While it is often difficult to find, at least summer child care is temporary – but it serves as a stark reminder that the issue of day care is a monumental one. If you ask them, most parents will tell you about their day care dilemmas, but for the most part, the desperate scrambling is done in silence. Thus, such a big problem often gets little mention on the national stage.

Families throughout history have relied on others to watch over their children, so this child care situation is nothing new. What is new, however, is the staggering cost of day care. Although it varies widely according to region and size of city, for most families, the cost of day care is as much or more than a house payment – and it is even more expensive for babies.

In some places, it costs more to place a child in day care than it does to pay college tuition, yet we suffer in silence. No one talks about how difficult it will be to find quality, affordable care – or how gut-wrenching it is for parents to be forced to place their children in questionable places because they have no other choice.

Despite the millions of children in day care – almost 6 million of whom are under the age of 5 – the U.S. is one of only a few industrialized nations without a high-quality, comprehensive, government-supported system of child care. Like so many issues of great importance to families, what should be a community concern (what is more important for our future than the care of our children?) is viewed as an individual problem.
What it boils down to is that this needs to become a national issue. Having sponsored day care is the only solution and a solution which most countries have already adopted and successfully implemented in their systems.

Improve eating habits:
Sit down together and eat as a family. Turn off thew TV and talk about what everyone did during the day. Make meal time enjoyable.
Serve small portions and chew slowly. A good conversation will help with this…
Instead of red meat, serve more chicken, fish, and beans.
Broil or grill foods instead of frying them
Ensure five servings of fruit and or vegetables.
Switch to whole grain breads and cereals for breakfast.
Avoid sugary items for breakfast, maybe save them for the weekend.
Most of all talk to your children about foods and drinks and or advertisements they may see which may impact their decisions making.
Ensure they are aware that TV commercials are just that, a way to make you buy those foods or drinks.

The Tiny Sparrow Foundation will soon be an established non-profit organization started by cancer survivor and passionate photographer Lidia Boicu.  Lidia has endured a grueling battle with breast cancer and knows all too well how families are impacted any and all forms of cancer, especially those families whose children are the target of this unforgiving disease.  During her journey, Lidia decided to use her love of photography as an outlet to relieve some of the frustration, anxiety, and pain she would be feeling at different times from chemotherapy and surgical procedures.  If you take just a moment to view some of her work at Oh So Posh Photography, you will see that Lidia has been blessed with an incredible talent for capturing beautiful images, precious faces, and distinct personalities.

For Lidia, it wasn’t just enough to establish herself as a talented photographer.  She wants to use her time selflessly to personally photograph children with cancer to capture a lifetime of memories for families who may not have a lifetime to spend together.  Through her Tiny Sparrow Foundation, Lidia will be able to travel to families who have children with cancer to take pictures, then provide them with a photo album, Christmas cards, and irreplaceable images.  She has already photographed precious Kate McRae and little baby Walker who are both suffering from childhood cancer.

Lidia’s fledgling Tiny Sparrow Foundation could use your support in the form of donations or just by spreading the news by word of mouth to your friends and families.  Many great projects are in the works, but they all require funding.  Lidia would like to network with other photographers so as to minimize traveling expenses.  If you know of any photographers that would be interested in donating their time and services, please use this contact form.  Lidia is simply asking anybody that is willing to help and that has it in their hearts to be part of creating some memories for families struck by the tragedy of cancer (or any other terminal illness) to donate whatever they can so she can get this started.  If not, please take the time to spread the word and visit this site for updates and stories about the development of the Tiny Sparrow Foundation.

Photos courtesy of Lidia Boicu (Oh So Posh Photography)

Preschool activities for April center around the theme of “Rain, Rain, Go Away.” It tends to be a rainy month here in Texas which also means it can be a very dangerous time of year because we have intense thunderstorms with high winds, large hailstones, and tornadoes. This is a great time to ensure that flashlights are operating with good batteries and placed in optimal locations in case of a power outage for those child care providers that operate in their home. Also, practice getting the children to a safe room such as an interior closet or bathroom. It is important to plan your evacuation route and practice it especially if you have babies and young toddlers that will require 100% of your assistance to get them to safety in the event of an emergency. Make sure that this safe room is equipped with any necessary supplies.

Below you will find preschool activities for toddlers and preschoolers. These activities include science and social studies ideas, imagination play, arts and crafts, reading and math activities, coordination and movement games, and social skills ideas.

Theme: Rain, Rain, Go Away
Letter: R, U (rain)
Number: 4
Color: Blue
Shape: Oval (Raindrop)

1. Holidays:
April 1- April Fool’s Day (wear something silly)
April 12- Easter
April 22- Earth Day

2. April Preschool Activities: Science
Teach the children how to use recyclables to make a compost in celebration of Earth Day. Explain the importance of recycling paper, glass, and plastic and how it helps our environment and planet.

Make April Fool’s Silly Putty. In a bowl, add some corn starch. Mix in some water until the mixture is the consistency of paste. Teach the children about how the mixture goes from a liquid to a solid. (Optional: Add food coloring to mixture. The color of the month is blue.)

Use the rain gauge made in arts and crafts to record the levels of rain on different days.

Go on a nature walk and see what plants, flowers, trees, leaves, and insects you can find to celebrate Earth Day. Collect some of your findings along the way.

3. Social Studies:
Research when the umbrella was first invented (about 4 thousand years ago). Who used them and for what purpose (Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese for the purpose of shade)? The Chinese were the first to make them of waterproof material.

4. Imagination:
Have the children put on raincoats, rain boots, and grab an umbrella. Pretend it is a rainy day and put down blue carpets or blue paper for puddles. The children can go around the room jumping from puddle to puddle.

5. April Preschool Activities: Arts and Crafts
Make your own Little Cloud using blue construction paper and white cotton balls. Let the child make an outline of any cloud shape, then pull-apart some cotton balls and glue them to the cloud shape.

Make a page of leaf rubbings from leaves collected on your nature walk.

Make a rain gauge using plastic soda bottles or plastic water bottles. Remove the cap and discard. Cut off the top of the bottle about 1/4 of the way down. Place the cut off top upside down in the top of the bottle. This will allow the rain to travel inside the bottle to be collected. Mark the outside of the bottle using a permanent marker in 1/2 inch increments.

Use stickers to decorate plastic Easter eggs.

6. Reading:
Read “Little Cloud” by Eric Carle. Talk about what cloud shape each child would like to be and what they like to do on a rainy day.

Read “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams. Talk about bunnies and what they like to eat and where they live.

7. April Preschool Activities: Language:
Sing “Rain, Rain, Go Away” and “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring.”

Introduce the letters and letter sounds for R and U. Have the children use blue finger paint to practice tracing over a pre-written R,r and D,d on a piece of paper.

Use an umbrella to teach the opposites of up, down and open, shut.

8. Math, Thinking Skills:
Sort plastic Easter eggs by color or have the children match halves of plastic Easter eggs to make a complete set.

9. Math, Shapes:
Place several shapes on the floor in a circle. Be sure to include a lot of ovals. Play music, as the music plays the children will walk in a circle along the path of the shapes. When the music stops, if the child is not standing on an oval, he or she will have to sit out. The game continues until there is only one child standing on an oval. You may need to remove the number of ovals as the game progresses to reduce the chances of landing on an oval.

10. Math, Counting:
Introduce the number 4 and show everyone how to hold up 4 fingers and count to 4. Let the children string 4 beads, pieces of cereal, or other objects onto a string.

11. Coordination and Movement:
Practice hopping on 2 feet like bunnies. Then challenge the children to hop on one foot at a time. This will require some good balancing skills.

12. April Preschool Activities: Social Skills
Hide the plastic Easter eggs that the children made during arts and crafts. Have each child pair up with a friend to find the Easter eggs. The children will have to cooperate to work together to find the eggs.

Well, I didn’t think I was ever going to get back to my blog.  We have had a run of viral upper respiratory junk run through our family that has kept me busy tending to my children, my husband, and myself.  I hate giving medicine to my kids or taking medicine for that matter, but sometimes you just have to.  After a couple of weeks of enduring the coughing and the hacking and the nasty, never ending supply of phlegm and snot, we kicked the virus to the curb.

Then, much to my excitement, I get a notification from Adgitize that pop-ups are not allowed.  Huh?  What?  Pop-ups?  I don’t have any pop-ups!?!  So, I type in the URL for my blog ready to prove what I already know and, yes, you guessed it, there is a stinking pop-up.  Apparently, some random, worthless individual felt they had nothing else better to do than to screw with my blog.  While I am flattered that so much time and attention has been given to inserting some inconspicuous code into my blog, I would prefer that this individual use his or her obvious grandiose intelligence for something a little more important such as finding a cure for cancer, or developing a new green technology, or even determining if there is life on other planets.

Instead, I get the lazy ass, introvert who thinks it is a form of entertainment to sneak into someone’s code and violate their blog.  Look dude, if you are seriously that bored, come to my house.  With 4 kids, there is never a dull moment and it can actually be very entertaining around here.  Or, if you prefer, sit at your little weenie computer or laptop and keep jerking people’s chains with your code hacking knowledge.

I’ve actually appreciated having the opportunity now to learn more about the worthless hacking community out there and how vulnerable wordpress blogs can be.  I thought I would share some sites with good information about protecting your wordpress blog from hacking.  Here is a site that offers a plugin that will scan your blog for possible unwanted code, you can access it here. BlogSecurity is a blog that provides information about maintaining WordPresss Security. Holy Shmoly has a great blog post entitled “Did your WordPress Blog Get Hacked?” and it provides a lot of great tips and resources.

I’m still working on improving my blog and fixing code, so please bear with me as my site will likely undergo many changes while I work to improve the security. If there is one thing I have learned through all of this, it doesn’t matter how good your blog is, if it is not secure, then it can be accessed by unwanted lurkers and all your hard work will be wasted when your wordpress blog has been hacked.

If you read my previous post (Blog or Build?), then you know that there are 2 ways to have solid web presence: a blog or a theme-based content website. While both platforms allow you to distribute content to visitors, only one platform is considered an “evergreen” that will grow and flourish over time with little maintenance. This means that to invest in a piece of the web real estate and create a web presence that will be available to visitors for years to come, you should consider developing a keyword-focused theme-based content website.

Being a mother of 4 and an in-home child care provider, I am immersed in parenting and children’s issues on daily basis. Nearly a year ago I decided that I possessed a lot of valuable information that I wanted to share with anyone that was interested in children, child care, parenting issues, and preschool education. I researched online how to best go about doing this and soon realized that, for the long-term, I would need to develop a website. Sounds easy enough, right? I mean, buy a domain, set-up hosting, and there you go.

Well, that’s great if you are already experienced in HTML, SEO, know how to build traffic, understand about link building, know how to do keyword research, and a whole host of other things. Since I wasn’t proficient in any of those areas, I dug around the internet a little deeper trying to find the right tools, system, product, software that would get me on the right path to not just building a website, but building a successful website.

I still remember the day that I found IT! Site Build It!, that is! What is Site Build It!?

Well, not to sound like a sales pitch, but here goes. Site Build It! is an all inclusive package complete with a very comprehensive Action Guide, multiple tools for research and development such as Search It! which helps you analyze and select the most profitable keywords to use in content pages, as well as many valuable resources for monetizing your site from PPC to hard goods to e-goods to affiliate programs.

For a complete tour of SBI! (I can’t do it justice here), check out the Video Tour or take a Quick Tour.

There is so much more to tell about my experience with SBI! that I can’t fit it all into just 1 post. Once you have had a chance to read about SBI!, check back for my next post to find out about the website I built using their guidance and other special features.

Why do you blog? Is is to share personal information, a daily diary of sorts? Is it to share the most current and up-to-date news about your topic? Is it to reach the masses with unique content related to a topic with which you have a lot of expertise? Is it to promote an e-business or an affiliate program?

There may be many reasons why you blog, but there are only a handful of reasons that make blogging a perfect platform for anyone trying to create genuine web presence or establish a true e-business. For example, blogging is a good foundation if you have a news-oriented site or like to post your thoughts for the day. Blogging also improves the web presence and can help to drive traffic to an established theme-based content website.

However, professional bloggers, and professional promoters of blogging, usually fail to mention the “dated-content treadmill” that they so desperately run upon every day. What happens when you stop blogging? You watch your traffic melt away. Why? Because Search Engines know that blog posts are like newspapers… good only for wrapping fish after a few days.

And, according to Google, blogs deliver a poor quality visitor. The following is a direct quote from Google Analytics 101, written by Google in April 2008…

“Blogs usually have high Bounce Rates no matter what since
normal visitor behavior is to read the newest post and then leave.”

Human visitors instinctively know that, too. Most visitors do not want to read 6 month-old news (i.e., a blog post). Theme-Based Content Sites, however, are totally different. How? To find out the answer to this question, read more and decide, “Do I Blog or Build?”

Check back to read my next post about my theme-based content site that I developed with SBI! and how I use this blog to promote it.

Applesauce cinnamon dough is a fun, creative activity for young children to explore. With just some plain applesauce and ground cinnamon, children can make play-doh that can be shaped into anything especially if they use cookie cutters.

To make the applesauce cinnamon dough, you need equal portions of plain applesauce and cinnamon. In a mixing bowl, start with 1 cup of plain applesauce. Slowly mix in 1 cup of cinnamon, a little bit at a time. If the dough is too sticky, add a little bit of flour or additional cinnamon.

After mixing the dough, let the child play with it or use cookie cutters to create certain shapes. The child’s creations can be set in a warm location such as on a paper towel placed near a sunny window to dry over the next 24 to 48 hours. However, depending on the size of the creation, it can take even longer. Be sure to allow it to thoroughly dry.

After it is completely dried out, it can be embellished in many different ways. Just use care and caution as even a dried creation can be very fragile. Consider letting the child paint, paint with glitter paint, glue on buttons or rhinestones, or use stick on foamies. The possibilities are endless. These can even be made into ornaments at Christmas time.

Not only is applesauce cinnamon dough fun to play with and make, it will continue to smell delicious for some time.

*Remind children that the dough is not for eating. Although not harmful, it will be very bitter with all the excess cinnamon.

social search

I just posted about the Baby Signs Potty Training Program yesterday and was surprised to see a story about them on Good Morning America. The University of Chicago has released new research showing that using signs and gestures with babies helps boost language development. Today, Diane Sawyer talked about this new research and mentioned the Baby Signs Program on Good Morning America! Click here to see the report!

Baby Signs®, the ORIGINAL sign language program for hearing babies, has been bringing powerful, research-proven benefits to babies and their families around the world for over 25 years. The Baby Signs® Program is the world’s leading program for hearing infants and toddlers because it is the only program that:

• was developed by child development experts specifically for hearing babies.

• has been scientifically tested and proven to provide positive benefits for babies and their families.

• is based on American Sign Language with added flexibility to meet the needs of all families.

• offers a full range of signing classes and products for babies, parents and child development centers.

The Baby Signs® Program was created by Dr. Linda Acredolo and Dr. Susan Goodwyn, child development experts and authors of the best-selling parenting books: Baby Signs, Baby Minds and Baby Hearts.

With the Original Baby Signs Program, Babies & Toddlers can communicate what they see, feel and even need! Learn More!