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A Target baby registry (Club Baby) is a good place to start when setting up a gift registry, since a Target baby registry will allow you to cover most of your basic items, as well as giving you a wide range of price ranges and…
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by Jennifer Ariston

Positive parenting is something that concerns nearly all mothers and fathers. As devoted parents, we all want to have a healthy impact on our kids and help them to grow up feeling nurtured, safe, and cared for. With our hectic lives and our own “grown-up problems,” how do we do this? How do we be a wayshower and a caregiver for our young ones?

One part of the answer is to seek the best, illuminate the positive, and to find the grain of goodness in every situation you encounter with your child.

The underlying principle here is that every situation that arises with your child is perfect, even at its most troublesome point. Every situation has a positive side. Therefore, positive parenting begins with desiring to find the positive in any situation. Not easy, for sure! But it can be done.

Take a simple and common conflict for instance: You and your two children are in the car. One child wants to go to one place; one wants to go somewhere else. Bickering starts. It soon turns into fighting. What do you do? How do you choose where to go without making one kid feel hurt?

Positive parenting begins with surrender and neutrality, so a large part of the answer is to first see the fight as an opportunity for you to practice “surrender in the midst of chaos.” Every fight and every squabble are mini teachers for you to learn to be a true and strong middle ground. So don’t say to yourself: “Oh no, they are at it again!” Instead, embrace the fight. See it as a chance for you to become more solid, more capable, and more instrumental as a parent. See it as a welcome invitation to practice all your positive parenting skills.

The fight is not a problem unless you make it one. In fact, try not to even call it a fight. Perhaps you could call it a “parenting skills enhancer.” Switch the label in your mind. Positive parenting begins in you. This positive outlook is where your actions must flow from.
Naturally, you are going to have to take action. You must be the referee for your two bickering kids. This is to be expected. But if you are not fighting their fight by judging it, you will be far more effective in helping them find the solution.

So, keeping your intent on positive parenting, try to listen to your kids. Let each one speak their mind. Give each one a chance to really be heard. Let each kid feel as if they are being seen and acknowledged. You will be a far better guide if you are calm in yourself. And the only way to do that is to not take sides, to feel alert and to stay centered.

Teach your kids by way of example. Be the solution, instead of seeking it, and soon you will find squabbles will feel much more entertaining, rather than feeling like unwanted nuisances.

by Jennifer Ariston

Many pregnant women experience something called “morning sickness” in the first three months, or even more during their pregnancy.  The funny thing about the term morning sickness is that it implies that this feeling is limited to the morning.  However, most women who experience any morning sickness at all will report that it happens at various times throughout the day. 

Morning sickness can range from a vague feeling of nausea, to recurrent indigestion feelings, to dizziness or outright vomiting, whether once or repeatedly throughout the day.  There are, however, some ways to lessen the symptoms of “morning sickness.”

First, it often will occur if the stomach is empty.  So, be sure to eat small meals several times a day.  When I was pregnant, I would eat light meals at the regular time, and then have snacks in between meals, so that I was eating something about every two hours.   It helped to keep my stomach busy, like keeping it distracted!  Also, think of it as eating like a baby - because newborns will eat about every two hours around the clock!  I also got hungry in the middle of the night when I was pregnant, so some of my snacking was at 3 in the morning!  My morning sickness feelings were definitely helped by snacking.  Many women experience the queasy feeling in the morning because their stomachs are empty at that time.  It’s good to keep something, crackers or even peanut butter, near the bed so you can have something to eat if you’re hungry during the night, or first thing when you wake up.

Second, a pregnant woman will often develop aversions to certain foods, and cravings for certain foods.  These are also symptoms of morning sickness, but not unpleasant ones, usually.  The aversions, however, should be listened to.  Listen to your nose!  If it smells yucchy to you, don’t eat it.  If you have a craving for something, though, you can eat a small amount if it is not a “healthy food,” or a larger amount if it is!  It’s okay to satisfy cravings this way, as long as you’re not feeling like eating something that would be dangerous to you or your baby, such as alcohol, or even dirt!  Some women crave eating something strange, like dirt, but should avoid that one!

Some foods can soothe the morning sick stomach.  Ginger, for instance, has a proven record for doing this.  You can even get ginger Altoids, which are nice and strong, or eat a piece of the pickled ginger served at Japanese restaurants.  Most grocery stores have a sushi section, and you can get the ginger there to keep on hand.  Salty foods also seem to help, and I’ve heard that vinegar and salt potato chips can help too, because they distract the stomach.  The salty foods help because sometimes the morning sickness queasies are triggered by excess saliva.  Excess saliva production is common during pregnancy.  The salt helps to stop that, and the vinegar helps dry the mouth, and the potato chips help give the stomach something to do.  If this sounds unpleasant to you, try saltine crackers. 

Good luck with your pregnancy!  Remember that any unpleasant feelings are just temporary!

Article about baby car seats

When you have a new baby, it is important to have the right baby car seat.  It needs to be installed correctly in order to protect your baby in the event of a car accident.  Most hospitals won’t discharge a mom and new baby until they see the car seat.  Many kinds of infant car seats exist.  Full Article at Baby Car Seat