10Tips For Great Parenting via Mrs PiggleWiggle

1. Engage your child’s imagination: Whether it is chores or overcoming a bad habit give your child the skills to think outside of the box.
2. Be his/her number one fan and forever cheerleader. There are billions of people in the world that are queuing up to tell your kid what a failure he is. It doesn’t have to come from you. Even if there are things that he doesn’t do well you can always find something positive to say! Remember Power of Life and Death?
3. Allow him to learn from his own mistakes as much as possible. This means standing back and allowing him to experience the consequences of his actions.
4. Help you child put himself in other’s shoes. Didn’t feed the dog? Maybe skipping lunch or a snack might be in order.
5. Care about the kids more than the stuff. Children should be taught to be careful with things and take care of what they have; however when you find that you are yelling or spanking excessively because a child broke an antique vase then you are the one with the problem. The message you are sending is “my stuff is more important than you”.
6. Let the punishment fit the crime. I had a child that would kick holes in the wall in a temper. Used to send the child out side to kick the brick trim on the house until she didn’t feel like kicking walls anymore. Didn’t hurt her OR the wall.
7. Listen with your heart.
8. Keep them busy with a good balance of play and chores and time to be bored.
9. Make memories.
10. Never lose the wonder and magic of childhood.

image: Taken by Erin Audet Myers, collection of marye audet

Post from: Blisstree

Parenting According to Mrs. PiggleWiggle

Kathy Zengolewicz

Here is what you will need to get started:

• Styrofoam Heart 6 x 1 inch
• Floral quilting fabric
• A serrated knife
• Paraffin or a candle stub
• Wide, flat paintbrush
• Ruler
• Paper towels
• Low temp glue gun and glue sticks
• White, thick craft glue

First cut three or four 5 ½ inch squares from the fabric. Spread a thin layer of white glue over the label side of the CD and smooth a fabric square over the glue. Let it dry thoroughly and trim any excess fabric

Cut two 1 ½ x 12 inch strips of fabric. Glue the fabric strips around the edge of the foam heart, overlapping as needed. Clip the corners and fold the excess fabric  around the bottom. Use glue to secure the fabric. A quick tip to use is this, trace the heart onto the wrong side of the fabric, cut it out and glue it to the heart.

To make inserting the disc easier cut 3/8 inch deep, equally spaced parallel grooves into the top of the foam heart. Cut the styrofoam straight down, no on an angle. Apple a think line of white glue along each CD slit and press the discs ½ to ¾ inches deep into the slit.

Use the small bunches of silk flowers to decorate the discs as shown. This is a unique gift to give at any time of the year especially to a music buff.

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Recycled CD Letter Holder

Invest in a kitchen scale. We buy our ground beef and ground turkey in bulk, in packages of five or so pounds each. A kitchen scale lets me get exactly the amount I need when I separate the ground meats into bags to freeze, instead of just guessing or eyeballing. Which brings me to:

Get six pounds out of five. No, I’m not bending the laws of physics or performing magic. When I do buy the five pounds of ground beef, I only weigh out 13 ounces per bag instead of 16 to make a full pound. Those three less ounces have never made a difference in my meals, especially when the meat is used in something like a spaghetti or meat sauce. The bonus is that you get an extra 14 or so ounces (mine are never exact, otherwise it’d be 15, I know), which means six packages of meat, and an extra meal.

Take advantage of your freezer. Along the same lines as buying meats in bulk, you need to store it in the freezer unless you’re going to use it all immediately. Freezers work better when they have more in them, so storing perishables that you won’t use immediately saves in two areas. I buy bread, ground beef and ground turkey in bulk and they all go immediately into the freezer. If I have something on my menu plan (which I do in two-week increments) that can go bad before I’ve scheduled its use, it goes in the freezer. Things like rolls, hot dog or hamburger buns, bagels, English muffins, lunch meats, bacon, etc, do very well in the freezer.

See Part Two

[image: flickr]

Post from: Blisstree

Save A Few Bucks in the Kitchen, Part 1

It’s hit or miss with my own kids. My youngest loves all vegetables — she sits by the veggie tray at birthday parties eating the raw cauliflower, cucumbers, broccoli and tomatoes. Her twin, however, will only what she absolutely has to in order to be excused from the dinner table. My oldest can take it or leave it – she’ll eat it if it’s there and won’t complain but she won’t request it either.

Over the years I’ve tried to incorporate more veggies into our diet. I admit that while I don’t like the idea of “hiding” vegetables in other foods (I think kids should learn to eat them as they are), I have been known to puree some carrots to add to pasta sauce, or add zucchini to chocolate cake (ok, that one’s probably a stretch).

Cooks.com has a great page full of vegetable ideas. Listed by vegetable name and broken down into individual recipes, the page includes everything from main dishes to side dishes, and even has soups and gourmet options.

What’s your favorite vegetable to eat and/or cook with?

[image: sxc]

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Veggie Variations

Whirlpool is sponsoring the fourth annual “Mother Of Invention Grant Program.” Here are some details about this way cool event:

“In the past three years, Whirlpool brand has recognized and helped more than 15 moms turn their innovative ideas into reality.
The Whirlpool brand Mother of Invention Grant Program provides seed money and expert guidance to moms to turn their invention, business or service ideas into full-fledged businesses.  Contest winners receive:

§             A $20,000 grant for the grand prize winner

§             $24,000 in grant money for the four runners-up

§             Appliance prizes

§             Invitation to business boot camp where winners will receive guidance from Whirlpool and industry experts

This year, we are greening the program by adding a new category focused on moms who create an environmentally friendly product/service or use natural/recycled materials to create their invention. 
More information and entry forms can be found at www.whirlpool.com/moms beginning May 11. Entries are accepted through July 31, 2008.”

How awesome is this, ladies? Get out your goggles and lab coat, then hurry over to the Whirlpool site to submit your ingenious ideas. Somebody has to be the winner and it could very well be you!

Post from: Blisstree

Be A Mother…Of Invention!

1. Movie day! Rent your child’s favorite movies and have a couch fest. Pop some popcorn, make some cold drinks and just chill together.
2. Arts and crafts. Recovery is the perfect time to break out the quiet activities like painting, sculpting and creating works of art. My son loved this idea, since we cannot do this very much without is turning into a seven kid circus!
3. Cooking class. Let your child have a turn in the kitchen. The both of you can sit and plan a meal, then you and your child can make it together.
4. Video games. We do not have video games in our house, but if we did, I know that it would have kept him thoroughly entertained for at least an hour.
5. A walk down memory lane. I took out our huge box of old family photos and then let him look through it. It was a lot of fun to tell the stories that accompanied each picture.
6. Journal. If your child likes to write, have them start a journal of their injury and recovery time. Expressing their feelings in written form may prove to be very therapeutic. If they cannot write, have them cut out magazine pictures to illustrate their feelings.
7. Puzzles! My son is a whiz at putting together jig saw puzzles. This kept him busy for a lot longer than I expected.  Some kids may enjoy doing crosswords or word find puzzles. It keeps their mind fresh while the body is allowed to mend.
8. Computer games. My new laptop came in very handy when all of the above ideas got stale. We popped in Star Wars Math and the complaints of boredom immediately fizzled.
9. Phone time. My son loves to catch up with old friends. I allowed him to make a few calls to tell his friends about his injury and use up some time before dinner.
10. Story hour. My son loves to read. Now that he reads to himself, I do not get the chance to read to him, like I used to. I’m usually reading toddler books to the younger kids. I remembered reading Charlie And The Chocolate Factory to him, when we were waiting to start his surgery in the emergency room, and it helped to take his mind off of what was going to happen. Today, we picked out some poetry books, some of his old favorites and then took turns telling parts of a made up story. We passed a story stick back and forth as the story unfolded and created a wild adventure in our living room!

My son has had so much fun recovering, I’m afraid he’ll never want to return to school!

Post from: Blisstree

You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down

Starbucks tests $1 cup of coffee

Free refills are also on tap as the Seattle coffee giant responds to increased competition and braces for an economic slowdown that could blunt consumer spending. (The Wall Street Journal)

Three cheers for Starbucks! Hip, hip, hoo…what? Surely they can’t be serious! Are they really selling their delicious white chocolate mochas and caramel frappuccinos for a mere 100 pennies (51 pence)? Before you get all excited, let me elaborate. Only the regular old coffee will be one dollar. Everything else will still cost one day of college tuition for your children.

I ask you, how many people really drive to Starbuck’s and wait in the mile long lines for a regular old cup of coffee? Personally, I’d rather brew my own regular old cup of joe for 10 cents. I realize that this strategic maneuver is an effort to compete with chains like Mc Donalds, who are offering a new line of gourmet brews, but it is going to take a whole lot more than just lower priced regular coffee. Here are my suggestions for attracting more Starbucks consumers:

1. Breakfast offerings that do not taste so nasty. Have you tried their line of wraps and sandwiches…blech! Most of the pastries are stale tasting and don’t even get me started on their fresh fruit bowls.

2. A staff supervised play area for kids! Hello? How many moms groups would meet and eat at Starbucks if they offered even a half an hour of respite from their kiddos? I’m willing to bet in the hundreds of thousands.

3. Theme nights. School and group fundraising opportunities. Poetry nights. Featured musicians. Something besides just expensive coffee and and pricey internet connections.

Maybe some of the current locations offer something in the way of entertainment, but I’ve never seen it. If I owned a Starbucks, it would be the highest grossing coffee franchise in the country because I know what people want. Well, at least what parents want. Being that there are so many moms (and dads) who would gladly pay money to sit and enjoy some coffee and fresh baked streusel with their cronies, while their little angels are entertained, I’d be the most popular coffee house around. Who knows, I might even add a parent nap room and attach a shower area for SAH parents like me, who are forced to consider those things occasional luxuries!

What would you like to see Starbucks implement as a means of attracting more parents?

Post from: Blisstree

Worth Every Penny?