Karen’s Opinion

I have to tell you about the cutest little night light I found.

It is the Cloud b Twilight Constellation Night Light.

This little guy is both functional and cute as a night light. I’m not sure I recommend him for a baby’s room. It’s not really what I would consider baby friendly, unless you have it up and out of reach and also out of sight from your littlest one. And in a way that defeats the purpose of having a cute nightlight for baby. It is made by Cloud b and they are experts at baby products, but personally there are just too many parts inside to make this little guy work, I wouldn’t be comfortable with letting the baby have it at night.
Now for slightly older children this could work as a night light. Or you could try what we did and put it in the family room to light up the stars while you’re watching a movie on family movie night. It also serves as a soft light when little ones get up in the middle of the night and wander through the room to the kitchen. They can press down on Twilight Turtle as they pass through the living room and he’ll light up for 45 minutes, giving them plenty of time to get a drink and head back to bed.
Twilight Turtle comes with a constellation guide to help you learn about the stars you’re seeing, an adoption certificate and even includes the necessary three “AAA” batteries. You’ve got your choice of three light color settings blue, green, and white. If you have colored walls I recommend using the white setting, and if you’re walls are white then the green and blue work pretty well.
One of the quirks about Twilight Turtle is that the higher up he is, the better result you’re going to have. And if he’s near a wall you won’t get to see a full constellation. If you’re like most people you probably don’t have a tall dresser sitting in the middle of the room to put this little guy on for your child. Putting him in the middle of the floor gives you blurred bits of light throughout the room. To solve this dilemma we put ours on top of the television in the family room and while we don’t get the full constellations it does look like mostly like stars on the ceiling and wall. Basically, just don’t expect a professional grade planetarium from a stuffed turtle and you won’t be disappointed.

The theme this week at Heads or Tails is “Down on the Farm”. I just happened to visit a farm of sorts while in Paducah at the quilt show in Kentucky this past week.

We visited Patty’s Settlement where there were all types of animals. I had never seen a turkey up close. This one was beautiful as far as turkeys go.

Join us at Heads or Tails. It is fun!

I have a terrible habit of listening to other people’s conversations. The road trip I went on this past Saturday gave me the opportunity to listen to the conversation of the two women sitting behind me. I could not have helped it. They were talking loudly the whole time! I tried to take a snooze and I may have dozed off now and then only to be awakened with more of their chatting. I wish I had known the people they were talking about. It would have been more interesting to know who was now in rehab if I had known their history. Was it for drugs? Caffeine? Buying too much fabric? Darn, I won’t ever find out.

You would think I would learn to tune people out but I haven’t found a way to do that. I wish I hadn’t heard about the man getting new dentures and how the poison in his body was caused by his rotten teeth. My teeth hurt just thinking about it.

My kids mean the world to me and I will do everything I can to keep them safe. I wish that when they were born, I had known about saving their cord blood. Cord blood is known to treat over 70 different diseases. I don’t know if it was an option when my kids were born, 28 and 24 years ago. I would have liked to have had the option of saving their cord blood in case, heaven forbid; they ever get seriously sick or are diagnosed with a disease.

Cyro-Cell is trying to get the word out about this process. Please, don’t confuse this process with the gathering of embryonic stem cells. This process is of no threat to babies.

Read the following testimonial to see how one woman feels about the totally painless process of banking cord blood. She says it so much more eloquently than I ever could.

“My children are the most precious gifts that I will ever have and I want to do everything I can to make sure they are well. While I was pregnant with my first child, I would see articles and ads about cord blood and it bothered me that it was so expensive but what if I one day needed this blood. The reality of having only one chance or it really went in the garbage kept me wondering if I would regret not investing. What if he had cancer or his dad or I were sick, would that blood have been the cure? Through research, I came across Cryo-Cell International, Inc., a company with the most reasonable rates and the assurance of two holding facilities.

When I was pregnant with my second child, we wondered if one bank was enough? Finances were tighter and should we spend the money? Then we realized that his brothers blood might not match for the new baby. The next day, stories were breaking about how Cord blood had saved or changed the lives of children, one cancer, one cerebral palsy. Then we discovered that a friend was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. He didn’t bank his daughters blood and wished he had. Three years prior, I lost a friend to renal cancer when she was 29. We felt like it was our answer.

We are just beginning to see miracles that this blood can bring. We have two “life insurance policies”, that is how we look at it. If anyone in the family gets ill, there is a chance that the blood could save our lives. If we don’t use it, then it is there for our son’s children.”

Sincerely,
mother of Parker and Davis

Cryo-Cell International Client

Cryo-Cell is a company that offers an easy service to collect cord blood and have it processed. You can read about the process on their website at cyro-cell.com.

You only have one opportunity to preserve your baby’s cord blood. Please consider this an opportunity you must take. Check out Cyro-Cell’s offer of a free Baby Bjorn. Like I said, they are trying everything to get the word out!

When paying for our dinner at the local pizza place last week, I received a Washington DC quarter. I didn’t know the mint was producing quarters other than the state quarters and the usual eagle quarter. I discovered that the mint is not only producing a Washington DC quarter, it is producing 5 more. Did anyone else know about this?

In 2009, the United States Mint will mint and issue six quarter-dollar coins in honor of the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories: the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. These coins will be issued in equal sequential intervals in 2009.

The image of George Washington as seen on the obverse of the 50 State Quarters® coins will remain unchanged. The reverse of each quarter will be distinctly different with images emblematic of the District of Columbia and each of the territories.