Got2Gab.com

Anybody with young children in the family knows that most people dread teething.  I can truthfully say, I am a member of that club.  The, I HATE TEETHING club.

My son started teething early, around two-three months. He started the teething process by drooling non-stop. By five months old, he had already gotten his first two teeth.

For the next several months, every now and then, just when I forgot all ab0ut teething, the drooling would start up again. I went out and bought a bunch of things to have as my teething arsenal.  Plastic lined bibs, teething rings, plastic links (for him to chew on), numbing medication for his gums, Tylenol to reduce fever, etc. But,  when we’d put his plastic lined bibs on, he’d manage to rip them off, when we’d give him a teething ring, he hated them. So, he’d absolutely soak the front of his clothes, and I ended up changing him several times a day to keep him from getting a saliva rash on his chin, neck and chest.

The thing about teething is, it’s not just the irritating buckets of drool to contend with, it’s the fussy behavior, fever, diarrhea, clingyness, runny nose, endless crying and lack of sleep, that makes it hard to deal with.  Sometimes there’s just no pleasing them.

And I’m sure at this point I’m sure you’re saying, “And why aren’t you giving him any medication?”  Well, the truth of the matter is, I surely did give him the medication when the pain was at its worst, but you also can’t give a child medication endlessly, back-to-back, until the pain suffices.  So, I’d use alternate methods.  I’d put fruit in a little mesh (baby bag), then freeze the bag in the freezer for a little while, take it out and give it to him, and he seemed to like that.  He’d chew it and get the nutritional benefit from it.

Most people who don’t have kids, and don’t want kids, say something like, “And there’s another reason why I decided not to have kids. It’s just not worth the hassle.”

But, I couldn’t disagree more.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, “Nothing worthwhile is easy to come by.“  Life is hard in so many aspects, and this is just another bump in the road.

I daydream of the day when my son gets all his baby teeth and he will no longer be going through the pain and frustration of teething.  Not to mention, my stress level can go down because I’ll have a happy baby again.

So, we started out our baby journey with a pack n’ play type of crib. The kind of crib that you can fold up and take anywhere, on a picnic, to a friend/family members house, and so on.  It had a bassinet attachment, that I loved very much, in the first few months of my sons life.

Once my son was old enough to roll over, I removed the bassinet and he began sleeping in the lower crib area. That worked for a while, but was hell on my back.  It was always aching me, and a friend mentioned that it must be the crib that’s causing so much pain.
So, we asked around, and a friend brought me a beautiful white crib, and we assembled it and my son stayed in it the entire time until he just barely turned 14 months old.

The other night, my son happened to find a way out of the crib, which managed to scare both my husband and myself beyond belief, because he could have been seriously hurt, but thankfully was not.

So, now I’m shopping around for toddler beds, and a friend brought me a bed that can convert from a crib, to a toddler bed, then become a headboard for an adult bed.  We just barely put it together last night, but I’m thinking there must be a safer devise to keep kids in, but to not be so high that if they attempt to jump, they’ll really hurt themselves.

I’ve been looking online at toddler beds, and they seem like twin beds, but with a half railing on the side of the bed. This seems a little more feasable, with my son (who is still quite young), but we’ll have to see how well he does on this bed for a few more nights before figuring out if this is the right bed for him, or if we must try something new.

Either way, all kids are different. Some kids are content in cribs until they’re a few years old and they can move on into a real bed. Some kids are like little monkeys trying to escape from prison.  Wonder which one I have?

Taking a lot of photos and videos of yourself and your loved ones, is a very important thing to do, in my opinion.  Life is short, people change, kids grow up, people move away, others die (sorry to be so morbid); but from time to time, a person really needs to get things documented and see all the changes their loved ones have gone through.

Back in the old days (as recently as a few years ago), pictures were taken and stored for years, getting all tattered and discolored.  But, now a days with digital photos, they can all be saved on our computers, on our memory sticks or saved on a blog or website.

I was one of those people who wanted to start scrapbooking (several years ago), but once I realizing how much work was required, how much money it can cost (it can be a lot), and how much time can be spent doing the intricate work, I stopped before I ever started.  But, now a days there are websites dedicated to making scrapbooking pages online, and some can be found for free.

A little over a year ago, while I was still pregnant, I tried to find such websites and found one which I absolutely adore, and use to this day. I’ve made countless scrapbooking pages online using this site, for myself, my family and friends. I even had one set up for my son and his monthly photos, showing the changes he’d been going through.

I also have a website created for my son and our family.  I find these sites very useful and I keep them updated on a monthly basis.

I’m sure you’re telling yourself, “Jeez, she must have a lot of time on her hands!”

But, the answer is, “No!” I just like to go on these websites (and this website of coarse) as a means to unwind and get all the daily pressures out of the way. They bring me immense joy, like something I used to feel as a child.

I was one of those kids who wrote their pen pals from all over the world, and I usually used different colored pens, cool looking stationary paper, stickers, stamps, markers to color in the stamps and so on.  I even had amazing address labels that I used to send out with each letter. But, that was in the stone age! Now that we have e-mailing and so on, there’s no longer a need for such manual labor.  Mind you, I still create decorated e-mails to make my e-mails look nice and pretty, and have gotten tons of compliments for it before (which I love by the way), and here we are.

So, back to the subject at hand.  Take some time to gather any photos you really wish to save, create your own blog (for you, your family, or whatever you wish), update it regularly, and in a few month or years you’ll look back and feel the utter satisfaction of knowing that you took part in capturing priceless memories.

For children to grow properly, they need the usual basic things: food, water, love, a proper roof over their heads, etc.  But, what do they need beyond that?  Something that is often skipped over is their need to be positively praised, so that they can correlate the praises with good things that they’ve done; instead of correlating attention with bad things that they do.

If every time the child does something right, you say, “Good job, I knew you could do it,” or “Yay! Good job!” or some such thing, it makes the child happy to please you and that child will subconsciously go out of their way to make you happy again.

But, if every time the child does something wrong, you shout and scream, call him or her names, and make a huge deal out of it, the child will become scarred and upset, but after adjusting to the constant bereavement on a daily or weekly basis, they may start to, in turn, do everything they can to get a rise out of you.

So, when they do something wrong, say a simple stern, “NO.” Not a shout, not a scream, but a simple stern, “NO”.  Also be careful of your facial expression.  If you have a look of horror on your face, versus a plane expressionless look, it makes a huge difference. Then when the child actually does do something right, praise them a lot and of coarse show them the appropriate amount of positive attention.

The same goes for children who fall down and hurt themselves. If you run over to them in a panic and are saying something like, “Oh my baby! What happened to you? Oh no! You’re hurt, you’re hurt,” (which may sound crazy, but so many parents do this), then your child will become a drama queen or drama king every time the littlest thing happens.

If your child hurts themselves, go over to them, look them over, clean them up and say, “It’s alright, now you’re all better,” with a smile on your face.  Remember that the way we behave is the way that they will behave. It’s like looking into a mirror.

Since we have discussed how to positively reinforce children, I would like to reinforce with you the importance of treating every child equally.  Don’t praise (let’s say) Johnny, and forget all about Billy.  Catch my drift?  Don’t make your children hate one another, because Mommy or Daddy, Grandma or Grandpa obviously likes one sibling vs the other more.  You should treat children equally, lovingly, with care and attention (for positive things- that is), and always remember that what we do while they’re young influences the people they will grow up to be, in the future.

Most people live their lives day to day, going through the usual routine, but somewhere in the back of their minds, they realize that at some point, when they’ve done everything they think they can do to achieve whatever goals they’ve set for themselves, they seek love.

Love is not as clean cut as it is in the movies, but depending on the situation, it can be just as overwhelming.  Overwhelming, in a good way, mind you. When two hearts connect, there are just no words that can properly describe the flood of emotions that surge through the human anatomy, to create that overwhelmingly fuzzy feeling of being swept off your feet.

Keeping your mind open to love, is the first step in seeking a lifelong partner.  “Marriage is hard work”, is all we hear nowadays, but isn’t everything that’s worth fighting for?  Why do they have to put a negative spin on everything to do with marriage? Most single people think of marriage as something of a plague, trying to keep as far away from it as they can, to their own detriment.

Why is the divorce rate skyrocketing?  I’ll tell you why, because people are no longer willing to communicate and talk their problems out.  They want quick fixes and have little patience for the long process of repairing a relationship that has become tattered and broken.

We needed to try and find a partner who had similar ideals, thoughts, dreams, values, etc. At one point, we found it- but now that it’s too much work we’re willing to drop it and forget it?

But, people all too often seek the things that are just not going to help keep a relationship together.  People seek others who are rolling in dough, with piles of money, excellent jobs and a prestigious career.  There’s no harm in thinking ahead and trying to find a partner that will be financially capable of making a good life for you and your future family, but don’t let that be your sole motivation.  Money is not everything!

There needs to be that wonderful connection of love, that will sew your heart strings together with devotion, compromise and respect. Once the respect is gone, marriage falls apart quickly.

If you take away anything from this article, I wish for you to remember that a long term relationship should be based on everything I mentioned above.  But, money comes and goes, health comes and goes, love wavers at times, but without love, compromise and keeping an open mind, in combination, a marriage is absolutely dead.

If you’re seeking love, or are already in a relationship that is falling apart at the seems, try your best to analyze what it is that has changed in your relationship with your partner and try to change it back to the way it used to be, but better.  Work on upgrading your relationship, and for goodness sakes, don’t be afraid to share your feelings with your partner, when you both have the time to sit down and hash it all out. Not in an accusing tone, but in a tone begging of resolution.

Because in the end, love is well worth the effort.