Life in the slow lane. Or maybe at the stop sign. Or maybe it's actually on the side of the road...or in a parking lot. Scratch that...maybe it's in the junk yard....

I have nothing new to say.

Nada.

....Other than that being a mother is definitely less-rewarding than one would initially believe.

Sometimes.

Many times.

 I'm just saying the output one gives versus the input one receives is not equal, how's that?

Parenting is often an over-rated life event.

My daughter in Utah has been annoying her sister and bad-mouthing me behind my back. Nothin' new there. I pretend I don't know the current slander she's spewing to her sister, and I move on. Most of the time. And often after venting hurt feelings to my hubby.

My oldest does have my only granddaughter out there in Utah ya know, so I have no choice but to grit my teeth and ignore the occasional back stabs. It does hurt. It does get old. But there's no point in addressing a behavior that would only be egged on and encouraged by other relatives who have their own personal agendas.

I do have other less savory words for that situation, but since I'm blog-stalked by KC relatives who report back to said daughter I can't really say what I think on that one. It would truly bite me in the bum at some point I think.

My daughter in Lamar and grandsons are both doing well. Dayton has grown an inch and a pound. That's lovely. Evan is learning to like his new brother, or at least pretend that he does. LOL. I really cannot wait until these boys get older so I can watch them playing together. I think it's going to be a hoot.

My son in KY has a secret that I'm still not sure he wants me to tell broadly. All I can say is that Ron and I will probably head out to KY for a visit next June. *snicker* I'm absolutely NO GOOD at secrets. Doesn't my child know this by now?

Umm...we've heard nothing more from Jr, my oldest 18 yr old stepson lately. I think he's ticked we didn't order more graduation announcements. But, see, the problem we had with that was he and his mother refused to tell us the cost, what they'd look like, etc, they wanted us to just blindly give them a number and they would order for us, then bill us. Uh-huh. His mother is a bit of a money-grubber so we couldn't trust to go there. We asked for 3 thinking that that would keep us out of the hundreds and thousands category. We'll make more elsewhere if needed. There was just too few details and too much evasive behavior going on there, although I have no doubt we/I/Ron will be blamed as horrid awful parents/stepparents for "not caring" or some such ridiculous crap with no regard to Jr and his mother's joint snowball efforts in this.

Whatever. The game with that one is nearly over. We aren't gonna play along much longer.

Ryan is doing great, but he's gotten a bit lazy around the house, as has Ron. I have too though. I guess we're all equal in that.

Ryan has a lot of high school marching band stuff going on right now. He's traveling tomorrow as a matter of fact. Ron mentioned wanting to go watch the band compete, and I hope HE (not me) does. I truly do. Ron and I don't seem to be getting along well of late. Some time apart might be just the thing.

And Ben, well, he's always precious. He's finally well again. He's been working on a lot of catch-up homework since he was out all last week, and he likes it. Weird, eh? The boy LOVES school work.

I know a mother isn't supposed to admit to comparing her kids, but one cannot help but notice the differences are pretty major. Ben is very unlike his brother Max was in regards to school.

This kid doesn't have to be drug from underneath the dining room table to work on the wadded up assignments sent home in his backpack. It's incredible. There's no fighting, kicking, screaming, and no "You grab his legs, I'll get the arms" with this one when it comes to homework.

This kid actually keeps his homework sheets in the homework folder in his back pack. No joke. I don't have to dig through the trash can to see where they've been hidden this time. They aren't under his bed, hidden behind a potted plant in the entryway, or stuffed down inside the couch. They're actually IN the kids' backpack where they should be.

To make it even better when I come home from work Ben is usually doing or has already done his homework without being told. It's phenomenal. How could I not be absolutely enchanted when I'm being spared all the battles and drama I endured prior to Ben?

Newsweek Article on Grandparent Favoritism via evolution's standards

An Evolutionary Edge


How grandmas may play favorites.

By Sharon Begley
NEWSWEEK

Published Nov 12, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Nov 23, 2009

The question is asked in every language, in every era: "So, dear, when will you give me grandchildren?" Darwin would approve.

At least he would if the "grandma hypothesis" is right. According to this idea, the reason women—uniquely among primates—outlive their child-bearing years is that a female who survives past menopause can contribute to the care of her children's children, improving their chances of reaching adulthood. Natural selection favors behavior that increases an individual's genetic contribution to future generations; surviving long enough to help grandkids is thus an evolutionary adaptation.

Too bad data don't support this intriguing notion. In some studies, a grandmother living nearby was indeed associated with better survival of grandchildren, as the hypothesis predicts. But other studies found no such benefit. Leslie Knapp, a biological anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, and her graduate student Molly Fox wondered if the inconsistency reflected a basic fact of genetics—namely, that because of how the X chromosome is passed down from parents to children, grandmothers are more closely related to some grandkids than to others.

Here's why. A paternal grandmother, like all women, has two X chromosomes. She passes one to her son (who gets his Y chromosome from Dad, which is why he's a he). He then passes grandma's X—the one and only X he has—to his daughter. But Dad passes his Y chromosome to his son, who therefore does not carry his paternal grandma's X. A maternal grandmother, too, passes one of her X's to her daughter; there is a 50–50 chance that that X will be transmitted to the daughter's child, of either sex. A maternal grandmother, therefore, has only a 50–50 chance that her X will be transmitted to a grandchild. A little math shows that maternal grandmothers are related to granddaughters and grandsons equally, for an "X-relatedness" of 25 percent. But paternal grandmothers are twice as close to granddaughters (50 percent) and not at all to grandsons (zero percent), explains Knapp. It may seem arbitrary to focus on X, one of 23 chromosomes, but it has 8 percent (1,529) of all our genes, including some for fertility and intelligence, which affect reproductive success.

Many of those earlier, inconsistent tests of the grandma hypothesis lumped together both kinds of grandmas (maternal and paternal) and both sexes of grandkids. Given the different degrees of X-relatedness, says Knapp, "we decided to look at the data from a genetic perspective. Since it is adaptive to favor those with whom we share the most genes, evolution should favor women who invest in grandchildren in a way that mirrors X-relatedness."

She, Fox, and colleagues analyzed existing data on the survival of 43,000 children in seven traditional societies, from rural farming villages in Japan and Malawi to towns in Germany and Canada, from the 1600s to today. "The most striking effect was of the paternal grandmother," says Fox. In six of the seven societies, having a paternal grandmother nearby improved the survival of granddaughters (50 percent X-relatedness) by up to 4.5-fold, but for some unknown reason decreased the survival of grandsons (zero percent) by 8 to 29 percent. And a boy had a greater chance of survival if he lived with his maternal grandmother (25 percent X-relatedness) than with his paternal grandmother (zero percent). In four of the seven societies, a girl had a better chance of survival if she lived with her paternal grandmother (50 percent) than her maternal grandmother (25 percent).

In other words, the effect of a grandmother perfectly tracked the DNA. "The higher the X-relatedness," the scientists write in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, "the more beneficial effect the grandmother has on that child's" survival. That the correlation held across four continents and four centuries suggests a biological, not cultural, explanation.

But what? There is no evidence grandmothers consciously treat grandsons and granddaughters differently, or a son's children different from a daughter's. The best guess is that grandchildren transmit some signal of genetic relatedness, such as resemblance or a pheromone, which Grandma unconsciously uses to apportion how much she invests in different grandkids. Grandmothers will surely recoil at the very idea, which is why the reader is advised not to leave this column lying around during a multigenerational Thanksgiving.

Doctor's aren't Gods

So, I received my H1N1 shot today through the Student Health Center here on campus. They were offering it to the chronically ill/immuno comprimised students, faculty and staff only at this point. Now I can quit worrying whenever my employees come in coughing and running fevers that I'm going to catch H1N1 from them because they're too broke to stay home. The last thing I need is a prolonged flu. I'm still coughing from the bronchitis of 3 weeks ago.

I did have two red flags of concern at the health center, and MAYBE I should have spoken up. I'm often afraid to as it's rude and I don't like to have that kind of reputation, you know, of being the "problem maker". However, with my medical experiences to date I realize it's important to say something. It's one of those quandries. My point? Oh yeah.

1.  The nurse giving me the injection did not wear gloves or any protective anything for herself. After the injection I bled, just a pin prick yes, but she dabbed it with a cotton ball she held in her bare hand. That is ASKING for a transmission of some kind to occur in the medical field.

Why would she presume that she, the medical worker, does not need protection from patients? That's outright idiocy in today's world. What if she did this and had a torn cuticle or a papercut and the patient's blood, no matter how little or microscopic, got into her wound? Does she not realize she could be putting herself in jeopardy by not following safety standards with patients?

That leads to....

2. See, that makes me worry about what other "safe" practices they/she isn't following. What if the patient BEFORE me had AIDS? What if a microscopic drop of blood was on the nurse, she didn't wash her hands, she touched my needle, and injected that into me? I'm not crazy here, trust me. I'm not. What I'm describing is exactly what causes diseases to spread within the medical setting.

3. When I walked in the room she already had a needle full and ready for me. All I did was set down my purse and roll up my sleeve. While I'm sure this seems convenient I don't know HOW she filled the needle. I suspect it didn't come pre-filled. So she planned ahead, I get that. However, I also distrust because I can't validate anything myself, and it is MY arm this injection went into. Did she use a multi-use vial? Did she dispose of my needle and complete syringe properly, or is she secretly cutting corners by changing out the needle and re-using the syringe?

I should have said something. I think I am often too intimidated to when it's needed most. *sigh*

Anywho, my newest grandbaby, Dayton, was taken to the ER by his parents the other night. He had a newly developed and odd rash on his tummy.  The ER doctor gave him a steroid injection on his two week birthday. I had a pediatrician friend tell me that that was NOT the correct answer, and should not have been given to a newborn for a rash. I need to talk to my daughter about that tonight to make sure she got Dayton to his regular doc following that event.

AMA Conspiracy: US Doctors Kill 200,000 Per Year
by KATHERINE HARMON


(EDITOR'S NOTE: Q. What's the difference between God and a doctor?
A. God doesn't think he's a doctor)


(Aug 10, 2009) Preventable medical mistakes and infections are responsible for about 200,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to an investigation by the Hearst media corporation. The report comes 10 years after the Institute of Medicine's "To Err Is Human" analysis, which found that 44,000 to 98,000 people were dying annually due to these errors and called for the medical community and government to cut that number in half by 2004.


The precise number of these deaths is still unknown because many states lack a standard or mandatory reporting system for injuries due to medical mistakes. The investigative team gathered disparate medical records, legal documents, personnel files and reports and analyzed databases to arrive at its estimate.


Many, including President Barack Obama, have advocated for a broader adoption of electronic medical records as both a life- and cost-saver.

Obviously there are medical doctors who have been talking to my mother...

ABC's Lisa Stark reports from Washington:

As government health officials encourage people to get vaccinated against the H1N1 vaccine, they are running into opposition from an unusual source: doctors. Some doctors have decided they will not give the vaccine, and are telling patients not to get it. Those doctors have been quoted as saying they are concerned that the vaccine is too new.

Today, the head of the Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to physicians to explain how the vaccine was developed and how its safety is being monitored. The letter, from FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg, tells physicians that “understanding more about the manufacturing and approval process for these vaccines should help you to answer (patient) questions."

It points out that the H1N1 vaccine was developed in exactly the same way as the seasonal flu vaccine. The process, writes Dr. Hamburg, has “produced effective and very safe vaccines time and time again.” She says that the companies that are manufacturing the H1N1 vaccine are the using “same factories where they are licensed to manufacture seasonal influenza vaccines – using the same equipment and the same testing procedures.”

The FDA also reminds doctors that in the clinical trials involving 3600 patients, there have been no adverse effects. Finally, the agency says it is looking for any rare and serious side effects, and encourages doctors to report any adverse effects they see. “We are not cutting any corners,” insists Hamburg, and see adds, “The benefits of preventing serious consequences from infection with the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus far outweigh the risks associated with vaccination.”

It’s a message that has made sense to many patients who have waited hours in line for the vaccine, which is still in limited supply. It’s a message the government is hoping all doctors will understand as well.

Interesting email from my boy....

But I can't share it yet. He was asking my advice on a relationship issue with a girl, but as of yet he doesn't want anyone else knowing "what's going on". *Sigh*

So while it's simply going to kill me I have to keep my mouth shut in cyber-space. How horribly unfair is that? I can't stand suspense and I abhor secrets.

I think there ought to be rules against someone asking someone else to save, store and file away a juicy tidbit. I think there should be "understood" stipulations such as yes, you should share said private gossip with all those "close" to you to gain everyone else's input. It's jointly solving a problem, right? Brain-storming?