Parenting Children

We have had such mild winters here in New Jersey that every season is tick season. Spring signals the time to get outdoors after being cooped up all winter long. It is when everyone goes out hiking, camping and boating so it really is the tick season.
My nephew and his father went out hiking this weekend and they found a tick on the back of my nephew’s ear. Our dog even died from undiagnosed lyme disease. We are very careful now and are overly cautious when we are anywhere near wooded areas.

Here are some preventative tips and what to do if you find a tick on your person.
Ticks love warm areas, the groin, between fingers and toes and armpits. Always check for ticks whenever you have been in a wooded area.
Ticks need to be attached to the body for at least 12 hours to infect someone. If you find a tick attached to the skin, the best thing to do is to take it out with tweezers being careful to break the body off and leave the head. Your goal is to get the entire tick out whole and then to flush it down the toilet.
After your remove the tick make sure you monitor your child for a rash or fever. If you ever think your child has an infection, call your doctor.

To try and prevent ticks all together, wear long pants and tops. Tuck your pants into your socks, use a bug spray with DEET but check and make sure it is safe for kids. If you wear light colored clothing, it will be easier to see ticks on your clothing.

Also, if you have outdoor cats or dogs to check them for ticks on a regular basis. Use frontline to prevent fleas and ticks on pets.

ticks, family, kids, children, summer safety, hiking, tick season, lyme disease

So many of my decision in my life were based on fear. Fear of rejection, fear that something will happen if I do/don’t, fear that the years are slipping past me and I am powerless to stop it.
My fear didn’t stop when I became a mother. No, it intensified.
What if something happened to the babies? \What if I can’t take care of them alone? What if I am a failure to them?

The fear loomed over me, leaving me powerless.
I couldn’t live like that anymore, I wouldn’t.

I decided to my life back from the fear and just live it. So, when I received and email asking for women to write about becoming fearless to celebrate Arianna Huffington’s new book, On Becoming Fearless: …in Love, Work, and Life , I knew I had to participate.

In the book, Ms. Huffington talks about how women have to become fearless to take their rightful place in society. She explores how you can become fearless with your career, health, parenting, aging and with money.
She writes about how we have to stop complaining about our physical ailments and take care of ourselves and our bodies. Also how women in abusive relationships have to overcome the fear of being alone, and move on.

Some women come into these mind sets later in life, when they realize how silly botox is, or how worrying about the “what ifs” in life are pointless. We all know as women, as mothers, we critisice ourselves and can let ourselves become overly fearful. It is easy to do.

I am not going to wait until I am in my 50’s to have fearlessness, I am going to live in the sunshine instead of the shadows, I am not going to make my children as fearful as I was growing up. I will not let the “what ifs” shape my decisions anymore.
Now if all the women in the world could read this book and make the change to live fearless?
Well, we could rule the world.

fearless Friday, Mother Talk, parents, mothers, women, becoming fearless,

Today my four year old daughter went to work with her Dad. Of course it is no longer bring your daughter to work day, it is bring your child, but it is easier for my husband to take only one four year old to work.
I dressed up R in a skirt a blouse and a jacket. She was all dressed the part and ready to go sell “medicine to all the doctors”.

I will be blogging about her day throughout today so check back often for updates.

9:30am- R & Dad have been to two office so far, one being her peditrician. The word is she is wooing all the nurses and receptionists. She is loving all the attention and having Daddy all to herself!

11am- R is doing great, getting in and out of the car is not bothering her. E says she loves all the attention she is getting. She reported to me that she even got stickers from a doctor. E is really loving his new partner.

12pm- R and E are off to lunch now. R wanted pizza so pizza she will get! She has already received lots of swag from the different offices including a water bottle, pens, lollipops and stickers.
She is very worried about her brother, if he is still in school, when will I get him and what he is doing. I guess that is the twin thing though, they are rarely apart so when they are, they ask about each other often. She is his “little mother” too and when she left this morning she told L she would miss him and gave him a nice hug.
Yes, my heart melted on the spot!

2:00pm- R & her dad had a nice lunch and they were headed out to make some more calls. E said he is not above letting his daughter do the work for him and she had perfected her “Please write my Daddy’s drugs” speech. I told him to have R tell the doctors that she loves to eat,wear clothes and have heat, so they need to write more prescriptions. : )
When L got home from school they talked to each other on the phone, it was adorable. R wanted L to know she has batman stickers for him.
L is grateful for that information.

3:30pm-The worker bees are home! R is exhausted from a long day of selling and L was so happy to see her he ran outside without his shoes on. R said she had a great day at work with Daddy but she is glad she is a kid and gets to play a lot more then Daddy does.

She is one smart kid.

take your child to work day, take your daughter to work, fathers and daughters, bring your daughter to work day, preschoolers, working dads, parenting

your goldfish didn’t die of “natural causes” like I told you. I forgot to feed them.

I like my mother in law more than I like my mother

I fantasize about checking into a hotel ALONE for a weekend…staying in bed the entire time…watching bad movies and ordering room service.

These are all confessions from mothers. Old, young, working outside of the home, stay at home, first time moms and mothers of many children.
Can you relate? I can relate to the stresses, the humor and the frustration of it all. It is a hard job with no training beforehand.
These confessions are from a site that I stumbled across a few days ago and have been hooked on ever since.

Everyone has secrets, do mothers have more secrets that anyone else?
I don’t know. What I do know is that mothers like to judge other mothers, to make themselves feel better about the job they are doing.
We all struggle, we all fail sometimes but maybe if we stopped judging and started sharing our own parenting secrets with other mothers, we could change the world.

I thought it would be fun if we did our own True Mom Confessions here. Leave your confession in the comments and feel free to remain anonymous. I will start with one and then leave another anonymous one in the comments.

-Sometimes I go into the bathroom and close the door just to get some peace and quiet. It doesn’t last long though, because in minutes kids and a cat will end up in the bathroom with me.

true mom confessions, moms, SAHM, WAHM, parenting, family, parenting lies, parents, mom confessions

The New York Times reports that after many years of progress, the infant mortality rates in Mississippi and other southern states have started to increase.

Mississippi’s infant mortality rate is particularly concerning. Between 2004 and 2005 it jumped from an average of 9.7 deaths of babies per 1,000 to 11.4. And while the infant death rate increased for both whites and blacks, it was dramatically higher among blacks, the newspaper said.
What is partly responsible is the fact that African Americans are more likely to have diabetes then any other race, although Hispanics are reaching record numbers. Also the fact that hypertension, obesity and little to no prenatal care is an epidemic throughout poverty stricken areas, the south included.
The other states that had rises in 2005 (the last known mortality statistics) included South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee.

Researchers say that diet and poverty go hand-in-hand in causing the infant mortality increase. We know that childhood obesity is on the rise in our country, along with the rise of obesity in adults.

Other factors in the death toll include premature births, low birth weights, SIDS, birth defects, congenital defects, accidents and disease.

What can we do to change this? There is only one thing to do, educate the people in these povertiy stricken communities where there are no outreach programs. Bus social workers and nurses into these areas to help the women who do not have transportation or cannot afford to travel to the nearest clinic weekly.
If the answer is so simple, why isn’t it being done?
Money.
These programs need money, volunteers and resources and the sad fact is, that the poor women and children of this country come last.

poverty, infant death climbs in the south, obesity, poverty, children, babies, infants, parenting, children

Earth Day was yesterday and my family and I spent it outdoors and enjoying nature. We love nature, animals and we are trying to instill that love into our children. It seems it has worked.
They would rather go to the aquarium or zoo then anywhere else. They love to hike and picnic and are looking forward to camping for the first time this summer.

We also teach our children why we don’t litter, why we recycle and why we don’t drive a huge hummer that they would like us to own.

It is small, but it is a start on why we need to save the Earth and all the things we do to hurt it. Educate yourself and your children.
Make it fun with these coloring pages. Here are some crafts, poems, coloring pages and activities to do with your children. Make it fun. Teach your children to be responsible for this world we live in, maybe they will be the ones to save it.

Earth Day, Earth Day for kids, crafts, coloring pages, parenting, kids, preschoolers, save Earth

I thought twins were fun:

funny babies, cute babies, infants, kids, babies, children, parents

My first Ask A Mom letter comes from a nice new mom in Oregon. She wants to know “how should I put my child to sleep? Is it necessary to have a night time routine, or do I just put her to bed when it is her bedtime?”

This is a great question. You could just put your baby to sleep, but since you didn’t give the age of the child in question, I suggest starting a bedtime routine with your child as young as three months.

There are various things you can do to soothe your baby into nightly slumbers and I will tell you what worked for me.
A nice bath. Don’t under estimate a nice relaxing bath before bed. There are so many nice bath soaps and lotions on the market now that are calming, take advantage of them.
Follow the bath up with some lotion and a massage for your child.
You love massages, so will your child.

Then if it was time for a bottle I would give one to my child in his room with dim lighting. Maybe even some music. I would always play classical music at bedtime and as my children got older they recognized this music as nap or bedtime. You could always use a crib cd player or the music of his mobile.

As my children got a little older, I would read them stories before bed and now that they are four they prefer my husband singing silly songs with his guitar before bed. If he is not here at bedtime, I still read them books.

Here are soem tips to keep a sleeping baby sleeping. keep the room at a comfortable temperature, not cold but cool. Try some white noise like a fan, sound machine or humidifier. My husband would still love to sleep with the sound of a fan every night!

That should make any person want to tuck themselves into the covers and snuggle down at bedtime for a full 10 hours sleep!
I hope this helps you, Oregon.

So, help this mom out, what are your bedtime routines?

babies, infants, toddlers, bedtime, bedtime routines, baths, baby baths, children, moms, parenting, parents, sleep

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

April 16, 2007, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of the Virginia Tech community and the world beyond.

To remember and honor the victims of those tragic events, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to aid in the healing process and generate financial support.

The fund will be used to cover expenses including but not limited to:

• Grief counseling
• Memorials
• Communication expenses
• Comfort expenses
• Incidental needs

If you plan to give, please click the link below:

I bought my son a new box of cereal and it has changed his long, four year old life.

Let me start out by saying we don't allow nutritionally void cereals or snacks in our house as a rule. Are there exceptions to that rule? Sure, like for treats or holidays. That being said, there are few choices of healthy cereals. You either have to go with something in the flake (raisin/bran/corn) family or something in the O (Os/kix) family.
Not very exciting for kids when they see a huge aisle filled with boxes of sugar, I mean cereal, that are adorned with cartoon characters, cereal in colors not normally found in nature and prizes inside.

My kids never get those boxes.
So imagine my four year old's face when he sees his mother come home with a box of his favorite cereal (Cheerios of course) with a picture of Spiderman on the front! He was in heaven. He loves super heroes even though he has never once seen a cartoon with them in it. Naturally, Spiderman is a front runner for favorite followed closely by the Hulk.

Not only was Spiderman all over that box of cereal (thank you Spiderman 3!!) but there was a prize inside. It was a little squirt toy. not too exciting for you and me, but for L, it was like Christmas all over again!

My sweet little boy wanted to look at the box all morning while he was eating his Os and even asked for it various times throughout the day "just to see it again".
The box is already 3/4 empty and I guess I will be buying more boxes soon.

The moral of the story: if you want your child to have more fiber in their diet paste a picture of their favorite thing on the cover of some Cheerios! Oh, and buy stock in Cheerios. I promise my household alone will make you rich.

cereal, Cheerios, Spiderman, super heroes, preschoolers, toddlers, kids, children, breakfast, breakfast for kids, grocery store, cereal aisle

This is the first installment of our “milestones and development” feature and we are going to start with ages 1-3 months, naturally.

The first few months are the hardest as a parent because even if you have done it before it is all new again for the first couple of months. Diapers on little bottoms, waking to eat every two to three hours and bathing a squirmy, little creature.

This time your baby will be growing at the same rate he did the first few weeks of life, he should gain about 1.5-2lbs and grow 1-1.5 inches each month of his life. At about two months the soft spots on the top of his head should still be open but the spot on the back of his head should be closed.
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With yesterdays tragedy at Virginia Tech, I am sad for the world that my kids have to live in. I am sad because these shootings didn’t happen forty years ago. What has changed with us as a society or as parents to let it get to where our kids are scared to go to school, or work?
Is it the availability to firearms? The fact that now most households have two working parents?
Or is it that technology has brought bullying to a higher form of school yard torture?

Nine out of 10 elementary school kids have been subjected to physical or psychological bullying by their peers, while six in 10 have been bullies themselves, according to a new study.

That is nothing new, bullies have been around since the beginning of time. If you have ever attending any school you have seen, been the victim of or played a part in bullying.

Often kids were tormented in school, taunted in PE class or laughed at while walking home. Once (s)he got home it was a sanctuary. They could be themselves. Not anymore. With the presence of at least one computer in most homes, bullying was taken to a new level. The bully can write something nasty on your myspace, spread rumors via instant messaging or just plain stalk and harass you virtually. They can call your cell phone, text message cruel lies and torture their victim anywhere at any time of the day. It is all too easy and it has turned deadly, not only in this country but many others.

I am not saying that Virginia Tech shootings were because of bullying, he was obviously a very distrubed man on many levels, but bullying has caused some children to kill themselves or others in an act of revenge.

I know I don’t want to fear for my children’s lives as I place them on a school bus every day. I certainly don’t want to try to explain why human beings do this to each other and I never want to have to tell my kids how to “play dead” if it happens in their classroom.
But, what can we, as parents, do?
Were you bullied? Are your kids being bullied? What do you do to help your kids or prevent it from going to far?

bullys, bullying, teens, mothers, parents, parenting, family life, school, preventing bullying, Virginia Tech shooting, Virginia Tech massacre, school shootings

In two separate shootings on a Virginia Tech Campus around 9am today, left as many as thirty one people are dead including the gunman. There were also many more injured and the authorities are looking into whether the gunman was killed by his own hand.
The scene was described as “mayhem” as students and police were running through campus, two students even climbed out of windows to get out of the shoot up.

The first reported shooting occurred at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a co-ed dormitory that houses 895 students. The second shooting was in a classroom.

What leads our children to kill each other. What are we doing as parents, or as a society to make children feel that taking revenge my not only killing themselves but other classmates, teachers, faculty and friends is the answer?
Is this the legacy of Columbine? Is it due to the increase of bullying or the availability to firearms in combination with lax parenting?
How can we save our children?

Any reasoning you give it, the answer is still the same, it is a terrible tragedy. It is the deadliest school shooting in US history.
All of the students and parents are in my prayers today, not only as a mother but as a human being.

Virginia Tech, school shootings, school gunman, school shooting, children, teens, college, parenting, parents

There was an article in the NY times a couple of days ago about men who had children later in life whether it was because they remarried or just did not marry until they were much older, now calling themselves SODs (start over Dads).

Why would we judge people and who they fall in love with or when they decided to have children? Are SODs selfish in their pursuit of children despite their age and the fact that many defects can happen to the children of parents who decided to have them later in life? If the amount of of young adults who are “boomeranging” is on the rise, then getting married later in life is a huge possibility.

Perhaps children are at and greater advantage because they are more established in their careers or are more relaxed. Is it fair to a child to have a dad whose life expectancy is 20 years when all of her friend’s fathers have a life expectancy of twice that?
There are so many questions surrounding this new surge of older fathers.

Doesn’t a woman have a right to have a child with her husband no matter what his age? Women are having babies later in life now also.
I am very interested in what you think about SODs.
Do you think it is right/wrong?

SODs, older fathers, children, babies later in life, midlife babies, mothers, fathers, dads, older dads, start over dads, parenting, families, family

This is one of the funniest videos I have seen. This kid sure can move!

breakdancing toddler, dancing kid, toddlers, kid fun