Families in the fast lane innovative solutions make get out and go easier and more convenient

Ask "stay-at-home" moms or dads about their day and what will you hear? Probably that they rarely stay at home! As Jill Clark, mom to 4-year-old Graham and 3-month-old Evan, says, "There are so many fun things for us to do-like going to the zoo, the science museum or a kid's craft event-that we just pack up and go. It can be a struggle to carry what each of my sons needs for an outing, but it's worth the effort to have such a great time together." To help moms like Jill, and equally involved dads and grandparents, Fisher-Price has focused on making life easier for families with young children. The company's new line of Active Gear provides helpful solutions for real-life situations, adding convenience to a family's quality of life-so the good times don't have to wait. A Day At The Park Two kids and a day at the park can be a challenge. The classic red wagon is sturdy enough to tote the kids, but can be tough to travel with. The Kid Utility Vehicle (KUV) is a compact, easy-to-fold wagon that allows two children to ride. It folds flat for storage and has compartments for small personal items like a cell phone, keys and snacks. A Trip To The Mall A trip to the mall doesn't have to be an adventure with the Stand 'N Ride Duo Stroller, which has four modes: "infant seating," which accommodates an infant car seat and features a large basket in the back; "maximum storage," which offers traditional seating for one child and a large basket in the back; "back-to-back seating," which makes room for a rear-facing seat for a second child; or parents can use the "stand option" that allows the second child to ride standing up on the rear of the stroller. Sports and Sleepovers Kids love toting their own belongings but tire out quickly. The Stow Away Seat Pack is a full-featured backpack that easily converts into a portable, kid-sized seat when kids need a break or just want to watch dad play softball. The seat has storage on each side for drinks, snacks and books. And when it's off to Grandma's house, the Sleepover Nap Sack includes an inflatable mattress, foot pump and room to store overnight necessities like blankets and toys, so kids will always have their "special" stuff wherever they go. Going On The Go When kids gotta go, they gotta go! The Potty On-The-Go is a discreet travel potty for clean and sanitary training and helps maintain potty training momentum so kids never miss a beat. It has a disposable bag and absorbent pad system to keep things neat and the foldable legs allow the potty to be stored in a convenient tote bag. Family Supplies If it's too hard to decide what to take along, take it all! The Family Care Pack is a full-size backpack with an insulated pocket for food and drinks, an electronics pocket with a headphones pass-through port for CD players or MP3 players, and external mesh cargo net for wet clothes. And when kids get hungry or thirsty on those day trips or errands, the Chill Out Cooler Pack can store food and drinks in the large, insulated, leakproof compartment.

The six essentials to child birth

Child birth is one of the most natural events in a women’s life yet it strikes fear in many of our hearts and voices. There is so much knowledge on child birth and child care how do we know we are doing the right thing. The countless books, and advice can make any women’s head swirl, and it is important for the mom - to - be to remember is isn’t as complicated as it sounds. It’s simple - child birth is a natural and beautiful gift given to women in order to conceive precious lives full of wonder. It is a wondrous event which should be cherished and remembered. Once your baby is born you will look into her eyes with fond delight, and see a new beginning for your life, and family. In order to prepare for that future you should ask yourself if you are ready for your first child birth experience. The room is ready, the clothes are bought, and the toys are well stocked right up until she turns the age of three. Your due date is getting closer, your back is getting sorer, and you can feel the baby kicking more, and you are counting the fingers on your hand until your delight is born. The only internal fear you maybe facing is the actual child birth itself, and there are several ways to prepare yourself for the unknown. Before giving birth ensure you pack a hospital bag ahead of schedule; including your basic necessities. But, also don’t forget the luxuries which will make your birth more enlightening, and comfortable. Here are six essential items which will make your child birth painless: Make sure you pack a comfortable night gown to ensue optimum freedom for you to move and get comfortable during your labor. Soothing music will take your focus away from the pain. Massage oil is a wonderful tool in assisting in alleviating the pain and will make your partner play an important role during the birthing hours. A harlequin romance novel nothing a little bit more savory to keep your mind concentrated on anything but child birth. Last but not least snacks, lots of good snacks to help you and your partner get through the longs hours of labor. Champagne it will be time to celebrate once the new bundle of joy arrives and what’s better than a great toast with lots of bubbly. A few but needful necessities will help create a better atmosphere your birthing room, making you feel at ease, as you bring in a new breath of life into your world. It is an exciting time, and should be one filled with rest, comfort, and joy – on the arrival day make sure you look into your babies precious eyes and savor every minute of life. “Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of our greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don't only give your care, but give your heart as well.” This is powerful advice from Mother Teresa and is relevant to anyone who is to have their first baby.

Teaching children through stories

: Teaching children is not an easy task. And yet, it is one of the most important responsibilities you hold as parents. It cannot and must not be delegated to others. But then, you may feel loss, inadequate or ill prepared to teach. Looking at the countless programs and methods available in the child education market, you may feel like you need a PhD in this area if you are to succeed. Then there are the other excuses too like “I have to work and don't have the time,” or “I don't have the patience.” Well, here is your wake up call. Teaching can be simple, effective and doable. Reading to your children and using stories to teach is a technique that is within the capabilities of everyone. When we read to our children, we do not confine them to academic excellence but also extend into their emotional and behavioral learning. The following are 5 reasons why using stories to teach is effective: 1.The child doesn't feel threatened. It's not another lecture. When we read to our children, we are able to address a situation in a non-threatening way. What do I mean by threatening? Let's take a look at some examples of habitual phrases we tend to use when “teaching our lesson”:

• “You shouldn't lie.”


• “You are so messy.”


• “You shouldn't be scared. You are just being silly.”


• “You are not listening to me.”

Usually this is done in a blaming or angry tone of voice. When we finger point and use the word “you”, children hear negative and the situation becomes tense. Some may even become defensive. Put yourselves in their shoes. If someone were to start attacking you with words, would you be in a teachable mood? I would think not. Rather than focusing on the solutions to the problems, children are focusing on their feelings of anger, hurt, fear etc... that they are experiencing at that moment. Using stories to teach, we take out the blame and place less emphasis on the problem. We talk and discuss solutions and speak positively. So instead of a lecture, we now have a healthy discussion. 2.Working on “prevention” and “cure”. When we use stories to teach, we can help our children work through situations they are currently experiencing. It also allows us to mentally prepare them for situations that may arise. Children gain experience vicariously through the stories we read. Children are able to learn from vicarious experience just as well as they learn from real ones. The only difference is that this kind of learning takes place in the safety of your home. For example, you could use a book about being bullied to teach your child what to do if and when they face such a situation. 3.The child has a model to follow. They identify with the characters in the book. Children make connections with the characters of the stories you relate. You can help them further by asking questions such as: Is there anyone in the book who reminds you of yourself?

• How is that character like you?


• Which character would you like to be?


• Why would you want to be that character?


• Relate the lesson to their own lives and experiences: Like the little pig who build a house of bricks (in the story of the Three Little Pigs), what would you do make your house strong?

After reading the story of The Little Engine That Could, my daughter began to identify herself with the Little Blue Engine who said “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” It served to be a good model for her to follow at times when she felt inadequate. 4.Children remember stories better than they remember reprimands. It's a good way to catch their attention. In Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain (Addison-Wesley, 1994), Renate and Geoffery Caine states, "There is strong reason to believe that organization of information in story form is a natural brain process... In a nutshell, neuroscience is discovering that the brain is wired to organize, retain and access information through story. If that is true, then teaching through story means that students will be able to remember what is taught, access that information, and apply it more readily.” Maybe this is why children can rattle off dialogs from their favorite shows but can't remember what mom said about picking up their toys. 5.Allows for critical thinking. Stories are a safe way for children to explore emotions and behaviors. A book like Jane Simmons' Come Along, Daisy, encourages children to think about the importance of keeping close to parents when out and about . Use thought provoking questions that will lead them to identify problems and feelings such as “How did Daisy get separated from her mother?” and “What was Daisy feeling when she found her mother missing?” The best kind of teaching you can employ is to teach our children to be authors of solutions. Ask leading questions that will underscore the point of the story such as “How can Daisy avoid getting lost in the future?” What a boost it will be to your children to know they can come up with such genius solutions. Reading and sharing stories with your children can help you become a better parent. It opens the channel of communication and strengthens the parent-child bond. The magic of stories can be a powerful influence for good. Does that magic exist in your home? Start reading to your child today.

Raising bilingual children what are the drawbacks

: I speak Swedish and my husband’s native language is English. When we had our two children, we had no doubt that we wanted to raise them with equal access to both languages. Now, years later, when I’ve made promoting multilingual child-raising not just my avocation, but my vocation as well, people ask me for the straight story, warts and all. “What is the difference, raising bilingual children?” “What do you wish you knew before you got started?” It’s clear to most of us that speaking multiple languages is a good thing, and learning multiple languages in the early years is a nearly effortless means to fluency. Your multilingual child will have a head start in schools during a time when more and more of them are requiring a foreign language. And once your kid knows two languages, the move to three, or four is much easier. Counter-intuitively, the effects of growing up bilingually include superior reading and writing skills in both languages, as well as better analytical, social, and academic skills. Parents who are themselves involved in high level careers are already well aware that professional prospects abound for those with fluency in multiple languages. So, that all sounds well and good, but what are the real drawbacks? 1 Delay. Multilingual children tend to speak a little later than their peers. Although there is no solid scientific evidence to suggest a delay in speech, anecdotally there is a real sense among parents that multilinguals start talking three to six month later than monolingual children. If you think about it, it makes sense that a child learning two or more language systems might take more time, since they are actually learning twice as many words. But rest assured, even if your child did not walk at nine months, eventually he ended up walking just as well as those precocious ones. The same thing holds true for language, even when you are talking about more than one. Guaranteed! 2 Mixing. Children learning two languages often slip back and forth between them, mixing up their words.

This can disturb the parents, but can be even more alarming to the uninitiated. No worries. This tendency will pass once the child has built a large enough vocabulary -- around the age of four or five.

Remember monolingual three year olds often struggle to find the right word, and for that matter, adults don’t always find it easy to express themselves effectively. In some ways, the multilingual kid has an advantage -- if he can’t think of the correct word in Vietnamese, for example, then he can say it in English. While the rest of us are speechless. 3 Effort. Perhaps the most easily overlooked drawback to taking the multilingual path is that it requires more effort on the part of the parents. Raising a multilingual child is a commitment.

Much like piano lessons, you can't expect your little one to be a virtuoso overnight. Language learning is a long-term investment in your child and will require that you are able to provide enough language exposure. At times, you’ll probably need to boost the second language and offer some extra encouragement. You’ll need the persistence required to keep your family language rules as consistent as possible.

But, if you can keep faith for the first four or five years while a solid language foundation is put in place, things get easier. Incidentally, the multilingual second child is a breeze, if your first child was raised that way. Your first will end up doing a lot of the work for you by simply being a natural chatterbox. There's no doubt that multilingual children have more advantages, but it can feel a bit overwhelming to someone already struggling with diapers and feeding schedules; however, I have yet to meet a single parent who regretted the decision. But, the appreciation from your child, as usual, is probably another 20 years out.

Birthing pains of child adoption

So you’ve met the person who you want to spend the rest of your life with. You get married, ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. Right? Well perhaps “happily every after” is subjective and means something different to different people. But whatever happens after you ride off into the sunset and disappear into the horizon, your married life will eventually have to make room for the little pitter patter of tiny feet. Right? The next day Well there are quite a few married couples who realize that for one reason or another, they cannot bear children together. Some married couples try for years to get pregnant, try all the fertility treatments (mainstream and alternative) and still come up empty handed. There are also some married couples who either married too late or waited too long so they reach the stage of past child-bearing age and suddenly, they feel they want a child. Then there are still some couples who have their own children and yet they feel the need to spread their joy and love further to other children still. How ever different these three scenarios are, there may come a point in their lives when they will come across the life altering question they need to ask themselves, “Am I ready to adopt a child?” The scarlet letter Child adoption is a big step in a married couple’s lives and may be one of the biggest decisions they will have to make together that have a long lasting impact in their lives. Having children is a big responsibility in itself and child adoption brings with it its own set of sensitivities. For all the right reasons If you a childless married couple who have come to the end of their ropes in the hopes of conceiving, please take into consideration that child adoption isn’t necessarily the answer to your problem. Continued unsuccessful attempts at trying conceive can greatly strain a married couple’s relationship and it can test even the strongest of the strong. At the point where you seem desperately grasping at straws, you might think of adopting a child to keep the marriage together. But think it through thoroughly because you are bringing in a new life into yours and it wouldn’t be fair to adopt under these circumstances. Remember, adopting a child doesn’t mean that all your problems will be solved. Adding a new member to your already chaotic relationship may even result in more harm than good. Child adoption is a big responsibility that has a huge potential to further add love and fulfillment in a married couple’s life provided that they do so after they have considered all they need to consider and make the necessary adjustments for it. Will it work for you? So you’ve come to a decision that you want to adopt a child. You may be emotionally and mentally ready individually and as a couple enough to embark on this path but are you ready in other aspects? First do some research and find out the requirements for child adoption. Also, find out statistics like how quickly can you expect to be able to find a child do adopt and bring home. Finding these details out will help both of you manage expectations. Whatever you’ve been through to get to the point of wanting to adopt, remember to not focus so much on the fact that you cannot conceive your own children, instead, think of the parent-less child you will be bringing into your loving home soon.