children
Children: Our most valuable natural resource.
Building Trust with your Child Care Provider
When your new caregiver begins watching your children, you probably won’t know much about them. You won’t know their favorite color, their hopes and dreams or their bad habits. More importantly, you won’t know their parenting style. It is crucial that you choose a provider that is like you in parenting style. If you are a sixty’s style crunchy parent who uses cloth diapers and wants organic food for your child and your provider is a militant structure buff/ germ freak, the two of you will get along about as well as two male beta fish (you know, the pretty ones that live in little cups and look friendly but kill each other when put together?) in one tank. In other words, bad choice!
By Terri Mulhern5 years ago in Families
“I love you mommy!”
Children are so resilient. They are the best at giving completely unconditional love. The best thing I have ever done to date is to become a mom. I regret nothing about that. I had my first daughter at the age of 20. I was out of high school and in college. People don't talk about postpartum depression a whole lot. It is real though and more new moms suffer from it than we think. I suffered from it. As I said, I gave birth at the age of 20. Finding out I was pregnant made me grow up really quickly. The fact that another person was going to be depending on me for every aspect of their life terrified me. I was still kind of a child myself honestly. Too late to turn back now though. The baby was real and growing inside me. I immediately got to work and started making moves. I was a manger at Popeyes at the time. I was making $8.25 an hour. That wasn't enough to take care of a child in my mind. It was barely enough for just me and I was still living at home with my parents. I left traditional college and enrolled in a trade school. I walked across the stage at 5 months pregnant! I became a nationally registered certified medical assistant and phlebotomist. I was hired in a multi-specialty clinic a month later. My pay rate was now $13.50. Next on my list was a car. I bought my car in January, gave birth in February and signed the lease to my apartment when my baby was 11 days old. Phew! Mama was busy.
By Latoya Giles 5 years ago in Families
Fond Memories
“C’mon, Nancy, you can do it,” Nancy says to herself as she jabs at the keys on the keyboard. Obviously, the computer is not doing what Nancy wants it to do. She starts mumbling under her breath, feeling even more frustrated that she has not been able to accomplish what she needs to get done.
By Robyn Moss 5 years ago in Families
10 Things About Being A Boy Mom
Being a boy mom sometimes has me questioning my sanity. Like today, my almost three-year-old stuck his head in the toilet to “wash his hair”. Thank God the water was clean, but why?!?! If that was the only thing he had done today, I would have called today a success. Trust me when I say, he can come up with some clever ideas to make his mom lose her mind. As I’m sitting here typing right now, I cannot begin to tell you how many times he has already tried to flip on me or asked for his “pippy” (sippy cup) and I just began typing. I always heard I would pay for my raising, but I never realized I would this quick.
By rachel west5 years ago in Families
Is Moving A Lot as a child traumatic?
Articles and studies I have read report school and behavioral difficulties and some emotional issues in children who move. Parental divorce is a factor in most studies I read. No literature I could find talks about the impacts of moving many times during childhood.
By Caroni Lombard5 years ago in Families
You Saved Me, Son
There could be no possible way. I literally almost died from a fentanyl and cocaine overdose a week prior, where they had to give me Narcan at least three times that I can remember. The nurses had asked me at the hospital if I could be pregnant, and I laughed it off. How could I possibly be pregnant? With my life? What a joke? They did not test me that day, which they probably should have.
By rachel west5 years ago in Families
Pie baking hands.
I wish I had my grandmother hands: Pie-baking hands, nimble hands that could mend or make anything. They were soft and smooth and always made me feel better. It's probably because she cooked with butter and tasted everything she made. She said that was the trick. The key to why no one could replicate her food. She said it was full of love and her saliva. We made the face of disgust in her direction and all she said was, "Do you wanna eat your momma;s gravy or mine?" We all knew no matter how hard my momma tried, she couldn't make gravy. That's the day I learned to make food with love and taste everything. Never over salt. "Let them ruin their own food she'd say."
By April Johnson5 years ago in Families
