I love this little boy! It blows me away when I see someone so small that has such a gift. I wonder how it is for him? How does it feel to be able to make his violin sing in the way he imagines it in his head and his heart. He was only 2 when he declared that he was going to play violin like Andre Rieu. Now at 3 he has had some training and is so happily doing what he was born to do!

How is it that people can have such an innate ability! It is like they are born with the knowledge already implanted in their brains. Of course that is not quite how it works but it sure seems this way. Oh the beauty of the people all around us!

When I stop to look closely at the people in my life I can see the incredible beauty in each of them. For some the gifts show on the outside, so easy for everyone to see. In others they are more hidden. Their gift is perhaps in their ability to empathize with others or the way they can make others feel so loved. We all have something special to offer the world.

Unfortunately life sometimes chars people and it dulls their natural color so much that the gems inside of them get hidden from the the world and themselves as well. I wish I could go around and rub away all the tarnish from people’s hearts so that they could shine on the world in the way that God intended for them.

I love people! I find everybody to be so interesting. I love to watch people interact. I want to see everyone through God’s eyes. I want to see the beauty that is in them above everything else that shows on the outside. I want to be able to love them in the way that God loves them! That would be so amazing!!!!

Wow, I have been so busy this summer with my grandchildren, my nephew and my own kids to say nothing of the dogs, our chickens, gardening, acres of lawn maintenance and pet sitting that I have been neglecting my blog. Go figure! Oh well I guess there is only so much time in a day. Well things should start to settle back into a regular routine soon. I hope you are all having a fun summer too!

My daughter and grandchildren are coming to visit this week! I haven’t seen them in over a year. I am always nervous when I get to see my grandchildren because I feel as though I don’t really know them well enough and so am not sure how they will like what I have planned to do with them. They change so much in a year it can feel like they are different children every time I see them.

I have asked my granddaughter what she would like to do while she is here and I am glad that she wants us to go camping. Now that is something that I know how to do and better yet, she has never gone camping so she probably doesn’t have too many preconceived ideas about it. Ah, home-field advantage, just what I need. The other thing she really wants to do is go walking in a corn field. Well that is right outside the front door, so to speak, so this is a dream that I can also easily fulfill. Okay, I am feeling a little more confident already.

My grandson is a little harder to get info out of. I know that he likes Rube Goldberg type of contraptions

because he loves to watch the cause and effect over and over so maybe we can build some kind of a contraption together. I also have a Capsella construction set that belonged to his uncle when he was a boy. It uses motors and gears to create land and water vehicles. I hope it isn’t over his head but I am banking on his love of how things work to capture his attention. Alright, this should give me enough structure to feel like I have something planned.

I am actually hoping to fly by the seat of my pants with them. I really prefer spontaneous activities. I find them much more exciting and love that we end up doing what the kids really like that way. I guess I needed some preplanned agenda as a safety net because I feel like I don’t know their tastes well enough to make it all up as we go along.

I hope that I will find out that I had nothing to worry about at all in the end. We will probably have a blast doing all sorts of things. The thing I love about young children is that they can have fun doing just about anything if you put the right spin on it.

Wish me luck!

Breast feeding is certainly the way that nature intended for us to feed our babies. The medical literature is clear that there are many advantages to breastfeeding including a reduction in respiratory infections and ear infections. Of course the sheer joy of nursing your baby is beyond compare. I would love to have another baby even if only for the chance to breastfeed again. But what does someone do if they have a poor milk supply or are cannot breastfeed for some reason such as mastectomy, lack of glandular tissue in the breast or have adopted a baby?

Luckily there are things that can be done in these situations. Women that feel they are not producing enough milk often need only increase the amount of water they are drinking or need to eat more regularly. New moms get so busy they can neglect to take the time to care for themselves. If you don’t eat and drink it will be hard for your breasts to produce milk for your baby. Sometimes the problem will lie in how the baby is latching on or how some other aspect of nursing is going. There is great advice at Ask Lenore to resolve these problems. Lenore Goldfarb is a lactation educator and and co-author of the book “Dr. Jack Newman’s Guide to Breastfeeding”. In the US the title is “The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers”. Dr. Newman is a renowned breastfeeding expert. I don’t want to forget to mention the La Leche League International who also have lots of resources to help support breastfeeding moms.

Adoptive parents also want the benefits of breast milk for their babies. Lenore Goldfarb and Dr. Newman have developed a protocol to induce lactation in women that have not been pregnant so that they can breastfeed their babies. Apparently lots of women have great success with this method. I recently read an article in Newsweek that told about the increased demand on milk banks these days. Part of that is from adoptive parents and mothers who cannot breastfeed due to physical limitations. Milk banks collect and pasteurize milk from donor mothers to be distributed to babies that have need of breast milk. Traditionally these have been babies born prematurely whose mothers are not yet producing their own milk (premature babies digest breast milk more readily than formula) but times are changing and more and more parents are realizing how important breast milk is for their babies and so are seeking out this precious resource.

Getting milk from milk banks is very costly so some parents have resorted to finding breastfeeding moms who are willing to share their excess breast milk through sites such as Milk Share. I totally understand why someone would want only breast milk for their baby but I worry about the risks involved with this kind of thing. There are a lot of illnesses and toxins that can be passed through breast milk.

I think that I would only be comfortable accepting milk for my baby from someone that I knew REALLY well! Of course I have never been in a position where I couldn’t breastfeed my baby. What would you do if you wanted to have breast milk for your baby and you couldn’t produce it yourself?

The line between imagination and reality is quite blurry when children are young. Do they really know the difference? Kids will tell you a story of how something happened and it can be so far fetched but they seem to firmly believe that that was the way the event transpired. Even as adults we can have a hard time keeping the two separate. Look at what happens when you have a dream about someone and they do something that makes you angry in the dream. It can be very hard to shake the feeling of anger towards that person off when we wake up. It can easily color our interaction with them all day.

One morning back when Mariah was three years old I went to get her out of bed and I realized that she had wet the bed during the night. This was a very rare occurrence. I said to her, “Oh Mariah, it looks like you wet the bed.” Well before I could even take another breath this incredible story came pouring out of her mouth. “I didn’t wet the bed Mom, it was a little man that came in my window during the night. He was carrying a bucket of water and he spilled it on my bed.” I responded to her with “Really, a little man spilled his bucket of water!” whilst trying to hold back a smile. This prompted her to go into more detail since I clearly did not understand why he couldn’t manage to keep the water in his bucket. She proceeded to explain to me that he had pushed her window open, jumped down onto her bed from the window sill and was in quite a hurry. When he started to run across the bed he tripped on the folds in the blankets and spilled his bucket of water and then he ran away. I can still see her little face so vividly explaining to me every detail of what happened. The look in her eyes was so earnest while she was describing to me how the blankets get all lumpy during the night motioning with her hands to show how hilly they had become. It was all I could do to keep my composure while she related the whole tale to me. This was by far the most amusing story I had heard in a while. What was I to do? I answered her with “Well then I guess we better get these sheets off and put on some dry ones.”

Perhaps this was a story that came to her mind in order to cover over her embarrassment about wetting her bed . On the other hand she might have had a dream about this little man that had been prompted by her peeing in her sleep. At any rate the whole event seemed very real to her. I am sure that if I had tried to convince her that it had not really happened the way she told it I would have only frustrated her and never been able to get her to change her mind anyway.

For very young children the line between imagination and reality is blurry indeed. It is far more effective to chase the monsters out of a child’s bedroom at night than to try to explain to them that their are no monsters under their bed. The monsters are very REAL to them. A similar thing goes on when children play make believe. The toy cars and trucks are really driving. The little plastic horses and animals are truly running and jumping in their eyes. Imagination is an incredible gift that is strong in children. This type of imaginary play eventually comes to an end for most children as they grow up and some will come to mourn it’s passing. So, while it is a strong force in their lives, we should enjoy the magic of it as much as we can.

Do you remember any magical moments from yours or your kid’s childhood? I would love to hear about them!

The video above is a commercial from Thailand. I am not really sure how the advertising part of it works but it is such a beautiful story told in only two minutes. Get ready with the tissues!

What a great way to convey a message about breaking traditional responses that only cause harm to the family. This father goes against his instinctual response and reacts with love instead. Love can transcend anything!

My daughter tells me that this type of heart wrenching method of filming is common in Asian films. They use images and music to transport you completely into these deep emotions. For instance they will portray a young boy sobbing his eyes out and wailing as his mother is slowly dying in front of him with the most emotive music playing in the background. I wonder if this is important to the people because they have to suppress so many emotional responses in their day to day lives that they need to be able to let their feelings out somewhere else. I can understand that. I know that I am drawn to watching movies about terrible injustices done in the world. If I am alone I will scream and yell and cry at the top of my lungs. I think it helps me to pour out some of the frustration that I feel in everyday life when I see the horrible things that happen to people.

I can’t stand not being able to do something to stop injustice and pain happening around me but often there is nothing that I can do. I find it particularly painful to see children being badly treated. It can be simple things like hearing someone cut up their child with hurtful comments when they do something wrong. It can be as devastating as watching toddlers wandering the neighborhood and being taken care of as best as is possible by the people that live in the area because we can’t get youth protection to step in and help these children that are at terrible risk because their prostitute mother is unable to care for them. There are too many things that I have tried to fight against that I have had to witness during my life. I cannot change the world but I can help individuals that want to be helped. I do what I can!

The best thing I have to offer is compassion so I try to use that as much as possible. I pray that I can make a difference in people’s lives that my Father in heaven will approve of. He has loved me through everything and has taught me how to love. I want to spread that love around as much as I can.

photo courtesy of www.TheCookingPhotographer.com

I remember coming home after a long and tiring day to find a disaster in my kitchen! There were dirty mixing bowls and utensils on every imaginable surface. A film of some unidentified white powder seemed to have turned everything into some muted shade of its original color. Shredded up newspaper had taken over the floor under and around the table and seemed to be glued down. All I wanted to do was cook up a simple quick supper and chill out on the couch afterward. It was going to take a gargantuan effort just to find the kitchen before I could even consider getting started on supper. I flipped out!!! I yelled “GIRLS….GET IN THIS KITCHEN NOW! YOU TWO ARE TOTAL SLOBS! YOU NEVER CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELVES! CLEAN THIS UP NOW!!!” as the two of them stood there with fear in their eyes. I stormed out of the kitchen and took refuge in my room.

It didn’t take me too long after I had cooled off a bit to realize that I had overreacted! I had resorted to yelling as my first course of action and had added the “forbidden name calling” into the mix to boot. Not only did I neglect to say hello when I came in but I never even stopped to ask why the place was such a disaster. Sure, they should have cleaned up after themselves, and I had had a lousy tiring day but that was no justification for my behavior.  Oh boy, did I owe them an apology! “Humble pie here I come.” I thought. “I do dislike the taste of that dish!”

Apologizing to them didn’t really make up for my explosion but it did take some of the sting out of my insults. By the time I got down to the business of telling them that I was wrong and I that shouldn’t have yelled and called them ‘”slobs” and declared that they “never clean up” etc. they too were feeling apologetic about not getting back in to clean up before I got home. They were all excited about the incredible volcano they had built and had been wise enough to take it outside to set off the eruption and had completely lost track of the time in the midst of it all. The lava that exploded out of their mountain had turned out exactly the right color and they were all excited thinking about showing me what they had created when I would come home.

It can be difficult as parents to tell our children that we are sorry when we mess up. It is potentially hard to tell anyone that we are sorry because it means that we need to humble ourselves and admit our wrongdoing. Parents make mistakes just like anyone else. Sometimes we might worry that our children will lose respect for us if we show them that we are wrong. Luckily the truth is the opposite. Children will respect us more when they see this happening. It shows children that we are secure enough in ourselves to be able to face our faults and it demonstrates that we respect them and their feelings as well. The best part of all is that it models to them how to be able to say sorry to someone when they have done wrong. Our children learn more from the way we act than all the things that we can tell them.

I don’t know about you but I do not understand texting lingo. Oh okay, I get LOL and ROFL since these have been pointed out to me but what does JM2C mean? How about this one, LSHCCOMNAIWEDA: laughing so hard coke came out my nose and I wasn’t even drinking any. The list of abbreviations that I don’t know is endless it seems! I admit that I have managed to adjust to the changes in expressions over the years. I get that “cool man” is not so cool anymore and that when I like something I am supposed to say “wicked” (or is that one outdated already??) but am I ready to learn a whole new language?

Perhaps this is a conspiracy by the younger generation to leave all us old folk out of the loop while they covertly change the world before we can realize what they are doing? Are they planning the demise of my precious telephone?? Will I wake up one morning to find out that I can no longer communicate with all the other old fogies because I don’t know how to text??? Is this divide and conquer???? Is this the Twilight Zone????? Hmmm, maybe this is how the telegraph operators of old felt when they invented radio. Wow, am I that out of touch?

Luckily I have been saved by my daughter who sent me this great link at HubPages. There is a list of commonly used text abbreviations that was put together by someone as lost as I am, by the name of R P Chapman.

“Recently I received the following message on my phone from a younger friend, “nps idk yet cu l8tr”. After staring at it for a minute or two, a couple of worrying thoughts came to mind. The first and more obvious one was, ‘how do I reply to that’; the second and more depressing one was, ‘when did I get this old!’”

Thank you, thank you, thank you Mr. Chapman.

So nw i cn gt 2 wrk on lrning how 2 tlk. I think this is how it is done for regular words. I just leave out all the vowels, right?? Hey I think they are only bringing back an old fad. In ancient Hebrew they didn’t use vowels either. Maybe these kids are really just ancient people in diguise Ha! Now I will know what they are trying to plan behind my back!

Well, I guess I better get it together and start learning. I have some catching up to do! OOPS!! Sorry, what I meant to say was CID. (Whew saved my ass there)

I have two beautiful grandchildren, aged 8 and 6, that unfortunately have always lived very far away and get farther away all the time. I live in Quebec Canada not too far from Montreal. They were born in Ontario Canada, moved to Minnesota USA and they now live on the other side of the world in Malaysia. Where to next??? Maybe Mars or something. It can be hard to figure out how to build a relationship with children when you don’t get to see them face to face very often.

I recently discovered a way to connect with my grandaughter Naomi. I am so happy to finally have a way to connect with her more. Now that she is 8 it is so much easier to have conversation with her. She likes to talk on Skype. After all she IS a girl. Now she has the concentration to be able to sit and chat. She was telling me recently about an author that she likes. He writes a series of books about a mouse named Geronimo who is the editor of “The Rodent’s Gazette” and has lots of crazy adventures. The author uses all kinds of dynamic fonts and lots of illustrations to bring the pages to life. She was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next book that she had ordered “The Karate Mouse”. Whoa, a sudden brainstorm hit me. What with video calling on Skype and if I had the same book in my hand we could actually read together just as if we were sitting together on the couch! How beautifully simple!

When I suggested this idea she loved it! I got right on it and ordered the book and once it arrived we had our first experience at video reading. I loved it! My daughter told me that she had been talking about nothing else but what we were planning to do together. It is a little difficult finding the perfect time to read together since our hours are the flip side of each other since my days are her nights but we will hopefully find the right time to connect regularly.

I am planning to suggest the next book to share. Maybe we should read “Superfudge” since she has a younger brother.I hope that this will turn into a long term event!

Now if I could only find something that will work with my 6 year old grandson Joseph. He mostly likes to show me everything he owns and how they work as he dashes in and out of camera range. I need to find something that can grab his attention on the screen. I wonder if they have internet games you can play together that are for young children? I will have to look into that. Hmmm maybe this will prove to be another Whoa! moment.

How do people in your family keep in touch with children that live far away?

My son -in-law sent me a news article that I found so shocking. xinhuanet.com It had never occured to me that something like this could happen. This is how the article began.

“Taking a deep drag on his cigarette while resting on the steering wheel of his truck, he looks like a parody of a middle-aged lorry driver.”

The journalist is referring to a two year old! Yup, only two years old and smoking forty cigarettes a day. What! How is this possible! When did he start smoking??? I wonder if someone thought that it was “cute” when they gave him his first cigarette to try?

This little boy, who lives in Indonesia, has failing health. Go figure! His mother is in tears over his condition and his father doesn’t see a problem. If I give the father the benefit of doubt I can consider that perhaps he doesn’t realize that cigarette smoking is unhealthy . This reminds me of when back in the first half of the twentieth century, here in North America, people did not seem to know that smoking could ruin your health. I guess it wasn’t that obvious or something.

If he doesn’t get his cigarettes he has a fit. Talk about pandering to your child to the point of his total demise! Even the town officials realize that this is a problem and have offered the family a reward if they can get the kid to quit smoking. His parents unfortunately feel unable to stop him because of the terrible tantrums he throws.

Wow, they must be some afraid of this child to be willing to continue to support this expensive and deadly habit. I wonder how his father will feel when his child’s health completely fails. Perhaps then he will sum up the courage to confront his child’s temper and put a stop to this insanity. I hope it will not be too late to save his life.

We see the same thing happening when a parent gives in to a screaming child and gives them what they want because they don’t  feel able to stop the tantrums. How many people will let a kid have whatever they want to eat even if it is not a healthy food choice because the kid will have a fit otherwise? Isn’t this the same behavior? Most parents in our culture would draw a line at cigarette smoking. Too bad they don’t realize that they can draw the line wherever they want to.

What do you think?