October 27th it was an 8-year-old boy who killed himself at a gun show.

November 10th it was an 8-year-old boy who's facing charges of murdering his father with a gun.

This week it's a 6-year-old girl who was fatally shot by her father as he cleaned his guns while downing shots of Vodka. The other side note in this story that is almost irrelevant given the tragedy that did ensue, was that the father had "told detectives he had asked his daughter to bring him the .45-caliber handgun" in the first place. So we could have been reading about an entirely different story about a 6-year old girl shooting herself while dutifully bringing her father his gun. Either way you go, not a happy ending.

November 16, 2008

Today I went to a football game. I cheered! I jumped up and down and fell on the cement but Bobbin always picked me up. I wore a jersey. I ate a hotdog for lunch. I saw airplanes. Blitz is the mascot.

Go Seahawks Go!

I really wanted to go down there to the field, but it was foggy.

And here are the photos we included in the journal:

And here are a few more photos from the game.

November 15, 2008

This morning after breakfast Bobbin took me to soccer. I played with some new friends like "Z". "Z" is a little boy in Bobbin's soccer class. I had lots of fun even though I fell down. I liked the squishy balls. After soccer I went to McDonald's with Bobbin. I had chicken nuggets and a chocolate chip cookie. Then we went to the painting store. I painted chocolate chip cookies and I went potty all by myself. Then we went to play in the play area with all kinds of instruments. Then I lied down and took a rest. After dinner tonight Bobbin said we would have ice cream.

I told Bobbin that because "H" can't talk, she needed to tell me what words to use in his journal to explain what he did today. The above was the result. I did have to prompt a bit with questions. And despite what his journal says, neither "H" nor Bobbin consumed a chocolate chip cookie at any point today. Nor did either of them paint chocolate chip cookies at the painting store. They painted something else entirely. And "H" actually spent most of soccer on the sidelines. He did lose his pants at one point, but he didn't fall. However this was her project, so I just wrote what she dictated :-) Although I did choose to omit how "'H' did hit at soccer, and that's not ok. And sometimes he bites. And he bited at soccer and I said 'no' and then he got a time out and then he was sorry and then he KICKED the ball so high it bumped down on his head and he got really really hurt and the ambulance came to take him to the doctor".

Here are the photos that we'll stick onto the journal entry for today:

Tomorrow is Football. I can't find the tiny Seahawks jersey that Bobbin had for one of her Build-A-Bear teddy bears, which got Bobbin all distraught. So today at the QFC I found a nice $2.99 beer cozy shaped like a Seahawks Jersey that should do nicely. Bobbin doesn't know what it really is. And that's ok :-). Stay tuned for photos from the game!

1. New diapers for her baby dolls (the old ones' sticky tape is all worn out)
2. A Brand New Big Girl Bike with butterflies on it

The first is something she's been asking for since March. I kid you not. The second one started about 2 months ago, but has been a daily topic of conversation. Bobbin wants a Big Girl Bike. Ever since she tried out a little 10-inch real, honest-to-goodness big kid bike complete with bicycle chain and brakes (as opposed to the "fake" ones that just have the pedals mounted on the front wheel like a tricycle) she's been asking for a Big Girl Bike. There's a tradition in both my family and Tim's of Santa bringing bicycles for Christmas. I explained to Bobbin that Santa was an expert bicycle maker; he had an entire wing of his toy factory dedicated to bicycle building.

She's been pretty adamant about the butterflies on the bike too. But I have a feeling Santa's gonna come through. He has a way of doing that :-)

Question 1: Why are the deer running; who's coming?
Answer: The deer are running because they are afraid of the hunters.

Question 2: What are the hunters; are they (pointing to the animated images of crows on the TV) the hunters?
Answer: The hunters are people. They are in the forest. They are chasing the deer. They make a lot of loud noises and it scares the animals.

Question 3: Where did Bambi's Mommy go?
Answer: Well, Bambi's Mommy was really worried about Bambi because he's so young. She wanted to make sure he ran away and hid somewhere safe. So she stayed behind in the meadow to make sure he escaped. And now she's gone. She died, honey.

Question 4: How did she died?
Answer: Well, I think she got really badly hurt from the hunter's guns. So hurt that she couldn't get up anymore. So hurt that a doctor couldn't have helped her. And when someone gets so hurt that they can't be made better, sometimes they die. But Bambi will always remember his Mommy, and remember how much she loved him. And his Mommy will watch over him even though she's not with him anymore.

Question 5: Why are the mean dogs chasing Feline?
Answer: Those are the hunters' dogs. The hunters trained them to be able to find other animals. The dogs work for the hunters. They find the animals the hunters are looking for and then they keep them there until the hunters can get there.

Question 6: What happened to Bambi? How he got hurt?
Answer: Well, Bambi was running to get away from the hunters, and when he went to jump across the canyon the hunters saw him, and they shot their gun, and the bullet hit his leg and he got really really hurt.

Question 7: Why the hunters hurt Bambi? Why the hunters have guns?
Answer: Well, sometimes people have to hunt for their food. That's how they live. They have to find food in the forest. Hunters find food. that's how they're able to feed their families and live. That doesn't make them bad. It's what they need to do. Some people don't hunt for food. They hunt for other reasons. I don't think that's ok. I would never do that. Neither would Daddy. we don't need to hunt for our food. We can get our food from farms and gardens and grocery stores. And Guns are very very very very dangerous. We don't touch guns. Guns are really really dangerous. They can hurt you so bad that you might not get better.

Question 8: And then you could die?
Answer: Yes, you could.

Ok. So she's processing all of that, and I think she's getting it. But I didn't realize that there was one slight little problem. There's a boy in her class named Hunter. You know where I'm going, don't you... Well, thankfully I don't think she's had any sort of conversation or confrontation with him about why he killed Bambi's mother. But it has been on her mind, because when I picked her up from school, I asked her who the little boy was that said goodbye to her and gave her a kiss and a hug, and she replied "Hunter" (whom I had met when I first started taking her to school; but had forgotten his name). And then she said "But he's not mean like the pretend hunters in Bambi".

So we had a conversation about how her friend's name is Hunter, but that the hunters in Bambi were actually called hunters because what they do is hunt. They hunt, so they are hunters. That's different than having the name "Hunter". I don't know if I needed to bother, but I did know that I didn't want to take the chance that I'd get some weird note from school about how Bobbin was accusing one of her classmates of killing deer and starting forest fires. It still may happen, but at least I'll have seen it coming and will be able to explain why :-)

The other movie we've been watching is 101 Dalmations. Yes, another lovely tale of cruelty to animals. All implied, never seen, much like Bambi. But that's all that is needed to get a 3-year-old's mind turning. Thankfully she has not yet pieced together what it is that Cruella deVille is planning on doing with the puppies. She is however, fascinated by her meanness. She looks mean, she sounds mean, and she steals puppies. Evil incarnate already, even without knowing her intent for those puppies. But even that is not the primary focus of Bobbin's fascination with Cruella. No, what really has captured Bobbin's attention are the cigarettes that Cruella smokes. "Why she's putting fire in her mouth?" Bobbin asks. She asks this of real people she observes smoking as well.

So far my answer has been this: She's smoking a cigarette. Cigarettes are really yucky and very very dangerous. Cigarettes can make you very very sick. They can make it so your body can't breathe, and you cough all the time, and you can even get so sick you have to go to the hospital and stay there for a long long time. and sometimes you can get so sick you can't get better.

To which, of course, she asks " And then you can die?"

To which of course I anaswer "Yes, yes you could".

This lesson too, appears to be sinking in well. Whenever Bobbin sees a cigarette butt on the sidewalk or street she stops, points at it and yells "OOOH YUCKY YUCKY! THAT's BAD! SO YUCKY! ICK! YUCK! PTOOEEEY! THAT CAN MAKE YOU SICK!"

Neither Tim nor I smoke. Tim used to but quit before we got married. I've never so much as tried it. At all. But of course, we do know people who do smoke. Some of whom are very close to us. And so Bobbin's still trying to process why someone would willingly do something that was so bad for them that it could make them so sick they would die. And, well, that's a tough one. My answer there is that he or she has been smoking for a very long time, and they know it is bad and not healthy and could make them sick, but sometimes it can be very very hard to stop doing something even when you know it is bad for you and can make you sick. And what we should do is let those people know that we really love them, and we want them to stop smoking, because we don't want them to get sick. And maybe if they know that it will help them to stop doing it".

So at this point I can say that we've done the three-year-old version of

• the Sex talk (Babies come from Mommies' tummies. When a mommy and daddy decide they want to have a baby, then the baby grows in mommy's tummy and then when it's big enough they go to the hospital and the baby is born)
• the smoking talk
• the drinking talk (Tim and I enjoy wine at dinner and so we've had the conversation about how that is just for grownups, and even then grownups should only drink a little bit, because too much can make your body sick, just like too much medicine or too much of anything can make your body sick),
• the gun talk.

I think we've covered a few bases for a while.

Good lord, this parenting stuff is hard.

Today I read an article about an 8-year-old boy who's facing charges of murdering his father and shooting a second victim.

The caption under the headline photo is "The Rev. John Paul Sauter said Vincent Romero, 29, had consulted him about whether [Romero's son] should have a gun." Because apparently, it's not inherently obvious to parents in this country that 8 years old is just TOO FRIGGIN' YOUNG for handling a deadly weapon. No matter what the law permits.

I have my issues with the gun laws and the general "second amendment" interpretation. I've resigned myself to the fact that I've chosen to live in a country where guns are considered an inherent "right" by many and that the laws that "regulate" them (and I use that term very loosely) are what they are, and are not likely to change. Fine. But really - just because the law doesn't prohibit it, does that mean it's ok to do it or allow it?

She's had a pretty hectic weekend. Up at 6:30am yesterday. Soccer at 9:40am. Then to Target to buy birthday presents - we had two parties this weekend. Then home where she played outside on her swings in the rain, followed by a rousing game of soccer with me that ended with her slipping in a puddle and getting covered with mud from head to foot. Even her underpants were muddy. After that was Birthday Party #1 at friend L's house. L turned 2 (Happy B-day, L!). Bobbin played non-stop until about 5pm when she practically collapsed on their living room floor in a heap of exhaustion. Good humoured exhaustion, but exhaustion nontheless. She was in bed by 7:30pm last night and awake at 7am this morning.

After chowing down on six mini-pancakes, scrambled eggs with cheese, a plum, some melon, and a yogurt smoothie we decided to hit the park. We must have walked about a mile and a half together all told, half of which she ran. Fed the ducks. Chased the roosters. Went to lunch. 2 hours in the end. And when I realized that birthday party #2 started at 1pm and not 3pm as I had thought, we raced back to the car and went straight to Grandma's house for cousin S's party. Tim met us there, party dress and presents in hand. She played outside and inside and outside again. I noticed the treads were falling off her shoes at this point so after the party we headed straight to the mall for a new pair of running shoes and some "hiking boots" (kind of all-weather sturdy boots that should fare better on her school playground). By 5:00pm we were home, and 5:30 we were finished dinner. Bobbin announced her readiness for a bath at 5:50 and she played in there for 40 minutes. By 6:45 she was in her jammies, and by 7:10 we were finished the two books she had selected and she announced her desire to go to bed.

She's been completely silent since I tucked her in, no doubt falling asleep minutes after her head hit the pillow.

And so here I am, 7:39pm, oddly... free... I'm sure I'll come up with something to do :-) It is a strange feeling though!

1. Our country is called the United States of America


2. It has 50 states


3. We live in Washington State


4. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 states. Each state gets a star


5. In the United States we elect a President.


6. America has a National Song. An America Song. It's the same song we sing at football games

And today, she came home and taught me something I did NOT know, in my 15 years living here, simply because I've never had to repeat it. The Pledge of Allegiance:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all."

Only when she says it it goes more like this:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and Stand, under God, invisible for all"

Which wasn't entirely inappropriate, given the last 8 years :-)

I'll stick with the official version though when I apply for citizenship. Probably wiser :-)

Easy to fix.

When I told her that Barack Obama had one the election she said, and I kid you not, "Barack Obama? I like him. I want to go meet him and talk to him"

About what, I wondered. That could be a good conversation...

But I responded with, "Well, He'll be moving into the White House soon. Maybe we can take a trip to see the White House". And then she asked "I want to see this white house. Where is his white home he lives in?" and then I explained that it was in the Other Washington, Washington DC. To which she replied "Near Aunt Sarah" (who, with Mike, just moved back to Canada from Quantico. The kid's got a memory in her).

I reminded her of the names of the two main Presidential Candidates this year and asked her who she would vote for. Her response: "ME!" Fair enough. So that led to the following conversation. And these are direct quotes because I grabbed a pen and paper and took notes when I realized she was actually answering my questions :-)

Me: Well, interesting. I might consider voting for you too but I need to know a bit more about you. As President, what would be the first thing you do for the country?

Bobbin: I would give everyone a sticker.

Me: That's a pretty good start. Everyone likes stickers. Is there anything else you would want to do for the country in your first term as President?

Bobbin: Put merry-go-rounds everywhere

Me: That's a very interesting idea. Now, as President of the United States, where do you stand on education? Are there specific policies you'd want to implement for schools?

Bobbin: (pausing to think) Yes. No hitting. No biting. No pushing.

Me: Reinforcing the fundamentals. That's a good start. Now, let's talk about your foreign policy. As President of the United States would you travel the world to make new friends?

Bobbin: (enthusiastically) I would GO TO AFRICA!

(Bobbin knows "Africa", "Australia", "Antarctica", "China", "Canada" and "America")

Me: There is a lot going on in Africa, definitely.

Bobbin: Mommy, I'm all done now. I'm eating my meatballs.

And so ended Bobbin's first round of interviews in her presidential bid. Nothing like getting a head start on the competition. From her current positions and priorities it seems she has an Independent streak but we'll have to see how the Mainstream Media casts her.

It's been a crappy week. Crappy at work. And cranky at home. Me, that is. Cranky. With Tim bearing the brunt of it and Bobbin getting some of the leftovers. Some of the crankiness is... well... expected, if you know what I mean, while some of it is just coming out of nowhere. I am not sure if the month of different generic antidepressants is partially to blame; not sure how long it takes for that stuff to kick back in. It also doesn't help that it is November in Seattle. Which means rain and dreary grey skies. Lots of rain. And I pulled something in my back late this afternoon, putting laundry in the dryer. I'm gettin' old.

All that combined - different meds; PMS; lack of exercise; head cold that won't go away; back that won't bend - doesn't make for great mental health.

But today I exercised. And then I took a shower. And I gave myself a facial. And I deep conditioned my hair. And I shaved my legs. And then I took a bubble bath. And then I warmed my jammies up in the dryer so they'd be all snuggly (Tim and I used to do this for Bobbin when she was a baby. Oh my god... did I just say "used to... when she was a baby"? Ugh. I guess I will find myself saying that a lot more from hereon out).

So Today is now DAY 1. Tomorrow I start a new week, and attempt anew to achieve my weekly exercise goals. Wish me luck. And sunshine.

1. Have you had the same friends since childhood?

No. That would be challenging. Being an "army brat", I moved around every 2-4 years since birth through to university, and then again from university to the grown up world of full time employment. I had one or two good friends every place I lived, but always lost touch. My one consistent friendship over the years has been with Eileen, with whom I went to high school for 4 years, then university for 4 years, and then she moved to Vancouver and I moved to Seattle so we see and call each other every so often (ok, like a couple times a year :-)). When we get together it's like lots around us has changed but we are still who we are. I still know her. She still knows me. True friendship. It's been 23 years, we've known each other. That's amazing. Since starting to blog and hang out on various social networking sites I've also been able to connect with some of my very closest high school friends that I had lost touch with after graduating. It's been nice to reconnect and hear about what's been happening in their lives, and see them succeeding with their careers, dreams, families!

2. What do you value most about your friends?

That they accept me for who I am, and that they are the most tolerant, respectful, open minded people that I know. And that they each have their own passions, interest and knowledge. Some of them overlap with mine, and some are different and it's fun to learn about those things. And I value that we're able to share experiences and issues and that they're there for me to listen to me and care about me, and would never think to judge me.

3. Are your friends your sounding boards?

Yes, most definitely. I try and spread the pain grief wealth around so as not to make anyone person completely insane. And I have a therapist for that really truly icky you're-damnedno-matter-what-you-say-or-dont-say stuff (y'all should definitely thank me for that ;-). And a husband, my very best friend, for when that stuff is even too much for me to say to my therapist (and he still loves me and wants to stay married to me :-)).

4. What is your favorite activity to share with your friends?

Eating, drinking wine, watching our kids play relatively indepedantly with each other with only occasional intervention needed.

So, here are my tags.... you're it, dorks!

My sis, Sarah, at saedigh.com. She knows my good, bad, and ugly. Oh boy, does she know my ugly. And hasn't used any of it against me. I love her so much!

Jen at Jen Frankel's Zugunruhe, My best friend in 9th grade, who got me hooked on Sci Fi and Fantasy books, and David Bowie, and got me through my worst year of high school ever: the first year. I did NOT want to move that summer, and she is the reason why. I connected up with her again just this year over the internet. Gotta love the internet!

Janel, at BugginYou.org where Buggin is Lovin'. A bouquet of flowers and a shit-for-brains ex-boyfriend brought us together. Our friendship lasted many years longer than the ex-boyfriend ever did. So did the Jesus Candle and the frozen Strawberry Daquari mixes. She's also the one who first introduced me to Tim, so I owe her my gratitude there :-)

DAE at noise-to-signal for being the friend that keeps the rest of us all coming together on Friday nights and for his beautiful art - both food and photography.

and of course, my husband Tim at crappymusic, for being my very best friend in the whole entire world, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, in health, forever.

So I think all y'all that I listed have to something similar now on your blogs, if this is how it works. And spread the love and friendship even further!

Alex King's HTML Resume Template

Here's Tim's finished resume so you can see what it looks like (soon to be posted on his own web site :-))

I love the links at the bottom to the emailable HTML version, as well as the plain text version. Very handy.

Reading this story made me sick.

Also, I did not know that "It is legal for children to fire a weapon if they have permission from a parent or legal guardian and are supervised by a properly certified and licensed instructor". Seriously? Really? That is SO fucked up. It's not legal for an 8 year old to drive a car. It's not legal for an 8 year old to drink. But it's perfectly legal for an 8 year old to go down to the local gun show and shoot an Uzi submachine gun.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg on gun ownership and operation laws in this country. I have so, so many problems with this on so many levels.

"The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it". No frickin' kidding. I would lose control of the weapon too upon firing, I'm sure, and I'm a full grown adult. He was EIGHT. Where's the parent's judgement? Forget about judgement, even. Where's the basic logic?

Not to mention what's the lesson that was intended by allowing the kid to fire the gun?

I'm too disgusted and depressed to get into all the other stuff I'm thinking about this.

Yeah. Not a fun game to play when it involves your antidepressant medication.

So I've had a rough few weeks. 4 weeks. Month. I've had a rough month. I racked my brain for some time trying to think of why it's been rough. Things have been going well. Bobbin is enjoying school. Tantrums have significantly decreased. Work is challenging but good. Tim isn't snoring as much so I'm getting more sleep :-)

By week 3, I had a hypothesis. When I went to get my new prescription filled at the beginning of the month, I went to a different drug store than I usually do. And that drug store had a different generic substitute for my prescription than my regular drug store. I could tell because the pills were a different shape and colour. But the actual medicine and dosage was the same. I even looked it up online to be sure.

But after 3 weeks I wasn't feeling the same. So I wondered, with all other factors in my life being fairly consistent, is it possible, not all generics are created equal? And the answer is, in the United states, yes. Yes it is possible that not all generics are exactly the same.

I asked my doctor today and he confirmed my suspicions. The FDA allows for a fair bit of variance. There's no way for him to confirm with certainty that the 2nd brand I was using was any less effective than the first; it could be I was just having a challenging month. But given what I described I had experienced, and given that when I went back to the 1st brand and after a week started slowly feeling like I was getting back to normal, it was a strong possibility that the 2nd brand was not equivalent in level of meds.

So how is bioequivalence defined by the FDA? According to Wikipedia,

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has defined bioequivalence as, "the absence of a significant difference in the rate and extent to which the active ingredient or active moiety in pharmaceutical equivalents or pharmaceutical alternatives becomes available at the site of drug action when administered at the same molar dose under similar conditions in an appropriately designed study.

The FDA considers two products bioequivalent if the 90% CI of the relative mean Cmax, AUC(0-t) and AUC(0-∞) of the test (e.g. generic formulation) to reference (e.g. innovator brand formulation) should be within 80.00% to 125.00% in the fasting state. Although there are a few exceptions, generally a bioequivalent comparison of Test to Reference formulations also requires administration after an appropriate meal at a specified time before taking the drug, a so-called "fed" or "food-effect" study. A food-effect study requires the same statistical evaluation as the fasting study, described above.

Roughly translated to English, what this means is that two products are considered sufficiently equivalent if the average concentration found in the blood of the majority the test subjects who received the generic formulation is within 80% - 125% of the brand formulation in both fasting and fed studies. This means that in the extreme case I could take generic brand X and be absorbing as much 125% of what I would have absorbed if I had taken the same dose as the name brand. And then take generic brand Y and be absorbing only 80% of what I would have absorbed if I had taken the name brand. Another way to look at it, is that a generic pill that is supposed to be 100mg in strength could potentially contain as much as 125mg of the formulation, all of which is absorbed by some number of test subjects, or might contain 100mg of medicine but only 80mg of that gets absorbed by some number of test subjects. That's a difference of 45mg. Ok - it's not quite that straight forward but I failed first year statistics and barely passed the second time I took it, however the point is the same: there can actually be a fairly wide variation in formulations between different generic brands of the same drug; from each other as well as from the name brand.

In the US, however, some insurance policies won't cover the full cost of the name brand, or even cover a portion of the cost. And when you walk into a drug store, you don't know unless you ask, what generic brand they will use to fill the prescription. Or unless you spend an hour sifting through photos and descriptions of the pill shape & imprint online to identify the manufacturer after you get the drug home. But when you do find out that you've reacted differently to a particular generic brand your doctor can write you a perscription either requiring no substitute from the name brand, or explicitly excluding specific generic brands from being used. So that's what's gonna happen next time for me :-)

And the lesson - don't assume all generics are exactly equal. And if you have switched generics, or switched from brand to generic and you notice a difference in how it is affecting you, definitely let your doctor know.

Footnotes for those interested, and/or those who passed statistics the first time around:

In statistics, a confidence interval (CI) is an interval estimate of a population parameter. Instead of estimating the parameter by a single value, an interval likely to include the parameter is given. Thus, confidence intervals are used to indicate the reliability of an estimate. How likely the interval is to contain the parameter is determined by the confidence level or confidence coefficient. Increasing the desired confidence level will widen the confidence interval.

For example, a CI can be used to describe how reliable survey results are. In a poll of election voting-intentions, the result might be that 40% of respondents intend to vote for a certain party. A 95% confidence interval for the proportion in the whole population having the same intention on the survey date might be 36% to 44%. All other things being equal, a survey result with a small CI is more reliable than a result with a large CI and one of the main things controlling this width in the case of population surveys is the size of the sample questioned. Confidence intervals and interval estimates more generally have applications across the whole range of quantitative studies.

In the above, the 95% associated with the confidence interval is called the confidence level of the interval: this is defined formally below.

Occasionally, blood concentration levels are neither feasible or possible to compare the two products (e.g. inhaled corticosteroids), then pharmacodynamic endpoints rather than pharmacokinetic endpoints (see below) are used for comparison. For a pharmacokinetic comparison, the plasma concentration data are used to assess key pharmacokinetic parameters such as area under the curve (AUC), peak concentration (Cmax), time to peak concentration (Tmax), and absorption lag time (tlag). Testing should be conducted at several different doses, especially when the drug displays non-linear pharmacokinetics.