Insomnia

Now that I am over the literally-falling-over-from-exhaustion period of new motherhood, I suddenly can't sleep. I find myself lying awake at night, listening for my daughter to wake up and need me. She often makes noises in her sleep, and I am instantly on alert, waiting to see if they turn from "sleeping" noises to "awake" noises.

Perhaps it is because she is still so tiny and vulnerable; perhaps I am paranoid; perhaps I need her during the night more than she needs me. Is it possible to be too attuned to your infant?

Home-grown tomatoes

Just thought I would mention that I got my first ripe tomatoes today (three, to be exact) off of my plant on the patio. They were cherry tomatoes, and they were gone in about five seconds. It's been years since I've had home-grown tomatoes.

Ordered photos online for the first time yesterday

Yesderday a friend told me that you could upload photos to Costco.com and could either have them mailed to you or you could go pick them up. Since we have about a million pictures of our daughter and I've had, oh, ten or so printed, I decided to give this service a try.

So last night I signed up, uploaded about fifty pictures and chose which size prints I wanted (you can order wallets, which I think is great). The prices are very reasonable, and the charge for shipping is minimal; I chose to pick up our prints since I needed to buy groceries anyway. This morning I got an e-mail saying that my order had been processed and to pick them up whenever.

I went to Costco about four hours later, and the girl couldn't find my envelope of pictures. After looking in vain for a few minutes she found that they were still being processed. Thankfully they were done in about ten minutes. Needless to say, I was unimpressed with the fact that my photos weren't ready after I had been told they were, but other than that I am very happy with the quality, the price, and the fact that I could get wallet-sized photos. I feel very comfortable recommending this service to people.

Oh, one more thing: I couldn't figure out how to alter my pictures (reduce red-eye and all that good stuff) on their website, but I must admit I didn't look very hard. But I think they should make it obvious.

Cloth vs. Paper

Since before my daughter was born, I have considered the pros and cons of cloth versus paper diapers. Disposables certainly seem like the more convenient and less messy option, but cloth are cheaper and create less waste. When my sisters were younger I helped diaper them in the old-fashioned prefolds and pins, but cloth diapers now are much more confusing. There are prefolds and flats, of course, but added to the mix are all-in-ones, pocket diapers, contour diapers, something called a Snappi, and the list goes on. What's a mother to do?

Well, to start off, I decided to use disposables for the first few months, until we got more into the swing of things.

I just received the Deluxe Tester's Package from Baby Cotton Bottoms and am looking forward to trying all the different types of diapers. I must say that the hemp prefolds feel like they would be incredibly comfortable to wear, and the velcro on Kushies all-in-ones is not as strong as that on Bummis covers. I will give another update on ease-of-use and my favorite(s) in a few weeks.

Soy

I never paid much attention to soy until we learned that my daughter is severely allergic to it. Have you read any food labels lately? Soy (aka guar gum, food starch, natural flavoring, vegetable oil, broth, vitamin E, lecithin, and on and on and on) is in everything. Yes, I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. It's in things you would have never thought of, like tuna, chocolate bars, and nearly every vitamin or mineral supplement on the market. I finally found a chocolate bar yesterday that doesn't contain soy and it tastes good. Only problem is it costs about $3.50 for a three ounce bar.

While researching soy allergy, I found this very interesting and informative article. One of the things I found most interesting was this:

The increasing amount of "hidden" soy in the food supply is undoubtedly responsible for triggering many allergic reactions not attributed to soy. French researchers who studied the frequency of anaphylactic shocks caused by foods reported that the food allergen remained unknown in 25 per cent of cases. They noted the prevalence of "hidden" and "masked" food allergens and stated that they saw "a strikingly increased prevalence of food-induced anaphylactic shock in 1995 compared to a previous study from 1982".21 This period coincided with a huge increase in the amount of soy protein added to processed foods. (In fact, the amount has continued to rise. Per capita consumption of soy protein increased from 0.78 g/day in 1998 to 2.23 g/day in 2002, according to industry estimates obtained by the Solae Company which, in March 2004, filed a petition seeking FDA approval of a health claim for soy protein and cancer reduction.21a)

Here is my favorite (though perhaps a bit morbid) excerpt:

Some of the most allergenic fractions appear to be the Kunitz and Bowman–Birk trypsin inhibitors. Food processors have tried in vain to deactivate these troublesome proteins completely without irreparably damaging the remainder of the soy protein (see chapter 12). Having failed to accomplish this, the soy industry has decided to promote these "antinutrients" as cancer preventers. To date, its proof remains slim, although cancer statistics might improve if enough people died from anaphylactic shock first.

Whatever happened to survival of the fittest?

Here is an interesting story that mentions the fact that scientists are working on helping endangered species by means of cloning. I think it is a wonderful thing to have elephants in zoos and whales in aquariums and such; I want my daughter to be able to see these animals in real life. I also believe that we should be good stewards, use our resources wisely and not "trash" the planet on which we live. However, I am fairly certain that most of the scientists working on projects like these subscribe to Darwin's theory of evolution. How do they square environmentalism with survival of the fittest?

I was thinking about this several months ago when I read an article in Natural History Magazine about some trees (I think they were cypress trees) being killed off by some sort of fern. If those ferns are meant to survive and the trees are not, why are humans intervening? Shouldn't we just let nature take its course?

Who knew?

http://www.carlsonlabs.com/product_detail.phtml?prodid=00227

Someone should hurry up and determine a daily value for buffalo liver concentrate.

What is wrong with this sentence?

d-ALPHA GEMS are small, soft gelatin capsules containing vitamin E derived from soybean oil in the highest concentration possible, making it naturally soy-free.

My husband said that the subject and the final pronoun do not agree. I say that "derived from soybean oil" and "naturally soy-free" do not agree.

Testing 123

Okay, so I've decided to start a blog. My husband has told me on many occasions - usually when I'm ranting about something - that I should do this. So here it is. Posting will probably be rather sporadic, but I doubt many people will care.