Lissette’s World!

20% Time 5-27-08

This week for my twenty percent time my teacher gave me the idea to write about organic food and whether it is better for babies. I was reading about organic food and I found all this great information on these websites that are called iVillage and Parenting.com. I learned that organic foods are grown without the use of pesticides and that the standards for the safe use of pesticides are based on the level of adult tolerance. Choosing foods without pesticides is usually safer for babies since they are more defenseless to the toxic effects of pesticides because of the baby’s small size and immature digestive and detoxification system. Organic foods are better, but are more expense because there are very few organic farms and they have a tendency to suffer a great loss of food during production because they don’t rely on synthetic chemicals to kill all difficulties like bugs, disease, and weeds. Shipping and handling is very difficult to since it is so expensive. It costs a lot more because they have to be really careful to clean out and avoid haulers that have stored commercially grown foods that may have had pesticides and that could be left behind. Some other great reasons to give your babies organic foods are that it supports the growth of organic foods and this also helps protect the health of the environment.

Picture Baby food by Lissette Belalcazar

Picture Food by Lissette Belalcazar

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20% Time 5-20-08

This week for my twenty percent time I chose to write about SIDS which stands for sudden infant death syndrome. I researched the topic on a couple of webites which are called Parenting.com, Five new ways to prevent SIDS, and Baby’s Sake and a new beiginning.  SIDS is a word used to describe the sudden, unexplained death of a baby that remains unexplained after a careful investigation that includes a complete autopsy. SIDS is the leading cause of death of children from one month to a year of age. It is rare in babies that are under the age of one month, but have shown reports that include children as young as one week and some that are older than two years. More children die of SIDS in a year than those who die of cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, child abuse, AIDS, and cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy combined. SIDS strikes every one to two babies for every 1000 live births. A death like this occurs very quickly and is often during sleeping hours with no signs of struggle or suffering. SIDS is just another way for saying that it is not known how these babies died. Nobody understands how these babies die not even doctors or scientists. Some guidelines to keep your baby safer are:

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20% Timde 5-13-08

This week during my twenty percent time I decided to inform women about abortion and often this is being done by women all around us. I researched the topic and I found a lot of information on the topic on a website called The Center for Bio-Ethnical Reform. There are forty-two million abortions happening every year worldwide and one hundred fifteen per day. IThere 1.37 million abortions occurring per year and 3,700 per day in the United States. There are fifty four percent pf women in the United States having abortions that are between the ages of twenty and twenty four. Twenty percent of those women getting abortions are teenagers and 1.2 percent are under the age of fifteen. White women take sixty percent of abortions, but black women are three times more likely to get and abortion and Hispanic women are twice and capable of getting an abortion. Sixty four percent of the women getting abortions are single while 18.4 percent of married women have gotten abortions and nine point four percent of women getting g abortions are divorced. One percent of abortions are occurring because of rape or incest, six percent of abortions are happening because of possible heath problems concerning the baby or the mother and ninety three percent of abortions occur because the child is unwanted or it is incontinence. There is an estimation that forty three percent of women will have at one abortion by the time they get to the age of forty five. Forty seven percent of the abortions done on women are performed on women that have had at least one previous abortion.  There are many procedures that women can get to prevent the from getting pregnant such as norplant which is and implant that is placed under the skin of the arm and last five years.  Another one is depo-Provera which is and injection that a women gets a three months to prevents her from ovulating and there are lots more.  I found great information on these different types of birth control to prevent women from getting pregnant on a website called WomensHealth.Gov.

Photo My Family By Lissette Belalcazar

Photo Dad and Daughter by Lissette Belalcazar

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This week in honors of Mothers Day I decided to explore the history of Mothers Day since this is the first year that I get to celebrate Mothers Day with my new family. When searching for the history I mothers day I found some great website where I found great information on my topic. The websites that I found my information on are called Mothers Day, Happy Mothers Day, and Mothers Day on the Net. Mothers day was first celebrated  in honors of the Rhea, the mother of many deities, but was celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent in honors of Mary, mother of Christ, and was called Mothering Sunday. But, in the United States Mothers Day was first celebrated 150 years ago when a women named Anna Jarvis decided to organize a day to raise awareness of the poor health conditions in her community and called it Mothers Day Work. Later when Anna Jarvis died her daughter decided to continue in her mothers steps and chose to start a campaign in memory of her mother and her life work. Anna’s daughter quoted her mother when she remembered a Sunday school lesson that her mother gave that said, “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day. There are many days for men, but none for mothers.” Anna (Anna Jarvis’s daughter) began to speak with widely known businessmen like John Wannamaker, and politicians like President Taft and Roosevelt to support her campaign so that a special day to honor mothers could be created. In the year 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing Mothers Day as a National Holiday. When Mothers Day was first celebrated it was celebrated by going to church, writing letters to their mothers and as time went on they started sending cards, presents and flowers. As time went on gift- giving that was associated with Mothers Day enraged Anna believing that the days sentiment was being sacrificed for greed and profit. Even though she tried changing the way Mothers Day was celebrated she died before she got the chance to and Mothers Day has been spread throughout all of the United States.

Most Wonderful Person I know

Only one that understood me when no one else did

The only one that was there for me

Her soft gentle hands going through my hair

Every time she was there to wipe my tears away

Remembering the good times that we had together

This is a poem that I came I came up while reading looking over some poems on a web page called Mothers Day Poems and Poetry. Reading about the history of Mothers Day allowed me to realize really how special my mom is to me and made me want to search for the best present that I can give her. I learned about the history of Mothers Day and it made realize that Mothers Day isn’t what it was intended for. It has changed over time and has become a very different holiday then what Anna wanted. I believe that mothers shouldn’t be about gifts and present it should be more then that.

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4-21-08

This week for my twenty percent time I have chosen to explore the idea of teething. This is one of the topics that I still haven’t talked about and don’t have much experience with. My baby already has two front teeth but she really didn’t get any symptoms or neither did it bother her. She still hasn’t gotten any more teeth so I wanted to find out some details about the subject. I started reading about teething on a site called Teething babies and on another site called Baby Teething Pain and Discomfort. I learned a lot by reading these two websites. Some of the things that I learned are some babies go through the process easily but for others it can be more uncomfortable and cause distress for the baby and yourself. These symptoms are usually the first symptoms to teething which actually happen a few months before the first tooth appears.

• restlessness, irritability and disturbed sleep patterns
• sore, red gums
• flushed cheeks
• a loss of appetite
• a slight rise in temperature (but not above 39oC, which indicates a fever)
• dribbling (which may cause a rash or sore, chapped skin on the chin)
• A sudden desire to chew anything they can get.

Some ideas that are good to use to ease the teething pain are:

• Cuddle therapy which is to give your baby some extra love and comfort
• Rubbing their gums can soothe and alleviate some of the discomfort that the baby is feeling
• Teething rings can also be a good way to release some of the pain and can help the teeth to cut through
• Teething gel massages the babies gums and is fast relief

Some tips for taking care of babies teeth is to start brushing the babies teeth with a tooth brush that are specially made for babies. This is one of the tips that I didn’t know about. What I don’t understand though is how do you brush their teeth with tooth past when they can’t even spit out the tooth past? Another thing that I don’t know is should I start brushing her teeth even though she only has her two front teeth? Babies should start going to the dentist when they are around the age of two. Those are some tips that I learned reading and exploring the internet about teething and it has allowed me to learn a lot of great new tips that I didn’t know before.

Photo cc Helping Babies Teeth by Keeping It Real

Photo cc Teething Ring by Avwottan

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20% Time 4-15-08

During this week for my twenty percent time I continue to explore the idea of parenting skills. This week I ran into and article called Ten Ways to be a Better Dad. The first five tips that are given in the article are spend time with your children, earn the right to be heard, discipline with love, be a role model, and eat together as a family. The first tip that I learned by reading this article is that spending time with your children is very important. It says How a father spends his time tells his children what’s important to him. What I think is what if the father works a lot because he needs to be able to get food on the table and he doesn’t spend time with his children will this greatly affect how the children see their father? Wouldn’t his children understand why he has to work so hard? In the article it says that if you always seem too busy for your children, they will feel neglected no matter what you say. So what do you do in situations like this? The next tip that is given in the article is earn the right to be heard. What this tip is trying to say is that a father shouldn’t just talk to his children when they get in trouble. They should build a relationship with the child and be there to talk to them other times other than when they do something wrong. I agree with this because dads are always known to be the ones that discipline and it shouldn’t be that way. Another tip that I read about is to discipline with love. In the article it says, “Remind your children of the consequences of their actions and provide meaningful rewards for desirable behavior” I agree with this statement, but I’m not sure if always works. I think it’s a good idea to let them know what they did wrong and let them know how they can improve this. The next tip that I read was be a role model and I believe this is a good tip. It explains that “a girl who spends time with a loving father grows up knowing she deserves to be treated with respect by boys, and what to look for in a husband” this is very true. Kids look up to their parents and do everything they do so parents always have to show their kids how to act. The last tip is to eat together as a family. This allows the family to be together to have a meal and talk and to give you children advice. Reading this article allowed me learn something new about parenting.

Talking with kids

cc Photo Fathers Hands by Garlyn

cc Photo A Fathers Love by Chaidealo

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20% Time 4-01-08

This week for my twenty percent time I was reading different articles and I started reading and article on a web page called Parenting Skills and Parenting Advice that really got my attention. In the article it said, “Parenting is a hard job and it takes many different people to help raise a child.” This really got my attention I don’t know how many people don realize how hard being a parent really is. Now that I am parent I realize that and I try to let my friends and people that I care about realize that. Some of my friends didn’t realize it until it was to late they had to experience it themselves so that they can finally understand what I meant. A lot of my friends always say, “Aww I want to have a baby” and I say that’s what you think now, but if you were to have one you would regret saying it. It also said, “Parenting is a learning experience. There is no rule that once you become a parent you suddenly know everything. In fact, there is no guarantee you will have a clue what you are doing. Parenting is something you have to work at. You have to gather up advice, knowledge and parenting skills so you can use them in your parenting.” I really agree with this quote because nobody knows how to take care of baby when they first start. Every experience is a chance to learn something new about babies and all babies are different so something that works with your baby might not work with someone else’s baby, so you have to learn as you go along. A lot of people don’t understand that it’s a hard job. Often they think that its like taking care of a doll, but babies require allot of attention and patience. I try to show my friends how hard it really is by talking to them and sometimes they see on their own like when I cant go out because I don’t have anyone to take care of my daughter so that lets them see it through their own eyes.

 Photo cc Daddy’s Little Girl By Julia Latchem-Smith by SweetJewels1985

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20% Time 3-25-08

This week during my twenty percent time I decided to listen and read about other young teenage mothers experiences. This allowed me to see other mother’s points of views and to learn from their experiences. I read a story about a women names Brittany that has four kids and one on the way and she is barely twenty seven years old. She explains in her passage how she seems to be averaging a baby every one and a half years for ten years meaning she would have six by the end of the ten years. She explains to us how her childhood was and she shows us how strong she is by being such a responsible parent. By the age of twenty she had two kids and one on the way. Also read a story about a woman named Samantha she struggled a lot in her life too. She got pregnant at age fourteen and her boyfriend was very controlling. Both of these girls that some kind of struggle during their childhood. Brittany didn’t live in a good household she was ashamed of where she lived and didn’t like having friends over because she didn’t want others to see what she didn’t have. He parents got divorced and her father was an alcoholic. Samantha’s case was quite different she had a controlling boyfriend and as their relationship progressed it got worse. By the first sentence that Samantha says in her passage shows that she didn’t have good relationship with her mother. Both of these women struggled greatly during their childhood years.

Reading stories on these women made me have some questions. I have always heard and read that if you either live in a poor area, have no or little education, parents go through a divorce, or get abused there is more of chance that you will get pregnant. I truly don’t think that’s true. There has to be a lot of women that have lived through one of these situations and haven’t gotten pregnant. I haven’t gone through any of those situations and I got pregnant. I have both of my biological parents. We live well financially and I have always been pushed to do well in school and I have always known that I will continue to go to college after high school so it doesn’t make sense to me. What is what really affects teenagers and makes them get in these types of situations? Why is it always said that it is because of these reasons if truthfully it isn’t really any of these reasons that teenage girls get pregnant? It can be so many other things or maybe it just happens and its part of human nature.

Real Life Stories

Photo cc Pregnancy and Education by Trevor Blake

Photo cc Pregnancy  by KellyandApril

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Multi-Touch Computing

This week in my web design class I had to learn and explore the idea of multi-touch computing. We saw a couple different videos about it and this is what I have learned about it so far. When I started exploring this idea I came across a great website called Buzzword: Multi-touch Computing that gave me great information on the subject. Multi-touch is a new technology which responds to multiple inputs by multiple fingers and multiple users. This allows more complex gestures than simple pointing and clicking with a mouse on a computer, such as rotating or resizing a photo by grabbing two corners and pulling or navigating a map by pulling and twisting the image with your fingers. This technology has actually been labs for years, but it is barely being introduced to the world through companies like Apple and Microsoft. In the article I read a principal researcher at Microsoft Bill Buxton tells us, “With multi-touch, not only can you control more than one point, you can control more than one thing.” He explains this because this multi-touch computing allows you to do everything with just your fingers there is no mouse to go along with it. New York University researcher Jefferson Han started his own company with his own research called Perceptive Pixel. His company creates large-scale purpose built, multitouch screens for military and industrial clients. Multi-touch computing is meant for multiple people collaborating.

In my opinion I think that this is a very useful technology that should be used by more people. I like how this allows people to work together instead of always working with a computer one on one. A computer is very helpful, but I think that this technology called multi-touch computing will make everything a lot easier. It shows us in the video how it allows you to put information into the machine by simply putting the information on top of it and it will then read it and process the information into the multitouch computer.  I think that this type of computer allows more accuracy because your using your fingers and you put it exactly where you want to point.  Some of the products that they have with this type pf computing are the ipod touch and the iphone.  Now that I have explored the subject and seen many pictures of this I would like to explore some of these products myself.

Photo cc IPod Touch by TiboPoix

Photo cc City Wall #2 by Mesq

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20% Time 3-17-08

This week during my twenty percent time I took that time to explore on teenage parenting. Reading about teenage parents I learned that nearly 1 million teenage girls get pregnant each year and three-fourths of those who gave birth were not married, and nearly 200,000 were under the age of 18. Teenage mothers usually strive for self-suffiency as they enter adulthood which affects their children leaving while they are growing up leaving them at higher risks of poor health, education, and economic outcomes. Teenage childbearing is an important policy concern because it affects not only a mother’s life but also her child’s. Statistics show that the children of teenage children are more likely to be in poor health, experience less stimulating and supportive home environments, be abused or neglected, have difficulty in school, become teenage parents, and be imprisoned during young adulthood, when compared with children of older parents. I believe that ended up being really lucky because I have full support from my parents and I could have been included in these statistic. My daughter doesn’t need anything and isn’t missing anything and she has a lot of love from my family and my from my boyfriends family. I don’t struggle as much as other girls that don’t get all the support from their parents like I do, but like all families we still have problems. I still struggle even though I get a lot help, so I could only imagine how it would be if I wasn’t lucky to have such great support from my family. I know some girls that have to struggle so much now that they have a baby and all I can think about is how lucky I am because I could of ended up like them.

Moving Parents into Self-Sufficiency

Photo Fear and Love by Chrissydlt

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