Category Archives: Family

Halloween Haul…What To Do With It?

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Halloween

Halloween

HALLOWEEN

The Switch Witch- what to do with Halloween candy

This is a post from my archives.

I wish the “Switch Witch” had been around when my kids were little.

Posted on October 29, 2011
As Halloween approaches there is always the dilemma of what to do with all the candy. Well, here is what I am going to do this year with my granddaughter’s haul complete with a “fairy witch’s tale”.

The Switch Witch is a nice way to “get rid” of the Halloween Haul.

  • Your child can eat some of his candy on Halloween night
  • Then lays out the rest for the Switch Witch before he/she goes to bed.
  • The Switch Witch makes rounds and takes the candy
    and leaves a new toy!

switch witch

What a great way to deal with the Halloween dilemma!

Any suggestions as to what the “Switch Witch” should do with the candy? I would love to read your comments?

TGIF-Wedding Weekend Newport RI

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TGIF

TGIF

Happiness always…

 

As I sip my morning coffee and nibble on my Portuguese raisin muffin from Amarals Bakery this morning, many thoughts run through my head.

It is a beautiful sun filled view of the Sakonnet River outside my window here in Rhode Island.

My mind is reflective about my younger daughter who is about to be married tomorrow.

She came into to the world a tiny little newborn, struggling for her first ten minutes of life to catch her breath and open up her lungs to the world around her in a Miami Hospital.

Her dad held his breath until she finally let him know she was along for the ride.

What a wonderful ride it has been these years.

I am so proud to be her mom and be here this weekend ready to celebrate the beginning of her newest journey.

Best of the best to Adrienne and Rich!

TGIF

TGIF-Some Weekend Reading

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TGIF

TGIF

I love reading about the brain and all of the discoveries that have been made since I first began studying to be a nurse at NYU in 1970. At that time, we knew relatively little about the brain compared to the present. With the advent of MRI and the PET scan, we now know much more about the brain’s plasticity, how the brain works and changes as we develop and age.

Read about how “curiosity” affects how we learn…

 

“Curiosity may put the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information, like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn, and also everything around it“. This means that once the brain is stimulated via curiosity, it is much more effective at learning and memory functions.

 

TGIF

Vaccines are important, as is herd immunity, which has become a news item very recently since the outbreaks of pertussis in some areas of the country.

I believe it is important to understand all the facts about vaccination and community living before you choose to leave your child unprotected and susceptible to a deadly disease which has been under control for so many years.

We now have Ebola on our shores…I am wondering how many people would opt for a vaccination against Ebola if it were available?

And that’s where I feel like it’s legitimate for us to examine what they’re doing around vaccination. Because it is a question of citizenship. That can get forgotten as we get more and more isolationist in the way we approach parenting and families. There’s so much emphasis on making it a perfect world within the home, on making it non-toxic and sealed off from the world and safe in every way. It becomes this bubble we bring up the child within. And the more we bubble ourselves, we let ourselves pretend that we can create an alternate little world in the home. It lets us forget the ways in which we are essentially dependent on the community at large and what we owe the community at large.

 

TGIF

Is parenthood a type of religion? Are you afraid to criticize your own child even if it is “constructive” criticism? How does your own marriage fare compared to your relationship with your children?

All interesting thoughts to consider as we raise our children and grandchildren. How is our culture determining the future of our kids and our marriages. Remember, Amy Chua and her book about being a Tiger Mom? The reaction was fierce…it was a cultural difference.

Have a look at our own culture!

Another sign of the parenthood religion is that it has become totally unacceptable in our culture to say anything bad about our children, let alone admit that we don’t like them all of the time. We are allowed to say bad things about our spouses, our parents, our aunts and uncles, but try saying, “My kid doesn’t have a lot of friends because she’s not a super likable person,” and see how fast you get dropped from the PTA.

This week TGIF is posted late…but I sure hope you read it!

Related posts: https://parentingintheloop.com/2013/01/25/weekend-reading-2/

TGIF…Some Weekend Reading!

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TGIF

 

TGIF

Fall Weekend

 

For too many reasons to list, I have been absent from ParentingintheLoop for awhile.

I missed writing and hopefully will be getting back into my routine.

This week there were so many things that caught my eye while looking through parenting posts. Back-to-school is always a time of year that has been a struggle for me. Getting settled into a routine and the shortening of daylight leaves me sometimes anxious for what the winter will bring. I am an optimist but Fall has its sentimental moments which are not always my favorites.

Cooking is my time to relax and lately I have been throwing my efforts into more healthy choices for all three meals of the day especially lunches. I have been drawn to some interesting recipes and since we have a nut allergy in our family that is something that keeps me looking for homemade food choices especially when it comes to snacks.

Here goes some of my choices from this week. TGIF!

I love granola and most are exposed to nuts in the processing or contain nuts so they do not have a place on my kitchen shelves. I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but it looks very promising and a great snack or something to throw in my bag to munch on while running the day’s endless errands.

In case you’ve missed the commercials and advertising that we have been inundated with since mid-July, it’s Back-to-School time! Parents everywhere are reluctantly turning their attention to that universally dreaded task—packing the lunchbox. While I am a well-known proponent of unexciting lunches, I do like to dazzle the children with a variety of homemade treats.

 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I do not and simply cannot make everything from scratch… with my schedule this is impossible . As much as I would love to do scratch cooking there are some shortcuts that I do take. As a grandmother, I have learned to accept my limitations albeit sometimes not so gracefully. Limitation is not something  to which I willingly succumb, being limited makes me feel old but on the other hand I have to be realistic and acknowledge that I cannot do everything. It is better to prioritize what is truly important and let the other things take care of themselves. This post from Yummy Mummy Club Canada made me think about some of the convenience foods that although they sound healthy their ingredient list belies their nourishing label.

See what you think. TGIF.

 

But when I do buy packaged foods—after all, they do come in handy now and again when you’re a busy parent—I rarely read the nutrition facts table. Instead, I skip right to the ingredients list, which is the most important bit of information on the package or box. The shorter the list, the better, and ideally you want to see real food ingredients instead of fillers, stabilizers, and additives.

 

One of my favorite cook books Homemade With Love is from Jennifer Perillo. She is an exceptional scratch cook and I love her recipes. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting her and actually enjoying a luncheon she prepared at her hotel her in Chicago. I credit Jennie with bringing me back into the kitchen after being an empty nester for several years. If she could prepare such a lovely lunch in a hotel room kitchen I should be able to return to my kitchen easily with her cookbook in my hands.

Jennifer just announced yesterday that her first issue of Simple Scratch Cooking : A Homecook’s Journal for Making Easy, Everyday Meals will be out in October. I am beyond excited to receive my copy soon…in time for the winter when I find the most comfort in cooking a lovely meal at dinner time. TGIF

 

I’m leaping, and my heart is beating out of my chest as I do so. Finally taking a little control of my professional destiny with this project. So, here it goes…
The first issue of Simple Scratch Cooking: A Homecook’s Journal for Making Easy, Everyday Meals is available for preorder. If you believe in me, and my work, please share with everyone you know. I’m offering a 10% special discount for orders placed by 10/15/14 (use code SSC1015 at checkout). I plan to spend what would’ve been our 10th wedding anniversary on 10/16 packing, and shipping, the inaugural issue.
http://injennieskitchen.storenvy.com/products/9951769-simple-scratch-cooking-a-homecooks-journal-for-making-easy-everyday-meals

 

Here’s to a wonderful weekend. TGIF everyone!

 

“Up and Away” for Grandparents

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Are you an Up and Away Grandparent?

Final_Up&Away_Graphic_for_social_sharing

Becoming a grandparent has been the greatest highlight of my life.

I always knew the grandparent-grandchild relationship was a powerful and special one, from my own close relationship with my maternal grandmother.

grandmother and granddaughter

She and I were very attached, in fact, my mother, brother and I lived with her.
As I recall, she was very careful to explain to me that I must always ask before I ate anything, whether it was candy from her special candy bowl, cookies from the cookie jar or food from the fridge. I learned her rule early on and knew, most times she gave her permission for treats if I simply asked her. Hers was a simple rule. I guess it made me realize that I mustn’t eat things unless I asked first.

In the 50’s when I was growing up, medicine containers did not have special lock caps on them, children’s medicine always tasted like some sort of candy and adult pills looked like M&Ms. Except for today’s lid lock containers not much has changed.

As I recall, in my childhood home alll medications were kept very high up on a shelf so I could not reach them. When I had my own kids I kept the same habit of putting bottles up high, I took care to refrigerate medication on the highest shelf in the back of the fridge, as inaccessible as possible.

During my work as a pediatric nurse, I had personally seen what improper use of medications could do to both adults and children.  So even aspirin was off limits to my teenagers since there is a connection to aspirin and a potentially life threatening illness known as Reye’s Syndrome.

Today, I guess you would call me a helicopter grandparent when it comes to medications in my home where my grandchild is a frequent visitor. She spends time with us and has her own room so she feels very comfortable going to cabinets, getting snacks and raiding the refrigerator at 6 years of age.

Just as any good grandparent, I worry about her safety. You see, she has a nut allergy as well. So at a very young age, she was made aware of her need to stay away from any and all nuts.

As a nurse, I am a consistent medication label reader and with a nut allergy in our home, I now had to carefully read food labels as well. To be on the safe side, I choose not to buy food items that are exposed to nuts in their processing so I do not have to worry about nut exposure from contamination.

For many “older adults” medications are a fact of life. Some of us take medication on a daily basis so it becomes imperative for these medicines and other over the counter medications to be stored “up and away” from “little hands” and curious “little fingers”.

Up and Away

It is my honor to have been included in the Up and Away program to help grandparents like myself keep grandkids safe and healthy all year long.

 

UpdatedSafeStorage_UpAway_Infographic

Up and Away recognizes these important facts about grandparents and grandchildren:

  • 5.4 million kids of today are being raised in households headed by grandparents.
  • 1 in 8 grandparents in this country provide care to a grandchild on a regular basis according to SafeKids Worldwide

Our goal as parents and grandparents is raising a happy and healthy child. This can be challenging through all the developmental stages of childhood. Toddlers pose a special concern as the notoriously possess a need to explore their environment.

Facts to be aware of:

  • Each day 4 bus loads of kids are taken to the ER for accidental medicine ingestion.
  • Annually that is 60,000 kids, who have ingested medicines that belong to parents (39% of the time) or grandparents (38% of the time).

Education is a key factor in the prevention of accidental medicine ingestion by children. Do not leave grandparents out when it comes to baby proofing or child proofing homes and remember it is more than electrical outlets that should be of concern.

A Grandparent checklist priority should include:

  • Storage of all medicines and vitamins “up and away” and out of sight when young grandchildren are around. I would include all children including teenagers as well.
  • Keep purses, bags, and coats that contain medicines or vitamins out of reach and sight..
  • Never leave medicines or vitamins out on a table, countertop or sink.
  • Always make sure that caps are tightly locked and medicines put away after every use.
  • Weekly pill reminder kits usually do not come with locked tops so these are of particular concern. They must be stored out of reach.
  • It is a good idea for grandparents to set a reminder to take medications, since the  pills will be safely out of sight and therefore perhaps out of mind.
  • Program the national Poison Help number 1-800-222-1222 into your phone and post it in your home in case of an emergency.

Grandparent to do list:

  • Take inventory before babysitting or traveling to a grandchild’s house or before grandchildren visit your home.
  • Share Up and Away‘s grandparents’ medicine storage tip sheet with readers and friends.

Grandparents and parents who are reading this blog post, it is meant to be shared.

This is grandparenting in the digital age.

We are so fortunate to be able to educate each other through e-mail and social media. I know personally, I have learned a tremendous amount from my online virtual friends, some  are professionals in healthcare and child growth and development, others are moms, who are not afraid to share personal experiences in order to make the world a little safer for each and every child.

Please join me and…

Log in to Up and Away and Take the Pledge – ask your friends to do the same.

You may save a life!

 

 

Disclaimer : Up and Away is an educational program to remind families of the importance of safe medicine storage. It is an initiative of the PROTECT Initiative, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association Educational Foundation. I am being compensated for this blog post but my opinions are all my own.

Back-to-School anxiety

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Back-to-School Jitters

school

Class Photo

Most of us can remember our first days at school and the jitters that we felt. Sometimes, these jitters were happy ones…getting back back to the books and classroom meant seeing our friends again after the long hot summer.

It also meant slipping into a familiar routine which we know can be consolingly comfortable.

At times though, anxious worries can spoil the fun of the return to routine mornings, scheduled daytimes, and earlier bedtimes.

As a parent, I can remember struggling with the after Labor Day schedules. Here are some pointers to remember when parent anxiety rises.

  • Recognize your own anxiety– Take care that your own worries do not exacerbate the worries of your child. Anxiety is contagious! Meditate or take some time yourself to relax and model this settling behavior for your children during moments of anxiety.
  • Try to have a conversation with your kids– Listen to your children and validate their feelings…sometimes, they will want to talk about back-to-school stuff and sometimes, they will want to avoid the discussion. Be available, be non-judgmental, be empathic.
  • Plan ahead– Structure and planning eases anxiety because children know what to expect. Perhaps a visit to school or meeting new classmates can be arranged ahead of time.
  • Follow good eating and sleeping habits– Nourishment and rest are essentials to health and keeping a watchful eye on what you buy at the grocery store can be helpful as can a regular bedtime that allows for adequate rest and sleep.
  • Treat high anxiety– If you or your child seem to experience over the top anxiety, it might be time to consult a counselor for some more ideas as to how to treat these feelings. Help is available, you just have to ask.
  • Stay in touch with your kids– During the school year, keep listening to your children. Their conversations with friends can tell you more about them than you think you want or need to know.

But remember, an empathic ear can give you a heads-up to situations before they hatch into problems.

 

 

Do Maternal Grandparents Have it Better?

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Since I wrote this post my feelings about maternal grandparents have not changed much.

I am really interested in what others think… especially, moms, dads, grandmoms and granddads, themselves.

Grandparents

 

Do maternal grandparents have it better…maybe, is all I have to say.

It truly depends on the relationship that a mom has with her daughter. If the relationship with your daughter is marginal then I believe the relationship with your grandchildren has a greater chance of being marginal. As a grandmother, you will have to make more of an effort at your relationship with your grandchildren as well.

Relationships are work…grandparent-grandchild relationships are no different in many ways than relationships with other relatives or friends.

Grandchildren should not, in my belief, have to “kowtow” to their grandparents. I have said this in other posts.

To me, it is nice to have grandchildren who respect you, but if you want to have them visit, call or talk to you, then you will have to be the engager.

Sorry to say, but I remember being really bored by my paternal grandparents…even though I loved them dearly…they just were not fun and to top it off, most of the time they spoke Italian which I did not understand. I remember thinking this, was kind of rude.

Since my parents were divorced, my paternal grandparents were visited only on weekends with my dad. It was kind of an obligation of his and he brought me along for the ride.

Since I lived with my maternal grandmother, I loved her like she was my mother and sometimes, she was my “stand in” mother. She taught me to cook and do things around the house like ironing and making hospital corners on the beds. All girls need to know these things…Right?

Divorce or any rupture in a family does nothing to enhance the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. Of course, it does depend upon the age at which the rupture takes place and to how extensive is the animosity between father, mother and family members.

In these situations, grandparents may find it difficult for various reasons to remain in contact with their grandchildren, because of loyalty to their child, conflict with daughter-in-law or son-in-law and the trickle down effect that all of this has on the grandchild.

Even if there is a seemingly amicable situation, there will be unspoken feelings that a child may sense, which will interfere with a developing relationship between them and their grandparents. Grandma and grandpa will have their work cut out for them in this family scenario. But hopefully the work will be worth it in the end.

Being a grandparent is the best thing that has happened to me. I cannot imagine any thing better. Being a mom was great and yes, I definitely had more energy but not more wisdom or patience…those I have acquired with age and life experience. For me, being the maternal grandmother has been a perk because I had and still have a good relationship with my daughter.

Do I have to walk on egg shells?… sometimes, certainly… will my relationship with my grandchild continue to be as wonderful as it currently is…well that will depend on me now won’t it?

 

Do maternal grandparents have it better?
Posted on October 8, 2012
Like I said: Its complicated.

via Do Maternal Grandmothers Really Have It Better? – Grandparents.com.

Related posts:

https://parentingintheloop.com/2012/07/25/grandmothers-discuss-among-yourselves/
https://parentingintheloop.com/2012/07/26/grandparents-in-the-loop/

Commentary: July 2014

Grandparents when it comes to you, there are boundaries just as in any relationship . If these boundaries were not established with your own children first, you may have a hard time establishing them with in-laws and even with your own grandchildren.

 

There is no entitlement that goes with the status of grandparent…just like every other role in life it must be earned. Your place in the family genogram or family tree is fixed but your role is not…

 

I would like to go back to Jackie Kennedy for a moment…she said, “if you bungle raising your children, nothing else matters much.”

 

So grandparents, if your relationship is not what you would like it to be with your grandchildren …. maybe you need to look at your relationship with your own children and see if you did “bungle” somewhere. Then look at the relationship with your grandchildren’s parents.

 

Remember, it is not about you and what you want, it is about your grandchildren and their parents.

 

Life is not easy…

 

 

My Weekly Review

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Weekly Review

week in review

Each week, so many interesting reads come across my feed that I want to share. It is truly impossibly difficult to sometimes choose which ones to include here.

Right now, my day in brief review so far, I am in the midst of doing laundry and there are six minutes left in the last cycle so, here I am blogging.

I have managed to complete some morning chores, making beds, straightening up, grocery shopping and dish doing along with some phone calls while driving.

This week, the news has been horrible particularly the last 24 hours. A commercial jet blown out of the air without warning is a horrendous tragedy for the world and especially for the family and friends of those killed while simply flying from Amsterdam to Malaysia.

Washing machine has stopped…gotta go…temporarily No iron shirts in the dryer.

How do you answer your grandchildren and children’s questions about things they are hearing on television concerning various tragic stories and serious world events. The Mother Company offers some suggestions:

 

Many of us keep the news away from our young children, though those with family and friends directly affected by tragic events don’t have that luxury.   None of us want our children to live in fear, but we know they need to be prepared and have some understanding of how the world works.

 

Are we experiencing a modern parenting crisis? A British nanny believes that we are and she suggests 5 reasons for the cause of this crisis.

I generally am quite an optimistic person. I tend to believe that everything will work out for the best unless the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not prone to drama. That’s why when I say that modern parenting is in serious trouble — crisis, even — I hope you’ll listen, and listen carefully. I’ve worked with children and their parents across two continents and two decades, and what I’ve seen in recent years alarms me. Here are the greatest problems, as I see them:

 

Wrinkle Guard is warning me…gotta get those shirts out and on hangers.

 

After reading Emma Jenner’s 5 Causes of the Modern Parenting Crisis, I wrote a response on Today’s Grandmum over at ChicagoNow

The parent-child relationship is so much more complicated than it looks. The five reasons that the British nanny discusses are just part of what goes into raising children.

5 Reasons Modern-Day Parenting Is in Crisis | Today’s Grandmum.

 

These are my top three selections for review this week.

There are many more fascinating family, parenting, kids, and food articles to name just a few topics that I enjoy. It seems I cannot get enough time to read all of them

I hope that you get a chance to click on at least one review, if not all and you enjoy reading them.

What are some topics that you love to read about on the internet?

Each week, I will try and select some good articles that relate to parenting, kids and various other topics.

Look for “My Weekly Review” each Friday!

 

My Weekly Review

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Weekly Review

Each week so many interesting reads come across my feed that I want to share. It is truly impossibly difficult to sometimes choose which ones to include here.

Weekly Review- Ice Cream

Here are the stories that lit up my screen this week.

The very sad story about a toddler left in his dad’s car has been all over the news. There is a very serious side to this story and it involves other parents, who have made this fatal mistake. It is a very long story but well worth reading to get a perspective on just what a serious problem this is in today’s world.

The toddler slowly sweltered to death, strapped into a car seat for nearly nine hours in an office parking lot in Herndon in the blistering heat of July. It was an inexplicable, inexcusable mistake, but was it a crime? That was the question for a judge to decide.

Do we allow our kids and grandkids to explore their world and discover things without a “helicopter” over their heads? This piece made me realize just what a different world it is today for some children.

 

In the tardy twilight of a Puget Sound evening, we caught a glimpse of a boy, maybe 6 or 7, playing in mud exposed by low tide. Ankle-deep in vibrant muck, he called out a discovery to his father. “I found a bunch of baby crabs,” he said. “A jillion of them.” From there, he slipped into the woods, chasing some other curiosity of the natural world. A butterfly, I think. He disappeared for some time, without a word of concern from his parents. “You don’t see much of that anymore,” a friend said.

 

In keeping with childhood safety, here is a post with some very helpful tips. Let it be known that I love The Mother Company. It is simply a wonderful group!

 

 

My Body Is MINE!

Children must know that they are “the boss of their bodies.” That simply means that their body belongs only to them, and that no one should try to play an uncomfortable or “yucky” touching game with them. Especially with their “bathing suit areas” or “private parts” of their body. This is especially important as kids head off to swim camps or pool parties where you may not be around. Talk to your child beforehand and make sure he or she knows to immediately alert you (or the chaperone or lifeguard) if anyone tries to play a “touching game”.

 

These are my top three selections for review this week.

There are many more fascinating family, parenting, kids, and food articles to name just a few topics that I enjoy. It seems I cannot get enough time to read all of them

 

I hope that you get a chance to click on at least one review, if not all and you enjoy reading them.

What are some topics that you love to read about on the internet?

Each week, I will try and select some good articles that relate to parenting, kids and various other topics.

Look for “My Weekly Review” each Friday!