Overweight Children

I have been working at the Dairy Queen in Lamar, MO for about 7 years now and I have seen a lot of people come and go. I know who my regulars are and what they are going to order before they even tell the girl at the register what they want. I am the most expeirenced cook at my job and therefore I am pretty much in charge of my kitchen domain. I've noticed that most of the customers that I am cooking for are overweight, which is to be expected since I work at a fast food place. Fast food places are found everywhere you look and they are the prime reason as to why the obesity rate has gone sky high in this country.  I've seen people who are more overweight than others and I've seen people who order enough food for three people, just for themselves and then go back for a large ice-cream treat afterwards. The other day I saw the most horrific thing that I have ever seen in my years of working at Dairy Queen. A whole family of ridiculously overweight people came to the registers to order some food. There was a mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, and two HUGE little boys standing in front of the registers looking at the menu trying to figure out what they were going to order. I had never seen people that were this overweight, but what really chilled me to my core was the fact that the two little boys were the size of two huge boulders and they couldn't have been any older than the age of six! The first little boy looked to be about 3 or 4 years old and he had to have weighed over 125 pounds and the other little boy that looked to be about 6 was about 150 or more! As I stared in disbelief at this family, they started to place their order. I remember the order exactly as the day that I made it, the order was 6 six piece chicken strip dinners with a large order of mushrooms, fries, or onion rings with each one! I can't even eat a whole 4 piece chicken strip dinner, let alone a 6 piece with a large greasy side to go along with it! Anyway, after their food was delivered to them, I stood there, in my kitchen area, and watched them devour every crumb of it, and I defanitely mean EVERY CRUMB. I then watched the mother and the two little boys come back up to the counter to order ice-cream. She ordered a large blizzard for herself and then ordered each of the two boys a peanut buster parfeit. Our peanut buster parfeit's are pretty much like a freakin' huge sundae with three layers of hot fudge and peanuts in between vanilla ice-cream. After witnessing all this, all I could do was shake my head with disgust. Why on earth would somebody let their child become that overweight!? I'm not bashing overweight people to make fun of them, because I actually have a sister that just turned 21 that weighs about 300 pounds. I know that she is overweight and I also know that being too overweight can be very harmful to a person's health. Back to my story though, I got home from work that day and the show "The Dr. Oz Show" was on the television. Now, usually I don't really watch "The Doctor Oz Show" but on this day it really caught my eye, because, ironically, it was about overweight children and the harmful effects of this problem. On the show there was an overweight mom and dad that had a 4 year old daughter that weighed over 100 pounds. The parents of this little girl were sobbing and admitted to the doctors that she was already beginning to show signs of diabeties and asthma and that they were stressed to the max worrying about what to do with their daughters weight before it becomes a serious health issue. Doctor Oz then asked them a series of questions about what type of food the family eats in a typical day, how much time they spend getting up and moving around or going outside, and how much time they spend watching television or being on the computer. The parents admitted that they do not "get up and move" and that they eat fast food everyday and they spend all their time in front of the television. At this point I'm sitting there thinking, "HELLO! That is why you have an issue with being overweight, because your daily routine is unhealthy!". Then, as I figured, Doctor Oz told the family that they needed to change their routine and quick or their life spans could be cut short due to the weight problems and unhealthy habits that they were practicing. He then proceeded to teach them how to change their habits so that their daughter wouldn't be faced with horrible health issues later on down the road. I just hope that they took his advice seriously and really did change their routine at home, because that is just ridiculous to pass that kind of a habit off to a four year old that clearly has a weight issue already. After watching Doctor Oz's show I really agreed with him on the fact that the child's overweight problem was the parents problem being passed onto the child and the child doesn't understand about why it's bad to carry on that unhealthy behavior, so it's really the parent's fault and their responsibility to get their child straightened out so that it doesn't end in tradgedy. Anyway, I just wanted to vent about those two little boys that I saw, with my own eyes, at Dairy Queen. I just think that is so irresponsible of those two boy's parent's to expose them to those kinds of unhealthy eating habits! I bet they took those little boys home and they plopped right down in front of the television and stayed there until it was time for them to go to bed. Just to give you an idea of how big these boys are, I found a link of an overweight boy in China that is about the same size as these two boys. It's really kind of sad that a parent would let that happen to their child. All they would have to do is make them get up and go outside for a couple hours to play and instead of feeding them greasy fast food everyday they could just go get some good food from the grocery store and fix them a decent home cooked meal. It really isn't that hard people!

A Stressful Sunday

After mid-terms were over I got hit with another round of school work so I decided that I would focus on my English and Speech assignments, since they were the ones that required the most attention and were worth about half my grade in those classes. I gave my first speech and now I had to prepare for the next one and I also had a paper that was due in English so I focused on my speech and my english paper. After I finally got those things taken care of, I realized that I hadn't done any math for about two weeks, so I was behind. My math assignments don't necessarily have a specific due date. All the assignments in that class are due by the end of the semester, but I try to keep myself on a schedule in order to have them all completed by the deadline. All last week I had planned on getting myself caught up on the math assignments that I had scheduled in my agenda that I keep for college. I keep an agenda so I don't forget my assignments and get behind. Anyway, I didn't get to work on any of the math assignments that I had planned on doing all week last week. Macy, my nine month old daughter, has got her first two top and bottom set of teeth in and now she is cutting two more top teeth. It seems like the top teeth always give her more problems than the bottom one do, because she always cries a lot more when the top ones are bothering her. I wasn't for sure that she was cutting her second set so soon, since she had just finished getting her first two top teeth in, but I saw the second set popping through about the middle of last week when I was brushing her teeth. I always give her a bath and then we brush her teeth and get her ready for bed. On Sunday, I had a plan to finally get caught up on all the work I had to do. I got Macy up, changed her diaper and fed her breakfast and then got her dressed. After I did all that, I set her on the floor to play with her toys while I turned on my laptop to start my homework. I got one assignment done and half of another one done before I had to take my husband to his friend's house to play beach volleyball with his buddies. When the weather is nice they always play beach volleyball for a few hours at his friends house on Sundays. His friend has a real nice sanded court a little ways from his house in his HUGE yard. All of my husband's friend's have wives and kids so they all are usually out there to running around and having fun. I helped my husband fill our cooler and a bag for Macy, because I figured Macy would like to run around out there for a bit, since she loves to be outside. Boy was I wrong about that assumption, because when we got out there she started being kind of a brat. My husband was into his second match when she really started throwing a fit, so I decided that it was time to take her home for a nap. I told my husband good-bye and that he could get a ride home with one of the guys so that way he could stay and have some fun. I took Macy home and I fed her a bottle and tried to get her to sleep. She screamed and cried for two hours! I could not get her to calm down at all! I gave her Tylenol and rubbed some medicine on her gums and she still wouldn't stop screaming. After those two hours, my mom called and by then I was in tears because I couldn't get Macy to calm down and I was so stressed out because I had a lot of work to do. Mom told me she was going to come get Macy so that I could have a much needed break from her screaming and get my work done. I'm so glad she came to get the little booger! Macy loves to spend the night with my mom, so as soon as "grandma" walked in the door she stopped crying and reached for grandma with a smile on her face. I was so relieved to see her smile! I got to sleep in this morning and I got caught up on all my work today too. I felt bad about letting her go with my mom, specially since I miss her when she is gone, but I defanitly did need that break. I called to check on her this afternoon and my mother said she hasn't been crabby over there at all! What a little stinker! Well, all I have to say is thank God for mothers! My stress level has gone WAY down since my mom took the baby for me last night!

Toddler Served Alcohol at Michigan Applebee's

I didn't even get to browse through the latest news stories this morning to find this one. I just pulled up my internet browser and it was the headline on my homepage. I clicked on this headline and started to read it and I thought, how on earth do you get away with serving a toddler alcohol!? Apparently, as the article says, the little boy's mom ordered the toddler a kids meal with an applejuice and the waiter brought their order to them, but the little boy did not have applejuice in his cup. Instead, the 15 month old boy had alcholic margarita mix in his sippy cup. His mother, at first, just thought that he was tired because he started to seem like he was getting sleepy, but then the little boy started talking to the walls and wouldn't eat his food. Finally, after he laid his head down on the table, his mother took a sip of the "juice" in his sippy cup and realized that it was alcohol. She immediately informed the manager and the police were called to the scene. The police determined that there was alcohol in the childs cup and the boy was taken to the hospital. The little boy's blood alcohol content was declared to be at a 0.10, which is over the legal alcohol content limit for an adult driver. The police have stated that the incident was an accident, because a leftover mixed drink combination was mistakenly labeled as apple juice and that is why the boys cup was filled with alcohol instead of applejuice. Doctors at the hospital say that the boy could have died if he drank the whole cup. The boy is fine and has been released from the hospital. Applebee's has issued a statement saying that the incident was unacceptable and promised to work with the authorities to resolve the matter. After I read this story, I kinda thought that, despite the fact that it was an accident, this story made me kind of scared to go to Applebees. That poor little boy could have died if he drank the whole cup! That is a big, BIG mistake! In this article that I found on Fox News, supposedly nobody, at the family's table, even ordered alcoholis drinks! Don't you think that they would put the alcohol in a different place than they would the applejuice? I had a couple other questions to go with this story, so I decided to look for further information on the matter. I had to look for a while before I can across the answers that I was searching for. I found this article, which answered the question that I had left in my mind. That question was: What efforts did Applebee's make to satisfy the family that fell victim to this incident? I should think that they had to have done something for the family in order for them not to sue! I finally found that answer, in the article that I linked above. The restaurant actually reimbersed the family for the medical bills that came with taking the little boy to the hospital. I'm sure that came with a few apoligies to! Anyway, as I read through this last article, it said that this was not the first time that Applebees has mistakenly put alcohol in a toddlers drink. In 2007, a 2 year old child's drink was filled with alcohol instead of applejuice at an Applebees in California! According to that article, the margarita mix container and the applejuice containers look similar to each other so the manager grabbed the wrong one by mistake and poured it into the child's cup. That restaurant also reimbersed the family for their medical bills after the police were called and the child was taken to the hospital. In my opinion, I think that Applebee's had better figure out witch container is which and put them in separate places so that this doesn't happen again. If they don't, then next time a child could drink the whole cup and then they would be in serious trouble for the murder of a toddler. If it were my kid, I would be furious! Those children could have died from just finishing their drink! It's pretty crazy to have to worry about what is in your child's cup when you order them some applejuice at Applebee's! Hopefully, Applebee's will fix the problem or they will be out of business next time.

Teenage Moms

I used to love watching MTV back when they showed music videos all say long. After they started putting shows on there I stopped watching for a while. Now a days, I actually have a few favorite shows that I like to watch on MTV. I know some of you don't like it, but I love to watch "The Jersey Shore". I just find that show to be really funny and entertaining. Anyway, there is another show that I like to watch and that is "Teen Mom 2". Its interesting to watch and see what those teenage mothers are going through, but most of all I think that this show really brings out the harsh reality of having a baby when you are a teenager. I'm not saying in any way that these girls are terrible people for getting pregnant that young. I just like how the tv series shows teenage girls that having to take care of a kid is a lot of work and stress on a person when they are still in high school and haven't even got to expierence the joys of life yet. I guantee you that all those girls on that show wish that they were out having fun, doing what all the other people their age are doing right now. I'm not saying that they don't love their children and that they regret their children, but I do think that they wish they would have waited to have their children. The pressure of being a teenager these days is a very tough burden to carry and skipping that part of their life that they are supposed to enjoy can lead to unhealthy behavior. Only one of the girls on the Teen Mom 2 show is getting married and is actually doing alright for herself, but she does have to deal with a child that seems to have a medical problem. Thats a hard thing for a teenager to have to go through. I'm so glad that she has a good man that sticks by her and supports her as a husband and a parent, because she already has enough on her plate. There are two other girls that have split up with their boyfriends, and one of those couples are going to court and drawing up a custody agreement over their son, Isaac. The other girl is struggling with school and trying to finish in order to go on to beauty school. The last remaining girl is Jennelle Evans. She has been living from place to place, sleeping on whatever couch she can find, and letting her new boyfriend ruin her life. She was caught on camera brutally beating a girl over an argument about her boyfriend, Kiefer. She has been in trouble for breaking and entering, stealing credit cards and possession of drugs in just her first year of  MTV fame. Her mother has custody of her son and has kicked her out for stealing her credit cards and racking up quite a bill. MTV has been recieving nasty comments about the show because of Jennelle Evans's behavior on and off the show. Many people believe that this show is not a good thing for a teenager to be learning from about being a teenage mother. I believe that they are wrong! I think that Jennelle Evans's "mistakes" are a prime example as to just how hard life can be sometimes when you make the wrong decisions. I honestly believe that a lot of teenagers could look at Jennelle, and the rest of these moms on this show, and think, " Do I really want something like that to happen to me?" or "I'm never going to do what that girl did!". I know that sometimes we see things that disappoint us on these shows, but I firmly believe that sometimes people need to be shown just how harsh reality can be sometimes. I call it an eye-opener.

The Terrible Tantrums

My daughter is, of course, the light of my life, but here lately her cuteness has been a very big factor in having to "lay down the law". Macy will be nine months old on the 16th and lately she has been throwing some nasty temper tantrums. The first time she threw a tantrum I thought the usual things. I thought maybe she was crabby because she was hungry or needed changing or that maybe she was just tired and needed a nap. I tried feeding her and she ate a whole bottle and a few of her little baby yogurt snacks, but after she was done with that she went right back to throwing a tantrum. I decided she needed a diaper change and laid her down to pamper her little bottom. She still just continued to throw a fit. The tantrum she was throwing accelerated into chaos and she bit me on my leg! I pulled her away from my leg, because it freakin' hurt when she bit me, and told her "No, no. You don't bite your momma. That's not nice, it hurt mommy." She then got upset because I told her "No" and started thrashing her head around like a wild animal. I sat her on my lap and tried to calm her down. She wouldn't calm down so I decided that maybe her teeth are causing her pain. I reached over on the end table and grabbed some teething gel and put some on my finger so that I could rub it on her gums. Macy has two top teeth and two bottom teeth but I don't think her two top teeth are done pushing through because I can see them and feel them, but they aren't sticking out as much as her bottom ones, so I think they are still bothering her sometimes. Then again, her second set of teeth could be trying to pop through there to and I just haven't seen them yet. I don't like to try and stick my finger in her mouth to feel if she has more teeth popping through because she will bite me! It's like an automatic thing. I stick my finger in there and she clamps down on it, so I refrained from putting my finger in there anymore! Anyway, she knows what the teething gel looks like and she hates it when I try to put it in her mouth, so when I tried to put some on her gums this time, she threw her head back and busted me in the face! After that I set her on the floor and inhaled a deep breathe of air, trying not to cry from the pain that was making my face throb. After about a minute, I was fine and Macy was still throwing a fit and this time she was so mad that she was kicking her feet and rolling all over the floor. I finally just decided that it was time for some "tough love", and I picked her up and headed upstairs towards her room. Once we got inside her room, I laid her down in her bed, covered her up with her blanket, and gave her one of her stuffed doll's and said, "It's time to take a nap and stop throwing a fit". I then proceeded to give her a kiss and tell her sweet dreams. After I tucked her in for her nap, I walked away and shut the door. I got about halfway down the stairs when she must have realized that I had left her up there for good, because she started screaming her head off. I felt so bad for leaving her up there upset, but my mother said that it's time for her to learn some self control. She screamed for about 20 minutes and then she was really quiet. I went upstairs to check on her and make sure she was okay. She was sound asleep in her crib. I was so glad that she finally gave in and went to sleep, because I could tell she needed a nap. She was cranky and tired. My mother said that she is just at that stage where I am going to have to put my foot down with her. She doesn't understand that she is cranky because she is tired and she doesn't have a way to tell me how she feels except for throwing a fit so I have to do what is best for her and not let her run over me with her sweet little baby face full of cuteness. It's so hard though! I hate to see her upset! I know that it's for the best though, and after being smacked in the face I don't try to hold her when she is thrashing around! Anyway, I suppose I better get used to it because she is going to have to learn that she can't have her way all the time. I'm sure there will be many more temper tantrums where that came from!

Statue Theives

I was browsing the latest news stories today and came across a headline that just made me pause and really start to question it. The headline of this story was: "600-pound bronze moose among Calif. statue thefts". This headline really had a bunch of questions firing off in my head. To sum this story up, the police in California are looking for these art theives that have stolen at least 18 metal, wood and concrete statues, including a 600-pound bronze moose. The theives have stolen nearly $44,000 worth of lawn art since October. The artworks that they stole included Buddha yard statutes, a life-sized aluminum colt, a 3-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary and a copper statue of three children valued at $15,000. Detectives think that the metal works of art may have been broken up and sold to recyclers, while the other pieces might have been resold. After reading this story I began to question as to how somebody gets away with stealing a huge statue and wondering how he was still getting away with stealing more statues. I looked up "statue theives" on google and found that there was a similar story of stealing statues in Conneticut. I clicked on the story and read it. This story was about a man that stole a 450 pound statue of a woman and tried to sell it at a scrap metal yard. This guy was caught and the statue was recovered, missing the woman's head on the statue. The 43 year old man,  Sean P. McNee, was held on a $150,000 bond pending arraignment in Norwich Conneticut Superior Court. The life-sized statue marked the grave of Sarah Larned Osgood and was part of the Osgood family memorial at the Yantic Cemetery on Lafayette Street in Norwich. After I read this story I had more questions. I then went back to google and typed in "metal theft" and to my surprise wikipedia actually had an article on the subject. The article says that metal theft happens when prices for scrap metal rise. People will steal metal and can sell it almost anywhere for a good price. Different metals bring in different prices. The more metal you have, the more money you make and metal can be found everywhere you look. After I read all of this stuff some of my questions had been answered but not all of them. I found the answers as to why somebody would want to steal metal and sell it, but I didn't understand how on earth somebody gets away with something like that. Oviously if you can steal it, without somebody seeing you do it, then you will have no problem selling the metal. How on earth does somebody not get caught stealing a 600 pound gold moose?! I don't understand that! Come on people! Didn't anybody see this guy trying to put this thing in the back of a truck or something? It's a frickin' huge golden moose for goodness sake! How did this guy get out of there with that thing without anybody seeing him and stopping to wonder why this guy was loading a 600 pound moose statue into the back of a truck in front of a museum?! It's not like the guy could just tuck this thing under his shirt and sneak out the door with it. He had to get that thing out of the building somehow and I can't believe that nobody saw him. I've been reading about a lot of stealing going on, but reading about how somebody got away with stealing a huge golden moose takes the cake! I about died laughing just thinking about some guys trying to load this thing up and take it away somewhere, probably to be scrapped. I bet they make a pretty penny on that thing! That's a lot of metal! 600 pounds! People are crazy these days. A friend of mine once told me that crack heads will steal anything, so I honestly believe that the stolen moose idea was defanitely done by a crack head! HA! HA! HA! I feel bad about the statue getting stolen. Nobody likes to have something stolen from them, but this story was hilarious!

Spring Break

I thought that I would blog about my spring break. Hopefully a lot of other people will be doing the same thing, because I think it's fun to read what people did when they had a little time away from their school responsibilites. A friend of mine said she had to do a bunch of homework on her spring break! UGH! Poor girl! Anyway, where to begin? I kind of wanted to go out and be a crazy 23 year old for once, but it was cold all week and I miss my daughter when I go out. Besides, I'm sure that spring break is just another reason for the cops to pull you over and spoil the fun. :P No offense to you criminal justice majors! I know you are just trying to keep us all safe. After all the debating about going out sometime during spring break, I decided that I would just rather stay home and spend time with my daughter and husband. I bought a few new movies and still haven't watched them. I'll get around to it eventually. I did, however, finally decide to make a Facebook for myself. I made one on Friday and already have 81 friends on there! WOW! I know a lot of people! I really was against getting a facebook, but my friends and co-workers convinced me that I needed one. I actually had a good outcome from making a Facebook and that was that I found a friend of mine that I haven't seen or heard from in years! She was my best friend when we were younger and I have really missed her since she moved away. I'm so glad I found her. She came over to my house yesterday and hung out with me. It was a great reunion! She has a two month old baby and is going through a divorce so she moved back to town to live with her mom for a little while and get back on her feet. She said she moved away from her now ex-hubby because he started gettting into some things that she didn't approve of. She said he was always coming home all messed up and started beating on her and so she decided she wasn't going to live like that. I have to say, I'm very proud of her because nobody should have to live like that and a lot of times it's hard for somebody to get away from a situation like that. I'm glad she got away from that before it got worse and she wound up on the 6 o'clock news. I got her a job, at Dairy Queen, where I work. It's not much but she said she needed a job and that anything would help right now. She has a nursing license but she has to get it transferred to Missouri before she can go back to nursing. I'm just glad she is okay. She seems glad to be back in town. Her baby is cute! Speaking of babies, my 8 month old daughter has been throwing fits lately. She is at that age where they start to test their boundries with temper tantrums. She gets mad if she can't have her way and she throws a fit at bedtime too. My husband and I have been working with her all week to make sure that she knows that she can't have her way all the time. I think I am doing better than my husband though, because he can't stand to see her upset and he gives into her before I will. She is doing a lot better though I think. She refuses to take her binki anymore, not that thats a bad thing because thats just one less thing that I have to ween her off of. We have a habit of rocking her to sleep and she refuses to be rocked to sleep anymore. We have now been practicing feeding her and then placing her in the crib and leaving the room. She's been taking it pretty well, because instead of screaming and throwing a fit, she now lays down and lets us cover her up and she pulls her little baby doll close to her and goes to sleep. She seems to understand the "bedtime" and "naptime" concept! Thank God! I'm so glad she is the way she is. She really isn't a pain in the butt. She's usually a really good baby and I'm so glad that switching her bedtime routine hasn't upset her to much! Well, thats about all the highlights of my spring break! Hope to read some other interesting spring break stories this week from my classmates! Hope everyone had a wonderful break as well!