Zen-Mother

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This is a my beautiful fairy girl Paige who just turned 4 last month. In celebration we went to Disney Princesses on Ice. It was one awesome show with almost all the Disney princesses being represented, Cinderella (Paige’s favorite), Snow White, Ariel, Jasmin, Belle, Mulan, and Aurora - aka Sleeping Beauty (my favorite). I don’t think she knew who most of the newer ones were, LOL. But beautiful props and clothes, good looking men in tights, dancing, figure skating, and really good seats…it was great. She got two incredibly expensive and not so great quality souvenirs, princess wands. One has already been broken beyond repair…grrr.

But it was a fun day. She came home and immediately  put on this costume and then wore it for about 4 days. I also recorded most of the Disney show with my camcorder so she has been watching her birthday video non stop.

This little beauty brings such joy to my life everyday I am thunderstruck.

Three cute things she said today:

1. (While eating strawberries) Mom these are filled with gooey fresh goodness.

2. Our Spanish speaking girl is now learning Chinese so today when we unexpectedly had to eat at a Chinese restaurant she walked right up to a waitress and said “Ni hao” (hello). The waitresses jaw dropped. She said a few other words too that I didn’t quite understand but the waitress seemed to know, LOL.

3. Mom….changing your mind is a woman’s prerogative. (Thanks Nana!)

She is growing up. In 6 months she starts preschool. She insisted she be allowed to go to an actual school and her acceptance letter just came this week. It will be bizarre having her 8 year old brother home (homeschool) and her gone. I asked her this week if she wants to grow up and she said “Yes…but I will always live with you.” Fine by me honey….fine by me.

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My recent post on an episode of Supernanny, the comments that ensued, and some comments on other blogs talking about this episode have got the wheels turning…

I have heard several times recently that the Supernanny, Jo Frost, is not qualified to give parenting advice because she doesn’t have children. I disagree with this….a lot. And here is why…I was a nanny (home daycare) for some 5 years before I started my first secular job and NOTHING trained me better for parenthood than that. Did I feel that because I was not the actual mom that I wasn’t qualified to offer advice to the moms and dads I worked for? Heck no! I offered ooodles of advice and was asked for it constantly. Why? Because parents saw that what I was doing worked and that many times what they were doing was not working.

It was not because I had superior knowledge it was because I had better skills. I was “honing” my parenting skills for 10 plus hours a day with multiple children from different families. These were not my kids so under no circumstances was I going to resort to physical punishments or yelling. I couldn’t let someone else’s child they trusted me with CIO (cry-it-out). I had to get creative to get the desired outcome. I had to be uber patient. Nannies have to deal with the same issues that parents do but without as many options. AND not only that…nannies have someone (the parents) potentially breathing down their neck, watching every move they make. Let me tell you…it gives you some motivation to develop some mad skills. And by golly I loved those kids and they loved me. I had parents visiting me and writing to me for years after I quit because they felt as though I was part of the family.

I don’t think being a nanny turned me into the perfect parent…far from it. But I think those years as a nanny were actually an intensive parenting training course. So that is why I think a Nanny might be in the perfect position to offer parenting advice…despite their childless status. And I think being a nanny is valuable experience for young women.

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I think by now everyone has heard of the popular Baby Einstein series of DVDs for young children. Some swear that it helps to “smarten” of their babies and some groups say they do the opposite.

Well, I had a chance to review one recently and I have to say that I kind of like them. I am big on movies and DVDs in general because they can be reviewed first by parents and kids like to  watch the same stuff over and over I find. These particular videos are supposed to help babies develop playful movement and motor skills.

I thought they would be cartoons like you see on the covers but I was very surprised to see lots of real babies and children in the video. They were crawling, dancing, jumping, clapping, and playing. My youngest was extremely interested in what they were doing and had a big smile plastered on his face the whole time. I could tell he was trying to figure out how he could do the stuff they were doing.

The soundtrack was also really good with classics from Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart so even I enjoyed it. It was a really cute video and I think young would benefit from watching…just not too much. After we watched I took my son to the indoor play park and we worked on some of those motor skills.

You can be the Baby Einstein Dvds at Amazon!

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