Counter Assertion

I always thought about the day when my wife would go into labor, and I would have to put all of the things that I have learned into action. One of which, one that planned out months in advance was the trip to the hospital. You have to take into account the time of day, traffic conditions, road closures and detectors, and the direction of the wind. I would time different routes as I drove to the hospital, where the Lamaze classes were, so I had a good idea of what routes to take and how long each one would be at different times of day. I also studied where all the police like to sit, and avoided those spots. I always thought in my head, that when the day came, we would hop into the car, and drive extremely fast but careful to the hospital, trying not to go through every light, or being chased by the cops, arriving at the hospital just in time, safely and ready for an interesting day ahead. But this is really is not the case. You will need to be on your toes and quick, but there is no need to think about traffic conditions or other possible scenarios, after all, all that should be in your thoughts is the precious and fragile cargo that is in the back of your car.

Still I could not stop wondering what would happen if on m way I would get pulled over, while driving fast to get to the hospital, so I did some looking around. Here is what I found in the net. I found that most officers that pull people over while in labor are very lenient, and will just tell you to slow down. Some of the officers will actually have you follow them to the hospital. There are dozens of stories of the officers actually delivering the baby themselves. For the most part, just be nice to the officer, and when he sees your wife in labor, he will be more than willing to help out any way he can.

Throughout the year, many days of celebration are tucked capriciously into the calendar. So much so, it is hard to find any day of the year where something or someone is not being observed, which has benefited the greeting card company, you can be sure. I’m not positive, but I think they’ve had a great deal to do with designating these days.

Some days are celebrated a little more enthusiastically than others. The Fourth of July has firecrackers; Halloween has funny and scary costumes, not to mention bags of candy; and Christmas boasts the Christmas tree and jolly old St. Nick with all his presents, and it is hard to compete with Christmas parties when it comes to celebrations.

And we come to Mother’s Day. According to experts, more telephone calls are placed on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year. Also, try to walk into a restaurant and get a seat on that certain Sunday.

There is a theory, which I subscribe to personally, stating the reason Father’s Day is so lame is because so much has been spent on Mother’s Day, there is nothing left.

I think there should be a rule that says, whatever Mother’s Day costs fathers, mothers should spend on Father’s Day. This would do one of two things; decrease Mother’s Day or puff Father’s Day spending. Personally, I’m in favor of puffing.

Perhaps with some effort, Father’s Day could be a little more exciting. And I’m not saying this just because I’m a father. Well, maybe I am, but if I don’t who will?

Fathers in general are rather humble and hesitant to speak about themselves. Contrary to popular opinion, every father knows talk is not cheap, and because he has spent so much on Mother’s Day, he simply is practicing good manners and shuts up.

However, every father needs to know he is truly appreciated by his family. Although you cannot buy a father, it is possible to rent him on occasion.

I’m in favor of celebrating Father’s Day “any which way you can.” It really doesn’t matter to the father involved. Any father would consider his child a “million dollar baby” if he or she would just give a Father’s Day card to him, along with a nice hot cup of coffee while sitting in his favorite chair reading the newspaper. Nothing the children did throughout the year would remain “unforgiven” if something this simple were done on Father’s Day.

As it stands, Father’s Day is celebrated “every which way but loose,” and I believe it is time this has stopped. There seems to be too many loose ends concerning Father’s Day. It is a “true crime” the way certain things are left hanging concerning fathers. Some fathers have felt like “the dead pool” around Father’s Day, not knowing exactly what to expect.

Mother’s Day is rather simple. Every mother knows that she will get certain things; flowers, a Mother’s Day card and dinner at her favorite restaurant.

By the time Father’s Day comes around everybody is so exhausted from Mother’s Day, not to mention most fathers are broke, nobody knows exactly how to make dad’s day special or, more importantly, who will finance it.

Too many people are uptight about Father’s Day and feel like they are running “the gauntlet.” When I say people, I am referring primarily to Yours Truly. Nobody seems to know what to do about good ole dad on his special day.

Fortunately, I have some ideas along this line.

With some of the presents I have received over the years I’m beginning to think my children imagine me as a “space cowboy,” or maybe a “high plains drifter” driving around in a “pink Cadillac” heading for “the bridges of Madison County.” Nothing could be further from the truth, except Howard Dean’s portrayal of the Republican Party. What he needs on Father’s Day is a “sudden impact” of truth.

When it comes to being a father, I assure you I’m not “the rookie” walking on a “tightrope,” directly “in the line of fire” running toward “heartbreak ridge.” I have quite a bit of experience being a father, going back more than 30 years.

As a father, I have three children notched on my belt. At times, I have felt like “the enforcer” and the only way to deal with those children was to use “magnum force” and “hang ‘em high.”

I must confess at times I felt like a “pale rider” sweating it out in the “city heat,” realizing no matter how hard I try it is not “a perfect world” we live in. What would make my day, and other fathers’ day, would be a present I could really use, or at least understand without spending an entire day reading the directions.

In spite of all this, I have discovered one thing; being a father is its own reward. The Bible puts fatherhood high on the list of important positions in life.

David, the Psalmist, put his feelings about being a father into familiar words to all who have read the Bible. “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” (Psalm 127:3-5 KJV.)

This year, my advice is, whatever it costs, go ahead and make dad’s day. He deserves it.

About The Author:
©2005 Rev. James L. Snyder.

Reverend Snyder is currently ministering at the “Family of God
Fellowship” in Ocala, Florida. More of his articles are available
for reprint at his website: http://www.godspenman.com/
Rev. Snyder is available as a guest speaker. He writes a weekly
column and is the author of “You Can Always Tell a Pastor; But Not Very Much ” available at: http://www.jamessnyderministries.com/

Here’s the scene of communication with your child: your three-year-old boy is bawling his eyes out. Hurriedly, you run over, and ask “What’s wrong?”. But no answer is spoken, the tears just keep coming out, and the vocal cords just keep on saying “waaaaaaah!”.

You start talking to him in that sweet and soft voice of yours to cajole him to tell you what his problem is. You really want him to calm down now. But when he’s asked questions like “Is something hurting you?” or “Are you hungry?” he doesn’t answer. He just keeps on crying.

Your sweet soft voice keeps on going, hoping to find that magic breakthrough to get him to stop crying. After a while, the frustration builds up within you. You just can’t get through to him. He’s just not saying anything. The smoke starts to build up in your ears. You want to help, but there’s this communication barrier now between you and your boy. So you persist, but still your boy ain’t budging from his bawling.

So now what are you going to do?

What you’re dealing with here is an issue of communication. Communication between people is a very complex process involving language, symbolism, nuances, non-verbal signals and so on. All the more so with young children. Because of their young age and lack of education, development and experience in communicating themselves, they can often have nearly-impossible-to-overcome barriers in trying to express themselves.

You probably wish to have the kind of home environment where:

not only your kids say what they think or feel but also…
you can understand them all the time.
You need to break down those barriers of communication that keep you from fulfilling your relationships with your kids. You can be a part of their lives in a very healthy and helpful way.

Would you believe that children who are actually good and well-meaning become “bad” children simply because they are frustrated over wanting to express a simple feeling or idea? Imagine this: They want or need something. But they cannot express it because they don’t know how.

So they do what they know. Like doing something around the house that’s not allowed -break a toy, scream, cry, pull their younger sibling’s hair, etc.

Do you (or any other parent) want such a thing in your home? Probably not.

You can find out for yourself that with a few steps, you can go a long way to overcoming some of these communication barriers. Develop routines and habits with your children during those times when all is going well, so that when the crisis does come, you are already prepared for it. It works the same way as preventive medicine. Work with the issue BEFORE it becomes a problem.

On your own you can try a few of these pointers. Have in your mind the goal that you want to achieve- a freely flowing communication with your children. You and your children should be able to talk to one another in a very calm expressive way using words, sentences, gestures, facial expressions and the like. (Note: This means that yelling and screaming in anger is NOT considered a healthy communication. It will often result in the listener reacting to the outburst in a unhealthy way. This is especially true for when parents yell at their children.)

Take upon yourself to try some of the following exercises, and see what the results are:

1) Show the child that you are ready to listen and pay full attention to what the child is saying. Let the child feel that there is someone who is going to try to listen to them. This will cut down on the degree of frustration for the child.

2) Encourage the child to talk in full sentences if possible. Sometimes children (who can actually talk properly) often just whine, cry, or say one-word expressions, simply because they are accustomed to doing so.

3) Prepare different options for the child to express himself- signs, objects, drawing, etc. You need to be creative here. Sometimes ideas can be expressed in the most unconventional ways- e.g. a child can create a scenario with toy figures.

4) Make sure you are able to repeat to the child what the child said to you. This is a crucial part of the process because for the child this is the guaranteed confirmation that you understood the child’s expression.

Story: Someone hit 6-year-old Sally. Sally comes home crying. Mommy keeps on asking Sally what happened, but for some reason she can’t say it in words. Mommy takes Sally by the hand and brings her over to the art table where there is some paper and some big fat kiddie markers ready for her. Sally sits down and starts drawing in her 5-year-old way the following picture: stick figures of a little girl and a little boy. The boy has his hand on the girl’s face. Mommy sees this and figures that the boy is hitting the girl in the face. She asks Sally if this is so. Sally nods. “AHA!” thinks Mommy. “now I understand…..”

Joseph Browns, a father and creator of the site http://www.home-educational-toys.com wants to share his experiences and expertise in how parents can find valuable opportunities for quality time with children to acquire priceless family memories. A total environment approach is taken, dealing with issues like educational toys, parent-child relationships, environmental + interior design, health, communication skills, and child education. For a picture of myself come see http://www.home-educational-toys.com/about-us.html

Giving birth to twins (and sometimes to triplets) is a dream of many women, regardless of the fact that plural pregnancy proceeds more difficult and requires a special vigilance. But all troubles are overcome due to some certain aureole of heroism and a wish to take all pains at one go. It’s interesting, that for the last 20 years, statistics of giving birth to twins, triplets and more increased significantly. Deliveries of 0,5 - 2% of women finish with birth of twins, triplets, more seldom four and five babies.

Do you have a chance? This depends on several factors:

1. Age of a mother.

This is one of the reasons of increasing amount of twins’ birth - a worldwide tendency to late deliveries. A probability of birth of two and more babies increases, if a mother is older than 35 years. (By the way, this chance increases even more after 50 years). Unfortunately, if you’re less than 25 years, your chances are half of chances of those who are 35. The matter is that with age, ovulations take place not during each cycle - and this is quite normal. As a result, free hormones, affecting ovulation, accumulate and release during the following cycle, stimulating coming out of several ovules at once.

2. Inheritance.

If some of your or your husband’s relatives has twins, then your probability of giving birth to several babies at once is extremely high (especially, if you inherited this trait from your mother). And, regardless of common opinion, this does not necessarily take place in one generation - you can inherit a gene, which is responsible for formation of several ovules, suitable for insemination, in your organism.

3. Genesial technologies.

Often women, who were prescribed hormonal medicines during sterility treatment or while preparation to artificial extracorporal fertilization, get plural pregnancy. Hormonal medicines stimulate ovulation in the midst of a cycle and, if a woman receives overdose of a medicine, then several ovules come out of ovary follicle at once, not just one. As a rule, doctors “remove” excess ovules. Burt sometimes women refuse from it, due to religious or other motives. In USA and Israel there were cases, when women gave birth to 6 or 7 babies at once.

Sings of plural pregnancy

It’s very easy to determine a quantity of babies you’re going to give birth to - you can do it with the help of echography on 5-6th week of pregnancy, but there’re such situations, when you cannot pass through echography. So, it will be good for you to learn some signs of pregnancy with twins. Moreover, unfortunately, doctors not always can give you an exact answer about your pregnancy during the first 10-12 days.

Psychological factor. You should not ignore your intuition. Many women can be assured in the fact that they are pregnant with twins since the moment of conception already. Often mothers of twins admit that they knew about their forth-coming birth on the earliest terms of pregnancy. If you feel, you’re expecting twins, tell your doctor about it for sure.

High biochemical indexes. Women pregnant with twins have increased indexes of some biochemical tests. For example, content of alpha fetoprotein - it produces a growing fetus and come to mother’s blood. Or a high content of a hormone HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), which supports pregnancy. While placenta is developing, its presence can be determined in blood or urine even before delay of menstruation, and lots of pregnancy tests are based on its indexes.

Intensive morning sickness and/or vomiting. More heightened, in comparison with usual pregnancy, content of hormone HCG (pregnancy hormone) can increase morning sickness. Sickness, sometimes accompanied by vomiting, can already appear a week after conception, i.e. even before your usual menstrual cycle begins. Sickness appear more often in the morning, but it’s also possible in any other time of a day.

Intensification of other pregnancy sings. Many (but not all) women, expecting twins, suffer from other intensified sings of pregnancy - due to a significant increase of hormones, in comparison with usual pregnancy. For example, they feel heightened breast sensibility, more frequent impulses of urination, extreme tiredness and hunger. In the second term a woman may suffer from strong breathlessness, hands and legs spasms, sudden increase in weight and belly sizes, and an intensive stir of fetus. Hemoglobin decrease or anemia - are also usual events for plural pregnancy. And in general, this is not surprising, as during such pregnancy a load on a future mother’s organism increases in several times, depending on the quantity of babies she’s bearing. Unfortunately, this means that complications are much more often met during such pregnancy.

Quick weight increase since the first days of pregnancy. By the way, this is one of the first sings of two babies’ presence in a woman’s uterus. This is absolutely normal: double nutrition plays an important role during the first term of pregnancy. And a quick weight increase is necessary.

High physiological indexes. During the first medical examination doctors will be already able to tell you that your uterus size is little bigger for your assumed term of pregnancy. This tendency will remain for the whole term of pregnancy. Other physiological indexes will be bigger too: circularity of belly through navel, height of uterine fundus standing and others.

Heartbeat of two hearts can be heard. When a doctor begins listening to a baby’s heartbeat, he will hear beating of two hearts, instead of one. Two separate heartbeats can be heard on the 13th week of pregnancy already, by the 28th week a doctor will be able to determine 3-4 large parts of body (head and bum) and many small ones by touch.

Yana Mikheeva is the creator of the Baby-Health.Net at http://www.baby-health.net
Are you going to get pregnant? Visit our friendly resource and read information on pregnancy and parenting, painless childbirth, growth and development of a baby, baby health, safety, signs of pregnancy.
She also has a blog for women at http://www.womanspassions.com/blog/

If you need Something for Everyone this Christmas, try Gift Shopping Online this year.
Online Shopping for Christmas presents and gifts popularity has increased over the past couple of years. When businesses started selling Christmas gifts on the world-wide-web many clients were concerned about a number of issues including security and the quality of products.

With the changing economic landscape of products availability, ease in direct shipping to your front door and increasing prices at the gas pump, customers are taking a second look. The internet now offers every shopper with the opportunity to buy Christmas gifts of any type from the safety and security of your home or place of work. Read on and discover how you can find bargains and purchase anything you want on the World Wide Web.

So what do you buy a great gift or present this Christmas? When you use the internet, your choices are endless.

Gifts for Men can differ from novelty slot machines, metal detectors, emergency radios, to power and computer tool kits. Men also like to receive collectables or sport memorabilia, cigar cutter and a wine refrigerator.

Gifts for Women can vary too, from perfume and lingerie to sexy shoes, Pilates DVDs and belly rings there is something for every woman at Christmas time. Other suggestions are buying the love of your life some beautiful clothes or jeweler.

Gifts for Children are easy to buy over the internet because you can get some great bargains. It is often difficult for parents to go Christmas present shopping as many have at least one child in tow. Also sometimes if you don’t have a sitter, you have to buy your child’s Christmas gifts while trying to keep them from finding out.
Online Shopping for Christmas presents solves all your problems. There are numbers of specific stores that sell children’s gifts online. Have all your choices shipped right to your door in an ambiguous brown box.

Gifts for Babies include a case of baby diapers and small toys, gold bangle ID bracelets, educational videos, and gold mom-child heart locket which will all be popular this Christmas.

Gifts for Pets are important to many people and there are now stores online who specialize in gifts for dogs, cats and many other animals.

There are many Online Christmas gift ideas for everyone here.

When you find your teenagers MySpace and it happens to be set to “private”, you need to ask yourself, what doesn’t my child want me to read?

MySpace has this option for younger teens, if you log on and tell them that you are 14(they never verify age)then they are automatically set to private. When your child has his/her account set to private, it will not allow you to read anything in this account, basically you as a parent have been blocked unless you have been accepted by your child as a “friend”. If your child has a head’s up that you are concerned or that you are looking on his MySpace, then they more than likely will set it to private. This makes it a bit more difficult as a parent to just nilly willy read what’s going on.

You have 2 options if you hit this roadblock.

1. You can be satisfied to just read what your child writes to his friends (but since you can’t get onto their friend’s list you have to just keep trying different friend’s names) it’s kind of a hit and miss game, and you won’t be able to read what the friend’s are replying back with. So it really is just a one sided conversation and you might not be able to get all the facts you need.

2. You can be sneaky and sign yourself up for a MySpace account under a disguised name and age (pretending to be a peer from another school district) and ask your teen to become a “friend”. Then you would have access to all information. The problem with doing this, is that you have to come up with pictures (supposedly of yourself) of teens and this can become difficult.

My recommendation is that if your child is using MySpace and is set to private. Then a sit down conversation is in order with your teen. If they want the privilege of using MySpace then they need to get out of private mode or lose the account. But this would give the teen a tip that you are aware and monitoring. So it’s your call.

If you are concerned that your teen is hiding things and they are set to private and you don’t want them to know that you are trying to get into their MySpace, there is another option. Buy a good spy software that will monitor everything your teen is doing on the computer and download it to your personal email.

Parents of teenagers who want to be informed visit our website and learn how to stay one step ahead of your teen.
MySpace for Parents.com

In terms of a baby, buying a pushchair is one of the most important decisions you will make. It can make your life as a parent easier, if you make a good decision - however, if you choose a pushchair or stroller for the wrong reasons, it can make your life much more difficult - in fact you are likely not to use that pushchair and go out and buy another.

I have spoken with many parents who have made exactly this mistake and ended up owning two or even more pushchairs. Why? - because pushchairs, strollers and buggies come in very many different shapes and sizes. As a parent, indeed as a parent buying a pushchair for the very first time, it is easy to make your purchase for the wrong reasons - because you don’t yet understand the most important factors when making that purchase.

When moving a baby or toddler outdoors, in a buggy, stroller or pushchair, you will soon realise that you will need so many other things with you - spare clothing, nappies, bottles, food. Also, you will not be able to carry shopping while you are pushing your pushchair, so you will need to be able to store shopping on your pushchair.

Now, you are probably realising that this is all going to add weight, and you are right - the combined weight of pushchair, baby, shopping, clothes, feed, and anything else, will become quite significant.

As the weight becomes more and more, you will sacrifice manouverability and shopping can start to become really difficult - now imagine you are fighting your way around a busy store, with narrow aisles and you will start to realise that, for shopping, a lightweight buggy is really important.

There are many circumstances where a weight is not so important and there are many other factors that also must be taken into account. Buying a pushchair, stroller or buggy is not any easy decision and deserves much thought and consideration.

Mark Hartshorne is a father with two young children and created a website to review pushchairs and strollers to offer parents a fair comparison on price, size, design and more. The website is My Pushchair.