Miniseed

With Odelia in her first two months of life, her immune system is still weak.  Not long ago, many of our small group got struck by a stomach virus, so there’s reason to be cautious about where I bring Odelia and what she gets exposed to, at least until she reaches her second month, when she’ll be getting at least 4 immunization shots.  I avoid bringing Odelia to social function where lots of people carrying germs are roaming about.  I wash my hands almost all the time.  I avoid public bathroom handles, where people who don’t wash their hands after doing their thing deposit their germs.

I thought I was cautious, but today I read this article on MSNBC about places that you don’t think of where you can get germs.  In summary:

1. Vacuum Cleaners – 50 percent of the vacuum brushes they tested contained fecal bacteria, including 13 percent with E. coli, and all were packing mold. 

Hmm, time to give my iRobot a cleaning!

2. Your weight-lifting gloves - A 2004 Japanese study found that staph bacteria bind strongly to polyester, which is used in many gloves.

Haven’t lifted weights other than Odelia for a while, so I’m ok here.

3. The grocery cart - The handles of almost two-thirds of shopping carts tested in a 2007 University of Arizona study were contaminated with fecal bacteria. The carts had even more of these bacteria than the average public bathroom has.

I definitely didn’t think about this one, as we just took Odelia to Fred Meyer, with me holding Odelia in one hand and the shopping cart in the other.

4. Gym equipment - A 2006 study in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine found rhinoviruses (instigators of the common cold) on 63 percent of the gym equipment at the fitness centers they tested.

I get all my workout through holding and calming Odelia, so I’m ok here.

5. The restaurant menu -  recent study in the Journal of Medical Virology reports that cold and flu viruses can survive for 18 hours on hard surfaces.

Haven’t been to a restaurant for a while either, so we’re okay for now.  Definitely something to watch out for when Karen and I have a life again.

6. The flight attendant - Flight attendants are exposed to dozens of sniffling and coughing passengers and the surfaces they touch.

Don’t think Karen and I will be flying for a while.

7. Your bed - More than 84 percent of beds in U.S. homes host dust mites. These microscopic critters live in your sheets and feed on your dead skin, and their fecal matter and corpses contribute to asthma and allergies.

This explains why I never make the bed–because of fear of allergies…  Yeah… That’s it.  Time to make that case with Karen.

8. The lemon wedge in your drink – In a 2007 study from the Journal of Environmental Health, nearly 70 percent of the lemon wedges smashed onto restaurant glasses contained disease-causing microbes, including E. coli and other fecal bacteria.

No trips to restaurants, no worries.

9. Your contact-lens case - In a 2007 Chinese study, 34 percent of contact-lens cases tested were found to be crawling with germs like Serratia and Staphylococcus aureus. These microorganisms can cause keratitis, an inflammatory eye disease that can damage the cornea and lead to blindness. 

Time to chuck that lens case I’ve been using since 1995…

10. Your shower curtain – The soap scum hanging out on your curtain is more than just unsightly. A study in Applied and Environmental Microbiology found that vinyl shower curtains are microbe meccas, breeding potential pathogens, such as infection-causing Sphingomonas and Methylobacterium. Plus, the force of the shower spray will make germs take flight. 

And I thought that making the shower glass window look fogged just changes style of the window.  TIme to bust out Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser.

Looks like I will need to make a few adjustments in my life…  just so that little Lia can stay safe and sound!

With me back to work and my parents in town last week, things have been increasingly hectic. Hopefully I can find some time here and there to post some interesting things.

Now, take a look at this picture and see if you can detect anything wrong with what we’re doing with the baby…

Can you find them all? A point per answer goes to whoever gets that answer first!  I will not be posting any followup, so if no one answers, then you will all be kept hanging!   There are at least four “taboos” according to modern science and the SIDS foundation.

Here’s perhaps the best baby calming strategy I have to date!

A while back I shared about my backup solution, where I use a DLink DNS-323 to make backups from one drive to another, once per night.  This prevents me from accidentally deleting a file and loosing it forever.  Unfortunately, the safety net is only for one day, because if you need to recover it the next day, the data from the day before is overwritten and the data is gone forever.

However, Mac has the concept of Time Machine, where you can go back to any point in time and recover any of the old versions of files that you’ve ever had.  It’s an interesting concept, but making a full copy everyday will run out of storage after 2-3 backups!  Fortunately, I have learned that using rsync, which is how I’ve been backing up from one drive to another, you can actually make a full backup every day, without wasting space for files that haven’t changed.

So with a full backup everyday, I don’t have to worry about overwriting a file and not being able to recover it, because I can go to any version of any file on any day.  Now that’s a backup solution!

Odelia will have her dedication to God this Sunday!

May she become a God-fearing woman, Right now all she can do is cry unto the Lord…

Odelia has received her first snail mail!

It’s definitely strange to see…

Unfortunately it was not a very personal letter, but hey, she’s in the system!

After a nice 4.5 weeks on vacation bonding with Odelia and doing chores, I returned to work today. I’m sure Karen will be missing the pancakes that I’ve been making her for breakfast…

Here’s the question, who does Odelia look like?

Here’s Picture A

Here’s Picture B

Here’s a reminder of what Odelia looks like.

So take your vote.  A or B?   And no, I will not reveal which is which. 

Karen and I watched the Happiest Baby On The Block last week.

In the DVD, Dr. Karp mentions that babies may have come a trimester early and hence cannot support its own head and need constant attention. Then he goes on to connect his own exercises with an experience of the baby while in the womb.

Dr. Karp starts the demonstration by manages to wrap the baby up really tightly like a cocoon, or a straight-jacket. It didn’t seem to have much effect because the baby cried much harder than before. Then he turns the baby on its side position, hisses in his ears so loudly to the baby is stunned, similar to the effect of a tazer, then proceed to shake the baby’s head like washing a bowl of rice. With the shaking, the baby is so distraunt with the movements that the baby cannot actively cry, and eventually tires and gives up Lastly, he introduces a break-through product and technique, called “using the pacifier”.

At the end of the day, some parents may wish to treat their baby’s head like a bowl of rice, but I prefer to use the loving methods, such as Crouching Tiger or the Waltz method. That way I can bond with my daughter, and get a workout in the process.

Odelia’s surviving one month with Karen and I definitely deserved some celebration! Unfortunately Karen and I were busy gabbing with guests and didn’t have much time to take pictures, but here are a few moments from the video clips we did get.

During the whole time, Odelia was sleeping. Notice her cute, little sleeping pose with her hands on the side of her face.

Then there was the food…

And more food, with Emily and Grandma chatting…

And people enjoying the food, with Karen taking some photos in the background…

Carol first requested the privilege of holding Odelia. Unfortunately the hood not staying on the head prompted a premature ending to the holding session…

Here’s a demonstration of what it takes to request that holding privilege…

A few of our neighbors swung by…

As did Karen’s friends Niels and Erin…

Johnny saying Hi to Odelia…

Later Jun built up enough courage to attempt holding Odelia. Obviously my heart was pounding at the same rate the baby’s heart was beating in the womb, around 150.

And Odelia meeting Sweetpea for the first time…

Paul and Danny came later…

At this point, Odelia started getting squirmy…

And that was the One Month Celebration.

Odelia would like to thank everyone who came and wish to see you all again soon!