Parenting, Christianity and Natural Deodorant – Sunday Surf

Image by Liz (perspicacious.org) via Flickr

I’m sharing what I’ve read and enjoyed this week. I hope you find something you enjoy below as well!

Recipe: DIY All-Natural Deodorant – “Along my journey towards a simpler, healthier lifestyle, I started coming across articles about health and beauty products that weren’t so healthy for you! So many of them have added chemicals, like aluminum in deodorants, for example.”

Cosmetic Alterations and Children – “When a person consciously chooses to have something done to their body for whatever reason, they are exercising their power over their appearance and that is their right. When someone else makes that decision for them, especially with the absence of medical need, it suddenly becomes questionable.”

AAP Surprises – “Here are a couple things that are not considered mainstream (but should be!) that the AAP, who is supposed to be the mainstream ‘go-to’ (especially for pediatricians) recommends.”

Washing Feet – ” I’m learning, daily, to look for the small and the humble – the quiet and the meek.  The foot-washing moments that point me toward the blessings of laying down self and striving to serve.  In lowering me, He elevates.”

Let’s Un-Process Our Children’s Food – “Although we call them ‘food’, processed foods are not readily recognized by the body.  They are seen as alien matter and our white blood cells will be on attack mode as soon as they enter our system.”

An Answered Prayer – “To not only witness but to be part of such an extraordinary group of families coming together to feed human milk to human babies (MY baby, at that!) makes my heart feel bigger. It has given me a joy I never knew existed.”

How I Stopped Saying No – “When I started researching different parenting methods and started being more mindful about what I say and do to and with my children, I realized that there are many ways to say “No” that are more effective and serve to strengthen the parent/child relationship, not weaken it.”

Facebook: The Scourge of Modern Parenting? – “So you’ll all have to excuse me if I fail to feel phenomenally guilty for my Facebook use. I have enough guilt on my plate already, and I refuse to accept any more.”

Just Not On The Same Page – “If I’m going to truly co-parent and live with the principles of gentle family living, then I’ve got to learn to trust him and let go.”

Reflections on our first year – “While hard to explain – or even justify – to the uninitiated, the steps we’ve taken to build a deep and secure bond with our daughter have transformed us as just much as they’ve helped to ground her. “

Read the Bible Every Day! – “Without daily focused time with the Lord, we will never see the victory and experience the joy in the Christian life that we have been born again to know.”

 

Check out Adventures in Mommyhood, Authentic Parenting, Becoming Crunchy, Karen’s Healthy Lifestyle,The New Mommy Files: Memories, Milestones and Missteps, Hobo Mama, I Thought I Knew Mama, Mama Eve, Momma Jorje, One Rich Mother, Greener Cleaning Moms, and The Parent Vortex for more Sunday Surfing!

Sunday Surf

I hope you enjoy this week’s Sunday Surf, the best of what I’ve read this week.

Babywise is Not the Bible. Parenting by the Law or by the Spirit? – “You do not have to answer to Gary Ezzo or anyone else. You do have to answer to God. You don’t need Babywise, you need the Holy Spirit.”

It’s OK, just not in public – “I don’t know why people get so weirded out about praying out loud in public. Maybe it’s the thought that faith is such a personal thing. Maybe it’s the fear of imposing one’s faith on another, one who may or may not want to be exposed to faith-matters.”

Try Again – “When we make mistakes, even if it comes to the point where he feels like spanking is his only option, that doesn’t mean he’s stuck parenting that way from then on.  We will encourage each other to “try again” to break the old patterns ingrained in us from how we were parented.”

 

Avoid Green Guilt and Do ONE Thing – “Let’s ease the anxiety and focus on what you can do.  How about the motto:  ‘Do One Thing.’ Doesn’t that sound simple?  Just ONE thing!”

Get Jealous? – “I want to be able to give a straightforward answer when asked if Sparky and Spunky are my only or if Sparky is my oldest. I don’t mince words about it for the most part, but it makes people very uncomfortable.”

via e-mumshop.com

The Gift of Milk– “I felt like I had a superpower. Nursing our babies is kind of magic. After years of nursing my now-weaned children, I still marvel at the basic premise: growing a baby simply on the nourishment that our own bodies provide!”

That Psychology Today Blog May Say Black Girls Are Ugly, But My Baby Knows Better – “I came across this poem, written by my beautiful, chocolate drop, Mari. She is, simply, amazing, and her words assure me that no matter what idiot tries to make her think she’s a lesser than, the work Nick and I are putting in to remind her she’s the straight fire is paying off.”

So What Exactly Is Instinctual Breastfeeding? And How Old Is Too Old? – “The problem, in my opinion, is simply the way America views breastfeeding.  Giving expectant moms a list of the benefits of breastfeeding is nice, but we need to start making it more socially acceptable.”

Early Parenting Choices: Sleeping and Nursing – “So a message to those parents that are confused about what the right choice is –  follow your gut.  If listening to your child cry makes you cry – pick him up and hold him. Do what you feel is the best and natural. Don’t let anyone else make these important choices for you.  Your child is depending on you and only you.” 

 

International Day of the Midwife – “And then, with relief and wonder I thought, “Thank goodness the births of my children were not like this.” And I felt terribly sorry for the many many women who experience their children’s births the same way I experience the dentist.”

 

Baby food. Excuse me while I get up on this soapbox…. – “Does this imply that other commercially marketed baby food is not real food? Absolutely. Because it’s not.”

 

It’s really quite simple… – “So when I ask myself if, as a parent and a wife, I am acting as Christ would act, I don’t need to look very far. He Loved me so much that He died rather than require me to face the punishment I deserved.” 

 

Top 10 Things Breastfeeding Advocates Should Stop Saying – “Breastfeeding is the biological norm.  Anything less is inferior by default. “Best” conjurs a notion of something that only a select few can achieve and sets formula up as the norm; we want to talk about breastfeeding as something that’s achievable for almost all moms.”

 

Husband vs. Children?– “I think that this whole child-centered vs. husband-centered premise is a false dichotomy that completely lacks balance and perspective. Why must it be an either-or situation to begin with?”

 

Check out Adventures in Mommyhood, Authentic Parenting, Becoming Crunchy, Karen’s Healthy Lifestyle,The New Mommy Files: Memories, Milestones and Missteps, Hobo Mama, I Thought I Knew Mama, Mama Eve, Momma Jorje, One Rich Mother, Greener Cleaning Moms, and The Parent Vortex for more Sunday Surfing!

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Lots of Mommy Stuff Sunday Surf

Image by tarabrown via Flickr

Here’s the good stuff I’ve read this week. Enjoy!

Getting Rid of the Garbage – “I honestly can’t believe how amazingly all this stuff works – I was kind of doing it begrudgingly at first, because I thought I should…but all of it has worked better than anything I was using before.”

EC From Birth – “Fourteen months in, I am convinced that reading books and formulating a plan is really not all that important. All one needs in order to EC from birth is a desire to communicate with their newborn, and a desire to meet all of their needs in a timely and sensitive manner. EC flows naturally from the connection we instinctually form with our babies, and that connection is all we really need.”

This Week’s Small Change – What To Do When Your Child Behaves Inappropriately – “Sometimes you just wish you had a simple techniqueas an option when your child, tween, or teen is doing something you do not approve of.”

My First Birth Story, Part 1 – Mikko, June 2007: Labor at Home and My first birth story, part 2 — Mikko, June 2007: A hospital transfer – “I could hardly believe such a thing existed outside of my body, and here he was, and I was seeing him for the first time, and he was going to be mine for all time now, and I was just now getting a glimpse of what he looked like.”

Zinc Oxide Sunscreens For Safe Sun Protection – “Many brands offer Zinc Oxide based sunscreens. Here are a few of the better options.”

Got Melke? – “Most women can breastfeed.  But if you live in a country with poor breastfeeding rates it is almost like preparing for a war.  You have to be confident that you WILL do this for your baby.  You have to educate yourself, and arm yourself with a lactation consultant and facts and figures to wave in the faces of your family and friends.  Because so many unqualified (or just plain ignorant) people will be ready and waiting with bad advice, misinformation and bottles of free formula.”

On Labels and Boxes and Trusting Your Gut – “Let’s start trusting ourselves and our instincts about what we should do as parents instead of judging ourselves for not fitting perfectly into a box or judging others for choosing a different kind of box. Let’s just parent our kids the best we know how, instead of spending so much time competing with each other.”

Mom Wars – Guilt, Grief, and Healing – “Being sensitive about a subject is a clear indication that there are some unresolved issues surrounding that experience that need to be dealt with. Often the ‘guilty’ feeling is actually other emotions in disguise like anguish, anger, betrayal, disappointment, etc.”

Gently Responding to an Aggressive Toddler – “As a parent we get to guide behavior when necessary towards what is appropriate. We can see each situation as a perfect opportunity to learn and guide. Nothing more, nothing less. This takes away the stigma of dealing with a child who is defiant.”

Talking and Listening – “Please, for the sake of building a strong rapport with your child, slow it down.  Let your child process what you have just said before you say something else.  And use non-verbal communication:  smile while you wait for an answer, tip your head attentively while you listen to that answer, and offer hugs to go with your acceptance of it.”

Real Food School Lunches III – “…my hope is that one more lunch post will help rejuvenate us all so even during these last few weeks we can continue to send our kids to school with healthy, creative, homemade school lunches that contain nothing other than real food!”

How To: African Babywearing – “It might seem a little scary the first time around, but it is really rather safe and millions of babies are worn that way from dusk til down without accidents. Once you get the hang of it, you might come to love it, as I do, as there is no strain on your shoulders or arms like other ways of carrying might involve.”

Check out Adventures in Mommyhood, Authentic Parenting, Becoming Crunchy, Karen’s Healthy Lifestyle,The New Mommy Files: Memories, Milestones and Missteps, Hobo Mama, I Thought I Knew Mama, Mama Eve, Momma Jorje, One Rich Mother, Greener Cleaning Moms, and The Parent Vortex for more Sunday Surfing!

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• Easter, Babies, and Sleep – Sunday Surf (wifemomandmore.wordpress.com)

How I Introduced Solids to My Daughter via Baby-Led Weaning

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I knew I wanted the best possible nutrition for her. I knew I would breastfeed her for at least 2 years and I planned on making my own babyfood for her.

When my daughter was around 4 months old, I began reading and researching solid foods. I knew a baby’s primary nutrition in their first year of life should be breastmilk or formula and the more I thought about this, the more I felt concern over starting solids.

Marcella enjoying some green beans.

I have had a lot of people ask me about the way I introduced solids to my daughter. The approach we chose to use is called baby-led weaning and we really loved it! Today over at Mama Eve you can find my guest post on how we came to this decision as well as some information about the method.

Be sure to check out the rest of her site, too! She is one of my favorite bloggers and I’m sure you will soon see why as you check out her site. She makes appearances in my Sunday Surf’s often. You can start with some of my favorite posts at Mama Eve:

Five Playground Lessons I Didn’t Know I was Teaching

How I’m Learning to Let My Children Go

Attachment to an Open Mind

A Tale of Two Chickens

Birth Without Fear Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Be Scared

Epidurals, Fruit Juice and Household Toxins – Sunday Surf

Babies and Birth

And This is What It’s Like… – “I think it’s really important for those who have loved ones struggling with infertility to understand, at least on the surface, what it’s like.”

Ask Me About E’s Birth When You Have a Few Hours…. – “It is about the hours upon hours I sat with my midwives preparing mentally, physically and emotionally for his birth.  It is the almost 2 days I labored with him.  And yes, it is also the cesarean delivery.  And the triumph I felt afterwards. “

My (Birth) Partner: How I Know That Some Men DO Belong in a Primary Support Role – “…he was a fantastic doula. Top-notch. And we feel infinitely closer now, having shared that experience, having been together with my body in that way.”

Epidurals: A Feminist Issue – “At the risk of sounding outrageous, it is my belief that the way that we approach birth in our society–uninformed, relying on the experts, medicated, numbed, unable to walk, unable to feel our body’s urges and power, fearful, unsupported, and ultimately perhaps cut open–is a major contributor to the oppression of women today, and a powerful force in silencing our voices.”

Christianity

Where Were You, Jesus? – “And another voice whispered, ‘I understand. I too watched a Son suffer‘.”

Food

The Juicy Details About Fruit Juice – “Did you know that one glass of apple juice can contain as much sugar as fourteen Pixy Stix?!”

Cleaning

Nontoxic, Homemade Oven Cleaner – Will It Work? – “I’m 36 years old. Would you like to know how many times I’ve cleaned an oven? Never.”

Moving Away From Household Toxins – an Update – “As we’ve made these changes in the kitchen, I have been getting a little shocked at how much fake food we’ve consumed without question…it’s becoming quite disturbing to me.”

Parenting

Your Children are Listening – “Don’t be surprised if a child acts upon what they are exposed to. Because these ‘cool’ songs, make it seem like the ‘cool’ thing to do.”

Being Baby Led – Twin Style – “It can be very easy to lump them together as ‘the twins’. But they aren’t a pair. They are 2 seperate beings that just happened to inhabit my womb at the same time with their own needs and body clock.”

I Never Wanted to be “THAT” Mom – “The thing is, the mom I thought was so cooky actually has a few things going for her!  She is informed.  She doesn’t just blindly follow the pack doing what everyone else does because, well, that’s what everyone else does.”

Thank God For All I’ve Missed – “My time will come. It will, because I’m determined to reach my dreams. I have a fire in my soul and I have no doubt that I’ll one day share that with the world. But that time is not now. Now is my time to give to my family.”

Check out Adventures in Mommyhood, Authentic Parenting, Baby Dust Diaries, ChildOrganics,Cloth Diapering Mama, Fabulous Mama Chronicles, Hobo Mama, I Thought I Knew Mama, Mama and Baby Love, Mama Eve, Maman A Droit, Momma Jorje, Monkey Butt Junction, Motherhood Moments, My Inspired Baby, Navelgazing, and The Parent Vortex for more Sunday Surfing!

Easter, Babies, and Sleep – Sunday Surf

Babies and Birth

My Beautiful, Peaceful Birth Space –“It’s hard to explain in words what it means to walk into this space to give birth instead of into a hospital room.”

Is Fear in Pregnancy (and Birthing) Inevitable? – “…it seems pretty unhealthy to be so scared of such a normal and natural process, doesn’t it?”

Getting a Baby on a Schedule – “The problem can come in when someone tells us that we HAVE TO get our babies on a schedule from the get-go or the entire world will crumble apart.”

The Power of Women…The Power of Community – “...I think I got so into it because I was just so impressed with seeing all those women in person who really knew and felt the importance of supporting women in birth.”

Really, My Breastmilk is Turning to Water!? – “The transition from exclusive breastfeeding to full use of family foods is a very vulnerable period.”

The Curious Case of the Crying Baby – “Just as I would never outright ignore someone who was speaking to me, especially someone I care about, I will never ignore Annabelle’s cries, but I am starting to view them differently.”

Bedsharing Rewards – “The morning begins with a babble rather than cries, and my baby lays next to me babbling and smiling until I decide I am ready to face the day.”

When You Have Tried for a Year – “Not only are you now in a the new category of ‘infertile’, you have to deal with people telling you that you are doing something wrong and need to try their method.”

Four Lies Sleep Trainers Tell You (and One Truth They Won’t!) – “How many adults fall asleep being rocked? How many still co-sleep with their parents? Not everyone was sleep trained, so obviously the child does decide to sleep on his/her own eventually.”

Parenting

Verses to Parent By: Part 2 – “When I was yelling at my kids, constantly criticizing, withholding love because of my disapproval of their actions or spanking my children, those actions were not showing them my love.  They were showing them my authority, my ego and conditional love.”

As Easy as Falling Off a Log: Advertising to Children (Part Two) – “A half hour spent on Nickolodeon was a half hour of “I want that!” “I need that!” as commercial after commercial advertised directly to my daughter…”

Proceed with Caution – “Each child is unique and develops at a different pace, focusing on different aspects of growth.”

Laughing All the Way to the Breastmilk Bank – “I boo the toy industry for including a bottle with every baby doll. It’s one way bottle feeding is normalized when it should be the exception.”

You Let Your Daughter Play with THAT? – “I find it so ironic that in a society that’s so entrenched with sex and sexuality that parents choose to get their blood boiling over a doll that mimics natural feeding.”

Easter

Healthy and Homemade Easter and Ostara Basket Ideas (with Tutorial Links) – “For families who would like to avoid Easter and Ostara baskets full of sugary, processed foods (think Peeps and Cadbury Creme Eggs) and cheap plastic toys…”

Get Your Egg On: Eco-Eggs Coloring Kit – “The dyes are made from plant, fruit, and vegetable extracts (rather than arsenic and unicorn tears or whatever is usually in that stuff).”

Easter Basket Gift Ideas – “But if you eschew all that plastic crap and you don’t particularly want your kids to have all that processed sugar what do you?”

Food

Food Schizophrenia: Living in the “Real World” – “I kept my thoughts of ‘Would you like Blue Dye Number 1 for Attention Deficit Disorder, or Red #40 for anaphylactic shock?’ to myself. Instead I said, ‘Blue Gatorade or Purple?'”

Check out Adventures in Mommyhood, Authentic Parenting, Baby Dust Diaries, ChildOrganics,Cloth Diapering Mama, Fabulous Mama Chronicles, Hobo Mama, I Thought I Knew Mama, Mama and Baby Love, Mama Eve, Maman A Droit, Momma Jorje, Monkey Butt Junction, Motherhood Moments, My Inspired Baby, Navelgazing, and The Parent Vortex for more Sunday Surfing!

Great Stuff I Read for Week of March 13

Here’s a quick list of the great stuff I read this week!

Inquisition Monday: Attachment

Guest Post: Tex-Mex Enchiladas

Buying a Pram or Pushchair

Change, Growth, Loss and the Transformation of Babies

Disposables, Wet Wipes and Baby Food: Who Needs Them 

Breakfast Bentos and Green Smoothies

Cloth Diapering Papa

Bake Your Own Bread

Judging a Mama by Her Kid’s Behavior

Little Things That Help with HG Survival

Check out Authentic Parenting, Baby Dust Diaries, ChildOrganics, Hobo Mama, I Thought I Knew Mama, Mama and Baby Love, Mama Eve, Maman A Droit, Momma Jorje, Monkey Butt Junction, Motherhood Moments, My Inspired Baby, Navelgazing, and The Parent Vortex for more Sunday Surfing!

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What Makes You So Special?

7,000 hits is here! As is customary here at A Little Bit of All of It, we have a guest writer since we have hit another 1,000 hits. I think you are really going to enjoy our guest writer this time! Let me introduce you to Cindy Winter-Hartley. She is a proud wife of nearly 24 years and the mother of three sons. Nathan is almost 21 and attends the United States Military Academy, Aaron is 16 and has a servant’s heart for the Lord. Isaac is an athletic eighth grader and the family “ginger.” She blogs at My Awesome Olive Shoots. Be sure to check out her blog for some inspirational stuff!

Before you do one more thing today, I want to encourage you to ponder this question. What makes your family unique?

Throughout the day, whether you are changing a diaper, emptying the dishwasher, (yuck!); whether you are in a carpool or gathering a few moments of quiet in a bubble bath (wouldn’t that be nice?), devote this day to searching the qualities which make your family special.

To get you started, here are a few ideas. Are there physical features common to your family? Do you have a special ethnic heritage? What are some special skills or weird talents you share? How about foods you all like or hate? Notice things you do together, the overall personality of your family – once you begin to do this, soon you will see a family identity. This is the beginning of cultivating a rich sense of oneness in your family.

We began to create a family identity when our children were young. When our boys had high-pitched voices and no facial hair, nearly every day, we gathered around the table and sang a silly song about our family. We even had a family cheer which they all loved to do together. Sometimes we would place a globe on the table and say to them, “Do you realize that there are only five Winter-Hartley’s in the world???” Their chests would puff with pride as we would remind them how special it was to be a member of our family.

Think of your own family. Doesn’t it just humble you to pieces when you think that God, in all His wisdom, divinely choose YOU to be the parent of your child? I could still cry when I attempt to take in the privilege the Lord has given me to be the mother of my three sons. Despite all my flaws and issues which the Lord is perfectly aware of, despite my husband’s imperfections which pale in comparison to mine, the two of us were chosen to be our sons’ parents! Wow! He could have placed those babies anywhere in the world and the Lord decided to grace us with the honor of being called Mom and Dad to three splendid yet very human children! We truly have a reason to celebrate being a family and so do you.

Lest you think we encouraged our sons to be conceited, let me explain what we consistently told and remind them. Our family is no better than anyone else’s. We don’t act stuck up but we do stick together. We call our family a five-piece puzzle. The puzzle isn’t complete without each of us because we can depend on each other. Now our sons are young men. They have matured, they shave, they have big muscles and they are all taller than me. But guess what? When our oldest son comes home from college, I can still hear him tell his 14 year old brother “good night, I love you!” as Isaac drifts off to sleep. Our 16 year old middle son Aaron will be talking on his cell phone with a friend and without a hint of embarrassment tell Isaac the same thing each night. That’s the power of family identity.

One day our boys will forge out and make families of their own, I can’t wait to hear their family cheers and see their families blossom. Though our children are older, still the concept of family identity holds a prominent place in our lives.

It’s all too common to hear about the dissolution of family and personally, I want nothing to do with that notion. Neither should you. Your family is unique and wonderful, today is the day to embrace that.

10 Parenting Scriptures (via Dulce De Leche)

Natural Parents Network’s Carnival of Natural Parenting’s theme this month is Top 10 Lists. I have been loving all of them! I’ll probably end up linking up on Sunday to my favorites. This one, in particular, stuck out to me because it falls right in line with the series I have been doing on bible verses and children. For that reason, I wanted to share it with all of you. I hope it is a blessing to you as it was to me. (And if you want to check out my other posts in the series: “…Like a Father with his Children…”, “Let the Children Come to Me…” and What’s Your Super Power? (verses for nursing mothers).

via Flickr user abcdz2000

One of my deepest desires is to integrate my faith into every aspect of my life.  To be authentic in my spirituality.  Being a mom has caused me to re-examine many beliefs I had taken for granted and to be much more purposeful about how I live out my faith with my children.  These are 10 Bible passages that always inspire me and help me to breathe in grace…

Read More

via Dulce de Leche

How Did We Survive Our Childhood?

5,000 hits! This is a milestone I’m excited to celebrate with my husband as a guest writer! He blogs over at Cella’s Sweets which is also the name of his bakery. (You can check out his cool creations on Facebook.) I also wanted to do something else fun to celebrate 5,000 hits so be looking for a giveaway, too! Hope you enjoy the post!

As my daughter continues to grow up, there are tons of things that I have to worry about. I don’t mean four year old boys pulling up on their tricycles and whisking her down the hill. I’m talking bigger things, things that will keep her safe and healthy and aid her in developing mentally. Things like: is she eating enough vegetables? When do we turn her car seat around? Why doesn’t she know her times tables yet? When do I introduce her to the Mario Bros.? All these choices make me wonder one thing, HOW DID WE SURVIVE CHILDHOOD?

via photobucket user utopuluxe

I mean come on, as infants we slept on our stomachs in cribs covered in a lead-based paint. We got a little older and we rode in the back seat with the seatbelts stuck under the seat half of the time. We grew up on a steady diet of whatever fast food joint had the coolest toys at the time. None of us had “flame retardant” clothing. We had toys like Lite Brite, a toy that took a flammable piece of patterned paper and placed it 4 inches from a thousand watt bulb to make the colored dots glow. We watched cartoons that strapped rockets to a coyote on roller skates, and taught us that if you got shot in the face during “wabbit season,” the only consequence was a black face and your hair slicked back. There were chemistry sets which allowed unsupervised children to mix chemicals in a test tube to see what happens, and don’t even get me started on lawn darts and M-80s.

via cowancollectionanimation.blogspot.com

The funny thing is our parents wanted the same things we want for our children. They wanted us to be as safe and smart and healthy as possible. Phrases like, “Why don’t you go outside and play?” and, “You won’t get any dessert if you don’t eat your peas,” were heard often in my house, along with “Stop hitting your brother,” but that’s for another day. They read books to us with hidden messages like “The Cat in the Hat” (use your imagination and clean up when your done playing), and “Ferdinand the Bull” (being different is ok). They would count with us and teach us to spell. They would stay up late helping us study for those hard subjects like… spelling and math. They always made sure we were buckled in before we left the driveway…when the seatbelts weren’t stuck. What I’m getting at is that they cared.

So if our parents did care, and I can still rattle off a list of what now seems obvious dangers, what harms are we subjecting to our children? Will my daughter look back and wonder why she was allowed to play with the iPhone as a toddler, or will studies show that infants should be bound from the ankles and hung from the ceiling for optimal safety while sleeping? Fortunately, with the internet (and I’m sure our kids will look back and say “I can’t believe they put our pictures up where total strangers could see them”) information is at our disposal. There are sites that give us safety recall information so we can limit the dangers in what toys or products our kids are using. There are studies on TV’s affect on our children and sites to help them develop mentally. We can even keep track of the ever- evolving food pyramid.

I guess what I’m getting at is every generation cares for their family in the best possible manner. Our generation is fortunate in that in our Google.com era information is at our fingertips, and we have tools to protect our children like no other generation, to stimulate our children’s minds like no other and to keep our children healthy while under our care.