 First, my apologies for being out of the blog world for a bit ... we have had some recent health challenges in our family. BUT, this is how I re-discovered the best fever reducer ever and added a Mommy McD twist. The awesome part is that you already have this at home and you never have to go out to the store to reduce a fever.
I remember my mom throwing me in ice cold baths when I had a temperature and HATING it! Well I didn't want to do that to my 10 month old ... he sure can't understand why he is shivering and freezing. So I did some research and found that a cool bath is still the best, but ice cold ones, no bueno! You want the bath cool enough to reduce the temp but not cold enough to make their body try to compensate by raising their temp even more (always check with your doctor first on any medical treatments). My 10 month old had been running a fever of 102 and higher for over a week (we did have him checked by the doc and they said it was just a virus, so to keep the fever down if he becomes uncomfortable.) He already had to be on lots of medication for a bacterial infection earlier in the week and I didn't want to keep loading him with medicines ... so it was time for a bath! 1. Use the kitchen sink. It is small and cozy and you can be right there without having to bend or stoop uncomfortably yourself. 2. Make the water tolerable. I have been starting with the "average" body temp of 98.6 degrees. 3. Bring out all sorts of things they don't normally get to play with. I brought out spoons, measuring cups, plastic cups and the best toy ever ... I actually let him play with the handles on the water (BUT TAKE NOTICE THE FAUCET IS NOT RUNNING INTO HIS BATH. MAKE SURE YOU ARE WATCHING CAREFULLY TO PREVENT ANY BURNS OR SCALDS). The point of bringing out new toys is to keep them distracted. 4. I keep him on the right side of the sink so he has access to turning on and off the cold water. I take one of the cups he is playing with, fill it with cold water and dump it in the bath one slow cup at a time, continually reducing the water temperature. 5. Keep checking your water temp on a thermometer and keep a steady hand and eye on your child at ALL times to prevent any falls/injury. Be sure to ask your doctor to approve any medical advice regarding care of your little one. This little trick allows me to get the water nice and cool to reduce his fever and he is so distracted with the faucet and novel toys that he doesn't even notice the temp slowly going down! Best of luck with your fevers and colds as we get closer to winter.
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Former Title: Learn to Spell Without Spell CheckFormer, Former Title: Military Discount at Big LotsVeteran's day is coming up! I am on the lookout for deals we might be able to find since my husband is both currently serving and a combat veteran. (Yay, to my husband and thank you!) Just FYI Big Lots (according to PR Newswire) is having a sale for Veterans and those currently serving if you show your Military ID on Saturday. It also applies to already discounted items. Now here is the fun part for you Twilight folk. A "Team Edward," water bottle is on CLEARANCE! That's right, you can get a water bottle that shows your love for this movie franchise and the lead broody vampire, Edward. And Twilight haters, I haven't forgotten about you ... The product is listed as "Team Coward," instead of "Team Edward!" Click the title here to see the item. "Twilight Eclipse Team Coward Water Bollte with Metal Clip" Just in case they changed the link or corrected the advert - you can see a PDF of the item at the end of this post. So what's the moral of the story kids? Spell check does not always work! (I can almost hear my friends who are professors groan in collective agreement.) While the miracle of spell check may correct your intended word to a correctly spelled word, it is not necessarily going to be the one you want to use. Also know your fonts! Someone might have thought the font on the water bottle difficult to read and mistook the "Ed" for "Co" which is entirely possible ... or someone felt like being cheeky. I would like to think the latter, but if you notice "Bottle" is also misspelled in the titled as "Bollte." As much as I would like to think someone was being cheeky, I suspect someone was just being lazy. Might you be able to find misspellings in my blog? Sure. I do my best, but it may happen. I use spell check before posting, and usually it does not find too much. More importantly, I re-read my blog after spell check. If I have the time (which I usually don't since I have two kiddos to tend to) I will read it out loud or ask someone else to read it. Before posting this, I even triple checked my capital "L" in the title because the font I use looks almost exactly like the lowercase "l". So since this blog is really geared toward mammas, remember to teach your kiddos proper spelling and grammar. Will the person who messed this up be caught? Will they face any consequences in their place of employment? I am not sure, but if someone blogged about a spelling mistake as preventable as this one, I would be pretty embarrassed. So when your kiddo comes home upset that they were marked down for something that spell check corrected incorrectly or a little mistake where they felt the teacher should have known what they meant, you can empathize with them. We have all felt that pang of injustice and sting of, "it wasn't my fault that spell check did that!" Remember, the teacher is right. Just because we understand that feeling does not make it right, your kid still turned in crappy work. Don't go running to your kiddo's teacher trying to fix their grade. Turn to your kiddo and say something like, "You can't be responsible for what spell check will do, but you ARE responsible for not checking your own work, and you ARE responsible for anything you put your name on and turn in." So mom's, college folk, high school kids: learn to check your work again, and again, even if you think everything is correct. Why? Someday you might have a career where you have to send an email, write a letter or type an advert. If someone is paying you to get it correct, there are no excuses and no one else to blame. Get used to it now. Team Coward Bollte!Jezebel posted an article (click here to see it) about a new study showing it is harmful to yell at your children. So, here we go: Spanking is out, Yelling is out, What is left to do? They say "the look."
I say, let's talk ... Oh the look schmook! Let me tell you - nothing stings worse than "Let's talk about what just happened." Think about it ... when women tell guys, "We need to talk," they run for the hills! When men tell women, "We need to talk," all we can think is "Oh shit, what do I need to forgive them for now?" There is nothing worse than the, "We need to talk ..." I use it on my kids. Yesterday, my 3 year old threw a toy across the room because he was uspet. I walked over calmly and said, "That was dangerous. Let's talk about why you felt you needed to throw that pan (it was a stainless kid sized cooking pan)." He looked at me with terror in his eyes, said so sadly, "I don't want to talk." I said, "Ok, you don't have to talk, but I have to let you know throwing that toy is dangerous and could hurt someone. We don't throw things in the house, ok?" He nodded and as he was walking away sulked, "No mamma, don't talk to me!" Hilarious because his 3 year old vocabulary is limited ... but he didn't throw the toy again (and I got a chuckle out of his telling me not to talk to him). Will he do it again tomorrow? Maybe. Whatever punishment you choose, you will probably have to correct them over and over and over again. And spanking/paddling/painful punishment doesn't work better than anything else. Neither does yelling. So why choose that route? Think about how many times you went to school with a burnt forehead from a curling iron - did you still use a curling iron again? Sure. Did you ever get burned again, sure! I probably burnt my forehead 5 times in eighth grade alone. It takes a while to correct behavior. (And for those of you who are wondering, I haven't burnt myself with a curling iron since I got out of high sc As a parent we can let ourselves get worked up enough to yell or spank, or we can just realize whatever it is we do, we will have to do it a million times so let's model the behavior we expect from the kids while letting them know what to do. Holiday time is coming up. Time for family, love, cheer otherwise known as time for stressing out and drinking ourselves to oblivion with spiked egg nog! But how is being stressed new to any mom? We deal with stress all day long, we got this covered. Holidays aren’t just stressful for us adults, they are stressful for our kids too! Yes it is fun to see cousins their age and play with other kids, but don’t forget, they are bombarded with just as many different personalities as you are in having to deal with extended family visits. They will need just as much love and understanding to adjust to having cousin Bobby pull hair or great cousin Sally punching them when no one is looking. Even if the kids are perfectly behaved ...(C’mon, if you can’t expect your crazy Uncle to behave, how can you expect more from your kids than an adult?) ... they still have the stress of getting along with and learning how to interact with kids they normally aren’t around. Don’t get me wrong: socialization is GREAT for them and I am all for it! They need to learn how to get along with others. What our family does is make sure that we don’t put any extra stress on our kids … and what I am about to say a lot of people don’t like so brace yourself. I do not make my kids hug or be loving to adult relatives. No they do not have to sit on Auntie’s lap or run give Great Grandma a hug. Before you judge, think back to when you were a kid ... having these strange people who you rarely see, who are twice your size, reaching in to pinch your cheeks and squeeze you with a hug tighter than your parents give (not to mention when you are a kid, perfume and cologne make adults smell funny so even their very nearness offends your olfactory senses). Did you like it? Did it MAKE YOU LOVE THEM MORE? NO! In fact, it probably made you dread having to see them!  So here it is from an animal trainer standpoint. You want the kids to like and enjoy their family? Let them develop the relationship on their own. Don’t force them to hug or hang out with family who they don’t really know (this includes babies, if they cry when being held, take them away for God’s sake, that is their only way of telling you they are scared). All you will build is resentment, not excitement. If you allow your kids the space to take their time to build a bond, it will be a rewarding bond they appreciate and one where they get excited and enjoy seeing their family. If you make them uncomfortable, they will not want to do it again. That being uncomfortable is turning hainging out with that relative into a punishment, not a reward. It may be difficult to explain to Aunt Myrna who never gets to see the kids that it is better in the long run, but you are the parent, you don’t have to convince them, you make the rules for your kids and whether others agree or not, that is your choice to make. And for those of you who are wondering, yes, even my Dad was not able to hold my oldest kiddo until he was comfortable with it – and those two have developed a wonderfully close relationship. Now for the little extra lesson that your kids will learn: They have control over their body and are allowed to say NO! Having to be forced to hug or show affection to people who they don’t want breaks a kiddo’s natural barriers and makes them feel like they can’t say no when they are uncomfortable. As much as I hate to think about these things, not all people are good. Not all teachers, not all coaches, not all family friends … not even all family members are safe, and many times abusers are someone a parent thought they could trust. If my child is uncomfortable, I want them to know that I will support them in standing up for themselves and that they are allowed to say NO! So next time they don’t want to give scary Uncle Charlie a hug, do you really want to force them and teach them you expect them to have physical contact with adults even though they are uncomfortable? I expect my child to be polite and say, “Hi,” or “Hello,” but if they don’t want to be held or hugged by someone who they are not comfortable with, they don’t have to. Do you agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear your thoughts! |
