Feeding Babies Healthy Food

Leanne Ely, The Dinner Diva asked me if I’d like to write for you all and I felt like I was back in school and got an assignment from a favorite teacher. Her assignment: Write about feeding little ones.

 I was at a neighborhood block party and one of my neighbors was there with her nine-month-old (he’s seven now). This was a baby that was delivered at home with the help of a midwife. No anesthetic, no doctor, no problem. My neighbor was in labor one hour! She brought the baby to the party in some kind of a hammock hung from her neck and he was in a fetal position as he happily slept through the first half of the party.

When it came to feeding time (I love to watch babies eat) the mother hauled out a Tupperware container full of the most ghastly looking green gruel from her diaper bag. (I’m sure that by the time the concoction went through the baby’s digestive system, it looked exactly the same in his diaper as it looked going into his mouth.)

We all have emotional ups and downs, especially if we have young children. This might help.

How to stop worrying and doubting.

When you doubt, you’ve stopped trusting the power that created the Universe. Such a silly thing to do when it’s put that way, don’t you think? If you plugged a lamp into the socket, and the light didn’t go on, you’d figure the bulb was burned out or you hadn’t paid the electric bill. In other words it would be something on your end that caused the light not to work. You would never doubt that the power of electricity was no long effective.

So when you doubt yourself or have doubts about some event or other person, the problem is on your end, because the power that created the Universe has your back and there is nothing to worry about. So how do you fix your end of this deal? I’ve come up with 5 ways to get rid of doubt so you can stay hooked into the joyful source of your life and see the truth that all is well.

1. Put yourself first

The most important thing to do when you feel doubt is think something that makes you feel good. Sometimes it helps to go outside to summon happy thoughts or read spiritual material that fills you with positive energy, or look through a travel magazine and focus on a dream vacation. Only you, know what will cheer you up.

Posted by Pam Young

Have you heard people say, “The kids today have short attention spans and because of quick-paced television, they’re used to watching three to four-second bites and become restless when the action is diminished.”? HOG WASH! As I sat in an Amtrak station waiting for a train that was 38 minutes late, I watched a grandmother read Curious George to her five-year-old grandson.

From my vantage point, she appeared to be a rather listless reader, void of expression, sound effects and lifted eyebrows accompanying some of Hans and Margaret’s incredible thoughts, yet the child was glued to his grandma’s side listening to the story.

When that book was finished, he pulled another from his backpack and she proceeded to read it in the same mundane way. The train turned out to be an hour late and the child remained interested in her reading the entire time. So much for the short attention span.

So here are what I believe are 6 benefits of reading bedtime stories to your children.

1. Cultivates Imagination

Now that visual stimulation is served up via television, IPads, IPhones, Xbox etc., children rarely get to tap into their imaginations unless we read to them, or until they can read. As a child, I loved radio (it was before we had television) because my imagination provided the visuals. Because we don’t have kid radio, unless we read to our kids, their ability to use their precious imaginations and be able to visualize will weaken.

I remember one Christmas, my daughter Peggy bought a bunch of children’s books at a neighborhood garage sale and recorded reading them on a cassette tape recorder for her non-reading cousins as gifts for Christmas. As adults, those cousins still speak of how they loved her gifts of being read to.

My husband Terry and I recorded books on CDs, the same way Peggy did with a cassette recorder. This way our grandchildren could listen to us read the books we gave them as gifts.

So many of us rely and depend on the lessons Marla provides us with. Marla and I sat and talked at one point and this was one of the most important things to come out of that chat.

In this video clip, my sister Peggy and I share some great Halloween tips and important advice.

In this video clip, the Slob Sisters demonstrate the crazy ways they came up with last minute Halloween costumes for kids and how fun they were to throw together. As usual, their television talk show hosts were somewhat speechless (that happened a lot!) when they'd shove coat hangers into tights and smear their faces with Karo syrup and coffee grounds.

The important lesson here is when we become more organized we set the stage to play with our creativity. We become creatives! Clutter gets in the way of our creativity. Decluttering and ending your "stuff management" days will pave the way to fun, creativity, new adventures and excitement on Halloween as well as all the days of the year!

Have you learned valuable lessons outside of your home life that reflect on what goes on in your house? I'm in a chorus and I love all the women in it; all 110 of them! When I joined ten years ago, it was as if I had an instant set of new friends that shared one of my passions: singing harmony. I’d like to pass on to you some lessons I’ve learned from being in this family of singers that might help you have a happier family life.

1. LOVE

Love is the most important element in any happy group. Every one of the singers in my chorus loves music and loves what happens when we sing together with love as our reason to be doing it. Our supreme goal is to have that love reflected out to our audience, lifting each person and changing the atmosphere in the room.

Of course we love our families and when all of our “To Do” lists are crossed off and our fondest figuring outs are quieted; our love is the most important part of our experience as moms.

Child Locked in Antique Safe

A few years ago, I was at a grand opening of an internationally known bronze sculptor’s establishment. It was held in an historic building that has been restored to its original integrity. After the festivities, a child accidentally closed the door to an antique, walk-in safe, seeming to seal her younger cousin inside! The mother of the child in the safe went nuclear!

She had been one of the main organizers of the event and all the fussing and preparation for the big ceremony paled to the agony of this mother as she stood on the outside of the safe in hysterical horror. As it turned out, the safe had not locked. All it took was a screwdriver and a few minutes to nudge the heavy door open.

What I observed was a mother who was instantly reminded of what was really important in her life. Love of her child. Organizing the event, which I’m sure had consumed much of her time, was insignificant compared to her child’s life in that moment.

2. JOY

After Party Meltdowns

Part of training children is dealing with APM. It can happen after a party, a special holiday or any overindulgence. I’ve seen it played out in all three of my kids and all 12 of our grandchildren. Child psychologists call it over stimulation.

I remember being in the back seat of our Ford family car and coming home from a glorious day at the circus. My sister and I were decked out in new matching dresses and new shoes we’d got just for the special outing and we started fighting over whose circus program was whose (even though they were identical).

The battle triggered a rash of admonishments from both of our parents in the front seat. Dad was first, “Girls, knock off the bickering or I’m gonna stop the car and take the programs away!” Mom chimed in, “I can’t believe you girls are fighting after all we’ve done for you today. Here we take you to the circus, you got brand new matching dresses and new shoes and we let you have hot dogs and Cokes and souvenirs and you’ve been fighting ever since we got in the car!” I recall feeling ashamed.

APM tends to go into remission as children mature, but the potential for its reoccurrence remains even into adulthood and it sneaks out in adults in subtle ways but it’s no more attractive than the episodes children display.

APM can start with just an, “is-that-all-there-is” feeling. It can emerge as a vacation winds down, as we drive in the driveway with a cranky knowing of what was put off in order to have the fun. It can appear in the form of the “full” feeling after a feast, or the frustration of receiving credit card statements in January reflecting the joy of holiday purchases. Acquisition is fun! Maintenance sucks and so do the bills that follow it.

Did you know we can actually be a mom to ourselves? I know it sounds sort of crazy, but it’s true.

I received an email from one of my subscribers and it illustrates my concept very well.