Hot off the press. Hell, it isn’t even off the press and onto the CDC’s website yet, but…
2005 Cesarean Rate: 30.2%
The rate is up 4% from the previous year, which was up 5% from the year prior to that.
And we’re still among the bottom among industrialized nations in maternal and infant mortality and morbidity.
Hmmm.
(Updated: The official source of data, the CDC’s 2005 Preliminary Birth Data, is available here.)
Riddle me this.My daughter is in the process of dropping her nap. Yes, she’s almost five. Anyway. On the days she doesn’t nap? She’s hyper, manic, and all sorts of crazy. No fussiness. No grumpiness. No meltdowns. Just a whole lot of peelin’ her off the ceiling. I’m the one who ends up exhausted.
Do you care to explain that one?
Hmmm.
I just made an Internet purchase, as a new customer at a particular site, without breaking my out my wallet to retrieve my credit card information.
16 digits, plus the security code and expiration date. Memorized.
Hmmm.
“When you clean up your room, you will get your quarter. That is the deal.”
“But I don’t like to clean up my room. It’s too hard.”
“Zoe, you clean up your room all the time. It’s your responsibility. Now, please, go clean up your room.”
“But, Mom, I don’t wan’t that responsibility.”
“Well, then, you don’t get your quarter, and you will still have to clean up your room.”
Pause. Clearly the wheels were spinning. And then, she spoke.
“I want my responsibility to be to stop sucking my thumb. Cleaning up my room is just too hard. Stopping sucking my thumb is what I want to do.”
Coming from the world’s most determined Junior Robert Downey, Jr., this is quite a proposition. Giving up an addiction as strong as crack instead of cleaning up a room? And all for just a quarter?
Hmmmm.
Irresponsible enough to fail to return not one, not two, but three phone calls. And yet, if eventually the calls are returned, I’ll instantly forgive and forget. All my requirements for civility, responsibility and maturity will be tossed out the window. I wish only to hear the word “Yes.”
Desperate for a date?
Nah. Desperate for a sitter.
Hmmm…
One brand new Coffeemaker. No more mess, no more spills, and one cup of coffee hot enough to stay warm until the last drop. If I can’t be given the time to enjoy a cup of hot coffee for Mother’s Day, getting a cup of coffee hot enough to enjoy over time is the next best thing.
Gifts of toasters and coffeemakers might be the death knell of a relationship in your book — a sign that meals shared in silence and evenings spent in la-z-boy isolation are on the near horizon, but not in my book. In my book? A gift of a coffeemaker represents perfect understanding and empathy. Downright sexy, I say.
Now, just what that says about me? I shudder to think. That’s one for Things That Make You Go Hmmm.
Thirty Six Minutes. Thirty. Six. Minutes. Every medical intervention common in a hospital birth today — amniotomy, forceps delivery, vacuum extraction, pitocin induction and augmentation, episiotomy, electronic fetal monitoring, epidural analgesia, oh, and cesarean section — presented to a room full of first-time expectant parents. In Thirty Six Minutes.
This is our childbirth education. This is reason number 4,256 why our birth culture is entirely fucked up.
Things that make you go Hmmm? No, things that make you go AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!
(I’m in a bit of a funk lately. No mood to write. Until the mood returns…)
Coffee. There is no more important elixir in my life. The moments I wait until the pot is filled each morning are moments of great anticipation. What will the day bring? Nah. It’s all about what pleasures my coffee will bring.
And, yet, it is a cruel trick that it demands great patience to pour a cup of coffee from my particular carafe. Pour it too quickly, and a fatal design flaw in my carafe sends the precious brew dribbling into a puddle on the counter. Only with great patience — and a slow pour — is one rewarded with a full cup and no mess to clean up.
The fact that I’ve never replaced that carafe? I’m entirely unable to determine just what that says about me. Hmmm.
November 15, 2005
In a report released today, the CDC reports:
Read the full CDC report here.
I don’t get political all that often. On this, my friends, I am political. I’m not talking about natural birth vs. an epidural and all the mommy wars in between; I’m talking about numbers.
And I’m talking about the fact that something isn’t right here.
Hmmm.
Am I the only person in the world who is entirely irritated by the fact that the Pediatrician’s office has in its lobby a) a Television set, tuned to SpongeBob SquarePants, no less (though, it could be tuned to Sesame Street, and it would still bother me) and b) a basket of lollipops?Is there something wrong here? Or is it just me? Hmmm.