Parenting Children

Halloween is today. If that catches you of guard, that may mean you are a procrastinator. I understand, holidays can sneak up on you. I have some last minute costume ideas and fun games and things to do with your kids before it is time to go out and collect all that candy.

Do it yourself last minute costume ideas:

Tourist: Get a hat, sunglasses and hang a camera around your neck

Cookie: Dress in all brown and pin felt colored circles all over to look like M&Ms

Mummy: wrap your self in toilet paper. Enough said!

Athlete: dress up in a old jersey or uniform. Bring along a ball.

If all else fails call up family members, or neighbors and ask if they have a costume that you can borrow.

How about you make masks of everyone in your family and then trade them. Be your husband or daughter for Halloween and have them be you or their brother. This could be fun all year long!

This is a great site for simulating a pumpkin carving. It kept my kids fascinated for hours. Here is another one that is better for older kids.
Ben and Jerry’s has not only recipes and crafts ideas but also print outs and games.

Remember to go over safety tips with your kids and be safe out there!
What is your favorite last minute costume idea?

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Now that I am pregnant again I scrambled to find my maternity clothes. Most of my clothes are still way to big for me to fit in and I have a lot of work clothes, because at night I would just put on some comfy pajamas. I tried the rubber band around the button trick for my pre-pregnancy pants and I still fit into many of my shirts. The problem is now that I am showing faster then when I was pregnant the first time, some of my regular shirts are too short in the front because of my ever expanding belly.

Blush has taken care of that problem. Blush has topless undershirts to save your belly and your pocketbook. These undershirts add a layered look to any shirt you have without the extra bulk. They come in fourteen different colors or patterns and are $15.00 each. Less the what a maternity tee will cost you. These will also help on those days where you cannot button your pre-pregnancy jeans but are not ready for maternity jeans yet. Nobody will know your buttons are open with this layered look.

I also love the idea of wearing this undershirt while nursing. No more cold air on your belly and back or exposing yourself any more then you have to.

I am ordering mine today! Best yet, Blush has given a 20% off coupon to all parentingourchildren.com readers! Use coupon code: justfortheladies and remember this coupon is good for one month. Go ahead order one for yourself, as a shower gift or for anyone (they have non maternity undershirts too!).

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A pediatricians group now has new outlines for diagnosing and treating children within the autism spectrum. Since pediatricians should be the first to detect autism in a child, it is important they understand the spectrum and diagnose accordingly instead of waiting to see if the child “catches up”. Experts say one in 150 U.S. children have the troubling developmental disorder. There are two parts to this new report the first if for diagnosing and the second is treatment recommendations.

The signs for autism may include:

-No back-and-forth babbling between the infant and parent beginning around 5 months of age.
-A lack of recognition of a parent’s voice or not turning when the parent says the baby’s name.
-Failure to make eye contact.
-Delayed onset of babbling past 9 months of age.
-Few pre-speech gestures, such as waving or pointing.
-Repetitive movements with objects.
As the child gets older and speech develops, there are other signs that include:
-No single words by 16 months of age.
-No babbling, pointing or other communicative gestures by 1 year of age.
-A lack of two-word phrases by 2 years of age.
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Breastfeeding is normal and natural. Breastfeeding in public is not disgusting or abnormal, it is necessary and natural.

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I have some tips and tricks for Halloween with your kids this year. We also want to keep kids safe this time of year especially those that are old enough to trick or treat alone so we will also talk about safety.

Don’t want to give out candy for Halloween? How about giving out juice boxes or kid sized waters? Try stickers or other craft items and if you have any leftovers put them into your child’s craft box for a rainy day. The other thing I have seen lately, which I love, is the mini playdoh containers. Although the older kids may rather have candy!
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Regular readers will know we moved to our town when I came home from the hospital with my twins. My husband had been here for a couple of weeks getting and setting up an apartment, but this was a new town for us. We didn’t know anyone and our closest friends and relatives were an hour away. Needless to say, my husband and I went out on “dates” very infrequently and we did not hire a babysitter until we found a teenager girl in our neighborhood we could trust.

Finding a caregiver for your child, pet or family members just got a lot easier. Care.com is a web site that lets you browse through listings of caregivers in your area. If you are looking for a nanny, a elderly caregiver, a pet sitter or a tutor you will find it on this site. It allows you to look at their qualifications for things like are they trained in CPR, if they have experience with multiples (perfect for me)if they would be willing to do light housekeeping and if they have a valid drivers license. They have written personal statements and video interviews.

Now that my teenage babysitter is often very busy with her personal life and is hard to get, I will be using this site to find someone reliable in my area. I also will find someone to care for my cats when we go on vacations. This is a terrific resource for all families, I know you could use it couldn’t you?

A big thanks to Care.com because they are offering a free three month membership to readers of parentingourchildren.com! Go here to sign up.

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My children have just started to go online and play games. They love to play games or draw online at noggin.com or nickjr.com. I am not a fan of the hundred of ads my kids see online and I don’t like them playing any games that are not educational. I don’t let them watch TV with commercials but they are everywhere and they are geared for kids.

The creators of Noggin and Nick Jr have just created a new website, myNOGGIN.com. Mynoggin is an educational online subscription service that is designed for preschoolers through first graders, that is personalized for your child. This is an advertisement free web site (yay!) and is educational as well as fun for kids. They have adventure-based games based on core curriculum subjects, such as literacy, math, and art. Kids don’t even realize that they are learning when they are playing along with their favorite friends like Dora, Blue and Diego.

From the site: The Parent Center is designed to keep Mom and Dad in the loop, providing an inside glimpse of your child’s progress. As kids complete activities or advance to the next level, myNOGGIN clues you in on new achievements and skills. Just as important, if your child is struggling in a particular area, myNoggin sends a heads-up plus tips for easy, offline do-together games and activities to help your child master that challenge.

The price for this service ranges from $9.95 a month to $5.95 per month depending on your commitment. When you sign up you also get a subscription to NickJr free!

I think this is a great service and although I don’t think we should have to pay for ad free sites for our kids, I think I will sign up and give this site a try.

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Trying to find a name that both you and your husband both like is I think one of the hardest things about having a baby. When I was pregnant with the twins we went over names endlessly. We would put some on a list and take some off but we always ended up a core of names that we could not narrow down. For me boys names were the hardest because they were either too popular, too trendy or too boring. There were very few names I liked but we kept coming back to one and that was the one we end up naming our son.
My daughter is another story we finally narrowed the list down to two names but waivered about them for an entire day after she was born. The alternate name was Emma and although I still love that name, I am glad that is not her name now because it is the second most popular baby name last year and it has been in the top five for years now.

Some people may not care their child’s name is popular as long as they love it. I remember sitting in classrooms with three Jennifers, two Stephanies and 4 Michaels. I didn’t want my child to always be preferred to as “firstnamelastinitial”.
While we are on the subject I hate when people use alternate spellings for names to make their child more “unique”. Naming your child Madysson, Brookelynn, Emalee only makes sure your child will have to spell out their name to everyone they come in contact with for the rest of their life. Naming your child after a fruit or an object may just be setting your own child up for abuse. Your child is unique already there is only one of them in the world, don’t torture them.

If you want to see the top baby names for 2006 you can visit the social security web site here.
How did you find a name for your child?

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A couple of months ago I wrote about how my four year old lost not one, but two teeth. My husband and I were unprepared for such a rite of passage to arrive so early. I kept my tooth fairy pillow from when I was a little girl, so I let my daughter use that. What happens when my son loses his tooth though, because I didn’t have a tooth pillow for him.

Through my astute research I have found many cute ideas for where to put the tooth for the tooth fairy. Putting the tooth loose under the pillow is so yesterday, you need some sort of vessel.
These gingham tooth pillows can be personalized. The satin tooth doubles as a pocket to hold the tooth.
Here is a handmade tooth pouch that comes in a variety of colored fabrics and have tiny bells attached to the ends of the draw strings. They each come with a small poem attached for the tooth fairy.
If you don’t want to put the tooth under the pillow, which would be easier for the “tooth fairy” to make the exchange, you can try a tooth box. They come in colorful decoupaged prints and designs, a soft pillow inside on which to cushion the special tooth and “fairy dust”. They each also arrive with a poem.
For a inexpensive option, this tooth fairy pillow is adorable. It is made with a soft flannel and has a felt pocket that is trimmed with ribbon. There is a charm that reads ‘Believe’ and a verse in the pocket. This pillow has a handle for hanging in between uses. At $10.00 you will still have money left over for your child.

I had thought about making my son his own pillow to make it a little bit more special. There are directions here about how to do just that.

A Portland Maine school board approved a measure allowing middle-school students to have access to prescription birth control without notifying parents. The plan which was approved in all but two members of the board allows the King Middle School to provide birth-control medications and counseling for sexually transmitted diseases.

Of course not all parents are involved in their children’s lives to know if their child even has a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe even some parents are involved but they could never let themselves believe that their children could be sexually active. I am just not sure how I feel about birth control being handed out to young children without parental knowledge.
I think sexual education is very important in schools. I think children in middle school should know about stds, health issues, and the emotional impact of having a sexual relationship. I think this should be a conversation that takes place both at schools and at home. I realize that many times it does not take place at home and maybe only on a rudimentary level at school. I applaud the Portland schools for stepping up and going beyond entry level health issues.

I know that I wouldn’t want my children to be given birth control without my knowledge. I also know if kids are aware their parents will be told they have been given birth control that many kids wouldn’t take birth control and engage in risky behaviors anyway. I am also aware that kids will find a way to do what they want to do.
I am just not sure what the middle ground is. I think our daughters are oversexualized at a younger and younger age. As paretns we need to let our daughters dress approprietly for their age. We need to teach our sons and daughters to respect themselves and their bodies.
We need to start doing this right now, because it is already too late.

In the 2006-2007 school year out of the 134 Portland students polled 4% admitted to having sexual intercourse. Is this enough to start handing our birth control or is 1 child in middle school who has had sex enough to up the sexual education given?

Are we giving sexually active teens the tools they need to stay physically and emotionally healthy and safe?
I would love to hear from parents of teens and tweens, what do you think of this new policy in this middle school?

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I was excited to review the new cookbook from Jessica Seinfeld, Deceptively Delicious, simple secrets to getting your kids eating good food. I couldn’t believe that this book would be any good, after all I bet she has a team of chefs cooking for her and her family. I was surprised by the extent of quality recipes and how well it was written.

When I first received the book the first thing I noticed what how much I liked the retro design and spiral bound cookbook. It is visually very appealing with colorful photographs and cute illustrations.
Basically, the book is about how to hide vegetables, fruits and healthier food into everyday meals. Do your kids like eggs? Then add cauliflower puree to it. If your children only want to eat chicken nuggets then make your own and add beet or spinach puree to it.
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My kids love to wash their hands. Probably because what they really do is waste my good soap and splash the water all around the bathroom. The cleanup is not very fun and who knows if they even got their hands very clean at all.
I know some parents have a hard time getting kids to wash their hands. I know I up the “wash time� in my house during this time of year where we are all in the house a lot more and so are the germs. Washing your hands frequently is really the only way you can prevent getting a cold. You can also check this site out for keeping your house germ free.

Squid soap maybe my ticket to better and more willing washers.
This is how it works: Your child presses the pump and gets “inked”, once your child washes his hands well for at least 20 seconds(The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that is the time it takes to kill germs), the ink will be washed away and your child’s hands will be clean!

My kids think it is a riot, they love the design and I have to stop them from washing their hands even when they are not dirty. Our soap has a green squid on it, but it comes in orange and purple too. It can be purchased at supermarkets, drug stores or online and retails for $3.99.
It really is a great idea. Even adults like to use it, it is a conversation piece to say the least!

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There is nothing more relaxing for a women then a day at the spa. To a pregnant woman a day at the spa is not only a nice day, it is practically required minimally every trimester. What should you do when you are pregnant? All women have heard different advice on the dos and don’ts of salon visit from their friends, doctors and mothers. So how do you know what is safe and what you should hold off on until after the baby comes?

I have highlights in my hair. The reason I have highlights is because when I was pregnant the first time, I rapidly grew grey hair. So now I disguise them. Can I get my hair highlighted during my pregnancy though? Although I don’t even want to think about the chemicals used, there have been no studies that show a link to hair dye and birth defects. My doctors have always told me highlights are safe (the chemicals do not touch your scalp) but try and hold off until my second and third trimester.

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When I was pregnant with my twins I knew at 7 months that I was going to have a cesarean section. By that time Baby B had turned head down but Baby A had not and he was the first one out. So I had no options. That was ok with me though, I just wanted everyone out safe and sound. I was not fully prepared for the recovery after the surgery though, so I thought I would write down some things to expect for other new moms who either opt or have to have a C-section.

I had special circumstances, so I was put under general anesthesia with my surgery. When I was awoken I was in a lot of pain but they gave me pain medicine right away and I felt almost instant relief, then I just needed sleep I was tired from the days events, the anesthesia and it was the middle of the night. . That morning I got to see my kids and it was great, the natural high you are makes you forget most of the pain you are in. Most of my discomfort was from the incision and just being sore.
I found holding a pillow onto my stomach when I laughed or coughed helped a lot. Even when I tried to nurse for the first time, it helped not to have any pressure on the incision sight. About 12 hours after my surgery my doctor took out my catheter and offered me food and drink (finally!).
I had doctors and nurses check my incision often.
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Last week I wrote about how medicines for children under 2 may not only not be helpful but can be deadly. Although the makers of these medicines insist they are not harmful if used as directed they are voluntarily withdrawing products sold for infants, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association said Thursday.

If you pick up any over the counter medicine, on the product under recommended doses it will say “for children under 2 consult a doctor”. In some cases parents are not doing so and children have been affected.
Instead of giving children medicine you can use a vaporizer, saline nasal drops, and make sure your child is well hydrated.

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