Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Inspiration from Abbi and on Oprah

The other day I was reading my new friend Abbi's blog and came upon this poem that she wrote. Not only are these always-unschooled teens usually kind, confident and comfortable hanging out with both young and old, they are also so talented! They follow their passions and it shows. Here is a link to her poem, The Future As We Made It.

Below is a picture of Abbi in silhouette. She was the first one in our group to volunteer to climb 50 feet to the top of the challenging Alpine Tower last week.
Here she is in color, the one on the left, dancing with some other unschoolers at the dance.


Today, I got the rare opportunity to watch Oprah, not TiVoed, but live, while I embroidered for sweet Zoe. I am so glad. I got to see the truth come out clearly, finally, about the connection between vaccinations and autism. A few articulate celebrity moms who have children with autism were talking about how they have been able to help their kids by changing their diets AND about how they believe their kids got the autism from vaccinations. This is huge, that Oprah risked the controversy that could follow such claims. The other glimmer of hope was that the CDC gave a statement for the show that conceded that they did not resolutely know what causes autism, thereby allowing that vaccinations could play a role. They also said that they are going to do more research into the vaccination-autism connection that so many mothers have realized exists as a result of what has happened to their kids right after being vaccinated. It was also good to hear the moms being able to say that they don't want their kids defined by the label of autism and that there are MANY, highly successful, brilliant people who are on the autism spectrum.

I was so lucky, while pregnant with my boys, to have a naturopathic, wise mother-in-law who gave me information about the dangers of vaccinations; information that is not readily available to most moms. Apparently the problem has gotten so much worse in the last decade. I learned from the show that now one out of 98 boys is diagnosed with autism. Naming certain vaccinations as a big part of the problem, on a show with such a large audience, could hopefully help to change this figure. Yes!

3 comments:

Katie said...

Hello Fellow Scrapbooker! Just like you, I'm a Cathy Z blog addict, I recently discovered "blogs" in May 2007 (so I'm kinda new at it) but I read Cathy Z's EVERY DAY! I read her recent post about not making a mint. So I think I want to send her a bunch of MINTS and, of course, a scrapbook about mints from the people who love her! I think it would be totally cute if we put together a "photo album scrapbook" (we did this in the 2007 LOM class for Stacy J.) FOR CATHY Z!!! If you are interested, please mail me two 4x6 "pages" for the photo album scrapbook for Cathy Z. My snail mail address is Katie Scott, 4755 Central Avenue, St. Petersburg, FL 33713; I'm not totally techno (my husband actually refers to me as a technology idiot - but only in the mostly loving way ;) so I can't do the email it to me thing... Just do the regular snail mail please that way I stay with my philosophy of Keeping It Super Simple! One of the pages should be a picture of you with some mints for Cathy Z! And the other can be anything you like, a Cathy Z inspired page or project or whatever you think she would enjoy! Of course, I'll be putting the scrapbook together in a mint colored album and sending it to her along with a sac of mints. Lets try to get this done before Thanksgiving so I can get it out to her before Christmas or whatever December Holiday you like to scrapbook! Plus if you know anyone else who might like to add their pages for Cathy Z, please forward my message! If you are interested please snail mail me your pages, or if you have questions, then email me at katrinkaja@aol.com or visit my blog at http://kissandtellscrapbooking.typepad.com/. :) Katie Scott in St. Pete FL

Abbi Traaseth said...

Awh!! That really is so sweet, thank you so much! :)

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