia, where all your muscles just become very flaccid.

DH and I have friends getting married this weekend. The bride and groom are classmates of his from law school and he works with one of them. We weren't invited to the wedding, which at first we felt a little bummed about, but we figure that they are keeping it to their closest family and friends. Yesterday at work DH and several of his colleagues got on the subject of proper wedding gift giving etiquette, specifically how much money to give or how much to spend on a gift. One co-worker said that the minimum was $200 no matter what. DH was a little taken aback by this, as we have never been able to afford being that generous. After dinner he and I were discussing this trying to figure out if our friends have considered us cheap.

My friend Jamie sent me a link to this really funny clip on YouTube. This mom took all the things she says to her kids in 24 hours and sums it up in less than 3 minuts all to the tune of the William Tell Overature. Check it out here. This mom, Aninta Refroe is not only funny, but she hits the nail on the head. I think we all feel like this some days! Enjoy!

UPDATE: I just read in the comments that the link to YouTube has been take down and that the clip is on her site.

Hi everyone. I've been lurking a lot lately because I haven't had the time to be online, but I have seen much discussion lately about pregnancy and babies. So I thought I'd give a little update. I recently found out that I'm pregnant with #2 (I’m about 9 weeks along) and unlike my first pregnancy I have had the WORST case of nausea. So this morning sickness experience is new to me, and it totally sucks! I've been following Minnmom and Tessajp's stories (I feel your pain ladies), but I don't feel like I need medication to ease it yet... So far, I've been following my Dr's advice of eating often and avoiding an empty stomach. My diet looks kind of pitiful: crackers, ginger ale, string cheese, peanut butter granola bars, and pretzels are what gets me through the day.

I know we've talked about this issue before, but a new study was published yesterday in the Journal of Pediatrics that concluded babies who watch these so called education videos showed a smaller vocabulary when compared with their peers. According to the article in the Boston Globe

researchers found that, among babies ages 8 months to 16 months, every hour spent daily watching programs such as "Brainy Baby" or "Baby Einstein" translated into six to eight fewer words in their vocabularies as compared with other children their age.

I am not surprised. I actually see this with some of DS's playmates. One mommy loves these videos, and swears that her DS has learned so much from them. However, this little one says far fewer words than our little friends that don't watch much TV. But on the other hand, I would also be curious to see if the journal article addresses the fact that babies reach milestones at different ages. Perhaps that fact had something to do with the outcome.

Back in June my DS climbed out of his crib. In my previous post about it many of you offered some great suggestions. We crossed our fingers and he didn't do it again. Thank God! But, he still wasn't sleeping well at night. Sleep has been such a big issue for him from the time he was 7-8 months old and every time I thought I had found the solution it never really worked. One night three weeks ago, I was trying to rock DS back to sleep and he declared, "done!" climbed down from my lap and curled up on the couch and immediately fell back asleep. Naturally, I stayed with him until morning. DH and I discussed the event, and it became very clear to us - DS was done with his crib. His actions that night spoke volumes

DH and I are HUGE fans of HBO's show The Sopranos. We've watched it from the beginning and even own the first few seasons on DVD. As you might have guessed we were so psyched to see how writer/producer David Chases was going to wind up the show in the series finale. Would Tony go out with a bang? Would he get pinched? Would he turn to the Feds and go into hiding? A lot of expectations were placed on that final episode to wrap up so many dangling storylines. And...it totally disappointed me. My exact words after the last scene was, "That's it?!!! That sucked!" It answered NOTHING! Boo!

So at 2:30 AM I heard him cry (his usual I'm up I need you cry), and there he was standing in the middle of his room!! I was like, what the F? He's only 16 months and so not a climber. I think the rail fell (maybe I didn't lock it in place well enough?? Maybe he figured out how to drop it?? Who knows...) My first check, was he hurt. No. He stopped crying as soon as I picked him up, I checked for bumps on the head and he seemed ok. So I rocked him back to sleep as I tried to decide what to do next. I decided to put him back in the crib. When we got up in the morning I noticed something very interesting. His books were all over the floor and not neatly stacked by his rocking chair. The drapes had been pushed aside. Hummm. So here is my theory of what really happened last night. The little dare devil climbed down, checked out his books, then played a little and got scared because he didn't know where we were or because it was quiet and dark. I honestly think if he had fallen during his climb he would have cried/screamed immediately and I didn't hear that.

Now the dilemma: move him to a toddler bed now or wait and see if he does it again. Anyone got any advice?

Over the last few weeks DS has decided that he wants to go outside for a walk first thing in the morning. We aren't talking 9 A.M. here; it’s more like 6 A.M. At that hour, I haven't even made the coffee yet. He toddles over to our door and grabs one shoe and then brings it to me. So I say to him, "Oh, I see you want to go outside." He responds excitedly, "Outside, outside!" and then launches into a string of his cute toddler babble. Most mornings I am not really up for seeing my neighbors out walking their dogs this early while I am still dressed in my PJs. But, DS LOVES these morning walks, so I give in.

We live 435 miles and 8 hours away from my parents. The distance never really felt all that far until my son was born. I missed them (and still do by the way). I missed being able to just drop by to see my mom and dad and let them play with the baby, or have them come over just to give me a break for an hour or two. With my MIL, who lived 4 miles away, I did these things and it was great. But, she wasn't my mom. To help bridge to distance we email photos just about daily and talk several times a week on the phone. But I was totally bummed that they would miss out on seeing their grandson grow up. That was until I discovered web chatting.

Back in February I posted a diary entry about our friends infant daughter, Meghan, who was diagnosed with at age 5 months with brain cancer. Today is a big day for Baby Meghan, they are doing an MRI to see if the two rounds of chemotherapy have worked. So far her dad says that most of the news they have received from all of her tests have been hopeful. This MRI is the big one though. So lets all hope for some good news, please keep your fingers crossed and keep her in your thoughts and prayers. I just keep thinking of little Meghan fighting for her life. Despite vomiting and diarrhea, her dad says she has been hanging in there like a little trooper. She has also had to have several blood transfusions to help bring her white blood cell counts up. (Just another example of why it is so important to donate blood...) She's in good spirits and giving the doctors and nurses lots of big smiles.