Tag Archives: better parenting

Calling all Mums of Teenage Daughters… This One Is Just For You!

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I have wanted to do a post on reasonably priced make up for some time now.  There has been an explosion of brands offering  make up collections at a great price.  Ideal for teens just starting to get into make up.

So I was really pleased when I received four exciting palettes to play with from Beauty UK Cosmetics*.  I did manage my expectations however, I don’t expect to get highly pigmented shadows that last the day when I am paying £3.99 to £5.99 for a palette containing 6-10 shadows.

There was no need for managing however.  I was seriously impressed with the colour payoff and longevity of these shadows.  (Check out my looks below to see the shadows in action!)  The acid test for me is would I actually buy these again myself?  The answer here is yes.  I haven’t tried any other products from the range, so can’t comment on the lip, cheek or base products.  But based on my experience with the shadows I will definitely be purchasing some to try them out.

Here are the palette’s I received:

  1. Eyeshadow and Eyeliner Palette in No2 Amazon
  2. Posh Palette No3 Festival
  3. Eyeshadow Palette no1 Pastels
  4. Eyeshadow Palette No5 Twilight

I can tell you now that you will be ‘borrowing’ these palettes from you daughter to do you smoky eye look for a night out…. oh and a pretty, natural day look at the office.  The colours are on trend, come in a mixture of mattes and shimmer textures and are so flattering.

Here are the looks I created.  I particularly love the purple smoky eye using the Twilight palette and the warm day time smoky eye with the warm browns and a hint of cranberry (great for autumn/winter looks).

Definitely check them out and buy them for your daughter (and you!).  www.beautyukcosmetics.com

Mamasimx  About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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How To Make The Best Playdough for Kids – Playdough Recipe

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Playdough RecipeThis is a lovely Playdough recipe with the real Playdough feel!  If you keep it in a sealed container it will last for ages in the fridge.

Recipe

Ingredients for Playdough

1/2 cup of salt

1 cup of plain flour

1 tablespoon of cream of Tartar (a natural raising agent)

1 tablespoon of oil

1 cup of boiling water mixed with food colouring.

Method for Playdough

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and then mix vigorously with hot water.

To make it extra special, add.a few drops of essential oil like peppermint or lavender for a lovely smelling Playdough.

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Mamasimx  About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

10 Things New Moms Should Know about Motherhood

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This is an excerpt from a great post by Annie Reneau from her site Motherhood and More.  Make sure you click through to read the rest of the post.  It is worth it.cosleeping

10 Things New Moms Should Know about Motherhood

Several new moms have entered my life recently, so I’ve been revisiting my list of things I wish I’d known before I became a mom. You can never truly prepare for everything that’s coming, but I think it helps to be aware of realities that may peep over the horizon.

Here are some of those realities, in no particular order:

  1. Cutting your baby’s fingernails for the first time is one of the scariest things you’ll ever do. And after that, it’s pretty much a full-time job until they’re old enough to do it themselves. I wish I was exaggerating.
    It also doesn’t get any easier with subsequent kids. I thought I knew what I was doing with our second baby and drew blood the first time I cut her nails. With our third, I gave up the clippers and just tore them off during the newborn phase. Sometimes asking the question, “What would a mom living in a tent in the Outback do?” helps to simplify things.
  2. You will be up close and personal with someone else’s bodily functions—on a daily basis—for years on end. Assuming you have more than one child and space them 1 to 4 years apart, you will literally wipe butts more times than you can count. Pee and poop. Poop and pee. Every single day. You might be saying, “DUH, Annie,” but you really should consciously prepare yourself for this reality. Motherhood is not glamorous.
    You’ll know you’ve officially been initiated into motherhood when you have to carry the entire car seat—baby included—into the bathtub, peel layer after poopy layer off your child, and hose the whole business down while trying not to heave. Or when your child wakes up at 2:00 a.m. with a tummy ache, and while you’re feeling for a fever, the little darling suddenly pukes down the front of your pajamas. No, no glamour at all here.
  3. The word “Mama” can be the sweetest sound you’ll ever hear. It can also make you want to poke your eyes out with a crochet hook. We mothers look for those first discernable babbles, that first verbal recognition, with rapt anticipation. When your baby finally gazes at you and says, “Mama,” it just takes your breath away. Treasure that moment, because in four years when you’re trying to drive through traffic or talk on the phone, you’ll do so with the incessant, whining chirp of, “Mama, Mama, Mama!” ringing through your ears, over and over and over again.
    Just hide the crochet hooks during those years, and you’ll be fine.

Click here to go directly to the post on Anne’s site to read the rest.  It is so worth it!!

Mamasimx  About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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The 4 Best Strategies To Raising Your Child’ Self Esteem. And Keeping It There.

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Are you tearing your child’s self esteem to shreds?

Nature has a large part to play in determining our children’s self esteem, however we as parents have just as powerful an influence on how our kids will see themselves.Praise your child constructively

We can tear their self esteem to shreds.

But we equally have the opportunity and the obligation to ensure we do our best to foster as strong a self belief in them as possible.   As parents we all want our children to have happy lives.  How many times have we heard, or said “I don’t care what they want to be as long as they are happy?”  Strong self image and belief is one of the most important tools for ensuring a fulfilling and happy life as possible.

Abusing others and being abused or taken advantage by others is all behaviour of a person that is unhappy with themselves.  Rearing children that are happy and comfortable in their own skins is a task (a pleasure) all parents need to embrace.  It is all too easy to have preconceived ideas of what and how we want our children to be.  Less shy or introverted for example.  Good at sports or math or the piano.  But forcing our prejudices onto our children only needs to feeling of sadness and guilt.  The cornerstones of poor self esteem.

Steve Biddulph in his practical and humerous book The Secret of Happy Children: A guide for parents  lets you into the mind of your child to show how the positive ways in which you relate to a child will have a strong effect on growing self esteem. I highly recommend the book if you would like some further reading on this subject.

Here are my 4 top strategies for fostering high self esteem in your children.

  1. Really listen to your children.  Most of us parents jump very quickly to conclusions about what are children are telling us, or start forming the answer to a question before they have finished asking (apparently everybody does this!!) Or we react to how our children are saying something (will you stop whining!) rather than addressing what they are saying.

The takeaway here is to listen, really listen to what it is your children are saying.  Often you will be surprised by what they say.  Your attention also validates their ‘voice’.  Validation is a key process in building self esteem.

2.  Never criticise, mock or put your child’s behaviour down in public or in private.  This is a hard one because this type of parenting behaviour usually is the result of exhaustion, anger or being just plain fed up.  The key here is to think before speaking – count to 10 (0r 50) if it helps.  Take the time to form a positive message to your child regarding their behaviour.

The key takeaway here is , children learn by example, so behave the way you want your children to behave.  With kindness, politeness and with self respect and dignity.

3.  Spend time and effort developing your child’s strength’s and less time battling their weaknesses.  Encouraging your child to pursue and strengthen a talent or skill is easy.  They enjoy it and it comes naturally.  I’m not saying to ignore weaknesses but if you have a choice, choose to expel your energy on what your child is good at.  They will have plenty of time when they are older to work on their weaknesses.

The key takeaway here is it creates so much positive energy when your child is working on something they are good at, in them and for you.  It is an uphill battle and generates so much negative energy focussing on weaknesses.

4.  Ensure they know that you will always be there for them.  Having a strong support system is vital to ensure your child has the confidence to go out and embrace the world with positivity and enthusiasm.

Key takeaway here?  LOVE your children and tell them EVERY day you love them.

Hug your children.  Every day.  And make one hug a really long one (20 seconds or more) as it releases lots of feel good chemicals like seratonin in you and them.

Have fun with your children.  Put down the laptop and switch of the tv.  Ask your child what they want to play.  And play it.  For at least 15 minutes.  And make sure you enjoy it!!

Mamasimx  About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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Emotional Intelligence. Why is it so important in raising a child?

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An excerpt from a great post from the Aha! Parenting web site.  Make sure you follow the link at the end to go through to the site to read the rest of the post.

Why is emotional intelligence so important in raising a child?  Managing anxiety in order to tackle a big project, managing Motherhood How to be a better parentanger to work through a marital conflict, managing fear to apply for a job  —  the ability of a human being to manage his or her emotions in a healthy way will determine the quality of his life in a much more fundamental way than his IQ.  In fact, psychologists have come to call this ability EQ, or Emotional Intelligence Quotient.  

What are the core components of high EQ?  Emotional self knowledge and self acceptance, sensitivity to the cues of others,  empathy (which can be defined as the ability to see and feel something from the other’s point of view), and the ability to regulate one’s own anxiety in order to talk about emotionally charged issues in a constructive way. 
 
Your child’s EQ begins with her relationship with you.  How can you lay a solid foundation?

1. Hold your infant when she wants you and respond quickly to her cries.  High EQ starts in infancy with the baby’s earliest interactions with caregivers, from which she develops feelings of security and trust.

2. Calm your own anxiety.  Almost a hundred years ago, psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan originated the idea that infants pick up anxiety from their parents. Recent research has confirmed that parents’ touch, voices, and movements can either soothe a child or stimulate anxiety.

3. Help him learn to self-soothe.  We now know that babies learn to sooth themselves by first having someone else soothe them. From this they gain the experience of their physical and emotional needs as something manageable that can be tolerated. In fact, their nervous systems actually begin to lay the groundwork for self-calming later in life, meaning that babies’ brains and nerves don’t develop adequately unless they are held and soothed when they’re upset. Infants experience needs that aren’t met as life threatening (as unsatiated hunger, or an absent caretaker, actually could be).  Emotions swamp these babies. Without the soothing they need, their nervous systems don’t lay down the pathways that would later allow them to soothe themselves.  As toddlers they have a very hard time learning to self soothe or self regulate, because every feeling makes them anxious -– after all, it might lead to a catastrophe -– and escalates.

In later childhood their feelings of neediness, fear or anger can trigger sweeping anxiety or panic, leading these kids to act out because they can’t tolerate their feelings or calm themselves down.

To read the rest of the great post – click here to be taken directly to the post on the Aha! Parenting site.

Mamasimx About Me
Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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A Year Of Parenting – According to Grant Snider

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This tender and funny post by Grant Snider will resonate with many a parent.
Enjoy.
See his wonderful blog ‘Incidental Comics’ here.

Grant Snider - A Year Of Parenting Grant Snider - A Year Of Parenting Grant Snider - A Year Of Parenting

 

Mamasimx About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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Jamie Oliver – Teach Every Child About Food

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National treasure and personal hero Jamie Oliver addresses the TEDS conference in California where he talks about the poor ‘landscape of food’ Americans build around their children.

It reminds us that as parents it is our responsibility to educate our kids about good food and it’s benefits. That means teaching by example.

It is a terrific speech and you can see how much this mission to educate kids about food means to Jamie.

Jamie’s food wish.  “I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

Do you teach, cook and show your children what is healthy and what they should be eating?

Mamasimx

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

Have you read these other posts…?

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See a lot more posts on the right hand side.

 

Secondary Drowning: What Every Parent Needs to Know

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It’s so important to be aware.

Secondary DrowningThe weekend of May 17, writer Lindsay Kujawa and her toddler son Ronin were at a family pool party. Kujawa sat at the edge of the pool while Ronin played on the top step of the spa, and for five seconds she shifted her position to say something to a relative. Suddenly, she noticed Ronin wasn’t on the step and was instead being whirled around by the jets in the whirlpool, frantically trying to get his head above water. She pulled him out immediately and other than him coughing and being very upset, he seemed totally fine after a few minutes and they went on with the rest of the party.

When they got home later on that day, Kujawa noticed that Ronin was acting a little odd—he seemed extremely tired and had a weird cough. To be on the safe side, she put a call into his pediatrician, and was surprised to get an immediate call back. The usually calm pediatrician was emphatic that they go to the ER immediately, because she thought Ronin may have been experiencing secondary drowning.

At this point, Ronin was almost unresponsive.

To read the rest of the post, please click through the post on You Beauty.

Mamasimx About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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