Grace... for real

Some know, some don't, that Laurie and I have been trying to add to our family for well over a year now. It's been Laurie, Gracie, and me for over 2.5 years now...
Some couples have a hard time "getting pregnant". We don't. Our problem would be "staying pregnant". Since May of 2007, Laurie has been pregnant several times... Each time, we get our hopes up, only to be completely disappointed and discouraged by another miscarriage. The most disappointing one happened last September - a full ten weeks into the pregnancy...
The doctor says there's really nothing he can do about it... It's a "chromosomal miscarriage" which he claims happens in about 1 out of 20 pregnancies (5%). Well, apparently our doctor never had a course in statistics, because it has happened to us in at least 4 out of 5 pregnancies (80%)... Those ratios don't add up to me, which tells me he should be doing more tests to find out what is wrong. If we followed typical statistics, our four miscarriages would have happened over a course of 80 pregnancies... I highly doubt it is what he considers a "chromosomal miscarriage". SO FRUSTRATING!!!!
We've talked to other people who have had multiple miscarriages, and most say the same thing... their doctors put them on "progesterone", which apparently helps the catchers mitt not to drop the ball...
Anyway, when you consider that we have such a hard time enlarging our family, Gracie's name really makes sense... It is, by the way, by the "grace of God" that we're able to have her in our family. So, count your blessings...

Dora the Explorer... Why!?

My daughter loves Dora the Explorer. I'm not sure if she loves Dora more than "princesses", but its definitely close. I really am not sure if I'm okay with my daughter being so enamored by Dora the Explorer. Let me explain the numerous reasons why:

1) Do we really want to teach our children that they can go on adventures crossing alligator lakes, snake rivers, etc. without any adult supervision. Her only companionship is a monkey who wears boots, and a backpack and map that she talks to... that's not creepy at all.

2) With all of the social pressure on our children to fit in and wear the "right" clothes these days, do we really want our daughters idolizing someone who wears a pink shirt with orangish-red shorts, then accents with yellow frilly socks? It gets even worse when you consider that her shirt isn't long enough to cover her big-ole gut!

3) I know that the show is supposed to encourage learning dual languages and everything, but in reality, do we want our kids speaking in English with few Spanish words mixed in here and there? Its already hard enough to understand them sometimes... If my daughter wants to speak Spanish, I'm fine with that, but I hope that she'll speak it in complete sentences, as well as English.

4) Finally, I do not want my daughter idolizing/hanging out with someone who just happens to be carrying a backpack full of a flashlight, a shovel, a map, a water-skiing rope, and a bar of soap. I can think of no good reason why a child would need that combination of things in her backpack... it spells one thing... "T-R-O-U-B-L-E"!

Finally, you can see that if you step back and look at the concept of Dora the Explorer, its pretty unnerving to have your child watch and adore the show... So, parents, beware, and please be careful about what your children watch...

(wink, wink)