ABC's of love as it relates to children

Psychiatrist Louis B. Cady of Evansville, Indiana, gives us the ABC’s of love as it relates to our children. When I read this I knew that I wanted to share it with my readers. Enjoy!

Accept your child–not as perfect, not as a “model,” but as a basically good kid.

Be there! You can’t be absent all the time, nor can you show your interest or love for your child if you aren’t present. Be there for football games, dance recitals and the like.

Care for your child. Even when s(he) messes up!

Discipline; don’t punish. It takes “guts” to discipline; it only takes a “wimp” of a parent to let kids get by with anything.

Expect the best: Generally, you’ll get what you expect (bad or good).

Family–the center around which the child’s life should revolve. School, friends and games are the “planets” which should circle around the “sun” of the family.

God/Spiritual - pick yours carefully; there will ALWAYS be a “god” of something in your and your family’s life. Make sure it’s a good one. This doesn’t mean you have to be a ”super-Christian” or go to church seven days a week. It DOES mean that you must instill some sense of spirituality, moral order, and ethics in your child.

Honesty–the bedrock of good character. Make sure you demonstrate it by example.

Interest–in your child. If you aren’t interested, the friendly local drug pusher will be.

Joy– in raising children, watching them develop, being a part of their lives, seeing them turn out as wonderful adults.

Kindness–in discipline and relationships with your kids. Avoid harshness or punitiveness.

Listen! Frequently, YOU are wrong. You are a parent, not God, and certainly not infallible.

Motivate–don’t intimidate.

NO to negativity! Be positive! Any dummy can be negative about things that anyone else does, especially kids. Look for the good in your child and emphasize it. Things that are focused on and emphasized get bigger and stronger.

Open to questions and concerns of your child; be open to examine your own actions and motivations, as well.

Practice (makes perfect); you can mess up, and you don’t have to be perfect. Just don’t make a habit of it. Learn from your mistakes.

Question; interact–your child will not always tell you unless you ask and demonstrate interest.

Reason with your teenager; don’t demand or command arrogantly when there is a disagreement. If you must, discipline, but not until you have attempted reason.

Say your feelings–your child is not telepathic. It’s also important to frequently “say” your feelings of love and affection.

Touch–your child with hugs and kisses. Hugs are appropriate for virtually all ages. Don’t be embarrassed, and don’t get out of the “HUG HABIT”!

Unity–as a family. Don’t allow splits or divisions to develop between warring “factions.”

Value your time together–you won’t have it forever.

Wonder at the priceless gift of your lives together–you will value it more and do more with it.

X marks the spot for your treasure: the home and your family.

You–the critical person who must show your efforts, caring, affection, interest, honesty. Don’t wait to respond; INITIATE!

Zero— the serious problems you will have in your and your teenager’s life if you follow these principles.

Cookie on a Stick

It has been ages since I made a cookie bouquet. I had given up on making the right consistency royal icing (that didn't use raw egg white) for the cookies with unfamiliar Australian ingredients. But, I found a recipe I could use... from www.sweetopia.net

Royal Icing Recipe

Ingredients:

6 oz (3/4 cup) of warm water

5 Tablespoons Meringue Powder

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 kilogram (2.25 lbs.) powdered icing sugar

*** Note; if your meringue powder has no vanilla flavour (vanillin powder) in it, add a teaspoon of clear vanilla to this recipe.

Directions:

1. In mixer bowl, pour in the warm water and the meringue powder. Mix it with a whisk by hand until it is frothy and thickened…about 30 seconds.
2. Add the cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds more.
3. Pour in all the icing sugar at once and place the bowl on the mixer.
4. Using the paddle attachment on the LOWEST speed, mix slowly for a full 10 minutes. Icing will get thick and creamy.
5. Cover the bowl with a dampened tea-towel to prevent crusting and drying.
6. Tint with food colourings or thin the icing with small amounts of warm water to reach the desired consistency.

I used Pavlova Magic for the meringue powder- it was the closest I could get! And I halved the recipe, which was still too much. Aand... when I divided it up to color, I used liquid food colorings, because that is all that is readily available!

Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

~3 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1 c. soft butter

1 c. sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together into bowl. In separate large bowl, cream butter and sugar.

2. Beat eggs, then vanilla and lemon into butter mix. Then mix in flour. Refrigerate until firm.

3. On floured surface, roll out dough to ¼ inch thick and cut with cookie cutters. Bake 8 minutes or until golden. Decorate with icing.

Icing: Mix sugar and vanilla. Add enough water to make a stiff icing, color. Decorate cookies.

Here's my finished product! I made these for a friend's baby shower.

Desert Rose

It's blooming!

Wikipedia article on Desert Roses

Adventures in Babywearing

So, it seems the way to get stuff done around the house is 'babywearing.'

From Wikipedia:

Dr. William Sears, a pediatrician, coined the phrase attachment parenting. One of Sears' principles of attachment parenting is babywearing and he attributes many benefits to babywearing and the in-arms style of parenting.

Benefits of babywearing include:

* Mothers' oxytocin is increased through physical contact with the infant, leading to a more intimate maternal bond, easier breastfeeding and better care, thus lowering the incidence of postpartum depression and psychosomatic illness in the mother.[2]

* Infants who are carried are calmer because all of their primal/survival needs are met. The caregiver can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, tasted, provide feeding and the motion necessary for continuing neural development, gastrointestinal and respiratory health and to establish balance (inner ear development) and muscle tone is constant.[3]

* Infants are more organized. Parental rhythms (walking, heartbeat, etc.) have balancing and soothing effects on infants.

* Infants are "humanized" earlier by developing socially. Babies are closer to people and can study facial expressions, learn languages faster and be familiar with body language.[4]

* Independence is established earlier.[3]

* Attachment between child and caregiver is more secure.[5]

* Decreases risk of positional plagiocephaly ("flat head syndrome") caused by extended time spent in a car seat and by sleeping on the back. Sleeping on the back is recommended to decrease the risk of SIDS. Cranial distortion resulting from non-vehicular time in car seats has shown to be more severe than in children who develop plagiocephaly from back-lying on a mattress.[6] Concern over plagiocephaly has also led the American Academy of Pediatrics to recommend that infants “should spend minimal time in car seats (when not a passenger in a vehicle) or other seating that maintains supine positioning." [7] None of the babywearing positions require infants to lie supine while being carried. Infants can even be worn while they sleep, also decreasing sleeping time spent in a supine position.

Studies of parent-child attachment, parental satisfaction and infant crying all point to babywearing as an ideal solution for most parents to provide an optimum environment for attachment between parent and child. Baby carriers and slings help increase the number of hours of day an infant is held, and there is an inverse relationship between the number of hours spend crying and the number of hours a child is held in a given day. Even 3 hours per day of babywearing reduces infant crying significantly, and at 13 months, babies who have been in soft carriers regularly are significantly more likely to be securely attached than babies who are carried in hard carriers.[8]

We've tried a few different kinds of baby carriers and none really seemed to do the trick. I found a link (http://crunchywannabe.blogspot.com/2009/02/5-minute-5-no-sew-baby-wrap.html) that demonstrated how to make a baby wrap, so I tried it. Asher loves it so far! We'll see how it goes....

Cookie Challenge

I've given myself the challenge this year of cooking each of the cookie recipes from my trusty
BHG cookbook, which my Dad gave me before I came to Australia.

There are 86 recipes, and it is already April... and I have only cooked three. However, those three have been fantastic! The first one...

Lemon Bars

Ingredients:

1/3 cup margarine or butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs (4 eggs)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (4 tbsp)
2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel (4tsp)
3 tablespoons lemon juice (3 tbsp)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder (1/2 tsp)
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat margarine with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add 1/4 cup of the sugar. Beat until combined. Beat in the 1 cup of flour until crumbly. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 8x8x2-inch baking pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 to 18 minutes or just until golden.

Meanwhile, combine eggs, the remaining sugar, the 2 tablespoons flour, lemon peel, juice, and baking powder. Beat for 2 minutes or until thoroughly combined. Pour over hot baked layer.

Bake in a 350 degree oven about 20 minutes more or until lightly browned around the edges and center is set. Cool on a wire rack. If desired, sift powdered sugar over top. Cut into bars. Makes 20.

MY NOTES: I doubled the filling- it just didn't seem like enough to me, probably because I was using a larger pan, which is why some of the ingredients are (in parenthesis and bold). Also, I didn't realize the centers would look uncooked- but they are cooked. Just lovely and soft.

I didn't take a picture, so here is one from BHG-

Which is actually very close to what mine looked like! Success!

8 week vaccinations

Dave's in Queensland, he had to fly out with an ear infection and the beginnings of a cold. Today I had to take Asher to get vaccinated. There is a student in school here who is allergic (and severely anaphylactic) to a heap of foods- eggs fish, shellfish, dairy, nuts- and the parents (I've heard) blame it on vaccines. And some celebrity child has autism because of vaccines. So I looked into it- alternative schedules and all that. This article helped-
The Problem with Dr Bob's Alternative Vaccination Schedule

The risks associated with vaccines are small, and I wonder if the babies who had bad reactions were predisposed in some way?

Anyway, all by myself, I took Asher to get his shots. He cried for all of 5 minutes, I had a few tears- Asher kept looking in my face and crying and I couldn't make it better. He's been unsettled and clingy all afternoon, only sleeping in my arms. Poor thing.

On a random note, here's a photo of Asher dressed as a dinosaur!

His ear is imprinted on my arm...

These last few days Asher has been a bit clingy. He seems to have hit a patch of refluxing... refluxation... something. Sir Spews-a-lot. Mister Cries-more-than-usual. Consequently, he's uncomfortable, and wants cuddles. I haven't gotten much done in the last few days beyond comforting, patting, burping, feeding, and the like. According to the books, he's still too young to be 'spoiled'- he's still developing his trust and attachments.

This morning, for example, he's been in my arms all but about an hour when I put him down for a nap and he woke up crying. He feeds, falls asleep for a bit, wakes up enough for a quick 'snack' to make sure everything is still there, then drifts back of to sleep. Or he wakes up whimpering, spews, gets cuddled, and drifts back off.

Those of attachment-parenting theory would say that, in many (most?) countries around the world, babies are carried close to their mums and don't feed at certain times or sleep alone. When I see how much more comforted Asher is when he wakes up crying in my arms (as opposed to his bassinet), or when I see how much more easily and deeply he sleeps when his bassinet is beside the bed... I wonder if they have a point.

So, now Asher's ear is imprinted on my arm where he's been laying on it.

2 Months Old

USA trip!

We've booked our flights back to the USA. It is a bit confusing to explain, so here we go:

Asher and I will fly to Perth on the 25th of May, which is a Wednesday. That Thursday I have an appointment at the US Consulate to register Asher's birth and apply for a social security card and his American passport.

Dave will fly to Perth Friday the 27th of May.

We will fly to the US (Perth to Sydney to Dallas) leaving on Saturday the 28th of May and arriving on the 28th of May. We're time travellers, y'all!

Dave will leave the US on the 16th of June. Yes, the day before our 5th anniversary. Oh well. I leave the US on the 27th of July, I think. So Asher and I will be in the US for 2 months, Dave for 3 weeks.

Do all babies?

Asher has recently started smiling... while feeding! He's so cute. He smiles at other times, too, we can spend ages making him smile.

6 weeks

We had our 6 week check-up on Wednesday!

in the last 6 weeks Asher has:

• grown 8 cm (3.15 inches)
• gained 1.769 kilograms (3.89 lbs)
• has a 5cm bigger head (around 2 inches)

and milestones:

• grins big toothless grins
• sucks on his hand
• has poo-exploded out of his diaper
• follows objects with eyes/head
• had his first bottle of expressed milk
• practices grasping with his hand- the first time I felt his hand grabbing at my tummy while feeding I thought it was a bug or something crawling on me!
• sleeps for a 5 hour stretch at night
  

and likes:

• baths and showers
• laying on the washing machine when its running
  
• staring at random things- the turtle on the bouncer
• the noah's ark mobile above his change table
  
• the 'comforter' that goes in his bassinet when he sleeps (which I stuff down my shirt periodically to give mommy-scentedness)
• the funny noises Dave makes to him
• being read to
• sleeping in public, loud places

Last week (after my trip to Perth) we started a bedtime routine- feed, bath, pyjamas, story, bassinet, tuck in, comforter, bellyrub, prayer, kiss goodnight. And so far, he lays in the bassinet quietly until he goes to sleep!

Too Cool For Words

Asher has been giving us big gummy open-mouthed grins. He finds it amusing to grin just before and after a photo!

Daddy and son.
To cool for words. All the foot photos wore him out!

A shoe on his head

The shoes were a bit too big for his feet so we put one on his head instead.

Leavin' on a jet plane

Asher and I flew to Perth this week so I could take my citizenship test (I passed, by the way, but am not yet a citizen, more on that later).

I caught the last flight out of Exmouth before the cyclone hit. It was very crowded, and the flight attendants were quite busy as their computers were having trouble and they needed to manually check in many passengers. The man in the seat next to me, an Austrian going home from the oil rigs, was going to visit his 6 month old grandson in Sydney. He was very kind and held Asher for me while I stuffed my bags in their appropriate places. Since it was a small airline, and a short flight, I had to hold him the whole way as I didn't pay for a seat for him (just 2 hours though).

Much of time in Perth was spent shopping for Asher- buying clothes for the rest of the year as there isn't anyplace to buy children's clothes in Exmouth. I was very grateful Dave's dad, Ian, was able to come with me and help push the pram or shopping trolley. Too much shopping! Thursday I sat the citizenship test.

45 minutes was allocated to take the test, I whizzed through it in about three minutes (my hidden talent: speed reading). I only missed one question, but I don't know which one it was! Next they will mail me a letter saying I passed and my application was approved, then they will invite me to a citizenship ceremony. After I attend the citizenship ceremony I will be a citizen.

The US doesn't encourage dual citizenship, but doesn't prevent it. Asher is an Australian citizen but I am working on getting his American citizenship, too.

The flight back to Exmouth was much easier- less crowded, I had an empty seat next to me, the flight attendants were helpful. Asher didn't cry on the flight to Perth and on the flight home he just cried a few times. People said they were surprised there was a baby on the plane! Yay for Asher!

What's in a name?

So, how did we choose Asher David's name?

Asher- Asher \a-sher\ as a boy's name is pronounced ASH-er. It is of Hebrew origin, and the meaning of Asher is "happy". Biblical: Asher, the eighth son of Jacob, was promised a life blessed with abundance.

We had a hard time choosing a Biblical name that wasn't already in use by someone we knew!

David \d(a)-vid\ as a boy's name is pronounced DAY-vid. It is of Hebrew origin, and the meaning of David is "beloved". Biblical: one of the most remarkable personalities in the Scriptures. David was a shepherd, musician, poet, soldier, statesman, prophet, and king. He wrote about half of the Psalms and very likely composed music for them as well. He is the only David mentioned in the Bible; his name occurs there more than a thousand times.

Davis is my husband's first name and my brother's middle name.

When Asher's mom (in the Bible) gave birth to him, the verse reads 'Then Leah said, “How happy I am! The women will call me happy.” So she named him Asher.'