Sigh. Miley Cyrus.

I don't watch awards shows ordinarily. I do like the Oscars but I can never remember when they're coming up and, let's face it, if you have kids, you don't generally get to sit around for three hours watching anything. However, I saw the furor on Facebook and wanted to see what it was all about, so I looked up Miley Cyrus's VMA repulsive, pedophilia-inspired striptease performance. If you haven't seen it and you are also curious, don't say I didn't warn you.

As a mom of two daughters, I will concede that I have become marginally more conservative than I was as a girl. I had the standard fights with my parents about shorts that were too short, shirts that were too low cut, and song lyrics that were too vulgar. As much as I wish I had, I didn't save myself for marriage and I was once a wild 20 year old who did stupid things that could have potentially made me a target for predators. I can readily admit that having kids has changed my perspective on what is right, good, and just. I have also become more aware of how society impacts my children, and how it impacted me as a child, even when I swore up and down to my parents that it wasn't. So you can take this with the added grain of salt that I am an acknowledged hypocrite. I am now an old, fuddy-duddy mom, standing on my soapbox, wearing my mom jeans and wagging my finger at Ms. Cyrus.

I wish I could compose some kind of heartfelt and inspiring blog that would go viral and convince Ms. Cyrus to change her ways and be a good influence instead of the exhibitionist she has become. Sadly, I am not capable of such prose, and if I were, it wouldn't achieve its goal. Because Ms. Cyrus's performance received precisely the attention she desired of it. Any thinking individual witnessing it could not have assumed that such debauchery was unintentional. I mean, there is absolutely no way on earth that Miley didn't know that if she got up on stage in a nude bikini and continuously rubbed her crotch that people would interpret it as sexual in nature.

And therein lies the problem; our society has degenerated to the point that a person can get up on stage in front of a TV audience of millions, and an internet audience of even more, and imitate nudity and masturbation without consequence, and even be applauded. Vulgarity and shock value has replaced art. Self-worship and narcissism has replaced civility and community. The good folks at Jezebel did what they do best, deflecting blame, insisting the hubub is sexist because it's not directed at Robin Thicke, shaming the slut-shamers, and insisting Miley's blatantly pornographic performance is not as shocking as her appropriation of black culture. This is American life now. Nothing is worthy of criticism, everything is acceptable.

I am not unaware of past examples of revolting exhibitionism, I simply don't agree that they excuse the pushing of new, obscene envelopes. I am also aware that Ms. Cyrus is in the business of selling her image, and that nothing sells better than sex. I still don't believe that excuses her behavior. I realize she is not required to be any kind of good influence, but I nonetheless wish she would choose to be. It's true that Robin Thicke is also culpable in this charade, but that doesn't excuse Miley's complicity in his misogyny.

I guess I'm old fashioned in that I still think certain things (like strip teases) belong behind closed doors. I must be a dried up old prune because I think women (and men) should dress appropriately and not disrobe in public. I'm cool with that label, and any other that gets tossed my way as a result of my principles. In fact, I hope I raise some old-fashioned girls who believe that sex should only be had with their husbands, and who know that they don't have to get naked to have value. I hope they will learn to use their brains and speak with conviction against things they know to be wrong, even if it makes them unpopular. I can only teach them to have respect for themselves, and pray that they will always know their worth.

I am praying the same thing for Ms. Cyrus.

COOOOOOOKIES!

Well! It's been a couple of weeks since I have been able to blog, after my last entry, Vivi's stomach virus made the rounds and we all had a turn being sick. After we had all pretty much recovered, Bella and I decided to surprise the family with some delicious treats!



Everyone in my family is a cookie monster. I mean, we are all thoroughly obsessed with cookies. My husband has been asking me for a while to make him some homemade white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, so I decided to do just that. Bella and I went to the grocery store and bought the white chocolate chips, and we bought whole, raw macadamia nuts from the bulk foods aisle at H-E-B. I used this recipe, with the addition of toasting the macadamia nuts. I heartily recommend you purchase your nuts on the bulk foods aisle of your grocery store has one, they are fresher and cheaper than what you can find prepackaged on the baking aisle. My grocery store has several options of the more popular varieties like peanuts and cashews, but only the one option for things like pistachios and macadamia nuts, both of which were offered whole and raw.

Unfortunately, whole, raw nuts can't be used in cookie recipes without modification. First of all, whole macadamia nuts are enormous! You'd have to have a jaw like a python to eat them. If I had time, I would have liked to chop them up with a knife, but I was taking care of the kids while baking so I settled for leaving them in the bag I bought them in, and smacking them a few times with the flat side of my meat tenderizer. Doing this ends up with some huge chunks and some tiny, microscopic nut particles, which is not ideal, but we do what we can with what time we have. So after I busted the nuts (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID) I tossed them in some browned butter and a dash of sea salt, and put them in the oven at 350 degrees for five minutes. This process gave the nuts a nice, robust flavor that you don't get with raw nuts.

After that I simply followed this recipe, which is pure perfection.

These cookies are thick, soft, and chewy – just what you want a chocolate chunk cookie to be. They’re not too sweet, except when you happen across a nice cool hunk of white chocolate, and when that happens at the same time as when you get a bit of salty macadamia nut, it’s pure cookie nirvana.
Author: Kitchen Treaty
Recipe type: Dessert
Yield: About 36

Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg (optional)
1½ cups white chocolate chunks (about 8 ounces, chopped)
1 cup coarsely chopped roasted salted macadamia nuts (about 4½ ounces)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper or Silpat.
In the bowl of a stand mixer affixed with paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes (or use a large bowl and a hand mixer).
Add the brown sugar and granulated (white) sugar and continue beating on medium speed for about 2 minutes.
Add the eggs one at a time, continuing to beat each time until well-incorporated. Mix in the vanilla.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.
With the mixer on low speed, carefully add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix just until the ingredients are incorporated. Stir in the white chocolate chunks and the macadamia nuts.
Scoop a generous tablespoonful of the dough (I use this cookie dough scoop) and roll into a ball. Tear the ball in half, turn each half a quarter turn, and smoosh the dough back together with the torn side now at the top of the cookie. Gently shape so that the dough ball is taller than it is wide and place on cookie sheet about three inches apart.
Bake for about 10 minutes, until edges of cookie begin to turn golden brown. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 – 10 minutes on cookie sheet so the cookie can set. Carefully move to wire rack to cool completely.
Cookies stay fresh when kept in a sealed container at room temperature for 3 – 4 days, or can be frozen for up to two months.

Troubleshooting a Sick Baby

Caveat lector: This blog post contains multiple references to vomit and other nasties.

When Bella was very little, Eric joked that he was going to make a flowchart for troubleshooting a baby. That will undoubtedly get made at some point, but in the meantime, I have some real advice for mothers of sick babies. Not that I'm any kind of expert, but I sure would have liked to know in advance what it's like to take care of a sick baby before I had one thrust upon me. Vivienne is currently recovering from her first tummy bug, and it put me in mind of all the times I dealt with this already, even though I only have two kids.

The first time Bella got sick, I was still getting over a stomach virus myself, and the poor sweetie caught it from me. Within 30 minutes of each other, my hubby and baby were both violently ill. I knew she was in for a tough time, having just gotten over it myself, and my oldest sister (who has four kids of her own) had advised me that if anything was ever really wrong with my baby I should just take her straight to Dell Children's hospital, because any other hospital would just transport her there anyway. I was unsure how much dehydration an infant body could take, so I rushed her to the children's hospital. I was greeted by some pretty irate nurses who made a point of proving to me how stupid and panicky I am by overemphasizing the word "once" over and over again. As in, "So, you brought her in because she threw up ONCE?" In vain I tried to explain the brutal force of the vomit and the mass quantity and how I already knew she had a stomach virus because I had one and my husband was sick with it too, and I got the same straight-browed, annoyed side eyes from all the nurses and doctors.

The next time she got a stomach virus I was determined to not make the same mistake. I stayed up with her in the guest room, chasing her around with the vomit bowl and getting doused in bodily fluids over and over again until I was literally out of clean pajamas and sheets. At 2 AM, as she dozed on the bare mattress, covered in a towel, I called her pediatrician. A different doctor from the same practice was on call. I explained that she had thrown up nine times since about 8 PM, and couldn't keep water down. I could feel the annoyed side eye through the phone. "Don't you know you should wait an hour after she stops throwing up to give her anything to drink? Otherwise she will just keep throwing up anything you put in her." No, doc, I didn't know that, I don't have a medical degree, that's why I called someone who does.

So basically, it doesn't matter if your kid throws up once or nine times, you're still gonna get the annoyed sigh and the eye roll. I've started defending myself by saying "Children of paranoid parents tend to survive to adulthood!". Of course, I have no way of knowing whether or not this is true, but it sounds more mature than screaming "You're a doo-doo head!" in their face and then running off crying. I'm not going to stop calling the doctor or taking my kids to the emergency room no matter how many stuck-up medical professionals I encounter. I know everyone has job fatigue, but it doesn't make your job go away to vent your frustrations on your patients. I'm tired and exhausted and have vomit behind my ear and it doesn't help either one of us to make me feel stupid for being worried about my child.

So if your kid is sick, eye roll be damned, the first thing I would recommend is to call her doctor. Describe the symptoms to a nurse and find out if you need to bring her in. Don't let anyone intimidate you into not doing this, it needs to be done. If your doctor wants you to bring junior in, bring him in. If not, take heed of the sound medical advice from your pediatrician as to whether or not to give medicine and what kind, as to how high their temp can go before you need to bring them in, as to when you can give them fluids and what to give them. There are massive variables from doctor to doctor and child to child. I have no medical education and as such, I refuse to give any kind of medical advice on this blog. Call. Your. Pediatrician. If your doctor tells you to stay home with your child, proceed to the advice below.

I always vacate the master bedroom in an effort to not spread the virus to my husband. It tends to be like locking the barn door after the horse is stolen, but it does get you out of earshot so you're not keeping him awake while you're up all night chasing the kid with the vomit bowl. I usually set us up in the guest bedroom or the living room on the couch, turn on a kid movie so the sick kid is distracted, and then gather my necessities.

You will need a vomit-catching bowl or bucket. Babies and toddlers don't know or won't be able to run to the potty to be sick, and good luck trying to hold a kid over the potty. Its pretty traumatizing to vomit for the first time so they will act funny. Bella (bless her heart) would always bury her face in the pillow and then hurl straight into the couch cushions, so I learned that if she turned over onto her tummy, she was about to blow chunks, and I could kind of get behind her and wrestle the bowl under her. Bella always fought the bowl, she seemed to think that if she turned over on her face she could stop the vomit from coming. Similarly, Vivi fought the bowl if I brought it out too soon. The only thing alerting me to Vivi's impending upchuck is a tummy gurgle and a cough that would turn to a gag, so if I brought the bowl out more than 20 seconds before the sickness came, she would get upset and cry and swat it away. I'm assuming my girls think that the bowl causes the barf instead of vice-versa. For Bella I used a large plastic bowl, for Vivi I used a six-inch tupperware container.

You will need towels. If your kid gets sick and your towels are all dirty, just get some dry ones, they're only going to get dirtier. You need these to clean vomit off the furniture and floors. It's gonna happen, just accept it. Make sure to try to not leave them lying around after they've got puke on them, put them in the laundry room or washing machine if it's empty.

Lysol, Purel, Clorox wipes, baby wipes, etc. Whatever you have that you can use to clean surfaces and your skin after they've been vomited on. You have to at least try to keep the germs from spreading. It's best to clean out the bowl after each vomit, if possible, and wash your hands each time too, if you have time. Also, if you have a lidded trash can, grab it and keep it next to you for easy wipe disposal. I say "lidded" because the little one may try to get into it if it's open.

Diapers and wipes, diaper cream, but NOT BABY CLOTHES. Dude. Trying to dress a sick baby is as pointless as trying to put a tutu on a pig. They don't want it, and it's just gonna get dirty, and fast. Just keep her in a diaper, and you could put some preventative diaper cream on in case she comes down with diarrhea later. Most likely though, you're not going to have much time, and you'll probably only be changing diapers when they get soaked in vomit. Sick kids don't tend to pee much, due to the dehydration from the vomiting.

Be prepared to bathe the kid a few times, and yourself. I usually just hop in with the baby because if she's getting a bath, it's because she just puked all over both of us.

When your child sleeps, you should sleep. It's best to not share a bed, but if there's no way around it (I did it pretty much every time) just know you'll probably wake up to the sounds of retching and get covered in barf, but you should still sleep when you can. Last night Vivienne was getting over the virus but still managed to vomit in my bed a couple of times. The first time, we changed the sheets and I got myself an emergency towel, which came in handy when she barfed on me again about an hour later. I just toweled us off and we went back to sleep in our barf sheets, which I changed this morning.

I hope these tips are helpful to someone who may be a new parent. I sure wish I'd had a play-by play in 2010. If you're reading this because your kid is sick, keep your chin up, it will be over soon.

Source: http://www.pregnantchicken.com/pregnant-chicken-blog/2011/10/20/medical-visits-get-used-to-feeling-like-an-ass.html