an explanation of the status

i didn't mean to provoke that much interest, but because i was asked, i will explain. it's not really a knock on professions or persons, but a state of the industry.

i spent the week interviewing sales reps for a pharmaceutical drug company this week. now these people are in sales. that's what they do. one person told me that she could "sell matches to a firefighter". good for her that she's good at what she does, and from what i could tell, most of them really love what they do.

i have no problems with sales people promoting a product that they believe will help people. i generally don't love all things medical and rarely take a drug if i can help it, but the profession serves a worthwhile purpose and drug companies have the capacity to do some amazing things.

here's my problem: i had a rep tell me that she got the doctors in her territory to promise her 2 scripts a week (for the month of december). it's not that she was promoting the product. it's not that doctor was prescribing it. it's the coordination of the two. i can't hardly believe that ALL these doctors said, "you know, i hadn't thought about your drug before when it comes to X and Y patient. i bet i can prescribe this drug to them!" maybe one did. or two. but the entire territory?

before doing my job, i had a general faith that if i were ill that my doctor would go to his big reference book and prescribe me the best drug to alleviate symptoms or rid my body of the culprit. now i'm cynical enough to realize that there just might be doctors out there who will prescribe a drug to help a nice sales person meet quota and not necessarily (or primarily) to help me get well. **Erin, you are right, that not all - and i'd argue most - doctors are like this. And it's also, as i said, a statement of industry, not profession.

so my status was to encourage you to be informed, be active in your health care decisions. don't let some cute 20-something with free donuts be the decision-maker for what you put into your body. i am optimistic enough to think that most doctors, once you engage them in discussion as to why they are making their recommendations, will gladly appreciate your involvement and work with you to find the best possible solution. maybe it is the over-priced name brand drug that the donut girl brought in. maybe it's not. but talk to your doctor to find out what is behind his decisions - not to insult him/her, but to participate in becoming well.

top 10 reasons I love kristen

10. she has to finish the book, even if it's bad
9. impeccable taste in nail polish
8. her willingness to share nail polish
7. she's a book whore, much like myself.
6. she loves my baby - and not just because he's just any baby
5. we share friends and there's never, ever, a sense of "i know more" or "i'm closer to" competition
4. she's honest and up front about her "high maintenance" life of fans and multiple pillows.
3. she drops poptop cans of biscuits because she doesn't like the popping. i HATE that too, but i'm not smart enough to drop them on the floor.
2. grace and patience seem to be a package deal - she has massive amounts of both (interestingly enough, ALL my friends do... hmm...)
1. when i was complaining about the meaningless sound someone was making because it "wasn't teaching henry anything" she responded, "he doesn't always have to be learning." what a wonderful, eloquent, truthful way of saying "get over it, michele" right when i needed it.

i love friends.

anticipation rising

question of the day: why is fun so much work?

i was chatting with a pal who recently took her boyfriend on quite the adventure. however, in wanting him to enjoy it SOOO much, she actually made him really angry and the day was a bit spoiled (well, only in the AM. fortunately they both "got over it"). but as the story was retold, it became quite clear - at the times we want most to have so much fun, it becomes work, stressful, almost a burden.

consider vacations. birthday parties. tailgating. weekend trips to the lake. all of these things intended for good but the devil of details gets in there and uses them for harm (mostly in the sense of destroying relational moments).

even well-meaning people wanting the best for others have a tendency to ruin good things. married people who just really want a friend to experience the joy of sharing life with someone gete a bit pushy (i may or may not be guilty of such actions while enduring the anticipation. please forgive me dave). or new parents, or soon-to-be grandparents, in the excitement of a new baby arriving quite possibly chatter and pester a bit too much in that waiting period (once again, probably guilty. please forgive me jill).

it's almost like reverse envy. you wanting something - a feeling of joy - sooo much for someone else that it causes you to loose sight of the goal. you want someone to feel joy and in trying to bring it to them you cause problems and thus no joy. horrible cycle. i'm not sure why, but a visual of a mud pie comes to mind. our attempts are mud in comparison to the real thing.

the things memoirs are made of

today after church i mentioned that if i were to ever be on death row, my final meal would be macaroni grille's pasta milano. hands down best dish. ever. apparently most people don't think about what their death row dish would be.

i also think about funeral songs. if i were to die in the near future (and i hope i don't!) i have a list of 3-4 songs i would like to be a part of my funeral.

so, in the vein of making weird lists, i can tell you that this weekend would make the cut for a chapter in the memoir of michele wingfield minehart. it started well with our first pictures of henry - so cute! they'll be in by the end of the week. then mom and pops crashed at our pad for the night, so we had dinner with them and played the wii. we went to see alex's hockey game with cousins rebecca and will, followed by brunch. i have such a wonderful time with my family, i cannot imagine not having them as a significant part of my regular social calendar.

jj and i had a low key evening on saturday, pizza and a movie. twas nice. the kid slept splendidly, as did mom.

this morning was church, and then "the friends" came over for breakfast. we've been making a regular outing of breakfast after church, but that puts a cramp in the pocketbook after a while, so i offered to put my heart shaped waffle iron to use. jj made eggs to order and the erfords had a ready supply of breakfast meats. bob evans has nothing on us.

there are lots of books out there (specifically in the world of church leaders) talking about building community, la de da, but it's times like these that show me what the Body really looks like. it's people who want to enjoy a homeade breakfast with you, even if you have to eat your waffles before your eggs are cooked. it's handing off the baby so i can butter the toast. it's the general chatter and excitement of waiting on jill to start having contractions. it's the simple but demanding work of living life and letting others live it with you - not by looking through the window, but by joining you in the kitchen. they'll find the forks, rinse the plates and let you serve them without feeling like they "have to return the favor." it's just part of who we are.

i love the peace that comes with knowing that i have friends and family that if i were to tell them the worst of news, there would be no fear of loosing their love.

there's a book for everything

Let me first say that H is a wonderful sleeper. in the world of new moms, i feel i'm toward the top of the well-rested pile, and for that i'm eternally grateful (i think God knows exactly what i can - and can't - handle, and very little sleep isn't high on my tolerance list). he naps through the day and goes to bed at night - he always has.

my problem is that there are lots of books out there on how to do it "right". for every method there's a countermethod. for every expert there's a doctor. can a baby manipulate you? when? would they?

tonight we started to bed around 7 (our new bed time - that's when the eyes get droopy and he starts doing his night night talk). got swaddled, into the crib. crying. lots of it. tried holding the pacifier in. tried swaddling one arm out (a goal of ours). thought maybe it was a dirty diaper. put him on the change table. instantly quiet. huh. diaper is dry. put him back in the crib. screams.

then it becomes a battle of the wills. i will not let someone who cannot use all 4 limbs manipulate me. but the crying! he was obviously, genuinely unhappy. back to the room.

so, he sounds a bit stuffy from the crying. saline up the nose, quick suction of the blue bulb (his favorite *sense the sarcasm*). shriek-like screaming. a little rocky. quiet.

in the crib again. silence.

WHAT THE HECK?! so i just spent some time on the blogs doing some self diagnosing, and if there's one thing that will piss a mom off it's to proclaim that her working method is bad for the baby. everyone had a different way of doing it. all of them said it works.

moral of the story? probably none. i'm sorry i've just wasted your last 5 minutes. but i think that i just have to learn that H is telling me something when he cries, so i should see what it is. my question is: when does a baby have both needs and wants? initially they just have needs. i have lots of wants. somewhere in the past 28.5 years i learned that i could get what i wanted by pretending it's what i needed. does that happen at 6 months or 2 years? or 18? no, it's before 18. i worked with youth and it was definately before jr. high :).

i also learned that there's no "winner". it's not me against baby. we're both learning how to live together, how to get the most out of our time in bed. i think the battle of the wills comes much later.

i know things like authority and control are issues parents face. i think they're important for children. but when? i don't think its now. i don't think H actually believes he's in control of anything. i told Ang once that i'm scared i'll miss something because i don't know i'm supposed to do it. like toys - i was afraid i wouldn't give toys to the little guy because i would always just think he wasn't old enough for it yet. she said, "no, you'll just know."

for now, i'm just going to bank on the "you'll just know" philosophy for having some idea when my kid is trying to rule the roost. until then, i'm going to bed.

top heavy and distant

i watched a tidbit of the president's address last night about the stimulus package. eh. i have a little trouble believing that what got us into this mess (overspending) can get us out... but i suppose something has to be done? all the while i was fighting my own battle which is reflective of why we're in such a mess.

i'm a bank of america customer and they don't care. about anything. about me, about what they've promised, about business. they don't need me and the people who answer the phones could care less about the injustice - they'll go pick up their kids at 5:00, make dinner and watch The Office. the people who should care (the ones making money off the business) , don't, because they don't know i exist. thus the problem.

i hung up the phone from the credit card people more than once feeling very small and insignificant. why? because to them, i am.

my husband hates when i say things like this, but our business is too big. i work for a company that used to be small and flat. we did amazing things, got great reviews from our clients and our employees were very happy. add a few levels to an org chart and it wrecks havoc for everybody but the 10 at the top. the same can be true for any organization.

if there's one thing i've learned from my stint working within recruiting and HR, it's the fact that our country employs a lot of people to do nothing. people employed just to watch people work. for instance, i'm working on a project, doing all kinds of grunt labor online so another guy can present it. he's supposed to be "recruiting". he's not. he's taking the list of people that i have found, researched, and presented to him in a nice neat excel spreadsheet and he's calling them. he's not recruiting, he's a recording. but if you were to compare paychecks you'd see that he should be doing even more work.

pay people more money to do less. that seems to be the business philosophy of the day. give someone the title of "vice president" and a raise and you can surely bet that they'll spend their day in "meetings" doing nothing of significance for their business or their world.

if all the large corporations were to slash even just their top 10% wage earners by even 20%... well, i don't do math well, but i have a feeling that it would be enough that several of the bottom rung people would get to keep their jobs. and the people at the top would still be rich.

this, my friends, is why i say that we are not a "christian nation". we may have lots of people who go to christian churches that live in our country, but our basic operating principles are not wholly christian. i can't recall a single story told about or by Jesus that ended with "so, save yourself, take care of yourself, and let everyone else worry about themselves." when faced with people on the down-and-out, i can't recall a single time that Jesus said, "well, we live in a free enterprise society! pull yourself up by your little bootstraps!"

no, i'm not suggesting that socialism is the answer. but i am saying that we ought to be careful about what we proclaim. we live in a society that habitually treats people as small and insignificant and makes money doing so. i'm pretty sure that's not what Jesus had in mind for "kingdom come."

to end the note on the positive, i will say that i found justice: when BOA decided that they didn't want to give me my rewards points anymore (even after promising me them on the phone), they let their gatekeepers keep telling me no, and what else can you do? well, i'll tell you. i emailed the haunchos at Norwegian cruise line (where i was to spend the points). When BOA doesn't give me points, i don't cruise, and thus i don't buy expensive fruity drinks and other things that make NCL money. So i emailed any overpaid VP with "customer service" in the title and had a phone call within the hour. today i received an email saying i'll get my voucher in the mail within 7-10 business days (observation: anytime you ask BOA for anything, it'll take 7-10 business days). now, i'll believe it when i see it, but i can't tell you how much relief it brought that someone finally gave me a voice. let justice roll down (and send me on a cruise).

can you hear us?

nothing like titling a post from a david crowder song (even better yet - whole album).

Thursday we went to toledo to begin the process of fitting H with hearing aids. He was very good when they made the earmolds, and we absolutely love our new audiologist (but sad that dr. Z can't keep us. darn distance!). interesting enough, the audiologist, Patti, had a daughter with a severe hearing loss, which made it much easier to ask questions. she has a fabulous "bedside manner" to start with, she has a way of making no quesiton seem stupid but no concern or fear unmanagable.

this to be said because wednesday night was a bit difficult. a word to the wise: if your kid, or anyone you love, has some sort of special circumstance - don't do too much googling on the subject. talk to someone directly. i was completely overwhelmed with IEPs, sign language options, special schools, the whole gammet of what other folks have dealt with. but after thursday i realized that their story might not be OUR story. there will always be similarities and i think it's human nature to try to find similarities when dealing with the unknown, but that doesn't mean God is writing the same story for each person with a hearing loss (or any new obstacle that gets thrown in the way).

its a bit challenging to deal with all the what-ifs & wills: what life will be like, will kids make fun of him, will he feel constrained, will we do everything right to make sure he develops like he should, will others just pity him and not allow him the beauty of overcoming challenges... there's a whole list. then there's the ongoing battle of realism vs. optimism. you want to be like "it'll be fine" but you also have to see that day-to-day life will be different than expected.

the audiologist first won me over when she was able to think financially for us (aka, know when your warrenties are about to run out), but she held my heart in her hand when she explained what we're looking at: "you're all set to go to france. you pack your bag, learn the language, read the reviews and make an itenrary. then you get off the plane and find that you're in spain. it's a new language and a new surrounding. it's not france, but it's a great adventure."