Vaccines Part II

Today the H1N1 flu vaccine is available to all Albertans over the age of 6 months. I am not sure what to do. It all comes down to the risks - if my son gets the vaccine and something terrible happens, it will be a direct result of my actions, probably leading to unspeakable guilt. But if I don't get him the vaccine, and something terrible happens, somehow would I be any less responsible for the results? My brain says no but my irrational emotional self says yes.

Somehow, if he gets sick from H1N1, I feel like it's due to chance - simple statistics, but if he get sick from the vaccine, I would feel responsible. Two bad possible outcomes, but differant feelings. I think that somehow I feel like I could reduce or mitigate the risks associated with not getting the vaccine - I can keep him home, use hand sanitizer, wear a mask - and if he gets sick after all that, I have done what I could and the responsibility is off of me. But with the vaccine, I am helpless to influence whether an ill effect arises - in effect I'm rolling the dice and just waiting for the result. There is not a thing I can do to change whether an adverse reaction occurs, and somehow if something does happen, ultimately I chose to accept that risk, and must bear the consquences.

I think I am going to get him vaccinated, but the above struggle will never cease in my mind when it comes to vaccines, no matter how much I read or think or feel. This situation is taken to the extreme with parents who avoid all vaccines for their children, and I think it's easy for someone looking from the outside into such a situation to chastise that parent and dismiss their fears as emotional and irrational, but until you hold a little life in your arms and actually have to choose between the risks, I don't think one can fully understand the weight of such a decision. I think the only thing that we can do, is try to change the way that we think about the risks and work with people to make an educated decision.

Yummy Baby Food

One of the things that I really wanted to do when Luke started eating solid foods was to make my own baby food, and aside from iron fortified cereals, I have stuck with it! It's really not as hard as one might think - usually I will make a large batch and than freeze at least 3 or 4 meals worth in ice cube trays for use later. As he's gotten older I've adapted a lot of the regular foods we eat to be more baby friendly (less salt mostly), or I will cook a slightly different version of in a separate pan alongside our meal. Below are a few of the simple recipes that I use. For everything else, there's Slap Chop!

Mashed Sweet Potato

1 medium sweet potato
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp sour cream
dash of nutmeg, mild curry powder or cinnamon

Peal & chop potato. Steam or boil until tender, drain. In a bowl, mash or puree sweet potato. Stir in butter, sour cream & choice of spices. Variations: include peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower etc. with sweet potatoes when steaming/boiling. You may also mix in some finely diced cheese or cooked meat.

Favourite Apple Sauce

1 Apple pealed, cored & finely chopped
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp raisins, chopped
dash of cinnamon
water - a few tablespoons

Melt butter over medium heat. Add all ingredients except water and fry for 1 - 2 minutes, until apples well coated. Add a little bit of water, stir well and cover. Stir occasionally, adding a little water if pan gets too dry. Cook until the apples are very soft and liquid is reduced (about 7 minutes). Cool slightly before serving - puree or mash if necessary. Delicious by itself or mixed with oatmeal.

Oatmeal with Fruit

1/2 cup whole milk
3 tbsp quick oats

Mix milk and oats in a small pot over medium high heat. Stir often until mixture comes to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low, and stirring occasionally, simmer until thick (about 3 minutes).

With Banana:
Add oatmeal to a mashed banana, mix & serve

With Blueberries:
Add 1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries at the beginning of cooking. Instead of 3 tbsp oats, use 4 tbsp (due to extra moisture in the berries). Make sure berries are cooled before serving.

With Peaches:
Score a peach (mark and X on the bottom with a sharp knife). Drop in a pot of boiling water for 1 minute. Remove peach from hot water, peal and dice (remove pit). Add peach to oatmeal about halfway through cooking. Allow to cool before serving.

Mind Dump

In the past almost three weeks, I have sat down numerous times in an attempt to craft an interesting and witty blog entry, but I have either become distracted by the adventures/misadventures of the 10 month old who has taken over my house, or I have had to work, or do stuff for basement renovations (ALMOST DONE!!!) or I have simply not had the mental energy to get something meaningful in writing. So here we go again and I'm determined that this time a post will result! My advance apologies for the random and possibly uninteresting content...hopefully after this mind dump, my inspiration returns.

1) George Bush came to Edmonton yesterday. There were clips on TV of people protesting and calling him a terrorist and a war monger and I had to wonder how much these people have actually educated themselves on the factual events of the past 9 years. Personally, I don't know enough about Bush outside of what the media has told me to really pass judgment on his presidency, however, not living under a rock, I can appreciate that he was stuck in an impossible situation in terms of the options available to him on that fateful day in September of 2001, and that most likely no matter what he had done, his decision would have been unpopular at some point. So to the protesters - maybe if you spent some time presenting specific and factual information about the issues from a rational perspective instead of yelling twisted rhetoric, people would care what you have to say!

2) I read a book about the prevalence of porn in our culture these days and the effect it is having on relationships, individuals and families. Extremely interesting - definitely a read I would recommend (Pornified by Pamela Paul). Reader beware for graphic and more than slightly disturbing content at times.

3) I like to think of myself as a better than average cook (another book recommendation here: Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph Hallinan) and I made a casserole last night. With my new found knowledge of the often faulty human tendency to think of one's self as above average, I can't say that I could impartially declare it a success, but it was a Mexican sweet potato casserole with homemade enchilada sauce and I thought it was pretty good. I bought WAY too many sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving and have been trying to incorporate them into our meals (when I am motivated enough to cook...) so that they don't rot on my pantry floor and ruin the hardwood. Tonight...sweet potato lasagna anyone?

4) I am fascinated with anything to do with the brain, and have learned some super interesting stuff lately. Some random and interesting facts: a) if you are happy and you like your food, you absorb more nutrients from it. b) Pain is very subjective, so if you take 100 people and apply the same injury or stimulus, there will be a WIDE range of sensitivities as evidenced by brain scans. Take that, inflexible natural birth advocates. c) We are more prejudiced than we think we are and our brains give it away.

5) People like to talk about themselves (count how mant times the word "I" appears in the preceding 4 points). Here's hoping that at least one of the 4 parts of my mini ego trip was interesting to someone!

Full of cliches

We've all got a couple of "those" friends. You open up your Facebook, looking for something exciting or interesting going on in your friends' lives, and instead you get: "Jane Smith (name changed to protect feelings) is learning if u dont love u wont be hurt but u will never truley live". Seriously Jane? That's it? That's how you're feeling right now? Why not just permanently change your status to "Jane Smith hasn't had an original thought in years, and gets all her opinions from Entertainment Tonight and US Weekly"? Now, anyone who is my friend on Facebook is probably rolling their eyes by now. Typical examples of my status include: "mmm (insert food type here)" or "is busy" (I know, thanks, that was worth wasting 6 minutes of company time to find out), or best of all: "thinks her baby is the most wonderful and original baby EVER and wants to tell you about all the boring little details that apparently seem amazing to her sleep deprived and hormone addled brain!" And matching photos, great (as you prepare to stab yourself).

If you're nodding seriously in agreement right now, maybe we shouldn't be friends. NO NO I'm kidding, please don't un-friend me. It will mean days of obsessing and pouring over my list trying to figure out who you are so I can hate you back, and I will probably cry when I see you in the grocery store (you probably won't recognize me anyway since we haven't talked since that awkward encounter on the bus 8 years ago, but I saw the drunken pictures of you that your friend tagged you in last week), or when I see a witty comment you leave on some mutual friend's wall, because their status is SOOO interesting. I'll do better, I promise! I'll poke you and send you virtual gifts, list you as my smartest friend in that note and invite you to be my farm neighbour!

I don't even remember what I wanted to write about, but seriously, let's get lives people! The cliches aren't ridiculous because they're not true, they're ridiculous because if you are sitting writing them on Facebook 20 times a day, you probably are spending a little less time with the people who matter most, and having fewer new and exciting "moments of truth". I know, we all have Facebook to keep in touch with those people that live faraway that we never get to see, but really, let's try and see and/or talk to as many of our friends and family in "real life" as we can, and get on Skype or spring the buck for that occasional long distance call, because the memory of one friend's real live laughter is a greater treasure than all the LOLs we will ever have.