Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Sewing cute skirts for kids cheap, no sewing machine required.

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Some time ago a grandmother, knowing that I had made a skirt for one of my granddaughters for less than a dollar asked me to explain what I did. So here this is, my response to a very old request, sorry for the delay.

My girls like to wear skirts (they are 6 and 8). I wear skirts a lot, very few dresses, but lots of skirts. So perhaps that is why they like them so, who knows.

I shop at thrift stores and look for really cute adult or junior size skirts that have been marked down to about $1. The skirt above (in its original form), I believe I purchase for about $.25. The original skirt had an elastic waste band with stretched out elastic. I took out the elastic, cut the skirt down a bit at the top of the skirt to make the skirt the correct length. I turned down the waistline toward the inside of the skirt about an inch and stitched it down by hand. I wanted to watch a T.V. show while I did the project. After finishing the stitching, with a safety pin on one end of the new non-roll elastic cut to fit her, I pulled it through the new waste band space.

A couple of  years ago when my granddaughter needed a black skirt for a school performance, I thought, "Where in the heck am I going to find a black skirt for a 6 year old out here in my rural community." I found the cutest black skirt at the thrift store in a junior size that had adorable black embroidery around the lower 6 inches of the skirt. I did the same thing as described above and it turned out perfect.

The key is finding skirts that have a cute style that you can take advantage of. Such as a cute hem decoration or layers of some sort, like the one above. This is much easier and cheaper than making a skirt from scratch, and you don't need to know how to use a sewing machine. You are also guaranteed that your child will not go to school or church and find someone else wearing the exact same thing.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
Grandmother raising grandchildren
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

One more for the weekend

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

This weekend my little 5 -year-old grandson spent the weekend with us. We bribed him. If he would be really good at school all week from Tuesday to Friday (Monday was not his best day), he could come and spend the weekend with us. He loves to play with his 2 cousins (the two we are raising) and was so excited to see our new playhouse. After he played in it a while, I asked him how he liked it. With a big smile, he replied, "Oh, it is so awesome." He is such a cutey. On my Feb 20th post I have a graphic of a sample bookmark with his picture on it. The download-able graphic of course does not have his picture in it. The box for the picture is of course empty, so you can put your own child's picture in it.

Tonight he's back home with his mommy and daddy and my two little ones are in bed, so now I think I'll collapse and go watch something on T.V., except I can hear the television on in the living room, and my husband is watching something about "insects." Oh by the way, my girls found another skeleton; We think a rabbit. They begged to add it to their bone collection. I made no promises, but it is soaking in a big bowl of bleach water. I need to get a special trunk or something just for the bones they collect. Why can't we just stick with rocks and shells?

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
Grandmother raising grandchildren

www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.PathwaytoHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.SeniorPro.com

Needing a Daddy

Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

This post is going to be a bit different from what I usually write. But for some reason I feel compelled to write about what I am feeling. I miss my dad. I have been crying for 3 days because I miss my dad. My father died 4 years ago, and I really didn't cry much when he died. He was fortunate however; He died peacefully in his sleep in his own bed. He was 82 and was preparing for his annual winter trip to Mexico in his motor home.

So why am I crying now and wanting my dad? I guess there are a lot of reasons. Even though my father was not the nicest person, especially when he was drinking, I do have some good memories. I loved to sit on his lap; Even when I was a teenager I was known to crawl on his lap and just snuggle with him in his big Lazy Boy recliner. I felt so safe snuggled up near him. My dad totally trusted me as a teenager, enough to ask me to quit my job at 16 (working in the cherry factory) because he needed me to supervise his workers out in the orchards.

Now these adult male workers were not going to listen to a 16 year-old girl when she said it was not time to quit working for the day, but my father knew he could trust everything I told him, and that I was a hard worker. That means a lot to me just knowing that.

I can remember as an adult going to visit him for a week. I was crying to him about problems I was having with one of my own kids. He usually didn't have kind soft words to say, and I expected him to say something like, "Well, you wanted all of those kids." But he didn't. He kindly responded, "Honey, I'm sorry this is so difficult for you."

I can remember one visit I had with him when he was doing quite a bit of drinking and was talking in a rather vulgar way. I told my children to get in the car. I told my dad we were leaving because I did not teach my children things like that. He responded with an ugly retort. At that I leaned over him, kissed him on the forehead, and said, "I love you Dad, even if we don't get along sometimes." He responded softly with, "I love you too Babe." It was five years before I saw him again. But the words, "I love you too, Babe" are branded in my brain and heart forever.

So I cry. I cry because I want to talk to my dad and tell him I miss him. One night I dreamt of my dad. I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck and cried and said, "Oh Daddy, I miss you so much." He responded, "I miss you too." But that was just a night time dream, a dream I desperately needed.

Because I am in such a tearful mood, I cry for all of the foster children and grandchildren who will never even have the few good memories I have had. This makes me sad, very sad. So I pray that all of the grandfathers and foster fathers out there will do the best they can, to be some little girl's dad that will help her feel safe and someone to go to when she is grown. Of course, I want the same for all of the little boys too.

Karen Wright, B.S Community Health Education
Grandmother raising grandchildren
www.PathwaytoHealthyLiving.com
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.SeniorPro.com

Helping Children Avoid Obesity

Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

In a society filled with fast food restaurants at every corner and junk food an almost staple in many families' homes, becoming overweight is a major threat issue for many children.

Obesity in children and adolescents has more than tripled since 1980, and it is serious. Children who are overweight are more likely to have high blood pressure, develop Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, and asthma, not to mention low self-esteem and low self-image.

The National Institute of Health as well as other agencies have put together the "We Can" program, which stands for "Ways to Enhance Children's Activity & Nutrition." Click here to go to their site. There is a lot of very good information. This link takes you directly to a very colorful nutrition 2 page pdf handout. This colorful handout shows kids the "Go" foods (the ones to eat a lot of), the "Slow" foods (the foods to eat some of), and the "Whoa" foods (the ones to watch out for such as fried foods, sodas, and any foods to eat sparingly or not at all). There is some great information on the Internet to help us teach our children and grandchildren how to eat healthy and be active.

Sometimes grandparents need all of the help we can get in teaching our grandchildren and changing existing poor habits they may already have had. Chances are when grandparents get children to raise, they were probably not taught healthy living habits. Of course if grandparents are raising children because of a tragic death, that may not be the case. But for most grandparents that I hear from, they are raising children whose health is already a concern.

Since I am raising girls, I emphasize to them that by eating the super healthy food I provide for them, it will help them grow up to have beautiful skin and hair. I also stress the importance that healthy living has on our brains. We talk a lot about protecting our brains, I mean a lot.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
A Grandmother raising grandchildren

Pathway to Healthy Living
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Difficulties vs. Misery

By Karen Best Wright, http://www.raisingyourgrandhcildren.com

Tonight a speaker on a television show made the statement, "Difficulties are inevitable, but misery is an option." I really liked that, so I jotted it down in my journal. We all face difficult times, everyone does, but the challenges and difficulties do not need to make us miserable. Difficulties are a fact of life, but misery is a state of mind. I remember the times about ten years ago when I would go rock climbing with friends. It was very difficult, but misery was the last of my emotions. I loved it. Now, I chose that difficult task, so that was of course different from difficult tasks that were thrust upon me.

However, if we can keep this quote in mind or tape it to our desk or computer, "Difficulties are inevitable, but misery is an option," it will be easier to view our undesired challenges with a different attitude. If we see these difficulties as an opportunity to learn and grow into a better and stronger person, it can help us avoid that terrible feeling misery. If you even catch yourself thinking the thoughts, "I am so miserable," stop immediately and say, "No I am just having a difficult time but I am NOT miserable." You certainly don't want to make that true and then get stuck that way.

Karen Wright, B.S Grandmother raising grandchildren
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

What Children Collect - How about these?

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

 

My granddaughters are much like I am; They love to collect rocks, especially pretty ones. But their latest collection is one of bones. That's right, bones. The bone on the right side in this photo was actually found in a public park not far from a big city. How in the world could a bone like that be in a public park? We guessed it must be the jaw bone of a large dog. My granddaughter (age 8) was so enthralled, I couldn't say "no." I was actually quite fascinated with it as well.

The bone on the left was found by our 6 year old on our own property. I do not know what it is from. I cannot tell if it is from a small animal like a squirrel or a huge snake. We have both live critters like that around here.

I soaked the spiny skeleton in bleach water before I would let her keep it. I guess I have two budding paleontologists or archeologists in our home. As for me, I will stick to collecting rocks.

Karen Wright, B.S. Grandmother Raising Grandchildren
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Finally, My Very Own Playhouse

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

When I was a young girl, I loved to play house, probably like most little girls. I lived on a cherry farm. So during the summertime, I would build playhouses out of cherry lugs, that is until the pickers needed them, and my house was taken apart. I built them over and over again building fond memories along the way.

I also would go into the woods to play by myself and build a playhouse simply by taking rocks and making the outline of a house. Nature supplied all of my needs to create whatever I needed in decorating my house. I built this house, without walls, right next to a big old tree with a huge broken limb that I would sit and bounce on like a teeter-totter, and my swing-set was simply an old tire with a rope tied to a tree.

But I always wanted a real playhouse, the kind no one would take apart or the kind that had real walls and a roof. Well, I finally got my playhouse at 55. We bought it for our grandchildren, but I am certain I am as excited as they are. I told them in the summer we would put an air mattress in it and sleep overnight in it. My eight year old looked at me with a grin on her face and said, "You're not going to do that." I replied, "Of course, I am. It's better than a tent."

My grandchildren (this is for all of them not just the ones who live with me) not only have a real playhouse, but a real swing-set and teeter-totter too. I hope they build just as many wonderful memories as I did as a kid.

Karen Wright, B.S. Grandmother Raising Grandchildren
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com

Great Grandmother Raising a Toddler

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Tonight I was reading an article on-line from a Miami, Florida newspaper about a great grandmother who is raising 3 grandchildren and was just awarded custody of a toddler. Apparently, the judge initially denied her request for custody even though the Department of Children and Families also requested that she be granted custody. After a lengthy hearing the judge reversed his original decision that had been based on his belief that a 61 year old woman was too old to raise a toddler. I read the article and actually shed tears in gratitude that the little guy was with family and out of the foster care system. However, my tears were also for the foster mother who wanted to adopt him.

Too old at 61? This woman may live another 40 years. I would not like to be labeled "too old" at 61. That's only 6 years away for me, and I'm healthier now than I was 20 years ago.

Anyway, it was an interesting article. If you are interested, the article can be found at http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/955237.html 

I don't know how long the newspaper keeps links to articles, but for now it can be read. I find this great grandmother, Joyce Thompson, to be an inspiring woman.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
Grandmother Raising Grandchildren
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Why Parenting Grandchildren is Different than Parenting your own Children

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

The other day I was on a website with an article about grandparents raising grandchildren. I really do not know how I even got there. You know how it is, you click on this link, then that link, and you eventually end up somewhere, but you don't know where.

Anyway the author of the article was stating something about how parenting grandchildren is really not that different than when we parented our own children. I was surprised by that statement. I do not believe she was a grandmother raising grandchildren, just an author who had apparently read a bit about the subject.

I beg to differ with this writer. Now while the day to day disciplining such as time outs or no treats for misbehavior might be the same, grandparents raising grandchildren have an extra set of challenges that they didn't have when they were raising their own children.

Please keep in mind, that I too write about what others have told me. I do not write everything from my own experiences, thank goodness. However, I do have first hand understanding of the many challenges that these grandparents face.

I suppose the closest thing you can compare some grandparents' experiences with is a really ugly divorce where everyone fights about who should have the children or how they should be raised. When a grandparent is raising grandchildren, they are also often dealing with their own adult child who may be angry, mentally ill, incarcerated, or just plain having terrible issues to deal with themselves. A grandparent may be faced with "should I adopt my grandchildren or not? Should I seek full custody or just temporarily take the children into my home?" This is not something they had to face when they were raising their own children.

Another big issues is the mental health of the grandchildren who may have a history of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. Many grandparents get children who have either been abused or suffer from a variety of mental health issues. As parents, these grandparents may have dealt with these same issues with their own children but not when they first got them.

Many times grandparents are raising grandchildren who came to them on a moment's notice. Sometimes it is the opposite. The grandparents started off as part-time caregivers. Then one day, they found themselves "caregiving" full-time and were then faced with the legal issues of what to do next.

So while the simple issues of "go sit in time-out for 5 minutes and think about what you did," may be the same as what the average parent might do, most everything else is very different. New skills need to be developed by most grandparents on how to deal with emotionally battered or neglected children to dealing with the other adults who may or may not be an everyday challenge.

Every situation is different, but lucky is the grandparent who does not have some of the difficult challenges faced by many grandparents raising grandchildren today.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
Grandmother Raising Grandchildren
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.PathwaytoHealthyLiving.com

Tips on Helping Children Build a Safe Website

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

My granddaughter has watched me build various websites for people and has taken special interest in the Blogs that I write. The other day, she begged me to help her create her own website. She wanted her own so she could write about what she is learning. She is a straight A student and loves to learn and wants to express herself on line so her friends and family can read and comment on what she has to say.

So after being badgered for a while, I decided to give it a try. Now I didn't want to go to the expense and time to create a complicated website that we would need paid hosting and a comprehensive program to run, and I certainly didn't want to connect her to one of my websites and expose her identity, so we opted for a freebie Blog on the Internet.

Within minutes we had her own Blog created. Of course the Blog actually belongs to me since she is not 13, but she gets to write what she wants with my supervision. She was so excited. But I had a lot to learn about keeping her identity secret and her safe from wandering around and finding things I thought not to her best interest. Here are a few things I learned and what we did about doing a free blog for her.

• She made up a name that she goes by. That was fun for her. This is just in case anyone comes across her blog besides her family and friends.
• Her profile is honest, just no identifying information about her name or where she lives.
• Her picture is one when she was very young, a picture she loves but does not look like her today.
• I did not fill in her interests in the boxes provided because they were hyperlinked to other blogs that stated they had the same interest. I didn't want that. Maybe there is a way for them to be un-hyperlinked, but I hadn't figured that out. So anything about her is in one place that has no hyperlinks in it.
• Her email address goes right into my Outlook box, so it has to get past me before she gets it.
• She is giving her website information to her teachers at school, church, family, and friends.

She is having so much fun writing about her interests and is eager for her family and friends to start making comments on her very own website. If anyone should make inappropriate comments, I will promptly remove them, but that's not likely to happen if only her friends and family are responding. This little girl is extremely intelligent and very eager to write and share her thoughts with the world but under an assumed name for now. When she is much older, like 30, we may change our tactic.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
Grandmother raising grandchildren
www.BlogforHealthyliving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.SeniorPro.com
www.PathwaytoHealthyLiving.com

Children - Learning and Playing On-line

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Grandpa Shayne, I'm looking forward to Part 2 of your article "Keeping Kids Safe Online." http://www.grandparentstlc.com/blog/

  The other day while working on my computer, my eight year old granddaughter was on the kids' computer about 3' from me playing kid games on an appropriate website. All of a sudden, I heard all of this violent yelling, so I looked at her computer to see what in the world was going on. That is exactly what I saw, "what in the world was going on."

My granddaughter is learning about Egypt in 2nd grade and is very fascinated with ancient Egypt. So in the address bar of the computer she had typed in Egypt.com and from there had clicked on something else. What she appeared to be watching was Egyptian news of an angry riot with men yelling in a language I did not understand. I may not have understood the words being yelled, but I certainly understood the emotions being displayed.

I immediately made her get off of the Internet, explained to her the importance of not doing what she did without my supervision, and let her play a simple game on the computer, but not on-line. I told her today we would help her research appropriate children's information about Egypt together. We did research together and found some good information for kids. We both learned about the process of ancient Egyptian mummification, rather grotesque if you ask me, but we had fun. We went to Ancient Egypt Kids Connection and found various interesting links.

So Grandpa Shayne, please write part 2 of your article.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.SeniorPro.com

Jump Roping with your Grandkids

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

The other day I was reading an article about exercising in March's Consumer Report. The #2 item they suggested to purchase for home use was a jump rope. I read the article, got psyched up, and got out my really nice jump rope with swivel handles that I had purchased several years ago and never used. I'm surprised I even knew where it was with all of the moves I have made in the past 20 years.

I attempted to jump rope on the porch. My 6 year old said, "That's not jump roping; That's skip roping." Whatever it was I was doing, I wasn't doing a very good job at it. The article in the magazine was helpful. I learned that my jump rope was way too long for me, and I'm not short. Only one problem, the jump rope was not adjustable. So I purchased the only adjustable one I could find at the closest sporting goods store. My 8-year-old granddaughter already had a jump rope, so I purchased a cheapy one at K-Mart for my youngest child (and cut her's down to size). Now we all have jump ropes that fit us. My old one with the swivel handles fits my husband, so he even has one of his own now.

Want to know exactly how long the jump rope should be? Stand with your feet together in the middle of the rope, the end of the handles should just reach your underarms.

Tip by Consumer Report "Keep elbows slightly bent and hold the handles at hip level with your palms forward. Keep your hands close to your body and turn the rope from your wrist and forearm."

So today I "practiced" skip roping for a few minutes, a very few minutes. It is much harder than I remember, and I am not as coordinated as I thought I was. But jump roping is sort of like a video game. If you just keep at it, you get better and faster. My 8-year-old looked at me in surprise and said, "I didn't know you could jump rope." Of course I can jump rope; I jumped 100 jumps. I won't tell how many times I messed up though, only that it wasn't as many as yesterday.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
Grandmother Raising Grandchildren
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.SeniorPro.com

Hand Sanitizer an Over the Counter Drug

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Did you know that the liquid or gel hand sanitizer that the teacher squirts on your child's hands is considered a drug? The FDA considers it an over-the-counter drug, just like Tylenol or Benedryl is an OTC drug? And yet you will likely find a bottle sitting on each teacher's desk and in our homes as well, well within a small child's reach, especially if they can climb.

When I first learned this, I thought it was just another one of those emails that go around with no merit to it. After spending hours researching the topic on the Internet (This was important to me), I learned some facts that disturbed me. The stories of the children who got really sick from licking the sanitizer from their hands were actually true. I read a letter from a drug manufacturing company who wanted the FDA to change the wording on the labels, so they didn't sound so scary to adults.

The type of sanitizer that most of us buy at the store and even donate to our children's classroom is 63% alcohol. And yes, it can make children sick who lick it off their hands and can hurt if they have a cut or scrape on their hands.

Hand sanitizer was never intended to market to children, and yet we see it everywhere. It was created as an Antiseptic to be used in medical settings. This 2007 quote came from the Consumer Affairs website: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has sent a warning letter to Procter & Gamble for making unlawful claims about its Vicks Early Defense Foaming Hand Sanitizer product."

Now I am not advocating that we let our children eat with dirty hands or play with toys at a doctor's office and not clean their hands well afterwords. But we are just too rushed, lazy, or ignorant if we don't take the time to help our children wash their hands properly. I admit, I've been guilty myself.

Having children sing the alphabet song while washing their hands with soap and water will help them wash long enough to be effective in protecting against germs. When a quick way to clean hands is necessary, I have found two natural hand sanitizers that are safe for children. One is called Clean Well which can be purchased at Target, Bath & Body Works, Amazon, and Whole Foods, or online at http://www.cleanwelltoday.com/ I purchased the pocket size of this product to put in my children's lunch boxes and my purse.

Clean George is another natural hand "purifier." I don't know if they are carried in stores, but the product can be purchased online at http://cleangeorge.com/ This product seems to be bragged about for good reasons, but it costs more than twice than Clean Well.

Read the labels on what you have been purchasing or what the school uses. "Flammable: keep away from heat or flame or "Avoid contact with broken skin" Does your child's teacher have time to check every child's hands for scrapes or sores? Probably not. Here's a biggy, "KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN."

I still use my big bottle of germX, jut not on my children's hands. After washing my kitchen island (where the children usually eat), the counters and sink, I squirt some sanitizer on a paper towel and wipe them down again. The alcohol evaporates and the counters are clean, that is until the cat walks across them.

While explaining to my girls why we were switching away from regular hand sanitizer, my 8-year-old said, "When I was in project 4, Jason would squirt it in his mouth." I asked her if the teacher knew about it. She responded, "No." I asked why she didn't say anything. She retorted, "I didn't know any better." I quickly responded, "Of course, you didn't sweetie, but now you do." I had to even send a note to my first grader's teacher in order for her to believe that my child had her own sanitizer in her lunch box that did not have alcohol in it.

Keeping a zip-lock baggy with baby wipes and a small bottle of non-alcholic hand sanitizer in your purse, for when you are on the go, can protect against unwanted nasty germs. We really do not need to be rubbing our children's hands with alcohol when there are better alternatives.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
http://www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Through Fiery Trials

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

I take a journal and usually a book with me whenever I think I am going to have a moment to read, think, or listen to something inspiring. So whether I am going to the doctor's office, the fitness center, or church, I will usually have a book or journal with me.

So it is not surprising that I had a journal with me at church a couple of weeks ago. As we sang a hymn, the words brought me to tears. I jotted the words down and would like to share them with you. They come from a Christian hymnal.

" When thro' fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace all sufficient, shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine."

"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I can not desert to his foes. That soul, tho' all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never for-sake."

Many times as we raise grandchildren, for whatever reason it is, our biggest support is our faith, our prayers, and our belief that God has a plan for us. As I have said before, while circumstance might have caught us by surprise, the Lord knew all along the direction our life path would take.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
A grandmother raising grandchildren
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Raising Smart Kids!

Karen Best Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Educating and creating smart grandchildren is just as important to me as it was when I was raising my own children. I never was big on little kids watching a lot of television. We read a lot of books together, played games, put together puzzles, and anything that increased coordination and stimulated their brains.

I just read an article on CNN called Study: Want a smart baby? TV's not going to help. Going by my own experience of raising eight children and now two grandchildren, I have to agree with the article completely. A few years ago when one of my grandsons was an infant, I bought an entire educational DVD serious for babies. It looked really cool, and I thought that perhaps I was just behind the times. Well, I doubt the entire set has even been viewed once.

Being read to from a book by a parent or caregiver and interacting with each other about the book is so much better than putting the baby in front of the television and thinking he is going to absorb the pretty pictures and sounds and get smart.

I have put a baby on my lap many times as I worked on the computer. I might have had more typos than usual, but we definitely had more communication that way. Anything like stacking blocks, putting pegs in holes, and playing with puzzles require not only coordination but brain power.

  Now I don't mind if my 6 and 8 year old girls take turns playing appropriate non violent computer games on their computer as long as they are doing physically active things as well. I think this balances them out. The past few days we have been snowed in. The girls played outside for hours having tons of fun and then came in, got dried out, and took turns watching videos and playing computer games. And then for dinner they enjoy their dinner of grilled fish, rice, and dark green salad. They are not likely to be couch potatoes and become overweight. By bedtime, they were well-balanced, exhausted, and asleep in minutes.

It really all comes down to balance. If a child reads all of the time, that is no more balanced than watching television all of the time. A good balance between reading, physical activities, brain stimulating games including video games, relaxation in front of the television, and plenty of plain old-fashion creative play helps create a well-balanced happy child, assuming the home is filled with a loving energy.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.SeniorPro.com

The Mesmerizing Beauty is Over...

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

I went to sleep late last night (wee hours of this morning) because of the total mesmerizing effect of the blanket of deep snow that covered everything outside. I was in total awe at the depths of my feelings. I am so glad I stayed up late and enjoyed the heavenly experience.

Since I did not go to sleep until about 4:30 a.m., I woke up late. When I got up, the neighbor had already plowed our long driveway. (He uses it as well to get to parts of his farm). My husband was out brushing off the cars and the children and the dog had made paths throughout the yard. While the ground is still covered with the snow, the bushes outside my office windows are left with only patches of ice. While schools have been canceled again tomorrow and we will be home-bound, that deep sense of spirituality that I experienced last night is a memory. I good memory though. I am glad I stayed up late and enjoyed the experience.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
www.GrandparentingBlog.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com
www.SeniorPro.com

Homemade Bread and a Snowstorm

By Karen Best Wright, www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

If I had known this morning that we were going to be hit with such a snowstorm, I would have gone to the grocery store first. We are usually more aware of weather warnings, but obviously this time we were not watching the weather channel. But even if we run out of fresh milk and have to supplement with powdered milk for a couple of days, there is something uniquely intimate about being home buried in snow. The girls and our dog played hard with delight in the snow this afternoon, while my husband kept cleaning off our satellite dish, so I could try to maintain my Internet connection.

As the day faded into the evening, there really was a lovely warm feeling in our home. The girls curled up and watched a movie, and my husband announced that he wanted to make some homemade bread. I looked at him with an eyebrow raised, "Do you know how to make bread?" I asked. He replied that he had my recipe out (the one I had typed and laminated). I gave him a few simple instructions, and he took over. He even ground the wheat in my grinder. The bread was delicious, and he was really proud of himself too, his first job as a bread baker.

It has been snowing for 15 hours straight and the lights keep flickering. Should we lose power, our generator will kick in, so I'm not worried. My husband and girls have long gone to bed, but I am enthralled with the stillness and am enjoying the silence.

The bushes outside the large windows of my office are laden with snow. There is something magical about this moment, something peaceful and serene. I know in a day or two the snow will have turned to mud and life will be back to running here and running there, but at least for tonight and tomorrow, we are home-bound and eating homemade bread.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
www.PathwaytoHealthyLiving.com
http://www.blogforhealthyliving.com
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.SeniorPro.com

Quilting Ranny

Visit Quilting Ranny -A Grandparents Journey of Raising Grandchildren at http://quiltingranny.blogspot.com/  Ranny Jean always has plenty to write about and some really fun March Spring Give-a-Ways. So check out her Blog to see what she's got going.

Karen Wright, B.S. Community Health Education
www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com

Congratulations Nina at Grandma Ideas

Congratulations to Nina at www.GrandmaIdeas.com for winning the February Free Give-a-Way item, which was the Growing-Up Veggie Tales Fabric Panel. I love your website. It has a ton of great ideas.

Karen Best Wright, B.S.
 www.RaisingYourGrandchildren.com
www.BlogforHealthyLiving.com