Easter Wreath DIY

I did this wreath last Easter.  It was one of the first crafty things I did since Penelope was born.  I remember putting her in her bumbo and letting her play with an plastic egg and she watched me while I worked. Oh, what a difference a year makes!

It was really easy to make.  I bought a wreath from Michael's for a couple of bucks. I left the plastic wrap on the wreath, but it probably would have been cuter if I had wrapped in a colorful ribbon first and then hot glued the eggs to it.

Then I just picked a spot to start and started hot gluing eggs to the wreath.  I did the colors in a specific order and tried to line it up best I could, so that no two of the same colors were touching each other.

It probably took me 30 minutes to complete.  I was worried that it wouldn't be able to stand up to the elements outside or being tossed about while in storage, but it did great last year on the door and great all year in storage.  This year some of the eggs sort of opened up but they were easy to close back up.  And really you can't even tell unless you are up close.



I also thought I would show you a picture of this little decoration I have. I didn't make it, I bought it at Target a couple years ago the day after Easter for less than a dollar.



But it would be super easy to make!  You could cut out felt petals and hot glue it to the center circle of felt.  Then you could find the wooden letters and eggs at Michael's, pain them and then hot glue it all to a gross grain ribbon!

Yoga Mama's Way to Reduce Frustration

It's been a frustrating couple of days with Penelope being so sick. She has had two colds before this, but this Roseola really threw her for a loop and she was miserable for almost a week.  Constantly crying and cranky and wanting to be held and wanting to nurse all the time.  It reminded me of a colicky newborn who just cried. all. day. long.

By the end of the week, I was at the end of my rope, and several times I had to do some serious deep breathing to keep from screaming at her.  The urge to scream was so strong!  

On top of that, Peter and I are still at each other's throat's these days. So instead of having a doting partner, once she is asleep, to help restore me after a long day.  I have another battle to fight.

So Monday night, I dove into a bottle of red wine and a box of cookies.  That got me through the evening and Tuesday I was adamant about starting fresh and remembering and implementing healthier ways to reduce my frustration.

I remembered something my energy healer/therapist told me about before I even met Peter.  She told me to rip up newspapers or paper grocery bags as a way to process and release anger and frustration.

What triggered the memory, is I had just gone to the grocery store and forgot my cloth bags so I had 10 brown paper grocery bags in the kitchen.

So I took them all down and put on the floor of the kitchen.  I told Penelope we were going to play a game and that it was going to help Mama with her anger. I told her that I have lots of frustration pent up and that I needed to get it out!!

Then I started ripping the bags as loudly and dramatically I as I could!!

I was even grunting and was sighing heavily, to entertain Penelope and in an effort to get more of the pent up negative energy out.  Penelope helped and joined in too.  Mostly, she watched me very intently.

When I ripped every last bag, I rubbed my hands together and then shook them over the pile.  I told her that we are going to shake, shake shake our anger out!  There is a song she loves, called Shake, Shake Shake your sillies out, so she thought this part was awesome.

Then we did a couple of deep breaths and Om's and cleaned up our mess.  It made me feel better and I was happy to have used this opportunity to teach Penelope how to deal with her emotions.  I want her to know that its ok to be mad, but that it needs a constructive outlet so it doesn't get taken out on somebody else.

I still needed to do some yoga, and I was thankfully able to go to a yoga class that night.

It reminded me of my two favorite yoga poses for when I am about to loose it and need to calm down.

Child's Pose and Reclined Bound Angle Pose.  Both are what I consider "close circuit" poses.  What I mean by close circuit, is that your body becomes a sort of circle or loop, and the energy meridians have an opportunity to reboot, rebalance and realign your parasympathetic nervous system.

Child's pose is so easy, but it can be difficult for some people if they have tight hips.  In that case, you can spread your knees far apart or lift your pelvis up and put a blanket under  your bottom.  You can also  stack up blankets and put them underneath your chest and lean over them if you can't actually get your head to the floor.

You can have your arms outstretched in front for an additional shoulder stretch or down by your sides.  I think arms down by your sides is more restorative and more "closed circuit".

For Reclined Bound Angle Pose lie on your back and bring the soles of the feet together.  Your feet can be as close or as far away from your body as you want them.  You can place blankets under your back and under each knee for an even more restorative version.  Then place your hands over your stomach and clasp them together somehow that is comfortable for you.

Don't you love how I am doing yoga in the middle of a mess of toys.  You know its Mama Yoga when.

Then BREATHE.

Natural Remedies for Broken Bones

Phew! It's been a rough month for Penelope medically.  Is that not the saddest picture you have ever seen?  Oh, to see her in a cast, broke my heart.

First, she broke her arm.  Then she got diagnosed with mucosa contagiousum and recently a fever that has lasted more than three days.  I want to share, in three different posts, what I have done to help treat each issue as naturally as possible and hopefully it helps some of you out there in similar situations.

So for her broken arm:

She had a Buckle fracture in her right radius.  I am not even sure exactly how she did got it. None of her falls seemed particularly disastrous, and she falls on a near daily basis. She does seem much more fearless than other toddlers, but her falls still seemed pretty normal to me. Although post arm break, she does fall less, not sure if its from me and Peter making sure we had some sort of hold on her for awhile, no matter where she walked to and constantly saying "watch your feet!" or if she was just going through a clumsy/daredevil stage.

Only when I reached out to grab her hand to put soap in it, and she let out a scream, did I realize something was wrong.  Then I noticed that her wrist was swollen.   I don't know how long it was broken before I realized it.  The Dr' seems to think that I caught it within a couple of days if not 24 hours based on the swolleness being a immediate inflammatory response.   He also said that kids get this type of fracture all the time from falling down and breaking their fall by falling forward on their arms.  He said it often goes undiagnosed and heals on its own.

Now I know to check her arms for swelling after she falls.  

Once I noticed the swelling, I immediately packed her in the car and went to the ER. Well, first I had to get gas.  I will never let my car go past a quarter tank again.  If it had been some sort of real emergency, I would have been up Shit Creek without a paddle.

We got x-rays and that was probably more traumatic then the fall itself.  They were forcing her arm to stay still in a position that was obviously painful for her, on top of her being terrified of the huge x-ray machine. Not to mention all the radiation she got from the three x-rays. I also was holding her and there was no way for me to wear the safety jacket thing, and keep her in the correct position, so that sucked too.

She got a  temporary cast and we went to the orthopedic dr. a few days later and she got a real cast with a ace bandage for the top cover instead of another layer of cast, so I could remove it for bathing (and for once daily playing in the sand box, shhhhhh).

 She kept the cast on for three weeks.  Then when she took it off I was instructed to just watch how she was with her arm, if she was using it like normal and putting weight on it.  It seems to have healed perfectly.

We didn't do a follow up x-ray, her ortho dr. said that it wasn't needed.  Thank God.  Between her broken arm and her Atlas vertebre issues she had as a newborn, she has had a total of 5 x-rays.  Their is a debate whether radiation in your body is cumulative and it never goes away or if you can eliminate through various natural dexox methods. Either way it sucks it was in her little body at all.  Can you imagine if we lived in Japan?  Sigh.


Anyway, here the natural rememdies I used to aid the bone healing process:

• upped her Vitamin D.  I gave her a Solaray chewable Vitamin D, in a lemon flavor of 2000 IU every day.  I have continued to do this.  I have no idea if this is the "correct" amount for a 16 month old, but it felt right in my gut.  
• upped her Vitamin C.  Hyland's makes a dissolvable tablet.  I give her this once a day if I remember.
• I juiced her spinach and pinapple every day for about a week.  Usually, I juice every three or four days, but I wanted to make sure she had plenty of perfect, fresh juice and so did I (so she would get in through breast milk). Spinach and other greens are natural chelators.  They bind to anything bad in our bodies and help flush them out.  They are also full of B vitamins which help restore cells. It will help her body detox the radiation and the Tylenol I gave her the first couple of days for her pain.  Pinapple has something in called bromelian in it, that reduces swelling and inflammation.  
• I rubbed an arnica cream on her arm every time I took the cast off. Later, I found out this is not enough arnica, and the tablets are needed in a case like this.
• I went to a homeopathic Dr. in town and was given a vile of Arnica, Rutta, and Calcarea Phosphorica.  He told me to give her arnica until the swelling was gone and then give rutta, and then the Cal/Phos.  
• He said that the arnica would help with the pain and I didn't need to give her Tylenol anymore.  I also gave her some Camomilla to help with the pain as well.

Here is a site that I got some of my information from.

My first thought when Penelope broke her arm is that she had some sort of calcium deficiency and her bones were weak.  I still have not gotten her calcium levels checked, because the Acupuncture Dr. I talked to about it, said that if we tested her while her arm was healing her levels would be off since her body is pulling more calcium to the bone to heal it.

When I was talking to the homeopathic Dr. he told me that Cal/phos is great for all over bone growth and spine development, for hair and nail growth and helps with teething.


Apparently, if you are calcium deficient your teeth can come in slow.

So I might be on to something, Penelope's hasn't gotten any new teeth in a long time and her molars have been huge and swollen but not pushing through for months and months. Now that her cast is off and her arm is healed we have an appointment to check her levels. I will come back and let you know what we found.

If you know of any other remedies, please share and I will add them for future reference.  Hope this helps!

Unconditional Parenting Chapter 8: Love Without Strings Attached

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Chapter 8.  Only two more chapters to go!

This was a really important chapter to read.  It is the one that had the most concrete advice about what to say and do with your children if you want them to feel loved unconditionally.

"The first step is simply to be mindful of the whole issue of unconditional parenting.  The more we're thinking along these lines, reflecting on whether the things we do and say to our kids could reasonably be interpreted as conditional affection (and if so, why), the more likely we are to change what we do."

"Second, we need to get into the habit of asking ourselves a very specific question; "If that comment I just made to my child had been made to me-or if what I just did had been done to me-would I feel unconditionally loved?"

"Even when we disapprove of what they've done and we want them to know it, our reactions should take account of the big picture-specifically, the imperative to make sure they feel loved, and lovable."

Here's how:

Limit the Number of Your Criticisms:
"If kids feel we're impossible to please, they'll just stop trying".
"But the main point is that too much criticism and disapproval may lead a child to feel unworthy."

Limit the Scope of Each Criticism:
"Focus on what's wrong with the specific action (Your voice sounded really unkind just now when you were talking to your sister) rather than implying that there is something wrong with the child ("You're so mean to people!")

Limit the Intensity of Each Criticism:
"Be aware of not only what you are saying but only your body language, your facial expression, your tone of voice.  Any of these communicate more disapproval, and less unconditional love, than you intended."

Look for Alternatives to Criticism:
"Explicit negative evaluations may not be necessary if we simply say what we see ("Jeremy looked kind of sad after you said that to him") and ask questions ("The next time you are feeling frustrated, what do you think you could do instead of pushing?)

"It may sound obvious, but we sometimes seem to forget that, even when kids do rotten things, our goal should not be to make them feel bad, not to stamp out a particular behavior out of existence. Rather, what we want is to influence our the way they think and feel, to help them become people who wouldn't want to act cruelly. And, of course, our other goal is to avoid injuring our relationship with them in the process."

Vision Boards

My friend Julie recently started up a Women's Circle and at the first gathering, everyone created vision boards.  I was sick as a dog and didn't get to go, but it inspired me to update my own vision boards by myself.


I have been making vision boards since I was 18.  Around that time, I started working with an energy healer and she suggested that I make one.  I have been hooked ever since and I try to re-do each one about every 6 months.  This is the first time I updated them since Penelope was born though.


Vision boards fall in line with positive thinking.  It's the idea that whatever you think about, is what you create.  Whatever your thoughts are, is what you manifest in your life.   If you have seen The Secret, you know what I am talking about.


I usually have two or three going at once, so that I can sort of group the themes.  I have found that the more specific your wish lists are, the better success you have in manifesting them.


Vision boards are a really fun thing to do, you get to harness your creative side and its a very mediative process.  You can just zone out and daydream.  It also makes me feel like I am doing something to achieve my goals and helps create that fire to continue to stay in action to make my dreams a reality.  If y'all know me personally, you know I like to get things done!


The picture above is my "career" board.  I keep in my craft nook area.  I have got big dreams for this blog!  Between my blog, my other ventures and network marketing business, I hope to be making an awesome living, without being away from Penelope, and being free from any financial stress and worries in the very near future.


For this one, I wrapped fabric around an empty canvas board and stapled in the back and glued the pictures to the fabric.

This one is my "house" vision board. This one changes a little bit more frequently. Usually, I post things I want for the kitchen or house or just other design ideas. I had the picture of the Ikea desk I got for my craft room on it about 4 months before I bought it. As soon I got it, I took down the picture and put something else up I am aspiring to do or have.


This one, I just pin the pictures to board.  I think I got it at Target several years ago.


In fact, I just got a great rocking chair at a garage sale a couple of week ago, it kinda looks like this.  It is a hideous pepto bismal pink color and needs to be reupholstered, but I can take down my rocking chair picture on my board and move on to the next thing I want!


I so wish I had taken pictures of the boards I did right before I was pregnant and got married.
Everything manifested almost to a T, except for the breastfeeding curve ball I was thrown. I had all kinds of pictures of water births and Mama's catching their own babies.


 And for a long time I had a separate "health" one, of fit ladies with six packs, eating vegetables and women cooking, etc. I am not perfect in that area yet, but I certainly have done a pretty good job manifesting better health in my life and the vision boards are big part of what got me where I am today.


Do you make vision boards? What's on yours right now?

January Freezer Meals

I swear, one of the best parts of cooking a ton of food in one day, is the satisfaction of laying it all out and surveying all of your hard work.

This Once A Month Cooking round, I did it at my friend Lauren's house.  She has an awesome kitchen and tons of toys and her husband works from home, so he was able to step in and pitch hit, when needed.  Although, in true husband form, he wasn't that helpful, but it was a nice idea.  She also has a learning tower.  I had been wanting one for awhile, but after spending all day in the kitchen and using hers it sealed the deal for me and we got one shortly after.

We made 6 recipes and doubled them, so we each got two containers of each recipe.  Two of the recipes, the Beef Stew and Apple Pie Porkchops, were big ah-ha moments for me. They were the only two recipes that were slow cooker meals.  So all you do is compile the ingredients, freeze it and then later dump it in the slow cooker.  How awesome is that?

Here are the links to the recipes we used:

Chicken Nuggets


Meatloaf (the recipe is in Nourishing Traditions, and its amazing).  Lauren had a great idea of smooshing the mixture into finger size portions instead of a big loaf, so that you can defrost them individually and serve to little ones for lunch.


Buffalo Shrimp


Broccoli Cheddar Soup


Beef Stew

Apple Pie Pork chops 

Has anyone else adopted freezer cooking as their main style of cooking family meals?

-Stephanie ;)

Minnie Mouse Dress

After I took this picture, she got her head stuck in between one of the gate sections.  She was very excited about the Duh-Duh-Duh (all birds that are bigger than a blue jay are ducks to her) she saw.  The Disney parade going on behind us, not so much.

I made this dress for Penelope before our trip to Disney and was so pleased with the way it turned out. It was first time I had ever made a dress with sleeves. I can't tell you how many minutes I wasted imagining her in her dress on her first trip to Disney.  It was all I hoped it would be.

I based it off this peasant blouse tutorial, except I turned it into a dress.

This is what it looks like all pieced together, inside out, with the casings for the neck and arm holes done but no elastic in them yet.

Then I cut these two strips of fabric and sewed them, right side facing out, to the inside of the dress, to make the casing for the middle of dress.  I made it a little higher than her natural waist, but not exactly an empire waist. It was perfect on her.

And let me just add, skip Magic Kingdom if you have a 1 year old. She liked It's a Small World, but really everything else was too overwhelming for her. But Epcot she loved! And Animal Kingdom even more.

Penelope the Yoga Teacher

This is one of Penelope's favorite things to do.  She likes to play yoga teacher and put her dolls into yoga positions. Oh, she makes her Mama proud.

Here she is putting Dolly into Plow Pose or maybe its Toes to Nose.

And now she is rolling her over to do Kicky Cobra.
So fascinating to see all the ways that yoga becomes intertwined in her daily life and how she expresses herself through yoga.

Just FYI, most of the baby yoga poses I post, I learned at my Itsy Bitsy Yoga training. The founder and creator, Helen Garabedian, has a great book and dvds that you can purchase to help your home practice. Or you can go to her website and try and find a class near you!

Spring Vegetable Garden Progress

Spring gardening is well underway in the Cornais backyard.   Peter actually took off the day from work today and mowed, edged, weeded, cut back our butterfly bushes and lantana and put pine straw down. It's a miracle, I know.

Our organic veggie garden is 10x30 foot and encased by cement blocks.  Making a garden out of cement blocks was a good workout, but it was such a no-brainer, no planning or cutting wood.   Just line em up, nice and straight.  It's is the lazy mans option of doing a raised bed.

On the left side, we have collard greens growing.  They did so wonderful this winter, except they weren't the tastiest greens ever.  I took this picture before we left for vacation and they have now gone to seed.  That means the center sprouts ups and flowers and it seeds itself for next year and when that happens the leaves are really bitter and no good to eat anymore.  So I will rip them out soon and compost them.  I will give that row a little compost love to refurbish the soil and get it ready for peppers, eggplants and squash.

The other two rows are two different kinds of tomatoes,  broccoli and two different kinds of parsley.  I get my plants from a local farm called Turkey Hill.

Then we planted some seeds.  I have never bothered with doing seedlings and transplanting.  I sort of view my garden as a huge experiment an have no expectations at all.  So when something does actually grow and work out, its thrilling!

We planted some carrot and sweat pea seeds and lots of zinnias.  I let Penelope shake several flower seed packages, wherever she pleased, so it will be interesting to see what turns up. It was such a nice day in the garden, my Dad was in town and helped us.  Good memories being made in the garden.

My pretty collards.  They were much more visually appealing than they were tasty. Oh well, it's all in good fun.  I love that Penelope is at an age where she can be out there with me and playing in the dirt, that is all that matters.

Here are some other cool gardening posts from some of my favorite blogs:

10 Unique Gardening Activities for Kids

How to Build a Raised Garden Bed

So tell me what's going on in your garden?

Robin Adams Photography Review and Giveaway!!

Ok, so before I tell you more about Robin Adams Photography and tell you how awesome she is, we must all have a moment to soak in how stinkin' cute my daughter is. I mean, really. Is she not the cutest baby you have ever seen in your life? I know, I know, after your own, but come on, tell me how much you love her fat rolls and big blue eyes!

Ok, now that we have that taken care of. On to the fabulousness of Robin.

I have known Robin since 2006. I am not quite sure how we met or who sought who out, but we came fast business partners/friends. When I had the yoga studio in Manor @ Midtown, she rented space from me and shot her indoor sessions at the studio.

She has taken pictures of our engagement, our wedding, our pregnancy portraits and portraits of Penelope at 6 days, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months. The albums she created for us from our sessions are my most prized possesions. Even Penelope loves to look at them, on a near daily baisis.

Simply said, Robin is an AMAZING photographer. One of the best in town, hands down.

I know photography can be an expense that most families can't afford, but the way I feel about having professional pictures taken is the same way I feel about buying organic foods. You need to make it a priority in your life and make sacrifises in other areas. You will never get these years back and to have amazing pictures of your little one is priceless.

To help more families take advantage of the luxury of professional portraits, Robin came up with an ingenius plan.

It's call the Wee Plan and you can check it out here.

The Wee Plan includes:

-Eight Sessions of one child, including a session with the entire family

-25 birth announcements or birthday invitations

-A 11x14 black matted album with 24 8x10 photos

-30% Discount on all standards prints up to 11x14

The Best Part
In March only, the Wee Plan is just $295. . . a savings of $100!

In honor of the launch of the Wee Plan (and in honor of the blog's name change and new facebook page!) Robin has graciously offered to giveaway a free portrait session for a family of four and two 5x7 prints ($190 value). 

Yes, that's right, I said a FREE PORTRAIT SESSION and TWO 5x7 PRINTS!!!

How freaking cool is that!? So sorry to all my out of town readers, this one is only open to local readers.  But don't fret, more awesome giveaways are coming your way!!

So what do you do to enter??

MANDATORY ENTRY:  Like our new Facebook page!
You must be a Mama and Baby LOVE Google Follower to participate.

EXTRA ENTRIES

Must include email address if not listed in profile. Each entry must be a separate comment.

* Tweet about this giveaway for 1 entry per day!

* Blog about this Giveaway on your blog and provide post URL.

* Post about this Giveaway on Facebook and tag Healthy Mama, Healthy Baby.

Good luck everyone! Giveaway will run until 3.31.11! I will use random generator to pick a winner and will email the winner and announce it here on the blog. The winner will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be announced.


DISCLAIMER: I was not paid for this post. Thank you, Robin Adams Photography for allowing us to review your products and for the awesome giveaway. If you are interested in having me do a review and giveaway for your business or product, or about our advertising pricing, send me an email at info at mamaandbabylove dot com.

This Moment: Spring Has Sprung

These are pictures of one of our plum trees in our edible back yard, taken yesterday.   Now if I could only get our lazy Japanese Magnolia's to bloom, I'd really be happy!

Happy Spring!  Well, if you are in North Florida, like me, where Spring comes in Febuary. :)

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 7, Principles of Unconditional Parenting

Here are my favorite quotes from Chapter 7.

"Very specific suggestions, ("When your child says x, you should stand at location y and use z tone of voice to utter the following sentence...") are disrespectful to parents and kids alike.  Raising children is not like assembling a home theater system or preparing a casserole, such that you need only follow an expert's instructions to the letter.  No one-size fits all formula can possibly work for every family, nor can it anticipate an infinite number of situations."

"It's harder to make sure children feel loved unconditinoally than it is to just love them."

"It's harder to respond to them in all their complexity than it is to focus just on their behaviors.  It's harder to try to solve problems with them, to give them reasons for doing the right thing (let alone help them formulate their own reasons), than it is to control them with carrots and sticks. "Working with" asks more of us than does "doing to."

Unconditional Parenting Guiding Principles:

1. BE REFLECTIVE
As Piet Hein, the Danish poet and scientist, put it "The errors hardest to condone in other people are one's one."  In short: Be honest with yourself about your motives, Don't stop being troubled by things you do that really are troubling.  And be alert for signs that the way you interact with your children may have drifted toward a controlling style without you even being aware of it."

2. RECONSIDER YOUR REQUETS
"Here's a very unsettling possibility: Perhaps when your child doesn't do what you're demanding, the problem isn't with the child but with what it is you're demanding."

3. KEEP YOUR EYE ON YOUR LONG-TERM GOALS.
"The good news is that when parents do manage to keep their broader objectives in view-indeed, when they focus on anything more ambitious than just getting their kids to obey right this instant-they tend to use better parenting skills and they get better results."

4. PUT THE RELATIONSHIP FIRST
"Being right isn't necessarily what matters. In fact, it matters very little lif your children stiffen when you walk into a room."

5. CHANGE HOW YOU SEE, NOT JUST HOW YOU ACT
"Moreover, to see children's behavior as a teachable moment invites us to include them in the process of solving the problem, which is more likely to be effective."

6. R-E-S-P-E-C-T
"Even parents who obviously love their children don't always act as though they respect them.  Some sound snide or sacrcastic.  They write off their kid's requests, dismiss their feelings of anger, or trivialize their fears.  They interrupt their kids in a way they wouldn't dream of doing to another adult, yet they become incensed when their kids interrupt them.  And they may also talk abou their children in a belittling way"  "Oh, she's just being a prima donna." or "Just ignore her when she acts like that."

7. BE AUTHENTIC
"I don't mean that we should disclose all the intimate details of our lives to our children. Some things we don't tell them until they're old enough, and some things we'll never tell them.  But there's a dimension of genuineness that's missing in the way that some parents act with their kids, and that absense can be keenly felt even if the children can't quite identify what's lacking in, or not quite right about, the relationship"

"My advice is to make a point of apologizing to your child about something at least twice a month.  There are two reasons to apologize. It sets a powerful example. It makes no sense to force children to say their sorry when they are not.  A far more effective way to introduce them to the idea of apologizing is to show them how it's done."

8. TALK LESS, ASK MORE
"Maybe we were so busy trying to get them to see our point of view that we didn't really hear theirs.  To be a great parent is more a fucntion of listening than explaining."

"Our job is to create a sense of safety, to listen without judgment, to make sure they know they won't get into trouble for telling us what they've done or be condemned for what they feel."

9. KEEP THEIR AGES IN MIND
"For example, when a baby starts to cry because you removed an inappropriate item she was playing with, it's fine to distract her with a new game or toy.  But distraction is ineffective and even insulting when applied to an older child, just as it would be if you complained about something that was bothering you only to have your spouse try to change the subject."

10.ATTRIBUTE TO CHILDREN THE BEST POSSIBLE MOTIVE CONSISTENT WITH THE FACTS.
"We usually don't know for sure why a child actedthe way he did." And our beliefs about those reasons can be a self-fulfilling prophecy."

11. DON'T STICK YOUR NO'S IN UNNECESSARILY
" When you come right down to it, the whole process of raising a kid is pretty damned inconvenient, particularly if you want to do it well.  If you're unwilling to give up any of your free time, if you want your house to stay quiet and clean, you might consider raising tropical fish instead."

"People don't get better at coping with unhappiness because they were deliberately made to unhappy when they were young."

12. DON'T BE RIGID
"A foolish consistency is the hallmark of ineffective parenting."


I think this is such a powerful list!

When I read this list, I think it can be applied to our relationships with our spouses, our friends and our family.  Our relationship with our children is no different.

When I read this list and think of how I parent, I think, no problem, this is so easy! I can easily treat Penelope with respect and be self reflective in my parenting style.  But when I read this list and think of my relationship with my husband, I think, there is a lot we could both implement to better our relationship.

What do you think about this list?