Just the other day I read in the news about a recently-released study which states that firstborn children have it rougher than their younger siblings. Well duh?! Did it really take an expensive study to figure that one out?! ;o) I AM a firstborn child, afterall. But what the study focused on was the extra duties, responsibilities, and higher expectations placed upon older firstborn kids. It did not address firstborn babies.
Here's some funny reasons why us firstborn babies had it WAY BETTER than our siblings!!! They made me laugh and I know we can all relate to most of them. Enjoy!
BIRTH ORDER OF CHILDREN
Maternity Clothes:
1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.
Preparing for the Birth:
1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don't bother because you remember that last time, breathing didn't do a thing.
3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.
The Layette:
1st baby: You pre-wash newborn's clothes, color-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's dresser.
2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.
3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?
Worries:
1st baby: At the first sign of distress--a whimper,a frown--you pick up the baby.
2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.
3rd baby: You teach your three-year-old how to operate the baby swing.
Pacifier:
1st baby: If the pacifier falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.
2nd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby's bottle.
3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in.
Diapering:
1st baby: You change your baby's diapers every hour, whether they need it or not.
2nd baby: You change their diaper every two to three hours, if needed.
3rd baby: You try to change their diaper before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.
Activities:
1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, Baby Zoo, Baby Movies and Baby Story Hour.
2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.
3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaners.
Going Out:
1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.
2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.
3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.
At Home:
1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.
Swallowing Coins (a favorite):
1st child: When first child swallows a coin, you rush the child to the hospital and demand x-rays.
2nd child: When second child swallows a coin, you carefully watch for the coin to pass.
3rd child: When third child swallows a coin you deduct it from his allowance!
4.23.2008
Surprise Surprise
Josh and I have always had that 'gut feeling' about what we're having. But yesterday we discovered that our hunch was wrong! Yes, that's right folks. It looks like the Ramsey clan won't be as estrogen charged as we'd anticipated. The ultrasound clearly showed us that we're having a boy!!!!! While the doctor and his med student were trying to look at all his organs and make measurements, the baby was tightly curled up in a fetal position. And he must've been sleeping because he was barely moving! But after a while (probably from all the ultrasonic noise and the prodding!) that little guy woke up and started showing us his moves...and...err...his "stuff." Even an amateur like me was able to say, "yup, we got ourselves a boy!" ;-)
I'm sure all of you with children can relate. I just love having that second ultrasound! It's so fascinating to get a look at your baby and watch him/her move around, wiggle the hands and toes, suck a thumb, see the heart beat; whatever. It's SO cool.
Anyway, I gotta tell you a funny story. So after Josh and I left the hospital and returned to our car, the next song to play on our Ipod was none other than the Hallelujah Chorus!!!!!! We had the thing on a church song mix, and that just happened to be what was playing as we drove away!!! We had a good laugh about that. It was so fitting, I guess. As you can probably guess, Josh was wondering if he'd have a son. I mean I know we only have 2 girls. So it's not like we've already had 6 girls or something, but the poor guy was not giving his hopes up.
So when the doctor was able to get the "money shot" and announced, "It looks like you're having a boy!", Josh beamed from ear to ear.
(You know, this whole time, I thought that if we had a boy, Josh would've jumped up out of his chair and shouted for joy!! But he didn't. I could tell that he was extremely excited but there was no hootin' and hollerin'. I guess he wanted to play it cool.)
We're excited that our home will have a mix. Honestly, I'm a little nervous to have a boy now! My brain has been in "girly mode" for nearly 3 years. All I see when I look around the house is PINK. (Well, with the exception of Joanna's dinosaurs and toy cars that she prefers over her dolls and kitchen/cooking toys!) So this will be a fun, new challenge for us. It's a good thing that babies all start out the same. You just love 'em and feed 'em!
I'm sure all of you with children can relate. I just love having that second ultrasound! It's so fascinating to get a look at your baby and watch him/her move around, wiggle the hands and toes, suck a thumb, see the heart beat; whatever. It's SO cool.
Anyway, I gotta tell you a funny story. So after Josh and I left the hospital and returned to our car, the next song to play on our Ipod was none other than the Hallelujah Chorus!!!!!! We had the thing on a church song mix, and that just happened to be what was playing as we drove away!!! We had a good laugh about that. It was so fitting, I guess. As you can probably guess, Josh was wondering if he'd have a son. I mean I know we only have 2 girls. So it's not like we've already had 6 girls or something, but the poor guy was not giving his hopes up.
So when the doctor was able to get the "money shot" and announced, "It looks like you're having a boy!", Josh beamed from ear to ear.
(You know, this whole time, I thought that if we had a boy, Josh would've jumped up out of his chair and shouted for joy!! But he didn't. I could tell that he was extremely excited but there was no hootin' and hollerin'. I guess he wanted to play it cool.)
We're excited that our home will have a mix. Honestly, I'm a little nervous to have a boy now! My brain has been in "girly mode" for nearly 3 years. All I see when I look around the house is PINK. (Well, with the exception of Joanna's dinosaurs and toy cars that she prefers over her dolls and kitchen/cooking toys!) So this will be a fun, new challenge for us. It's a good thing that babies all start out the same. You just love 'em and feed 'em!
4.11.2008
On a related subject...
This news article is in today's "paper". (msnbc.com) One of my news sources, anyway. I thought it was relevant since I just posted about gas prices yesterday. I grew up in North Dakota and my dad worked for the oil field for years. He worked during the oil boom of the '80s and early '90s. North Dakota really does have enough oil reserve underneath her to supply our energy needs so we need not rely on foreign oil. But, of course, like every other commodity grown on/in American soil, we ship it over seas.
Government says huge oil fields in N.D., Mont.
Up to 4.3 billion barrels in Bakken shale, some in industry skeptical
BISMARCK, N.D. - The government estimated Thursday that up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana, using current technology.
The U.S. Geological Survey called it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.
The Bakken Formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. About two-thirds of the acreage is in western North Dakota, where the oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface. Companies use pressurized fluid and sand to break pores in the rock and prop them open to recover the oil.
North Dakota's entire oil production hit 137,000 barrels a day in January, the latest figures available. Industry officials believe the state's record production of 148,500 barrels a day, set in 1984, will be surpassed this year.
Donald Kessel, vice president of Houston-based Murex Petroleum Corp., said he believes the Geological Survey's assessment of how much oil can be recovered in the Bakken may be high.
"That's a lot of zeros," Kessel said Thursday.
Kessel said his company was the first to get a producing well in the Bakken in North Dakota three years ago. The company now has about 20 producing wells.
The report released Thursday by USGS was done at the request of Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., over the past 18 months.
A 1995 study by the USGS found 151 million barrels of oil could be recovered from the Bakken using technology at that time.
"This is great news," Dorgan said of the new report. "This is 25 times the amount of the previous assessment."
The assessment comes as U.S. crude production has fallen steadily over the past three decades, with rate of decline slowed — or offset — only slightly by production from the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. That has led to increased imports. But as oil prices surged over the past few months, calls are mounting for a reduction in import dependence.
"Many of the previous oil discoveries in the U.S. have produced for a long while and are producing at lower levels now," Dorgan said. "This report comes at a time when we are desperately trying to be less dependent on Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries."
Oilmen have known for more than 50 years that the Bakken holds vast oil reserves, Kessel said. But the price has never pushed demand high enough to develop technology to capture the oil, he said.
According to Jim Ehrets, a Denver-based geologist with Headington Oil Co., of Dallas, it costs about $5 million to drill a well tapping the middle Bakken, and companies need crude prices of at least $50 a barrel to make it economical.
Even with crude prices now double that, "there still is a ton of risk," he said.
Oil companies began sharing technology about two years ago on how to recover the oil. The technology involves drilling vertically to about 10,000 feet, then "kicking out" for as many feet horizontally, while fracturing the rock to release the oil trapped in microscopic pores in the area known as the "middle" Bakken.
Initially, companies had kept their technology secret, said Ehrets.
"Everybody was protecting their results while the lease play was still going on," he said. "Once it had been pretty well saturated and not much left to lease, there was cooperation in sharing information.
"I can't remember in my entire career that kind of cooperation," said Ehrets, an oil man for nearly 30 years.
Headington, which is based in Dallas, has about 150 wells working in the Bakken — about 100 of them in Montana — with plans to drill at least 100 more, Ehrets said.
The Geological Survey said about 105 million barrels of oil have been produced from the Bakken through last year. The Elm Coulee oil field in eastern Montana, near the North Dakota border, has produced about 65 million barrels of the total, said Rich Pollastro, a USGS geologist.
The Elm Coulee field was discovered in 2000, he said.
The study released Thursday by USGS does not estimate how much oil may be in the Bakken — only what the agency believes can be recovered using current technology.
Thursday's report did not cover the Canadian portion of the Bakken. Pollastro said a 2000 assessment found only about 15 million barrels of recoverable oil in that area using traditional vertical drilling.
Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said the number of wells in the Bakken in North Dakota increased from about 300 in 2006 to 457 at the end of last year.
Government says huge oil fields in N.D., Mont.
Up to 4.3 billion barrels in Bakken shale, some in industry skeptical
BISMARCK, N.D. - The government estimated Thursday that up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana, using current technology.
The U.S. Geological Survey called it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.
The Bakken Formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. About two-thirds of the acreage is in western North Dakota, where the oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface. Companies use pressurized fluid and sand to break pores in the rock and prop them open to recover the oil.
North Dakota's entire oil production hit 137,000 barrels a day in January, the latest figures available. Industry officials believe the state's record production of 148,500 barrels a day, set in 1984, will be surpassed this year.
Donald Kessel, vice president of Houston-based Murex Petroleum Corp., said he believes the Geological Survey's assessment of how much oil can be recovered in the Bakken may be high.
"That's a lot of zeros," Kessel said Thursday.
Kessel said his company was the first to get a producing well in the Bakken in North Dakota three years ago. The company now has about 20 producing wells.
The report released Thursday by USGS was done at the request of Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., over the past 18 months.
A 1995 study by the USGS found 151 million barrels of oil could be recovered from the Bakken using technology at that time.
"This is great news," Dorgan said of the new report. "This is 25 times the amount of the previous assessment."
The assessment comes as U.S. crude production has fallen steadily over the past three decades, with rate of decline slowed — or offset — only slightly by production from the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. That has led to increased imports. But as oil prices surged over the past few months, calls are mounting for a reduction in import dependence.
"Many of the previous oil discoveries in the U.S. have produced for a long while and are producing at lower levels now," Dorgan said. "This report comes at a time when we are desperately trying to be less dependent on Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries."
Oilmen have known for more than 50 years that the Bakken holds vast oil reserves, Kessel said. But the price has never pushed demand high enough to develop technology to capture the oil, he said.
According to Jim Ehrets, a Denver-based geologist with Headington Oil Co., of Dallas, it costs about $5 million to drill a well tapping the middle Bakken, and companies need crude prices of at least $50 a barrel to make it economical.
Even with crude prices now double that, "there still is a ton of risk," he said.
Oil companies began sharing technology about two years ago on how to recover the oil. The technology involves drilling vertically to about 10,000 feet, then "kicking out" for as many feet horizontally, while fracturing the rock to release the oil trapped in microscopic pores in the area known as the "middle" Bakken.
Initially, companies had kept their technology secret, said Ehrets.
"Everybody was protecting their results while the lease play was still going on," he said. "Once it had been pretty well saturated and not much left to lease, there was cooperation in sharing information.
"I can't remember in my entire career that kind of cooperation," said Ehrets, an oil man for nearly 30 years.
Headington, which is based in Dallas, has about 150 wells working in the Bakken — about 100 of them in Montana — with plans to drill at least 100 more, Ehrets said.
The Geological Survey said about 105 million barrels of oil have been produced from the Bakken through last year. The Elm Coulee oil field in eastern Montana, near the North Dakota border, has produced about 65 million barrels of the total, said Rich Pollastro, a USGS geologist.
The Elm Coulee field was discovered in 2000, he said.
The study released Thursday by USGS does not estimate how much oil may be in the Bakken — only what the agency believes can be recovered using current technology.
Thursday's report did not cover the Canadian portion of the Bakken. Pollastro said a 2000 assessment found only about 15 million barrels of recoverable oil in that area using traditional vertical drilling.
Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said the number of wells in the Bakken in North Dakota increased from about 300 in 2006 to 457 at the end of last year.
4.10.2008
I think we can all relate to these
So is everybody just as sick as I am of gas prices being outrageously overpriced?! Of course, it doesn't help that I live in Washington state where we have the highest excise tax on gasoline in the nation, which gives us the second most expensive gas prices in the country only behind Hawaii.
I would get on my soap box about big business oil companies, the war in Iraq, our oil rights-preoccupied commander-in-chief, and the fact that there is enough oil underneath American soil to supply our energy needs for the next two millennia, but I honestly don't have the mental energy to get into it today. ;-)
So in lieu of my ranting, here are some more light-hearted pics that I hope will make you laugh as hard as they made me. I guess that's all we can do for now is laugh our way to the pump...as the oil industry big wigs laugh their way to the bank.
4.05.2008
Presidente Soares
To all you Porto sisters, wasn't it AWESOME to hear Elder Soares (he'll always be President Soares in my head!) give the closing prayer in Sat. morning's session? Just hearing his voice gave me warm fuzzies. ;-)
I'm curious, were any of you able to attend the mission fireside last Sunday? If so, please tell me all about it. Blog about it or leave a comment here. I would have loved to be there. I miss the Soares family so much!!
On another note, I thought it was really incredible to witness the process of sustaining a new prophet, a new first presidency, and a new quorum of the 12. President Hinckley was the prophet when I was baptized eight years ago, so this is my first experience with this whole process, so forgive me for being so in awe by it all. But it's a testiment to me of the validity of our faith. The Church of Jesus Christ will always follow a pattern set by the Lord Himself and we can see it carried out in our local meetings as well as these world-wide meetings of the Church. Very cool indeed. The Spirit of God has helped me to know for myself that President Monson really is a true prophet of God and that we are still being led in the correct path.
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