First and foremost, all my children are vaccinated. I believe in the science behind vaccines. I believe vaccines save countless lives each day. I also believe that the idea “all vaccines for all people at the same time are 100% … Continue reading
Between taking an online class this week, two going down with the stomach virus, and my mom visiting from Florida, it was a busy week. Here are my Friday Favs a day late đ
By know I’m sure you know what an Acai Bowl is but have you heard of a Buddah Bowl?
If you have a toddler and play their tunes in the car, you may love this rendition of If You’re Happy and You Know It just as much as I do- and yes, I need a car wash desperately đ
I loved reading these reminders on Ways to Raise Good Kids.
Favorite moment of the week- getting to see a bucket list concert with my 17 year old.
I’ve loved Red Hot Chili Peppers since I was 12 when Under the Bridge came out đ
It’s Super Bowl weekend! Do you have your menu planned? Here is my go-to recipe for Super Bowl parties- Blue Cheese Chicken Wing Dip.
Have you ever done an insta-challenge? Me neither but I thought it might be something fun to get through my least favorite month of the year. I’m jumping in with #3 today.
This recipe for a Kale Salad. Disclaimer- I’m the only one who liked it (but I swear it’s good!) so go into it with realistic expectations. It’s KALE. Good for you for lunch; don’t try to serve to your kids and your hubby for dinner like I did.
Three Simple Ways to Raise Great Kids. A short article with great reminders. My favorite is number 2.
Are you a critical thinker? Would you like to raise one? I love these questions to get us all thinking!
I know I’m late to the game with this but I swiped my daughter’s S’well (that she HAD to have and now never uses) and it really is AMAZING! I’m not a big water drinker so my goal has been to fill it in the morning and finish it by dinner. I’ve actually had to refill more often because I’m drinking so much.
This moment from a new class. What’s sweeter that babies holding hands?!
I’ve spent way too much time on this FB group this week- you could say I’m slightly obsessed. If you have a child 15 or up, check it out- you won’t be disappointed!
I’ve loved this free app for a few years but had forgotten about it. Bring that my current workout routine is non-existent, I decided to bring it back it my daily rotation. You can choose which type of workout and set the time and do it anywhere. I started with full body for 10 minutes (no laughing) and I’ve done it everyday while the baby plays next to me đđđŒđ
And lastly, tips for dealing with toddler tantrums.
****Preface- this post is not about bullying, which is a very serious problem many children, tweens, and teens deal with. All references are for what is considered normal tween/teen drama****
It can start as early as 5th grade for some, as late as 7th for others but it’s usually 6th grade that will have you in tears. Welcome to the world of girl drama and your initiation will most likely be brutal.
Expect to find yourself on both sides of the battlefield, depending upon the day.
One week your daughter comes home in tears because her best friends have decided to ignore her. You are stunned. These are girls you know! How dare they treat your daughter like this? Screw them all! Your heart will break for her. She may not even know what she’s done. You won’t know what to say or how to fix it.
Things eventually blow over. You breathe a sigh of relief. Everything is back to normal!
And then…you get the text. It’s from another mom and she’s informing you that your child is now the one who is ignoring someone or worse (we’ll get to the worse later). You can’t believe it. There must be some misunderstanding. This just happened to her; surely she wouldn’t do the exact same thing to someone else! Again, you’re at a loss.
You knew at some point youâd watch you daughter nurse a broken heart but what you probably didnât realize was it would be broken by a friend long before boys enter the picture. I know NO ONE who has been immune to preteen/teen girl drama so my advice is to be prepared.
First Thing FirstâŠ
Never utter the words “my daughter would never…”. This is almost guaranteeing your daughter will do whatever it is that follows your words. Even if your daughter is the very definition of an angel, there is a 99% chance that at some point, she will participate in some not-so-nice, mean girl behavior. Let that sink in. Your child is not perfect and neither are any of her friends.
They are learning and growing, experimenting with limits, testing friendships, and feeling out their power.
Some Things to Expect (or at least be aware of)
On Social Media-
IRL (In real life)-
To get involved or not?
This is where things get murky. You ALWAYS want to be involved with your daughter by having open conversations. Be there to listen and try your hardest not to tell her what to do but instead strategize many options and let her choose what feels right to her. Not every girl is ready to confront someone and staying silent is not always the best option either.
Should you call the other parent? Many experts say this is the wrong move. Unless we are talking about bullying (more on that below) your best move may be to work with your daughter and not involve the other parent. If you have a close relationship with the other mom, you may want to acknowledge that you realize the girls are having a problem so that she knows you are aware of whatâs going on. Whatever you do, do not place blame. When anyone attacks our children, our response is to attack back. Remember there are three sides to every story- your daughter’s, her daughter’s and the truth.Â
Another option is to encourage your daughter to turn to a guidance counselor who is a neutral resource who is skilled at handling these things.
And then there are times you must get involved. If your child doesn’t want to go to school because things have gotten so bad, is withdrawn or displaying unusual behaviors, that is a sign to get a professional involved. Stay on top of it and let your mama bear claws out.
Is it Bullying?
In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:
An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their powerâsuch as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularityâto control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once. (https://www.stopbullying.gov/index.html)
So what do you do if your child is theâŠ
“Victim”
First explain the tween/teen friendships are fluid. They will most likely change many times throughout the middle school years. Most importantly, stress that she cannot be a doormat. She can and should ask her “friend” what she’s done wrong and what she can do to make it better. If no reason is given, then encourage her to foster other friendships (cast a wide net). One of two things will happen- it will work itself out or it won’t. If it doesnât work out, they have most likely grown apart and this happens. Reassure her it will be ok. Girls are looking for friendships that “fit” and not every friendship does. This is much harder if it’s a group as opposed to one girl but the advise remains the same- donât beg.
“Perpetrator”
Try to get her to name the feelings she has toward the other girl. She’s got to name it to tame it! Is she annoyed, jealous, or hurt? There are usually some strong emotions behind a girl who is acting aggressive or cold to another girl. Ask, what incident preceded this issue? Work to get her to understand the why. Then ask her how she thinks she can handle this…can they talk it out? Does she need space and if so has she told the other girl? Is an apology in order? If so, strongly suggest doing so in person or on a phone call- not as a text.
Most girls will be the victim and perpetrator at some point. Acknowledge this and discuss the reasons why and what types of things shift the power between friends.
Girls Against Girls
Iâve done a ton of research on this topic and listed below are some of the resources I found the most helpful. If you are in the thick of it, I highly suggest reading the book Girls Against Girls by Bonnie Burton WITH your daughter. We were laughing out loud because she described an exact situation that was happening with my daughterâs friends. It just showed us how normal it is if itâs described to a T in a book! Iâve broken down the book below. How many have you or your daughter experienced?
Mean Girl Methods-
Strategies
Finally, and most importantly in my opinion, is the section called âStopping the Cycleâ
These years aren’t easy. Take a deep breath and love your girl where ever she happens to be at the moment. Be supportive and a good listener and empower her to brainstorm strategies to tackle mean girl behavior, in others and herself. When she’s wrong, tell her, but use it as a teaching opportunity. Work to be a positive girl role model yourself- don’t gossip and look for ways to support the other women in your life. It all starts in our homes- we will never be able to control how others behave but we always have the power to control ourselves.
Helpful Resources:
First and foremost, if we are talking about a first time mom, I am all about buying things off of the registry. Most moms spend countless hours researching baby items and have a good idea what they need/want. I tend to pick a theme- sleep, play time, feeding, bath time- and buy many things related and put them together in a cute basket or an actual item you are purchasing (for example, putting many bath time items in a baby bathtub).
However sometimes, whether you’re feeling creative, it’s a second time mom who doesn’t need as much, or a good friend or family member, you may be looking for out-of-the-box ideas. If that’s the case, here are a few of my favorites!
This is great, especially if YOU have kids. I like to have my entire family pick out their favorite books and each write a message to the new baby. Put all the books together in a beautiful basket and you have a personal, practical gift that both the new mom and baby are sure to treasure for years to come.
This one is relatively new since the trend of taking monthly pictures has taken off all over social media. There is pretty much a style for everyone. Go to Etsy, type in “monthly onesies” and start your search.
Here are some precious ones for a little girl
Whether it’s clothes, a name puzzle, a book, or pretty much anything else you can think of, moms are over the moon for anything with their child’s name.
How cute is this personalized onesie from an Etsy shop? (Bonus- it’s $12!)
Love this personalized name puzzle that can also be used as a stool
Check out all the awesome stories that you can personalize!
Moms love this for the amazing photo ops and the baby will love it right around their first birthday. Bonus that it has a slipcover so it comes off for easy cleaning.
There are so many styles to choose from so you’re sure to find one that’s perfect!
Do you have any creative gifts you love to give or maybe something incredible you received? Let us know!
Since it had been 12 years since having a baby, I was so excited to buy every last baby item I could get my hands on. I mean, what is more fun than shopping for baby stuff?!
B and I were just discussing what were the good purchases and what we could have done without. The Bugaboo that I was dying to have? Sure, it is beautiful and I very much enjoyed taking her for walks the first few months but when we were actually leaving the house on a daily basis the fact that it is two pieces and heavy as hell became a real annoyance (hello, Baby Jogger City Mini GT!). The Pack N’ Play? Well, it served the purpose of having a place to put her downstairs but I would never attempt to travel with it because it is so heavy and a real pain to take down and put up (enter the Lotus Travel Crib, which I adore). The items below are certainly not must-haves like a crib and car seat but these are must-haves for making your life a tab bit simpler with an infant.
At one point in my career, I taught sex education to 4th grade girls. It was age-appropriate and very basic (think anatomy and puberty- nothing about actual sex). I was formally trained and was comfortable talking about what I consider to be an exciting part of growing up. There were always a few kids that had deeper questions and I would encourage them to go home and discuss with their parents, with the hope that most parents would be comfortable engaging in a healthy dialogue.
Today’s topic however, I’m going to guess, NO ONE is comfortable discussing. Not even a formally trained sex education teacher. But, here we go. We must. It’s our job because kids are learning about it without our help and it’s not going well.
PORNOGRAPHY.
Ughhh. I get it. I don’t want to either but it’s the big elephant in the room. If you have a child 10 and up who uses the internet, you need to at least think about it. I’m breaking it down into two sections- young kids and teens. Personally, I think the teen piece is critical because pretty much everyone is overlooking this in terms of our teenagers’ healthy sexual development.
Elizabeth Schroeder, the executive director of Answer, a national sex-education organization based at Rutgers University, said: âYour child is going to look at porn at some point. Itâs inevitable.â But the most common mistake parents make, experts said, is to wait to have the conversation until some incident precipitates it.(Taken from So How Do We Talk About This? When Children See Internet Porn, NYT)
So where do you start? I think the first logical place to begin is to put some safeguards in place on laptops, ipads, and cell phones. However, you must realize that even with the best parental controls in place, your child is not completely protected. We can’t keep them in a bubble and there will come a time, whether it’s by accident or through natural curiosity, when they see explicit images they are not ready to see.
The (ongoing) Discussion
Start by letting your child know in very clear terms that if they see something online that seems inappropriate, they should tell you right away, making a point to assure them that they will not get trouble. These images often come with intense feelings of both excitement and shame and are very confusing for young kids.
If your child does come to you or you find out that they have viewed inappropriate sites (you do randomly check the history on all devices, right?!) explain that there are some things online (you tube and instagram are the biggest offenders) that kids are not meant to see. Tell them you know they are curious- stress that that is completely normal- but some of the pictures and videos online are not normal. Ask them if they have any questions and do your best to answer honestly but keep it age appropriate. Whatever you do, don’t lie. With younger kids, it’s always OK to say that this is something youâll discuss more with them when theyâre older.
The first thing you need to realize is that the pornography of today is very different than the porn of twenty years ago. Most of us can remember coming across a Playboy or maybe even a rauncher Penthouse and the images we saw. Those are not the images our teens are seeing. Todays teens can access pornorgraphy by specific category and a great deal of it is extremely degrading and often violent, with the sexual acts themselves on the outskirts of what most would consider “normal” “healthy” sexual activity.
The biggest issue, in my opinion, is that the easy access to porn is setting up our teens for unrealistic, sometimes dangerous, unhealthy sexual experiences. Research shows that some young men are shying away from real experiences because of the easy and less intimidating access to sexual expreiences online. Other times, boys are expecting their girlfriends to perform the sexual acts they see in porn (unfortunately, whether we like it or not, statistically males view porn significantly more than females). Girls, wanting to please their boyfriends, are complying and not feeling good about the experiences OR actually enjoying unusual sex acts and setting themselves up for unhealthy relationships and encounters in the future. No one is winning here.
So what do we do with our teens? We can certainly tell them our opinion on porn (remember, we as parents have way more influence than we think) but we need to leave the shame out of the conversation. Many articles actually discuss teaching our teens about “safe” sites (rules rather than prohibition), which sites to stay away from, and how to keep themselves safe online.
Regardless of your personal opinion, we MUST explain that pornography is a fantasy world and to expect what they see in porn from their real-world girlfriends and boyfriends is not OK.
Here is a sample conversation starter and some tips taken from the article, There’s Pornography On The Internet? Really? How To Talk To Your Kids from Huffpost Parents.
âIâve noticed that youâve been spending a lot of private time on the Internet, and it looks like from the history that youâve visited some adult sites. I want to make sure you understand some important aspects of these sites and the risks associated with this material.â
You should then go on to stress that the computer itself becomes tagged in the cyber world once pornographic sites have been visited. Servers become âawareâ of where a computer has been. That can lead to unwanted, even dangerous attention to those who use that computer.
Most importantly, let your children know that what they see online is NOT REAL. Thatâs the most important advice. Sexual activity is normal, but what theyâre seeing is staged. Itâs like reality TV, and you can use that analogy. No one really believes that reality TV isnât to some extent scripted. Similarly, even the adult Internet sites that are meant to be âregular peopleâ are, by definition, not engaging in regular sexual activity. Thatâs because theyâre on camera, or worse, because theyâre being unknowingly filmed. This is potentially and in many cases without question exploitative, and you can stress to your teen that sexual activity never goes well when one person exploits another.
Here are some more resources for those interested…
How To Talk To Your Kids About Porn, TIME
How To Talk To Your Teenagers About Poronography, NYT
If you’ve made it to the point of parenting where this is a concern, you already know how tough it is to raise a child. This is one of those difficult subjects but one where your guidence will surely help them wade through these murky waters.
For me at least, months 4 and six were tough- possibly even tougher than months one and two. In the beginning, the lack of sleep doesn’t seem to effect you the way one would think but then, BAM! it catches up and you are really, really, really tired.
This is also around the time that you will stop swaddling and when the pacifier will fall out of the baby’s mouth all night long.
So, given the above mentioned challenges, here are my sleep tips for getting through these potentially rough months.
In my sleep tips for the first month, I explained the importance of the swaddle. I cannot stress this enough! However, all good thing must come to an end and once your baby is able to turn from their back to their stomach, the swaddling must stop. A good transitional swaddle is the Halo Sleepsack Swaddle. You can use it as a traditional swaddle or wrap the baby across the chest. This will continue to provide a sense of security a regular sleepsack won’t give them.
You’ll first stop the swaddle during naps and see how your baby adjusts. Some are fine from the get go and others, not so much. My daughter loved the swaddle so we began our transition by leaving one arm out. We did this for naps for a few days and then at night. Once she is sleeping well with one arm out, you’ll start to leave both arms out and cross the baby at the chest (leaving both arms out). Sleep crutch number 1 is now gone!
Pacifiers can be you and your baby’s very best friend. Many doctors now recommend them as protection against SIDS. I suggest only using pacifiers during nap and bedtimes, if possible, so you don’t get a baby who is overly reliant on the soothing they provide. We actually keep ours strictly in the crib and one in the diaper bag for on-the-go emergencies. When I get her up, I take it right out of her mouth and leave it in the crib.
Right around this time, the pacifier seems to fall out of their mouth all night long. You have a few choices on how to deal with this annoying dilemma, each with their own pros and cons.
Teething, traveling, a growth spurt, a sick baby- all of these things can throw a fairly well scheduled baby off course. My advise- whatever you do, do not start bad habits you’ll have to break later. When your baby is up screaming because they’re in pain, absolutely pick them up, rock them, soothe them but then put them back in their crib. You may have to do this multiple times in a night- tag your partner for a break but stay the course! With parenting, now and even when they’re teenagers, the easy thing to do is usually not the right thing to do. Parenting is hard work but the end result (in this case a baby who has good sleep habits)Â is worth your effort and energy.
All advice above is solely my personal opinion based on my experience. Always consult a medical professional with any medical concerns.Â
Maybe I put it off because I knew I would cry. And I did. Three times.
I came across the idea of a birthday letter awhile back. Each year, around your child’s birthday, you write him or her a letter about their year. You talk about their successes and challenges, their interests and special times you shared. It’s basically a snapshot of your child at that particular age. Then, whenever you see fit (maybe after college or when they themselves become parents) you give them all the letters.
I finally sat down to write three birthday letters- Raina at 16, Shaye at 12, and Juliette at 1. The letters to the older girls weren’t easy to write and filled with major emotion. These girls are walking the line between childhood, teen years, and adulthood on a daily basis. I somehow managed to capture both how great the girls are as well as what a trying time adolescence is.
This is where the crying starts đ
Below I’m sharing my letter to the baby. If you choose to write a letter to your child, I promise you won’t regret it!
Dear Juliette,
What an amazing year itâs been, my precious Juliette! I prayed for a healthy, happy baby who sleeps well and thatâs exactly what I got. You are by far the most enjoyable, easy baby and every day spent with you is a treat. Your doll-like face and beautiful curls gets attention everywhere we go and you give your smiles away freely to all we meet. You are truly a ray of sunshine!
You are adored by everyone. I canât tell whoâs eyes light up more when you and your dad see each other. He greets you with a âWhattttt Uppppp, Kiddddd?!â and you throw your arms up and shine like the sun. Your sisters rush to your side first thing in the mornings and as soon as they get home from school. Your brothers love to spend time with you and you get a kick out of finding them in your âEveryone Loves Julietteâ family book. We wish you grandmothers, grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins all lived closer but we look at their pictures every day and cherish the time we get to spend with them.
Some of your first loves were the book âChicka Chicka Boom Boomâ and your stuffed panda we call Dan. We could always make you smile by singing âHello to Juliette, itâs so nice to see youâ from your first music class. You enjoy eating everything; there hasnât been a food weâve introduced that you havenât liked.
I will hold in my heart the way the small hairs on your head made a spiral when you were first born. The open smile you would give when you were really happy. Sleep position- how you would nuzzle into me when you were trying to fall asleep.
Soon after you were born, your sister remarked, âhow do we love her so much when we donât even know her?â And there it is, simply stated. You were born and our hearts were filled with more love than we knew was possible simply because you are you. Happy first birthday!
A Splendid Life 