Author Archive
Thursday, April 25th, 2013
Check out blog posts by multitalented mompreneur Rosie Pope every week at Parents.com!
Tis’ the season for celebrations! Be it bridal to baby showers, weddings or garden parties, they all have one thing in common: You will almost certainly need to wear a dress, unless you plan to be ultra chic in a pantsuit—which isn’t the easiest look to pull off while pregnant if you ask me.
So many of my pregnant clients have a love-hate relationship with these events. On the one hand, these social outings can be exciting and a great opportunity to show off your bump, but on the other, it’s a little more work to ditch the leggings, tunic and flats for something a little more sassy and a lot more dressed up.
The key to selecting the perfect dress for this summer’s occasions is to make sure it’s either fabulous enough, and versatile enough, to wear to multiple events. (That’s right: When you’re pregnant, you’re allowed to repeat.) Also, make sure it shows off your current favorite asset. I know it can be tough, but pick the one thing you still like: legs, arms, boobs, tush, neck, and, if all else fails, then love thy bump! Most importantly, remember the mantra “look good, feel good,” and invest in a dress that is going to make you feel great about yourself all season long.
These are my summer style tips intended to enhance your favorite feature:
Sexy shoulders and back Show them off in a summery cut. Go bare in a strapless gown, or opt for slightly more coverage in a halter or tank style.
Great-looking legs Select a dress that allows you to show a lot of leg, but still features elements that draw the attention up towards your face. A great option is a flowy mini with a jeweled neckline, the Stella Dress in Black.
Sublime neckline It’s okay if you are still learning to love your growing body, but you can always feature a stunning neckline. Choose a dress that is flowing and bohemian to cover any problem areas, but keep it feminine with a few lacy details or accents.
Flattering bustline Choose a dress that has some extra fabric around the bust so your blossoming bosom can fill it out, yet you won’t feel self-conscious about clingy fabric. One of my favorites is the Charlotte Dress in Emerald.
Superior posterior If you are loving your derriere, then highlight it in a tight style made in a thicker fabric that incorporates spandex. Be sure to pick a dress that generally covers up elsewhere to keep it tasteful.
Beautiful baby bump Show off your growing belly in an empire-waist dress or a look that belts just above the bump.
Monday, April 22nd, 2013
This is a guest post from Karen Bantuveris, founder and CEO of VolunteerSpot.
This week starts National Volunteer Week (April 21-27), celebrating the good work of people doing extraordinary things through service. It’s the perfect time to let every food bank volunteer, after-school mentor, Habitat builder, community cleaner, shelter staffer, charity fundraiser, and anyone else who helps others know exactly how awesome they are and how much we appreciate them.
But what’s always surprising is the number of moms and dads who don’t consider themselves true “volunteers.” If they’re giving their time and their help to others, they most definitely are volunteers and should also be recognized.
So this week, be sure to celebrate yourself, your friends, and those in your community who make a meaningful difference to your kids and others. Recognize these wonderful do-gooders that go by the name of:
Room Parent
Coach
Scout Leader
Sunday School Teacher
Library Aide
Team Mom
Playground Monitor
Classroom Helper
Carpool Anchor
It’s also a great idea to teach our kids that they should show their appreciation for all of the good people do to make their lives and the world a better place. Whether it’s by a simple “thank you” to a coach or mentor, or by doing one of the following to recognize parent volunteers:
- Thank You Sign – Take a photo of your child (or the class or team) holding a large “Thank You!” sign and text it to parent volunteers or post it on their Facebook wall.
- Video Shout – Apps like Tout and Viddy let you take a short (15 to 30 second) video (think kids shouting “Thank You”) and post to email or social channels with a click.
- Treats – A small latte, muffin, or chocolate bar with a handwritten note of appreciation can go a long way. Let these special parents know how much you appreciate their time and talents shared with your kids.
These small tributes will show the parent volunteers in your life how much you appreciate their help throughout the year and also inspire them to continue their good deeds. For more ideas like these, check out the free eBook Volunteer Recognition From A-Z and help make this National Volunteer Week a great one for everyone.
VolunteerSpot is proud to save parents, teachers, and volunteer leaders hundreds of hours by simplifying the task of signing up, scheduling, and reminding volunteers – reducing your busy work and leaving you more time to focus on what’s important. Use VolunteerSpot to coordinate all the good work you do at school, teams, faith groups, nonprofits, and in the workplace! Take a tour today.
Image: Volunteering Hands via Shutterstock
Friday, April 19th, 2013
In light of the news out of Boston, Parents.com asked mothers living within the area on lockdown to share how they’re handling the situation with their children. Sheri Gurock is a mom and the co-founder of Magic Beans, a chain of baby and toy stores in the Boston area. Gurock explains what she’s told her kids about the lockdown, and how she’s answering their questions.
They bombed our marathon, and life hasn’t been the same since. Monday was shocking. The senseless loss of life, the horrific injuries, the heroism of the first responders, the surrealism of Boston in the world’s spotlight. I will never forget trying to field frantic calls from my kids on a rapidly crashing cellular network while I was out cheering on the runners at mile 24. I was never in any danger, but they didn’t know that.
All week long, the tough questions kept coming.
“Now that we know there are terrorists in Boston, how do we know what they’ll do next?”
Good question. No good answers. Lots of hugs instead.
But with all the chaos, anxiety, and uncertainty of the last week, I never, ever thought I’d wake up to such insanity this morning.
Right before bedtime last night, I read a news alert about a shooting at MIT, right across the street from where I’d eaten lunch with my daughters that afternoon. Goosebumps. I couldn’t imagine it was related to the bombing – the two suspects had their faces broadcast around the world just hours before. Surely if they were still anywhere near Boston, they were in hiding. Still, I made sure the doors were locked before I went to sleep.
My husband woke me at 7 in wide-eyed disbelief. The whole city was in lockdown, school was canceled, the MBTA was shut down, and all residents were being asked to stay inside. Both our phones started buzzing with worried text messages from friends and family.
We’ve sheltered our youngest, a four-year-old, from any details of what’s happened in Boston this week. When he heard school was canceled, he ran to the window, expecting to see snow. When there wasn’t any, he asked, “What kind of a day is it?” “It’s a Family Friday,” I told him.
Our older daughters, almost 11 and 9 years old, are much more tuned in. When they woke up, I gave them a general update, and understandably they were scared. Here’s a threat so tangible and immediate that we can’t even walk the dog. Yes, it is scary, I told them. But we are just very small needles in a giant haystack. The likelihood of any real danger is incredibly remote.
More hugs. We’ll focus instead on the heroism, the efficiency of this investigation. It’s Friday morning and one suspect is dead while the other is on the run. The girls are impressed.
We will catch this angry young man, and I pray that no one else will be hurt in the process. Boston will heal and move on. Much has been said about the Bostonians and their tough constitution this week, and it’s all true. Even today, we are not hiding. We are doing whatever we need to do to help the people who are risking their lives to protect us.
But still. We’re in lockdown. All stores are closed, including the supermarkets. Our business is shut down. The park across the street, which would normally be full of frolicking dogs on a beautiful day like this, is empty. The TVs are showing images of places that are intimately familiar. It feels like we went to sleep and ended up inside some crazy action movie. We are all ready to wake up from this nightmare and get back to our regularly scheduled life.
Image: Boston Globe via Getty Images
Friday, April 19th, 2013
In light of the news out of Boston, Parents.com asked mothers living within the lockdown region to share how they’re handling the situation with their children. Carla Naumburg, PhD, is a mother of two young daughters and a clinical social worker. She is a contributing editor for Kveller and she writes the Mindful Parenting blog on PsychCentral. Naumburg explains why she is shielding her children from the scary situation happening right outside their door.
I am currently sitting at my dining room table, listening to the news with an ear bud in one ear. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and my neighborhood is eerily quiet. My 2-year-old is taking a nap, and my 4-year-old is drawing quietly during her afternoon rest time. As far as they know, it’s just another day.
They have no idea that we’re on lockdown while a major manhunt takes place less than 5 miles from our home. They have no idea that thousands of police and SWAT teams are searching door to door, looking for a man implicated in the bombing of the Boston Marathon, the murder of an MIT police officer, and the shooting of a transit police officer. They don’t know that police with large guns searched their cousins’ house this morning. They know absolutely nothing about the bombing or any of the other horrifying events that have dominated the news and distracted me throughout the week.
It’s been surprisingly easy to keep it all from them. We weren’t at the marathon; in retrospect I’m grateful for the fatigue that kept me from taking both girls over to the crowded corner just a mile from our house where we can see the runners. Their preschool is closed for spring break this week, so there was no risk of them hearing about it from friends with older siblings. Finally, we’re not in the habit of keeping the TV on in the house, and I get my news from NPR and online sources. I generally don’t talk to them about world events; they’re focused on learning through picture books, baby dolls, and sandboxes—as they should be. I just don’t see a need to distract them with information that is beyond their cognitive and emotional abilities.
I have friends who have told their young children about what’s going on, and I think every family needs to do what feels right for them. Here’s what I know. My younger daughter is equally mischievous and oblivious, not yet terribly curious about the world beyond her immediate awareness. My older daughter, however, is a sweet, fragile child, easily prone to fear and anxiety. Fortunately, her worries are the right size for how she understands the world; she is scared of our cat sneaking up on her, of tall slides, and loud noises. It’s true that her awareness is expanding every day, and she’s starting to ask about what happens when we die and who will take care of her if her father and I die. I answer those theoretical questions as honestly as I can while still communicating to her that she is safe and that we’ll be around for a long time.
But those are typical questions for a child her age, a little one who is just starting to figure out how the world works. She is just as likely to ask about death as she is to ask about life, about how to get a baby in her belly. (“Don’t worry, Sweetie,” I tell her, “When you are old enough to have a baby, you’ll know how to make one.”)
Death. Life. When are you old enough to learn about it all?
It’s different for every child and every family, and if we’re lucky, we get to choose what we share with our children and when. If we’re not—as far too many parents in around the world, and now in my own town, aren’t—the painful reality of terrorism intrudes on our children’s sweet innocence far earlier than it should. I know that my girls will learn about all of it soon enough, and we’ll handle it when it happens. For now, ignorance truly is bliss, and I am grateful for it.
Image: Boston Globe via Getty Images
Thursday, April 18th, 2013
Check out blog posts by multitalented mompreneur Rosie Pope every week at Parents.com!
When I got married, I remember my husband slipping that sparkly ring onto my finger, and, almost as soon as I skipped out of the chapel, I was bombarded in droves with the question, “When will you start trying for a baby?” As you can imagine, I spluttered on the celebratory champagne I had just starting sipping! While we were planning on starting a family soon, I certainly hadn’t expected to talk about it at my wedding. For whatever reason, the question of “trying” always made me uncomfortable, especially since this question generally came from older generations. I didn’t like the idea of them thinking about the intimate evenings between my husband and I…. You know what I mean! After we had our first baby, no sooner had I had gotten home from the hospital and cuddled up with our newborn on the couch before I was already being asked, “Will you try for a second soon?”
As time went on, this never-ending questioning went from being simply annoying to actually rather painful. My husband and I experienced a very difficult journey and battle with secondary infertility on our way to our second child. I suppose people assumed that because we had one, it would be easy for us to have another. Well, let me just tell you, it is not like riding a bike, as some less than helpful people, however well-intentioned, might suggest. It was then that I began to wonder: What is everyone’s obsession with tomorrow? Can we not just enjoy the here and now?
When we were blessed with our second son, I was sure the “trying” questions would cease. Alas, they did not, and somehow I think my ovaries heard them because I became pregnant just 5 months after my second child was born. Now that’s packing it in!
So at long last, after years of fielding the question, “Will you try for another?” I can tell you that the questions have finally slowed down. In fact, it’s those same people who often asked the question who are now shocked that we have three children!
What is everyone’s obsession with getting to the next “stage” or the next “big thing?” It is as though our society is obsessed with the next event rather than enjoying what’s right in front of us. Will I have a fourth child, or even a fifth? To be honest, I don’t know, and that’s okay. If you are struggling with the question of whether or not to have another baby, don’t feel rushed to make a decision. Often there are factors, such as finances, age, and career, that unfortunately have to play into our decision making. While you are deciding, focus on enjoying the here and now, and have trust in your ability to work through these big questions over time.
And if you aren’t thinking about trying yourself but are wondering if the lady in the office next to you is, try not to ask her the next time you’re on a coffee break together!
Thursday, April 11th, 2013
Check out blog posts by multitalented mompreneur Rosie Pope every week at Parents.com!
I was doing the usual “running” that I do yesterday—and by running I don’t mean putting on my Lululemons and jogging around the park! I mean running around like a wild thing to get everyone ready in the morning. Running to work, running to the subway, running to pick the kids up, running to make dinner. And then some more running until I finally collapse, flip open my laptop, and start tackling my inbox once the kids are tucked into bed.
As I was on my daily “run,” I suddenly noticed that instead of seeing the kids all huddled up in their stroller sleeping bags under a thousand layers of clothing (I tend to overdress them) and me wishing I had remembered my gloves, they had stripped down to their T-shirts during the school day, I had slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and there were even a few hours of daylight left to be enjoyed! Somehow spring had sprung upon us, and, in all the rushing around I had been doing lately, I hadn’t really noticed yet. It made me think: While having a schedule is important, would it really matter in the long run if today we didn’t rush home for dinner, baths, and stories? What if we skipped the normal routine and instead went on a park adventure, ate jumbo pretzels and ice cream for dinner, and then collapsed into bed together once the sun finally sets?
I believe in structure, and I often find myself obeying a rigid schedule with the kids. Many children find comfort and consistency in such things, as do we. But just as much as we need to change it up every now and then, so do our children. And the look of surprise and excitement on their faces when I tell them we can do something totally out of the ordinary warms the cockles of my heart. So when you find yourself enjoying the moment and appreciating the slightly warmer and longer days, really soak it up and make it last. Abandon the schedule, and make room for the moment. After all, we do want to teach our children about balance. Just because our lives sometimes seem all about the “running,” it doesn’t mean theirs have to be, too.
Whether it is playing in the rain instead of taking a bath, going on a park scavenger hunt during your usual story time, or deciding to have a picnic dinner on the carpet to shake things up, just do it! It’s these mini-rebellions to your carefully planned schedule and everyday routines that help teach our little ones (and us) about finding that delicate work-life balance for which we all so longingly strive.
Friday, April 5th, 2013
Two years ago, Ilene Krom wrote a GoodyBlog post about her twins and their shared autism diagnosis. Today, she is back to give an update on Rachel and Simon, now 6 years old, and what has changed for their family since she last wrote for us.
It has been two years since I’ve written something here, and so much has changed. And yet, so much has remained the same. My twins are still as different as night and day, even though they both have the same multiple diagnoses.
What hasn’t changed is my worry about their future, although that worry has changed shape. Two years ago, their “future” was entering kindergarten. I couldn’t bring myself to look too far ahead (I still can’t). I couldn’t imagine they would ever be ready for the experience that their older brother was already going through. But now, they are 6 years old. They are kindergarteners, and they’ve been handling the new change quite well.
All thanks to early intervention.
Like most things, the earlier you are aware of a problem, the better off you are. Thanks to specialized preschools, they are both on academic tracks. My daughter is in a general education classroom, alongside her typical peers. She is slowly learning to make friends and play with toys in appropriate ways. She has someone helping her get through her day and stay on task. And my son is right next door. He’s in a more specialized classroom where they can address his needs better, but he is still working towards a college-bound high school diploma, my original target for them both.
However, they do stick out a bit. My daughter does things “different” from her classmates. They’ve asked me directly why she is so “strange” (in the innocent way that kindergarteners ask questions). My son still looks like he doesn’t fit in, nor does he have a desire to make friends. This makes them both bullying targets. And every day, I read more stories on the Internet about children on the spectrum being bullied — by their classmates or so-called “friends,” by bus drivers, and even by teachers. I am very comfortable with our situation in elementary school, but what happens as they grow?
I don’t want my kids to conform. I want them to embrace their individuality, but I don’t want to see them chastised for being who they are. And, as they grow, the need to “fit in” will grow, too.
I can’t foresee what their future holds, but they will always know that they are loved, with all of their parents’ and older brother’s hearts. And hopefully they will have the inner strength to brush off anything negative that others may try to push onto them.
Read more from Ilene on her blog My Family’s Experience With Autism.
Thursday, April 4th, 2013
Check out blog posts by multitalented mompreneur Rosie Pope every week at Parents.com!
There are many transitions in a baby’s life that can cause stress for parents, especially first-time parents. One of these is the transition from an exclusively liquid diet (breast milk or formula) to one that also incorporates solids. With my first son, the concept of feeding him solids in addition to breast milk blew my mind. First of all, I had no idea what to cook for a baby. Second, I was afraid he might choke on these new solid foods. And third, I just couldn’t get my head around putting anything but milk into his wee mouth… What would happen?
To say I was a little paranoid is an understatement. After all, I am the mother that wanted to park outside the ER the first time I gave my son a peanut, so we’d be in the right place in case he had an allergic reaction. (I still don’t think this plan is totally crazy, by the way.) But these parental worries are why education is so important and the reason we must surround ourselves with people and sources that we trust. These sources of information can help us navigate each new stage, give us confidence that we are doing things in the best way for our family, and ease the worry that can cause us to miss out on the joys of these milestone moments.
The transition from a liquid to solid diet has been in the news a lot lately due to a recent study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that found a large number of mothers were not following the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) guidelines on introducing solid foods. The AAP currently recommends introducing solids when your child is 6 months old and exclusively breastfeeding (or using formula when breastfeeding is not possible) up until that point. This is important because introducing solids too early is associated with obesity, celiac disease, diabetes, and eczema and may pose a choking risk if the child is not able to properly hold up his head. I also want to dispel the myth that eating more solid foods will dramatically help a child sleep through the night. Sleeping through the night is possible even on an exclusively liquid diet and is a learned ability, rather than a result of being overly “full.”
While it can sometimes be hard to fight your own poor habits or pass on advice from overly helpful family members and friends, it is important to remember that breakthroughs in science and research help us improve our parenting know-how over time to make present and future generations healthier than the last. With the AAP’s research about the implications of introducing solids too early—combined with the potential choking hazard and the fact that introducing solids early won’t help him learn to sleep through the night—it just doesn’t make sense not to follow these guidelines. Your child has a lifetime of chewing ahead of him, so there’s no need to start him on solids until your baby reaches the current AAP recommendation of 6 months and shows signs of readiness. Instead, enjoy the months of not having to whip up some pureed squash and having it hurled at you as your wee one tries to navigate a spoon while they last!
