Things Are Not Always as They Seem

Every argument, by definition ("a coherent series of statements leading from a premise to a conclusion" - Merriam Webster) contains a thesis, supporting evidence, and a conclusion. 

All too often, especially in politics, people ignore an argument's thesis and conclusion, misinterpret the supporting details based on the lack of context, and develop opinions based on the incorrect interpretation/incomplete information. This is a sad fact of life. What follows, after the full details come to light, is very illuminating. Some, when pointed out the error, will retract their original opinion and reform a new one based on new information. This is often the minority. More often than not, I notice people attempting to reduce the discomfort of cognitive dissonance by maintaining their current opinion by ignoring the new details from the original argument or adding new details that are irrelevant to the original argument.

In recent weeks several examples have passed through my Facebook newsfeed. One was a link posted by a conservative group that claimed that a proposed law in California was going to make pedophilia a sexual orientation that was going to be protected by the law. I think the link to the original article is here, but it is noted that it has been changed significantly from its original content. A friend posted it and was complaining how wrong it was. One of their friends commented with the actual wording in the bill and noted it said nothing about pedophilia. I read the bill and the original post and discovered that the bill was only making it illegal to force LGBT to go through "treatments" to force them to turn straight. Said "treatments" have been scientifically shown to be both ineffective and potentially harmful. The only person in either the bill or the originally posted article that said anything about pedophilia as being a sexual orientation was a conservative lobbyist in the article. It should be noted that Wikipedia only refers to hetero- homo-, bi-, or asexual as constituting sexual orientation and does not include pedophilia in that classification. I mentioned this in a comment and the response was basically "I concerned that it doesn't address treating the victims of pedophilias" (changing the goalposts). To which I replied that that was neither the aim nor scope of this particular bill and that argument was like complaining about the second amendment because it doesn't address treating victims of crossbow violence. The original poster then deleted the whole link; I don't know if they realized the logical fallacies in their arguments, or if they just didn't want argue about it anymore. (I'll note here that if you follow the link above, the website has issued a correction and an apology)

The most recent example of this fallacious thinking based on ignoring the thesis and conclusion and only misinterpreting the evidence involves the MSNBC commercial about our children. You can watch it here. The posts going around Facebook regarding it either come from sources like the fear-mongering blow-hard Glenn Beck (and others) or this meme. The meme focuses on a single line from the supporting evidence of her argument: "We have to break through our private idea that kids belong to parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities…" but completely ignores her thesis: "We have never invested as much in public education as we should have" or her conclusion: "Once its everybody's responsibility, and not just the household's, then we start making better investments." In context, it should be abundantly clear that her whole intent was that the entire community should be concerned with the public school system, for the children's sake, not just parents of school-aged children. This concept was exemplified by the community of Forest Ranch, up the hill from Chico California. Due to major budget cuts, the only elementary school in that little town was going to be closed down and the kids sent down to Chico. The entire community pulled together and donated/fund-raised enough money to open it as a charter school. I would be willing to bet that the majority of that community was of an age that they, themselves did not have school-aged children at home with them, but they understood the importance of have a high-quality school in their community. There is no nefarious subplot to enslave your children and/or force you to let the State determine how to raise your kids. She was simply saying we all need to care about the education of our children. I have tried to point out these very important differences between the fear and the reality, with many varying responses. The mental acrobats people go through to maintain their current beliefs about a situation, even in the face of contrary evidence is quite amazing. 

I won't even take the time to address the "Monsanto Protection Act" other to mention it is similar to the above and point you to a good analysis here.

So the moral of the story is: Don't believe anything you see posted on Facebook without trying to verify the claims first.

Breastfeeding Isn't For Everyone

 I've giving birth to three beautiful babies. This is my third battle with post partum depression. I knew from my first two experiences my post-partum depression does not subside until after I stop breastfeeding. This third time around, I realized breastfeeding makes my post-partum depression worse. What causes post partum depression? Hormones. Breastfeeding produces hormones as well. Post partum depression makes it hard to bond with your baby. What pushed me into writing this post was an incident that occurred the last time I was at the WIC office. I overheard another WIC person telling a woman that breastfeeding reduced post partum depression because of the bonding breastfeeding creates. I looked at my WIC person and said, "That is not the case with everyone, especially me." I explained to her what happens to me. She looked at me and said, "I'm glad that you're pushing on with it despite everything." There was a sign in her cubicle that said formula feeding a baby leads to allergies, asthma, diabetes, and obesity. If you didn't know, this is incorrect. But what signs, blogs, etc like this tend to do is guilt women into breastfeeding or cause them to feel guilty because they are not.
When we're pregnant, and after we give birth, we get inundated with information saying breastfeeding good, formula bad. This tends to turn women against each other. Those who breastfeed and those who don't. If you're not one of those women, good for you! As women and mother's we need to be supportive of each other, not divided and putting each other down.
I've struggled emotionally through the whole process of breastfeeding this time around. I've had so much guilt because I couldn't breastfeed fully. Because of all the stuff that had been ingrained in me, I had a hard time accepting my son really needed formula and not breastfeeding. I go to my WIC appointments, and they try to pressure me to breastfeed more. There are so many hate filled blogs out there (that's what I'm going to call them) calling formula poison, attacking women who choose not to breastfeed. It makes me sick. Not all women can breastfeed! Not all women who breastfeed are able to breastfeed with each subsequent child. It has nothing to do with not putting in the effort, it has everything to do with their bodies. Some women can't breastfeed because their body can't produce milk. Some women's milk is more like water with no nutrition. Some women get post partum depression because they breastfeed, and some women just don't want to do it. I don't blame them! I've decided to share my story. I hope this helps someone out there who is struggling.

Ian came 2 1/2 weeks early on a Wednesday. I was going to breastfeed him, I planned on it. So Ian came, I got him latched on and thought everything was going ok. He was born at 6pm. He breastfeed a couple times, the last time being 2:45am. Then he refused to do it after that. He had a tongue thrust, which I dealt with with my first child. I had tried all the tricks I had been previously taught. They were not working. The nurses were trying to help me too. I wanted to get more help because he wasn't eating, so at 9am, I went to a breastfeeding class hosted by a lactation consultant. I had to go to the hour long class or the lactation consultant wouldn't come to help me. The lactation consultant came in, did the same things I had already done. My colostrum was in, but he would latch on incorrectly then come off because he wasn't getting anything after a few sucks. She tried the little tube attached to my nipple so he could get some formula and hopefully encourage him to open his mouth wider when he latched. But refused to latch on if it was attached to me. She got a bottle of formula and had him suck on it a few times so he'd open his mouth wider, then pull out and put him immediately to my breast. He'd latch on, but not well, so she'd pull him off and have him do it again. She finally got him to latch on correctly, said some things and left. That was the only time I saw her. It felt rushed and I was not sure what I was suppose to do. It seemed so complicated and hard to handle by myself.
I did the best I could. My nurses tried to help the best they could. They were wonderful. Ian's blood sugar had to be tested every few hours because I had gestational diabetes. His sugars were fine until the last time they had to check. We were told we could go home if it came back fine. It's didn't. When they checked, he had not breastfeed, so they said they would check again an hour after I fed him. His numbers still came back low. They were going to keep us until I said I'd give him formula. The head nurse agreed that if I was willing to do that, I could go home. They sent me home with a bunch of formula samples so we wouldn't have to worry. This was Thursday night.
Friday, Ian had his 2 day check up with his pediatrician. I discussed the issues I was having breastfeeding and he referred me to a lactation consultant. I decided to give it the weekend to see if everything would work itself out. The entire weekend was a struggle. Ian wouldn't latch, then he would latch and come of screaming. By the end of the weekend, my nipples were extremely sore. I wanted to cry everytime he'd latch because the pain was so bad. My nipples were bleeding. I was a mess. Monday morning, I struggled with what to do. I called the lactation consultant and saw her that afternoon.
My lactation consultant was wonderful. She did the most thorough job explaining everything. I never had that with any lactation consultant before. She showed me that I was engorged bad. Had I waited any longer to be seen I would have developed mastitis. Because of the engorgement, nothing was coming out. That's why Ian was screaming when he's latch on. She told me he really did a number on me. Both of my nipples were badly bruised and the keratin layer was completely stripped away. She showed me how to bring my milk down, had me do it in the office until I got it, then brought Ian over to latch. She observed him and said all his behaviors and his latch we that of a preemie. It would be a good two weeks before he'd be able to latch correctly because he's just not at that point developmentally. Also, my letdowns were too slow. She showed me some things I could do to help him along (but it was a two person job), sent me home with more formula because I would have to pump and I might not get enough out, and scheduled a follow up. I left feeling like I was on the right track.
Then post partum depression hit. I've not had any luck with the medication that had been approved for use with breastfeeding in my previous post partum depression battles. I had my OB prescribe an anti-anxiety medication that had helped me before. Ian had his 2 week appointment, so I asked the pediatrician if it was safe to take while breastfeeding. It wasn't. He told me that I would have to wait 8 hours after taking the pill and pump and dump. He gave me more formula and talked to me about if I should really continue on breastfeeding. He was a big proponent of breastfeeding, but with what I was going through I might want to seriously think about if it was really right for me. I decided to continue on.
I thought I was doing ok for two weeks. Then the medication I had was not helping anymore. I called my OB and we discussed different medications. She prescribed me a newer one that was safe for breastfeeding. I thought, "This is great, I can stop pumping and dumping!" I thought we were finally on track and I could begin fully breastfeeding.
I spent the next two months breastfeeding during the day as much as I could. Ian would get upset with breastfeeding as the day progressed and we'd give him formula because we thought my milk supply was not enough. I was taking fenugreek, eating all the foods that are suppose to increase milk supply and pumping for hours on end at night. At the end of the 2 months, Ian would still get upset with breastfeeding at night, but I was able to pump enough to give him a bottle. We finally were off formula, so we thought.
Ian was fully breastfeeding. We thought he was teething because each feeding he would breastfeed for a while, then come off screaming. Everyday, he was cranky. Poor baby! My medication was giving me unpleasant side effects. Poor me! I decided to try the lower dose hoping that the side effects would die down and I would still be ok. The side effects did die down, but the depression got worse. It was so bad, I couldn't bring myself to breastfeed Ian more than a few times a day. I still pumped, so Dave would give Ian that, but had to give formula because it wasn't enough. I increased my medication and started feeling better. But we noticed something very interesting. Ian had been fully breastfeeding for a month and didn't grow in height and only put on a few ounces. When he started back on formula, he stopped fussing and started growing again. I tried breastfeeding full time again. Ian started fussing everytime he latched on. I could feel the milk there, but he would not latch back on after he came of screaming. We finally realized my milk was not providing what he needed. He needed formula!
Since then, I've breastfeed when he would let me and gave him formula the rest of the time. He's been decreasing how much he breastfeeds. I've been letting him decide. He's growing beautifully and is a much happier baby because of it. I'm so thankful for formula! Because he's been breastfeeding less, I'm starting to feel better. Hopefully I'll be able to start bonding with my baby.
If I have another child, I may decide to breastfeed the first few days for the colostrum, maybe a little longer if I feel up to it, or maybe I won't breastfeed at all. It'll be my decision, and I'll try not to let the guilt ingrained in me take over. I have three beautiful children. Knowingly prolonging my post partum depression does not seem like the right thing to put them through as well. I want the stories to end, the ones I've heard from other women who've struggled and were made to feel guilty because they didn't or couldn't breastfeed. It needs to stop, the guilt pushed on others. We are all mothers and we need to support each other, not be divided. Not all women can breastfeed, and that's ok!

2012: A Big Year Of Change

Wow! 2012 is a big year for me and my little family. It started off with finding out I was pregnant just before going to the Emergency Room where the surgeon ended up coming in to tell me I was not going home, I was getting my gallbladder removed. Surgery and pregnancy, that's a lot in one year to begin with! We felt we were suppose to move to Utah, and looked into buying a house in the Ogden area. My first impression was, "Wait until January." Glad I did because I ended up having surgery. Finding out I was pregnant changed our minds, we needed insurance, so we were staying. Then I felt like we needed to wait until April to make a decision. More on that later.

Dave has been applying for Pharmacy school the past 3 years. After 2 years of applying, interviewing, getting on the waitlist, and nothing, he was done. In order to re-apply a 3rd time, he would have to retake the PCAT. He didn't want to do it. In August, I felt a strong prompting that he should re-take it. Didn't know why, and he was studying for the GRE, so he was not too enthused, but he did it anyway. We had to pay an additional fee for late registration, and it was a week after he took the GRE, so he didn't have a whole lot of time to study. He pretty much went in and took it, not really caring. We got the results, and they were not as good as the first time he took it.

Dave went ahead and re-applied for the same Pharmacy school he'd been waitlisted the prior 2 times. He used the same essay responses, but got the application in earlier. Then we waited and heard nothing. A week or two after my surgery in January, he got an email inviting him to interview. It was just like the prior 2 years, he was getting one of the last of the interview slots, after they have already been accepting students. Dave didn't want to bother with the interview. I convinced him to just do it anyways. So he went, not caring, and interviewed. He felt the interview went well, better then before, and chalked it up to being more relaxed because he was not caring about it. He didn't hear back within a couple weeks, so we knew he was either going to be waitlisted yet again, or declined.

We didn't really care, we figured he probably wouldn't be accepted. The whole process was more for closure, a final nail in the coffin, then moving on to something else. So we had not been talking to very many people about everything because we figured it didn't matter. Didn't want to get anyone's hopes up, especially our own. Didn't get Dave's FAFSA filled out, why bother. Dave was telling people that even if he got accepted, he might decline.

Then mid April we get the waitlist email. Dave was ranked in the 11-25th position for the Utah campus. We looked at each other and said, "Oh crap! This could actually happen!" I quickly filled out the FAFSA, late now, just in case. Dave started feeling different about declining if he was accepted. We still didn't talk to people about the news we got, still not wanting to get our hopes up in case it didn't happen. It did come out in some conversations here and there as I was asking questions about things we would need to know if we needed to move. Sorry family, we were not telling you. Nope, no one in either family knew what was going on. They didn't find out about the interview until I showed up in Sacramento to drop Dave off at the airport. Yeah, we're horrible, we know.

So several weeks went by, had not heard anything. We talked about deferring for a year if Dave were accepted since I'm pregnant and due the 2nd or 3rd week of class. We didn't hear much about the waitlist moving, knew that if we didn't know before the beginning of July, we would not get financial aid for the first year. Nail biting, praying for answers just in case we had decisions to make, trying to figure things out. I was telling Heavenly Father we needed to know by the beginning of June at the latest so we would have time to prepare to move, etc. Those weeks seemed to go on forever.

Sunday, we're getting ready to leave for church and the cell phone rings. Dave looks at the number, doesn't recognize it and thought about ignoring it, but I told him to answer it. It was the head of admissions. He had come into the office that morning for something, saw a position had opened, Dave was next on the list and thought Dave would like the call then, rather than later. Dave had been accepted to the Utah campus! I cried. Remember, I am pregnant :)

We knew then that Dave should accept and not defer. So now it's a whirl wind for us. We need to get out to Utah, but not sure when, find a place, get Jaron enrolled in Kindergarten, find a new OB, pack, clean. It's going to be crazy, but we know we're doing the right thing and Heavenly Father will help us through it. I can't believe this is really happening!

Geek Personality Spectrum: Introversion

So, I was noticing that neither Corrina nor I have posted anything here in a while so I thought I'd through up a post I wrote recently. I regularly read a blog targeted at geeky parents raising geeky kids. Recently, they created an interactive community where members can write their own blog posts and publish them to the community. So I decided why not cross post my latest blog post from that community over to this blog. So, here it is:

I earned my degree in Psychology. I love the brain and everything about it. My Biological Psychology professor really drove home the fact that everything with regards to the brain, behavior, personality, etc. is on a spectrum. There are no black and whites. 

My first post on this forum tangentially touched on one spectrum I'll call the Geek Knowledge Spectrum: breadth vs. depth of knowledge. This time I want to talk a little about what I'll call, for simplicity sake, the Geek Personality Spectrum. Trust me, I am very well aware that personality is far more complex than the simple measure of introversion/extroversion; however, this metric can be very instrumental in understanding one another.

One of the experiments we performed in my bio. psych. course, mentioned above, was to attempt to replicate an experiment to test a famous introversion hypothesis by Hans Eysenk. His hypothesis said that introverts are introverted because they have more baseline brain activity, as measured by EEG which means they need less external stimulation, in fact, they become over-stimulated quickly because of the higher baseline, that's why they prefer more quiet, solitary activities as opposed to loud, crowded parties, etc. for entertainment. Conversely, extroverts have lower baseline brain activity, so therefore need more external stimulation. Eysenk's results supported his hypothesis, and it is fun to think that he's right because it "makes sense", however, many others have attempted to replicate his study with mixed results; some supporting his hypothesis and some refuting it.

I am most clearly an introvert; most of the time a prefer quietly reading a book as opposed to hanging out at loud parties. I also have a small number of close friends, instead of many friends/groupies/entourage/what-have-you. Looking at "geeky" activities, I would hypothesize that self-described geeks would fall closer to the introverted end of the spectrum. That's not to say ALL geeks are introverts, and especially not that all introverts are geeks. But I would be interested to see where a large sample of self-described geeks (i.e. this community) feel they fall on the spectrum and if they think there is my validity to my hypothesis.

As an aside, a while back I found this blog post and thought it was a really good resource for everybody to understand introverts better. If you are one, read it to understand yourself. If you're an extrovert, read it to understand us. The post also explains Eysenk's hypothesis better than I did and points out that only about 25% of the total population are introverts, so I think it would be interesting if Geekdom had a higher proportion.

"Judge Not, And Ye Shall Not Be Judged" - Luke 6:37

My Stake Relief Society Presidency had someone from LDS Social Services do a workshop type thing for us last week. It was nice. The sister talked about depression, anxiety and other things. One of the things she discussed was changing our thought process from being negative to being more positive. She related a story from when she was at BYU and her Sacrament meeting was held in the Orem Institute game room. The story was told to her from a friend, whose Sacrament meeting was held in the same place.

The way the room was set up, everyone was faced towards the front where a couple vending machines were to the right. During one Sacrament meeting, a young man walked into the room, up to the front, got something out of the vending machine, and left. 

How would you have reacted if this happened during your Sacrament meeting? My immediate reaction while she was telling the story was, "What on earth was he thinking!?!" 

The friend was thinking along the same lines I was, and just so happened to be sitting next to the wife of one of the members of the Bishopric. The wife leaned over and whispered to the friend, "Oh, he must be diabetic."

If you had seen the young man in the hall later, how would you have acted? If you thought the way I did, you may have looked away from him or had a scowl on your face, or something else that was probably negative. If you had been the wife of the Bishopric, you may have gone up to him and asked if he was ok and seen how he was feeling. How do you think he felt knowing he had to interrupt a Sacrament meeting because he had to have something to eat? That was probably a hard decision for him to make. 

Her point of the story was that we don't know what has happened in someone's life. We should not be quick to think negatively about the situation we see. We need to watch our thoughts and work on changing them from being negative to being positive. Even when we are cut off by someone when we are driving (another example she used). When we think negatively, we are judging them. 

I thought that was something to share. I know I'm not perfect and need to work on my thoughts. I know of others who judge me and my family and how much it hurts us. Please be more understanding of others. You really don't know everything about them.

Note: I'm in no way singling anyone out or have anyone specific in my mind while writing this post. If you find you are questioning yourself, then maybe you have something to work on, just like me :)

Growing Up Too Fast

I tell my kids to stop growing. They're not listening...lol

I'm in shock. My daughter, my baby, will be 3 in a month. When did that happen? It just doesn't seem right.

My son started Preschool this year. Since when do I have a child that is old enough to go to school? That just doesn't seem right.

It all comes down to this: They are growing up too fast. Who else is feeling like me?

Speak Out with your Geek Out

The following I originally posted not too long ago on both Google+ and Facebook but I have decided to post it again because of a week-long internet event called Speak Out with your Geek Out, encouraging all geeks everywhere to post, tweet, blog, and basically speak out, both on the internet and in person/face-to-face, about your geeky hobbies and act as an example and/or mentor to other geeks who might be a little shy about saying "I'm proud to be a Geek". Since, as you will read below, this is an important concept to me, I decided to join in by reposting this. Now, I'm not saying this is my only geeky interest. This was inspired by a contemplation of the general types of geek out there (sports, computer, D&D, video game, Harry Potter, etc.) and a realization of the category I feel most comfortable labeling myself. Enjoy, and feel free to comment and take part in Speak Out with your Geek Out, yourselves.

(original post:)

Most of my life I've had a hard time feeling like I fit in with anyone (Don't run away, this isn't some sob story, just describing background before my epiphany). As I've gotten older, it has come down to what type or group of people I am or want to be. I enjoy playing sports, but I'm not very good and I don't feel like a "jock". I enjoy lots of geeky topics but I don't know how to program computers, etc. And, "geek" still had a negative connotation in my mind (it was synonymous with nerd and dweeb).

But a couple years ago I found the GeekDad blog (wired.com/geekdad) and began to realize I truly am a Geek and proud of it. I also learned that geeks have interest in lots of different topics and not just comic books and computers, and many even enjoy outdoor activities like biking, camping, etc. Furthermore, I even began to realize that the geek community (I like to call it Geekdom) is a very accepting and very diverse community. Since that time, I have really been growing into my geekery and even feel more confident knowing where I fit in. 

Sometimes I still struggle feeling like I fit in with other geeks that have a large depth of knowledge because I am more of the type that was a wide breadth of knowledge of many topics. This post: (http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/04/the-geeks-dilemma-breadth-vs-depth-of-interests/) helped immensely as I saw in the comments lots of others that were jack-of-all-trades type people, too. (If you can't tell, I rely heavily on the authors of GeekDad, and their companion site GeekMom, to guide me through this journey of self-discovery. My largest circle, so far, is the one I have reserved for the writers on those blogs).

Then, recently, I started struggling with the type of geek I am. I'm not a computer geek, because I don't know how to program them, I'm not a video game geek, because I don't own any consoles, I have always enjoyed tv shows and movies about the Marvel superheroes (and Batman, from DC) but I'm not a comic book geek. I don't even own a single comic. But then, from recent experiences, I realized what type of geek I am.

I am an information/research geek. I like to know things and I am good at finding the information I need, on the internet and other sources. I get a thrill trying to solve the puzzle of how to find what I'm looking for. That's why I like reading so much, I like to learn and take in as much information as I can. I am an info/research geek and I'm proud!