For home safety when you’re away, Deb Coller, ADT vice president, recommends having monitored carbon monoxide and fire alarms. This is smart advice. One of my biggest pet fears when I’m away is that my cat will be stuck at home with no way to escape during a fire or other emergency. If you have alarms monitored with a reputable security company, trained operators are waiting at all times to alert first responders.

Another recommendation from Coller is to attach a pet alert window cling to a front window. The cling provides time-saving pet information to rescuers. Since home fires increase during the holidays, now’s a very good time to get your window cling. To request a free pet alert window cling, visit ADT.

During the holidays, there are also additional pet safety factors to consider. Keep pets away from fireplaces by using a sturdy screen, and keep pine needles, tree water and poisonous holiday plants like poinsettias, mistletoe, holly and lilies away from cats and dogs. Read about symptoms your pet may exhibit if a dangerous holiday plant has been ingested. Also, find out more about how holiday foods and your pet may pet along.

(Image via ADT)

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Keeping Pets Safe While You’re Away

Shopping image: sxc.hu

He wasn’t merely pushing the cart; he was whizzing up and down the aisles, around the vegetable and fruit displays, bouncing the cart so I thought it might tip over. 

Fortunately, as far as I know, he didn’t bump into another customer nor knock anything down.  However, the supermarket, or any store isn’t the place for racing.  I’ve also seen youngsters pushing siblings in the car type carts, each racing down an aisle, trying to see who could get to the other end first.  The moms simply chatted while the race went on.

It’s not always easy to shop when you must take children with you, but are supermarkets and other stores play areas?  Are there ways to control these activities?

Who would be to blame if someone got hurt, either another customer or one of the kids?

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Kids Running Wild in the Supermarket

One pet charity that particularly needs your help this year is Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association (VOKRA). They are a 100% volunteer and donation driven no-kill animal charity.

Due to a couple of huge and unexpected rescue operations in 2009 and the recession, VOKRA is facing the possibility of having to close their doors to rescues and discontinue other important  animal work.

The group rescued more than 1,000 cats in 2009, and they also participate in TNR, as well as spays and neuters for cats belonging to low-income individuals and families. Visit VOKRA to donate.

(Image via VOKRA)

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Help Save a Kitten this Holiday

Gingerbread house image: sxc.hu

What fun the youngsters had!

They colored decorative motifs the teacher had copied for them.  Then I stuffed brown paper bags with crumpled newspaper, folded down the top (after cutting off a strip so it wouldn’t be so bulky), and stapling it shut.  The youngsters glued on their decorations (doors, windows, snowflakes, border strips, etc.).  Some cut the doors so they would open and decorated inside, too, after pushing some of the crumpled paper aside.  Others added decorations to the bags with colored markers.

For making cookie type gingerbread houses, you can purchase kits, as my daughter often has for her children.  What fun they had putting these together and decorating them, creating Christmas memories in the process.

To make gingerbread houses “from scratch,” you may want to see if you can find a copy of Gingerbread Houses for Kids by Jennifer Ericsson , a wonderful how-to book for making these creations, with easy instructions for youngsters.

What are your gingerbread house memories?

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The Wonderful World of Gingerbread Houses

This always amazes people for some reason…maybe I just don’t look the type. However, I did  it, I graduated, I lived to tell the tale.

Me. Ft LeondardWood 1979. Check out the 2 M-16s I was packing!

There is one thing you should know.  Boot camp meant 15 – 25 mile forced marches with packs on our backs. It meant sleeping in tents, eating C- Rations, going through the gas chamber and coming out with eyes and nose running. Boot camp was lousy food, being screamed at all the time and pushups. LOTS of pushups… but it did NOT prepare me for parenthood.

I can shoot an M-16. I can shoot and M-16 from the hip on rapid fire. I can throw a hand grenade and blow up a tank. I can low crawl through mud, scoot underneath barbed wire while being shot at, and jump into foxholes. With all these wonderful abilities parenting should be a cinch. It isn’t.

None of that prepared me for nights of holding a sick baby while he threw up all over me…and not minding it a bit.

None of that helped me to not cry when I had to give my son blood thinner shots twice a day when he was 2.

None of that helped me to understand how to make my teenagers feel better about themselves when other kids were mean.

And none of that helped me to know how to be a cool mom…not interfering when not necessary, fiercely protecting when it was necessary.

No matter how many books you read, no matter how much you think you know, parenting is harder than it looks. It is easy to look at someone else and think that they are not doing something right but not so easy when you are doing it yourself.

This may sound prideful but after having eight children I don’t tend to take advice from young adults who have one or two toddlers. I smile, I thank them, and I try to remember how knowledgeable I was at age 30.

The only way I know to raise kids successfully is to walk it. Take it one step at a time. Pray a lot. Make decisions based on each unique situation…and never give up.

Maybe boot camp did prepare me after all.

image: marye audet

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Boot Camp Didn’t Prepare Me

~ Bo Obama Greets Oprah and Michelle Obama at Pet Connection Blog

~ Refresh your memory on the Top Five Pet Holiday Hazards at Webvet

~ A Dog Friendly Christmas menu at Dogs Trust

~ Be a Santa at your Favorite Shelter at Dogster

~ Make Your Own Dog Boots at Raise a Green Dog

[image: flickr]

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Weekend Pet Links

The newest one is part of its own little series titled Snow Business, Part One.

In it, Simon’s cat heads outside and discovers his first snow fall. After an “altercation” with a bird (I didn’t say it was all true to life!), the short video ends and we’re told we get the rest after the new year.

Which Simon’s Cat video is your favorite?

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Simon’s Cat in “Snow Business”

Don’t Spill on a First Date
Ideally, you should get to know someone for a few dates before you spill the details of the more personal parts of your life. Things like health or financial problems, the fact that you can’t have children, or the fact that your ex-wife stalks you. (And yes, these were all mentioned to me on a first date once!) First dates are simply about getting to know someone enough to see if you are comfortable with them and if you want to go out again. That’s it.

Do You Want to Date Seriously?
There comes a point in any new relationship where you realize you want to step it up a notch. You like the person and want to date only them. In short, you want the relationship to be a bit more serious. Wait until this point to tell your date about your secret. By then your date will have gotten to know you enough to put whatever information you’re about to tell them into perspective.

Be Straightforward
Sometimes the way someone will react to you depends totally on how you bring up the information. When you’re ready to share, tell your date honestly and straightforwardly. Don’t make a huge issue out of it, but let them know that you like them a lot and wanted them to know this was going on in your life. Give them time to absorb the information, and let the relationship progress from there. If your date gets scared and decides to end things, at least you know they weren’t the right one for you. But chances are that once your date has gotten to know you a bit he or she will be able to put it all in perspective.

Image: sxc.hu.

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When to Share Details of Your Life?

The new covers present a budget-friendly way to extend the life of your pet-friendly furniture. Sure Fit’s sofa throws can help protect furniture from drool stains, smells and hair – not to mention the ocassional human soda spill or other mishap! Sure Fit also offers pet throws for chairs and loveseats.

The Sure Fit pet throws are offered in chocolate or taupe with monogramming (up to 15 letters) available in block or script.

Prices for the new pet covers start at $37.49 for the chair throw. If you’re not into personalization, Sure Fit doesn’t force that on you. They have  non-personalized pet throws as well.

How do you feel about personalized pet throws for your furniture?

(Image via Sure Fit)

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Personalized Pet Sofa Protectors

Just let them do it and enjoy their expression of uniqueness and creativity. Its just

hair. It will grow back if they wish it to. I’m 36 and in the 80’s it was cool to have

colored hair. My parents were Christian  and refused to let me follow the

trend. Oddly enough, now that I’m well into my 30’s and they are no longer extremists,

they both think that my hot pink striped short black hair is cool. If it wasn’t for the

fact that I’m a graphic artist, I don’t think I’d have been able to pull it off, but I am

glad I did. So maybe what I’m saying is that if you just let them do it while they’re

still kids you won’t have a 36 year old with hot pink hair!

What do you think?  Often if you do stress about it a great deal, the youngsters will be more determined to go to the extreme than if you let them experiment, if it doesn’t affect their values.

(Hair color image: sxc.hu)

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Reader Agrees with Kids Coloring Their Hair