E Is for Ethics: How to Talk to Kids About Morals, Values, and What Matters Most ~ Ian James Corlett
Teaching children ethics, values, and morals has become a real challenge for parents today. These topics aren’t usually covered in school curriculums, and many families no longer attend religious services, so most modern moms and dads are clamoring for a helping hand.
Ian James Corlett, an award-winning children’s TV writer, was inspired to write this book as his own family grappled with this issue. When Ian’s two kids were very young, he and his wife started a weekly discussion period he dubbed “Family Fun Time.” Every Monday after dinner, they all sat down and Ian would tell his two kids tales about two young children, Elliott and Lucy, who were much like them.
- They hated going to the dentist.
- They were disappointed when a favorite aunt couldn’t visit.
- They dreaded raking the leaves in their backyard.
Ian’s kids really looked forward to these talks and they hardly even realized that the stories were serving a deeper purpose — to teach tact, understanding, and responsibility. So he decided to write these stories down to help other parents — like you. The result is in your hands: twenty-six simple, clear, original, and entertaining stories for you to read aloud with your child.Teaching your children values, life skills, and ethics has never been so much fun! I normally don’t go for books that tell me how to talk to my kids and grandkids. I feel I have what it takes to do that by myself. This book however, does it in a way that the kids tend to associate with. its done in stories about different situations, 26 to be exact. The different scenerios cover topics like: Honesty, Forgiveness, Gratitude, and so on. At the end of each story it ask questions of what the child would do it that certain situation. I read a few to my grandson, and I was really pleased and sometimes surprised at what his answers were. It is a book to consider if you have small ones and want something to read and discuss together.
[rating:4/5]
Grimmer Tales: A Wicked Collection of Happily Never After Stories ~ Erik Bergstrom
A hilarious collection of upended fairy tales that will recast your classic family favorites in an all-wrong light .
Remember those beloved fairy tales you read as a child? Where the damsel in distress is rescued by the handsome prince and then they all live happily ever after? Well Grimmer Tales is just like that. Minus the happy and the ever after!
In these pages you’ll find classic tales twisted, tweaked, and riddled with morbid humor. Little Boy Blue blows his brains out, Pinocchio impales his dentist when asked if he’s been flossing and Rapunzel’s head comes off at its stem when her prince charming climbs the tower.
Get ready for your nostalgia-o-meter to flicker enthusiastically while shivers course up your spine at the all-wrong acts committed by the heroes and heroines of yesteryear.
This book is not for everyone. This book scared me. I had to hide it in one of my drawers as I was afraid my grandson would stumble upon it and never be the same. I don’t like to keep books away from the kids, also I never have any they can’t read or look through. Until I received this one. The cover alone should have the warning lights going off in your brain, as it shows what can only be Humpty Dumpty with his head cracked open to have yolk running out as he flees whatever hit him over the head. And that’s the milder one. The book takes your cherished childhood bedtime fairytales and distorts them and makes them gruesome, bloody and downright nasty. Now I have a tiny little feeling that this is just what this author was aiming for. But I feel he missed the bulls eye, BIG TIME.
At the beginning of the book the author gives the reader a little background, let me share that with you:
Welcome to Grimmer Tales a collection that takes you to a dark and magical place near and dear to my heart. Back in the old (that’s old spelled with and e) days, fairy tales were scary, full of blood and trickery. They taught you something, don’t trust strangers, never tell a lie. But nowadays fairy tales are gentle and fluffy. There’s simply no room for screaming or sobbing anymore.
Ok enough, I just can’t write this anymore. The author has a dark side, we get it, but I don’t think many will find this amusing or even witty. It’s one the author should really just keep to himself.
[rating:1/5]
365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids ~ Maureen Healy
365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids is a positive parenting book. It provides you, the interested adult, with a year’s worth of easy-to-use sayings specially designed to nurture your child’s sense of confidence, optimism, compassion and connection. Such sayings draw upon this author’s background in psychology and Buddhism as well as her world travels fostering children’s positive emotional health. It also creates a new and positive way to spend quality time with children.
With sayings like: #226 Woodpecker. Woodpeckers awaken you to opportunities. When opportunity knocks, answer the door, is a well-worn saying. What opportunities are knocking at your door? And have you seen a woodpecker lately? Ok if I said that to one of my kids or grandkids thay would look at me and back away slowly as not to startle me.
That said, I would like to say yes, this book had some good sayings almost affirmations to say to your children, and if given the right situation, I think every child can benefit from them. However, in most households this is not the case. It says right above here in the little blip “that the interested adult”. Now I know we all should make time to sit down and say positive things to our children, but to have a book of 365 things to say something different everyday, to me is just silly. I give my children and now grandchildren the best advise I can give them, and I do it all from my head. I hope all parents can do that, and if you really need a book of sayings and let’s not forget situations you may find yourself in, then definately stop the situation, go to the book shelf, find the “right” situation, then find the correct “saying” and tell your child. Hello Mcfly! I may be slightly offended, as well you all should be, but I do just fine thank you, and if the author needs to write down a whole years worth of correct sayings to keep the children on the “right path” then more power to her. I however, don’t need to follow anyones path but my own.
[rating:2/5]
The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun ~ Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. “The days are long, but the years are short,” she realized. “Time is passing, and I’m not focusing enough on the things that really matter.” In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.
In this lively and compelling account of that year, Rubin carves out her place alongside the authors of bestselling memoirs such as Julie and Julia, The Year of Living Biblically, and Eat, Pray, Love. With humor and insight, she chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.
Rubin didn’t have the option to uproot herself, nor did she really want to; instead she focused on improving her life as it was. Each month she tackled a new set of resolutions: give proofs of love, ask for help, find more fun, keep a gratitude notebook, forget about results. She immersed herself in principles set forth by all manner of experts, from Epicurus to Thoreau to Oprah to Martin Seligman to the Dalai Lama to see what worked for her—and what didn’t.
Her conclusions are sometimes surprising—she finds that money can buy happiness, when spent wisely; that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that “treating” yourself can make you feel worse; that venting bad feelings doesn’t relieve them; that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference—and they range from the practical to the profound.
Written with charm and wit, The Happiness Project is illuminating yet entertaining, thought-provoking yet compulsively readable. Gretchen Rubin’s passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire you to start your own happiness project.
Three Wise Winter Wine Desserts By Mary Ann Esposito
This is something the author wanted to share with everyone, and it comes right from her new cookbook.
Our diets are in peril! Like clockwork, as soon as the New Year begins, so do all those ads telling us how unfit we are. There are so many diet plans that would have us beat the battle of the bulge as we enter a new year. But while we all scramble in the grocery store to find something healthy to cook, my sweet tooth has kicked in and I am craving something sinfully sweet and succulent to help ward off the winter blues. That nagging feeling leads me right to the produce department. Aha, caught you! Maybe you thought that I was going to recommend some cake, pie, cookies or ice cream. Not a chance. I am thinking sweets that are good for you like baked apples with walnuts and figs, or pears baked in wine. All the ingredients to make them are readily available and the recipes are easy to make. But the best part is how surprisingly good they taste, leaving you not caring a wit if you ever eat pie, cake or cookies again. Your diet, if you stay on it, will thank you.
Baked Apples with Dried Figs and Honey
SERVES 4
4 large Golden Delicious or Cortland apples, washed and cored
5 dried figs
4 dried apricots, diced
1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, in bits
1/2 cup white wine or fresh orange juice
Put the figs in a small bowl and cover them with hot water; allow them to stand for 30 minutes to soften them. Drain them, cut off the stems and discard them. Cut the figs into small pieces and place them in a bowl with the apricots and walnuts. Stir in the honey and coat the fruits well.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Divide and stuff the mixture in the cored apples. Dot the apples with the butter and place them in a baking dish. Pour the orange juice in the bottom of the dish. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the apples are just soft but not collapsed. Serve warm with some of the pan juices.
Note: The apples can also be cooked in a microwave oven on high power for 4 to 5 minutes. Microwaves vary, so check your settings.
Dried Figs in Red Wine
SERVES 4
1 tablespoon butter
12 large dried whole figs (1/2 pound)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup dry red wine
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
Preheat oven to 350°F
Lightly grease an 8 inch casserole dish with the butter. Make a slit with a small knife near the stem of each fig just large enough to form a small hole with your finger. Stuff some of the walnuts into each fig and place them stem side up in the casserole side by side. Heat the wine and honey in a small saucepan just until the mixture is smooth. Pour over the figs. Sprinkle them with the zest and cover the casserole tightly with foil or oven proof cover. Bake 30 minutes. Cool the casserole to room temperature. Place 3 figs on each of the 4 dessert bowls and pour some of the wine sauce over each.
Pears in Wine Sauce
SERVES 6
6 ripe Bartlett or Anjou pears, washed
6 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cranberry or pomegranate juice
3 cups dry red wine
Confectioners sugar
Preheat oven to 350°F.
With a small knife remove a small slice from the bottom of each pear to make it stand upright. Using a vegetable peeler, remove 4 or 5 long narrow strips of skin from each pear to make a striped look. Place the pears upright in a deep 3 inch baking dish just large enough to hold them snugly. Separately combine the juice and wine together and pour over the pears. Sprinkle each pear with 1 tablespoon of sugar. Bake the pears uncovered for about 35 minutes, basting them occasionally with the wine sauce. The pears are done when a knife is easily inserted into them; do not overbake them or they will collapse. When cooked, transfer the pears with a slotted spoon to a serving dish. Pour the wine sauce into a small saucepan and add the remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Bring the mixture to boil, then reduce the heat to low and cook until the liquid is reduced by half and is syrupy looking. Remove the pan from the heat. Baste the pears with the syrup frequently and refrigerate them at least one hour before serving. To serve, place the pears on individual dessert dishes and spoon some of the sauce over each one. With a small sieve sprinkle confectioners sugar over each pear for a beautiful striped effect.
©2010 Mary Ann Esposito, author of Ciao Italia Five-Ingredient Favorites: Quick and Delicious Recipes from an Italian Kitchen
I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School ~ Caroline Taggart
Ever catch yourself saying I Used to Know That? Each holiday season brings another round of cocktail parties, family get-togethers, and corporate gatherings — and invariably, lots of small talk. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when discussing politics, literature, and other intellectual “stuff,” especially when what is thought to be general knowledge is often long-forgotten. Enter I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School. From English and Literature to Math and Science, from History and Geography to Religion and Other-Worldly Topics, this book leaves you equipped to handle any topic of conversation.
Here we’ve cherry-picked twelve fun facts for the holiday season — one for every day of Christmas (or whatever holiday you prefer!) Quiz yourself to see how much “stuff” you need to brush up on before hobnobbing with the boss or office crush.
1. On building sentences: Just what is a “clause”? (Not to be confused with Santa Claus.)
Answer: A clause contains a subject and a verb and may stand alone as a sentence or as part of a sentence (when it is often called a subordinate clause): Santa Claus loves cookies but can’t eat them without milk.
2. How many bones is the spine made up of?
Answer: 26 small bones called vertebrae (Be careful lifting all those heavy holiday boxes.)
3. Acclaimed author Charles Dickens (1812-70) wrote which Christmas classic?
Answer: A Christmas Carol. The miserly Ebenezer Scrooge tries to ignore Christmas and is haunted by the ghost of his former partner, Marley, and by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come, who show him the error of his ways.
4. The fist chapter of this famous book opens with “Call me Ishmael.” Name the book and author. (Hint: it makes a whale of a gift!)
Answer: Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Melville is also the author of Pierre and the unfinished Billy Budd.
5. There’s a name for the process of watering your Christmas tree? Who knew?
Answer: Grab the kids and give them this science factoid as they nurture the family tree: Osmosis is a form of diffusion that is specific to the movement of water. Water moves through a selectively permeable membrane (that is, one that lets some types of molecules through but not others) from a place where there is a higher concentration of water to one where it is lower.
6. Can you name all 6 wives of Henry VIII, father of the Church of England?
Answer: (Listed in order) Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine, Catherine. They are often remembered as divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Sure makes you think twice when complaining about bad relatives.
7. Who was the 7th President of the United States?
Answer: Abraham Lincoln (R, 1861-65) and yes — he really was born in a log cabin on a winter’s day. Notably famous for many reasons including his Gettysburg Address: “Four Score and Seven Years ago our fathers brought fourth upon this continent a new nation conceived in Liberty . . . ”
8. ‘Tis the season to be jolly giving! Don’t forget to tip well this season — etiquette coaches will tell you that means no less than 18%. So just how much should you tip on a bill of $50?
Answer: Percent means by a hundred, so anything expressed as a percentage is a fraction (or part, if you prefer) of 100. So 18% is 18 parts of 100, or 18/100 or .18. If your bill is $50, multiply 50 by . 18 to get your tip total of $9. If you’re feeling generous, a 20% tip would require you to multiply 50 by .20, for a total of $10.00 50.00 x .18 = 9.00 50.00 x .20 = 10.00 Percentages can also be holiday-relevant when it comes to figuring out in-store sales. In this case, you want to multiply by the inverse of the percentage listed. So if you have a $50 sweater that’s on sale for 25% off, multiply 50 by .75 for your total of $37.50. That same $50 sweater on sale for 40% off would equate to $30, or $50 multiplied by 60. 50.00 x .75 = 37.50 50.00 x .60 = 30.00
9. Brr, it’s cold outside. But just how cold does it have to be to get some snow around here?
Answer: Did you know that the freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit? Keep an eye on the temperature and watch your footing for ice on the ground. (See previous fact about those treasured vertebrae!)
10. Everyone knows Santa and his elves live in the North Pole. But what about the South Pole (aka Antarctica)?
Answer: The South Pole was discovered by Roald Amundsen (1872-1928, Norwegian), who was also the first to sail though the Northwest passage, the sea route from Pacific to Atlantic along the north coast of North America. Antarctica is the only continent that contains no countries — instead, it is a stateless territory protected from exploitation by an international treaty. A good place for the elves to protest low wages?
11. Which Ocean is bigger: the Pacific or the Atlantic?
Answer: The Pacific Ocean is larger at 69,374 square miles — that’s almost double the Atlantic, which comes in at 35,665 square miles. Making it evenmore astonishing that St. Nick can cross the globe in just one night.
12. Remember the reason for the Season! Can you name a few things that both Judaism and Christianity have in common?
Answer: Both are monotheistic religions that share the first five books of the Christian Old Testament. Both religions view Jerusalem as a sacred site, the former for the Wailing Wall (contains the remains of the temple that was thought to be the place where God resides on earth) and the latter for Christ’s burial and resurrection site.
Happy Holidays to all!
Midnight Awakening by Lara Adrian
From the back of the book “With a dagger in her hand and vengeance on her mind, Darkhaven beauty Elise Chase prowls Boston’s streets in search of retribution against the Rogue vampires who took from her everything she cherished. Using an extraordinary psychic gift, she tracks her prey, well aware that the power she possesses is destroying her. She must learn to harness this gift, and for that she can turn to only one man—the deadliest of the Breed warriors, Tegan.
No stranger to loss, Tegan knows Elise’s pain. He knows fury, but when he slays his enemies it is with ice in his veins. He is perfect in his self-control, until Elise seeks his aid in her personal war. An unholy alliance is forged—a bond that will link them by blood and vow—and plunge them into a tempest of danger, desire, and the darkest passions of the heart….”
I learned to like Elise more in this book than when she was first introduced and you think she is more full of herself than she truly is. She is a survivor and victim in the same turn with this book. The character Tegan has his hands full when dealing with Elise. However, this is exactly what he needs. She refuses to back down after everything that happens to her and Tegan you think is a real bastard but you learn that is what he became in order to survive his losses.
You really bond with the characters, she’s every woman in the sense of how she empowers herself, even if she does it in a rather stupid manner in my opinion. You really want to to slap her sometimes with how she deals with her psychic gifts, and her grief. However, she has a realistic character in the sense of a lot of woman would do this if it came down to it.
This book is an excellent read and I definitely recommend this third book in the series.
The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach ~ Annemarie Colbin
Thanks to excellent marketing, most people know they should take care of their bones to prevent fractures. A lot of the attention has gone to “getting enough calcium,” through food and preferably supplements. Interestingly, I heard an exercise specialist talk about doing a dissection on an 85-year old woman. “There were calcium deposits everywhere,” she said, “in the muscles, in the joints, in the shoulders — everywhere.” Perhaps, it would seem to me, too much calcium has its drawbacks too.
There is a fallacy in focusing on calcium alone to prevent fractures. Bones are composed of a latticed protein grounding or collagen matrix, which comprises about 35% of the bone and which gives it its flexibility. This matrix is laid down first, and then traps the mineral salt calcium phosphate, also known as hydroxyapatite, which occupies about 65% of the bone mass and which gives the bone its strength. In addition to the calcium salts, the bones are also the depositories of other minerals needed by the body, including magnesium, sodium, potassium, and others. The main component, then, to prevent fractures, is the bone’s flexibility, given by the collagen matrix, rather than the calcium.
Even though strong and hard, bones are not the equivalent of stones or rocks. Instead, like the rest of the tissues in the body, they are constantly moving and changing. They are continuously being built up, in a process called deposition or formation, and just as continuously being broken down, a process called resorption. During childhood and adolescence, this process is called modeling, which has old bone removed and new bone formed in another site of the same bone, sometimes simultaneously, to allow the bones to grow and shift in space. In adulthood, once the skeleton is set at its adult size, the same process is called remodeling, and is more sequential, in that specialized cells called osteoclasts break down old bone, and other cells called osteoclasts build new bone in that same site.
In adults, about 5 to 10 percent of bone is replaced yearly in this fashion, so that most of our adult skeleton is replaced about every ten years. After menopause, bone loss in women may accelerate to 2 to 5% per year, depending on a woman’s nutrition, exercise, pharmacological drug intake, and overall health.
Protein and Vitamin C
For quite some time, it was thought that protein weakened bone. However, the formation of collagen is dependent on sufficient protein in the diet, as well as Vitamin C, which stimulates the enzymes that form the collagen and connective tissue. A deficiency of either one could weaken the bone matrix, interfering with its ability to hold on to the calcium salts.
Both too much and too little protein can cause trouble with the bones. Some studies show that vegetarians have higher bone density than omnivores, or people who eat everything (and presumably much more animal protein, but perhaps also less plant foods). In one study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the mean bone density of the 70 to 79-year old vegetarians was greater than that of the 50 to 59-year old omnivores. Therefore, it was thought that vegetarians have a lesser risk of osteoporosis. Another way to interpret these studies is to note the rest of the dietary context: it could mean that the “omnivores” eat too many sweets and not enough greens and other plant foods. The relationship between protein and calcium may be crucial: A 1997 Norwegian study found that there was an elevated risk of fracture in women with a high intake of protein and a concomitant low calcium intake.
More recent studies show a different picture. The Framingham Osteoporosis Study, published in December 2000, from the Harvard Medical School Division on Aging, established in a study of people aged 69 to 91 that those with the lowest protein intake had the most bone loss, and that lower animal protein intake was also significantly related to bone loss in both the hip and the spine1. Another study published in 2004, by B. Dawson-Hughes from the Bone Metabolism Laboratory at Tufts University, found that a doubling of protein intake from meats, together with a reduction of carbohydrates, not only didn’t increase calcium loss through the urine, but was associated with higher bone growth factors in the blood.2,3Interestingly, soy was no better than meat in another study, where it was found that the substitution of 25 g high isoflavone soy protein for meat, in the presence of typical calcium intakes, did not improve or impair calcium retention or indicators of bone and cardiovascular health in postmenopausal women4. It is time to put to rest the outdated notion that meat makes the bones weaker!!
People who eat carelessly, focusing on packaged and processed foods and refined carbohydrates, and ignoring vegetables and protein, may be risking weak bones from collagen matrix insufficiency. Calcium supplements in these cases may be counterproductive: an excess of calcium and a lack of collagen matrix could make the bone hard but brittle, and so more easily breakable.
Here is a recipe rich in calcium, protein and Vitamin C, really good for your bones!
Salmon Omelette with dill and mesclun greens
1 7.5 oz can salmon, without oil or salt
¼ to ½ teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill OR 1 teaspoon dry dill
freshly ground pepper
2 organic eggs
2 teaspoons unsalted or clarified butter or extra virgin olive oil
1. Drain the juice out of the can, and put the rest of the contents in a mixing bowl. With a fork, mash the salmon well to break up all the pieces, skin, and bones. Add the salt, lemon juice, herbs, and mix well with the fork. Grind in the pepper to taste.
2. Break the eggs into the salmon mixture, and mix in thoroughly.
3. Heat a 9″ cast iron or other skillet, and add the butter until it foams. Pour in the salmon-egg mixture and smooth out with the fork or a spatula. Cook, covered, over very low heat for about 5-6 minutes, or until set. You should be able to shake the pan and have the whole omelet slide around. Turn over by sliding it onto a pot cover and turning it over into the pan, to cook another 3 minutes; alternately, finish under the broiler. Makes 2 servings. Serve with a mesclun salad with lemon and olive oil.
The Sleep Lady’s Good Night, Sleep Tight: Gentle Proven Solutions to Help Your Child Sleep Well and Wake Up Happy ~ Joanne Kenen
Author of The Sleep Lady®’s Good Night, Sleep Tight: Gentle Proven Solutions to Help Your Child Sleep Well and Wake Up Happy
#1 If I skip my child’s nap, he will sleep longer at night. Also, the later I put my child to bed, the later he’ll sleep in the morning.
Sleep Lady: The more overtired you allow your child to get, the more wired he’ll get — making it harder for him to get sleep and stay asleep.
#2 Children not sleeping through the night for the first year or two is a fact of life.
Sleep Lady: Healthy babies 6 months or older who are growing well can often sleep 11 hours at night. Although teething, illness and developmental milestones can disturb sleep at various times, they’re only temporary interruptions.
#3 Newborns sleep all the time and know what they need. You don’t need to schedule their sleep times.
Sleep Lady: Even very young babies benefit from scheduling and consistency at night time and nap time. It cuts down on their crankiness and crying and lays the groundwork for learning how to sleep through the night once they’re a little older.
#4 Children know when they’re sleepy and when they should go to bed.
Sleep Lady: Not once they learn to fight sleep for your company! Children need our direction and guidance with a soothing bedtime routine to help them slow down and transition to sleep. Once you get your child on a consistent schedule, you can plan your own day better and can count on having a happy awake child.
#5 some children, including babies, don’t need as much sleep as others.
Sleep Lady: Very few children need less than the average amount of sleep for their age. They need enough good quality sleep to grow and learn at the incredible rate they do! They need us to protect their need for sleep.
#6 If I let my child “cry it out” at bedtime, I can do whatever it takes (rock, walk, nurse, bottle feed , etc.) to get him back to sleep in the middle of the night.
Sleep Lady: Once your baby is over 6 months of age, you must be consistent at bedtime AND all night wakings. If he becomes accustomed to being fed, rocked, walked, etc. during the night, that is what he will need and expect each time he wakes up in order to go back to sleep. He won’t understand why you are doing it sometimes and not other times.
#7 I will have to give up all forms of co-sleeping if I want a baby with good sleep habits.??
Sleep Lady: Not true. Consider an alternative middle ground called “room sharing” — where you keep your baby in your room in a crib or co-sleeper for months or even a year. You can easily feed your baby, its gives you the peace of mind of having her close by and you don’t have to worry about the safety challenges of bedsharing. Most importantly you can begin to put your baby down “drowsy but awake” at nap time so she can learn to put herself to sleep independently and you are still nearby. This will make the transition to her own crib and room one day much easier!
#8 If I feed my baby late at night, he will sleep longer.
Sleep Lady: A baby will sleep for a longer stretch when he no longer needs to eat at night AND if he knows how to put himself back to sleep without being fed.
#9 Feeding my child formula rather than relying on breast feeding in the evening will help her sleep longer.
Sleep Lady: It may help her sleep longer since formula takes longer to digest, but it won’t make a difference if she doesn’t know how to put herself back to sleep without nursing or bottle feeding.
Copyright © 2009 Kim West, LCSW-C, author of The Sleep Lady®’s Good Night, Sleep Tight: Gentle Proven Solutions to Help Your Child Sleep Well and Wake Up Happy
Author Bio
Kim West, LCSW-C, known as The Sleep Lady®, has helped thousands of tired parents gently teach their babies and children how to go to sleep and stay asleep. West has appeared on Dr. Phil, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, TLC’s Bringing Home Baby, and CNN, and has been written about in a number of publications including The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Parents, Baby Talk, Parenting, the Baltimore Sun, USA Today, and theWashington Post. West hosts the sleep section of The Newborn Channel, played in maternity wards in hospitals across the country. She is the mother of two daughters and a licensed child and family therapist, practicing for over seventeen years. She lives with her family in Annapolis, Maryland.
In addition to The Sleep Lady®’s Good Night, Sleep Tight, West is also the author of 52 Sleep Secrets for Babies and the upcoming, Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook.
Visit Kim West at www.sleeplady.com
The Source of Miracles: 7 Steps to Transforming Your Life through the Lord’s Prayer ~ Kathleen McGowan
We are often reminded this time of year, and rightfully so, that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” I can think of no better way to celebrate what Jesus gave to us than to renew our appreciation for his most amazing gift, The Lord’s Prayer. In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus is asked by one of his disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray.” He responds very specifically, with the Lord’s Prayer. He also teaches this prayer as a component of the Sermon on the Mount. Thus we see in scripture that when Jesus teaches us to pray it is always with these words.
The prayer is perfect. It is our greatest spiritual gift, from the Great Spiritual Giver.
When I set out to write a book about the power of the Lord’s Prayer, I was stunned to discover that there were very few published works that dealt with it in any depth. Nearly one third of the planet’s population recites this prayer — over two billion people — and yet there were essentially no books about it.
The time had come! What I have been asked most often since writing The Source of Miracles: Seven Powerful Steps to Transforming Your Life Through the Lord’s Prayer is: why did I feel the need to write it and why now? What is it about the Lord’s Prayer that is so important for us to examine anew as we make our journey into the new world of the 21st Century?
The simple answer is that using this prayer in a specific practice has transformed my life and I have witnessed it as the source of extraordinary miracles, not just for myself, but for countless others. I know it can change lives, and maybe even the world, for the better. Therefore I equally knew that I had an obligation to share this prayer practice with as many people as possible — and fast. The world is at critical mass, people need hope to go forward, and this prayer can and will bring them that — and more. Everything we need for personal transformation is included in just over fifty words that most of us already know by heart, but many of us have forgotten how to use effectively.
In my own journey as a writer and researcher, I came across an amazing prayer practice that was taught by a Christian sect in France during the Middle Ages. For these medieval Christians, the Lord’s Prayer was not only the cornerstone of their faith, it was the guidebook to living a perfect life. They understood that every word of the prayer was carefully considered by Jesus, and given to us as a loving and careful instruction for building our faith while living a joyous life through God. I began to work through this prayer as a spiritual practice in the medieval manner, which breaks the prayer down into seven lessons about life: Faith, Surrender, Service, Abundance, Forgiveness, Overcoming and Love. The results were astounding and immediate. My faith was strengthened and my life transformed in ways I could never have imagined prior to learning how to live through this prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer is now, as it was when Jesus lived, the incorruptible formula for personal and global transformation.
While most of us can rattle off this greatest of prayers, many of us have forgotten the extraordinary power and meaning behind the words, if we ever thought about them to begin with. I learned the Lord’s Prayer when I was three years old, in pre-school, many years before I would ever know what words like hallowed, trespasses or temptation meant. Like most children, we were taught to speak it on cue, like obedient little parrots who could make the appropriate sounds come out after endless repetitions, but had no ability to understand the somewhat exotic sounding syllables.
I can assure you that we were not taught the origins of the prayer as children, and even if someone had tried to explain it to us, we were far too young to understand it as a dynamic spiritual practice and a fool-proof recipe for creating a joyous and fulfilled life.
So many of us grow up never knowing that, with the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus was giving us the formula for manifesting miracles; not only when we most need them, but on a very regular basis. It was his gift to us, and one that we can reclaim for ourselves and our loved ones this holiday season. We can create our own miracles in this season which is dedicated to them. It is literally the gift that keeps on giving!
The Lord’s Prayer addresses the issues that hurt us, confound us, and impede our progress, and illuminates the way in which we can overcome these obstacles. The prayer is our guide to purifying our spirit of anything that troubles it and holds us back from functioning at our highest potential, a potential that leads directly to happiness and abundance. Using this prayer regularly as a spiritual practice creates real and lasting change at the soul level, change which becomes manifest in very earthly, visible ways.
When spoken with faith and intention, these are literally magic words.
I believe that if you study and hold tight to the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes, a handful of parables, and what Jesus tells us in Matthew 22, verses 37-39 – love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and love thy neighbor as thyself – then you pretty much have everything you need to live a perfect life and encourage peace on earth. But foremost of these gifts, the center from which all blessings spring, is the Lord’s Prayer. While the other elements teach us valuable spiritual lessons, this great prayer is the tool that connects us immediately and directly to the source that is within each of us: the source of faith, the source of love, the source of forgiveness. And, in combination, those things are the source of very real miracles.
My own life has been transformed dramatically by utilizing the Lord’s Prayer as a regular spiritual practice. As a result, I have witnessed the most miraculous events, including wonders of life and death. My own life has been blessed with extraordinary abundance and joy, thanks to the gift of this prayer practice. I hope to share this joy with you through the great prayer that unifies us all and is available to everyone. Together, we really can create heaven on earth — just the way Jesus taught us. Amen!
©2009 Kathleen McGowan, author of The Source of Miracles: 7 Steps to Transforming Your Life through the Lord’s Prayer
Author Bio
Kathleen McGowan, author of The Source of Miracles: 7 Steps to Transforming Your Life through the Lord’s Prayer, is an internationally published writer whose work has appeared on five continents and in at least fifteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three sons. Kathleen is a dedicated activist, and commits a portion of her time and royalties to causes that protect women and children from the horrors of human trafficking and sexual slavery. She has teamed with The Emancipation Network and Made by Survivors to fund and participate in programs which provide shelter and safety for victims of abuse, and raise awareness of this global epidemic.
For more information about the book, please visit www.KathleenMcGowan.com.
