1. Don’t just consider how much you like a name, consider what living with that name is going to be like.  Try out all the possible nicknames (especially the nasty playground variety).  Write the potential name out print and cursive.  Check out the initials (no naming your child Abigail Samantha Snyder).   Try typing the name at the top of your resume.  What does it look like there?  Could this name go on a movie marquee or a band poster?  What options are you eliminating from your baby’s future by giving them this name?

2. Remember, you’re old.  Even if you’re a young parent, the names that were popular when you were a kid are probably dated and old hat by now.  That means its quite likely that the future baby name you fell in love with at age seven may not be something you should saddle your real child with twenty odd years later.

3. Don’t let someone else decide on your baby’s name.  Your mother-in-law already got the chance to name a baby.  Unless you love the name a family member suggests, don’t let yourself be over ruled.  Your child has to live with this name, but so do you.

In fact, it’s a little surprising how many kids are connected to their parents on social networking sites, and visa versa.  Parental supervision isn’t exactly high on the list of things teens love, and given the number of embarrassing, mom and dad related Facebook faux paus we’ve all seen go viral, its hard to blame them.

But it’s hard to be a parent in the social networking age.  Dangerous situations can evolve quickly online, whether its high school bullies or predatory adults, the nightly news makes it hard to not want to confiscate your teens internet connection all together.  But is forcing your way into your child’s social network a good idea?  In the long term, teaching your kids to make good choices, and to trust you enough that if something goes wrong online they’ll come to you for help, seems like a better recipe for surviving their teenage years than obsessively stalking your children online.  Plus, one suspects that the 48% of kids who do friend their parents voluntarily do so because they’ve learned to think of their parents as something other than dictators in a police state.  In other words, like people they’d actually like to be friends with.

And helping them feel that way might be easier than you think.  The same study by Kaplan shows that 82% of teens report that their mom and dad are either “very involved” (44%) or “somewhat involved” (38%) in their academic lives.

“Although for generations high school students have come to accept and even embrace their parents’ involvement in their academic work and the college admissions process, Facebook continues to be the new frontier in the ever-evolving relationship between parent and child,” Kristen Campbell, executive director of Kaplan Test Prep’s college prep programs, says in a press release about the study.

So enjoy the fact that your kids probably don’t mind you double checking their homework or helping them pick a college and relax a little on the Facebook front.  After all, do you really want your kids seeing those pictures of you partying in college or commenting on that wild office party last week?  The benefits of a little privacy go both ways.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is difficult diagnosis to deal with, both at home and in the classroom.  In order to help kids who suffer from it really do their best in school, its important that parents work with teachers to create a stable, productive environment for their children.  Parenting.com talked to Michael Belle-Isle, director of Special Education and Pupil Personnel Services for Amherst School District in Amherst, N.Y., and got some great tips from his teachers for supporting ADHD students when they’re not in school.

Their advice seems to boil down to three basic rules – be organized, be consistent and be there.  Keeping ADHD kids super organized helps them keep from feeling overwhelmed.  Folder systems for keeping track of homework and important papers, an thoroughly organized backpack that is cleaned out every day with a parent present and a calendar or planner for keeping track of due dates can all help an ADHD child feel more in control of their life.  Charts and checklists can also be a big help to kid and parents.

Consistent, predictable schedules also help ADHD children cope with day to day tasks.  Daily routines help kids stay focused, and posted schedules around the house remind them to keep up with daily tasks.  Consistent scheduling should also apply to screen time – limiting it for the whole family and making sure that there are no distracting video game or television noises coming from other parts of the house while your child tries to focus are essential.  A regular, and well enforced, bedtime also helps keep ADHD kids focused and on track.

Being present is also extremely important, according to Belle-Isle’s teachers.  Don’t hover, but do pass through your child’s orbit every once in a while, making sure their questions are answered and giving positive reenforcement.  Your child’s teachers also need to you to be present – good communication between parents and teachers is key to managing ADHD.

These suggestions might have been provided for parents of ADHD children, but they seem like a great strategy for anyone trying to raise a happy, healthy kid.

It’s Christmas Eve, a time that should be joyful for little ones and their families everywhere.  Every year, but particularly this one, there are far too many families out there stricken with hunger and poverty.  With letters to Santa Claus focusing more on warm clothes and jobs for parents than toys, it’s clear that the need for sharing and caring this Christmas is greater than ever.

We may not be able to heal everything that’s wrong with the world, but there is one thing that every parent and child can do right now to make the world just a little bit better place.  Find one toy and donate it to a child in need.  As Toy Story 3 reminded us this summer, toys should never be left to gather dust.  They should be out there firing up the imaginations of children who love them.

Help your child find a toy that is being neglected and could use a new home and take them to donate it at a shelter or a toy drive or to a needy neighbor.  Or, if you’re a grown up kid like me, help some of those toys that

are languishing in your childhood room find new homes.  Not only is donating a toy a great way to help spread a little joy and hope in a difficult world, it will help you set your child on the road to becoming a giving, caring adult.  It will also help them understand and appreciate the abundance of their own lives.  You can find Toys for Tots locations here.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

According to the study, 82% of teens mentioned that the show was a big part of why how they’d learned about the consequences of teen pregnancy and parenthood.  And why to avoid it.

“Entertainment media is one of the nation’s favorite punching bags, but we have to acknowledge that when we’re talking about teen pregnancies media can be and often is a force for good, and that is particularly true when it comes to shows like ‘16 and Pregnant,’ ‘” Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign, told the Christian Science Monitor. “Some critics say these shows glamorize teen pregnancy, but our survey data shows that’s not the case — that not only do they not glamorize it, but teens who have seen it suggest it makes the realities of teen parenthood more real to them.”

Obviously, you don’t want your children learning everything they know about the dangers of teen pregnancy from a show like 16 and Pregnant or it’s follow up Teen Mom but if this study shows anything it’s that kids respond to education and conversation.  The more they know, the safer they are.  Shows like 16 and Pregnant are not just good ways to scare kids into cautious behavior.  They’re great starting points for the more important parental conversations about sexuality.

“What you see on TV, as a parent, isn’t always exactly what you’d want your teen to know or say or see, but it does deflect the conversation from, ‘What are you doing?’ to more of an abstract, and that can be a good way to start conversations,” he says. “The fact is, this is not your parents’ sex talk, not a one-time white knuckle conversation, but this should be an 18-year conversation that you’re having with your kids.”

Old bags, shopping, grocery or even potato chip, can make great gift wrapping.  Cut paper bags along their seams, turn them inside out and use anything you like to decorate them.  Rubber stamps are always fun, but MarthStewart.com suggests taking an old wine bottle cork, dipping it in ink or dark fruit juice and using it to create patterns.  You can turn holiday wrapping into a family affair if you grab the kids, their favorite coloring gear and set them to work decorating your former shopping bags turned future wrapping paper.  Not only will relatives love the works of art their presents will become, you’ll be happy to have something to keep kids on holiday busy!

If you want to be even cleverer, collect old snack bags, cut them open and clean the insides thoroughly.  The insides of these bags are usually shiny silver or shiny white — perfect colors for holiday wrapping.  If you cut the bags carefully, you can recreate the look of expensive foil wrapping paper and recycle at the same time!

Instead of Styrofoam packing peanuts, try using actual popcorn or real peanuts to pack your gifts.  It’s biodegradable, cheaper to buy and make and easier for your friends and family to get rid of.  Plus, the kids will love snacking on the packaging as they help you with your shipping chores!

The holiday’s are all about ritual, which is part of what makes it so hard to be alone, and away from your children, during the season.  It’s important to establish new rituals that work with the new dimensions of your family, rather than fighting them.  Make sure your children get to celebrate with both of their parents, whether it’s on the actual day of the holiday, or another day designated for your own personal festivities.

“One of the suggestions I make to parents who now live apart is to make New Year’s the second Christmas,” Robin Siebold, a psychology told ParentDish.”In other words, just because the calendar says December 25 is the actual day, the next week is a whole other set of holidays, with an Eve to go with it.”

When you’re establishing new rituals for your kids, don’t leave yourself out.  Being alone on a holiday is difficult, even worse if you know the rest of what used to be your family is out there, together.  Hook up with other friends and neighbors and make your holiday something special and grown up, rather than lonely and sad.  Or, enjoy the day off.  As a single parent, alone time is almost impossible to find.  Make yourself a list of things you never get to do with the children in the house and do them.

“The Geminids are my favorite, because they defy explanation,” NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, a meteor expert at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama told Space.com.

Meteor showers are the result of the Earth passing through a stream of space rocks, which light up the atmosphere with “shooting stars.”  Comets are the source of most of these fields, but the Geminids are different.  Their source is a mysterious rocky object called 3200 Paethon, which doesn’t shed nearly enough debries to explain the size of the Geminid meteor showers.

Even if you miss the Geminid’s this year, don’t skip the total lunar eclipse that will be visible from North America on the night of December 20th this year.  Our continent won’t get another this good until April 2014.

For the Western Hemisphere, the eclipse will “officially” begin on Dec. 21 at 12:29 a.m. EST (9:29 p.m. PST on Dec. 20) as the moon begins to enter Earth’s outer, or penumbral, shadow.  The eclipse should last about 73 minutes.

Consider braving the elements to share these moments of natural wonder with your kids.  In a busy world, and a busier season, it’s too easy to let little moments of wonder like these pass by.

Sure, they allow you to see how your children are spending their allowance, and they teach kids to use the plastic that will surely only become more prevalent as they reach adulthood, but do they also teach poor financial planning?  Janet Bodnar of Kiplinger.com, says yes, and she has a point.  If kids don’t start out having to budget with cash, they never see what their spending and may not truly understand that it is a finite resource.  Cash helps kids see what their spending, and understand that when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Rechargeable debit cards are also exactly that, rechargeable.   Transitioning teens straight from a debit card with mommy’s money on it to a credit card runs the risk of never giving them a real education on the consequences of plastic.  Raising a child conditioned to just charge every expense is a dangerous thing in our times of escalating personal and public debt.

Bodnar recommends starting your children off with a cash allowance instead, then getting teens who are ready for the responsibility, but still too young for a checking account, an ATM card linked to a savings account with gift money and allowance and earnings from any job they’re doing.  That way they can withdraw cash, but still have to use actual dollars and cents to buy things.  Then, when your child is ready, it’s time for a checking account and a real debit card.  Make sure, Bodnar cautions, that the account is their money, not yours, so that they give some real thought to what they’re spending.  Even if you’re refilling the account with a specific allowance, budgeting at an early age is always an important skill.

The last step of her financial independence plan is a credit card.  Giving your college student a co-signed credit card that they have to manage (but you can supervise as co-signer) is a great way to build their credit and their sense of financial responsibility.

Did you know that “it only takes a little over an hour to roast a 12-pound turkey when it’s split down the middle, backbone removed, and roasted flat?”  Neither did I.  But of course, Martha Stewart does!

See Martha Stewart’s Roast Spatchcocked Turkey recipe below, and spend more time with the family, and less time in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

- 1 tablespoon coarse salt

- 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

- 1 whole fresh turkey (about 12 pounds)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Stir together oil, salt, and pepper in a small bowl.
2. Rinse inside and outside of turkey; pat dry with paper towels. Spatchcock turkey (see Martha’s how-to). Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet, breast side up. Let stand for 30 minutes.
3. Brush or rub turkey all over with oil mixture. Roast, rotating sheet halfway through and basting twice, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reaches 165 degrees, about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Let stand for 20 minutes before carving (see Martha’s how-to).

Serves 8 – 10.

For more quick Thanksgiving recipes, visit MarthaStewart.com.

Despite the crazy crowds and ridiculous hours, the National Retail Federation estimates that nearly 138 million consumers will shop over the holiday weekend, an increase of 4 million people over last year.  For some, it’s a competitive sport that has outshone the holiday itself:

“We’re having Thanksgiving on Wednesday, so I’ll have the whole day Thursday to rest up, get online to do research and check Twitter,” Virginian, Sue Van Glanden told Yahoo Finance. “I am a seasoned comparison shopper, so I’ll only go after the very best deals for what I was planning to buy this season.”

But consumer experts think that those in a rush for holiday deals might be losing sleep for nothing.  While there are good deals to be had, because of the economic climate, Regina Lewis, a Consumer Advisor for AOL, says that good deals will be available all season.  Brad Wilson, founder of the popular website BradsDeals.com and BlackFriday2010.com says that the best deals will be almost impossible to get.

“You’re really looking at a short window opportunity, from about 4 a.m., when the stores first open, until 12 p.m. to get the best deals,” Wilson told Yahoo Finance. After that, stores will likely be out of heavily discounted items and end up selling things to you at higher prices, which is part of why they have the extreme sales in the first place.

So, if you’re not a 4am shopper, enjoy Friday with your family and get your deals online, on Cyber Monday.

“It was awesome to get the news,” said 22-year old Josh.  He and Anna, also 22, have a daughter, Mackynzie, who celebrated her first birthday October 8.

News of Anna’s pregnancy was a welcome happiness after the couple tragically suffered a miscarriage earlier this year.  “Josh was a big encouragement to me,” Anna recalled.  “It helped us to go through the heartbreak to learn that 30 or 40 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage.  That was comforting in some ways.”

Anna told PEOPLE magazine that she showed her husband the positive pregnancy test on their daughter’s first birthday. “It was fun to announce it to everyone on that already happy day.”

Both Jim Bob and Michelle are incredibly excited to expand their family.  “We can’t wait to find out more about this new baby,” Michelle gushed.

Like his parents, Josh and Anna have decided to leave the number of children they have “up to God.”

Milo Beckman, a fourteen year old student at Stuyvesant High School in New York claims to have completed an independent research study that proves that one simple step can improve your score of the S.A.T. in the written portion of the test.  It doesn’t even require extra studying – all you have to do to get a good score on the S.A.T. Writing, according to Milo, is write a longer essay.

Milo launched his study after taking the S.A.T. himself the second time and getting a higher score on his essay.  This annoyed Milo because he was sure that his second essay was actually not as good as the first.  In fact, “I looked up one of the facts I had used in the essay which I wasn’t completely sure of and it turns out I had basically blatantly lied in the essay,” he told ABC News.

So what was so great about the second essay?  The only concrete improvement Milo could see was that it was longer.  So, Milo decided to see if he could find evidence to support his hypothesis.  He asked his fellow students at Stuyvesant to count the number of lines they had filled with their essay and provide him the number, along with their scores. Out of his 115 samples, the longer essays almost always scored higher.

“The probability that such a strong correlation would happen by chance is 10 to the negative 18th. So 00000 …18 zeros and then (an) 18. Which is zero,” he told Good Morning America.

Milo isn’t the only one who has noticed the correlation.

“The more you write, the higher the score. The more words on the page, the higher the score,” Les Perelman, the director of writing across curriculum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told ABC’s Good Morning America. In fact, Perelman says he can predict an essays score 90% of the time simply by its length.

Milo didn’t stop there – in order to compensate for the possibility that smarter, higher scoring kids simply tend to write more he compared scores of students who had taken the test more than once to each other.  In each case, the longer essay got the better score.

The College Boards, who create the S.A.T.’s, naturally disagrees with Milo’s findings.  Their explanation? “It’s very common for longer writing samples to more effectively convey nuanced, persuasive arguments.”  According to the College Boards, the essay section of the test is their best predictor of college success.

According to Cal Maine Foods, the contaminated eggs were distributed to both retailers an wholesalers in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

Ohio Fresh Eggs said the farm held back eggs from the barn where the salmonella was found, however, through discussions with the FDA they discovered that some eggs from that barn had been sent to a distributor in error, company officials revealed in a statement.

“Ohio Fresh Eggs sincerely regrets the error made on our farm, and we apologize to our customers and to consumers who may have purchased the eggs,” the officials said [via Huffington Post].  “We are redoubling our efforts to ensure thorough and ongoing training of our workers so this situation is not repeated.”

Earlier this year, salmonella was found on two egg farms in Iowa, resulting in a recall of 550 million eggs in August, which were linked to as many as 1,600 illnesses.

Holly Baby reports that one of their 6-year old daughters has been kicked out of their Lancaster County school in Pennsylvania for two weeks!  A source close to the family reveals that the little girl was given a suspension for hitting a classmate.

“Hitting another child is an aggressive act.  It’s bullying!  Schools are finally taking bullying very seriously,” New York City based psychologist Dr. Gilda Carle tells the website.

Even worse however, is the way Kate is said to have reacted to her daughter’s suspension.  Not with a conversation about a more appropriate way to deal with conflict, but by instead declaring, “You’re embarrassing me!”

Dr. Carle says that was the worst thing to do with her daughter.

“Here’s a kid who’s acting out, and Kate makes this all about her!  What Kate should do is discuss with her daughter why she’s acting out – not by yelling or lecturing her, but by listening to what the child has to say,” she says.  “I suspect there’s very little listening in that household, only dictatorial directions.”

Leading up to the music video’s debut, Willow appeared on Ryan Seacrest’s KISS FM breakfast show, and explained the meaning behind the song [via The Daily Mail].

“It means just be an individual,” she said.  “Like, you can’t be afraid of yourself.  You have to be yourself and you can’t let anyone tell you that it’s wrong!”

Whip My Hair is the first single of Willow’s upcoming album, which will be released by Jay-Z’s record label, Roc-A-Fella records.  The young star has already earned big praise from the rap mogul.

“I heard the record first before I knew that it was recorded by a nine year old and I was like, man that record’s a smash.  I believe in superstars.  I believe in big records and in superstars and I think [Willow] has both.”

Watch the official music video premiere of Whip My Hair by Willow Smith below:

The folks at VSP Vision Care have turned this once humdrum medical test into a fun, educational and creative activity for kids. 

They created a make your own eye chart - you can enter in a custom message and have it turned into your very own eye chart! We created a ‘Happy Halloween’ chart, but you can use whatever message you’d like – ‘SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS’, ‘I LOVE YOU’, or even your name.

WHAT TO DO:

1. Check out http://www.eyechart.seemuchmore.com

2. Type in your message

3. Print out your new eye chart

4. Color it in with your own wacky colors

5. Hang it on your wall and check your child’s vision at home!
After finishing your chart, click the Facebook button on the top left of the page to share your work of art with your friends and family online.
  
To learn more about VSP Vision Care and their ongoing effort to promote proactive eye care for kids AND adults, visit www.SeeMuchMore.com today! Have fun!

“We went to the beach and had a picnic,” David said.  “I explained to her that we’re grownups, and a lot of time when grownups are growing up, they need to figure out their lives.”  Adding that “Sometimes that takes each other having a little space.”

At that moment, Coco asked if they were getting a divorce.  “No, we’re not getting a divorce,” David said.  “We’re just taking some time apart to get to know ourselves better and get to know what we want out of our mate better.”

On Tuesday, David and Coco were spotted on a lunch date in Beverly Hills.

Let’s just hope Coco didn’t hear the rest of David’s Howard Stern interview – like the part where he disclosed intimate facts about their relationship, including the fact that he and Courteney hadn’t had sex in months but he did manage to score with cocktail waitress Jasmine Walsh “once… maybe twice.”

But that doesn’t mean that you should hit the bar in search of tequila shots to relieve the stress of your final trimester.  The study also found that “children of mothers who were heavy drinkers were more likely to be hyperactive, compared with children of mothers who did not drink.”

Instead, the research suggests that expectant mothers can enjoy the occasional class of wine or beer with dinner without harming their child’s development.

However, not everyone agrees with the study’s findings.  Dr. Gideon Koren, from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto Canada says he thinks that the study will do more harm than good – taking issue with the suggestion that there’s a safe amount of alcohol all women can consume.  Each woman is different, making it extremely difficult to determine exactly how much alcohol an individual can safely drink while pregnant.

Tell us where you stand, Moms:  Is a drink or two a week ok, or is it best to stick to a strict no alcohol policy when pregnant?

The biggest problem for sperm is heat.  They do best at a balmy 75 degrees – that’s why the male testes are kept outside of the human body’s cozy 98.6 degree interior.  Does that mean switching to from briefs to boxers will solve an infertility problem? Probably not, at least not if you have a normal sperm count.

“Boxers are better than briefs, if a man’s sperm count is on the low side. But it probably has little effect if the sperm count is normal,” Dr. Hal Danzer, a Los Angeles fertility specialist told AOL Health.

What does have considerable effect are hot tubs.  According to a study completed in 2007, even 30 minutes of “wet heat” can temporarily decrease sperm production.  The effects can be reversed, but it takes a shocking three to six months to get sperm counts back to where they once were after exposure to hot tubs or jacuzzis has been limited.

Laptops are also a hazard to these heat sensitive little guys.  Laptop use can increase temperatures in the region in question up to 35 degrees in some positions.  That’s not a great for anyone’s health, at anytime, but particularly when trying for a baby.

Obesity, too much alcohol and too many cigarettes, and too much cell phone time are also on the list of fertility don’ts.  Basically, treat your sperm (or your partner’s sperm) with respect, and they’ll do the same for you!

In our previous post, we listed what you need to take the hospital when giving birth. This week we’re adding a checklist on what to bring for your baby. While this is just a checklist to help you along the way, we strongly encourage you to check out her book for an explanation of all these items.

1. Car Seat
2. The Going Home Outfit
   1. A T-shirt
   2. Diaper
   3. Footsies
3. Optional Accessories
   1. To Cap or not to Cap?
   2. Pacifier
   3. Blanket
   4. An “Urp Cloth”
   5. The Neck Donut

YOUR TURN!

Was this helpful? Have you read the book? Is there something that we missed? Let us know!

But believe it or not, your kids can enjoy a good relationship with each other – for more than 10 minutes at a time!  It just takes a little work and a few ground rules.

While it’s next to impossible to completely eliminate sibling competition and jealousy in families, we’ve got a few tips (via Breezy Mama) that will help to minimize sibling rivalry in your household.

Feel free to share your own tips in the comments section as well!

10. Spend Quality One-On-One Time with Each Child. Sibling fighting, at its core, has a lot to do with parent’s attention.  Making an effort to spend time with each of your kids can dramatically reduce their fighting.

9.  Avoid Playing Judge and Jury. Taking sides results in a winner and a loser and increases overall competition between siblings.

8. Establish Family Rules for “Stuff.” For example, if a child leaves their prized toy in the family room then it’s fair game for anyone to enjoy.  If they don’t want their siblings to play with it, then they should put it in their ‘off limits’ shelf in their room.

7.  Avoid Labels – Positive or Negative. Whether it’s a positive label, like funny, smart or athletic, or a negative label, like wild, shy or unmotivated, labels draw comparisons between siblings, which only serves to fuel their rivalry.

6.  Tame the Competitive Spirit in your Family. Sibling fighting has shown to be worse in families that highly value competition.

5.  Create Games That Require Kids to Work Together. Doing so encourages cooperation and shows the rewards of working together with your siblings.

4.  Ignore Complaints About ‘Fairness.’ Kids often whine about who got more because they have come to realize that saying ‘it’s not fair’ will get a response.  Most parents feel the need to justify why it is fair, which gives them a big payoff in attention.  Avoid the temptation to respond.

3.  Avoid Over-Relying on One of your Children. Your “go to kid” may enjoy the power and attention that comes from being depended upon, but it generally results in them feeling “superior” while the other children feel discouraged.  Find age-appropriate ways for everyone to contribute.

2.  Have a Plan for Fighting in the Car. Let them know in advance that it’s not safe for you to drive when they fight.  If you say you’re going to pull over – stick to it. Proceed again when it’s quiet.

1.  Remember that Sibling Fighting is Not Just a Kid Problem.

When asked what to take to the hospital she provided the following list. While this is just a checklist of sorts to help you along the way, we strongly encourage you to check out her book for some of the reasoning behind some of these unusual items.

1. Luggage
2. Your Going Home Outfit
3. Shampoos, Soaps & Lotions ( You deserve to feel & look beautiful!)
4. Pillow, or Two
5. Bedroom Slippers
6. Lots of Socks
7. Maternity Underwear
8. Lip Balm
9. Pen & Paper
10. Food
11. Book
12. Sanitary Pads
13. Nursing Bra
14. Nursing Book
15. Camera & Film
16. Telephone List
17. A Girlfriend..

She also instructed what not to bring to the Hospital

1. A Nightgown (Unless you want to ruin it)
2. Jewelry

YOUR TURN!

Was this helpful? Have you read the book? Is there something that we missed? Let us know!

Next week we’ll provide a checklist what to bring to the hospital for your newborn baby!

What’s happening in the Third Trimester?

This is an exciting time for you – If you’re in this trimester, stop swearing at me, we don’t want to scare those in the 2^nd trimester. Okay fine, I’ll be honest. While this is an awesome time – you’re baby is almost here and you’re getting the room and everything ready – this is also the most uncomfortable time. But we’ll get to that later..

You baby on the other hand is really growing and moving around – baby fat is starting to accumulate and smooth out the body, eyes are opening and closing, and your baby is responding to light. He/She is also storing iron and building its skeleton. Around the ninth month your baby will settle into the pelvic canal, this is called “engagement”, while this kills your bladder it’s also telling you your baby is ready to meet you!

What this means for you?

Okay, take a deep breath, and remember the end result.

You’re Going to Want to Pee… ALL THE TIME (and you will when you don’t want to)

So now that your baby has nestled his way into your pelvic area – you’re going to feel extreme pressure on your bladder.  This means that you’re in the bathroom at all times, and unfortunately you will pee yourself everything you sneeze, cough, laugh too much, forget that you have a baby inside of you etc.

Achy?

At this point your back will hurt, your legs will be cramping up, and you’ll have shortness of breath. You’ll also have these very odd feeling contractions called Braxton-Hicks contractions – while they’re painless, your uterus will feel all in a bunch at odd times.

Although this is a truly sucky time, I can’t stress enough, remember the end result. It will all be done soon and before you know it you’ll have a whole new set of ridiculous problems & pains to deal with! Too much? Err…

Your Turn!

Was this helpful? Do you have anything to add? Did you experience something different or have any tips for expectant mothers?

For more information about what to expect throughout your pregnancy check out our posts every Tuesday!

It only makes sense to toss out food that is past the date on its package that says “expiration.”  You want to keep your family safe, so the word expired doesn’t seem like something that should mix with their diet.  However, most of us don’t realize that “use by” dates are recommendations based on freshness, taste and nutritional value.  They aren’t the date at which the food will no longer be safe to eat. ShelfLifeAdvice.com is full of great tips for how long properly stored food should stay fresh.  Here are a few key tips to being safe, but not wasteful:

• Milk: If properly refrigerated, milk will remain safe, nutritious, and tasty for about a week after the sell-by date and will probably be safe to drink longer than that, though there’s a decline in nutritional value and taste.

• Cottage cheese: Pasteurized cottage cheese lasts for 10-14 days after the date on the carton.

• Mayonnaise: Unopened, refrigerated Kraft mayonnaise can be kept for 30 days after its expiration date or 3-4 months after opening, the company told ShelfLifeAdvice.

• Yogurt: Yogurt will remain good 7-10 days after its sell-by date.

• Eggs: Properly refrigerated eggs should last at least 3-5 weeks after the sell-by date, according to Professor Joe Regenstein, a food scientist at Cornell University. Note: Use of either a sell-by or expiration (EXP) date is not federally required, but may be state required, as defined by the egg laws in the state where the eggs are marketed.

Of course, the rule of thumb, no matter how long the item has been in the fridge, is the “yuck” rule.  If it looks, smells or tastes yucky, don’t eat it.