3 exercises in mindfulness

1. Breathe like a bee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Create magnetic hands.

3. Dissolve a thought.

Toddler freak out, Dr. Harvey Karp and the caveman, bliss... :)

Melinda Wenner Moyer for Slate:

Last month, I discovered (and then nearly peed in my pants as a result of) comedian Jason Good’s blog post 46 Reasons My Three Year Old Might Be Freaking Out. (The first three possibilities: His sock is on wrong. His lip tastes salty. His shirt has a tag on it.) After exchanging a few comments on Facebook about it with a friend, she privately messaged me, frustrated with and concerned about her 18-month-old. “It's like all of a sudden in the last three weeks, she's turned into this tantrum ball and I never know what's going to set her off,” she wrote. “I'm living with a baby land mine!”

Me too. What is it with toddlers and losing their shit all the time? Is it normal that my son wails if his shirt sleeve isn’t all the way down, loves the bathtub one day but hates it the next, and manically screams “MINE!” two seconds after handing our dog a ball?

Yes, thankfully. And it’s not only normal, but reasonable. As five experts on child psychology recently explained to me, toddlers’ irrational behaviors are a totally understandable reflection of their inner turmoil and frustrations. In sum, their world is turning upside down and they don’t yet have the skills to handle it. Tantrums don’t mean your kid is a spoiled brat or needs therapy; tantrums mean he is normal.

The toddler life is not actually as cushy as it seems. Sure, I’d like 12 hours of sleep a night and all my meals prepared for me, thanks. But 2-year-olds are also going through a hellish personal crisis: They have just learned how to walk and use tools, so they really want to explore the world; at the same time, they are terrified of what that world contains and constantly fearful that their parents, whom they love and trust to a terrifying degree, will suddenly abandon them. Oh, and those same parents? They’re suddenly barking “no” all the time, seemingly just for fun. What the hell?

It’s no coincidence that kids start having tantrums around the time that parents start enforcing rules. When you say no, sweetie, you can’t have that butcher knife, your 20-month-old has no idea that you are depriving her of this awesomely shiny contraption for her own safety. “Since it’s the parent, whom they rely on for everything, who is taking it away, it’s perceived as a withdrawal of love, essentially,” says Alicia Lieberman, a professor of Infant Mental Health at the University of California-San Francisco and author of The Emotional Life of the Toddler. “They don’t know your reasoning. They just know that something they were getting great pleasure from, all of a sudden, you are taking away.” The pain that this causes, Lieberman says, is similar to what we might feel if our spouse betrays or cheats on us.

As adults, we (usually) don’t (audibly) freak out when we don’t get what we want or when somebody makes us mad because we can talk ourselves down. We can identify and label the emotion we’re feeling, which, research suggests, goes a long way toward quelling and controlling it. Our ability to label feelings stems in part from our excellent language skills, which young toddlers don’t have yet. Also thanks to language, as adults we can confront the people who are upsetting us and suggest solutions. My 22-month-old, though now very adept at informing me of his need for milk, doesn’t manage complex negotiations so well. His first response to frustration is generally to grab the nearest object and throw it across the room, which makes sense considering that his gross motor skills are among his strongest assets. If the only tool you have is an arm, you tend to see every problem as a potential projectile.

Another reality of the toddler brain: The frontal lobe, which is responsible for planning, logic, reasoning, working memory and self-control, is vastly under-developed. Because of this, “toddlers are really living in the moment, not thinking about consequences,” explains developmental psychologist Nancy McElwain, who runs the Children’s Social Development Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There’s no voice in their head saying, hmm, maybe it’s not a good idea to throw my lovie in the toilet (too bad, because lovie got very wet in our house last week).

A semi-functional frontal lobe also means that toddlers have practically no sense of time and patience and therefore “experience wanting as needing,” Lieberman says—i.e., when they want a chicken nugget, they really, really need it NOW! They can also have a skewed sense of cause-and-effect, developing a paralyzing fear of the bathtub because what if they go down the drain, too? Finally, let’s not forget the importance of experience when it comes to handling challenges appropriately, says developmental psychologist Claire Kopp, co-author of Socioemotional Development in the Toddler Years. The 2-year-old, she says, simply doesn’t have any experiences to draw from.

If it sounds like I’m characterizing your beautiful, special, way-above-average toddler as animal-like, that’s because I am. Pediatrician Harvey Karp, author of The Happiest Baby on the Block and The Happiest Toddler on the Block, calls toddlers “little cavemen.” “That is not meant to be derogatory, but meant to set the frame of reference for parents,” he explained to me. “It takes years to socialize our little toddlers, so it’s important for parents to cut themselves some slack. Don’t feel you’re a terrible parent because they smeared jam all over the walls.” (This is not to say that toddlers don’t also love organization and routine; they do. My son lines his toy cars up in a row every day, probably because he’s trying to build some order into his chaotic, confusing life. And his sleeve-down requirements may stem from a desire for consistency.)

The caveman analogy helps to explain yet another issue plaguing toddlers, Karp says: They are very under-stimulated. Little cavemen (and here I’m talking about the real ones) spent their days very differently than kids do today. “It was a sensory-rich environment: smells, the fresh air, shadows, birds, grass under your feet. Today, we put our little kids in houses and apartments with flat floors, flat walls, ceilings, and not too many chickens, and we think that’s normal,” Karp explains. “It is hard to spend all day with a two-year-old, and they don’t really want to spend all day with you anyway.”

Given all this, is it really that surprising that tantrums happen as frequently as they do? There are certainly good and bad ways for parents to handle poor behavior (an issue for another column), but the existence of tantrums, and the tendency for toddlers to tackle their woes through screaming and hitting and throwing, is perfectly normal because it’s sometimes “the toddler’s only recourse,” says Tovah Klein, director of the Barnard CollegeCenter for Toddler Development. If your universe were amazing and terrifying and frustrating and unpredictable, and you didn’t have good communication skills or a whole lot of experience or much of a frontal lobe, you’d freak the fuck out every once in a while, too.

Wishlist: O Grande Livro dos Medos e das Birras

Estamos mesmo (todos) a crescer ;)

Five Things Every New Mom Should Know

1. Know What's Normal
Question marks abound for new parents, so educate yourself about behaviors and traits that may seem unusual but are actually fairly common.

Here are a few examples:

• Belly button popping out: This indicates an umbilical hernia; these usually resolve with no treatment.
• Gooey eyes: These are due to blocked tears ducts and usually resolve around one year of age.
• Back hair: Called "lanugo," this is shed soon after birth.
• Shuddering and crossing eyes: These should go away by four to six months of age.
• Hiccuping and sneezing: These don't necessarily indicate illness in newborns; they simply clear secretions.

2. How to Prevent Allergies and Obesity
If either parent has a history of asthma, allergies, or eczema, breastfeeding or feeding with a hypoallergenic formula may prevent or delay these conditions for the child. Recent findings also indicate increased risk of obesity when food is introduced before four months; Dr. Thebner recommends waiting four to six months to introduce food.

3. New Recommendations for Introducing New Foods
Be sure to read the latest research on introducing new foods to your child's diet, as recommendations have evolved over the years, in some cases dramatically. For example, conventional wisdom once dictated avoiding foods like eggs and peanuts during your baby's first few years of life, but it now appears that doing so will predispose your child to more food allergies.

4. Protect Baby from Disease
Get a flu shot before birth: It gives the baby some protection in utero and also reduces the risk that the baby will catch flu from you. In addition, you may want to consider the Tdap vaccine, a booster for tetanus and whooping cough, which can be fatal in babies.

5. Encourage Healthy Sleep Patterns
It's important to establish healthy sleep patterns early, so read up on sleep strategies before giving birth (while you still have the energy to read!). Dr. Thebner recommends "The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight" and "52 Sleep Secrets for Babies," both by Kim West.


Read more at Wholeliving.com: 5 Things Every New Mom Should Know 

Light for Malawi

and it's beautiful ;)

A solar-charged light might seem like just another green gadget to the average American, but for families in rural Africa, it could prove revolutionary.

Product design consultancy Plus Minus Design is vying to replace unsustainable and potentially dangerous lanterns in the homes of off-grid Africans with the Solar Pebble. Engineered with the economic constraints of developing-world citizens in mind, the Solar Pebble will provide one hour of LED light for every two hours of charge, and will cost only $2.70 to manufacture.

Plus Minus Design, based in Leeds, U.K., was founded by three undergraduate students at the University of Leeds. While studying product design and engineering, Adam Robinson, Henry James, and Tom Eales were given the opportunity to work with SolarAid, a charity in the U.K. 

SolarAid, which works to fight poverty and climate change, worked with the students to develop a solar-powered alternative to kerosene lanterns. Those lanterns, commonly used in rural Africa, draw 20 percent of an average Malawian family's income, SolarAid said, and pose respiratory health problems, as well as create fire hazards.

The undergrads spent months researching life in Malawi to design a product that addressed the needs of rural families, but also took environmental, economic, and lifestyle factors into consideration. Local maintenance, potential for the development of children's education, and adaptability to charge other devices were the team's key requirements. 

Though mobile phones and portable radios are common in rural Africa, individuals must travel to locations with mains power for charging. With this issue in mind, the engineers designed the Solar Pebble to charge phones and portable devices in addition to providing light.

Plus Minus Design was also able to address the need for local maintenance with a simply designed product assembled through snap-in parts and repairable with basic tools.

The Solar Pebble provides light and a means of portable charging, but its implications are even greater. The lamp will ship partially assembled, providing jobs for locals who would finish assembly. Furthermore, Plus Minus Design hopes the lamp will increase radio usage, providing rural African families with HIV/AIDS prevention information.

According to Robinson, the Solar Pebble will launch in Uganda and the U.K. by midsummer.

Solar Pebble could light the way for rural Africans

De l'amour et de l'eau fraîche ;)

Férias! ;)

O Quartinho das Crianças...

Para conseguir um quarto divertido e ao mesmo tempo propiciador do sono, tenha em consideração aspectos como a localização, iluminação, janelas, soalho, cor das paredes, mobília, camas, tecidos e espaços de armazenagem.

Localização: idealmente, os quartos das crianças deveriam estar virados para nascente, de forma a absorverem a energia ascendente do sol (representativa do crescimento). Oeste (poente) é também uma boa direcção para crianças muito activas (energia descendente).
Iluminação: as luzes devem ser focos virados para cima, dado que fornecem uma iluminação mais global e bem distribuída, ampliando o espaço. Devem evitar-se candeeiros de metal, que conduzem de uma forma mais acentuada a energia electromagnética e a electricidade estática. É importante que a luz seja a suficiente para que a criança não tenha dificuldade em ver os brinquedos, nomeadamente quando está a brincar no chão, mas que não seja demasiada, permitindo redução à hora do deitar. Uma luz de presença pode ser uma boa companhia, mais pela referência que representa do que pela iluminação que produz.
Janelas: devem ter cortinados de algodão, de preferência de enrolar para levantar durante o dia, criando uma atmosfera mais activa, e descer durante a noite, para que a criança possa dormir melhor, sem luzes exteriores.
Soalho: evitar o uso de alcatifas, dada a acumulação de pó, ácaros e bolores. O soalho de madeira é o mais saudável e o mais fácil de limpar. Poderá haver uma zona de linóleo ou material equivalente, para certas brincadeiras que requerem superfícies deslizantes.
Cor das paredes: os tons de azul (claro) são particularmente bons; nuances de verde ou amarelo podem também ser utilizadas. O uso de duas cores é bom.
Mobília: os móveis devem ter cores alegres e os cantos arredondados, para diminuir o risco de acidentes.
Camas: é importante que as crianças durmam com a cabeça virada para o mesmo lado, com a cabeceira encostada à parede; as camas devem ser de madeira. Não se deve deixar as camas por fazer durante o dia.
Tecidos: utilizar lençóis ou fronhas de almofada de algodão. Os cobertores devem ser de materiais naturais. O colchão, se em algodão maciço, permite que o sono seja mais reparador e que a transpiração se dê de uma forma adequada. Os edredões são uma boa opção, mas há que atender ao material interior (pode a criança ser alérgica às penas, por exemplo), e ao grau de aquecimento e absorção da humidade e suor. À noite as crianças suam mais.
Guarda-brinquedos: colocar umas quantas caixas (de madeira, se possível), de modo a que a criança aí guarde todos os brinquedos antes de dormir, de forma organizada. Durante o dia os jogos poderão estar mais disponíveis.

A evitar
Tendo em conta tudo o que se sabe, não será mau tomar algumas precauções:
material eléctrico e electrónico – é essencial que a criança não durma perto de uma aparelhagem de som (a distância mínima deverá ser superior a um metro e meio); as colunas de som contêm um íman que altera bastante o campo electromagnético; o mesmo é verdade para relógios digitais e computadores que, mesmo desligados, criam um campo de electricidade estática nociva para a saúde – o melhor é, caso existam, desligá-los na tomada, durante a noite;
cabeceiras por baixo de janelas – não se deve colocar a cabeceira da cama debaixo de uma janela, pois cria energia muito activa que pode dificultar o sono;
portas abertas – durante a noite, o ideal é fechar a porta do quarto, assim como as cortinas, acalmando assim o fluxo de energia e favorecendo um sono profundo, a menos que a criança reclame por se sentir amedrontada;
mobílias pesadas – o mobiliário do quarto deve ser «leve» e simples, para não o tornar opressivo ou dar uma ideia de redução de espaço, que torna o «animal» que há em nós naturalmente mais agressivo e inquieto;
espelhos – mesmo sem ir às teorias que dizem que os espelhos impedem de nos livrarmos das emoções antigas, sabe-se que amplificam as ondas electromagnéticas e a electricidade residual, interferindo com o processo de acalmar.
Atenção: nada do que escrevi é garantia de noites totalmente tranquilas – isto é um aviso para os pais que já não dormem há dois ou três anos e que poderão pensar que os seus problemas se vão resolver com meia dúzia de medidas, até porque os factores que interferem com o sono são múltiplos –, mas pensando que o sono é uma fase do dia em que se deve receber um mínimo de estímulos externos e ter a máxima segurança para o cérebro se dedicar «de corpo e alma» à gestão da informação e bom arquivo dos estímulos, com a construção de uma memória eficiente, todas estas indicações fazem sentido e apontam na mesma direcção.

Perspectivas: The Case Against Breast-Feeding

One afternoon at the playground last summer, shortly after the birth of my third child, I made the mistake of idly musing about breast-feeding to a group of new mothers I’d just met. This time around, I said, I was considering cutting it off after a month or so. At this remark, the air of insta-friendship we had established cooled into an icy politeness, and the mothers shortly wandered away to chase little Emma or Liam onto the slide. Just to be perverse, over the next few weeks I tried this experiment again several more times. The reaction was always the same: circles were redrawn such that I ended up in the class of mom who, in a pinch, might feed her baby mashed-up Chicken McNuggets.

In my playground set, the urban moms in their tight jeans and oversize sunglasses size each other up using a whole range of signifiers: organic content of snacks, sleekness of stroller, ratio of tasteful wooden toys to plastic. But breast-feeding is the real ticket into the club. My mother friends love to exchange stories about subversive ways they used to sneak frozen breast milk through airline security (it’s now legal), or about the random brutes on the street who don’t approve of breast-feeding in public. When Angelina Jolie wanted to secure her status as America’s ur-mother, she posed on the cover of W magazine nursing one of her twins. Alt-rocker Pete Wentz recently admitted that he tasted his wife, Ashlee Simpson’s, breast milk (“soury” and “weird”), after bragging that they have a lot of sex—both of which must have seemed to him markers of a cool domestic existence.

From the moment a new mother enters the obstetrician’s waiting room, she is subjected to the upper-class parents’ jingle: “Breast Is Best.” Parenting magazines offer “23 Great Nursing Tips,” warnings on “Nursing Roadblocks,” and advice on how to find your local lactation consultant (note to the childless: yes, this is an actual profession, and it’s thriving). Many of the stories are accompanied by suggestions from the ubiquitous parenting guru Dr. William Sears, whose Web site hosts a comprehensive list of the benefits of mother’s milk. “Brighter Brains” sits at the top: “I.Q. scores averaging seven to ten points higher!” (Sears knows his audience well.) The list then moves on to the dangers averted, from infancy on up: fewer ear infections, allergies, stomach illnesses; lower rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease. Then it adds, for good measure, stool with a “buttermilk-like odor” and “nicer skin”—benefits, in short, “more far-reaching than researchers have even dared to imagine.”

In 2005, Babytalk magazine won a National Magazine Award for an article called “You Can Breastfeed.” Given the prestige of the award, I had hoped the article might provide some respite from the relentlessly cheerful tip culture of the parenting magazines, and fill mothers in on the real problems with nursing. Indeed, the article opens with a promisingly realistic vignette, featuring a theoretical “You” cracking under the strain of having to breast-feed around the clock, suffering “crying jags” and cursing at your husband. But fear not, You. The root of the problem is not the sudden realization that your ideal of an equal marriage, with two parents happily taking turns working and raising children, now seems like a farce. It turns out to be quite simple: You just haven’t quite figured out how to fit “Part A into Part B.” Try the “C-hold” with your baby and some “rapid arm movement,” the story suggests. Even Dr. Sears pitches in: “Think ‘fish lips,’” he offers.

In the days after my first child was born, I welcomed such practical advice. I remember the midwife coming to my hospital bed and shifting my arm here, and the baby’s head there, and then everything falling into place. But after three children and 28 months of breast-feeding (and counting), the insistent cheerleading has begun to grate. Buttermilk-like odor? Now Dr. Sears is selling me too hard. I may have put in fewer parenting years than he has, but I do have some perspective. And when I look around my daughter’s second-grade class, I can’t seem to pick out the unfortunate ones: “Oh, poor little Sophie, whose mother couldn’t breast-feed. What dim eyes she has. What a sickly pallor. And already sprouting acne!”

I dutifully breast-fed each of my first two children for the full year that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends. I have experienced what the Babytalk story calls breast-feeding-induced “maternal nirvana.” This time around, nirvana did not describe my state of mind; I was launching a new Web site and I had two other children to care for, and a husband I would occasionally like to talk to. Being stuck at home breast-feeding as he walked out the door for work just made me unreasonably furious, at him and everyone else.

In Betty Friedan’s day, feminists felt shackled to domesticity by the unreasonably high bar for housework, the endless dusting and shopping and pushing the Hoover around—a vacuum cleaner being the obligatory prop for the “happy housewife heroine,” as Friedan sardonically called her. When I looked at the picture on the cover of Sears’s Breastfeeding Book—a lady lying down, gently smiling at her baby and still in her robe, although the sun is well up—the scales fell from my eyes: it was not the vacuum that was keeping me and my 21st-century sisters down, but another sucking sound. (...)

Lengthy article from The Atlantic

Tragam isto para cá (mas a preços decentes...

... preços portuguesitos :)

cheirar bem no Halloween

A abóbora, alcaçuz e caramelo ;) da Sephora!

«10 Things I Should Have Done When I Brought My Baby Home»

[my thoughts exactly, apart from the changing table - my back thanks me for it - and the baby-sitting dog - because we have a cat... nuff said - and the pacifier - either that already or relinquishing my pinky]

1) When people came to my door I should have accepted the food. I should have pretended my stitches hurt really bad so I could have got cupcakes.

2) When people offered to clean my house, I should have accepted. I never liked cleaning the bathroom anyways.

3) When people offered to babysit so I could sleep, I should have accepted. There’s nothing like sleeping the afternoon away.

4) When my husband offered to feed the baby during the night, I should have accepted. Then he could hear me snoring while he’s up with the baby.

5) When people offered to change the baby for me, I should have accepted. Why not, that will be one less poopy diaper on my grand total of the million I would have changed in the years ahead.

6) I should have never used the change table. They are useless. You can’t keep them unsupervised for one second. That’s what they made floors for…and they are free.

7) I should have let my baby use the pacifier. There is nothing like waiting in a Boxing Day line only to have to leave it because your baby will only nurse.

8 ) I should have bought more than one bouncy chair. Those chairs are multi-purpose. If the baby is fussy you can throw him in it. If he’s hungry, throw him in there and feed him. If you want to watch Ellen, throw him in there and let him watch too.

9) I should have taught my dog to babysit. There’s nothing like making your dog watch the baby. Teach him to bark when he thinks something wrong. That way you will be able to get in that time to email your friend.

10) The thing that I should have listened to is…”Sleep when your baby sleeps.” They say this for a reason. Mom’s aren’t supposed to be awake for 24 hours. We are not doctors. We need sleep. I need sleep. I should have relaxed more and did that. The housework will be there tomorrow, but will your sanity be?

Found by Daddy at Knocked-up Celebs

Seriously...

Estou passada

ou, título alternativo, esta gente deve saber o que é um Bidé ;)

How often to bathe kids?

há que ler tudo, especialmente os comentários.

Não obstante, não vou chamar nomes a esta gente, eu que sou do tempo do banho semanal e da lavagem diária possivel, e não chamo também porque as crianças, seja em que idade for, devem ter dias impossíveis de encaixar, de aturar, de banhar :)
Lá chegaremos...

Experts have plenty of advice for new parents. If only they could agree.

«I AM RAISING my baby all wrong. You're probably raising your baby wrong, too. I have it on good authority. The authority comes from an assortment of books, mostly large-format paperbacks, strewn around my living room. I can tell they are addressed to me because most of them have "Your Baby" in the title or subtitle.

(...)

Feed the baby cereal with a spoon. Feed the baby cereal with your finger.

(...)

Consider the pacifier. "Most babies don't need them and are better off without," Penelope Leach declares. "Pacifiers," the American Academy of Pediatrics counters, "do not cause any medical or psychological problems."

Or the perilous issue of whether a baby should sleep with its parents. "Family beds do have snags and it's sensible to foresee them if you can so that you can weigh the pros and cons," Leach writes, on tiptoe. The American Academy of Pediatrics chooses its side by omitting "family bed" and "co-sleeping" from its index altogether; the Searses, partisans of love and attachment, present a bullying hard sell for cuddling through the night: "If there were fewer cribs, would there be fewer crib deaths?"»

(...)

Hilarious ;)

The Happiest Baby on the Block

Parecem truques de magia!
Excertos do livro e do DVD no linque do título deste post :)

The five Ss:

Swaddling… A feeling of pure "wrap"ture;
Side (or, Stomach)… Your baby's "feel-good" position;
Shhhh… Your baby's favorite soothing sound;
Swinging… Moving in rhythm with your baby's needs;
Sucking… The "icing on the cake".