Week of Thanksgiving

I don't have pictures of the clan on Thanksgiving. Kevin has his own stellar camera and he took the pictures, but they haven't been downloaded onto the computer. And frankly, I don't want to touch his fancy camera!

Here is a picture, though.

First Daniel cut her hair, mostly the bangs.   I worked on it a little and tidied it up. Then, like a fool, I bought some sticky putty for the three little ones and the pink putty ended up in Rose's hair. So I cut off more.  Now she has a very cute, short pixie cut.

She's always adorable, whether her hair is long or short.

Isaac and Lydia are finishing their college classes this upcoming week.  I have to arrange for, or take, Isaac to class so that will be nice. Next semester he has 2 classes but they are scheduled back to back so it will work out well.

One of these years, he will learn how to drive. We haven't even started teaching him yet and it is rather an arduous process.  Besides the actual "teaching him to drive" part, we have to do 40 hours of driving WITH him, plus we will have to pay for an expensive 8 hour driving course.  If we wait until he is 18, he won't have to do all that.  We can just teach him to drive, he'll take the test, and pass (we hope) and he'll be done.

But with more college classes next fall, it would be good if he could drive.

We'll figure it out.

Tomorrow is a big day as our 4 oldest kids are getting baptized at church!

It is kind of strange that they haven't been baptized before this as all four have been saved by Jesus for many years, but we just never had quite the right time for it. So tomorrow is the big day.  We're excited for them.  Baptism doesn't save a person, but it is an important step and it is a Biblical directive for a true Christian so yes, we're happy.

We took off school this week (except for Isaac and Lydia, who kept toiling away with college classes).  I got quite a bit done in terms of cleaning and tidying room, washing floors, etc.

This morning, I was working on school prep for the upcoming week and Rose played happily on the floor by herself with Duplos for like an hour. It was incredible. It was very nice.

This Week...

So other than the birthday this week, which was significant, this week was also notable in that we had lots of socialization!

We had neighbor kids over today for video game time, and right now our neighbor (bless her heart) is hosting a movie night for 6 of our children.  And 6 of hers.  It is so delightfully quiet in the house right now.  It is no doubt a madhouse next door.

We also had a dear friend's youngest son visiting for parts of 2 days this week. He is close to Sarah and Daniel's ages and they adored having him over!

Thanksgiving is next week and then comes the slow, inexorable march towards Christmas.  It always feels like a super busy time of year in spite of the fact that we really do NOT do a lot for Christmas compared to many families. But we do have those 3 birthdays at the end of the year. And Christmas :-).

I love Trader Joe's soy creamer and it has been out of stock for several weeks. This week I called and yes, they had it and yes I got (wait for it!) 19 containers.

19.

Saturday I am taking Isaac to an intro to engineering thing at local Wright State University.  I hope it'll be valuable and interesting.  WSU is a curious case; in some ways, it is not a great university for engineering because their lab facilities are not top notch.

But.

They are so close to the base that many faculty work with engineers on base, and many students have opportunities to intern at the base. So in that way, it is awesome.

Plus WSU is a relatively inexpensive state school which makes us happy.  So we'll see.  Isaac may end up there.

Mostly it has been a busy and good week but I admit right now, I am incredibly thankful that most of the kids are next door because I'm a little peopled out.  Those people are my people and I adore them to the moon and back, but sometimes they are noisy :-).

But I love them. A lot.

Birthday Girl

Sarah turned 9 this week!

So now we have 19, 18, 16, 15, 13, 12, 9, 7, and 5!

My parents bought her a rock kit. She is digging out rocks from, probably, plaster. She loves it!

Happy birthday, darling Sarah!

Dodgy Math about Vaccines

Ok, I might tread on some toes here but it is my blog :-).

So one of the things that many large, homeschooling families are "known for" is being anti-vaccination.  I think that isn't too surprising. We're already a group that is swimming against the tide of public normalcy. We're having way more than the usual 2.1 kids (or whatever it is -- birth rates keep falling.)

We've opted out of the public school system, which is a bizarre and weird decision.  I grew up mostly attending public schools and even though I was miserable off and on through many of my ps years, it was normal.  It wasn't until Kevin and I were married that I thought seriously about homeschooling and by the time Naomi was growing in my womb, we were set on this oddball academic path in life.  (I have never regretted it.)

Many of my homeschooling friends home birth, also weird.  Homeschoolers are often considered "crunchy" -- more into essential oils and great eating than pharmaceuticals.

Some of the vaccines were originally developed using aborted fetal cells.  That one is pretty rough for me as I am ardently pro life.  (If anyone cares, I can provide my reasoning for why we still vaccinate in spite of this issue.)

I respect my Christians brothers and sisters who are opposed to vaccination.  We are not. Our kids are fully vaxed except for  Gardisil, which is for the sexually transmitted disease HPV.

I am in agreement that vaccinations should not be forced by the government.  It's a tricky issue because I believe vaccination does save lives, BUT once the government forces its citizens to have things injected into them, it can keep doing things "for the greater good" which cross the line of personal freedom.

Ok, this is what I want to talk about today. As I said, I respect my friends who have chosen not to vaccinate.  The medical establishment has been and is wrong about some things.  I think diabetes is treated very poorly, and many meds are pushed on people when perhaps some other lifestyle change would be more efficacious.

Vaccination has been remarkably successful based on my reading and understanding. Smallpox eradicated, polio nearly so, same for measles and mumps and rubella when vaccination rates are high in a population.

The thing is, the anti-vax crowd sometimes does the most horrific things with data and that is what I want to talk about today.

I got something nutty in my FB feed yesterday.  It said:

/////////////////////////////

You Are 4.7 times More Likely to Get Whooping Cough If You are Vaccinated

CDC Statistics for Whooping Cough
2013-2018

Vaccinated - 12,772
Unvaccinated - 2717

/////////////////////////////

I would like to say this is a joke but it is not. The woman who posted it clearly believed that this data proves that getting the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccination increased your risk of getting pertussis by 4.7 times.

Ok, I think, I hope, it is obvious that this is GARBAGE but I am going to spell it out.

You cannot, cannot, cannot directly compare the number of whooping cough cases.  You must account for the populations of each group!!!!!!!

Here is an alternate example to prove my point.

Suppose that 10 people are not vaccinated for measles and 5 people get measles.

Suppose that 10,000 people ARE vaccinated for measles and 50 people get measles.

According to the dodgy, absurd, ridiculous math shown above, getting the vaccination increases your risk of getting measles by a factor of 10.

Because vaxed group: 50 cases.
Unvaxed group: 5 cases.

BUT BUT BUT there were a very small number who were not vaxed.  In my (made up) example, a full 50% of the unvaxed people got measles when only 0.5% of the vaxed people got measles.  The data supports the measles vaccine helping people not get measles.

You MUST know how many people are in each population to determine whether a vaccination is helpful!

I wish this was a singular example but it is not. I've done research on anti vax sites and this kind of math absurdity is incredibly common.  Frankly, they are either being openly deceptive (which I think is more likely to prove their own point) or they are terrible at math.  And if the latter, they have no business messing with numbers to throw at an unsuspecting public.

I am not artistic at all so I have no beef with those who struggle with numbers. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.  But don't, please don't, publish horrible data like this to prove your point. If vaccination is truly bad, the data ought to be out there in some reasonable form.

I've seen horrible graphs messing with x and y axes, I've seen other stuff that makes me foam at the mouth.  Let's be honest about the data, please!  Don't try to trick people into believing your anti-vax stance by dividing random numbers by random numbers and claiming absurdities by what is shown above.

Please.

Ok, rant over.

Diabetes

I am a  Type 2 diabetic.  I was diagnosed 15+ years ago during Joseph's pregnancy and I never got normal afterwards, so yes, I've been diabetic for a long time.  It's a pain.

But.

But...

I have thought many times that Joseph's pregnancy may have saved my life and/or limbs and/or kidneys and/or sight.

He is our 4th child.  Kids #1 and #2 were girls.  Isaac, Kid #3, obviously a boy.  At least one person said to us after he was born, "Well, you have your boy."

And Kevin's response to that was, "Well, we have A boy."

We weren't done.  (Obviously.)

So yes, at age 34 I was pregnant with another little guy and they did that glucose tolerance test and I failed and I was diabetic.

I have always been tall and thin. Yes, I have a fierce genetic predisposition for diabetes (lots of people in my maternal line) but the fact that I didn't LOOK diabetic and I was still in my 30's means that I doubt anyone would have checked me for a problem in a very long time.

Diabetes is a progressive disease.  It can take many years, even decades, for the damage of consistent high blood sugar to mess up eyes and limbs and kidneys.

If I was now 50 and had had uncontrolled blood sugars for 15 years, only to find out NOW that I am diabetic, I could be quite the mess.

Of course, maybe it would have been discovered some other way. But then again, maybe not.  I'm reading a great book called Blood Sugar 101, and the author claims that fasting blood sugar is often the last one to get bad. So even if I had been checked for fasting bg, the medical establishment might not have caught it.

So I am thankful for Kid #4, Boy #2!

Of course.

I'm thankful for all of them. They are all gifts from Heaven.

Regarding diabetes, I will freely admit I've gotten a bit lazy in the last year.  I'm working on being more careful about what I eat.  I'm working on exercising more.  My last A1c was 6.1 and I really would like to see it in the high 5's.  Most docs are perfectly happy with 6.1.  My doc is.  But I know from my reading that even that is high enough to potentially cause damage and I was SO young when I was diagnosed.  I have a lot more living, I hope.

I've been exceptionally busy with sick kids (they are mostly better now, and we've beaten back pink eye) and yesterday I ate a bunch of really bad stuff because I was hungry and there were left over white potatoes.

You might not think white potatoes would be bad but yeah, they are.  Like little carbohydrate bombs.

2+ hours after eating them, my blood sugar was 192. Ouch.  Usually I'm below 120 by that point and I haven't been that high in a year or so.

At least.

No more glumps of white potato, Laraba!

In the midst of annoyance with this long term disease, I am so thankful for blood sugar meters and metformin and enough money to buy what I need so I can eat low carb.

So yes, in many ways, I feel gratitude.  I can manage my diabetes because I know about my diabetes.  Praise God for that.