What To Do When Your Partner Lacks Empathy

If you are with a partner who is narcissistic and lacks empathy, don't count on this changing. You need to either accept that this person will likely never truly care about your feelings and the effect their behavior has on you, or you need to leave. Trying to change a person who currently lacks the ability to feel empathy is...... Keep reading here: What To Do When Your Partner Lacks Empathy

Car Booster Seat For Your Pet

Solvit Pet Car Booster Seat

The Solvit Pet Booster Seat provides the ultimate ride for the pampered pet. Some booster seats sit too low, or they are supported by straps that attach to the front of the basket, making it difficult for pets to move around. Our design elevates pets to provide a clear view of the road, with no clumsy straps to get in their way. Installs securely in one minute and even works in the back seat! Internal frame design supports seat from below, providing an unobstructed view for pets Installs securely in one minute in all vehicles with headrests Works in the back seat, if headrests are present Removable, washable liner keeps seat clean and fresh Safety leash included Front storage pocket Medium size is 14"L x 12"W x 8"H and holds pets up to 12 lbs Large size is 16"L x 14"W x 8"H and holds pets up to 18 lbs Ex Large size is 20"L x 16"W x 10"H and holds pets up to 25 lbs.

Chihuahuas As Family Dogs

Are Chihuahuas the right dog breed for your family?

Chihuahuas As Family Dogs

Why Do Cats Purr?

Have you ever wondered why your cat purrs?

Why Do Cats Purr? The Story You May Not Know

The History of the Yorkshire Terrier

A cute dog with an interesting history....

The History of the Yorkshire Terrier: Where Do Yorkies Come From?

Work From Home With Telecommuting Jobs That Pay

If you are ready to find a real work from home job, then this information will show you how. Inside, you will learn how to find work as an employee or as an independent contractor for a job that allows you to work from the comfort of your home. You will also learn how to quickly spot and avoid scams during your job search. These are not jobs that pay per task. These are real jobs from real companies, like Xerox, UnitedHealth Group, Dell, Aetna, American Express, First Data, Humana, ADP, General Electric – GE, Symantec, Microsoft and a host of smaller ones, who are hiring for full or partial work from home positions. Find out more here: Work From Home: Find Legitimate Telecommuting Jobs that Pay.

Moby Wrap

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Shopping

Moby Wrap - Organics - Celery

The design of the Moby Wrap uses your entire back as well as your shoulders to carry the weight of your baby. Unlike other carriers which have narrow straps or go across one shoulder the Moby Wrap is a wide piece of durable fabric that is wrapped over both shoulders. It is amazingly comfortable and easy to wear. There are no buckles snaps or other fasteners (that may break or bend). It is easy to adjust the fit of your Moby Wrap by varying how tightly you wrap yourself and baby. Moby Wraps are one size which means all caregivers can easily and comfortably share one wrap.With the Moby Wrap baby carrier you can have your baby snug and secure next to you. Babies love hearing the sound of your heartbeat and feeling the warmth of your body. A fussy baby is quickly calmed by the confines of a baby wrap. The tight snug environment ensures that your baby is uniquely close and protected from overstimulation. There is no other place your baby wants to be!The stretchy fabric of the Moby Wrap makes it one of the easiest baby wraps to learn to use. There are also many different ways to wear the Moby Wrap which can be learned through a little practice. You can easily secure your babies head with the fabric for a truly hands free babywearing experience. Perfect for getting your errands done or keeping up with your older toddler.Moby Wrap organics are 100% Organic Exchange OE 100 Certified cotton with an ideal one-way stretch 5.5 meters in length and machine washable.

Bug Repelling Wrist Bands

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Shopping

BugBand Wristband
 

A good choice for recreational and lighter-duty applications, the BugBand wristband comes in multiple colors, including dark green, light green, blue, yellow, red, pink, and glow-in-the-dark.The vapors from the plastic BugBand wristband form a protective shield around the immediate area, keeping insects a safe distance away. While many repellents are easily diluted or rinsed off with swimming or perspiration, the wristband just keeps working, up to 120 hours.

How to Help Children Become Active Readers

Education

Most parents understand the value of sharing reading experiences with their child. However, not all realize that the way they read to their little one, and even how they interact with their child during playtime, can impact learning. Parents can help grow literacy skills while teaching their child to draw, play catch or count numbers. What’s most important is making these experiences fun, engaging and memorable.

“The more children interact with reading material, the more active and confident readers they become,” says Dr. Carolyn Jaynes, literacy learning designer at LeapFrog, a developer of innovative, technology-based educational products. “Read with your child at an early age and build fun daily routines that incorporate reading.”

Dr. Jaynes offers the following tips for parents who want to help their children become active, avid readers:

• Read often. Practice pays off. The more kids read, the more they grow skills. A nightly bedtime story is a good place to start.

• Make reading fun. The more engaging the reading experience, the more it benefits the child. Make story books come to life by giving characters different voices and adding drama to the narration; when a character acts surprised or sad, change your tone to express the emotion. You want your children to realize that, beneath the surface of the text, there is a great story filled with imagination.

• Help kids interact with the reading material. Asking questions will help your child remember the story. Talk with them about the narrative, and ask what they think of a character’s decision. What would they do differently? What do they think will happen next? Encourage them to interrupt you if they don’t understand a word.

• Point out the illustrations. Have your child demonstrate their comprehension of the narrative by pointing to story elements in the illustration. For example, ask questions like “Can you point to the bear that looks worried?” or “Where was the wolf hiding before he crossed the road?”

For more information, visit http://www.leapfrog.com/.

5 Pregnancy Tips From Dr. Sears

Health

Educational Toys and Childhood Development

By Mark Willis

Education

Almost all toys can be described as educational, each offering a physical, sensory or creative aspect from which the child can learn and develop. There are, of course, educational toys out there which have been specially created to help nurture childhood development, designed to support a specific development such as co-ordination or identification.

But why are toys such an important part of childhood development? No child is born understanding the world they're brought in to, so from day one they have to learn what things are and how they work. This makes it important to let children play and explore with everything to help build their knowledge and understanding.

There are a range of educational toys all designed to help with the development of various vital learning skills. For example, infants particularly need sensory products which allow them to experience different textures and noises. These sorts of stimulating educational toys are great for infants to begin to understand how things fit into the world. For example, you will probably notice how babies love to drop and pick up; this is them beginning to understand gravity. Toys such as rattles allow them to find a connection between an action (shaking) and an outcome (noise), with push-pull toys again teaching them that they are initiators.

Toddlers can then build on these foundations, and play with educational toys which help them to imitate more adult skills. Much more physical at this age, toddlers enjoy educational toys which involve co-ordination and experimentation, with it important to encourage understanding of the toys and activity they are taking part in. Allowing toddlers to express themselves, either through arts and crafts or dressing-up, enables them to be creative, and important tool to allow them to independently make choices.

For pre-school and early primary school ages, the encouragement of turn-taking is important, so games should be introduced to allow the understanding of 'fair play' to develop. Much more social at this stage, pre-school children can use educational toys and games to help initiate social interaction, and can also allow parents to really introduce the importance of good and bad behaviour. They are also still building on their understanding of adult skills and knowledge, and enjoy identifying objects from the world around them. Animal and transport toys in particular are favourites amongst this age group, as they help to satisfy the child's curiosity.

Educational toys are important as they allow children to learn as they are having fun. Even as adults, we all know the importance of fun to help encourage interest, and for children nothing is more important than getting them to engage in learning and development. The development of skills such as imagination and creativity are just as important as skills such as fairness and knowing right-from-wrong, so providing children with a wide array of educational toys is essential.

With childhood development taking place from the day they are born, children need toys from day one to ensure they are stimulated and encouraged to learn the next set of skills. All of this helps to make sure that come school-time they are equipped with the basic skills to support their understanding of lesson-based subjects.

Mark Willis runs Willis Toys which specialises in the manufacturer and supply of wooden jigsaw puzzles and educational toys and games.

Baby and Toddler Toys

Helping Kids with Homework

By David Beart

Education

In today's educational system, homework is becoming more abundant and definitely more important in meeting the curriculum needs. As a parent, it can be frustrating to see your child come home from a full school day, only to have another few hours of work left to do at home. Many of the projects and book reports of today also require even young students to do things like power points. And as their workload becomes increasingly difficult and time consuming, many parents find that they are unable to help their children with homework. Not to mention, that quite often children and parents don't work very well together when it comes to homework. You will typically hear things such as, 'My teacher doesn't do it that way,' and 'That's not the right way to do it,' which makes you feel incompetent and irritated all at the same time.

The truth is though that children still need help with their homework in many instances. Not only should parents make sure that it gets done, but they also need to make sure they sit down and check it. As your children make their way towards middle school, you will find that staying in touch with their homework is a sure fire way to be clear on what is expected of them in class and what they are learning. The question is how do you avoid the arguments and drama that parents often face when they try to 'help' their kids with their homework? Here are a few tips to make this a tad easier!

When your kids get home from school, allow them to have some down time. Let them have a snack, unwind in the yard, play a video game, or do something un-academic. While you might think its best to get it down straight away ' your kids likely need a break.

Plan a space for homework. Rather than let them sit on the couch in front of the television ' set them up at the kitchen table or a desk where they have everything they need and YOU can have their direct attention.

Don't hover! If they need help, offer it to the best of your ability, but don't lean over their shoulder constantly and be over critical. If they are making a mistake such as rushing through their work or being messy; warn them but allow their grade to reflect their lack. Then make sure there is a consequence for poor grades.

If you don't understand something your children are doing ' research it together on the internet. Often, especially in math teachers instruct children to do problems in a progressive manner that ties in to the next lesson. Just because you can get the correct answer in a different way, doesn't mean you should force your child to work the problem that way.

If your child is struggling in one class and seems to have an immense amount of homework that causes stress, see if they can stay after school to complete it with the teacher instead of you. Also, don't be afraid to contact a teacher if you feel the homework is too much. It may be that your child is not performing their class work as expected.

Extra curricular activities are important. However as your child gets older, learning to prioritize is a life skill that they need to learn for themselves. Teach them how to be organized and make sure they are aware of their schedules so that they put homework first.

If you and your child seem to argue, fuss and fight every time you sit down to do homework (you are not alone) then see if someone else can over see homework. Often they work better with one parent or even a grandparent than they do with you. Remember it is more important that the work gets done than it is that they do it YOUR way.

Be clear on your expectations when it comes to schoolwork and homework and stick to your guns. You know better how to get your child to succeed and although it is their responsibility to do so academically ' they need your guidance whether they act like it or not.

Be compassionate. School is hard on children and today's kid has more responsibilities and pressure put on them than ever before. Rather than be hard nosed and demanding, reward them for good work and show them that you understand how they feel.

Homework is vital to school success. Often, teachers only assign it to round out lesson plans and make up for time shortages in class. If you and your child work together and you start implementing a schedule early in their academic career, things will be much easier in the long run.

David Beart runs the Professors House.Our family based site covers everything from marriage advice and dating to sending children to school.

Homework Helpers

Baby Edward's Amazing Brain

Family

He rocks. He rolls. He sucks. He kicks. He tongues. He handles. He flips. He touches. There's not a single item in this living room that 9 month old Charles-Edward (aka Edward) doesn't explore (for a while I thought he'd ignore the chair in the upper left corner, but no...).

Edward (son of Quebec City journalist/photographer Francis Vachon) is a rolling demonstration of what the neuroscientists call "synaptic exuberance." You can't see what's happening in his brain, but he is forming ten, twenty thousand new connections every second. Watch him go...... Read more

Nebraska Family Winery

Agriculture

Nebraska may be known as the Cornhusker State, but that doesn't mean every farmer in Nebraska is growing row crops like soybeans, corn or sorghum......

Nothing Beats the Real Thing

By Curt Arens

Agriculture

I know that installing a plastic tree is simple. But after raising real Christmas trees for over 20 years, putting up a plastic tree to me would be like watching the Super Bowl on a black and white TV. Something special would definitely be missing.

As a kid, before we raised our own trees, our neighbors gathered up their families this time of year and drove out to some Missouri River bottom land where cedar trees grew wild, choking out prime pasture land. The landowner told us that if we were to cut any of his cedar trees for Christmas, we had to cut a few extra to help him curb the population.

As a young ag college graduate anxious to try new things, I asked my Dad if I could plant Christmas trees on an acre of our land near the creek, where it was difficult to raise row crops. He helped me plant our first pine trees in the drought year of 1988. I connected six garden hoses together to water and nurture the first 250 trees during that hot summer...... Continue reading here

Here are some Christmas tree facts from the Nebraska Christmas Tree Growers Association:

1) Real Christmas trees are renewable, recyclable and completely biodegradable.

2) For every tree cut, two or three seedlings are planted.

3) There are about one million acres of Christmas trees in production, taking in carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen.

4) In the U.S., there are about 15,000 Christmas tree growers and over 100,000 people employed in the industry.

5) It takes an average of six to 12 years for a seedling to grow into a saleable Christmas tree.

6) The top selling trees in the U.S. are balsam fir, Douglas fir, noble fir, Scotch pine (which has historically been most popular with Nebraska growers), Virginia pine and white pine.

Christmas Trees

Einstein on Marriage

Quotation of the Week

"Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed." - Albert Einstein

New Mothers' Brains Grow Bigger

Health

NewScientist - "Motherhood may actually cause the brain to grow, not turn it into mush, as some have claimed. Exploratory research published by the American Psychological Association found that the brains of new mothers bulked up in areas linked to motivation and behavior, and that mothers who gushed the most about their babies showed the greatest growth in key parts of the mid-brain."

"Led by neuroscientist Pilyoung Kim, PhD, now with the National Institute of Mental Health, the authors speculated that hormonal changes right after birth, including increases in estrogen, oxytocin and prolactin, may help make mothers' brains susceptible to reshaping in response to the baby......" Read the full article here