Entries Tagged 'Other stuff' ↓

Santa put fake press-on nails in Ainsley’s stocking and I thought my husband was being silly for being concerned. Everyone knows the stupid things won’t stay on for 6 hours and besides, it might be an effective means to get her to stop biting her nails.

In the past I might have been incensed by the idea of the whole child manicure thing, like my friend Lisa at Corporate Babysitter, but I just can’t muster it.

My kid wants to stop biting her nails. Wanting beautifully manicured nails might help her be motivated to stop the habit. Is there an actual harm or just an imagined one? I file my nails. Once in a blue moon I get a pedicure. Seems to me this IS one of those feminine things passed down from mother to daughter – the way it should be. We all pass down our beauty secrets and hygiene habits don’t we? It’s one of the privileges of the mother-daughter relationship. It’s part of what bonds us. Better me than say  . . . Disney or Playboy. A manicure and pedicure does feel good to me. It feels like self-care. Why wouldn’t it be the same for an 8-year-old girl?

OK – fine. I admit it. I promised to take her for a professional manicure at a salon and pay real money to encourage her to stop the nail biting habit that’s really bothering her (hangnails hurt) and driving her dad crazy. Is the world gonna end? NO. Is she going to transform into some hyper-sexualized diva who wants to grow up to be a Kardashian or Jenna Jamison? NO.

My husband is being transferred to Atlanta, Georgia and its time to sell our house. The house I LOVE. The house that makes me feel abundant in all the right ways and none of the wrong ways. The house I attracted with all my heart and Law of Attraction powers. Now, I have to let go of my house and attract another one. In another city. It’s harder than I thought it would be. As is the letting go of people like my awesome book club, the quiet solitude of my life, my SAHM flexibility, the free babysitters and the trustworthy and loving woman I pay for special occasions. Ouch, that’s a little tender.

I like change, usually. I think. At least I used to.

But, this is going to be quite a lot of change all at once.

I’m probably going to have to get a job. I might be changing entire careers. It’s a big vast unknown. Which is exciting. And scary.

Hey if you’re in Atlanta and you think I’d be perfect for your organization, drop me an email?

In The Way of Boys: Raising Healthy Boys in a Challenging and Complex World, Anthony Rao, Ph.D. cautions parents and educators to stop treating young boyhood as an illness.

One of the interesting things Rao says is that young boys do not naturally like eye contact.

I mentioned this at a party and a young man said, “It’s confrontational.”

Which is exactly what Rao says too. He says the males of our species are similar to other fight or flight mammals, like dogs, where direct eye contact is a direct challenge, an invitation to confrontation.

Rao says this is true for even very young infants.

Girls, he says, will soak up eye contact as intimacy and communication from their earliest moments.

Boys, naturally, will look away, take glimpses and rely heavily on peripheral vision. Often this makes teachers and parents believe boys aren’t listening to them. Often “no eye contact” is confused with a symptom of Asbergers or Autism, he says. This is simply the natural way of boys he said. Forcing a boy to make eye contact will feel emotionally terrible to them. They can work on improving how much eye contact they make, but they experience an inherent discomfort when making prolonged eye contact.

The eye contact has been a noticeable difference in my own two children. As I assume most parents have, I’ve gone through the checklist of symptoms and warnings for autism and thought, “well, he doesn’t make a lot of eye contact.”

I’ve been doing a little experiment to see how men, in general, respond to eye contact.

They look to the left, look to the right, look at the wall, look down at their papers, stare off into space, back up, blink and a few have actually spoken to me with their eyes completely closed.

Try it. It’s fascinating.

More about The Way of Boys.

Retailer rue21 profits from sexualizing girls, thinks you should, too

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Broadcasters and government officials have put the scare on about N1H1 virus reeking havoc on the new school year. There is still no vaccine.

I have only one solution to offer – Thieves. This bottle of essential oils combines the oils thieves and looters used to rob plague victims in France, without getting the plague.

This proprietary blend of Eucalyptus, cinnamon, clove, rosemary and others, was tested at Weber State University and found to have killed 99.96 percent of airborne bacteria. Rub 1 drop on your kids (don’t forget yourself and husband) or put a drop in their cereal before school and maybe they won’t get this flu virus that has everyone hollering pandemic.

I can’t promise anything, but my logic goes like this: if it can make you immune to the plague, what’s a little flu?

Email me or leave a comment and I’ll order you some for $41.78. (If I get a justifiable amount of interest I’m thinking of becoming an official distributor.)