I've Gone Purple for Maddie

My blog's gone purple to honor Madeline.



Her parents have requested everyone wear purple for the services on Tuesday. If you can't be there or didn't know of the Spohrs before now, please wear purple on Tuesday and let people know you are honoring the life of a brave, sweet little girl who is gone too soon. You can also mention the March of Dimes, an organization that works towards a day when all babies will be born healthy.

Have you donated yet? $1 or $100, whatever you can afford would be much appreciated. The economy is bad, but losing a child is so much worse. Please, support the Spohrs. You can click on the button on the right to donate via PayPal.

Love,
Alison

For Maddie

We all know everyone is struggling right now because of the economy. But there are two people who are struggling because their sweet little girl is gone too soon. Final services and arrangements cost quite a bit. And a child's funeral is something no parents should have to plan or pay for.

ETA: Heather stayed home to care for Madeline, and Mike will be getting no income as he takes time off. Anything left over after paying for the services will go to support the Spohrs during this extremely difficult time.

If you can, please consider donating to help with the costs. Every dollar helps. The PayPal button is on the sidebar to the left.

For Heather and Mike. For Maddie.



Love,
Alison

ETA PS: Got this one from Velveteen Mind, created by Rachel at A Southern Fairy Tale. This button doesn't fit in my side bar, but it is beautiful and I had to put it up. Maddie was a very small person, but her life was big and full. She is so loved. Both buttons go to the same PayPal page where you can donate to help the Spohrs.

Madeline Alice Spohr

Though she was just a little girl who is gone too soon, Madeline brought immense amounts of joy to people's lives. Her big blue eyes and huge smile never failed to wow me with their beauty and the gorgeous spirit behind them.

Maddie is so special to me for another reason, besides her curls and her antics and her huge personality. She literally changed my life.

I really got into reading blogs last year, and I looked around for blogs about twins. It was from Baby on Bored that I found The Spohrs Are Multiplying. Stefanie's Sadie (who has a bigger twin sister) and Heather's Maddie were both teensy and not growing. (Heather happens to have a twin brother, and she has commented here before).

There was a point last year when I knew a food science degree was not quite what I wanted. I wandered over to clinical nutrition, but I was not sold on it yet.

I read about the nutrition appointments and consultations for these small babies, and others, and it was like I was struck by lightning.

Of course. This is what I am supposed to do.

I love love love babies and children, I love the science of nutrition, and I want to help people. When I found out that I could go to graduate school in Maternal and Child Nutrition or Maternal and Child Health or at least specialize in maternity, infancy, and childhood, I wondered "Why didn't I know this sooner??"

Maddie. Sweet, precious, brave Madeline. She was such a huge factor in guiding me to what I want to do with my life. Her story taught me so much about love and bravery, and her grin reached through the screen and tugged at my heart. I mourn for her as if I had known her in "real life." Every bit of me wishes that Maddie could come back. Every bit of me hurts with a hurt I know does not even compare to the pain felt by Maddie's family.

I only knew you on the Internet, Madeline Alice, but I will carry you with me forever. I mean that, Maddie Moo.

Heather's site is having some traffic/server issues, but I hear it is getting moved. You can go here to donate to Heather's March for Maddie team or here to read about how to donate to help with the family's expenses.

Love,
Alison

The Tattoo Story

So, I told Swistle that I would post this yesterday. But yesterday was filled with laundry and packing and Dad's birthday celebration and packing. And also, flying. Ick.

We thought about getting something together for a loooooong time. After the deed had been done, Dad said "No one has ever thought about a tattoo as much you had." Which is probably true. This is somewhat significant because he was not at all pleased with the location. He's fine with tattooed daughters, as long as said tattoos are hideable. Mom was so not into the tattoo thing AT ALL. But she promised not to disown us (joking... sorta). Now itt's done and everyone's fine. Some family members may have even been... pleasantly surprised. You'd think they were imagining a huge anchor or a topless mermaid or something. And inner wrist? SO HIDEABLE. Bracelets, watches, long sleeves, even make-up. It's quite a small tattoo; they took just a few minutes each. It also counts as "tastefully done," I think, and tattoos in the workplace are becoming more common. Our older sister works in a hospital and informed me that healthcare still is in the 1950s when it comes to tattoo policy, which is a bummer considering I want to be a registered dietitian and will probably work in a clinical setting at some point. We will see. I am always freezing in doctors' offices, so long sleeves everyday would probably be the norm even if I didn't have a tattoo on my wrist.

The tattoo itself has so many meanings, there is clearly the infinity (forever)/love aspect of it, but also the connectedness of it and the symbolism of two halves. I drew it (badly) based on a couple of tattoos I saw online. The nice man with the needle drew it much nicer. When we hold hands, I always hold her left hand and she holds my right. The placement made a lot of sense to us.

I am not going to lie. It hurt. I am not sure I quite know how to describe it. But it was more manageable than I expected. I didn't even cry, and I walked in there half-expecting to pass out. Gooo me!

We went down to a very reputable and well-known tattoo place in San Diego, called Avalon. No appointment, just a walk-in. Tuesdays aren't exactly the busiest day for a place like that, right?



All in all, a very cool experience. Taking care of it is a bit of a bummer. It is more the aftercare than the pain that will deter me from getting another any time soon. (Though I will probably need breaks from the needle during the session for anything much larger than this one). And waking up to a little ink loss under my saran wrap/ointment rig the morning after was unpleasant... I believe the first thing I thought was "OMG, what have I done to myself??" But a little wash and all was well.

And that is the story of the twin tattoos.

Cheers!
Alison

Things I Have Been Doing Instead Of Blogging

-Working
-Studying
-Working
-Volunteering
-Studying
-Adventuring
-Studying

You get the picture.

Oh wait... One last thing.

-Getting ink


-Baby A too


That I actually went through it kind of still boggles my mind. No regrets, though. I am so happy with it! Baby A loves hers too. Mine is on my inner right wrist, hers is on her inner left, and they are mirror images of each other.

Cheers!
Alison

Twin Saints (No, Certainly Not Us)

Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian are Catholic saints that are twins. Their good deeds are reputed to include providing medical care and healing without accepting pay, hence their nickname "the silverless." They are often depicted in paintings to be transplanting the leg of a recently dead Ethiopian man onto another man, to replace his ulcered and diseased leg. Um, yeah. Here is an example...

"Legendary transplantation of a leg by Saints Cosmas and Damian, assisted by angels."
Photographed by Andreas Praefcke (2006), I can't seem to find the name of the artist, and I got this image here.

Fun! According to Wikipedia, the twins are the saints of "surgeons, physicians, dentists, protectors of children, barbers, pharmacists, veternarians, orphanges, day-care centers, confectioners, children in house, against hernia, against the plague." Catholic.org just lists pharmacists/druggists.

There are many churches dedicated to Cosmas and Damian, but the one I want to bring to your attention is the one in Twinsburg, OH. Yeah, THAT Twinsburg. Love it.

Cheers,
Alison

Population Genetics, And How Identicals Make It A Little More Interesting

There was this evolutionary biologist by the name of William Donald Hamilton, aka Bill, and he was a pretty big deal. He was a member of the Royal Society, and he studied altruism and kin selection, among other things. His work is especially interesting when you look at genetically identical individuals. You will have to forgive me; I am a science nerd.

Some species, like bees and ants, have one reproductively active female (the queen) and many sterile females (workers). These workers take care of offspring and generally... do work, as the name suggests, leaving the queen plenty of free time to make more babies. It had long bothered biologists that this seems contrary to natural selection, survival of the fittest. Being unable to reproduce makes you pretty unfit, in natural selection's mind. (Remember, we're talking about insects, not people, don't shoot!). Darwin himself pondered this problem. Hamilton found a formula describing how being unable to reproduce might be beneficial for the overall fitness of the individual's kin.

Hamilton's rule: rB > C, where r = relatedness factor, B = benefits to the reproductive recipient of such altruism, and C = costs to the individual in terms of fitness (fecundity).

This is where we come back to the subject of twins. "r" is how related you are to someone else. You are 0.5 related to a parent and a full sibling. You share half your genes. You are 0.25 related to a half-sibling, because that half is halved again. You are 1.0 related to yourself. Oh yeah, AND your clone, if you are the product of an in utero cloning event.

Using Hamilton's rule, if I didn't reproduce and I instead helped Baby A to reach her full fitness (helping her raise children, giving her the opportunity to have more children, etc.), I would still be pretty darn successful. As successful, in fact, as if I had gone and had my own children. My genes are her genes, and therefore I am pretty fit if she reproduces and I don't. There is practically no cost associated with me refraining from having offspring to help my sister, from an evolutionary standpoint. My genes are still passed on to the next generation.

Of course, humans cannot be entirely compared to the order Hymanoptera. But this was an interesting thing to think about during biology today.

Oh! AND my professor actually mentioned identical twins/clones today for once. Well, didn't actually mention, but it was on one of the slides. Score!

Cheers,
Alison

PS: Yes, all those links are to Wikipedia. I love me some wiki.