children
Children: Our most valuable natural resource.
Son of a mother
Mommy and son. Not only is he my son but he is my first son. The love of my life with the love of my life?! Through trail and error our wonderful baby boy came about. As stated in previous articles , it was difficult for me to conceive. This moment captures the joyous love and admiration for our beautiful baby boy that finally was conceived that I had for him. It was immaculately exciting.
By Butterfly Nation 5 years ago in Families
At What Age Should You Teach Your Child About Money?
At what age should you teach your child about money? The answer is the sooner the better. I started teaching my son about money and finance at the age of 5 and now he’s conscientious about shopping. When he was 4, I took him to the opening of Cars Land at Disney California Adventure Theme Park. It was Christmas time, so the park was all decked out in Disney holiday cheer. We were staying at the Hilton and I almost forgot that we needed to have cookies for Santa Claus.
By Diane Stewart5 years ago in Families
Beat Parental Boredom: 5 Shows You’ll All Love
It’s 6am. You’re about to start Peppa Pig for yet another session on the Netflix carousel and maybe, just to stop your brain dripping out of your ears, you’ll get to mix it up with Octonauts before cognitive damage really sets in.
By Dominic McGowan5 years ago in Families
You are my true mom
She is your mother you raised her! Dearest Susan, You are not at fault for our childhood. I know I tell you “she is your mother you raised her.” I do not mean you are responsible. I am half joking because you were the first born. None of us could control the evil that came from her. Your love and kindness is what saved me. Your ever so urgent reply to her anger spared us, your little siblings so much pain.
By Emily Elaine Janey5 years ago in Families
My First Experiences as a Mother
I am a first time mother to my sweet beautiful baby boy whose name is Emmanuel Joshua Garcia. I never regret becoming a mother and I am so overjoyed of having a beautiful son. However, acknowledging the hardships that come with being a mother does not mean I wish I wasn’t one. Sometimes it seems we are not allowed to talk about the hard things that comes with being a mother. Even though there are hard things that come with it I wouldn’t change it for anything else in the world. The day that I had my baby boy I was induced because I had developed gestational diabetes and my baby was becoming very large. I have never felt period cramps in my life, guess I am one of those lucky girls who never experienced them. Once my water broke, I had strong cramps, but it was a continuous pain without breaks. My sister said that when you get induced the labor pains are more continuous not sure if she is right but it did happen to me. My husband looked concerned. I decided I would take the epidural once I was 5 centimeters dilated, and let me tell you that epidural worked like magic on me. Before my husband left the room he saw me in agony and pain. Once he came back after getting the epidural shot he said I looked like a completely different person. The epidural got rid of the pain fast but my entire bottom part of the body fell asleep, and it felt weird but I def preferred it over being in pain. Once it came to 10 centimeters dilated and it was time to push, I pushed and only ten minutes into it and I heard my baby’s first cry. It felt unreal, I was shocked and I could not believe that baby is my baby and that he just came out of me. It just felt like a dream like it wasn’t real. I knew right away I would love this baby so much, it’s a love I have never felt before. I genuinely believe that I would take a bullet over this baby. The first couple weeks were absolutely difficult. I was not making enough breast milk and initially I wanted to exclusively breastfeed only as I knew that was the most natural and healthy way to feed my baby. However, I never produced enough milk to satisfy my babies hunger, so I constantly had him on my breast and my baby was constantly crying. I kept advising the nurses that I don’t think I was making enough breast milk and they would just tell me to continue breastfeeding. It was so difficult, I lost an entire week of not sleeping from morning to night pretty much. I’d be lucky if I slept two hours atleast. All that could have been avoided if I gave him formula since the beginning only because I didn’t produce enough breast milk. What eventually happened was that I was overwhelmed, stressed out because the baby was on my breast and still crying so much. I took him to the pediatrician and he advised me that his jaundice levels were dangerously high and that it can affect something in his brain. Apparently newborn babies are commonly born with jaundice, and the way that they get rid of it is by pooping. But since my baby was starving he never pooped anything out. I had to have him hospitalized, and luckily they let me stay with him, but again I was extremely exhausted as I couldn’t even get enough sleep in a hospital. While in the hospital I could not breastfeed him because he was in a box with a bunch of blue lights. I was only allowed to pump or give formula. I decided to try both, I gave him formula when I was unable to pump and I tried to pump a bit as well. If I had given him formula at the beginning then the baby might not have had such high jaundice because he would have been eating enough. I tried to pump but sometimes didn’t make enough so I would also feed him formula and breast milk. He quickly got well again in no time and even gained some weight. I was so happy to see that my baby was finally feeling a lot better after all this. Now I continue to formula feed for the most part and partially breastfeed sometimes. As mothers we go through so many body changes, so many things that we have to go through and we got to take care of a little one 24/7 of every single day. We don’t need to hear from other people that we are not doing the right decision with our babies when it comes to feeding. Many people can look at me and judge me for not exclusively breastfeeding but have no idea why I started to formula feed. Mothers need support and a reminder that you are awesome and are doing the best you can sometimes. Formula feeding is something that is looked down upon. however, mothers formula feed for many reasons, and some mothers don’t have the mental stability they need when exclusively breastfeeding because let me tell you that breastfeeding can be hard. So let’s try to be there for each other and not judge another mother because she decided to feed her baby differently. I am so happy that my baby is healthy and thriving as a normal baby should, and glad I decided to formula feed as well because in my case that was the best decision since I was unable to exclusively breastfeed. If you are a mother, remember that you are a beautiful, amazing woman 💙
By Anamaria Garcia5 years ago in Families
The paradigm of infant sleep is sending parents insane.
Did you know that you don't have to sleep train a baby? Did you know that sleep is as developmental as walking or talking? Did you know that the sleep training industry makes millions every year by exploiting desperate, sleep deprived parents?
By Jessie Waddell5 years ago in Families
Despair
First, when I tell these stories I don't do it for sympathy, I have made bad choice in my life. I tell these stories to help anyone who thinks they can't escape their situations. One night I came home from work and he was watching the kids, which I believe the kids kind of watch themselves to be honest. Sad but true. Again drunk he had this thing where he would tell me to come here. He would do this to hurt me and not in front of our kids I always knew what I was walking into but it would be worse if I didn't just go in there, I can't even tell you how this started, the fight escalated so fast sometimes I didn't even know what was going on. Somehow he had got me down on the floor and was on top of me choking me I believe this is the one true time I thought that I was going to die, I thought for a moment I was gasping for my last breath I thought for sure it was. I really am dying, going out like this. Life really does pass through your mind when you think you are about to die, I was laying there thinking about my babies I had a son that was about five at this time, and my twin girls about three, I was begging for help, as sad as it sounds I had written letters out to my children months before telling them I was sorry if I wasn't strong enough to make it through one of these rough times. I had thought about these notes and was thankful I wrote them. Then I believe I was heard begging for help. I took a deep breathe for air and couldn't get it with my eyes closed and said "I love you" with all my heart, about that time my son busted through the door and seen his daddy hurting m.He jumped on his back hitting him, my son repeating himself "Quit hurting my Mommy" I could see his little hand swinging back and forth hitting his dad with all of his might, trying to protect me. That was enough to make his dad turn around and push my son off, I leaned up as far as I could open my mouth and bit his dad so hard on the chest, I could taste the blood in my mouth. I then turned to tell my son to run as fast as he could. I got free because he was worried about his chest and I grabbed my daughters and ran. When I got to the car my son kept saying "Mommy go! Mommy go!" and continues to say "I got your keys, I did good right?". I put them in the car and said "Yes baby, You did good.". Still today as I write this, I cry wishing I didn't put my kids through this. I had always thought of these of negative experiences, but this was building up strength for me to leave and prove that we would be happy and successful. I was going to work ten times harder to prove to my kids we could be happy, and show them that life is better than I was providing for them at this time. The things my children went through made them grow up so much faster than children there age. This hurts from time to time, but my children are happy then they have ever been. The best thing about the obstacles we went through my children never look at failure just little defeats. So they push themselves for those extra achievements, the don't ever judge anyone because they know behind those smiles may be a person seriously hurting but, strong like they had to be.
By Lizzy Allen5 years ago in Families
The Girl that Loved Rice
Mei loved to eat rice. In Hong Kong, everybody eats rice, but Mei ‘loved’ it. The truth is Mei loved to eat…period. Before she went to school, she always had a big bowl of congee (rice soup). Her mother made sweet rice cakes for her. Mei ate one or two on the way to school. All day long, she ate rice. It was no wonder she was getting quite plump. Most Chinese people were slim because they ate lots of vegetables and fish. Not Mei. You never saw her without a rice cake, candies made from rice, sweet, colored, sticky rice balls, rice and pork wrapped in banana leaves, or some other rice snack.
By Robert Taylor6 years ago in Families
