Vaccinations/autism

I am really starting to realize that I am a HUGE believer in childhood vaccinations. I mentioned a few posts ago that a large part of it is Simon and the Rotavirus. While doing some personal research on vaccinations and autism I came across this article that I read back in January at my sisters house. It is from Wired magazine, and is a very interesting, informative article. I believe in getting your child vaccinated, I believe in the Rotavirus vaccine, I wish I had known about it a year and a half ago, and I do not believe that autism and vaccinations are related. If anyone can come up with some good scientific research to the contrary, I would love to read it. I am thinking that in the future this is a cause I would really like to get more involved with and would like to be able to spread the word about vaccinations and stop some of the damaging hype/hysteria about autism and vaccines caused by paranoid people who just haven't done research and are basing their opinions on what other paranoid people think instead of scientific research and data. That's my short rant for tonight. To be continued some other time...
If there are any readers who do believe the autism/vaccine link, I would really be curious to know what kind of evidence or information you base your belief on, seriously, this isn't just an attempt to bash, I am very curious to know why people believe what they do. If it's just because Jenny McCarthy said so, or because so-and-so thinks so because their kid got a shot and then started acting weird, or if there is more to it than that.

There are two new posts below so read them both!

my free time

Sorry for new posts in a long time, I have been spending most of my free time either playing with Simon (he is so incredibly fun and the most beautiful boy ever) or painting! I have been painting a lot and loving it. I did one for Simon's room (see it below) a series of three abstracts, then I started one for a coworker but decided I like it and am keeping it for myself, and now a series of two or three huge abstracts for our living room wall (2 or 3 depending on how big they look on our wall and if I run out of inspiration after just 2). The one for Simon's room I used 2 different size cars, a monster truck with nice tread on the tires and matchbox car with tread on the tires (surprisingly hard to find, most of them have flat wheels). I dipped the wheels in paint and drove them all over the boards. This one took for freaking ever because the type of paint I was using took a long time to dry and the tires had to be redipped almost constantly. But it was fun to do, I like the way they turned out, and I like how they look on Simon's wall.
I have also been on a home decorating kick as of late thanks to our recent cable acquisition and a few HGTV shows for free OnDemand. I bought some new bright +-orange throw pillows, and orange picture frame and orange flowers to put in the cool red vase I got from my sister Heather for Christmas two year ago, and an area rug that is brown with green leaves. The living room canvas I have started on is a mostly red textured background and I am going to put a green leafy pattern on it, the next canvas will probably be blue, and the third one... I'm not sure yet...but all have leafy patterns on them.

Talk to you soon! or not, I might just be having too much fun in the real world to spend my time online.
Updates on Simon: I hate my pediatrician, Simon is a tiny boy but I think he has awesome mechanical skills, he is a terrific climber, is incredibly affectionate and cuddly, is a total night owl (he's awake right now playing in the living room) and just is so much fun. He throws balls back and forth, plays fetch (like a dog he picks up the ball puts it in his mouth and carries it to us, we didn't teach him to do it, I think maybe he learned from Eliza-liz), he says UH-oh,dada, mama (sometimes) ouch, bird, ball, boo, hot, no (but only repeats it doesn't use it on his own.. yet), and other words I can't think of right now. Oh and did I say he is a good climber? Really good. like time to bolt furniture down to the ground, climbs on top of everything, can get on the couch even though it's taller than him (he lifts one lg up above his head puts it on the couch and then shimmies himself up onto the couch, it is amazing because he is so short. Anyways, I really need to get him to bed and he is hitting a 3 inch bell around the floor with his stick horse and it is really loud and starting to get annoying...

Love you all!

this one also has a car on it, but simon ripped it off the painting right before we hung them up and so I had to glue it back on after we took the pictures.

sick, sick, sick

Simon was sick again. We are pretty sure it was Rotavirus again. Same symptoms. I stayed home with him Thursday because he had vomiting and diarrhea. Friday morning I woke up and threw up the previous nights dinner and also had vomiting and diarrhea all day long. Saturday we all slept in until noon. Woke up, I was feeling mostly better, just needed to eat, and Simon was doing better until about 4 when the diarrhea started up again. Sunday he has been good. It was not fun at all and Simon puked all over the new area rug I had just bought for our living room and so now it smells like vomit, so we are going to have to get it cleaned. Bummer. We are all doing better, mostly, Simon hasn't had much of an appetite today, but hasn't been puking and his BM are starting to firm up.
I really wish we had gotten the rotavirus vaccine when he was born, it would have saved us a lot of grief and worry and money. I didn't even realize there was a rotavirus vaccine until I was at my sisters back in January and read an article about it in a magazine that they had. I was pretty bitter because Simon's miserable and almost deathly experience with it back on Halloween night oculd hav prevented with a simple vaccine. Luckily we didn't have to take him to the hospital this time, just kept filling him up with Pedialyte and tried our hardest to keep it under control and keep enough fluids in him that we didn't have to go to the hopsital. Oh and it helps that with each time a kid gets it their immunity builds up a little more each time, so maybe by the time he is 5 he won't be symptomatic anymore. Let's hope.
Anyways, I really wish we had known about this vaccine when Simon was born and that he had gotten vaccinated for it. The AAP recommends it and there is a lot of helpful info about it on the CDC website. If you are wary about vaccines, don't be afraid of this one, there is also a link to the scientific research study on the vaccine that should ease any vaccine-related fears you may have for this one in particular. Our next kid is definitely getting the Rotavirus vaccine.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/rotavirus/default.htm

simon and his tractor

My parents got Simon this John Deere tractor for his birthday. Sadly, my dad was working and sick on Simon's birthday, but the next day we drove my mom down to where he was working and had lunch together and Simon got to open his birthday present with his Grammy and Grampy. Here he is playing with it less than a week after his birthday. He still loves it! At the end he starts playing with his ball popper, another birthday present, from Auntie Mel and Uncle Jared.

Simon's first birthday

On November 7th, Simon turned one! We had his party at Steve's parents house (THANK YOU!!) My Mom and I made the cake, but mostly my mom (THANK YOU!!) Steve made the gift bags, I didn't have a good picture of them but you can see them somewhere below. The theme we ended up picking out was a Dr. Seuss theme. So we had green deviled eggs, ham subs, goldfish crackers, pink lemonade, Simon had a Thing bib, and lots of Suess colors and a guestbook for everyone to sign that was "Oh the Places You'll Go", people signed in the front and back cover and wrote a little note to Simon. I thought it was a lot of fun, there were kids there which made it feel more like a party, and the food was pretty yummy. The decorations didn't turn out quite like I wanted, I found lots of good ideas online months in advance, but time still got the best of me and I didn't get everything looking the way I wanted. Oh well, we still had lots of fun!
The pictures are in reverse order.

All of the kids that came

Time for presents, he looked so excited, I LOVE this picture!!

Simon finishing up his cupcake

Simon's cupcake my mom made and decorated for him

Cake with the fish from The Cat in the Hat

My mom molded the fish out of orange candy melts and made all the little scales! The fish is in the fish bowl and my mom made all the fondant and we dyed it and cut out different shapes and stuff to decorate it.

Presents and guestbook table

Green eggs! So cute, I got the idea online and Cindy made them!

Food!

Steve working on the gift bags, a combined idea by both of us, the Cat in the Hat's hat!!

The cake was multi-colored inside kinda like the way the cover of "Oh the Places You'll Go" looks. We took white cake mix and dyed it all different colors.

My mom mixing all the colors

She's so cute! and did an amazing job on the cake!!

This is all the updating for now. Blogger is being really slow and annoying, stay posted for more and don't miss my superlate one below about Halloween!

Catch-up... several new posts

So what has happened since the trip to the ER you might ask? Well, quite a bit actually so I am going to try to catch up while Simon is in bed sleeping and Steve is happily playing video games during his last hours of freedom before nursing school starts back up...
Well the ER thing happened on Halloween and Simon had a wonderful Halloween. He dressed up as Link from The Legend of Zelda. Steve's mom made Simon's costume and Steve made his shield and my mom made his sword.

Simon was walking already so he actually got to walk up to some houses. His first house was our neighbor Marie. We also met Sarah Palin! Simon was Link and his cousin Zane was a monkey. They went trick-or-treating in Vovo's neighborhood. My parents were also in town and got to go trick-or-treating with us. It was really fun!