CUTS FOR A CAUSE!

I received an email from a friend (passed on to her) regarding a great event – Cuts for a Cause!

Lace Salon, in Old Sacramento, will be hosting a “Sustainable Beauty Day” on Monday, October 15, 2012, from 10am-7pm.  Lace stylists will offer haircuts for a $20 minimum donation.  All proceeds will go toward planting trees in impoverished areas.

How awesome is that! IHair cuts usually run $40-50 here. I’ve set my appointment, you should too!

For additional information about this event, or any other event, please visit Lace Salon or call (916) 205-0206.

Toddlerhood...

As my son gets older - he is now 16 months old - I am excited for all that comes with parenting and toddlerhood. I always here people frowning upon this time in our childrens lives. I get it - tantrums, fights, their at an age where they are testing us - "the terrible two's." I firmly believe that it's only "terrible" if we make it so. I don't look at this age as a negative step I will undoubtingly go through. I look forward to it.  Elijah is growing so fast. I remember when he used to fit into my arms - his entire body. Now his long legs dangle over my arms.  It makes me sad to see his infancy passing by but I'm also excited to watch him grow. My son is so much fun!

As I did during my pregnancy, I continue to research, read and explore ideas I can incorporate into my family, with my son, my home, etc.  As a sociologist, researching comes with the territory. 

Lately, I've been pinning like crazy (pinterest) and I've found a ton of great resources I'm pinning related to toddlerhood.  Here are some great activities I think parents with toddlers will enjoy! Try them out, and leave a comment, if you get a chance, and tell me what you think!

ARTICLES FOR PARENTS WITH TODDLERS:

Disciplining WITHOUT Yelling

10 Chore Ideas For Toddlers

50 Activities Just For Your Toddler

100 Ways to Entertain a Toddler

How-To Teach Your Toddler All 50 States (numbers, ABCs, etc)

Make Edible (cool whip) Paint! - Great for Babies and Toddlers!

10 Creative Ways to Make Time For Your Kids - Great for working/busy parents!

Sensory Play For Kids

5 Things To Help In Potty Training

Play Through the Day - Great blog with toddler activities by an early childhood educator!

Best Tantrum Tricks!

15 SUPER FUN Baths for Kids

How To Teach Your Baby To Swim!

Here's a fun fall craft you can do with your toddler - all you need is paper, water colors and their cute hand/arm!!!


To see all the other great things I've pinned in regards to kids, follow me on pinterest and check out my "KIDS STUFF" board (link to follow me is on left-hand column) :)

ENJOY!

"To see life through the eyes of a child is to be truly free" - Anonymous.

Slugs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails, that's what little boys are made of...

A recent post on pinterest titled "20 Things no one told you about raising a boy" inspired this blog post.

Parenting is a learning process, and Elijah teaches me something new daily.  The way a boy loves his mother is so amazing, I can’t get enough of it. I’ve become obsessed with him.  I just adore him. 

Reading the article 20 Things No One Told You About Raising A boy from ivillage.com was great! It made me laugh (especially the part about the “penis obsession” and those infant/toddler boners! Hahahaha, so true). It made me smile and it made me even excited about raising a son. 

As many of you know, I had my first child on my wedding anniversary, May 23, 2011.  A boy. A beautiful, healthy, happy baby boy.  You may not have known that all my life, I wanted a girl, at least first.  I don’t know why. Maybe because I’ve always considered myself a feminist.  Maybe because I hoped to raise a little girl to be more than a pink obsessed barbie-doll. When I found out I was having a boy, I was NEVER disappointed.  I just immediately thought it was going to be a challenge because I didn’t know much about raising a boy (I was around to see my nieces grow up in their infant-toddler years and a lot about raising girls).  Needless to say, having a baby boy changed my life in the most amazing ways.

If you have a son, are pregnant with a boy, or love little boys as much as I do, read the article! It’s pretty awesome!

Ladies Only!

Ladies: What Do YOU Do When You Have Your Period?

Today I'm feeling lazy, unmotivated, tired, and I’m emotionally eating – I feel like crap, so why not eat like crap? Right? Wrong.

Well, Aunt Flo decided to bring her ugly ass back into town this month and with her visit, she brings a fluctuation of hormones that makes me feel like crap! For one, I’m bloated (unfortunately, I was bloated on my birthday and it shows in my pictures). All of a sudden, the 16 lbs. I lost recently feel like they’re all back on. Feeling like I look like crap makes me so unmotivated – I missed my 5am workout this morning.  I tried. I really did.  But I woke up, hit snooze 7,000 times, and stayed in bed with an aching back, and all the yuckiness of that once a month annoyance that comes with being a woman.

I just want to sit on the couch and be fat and lazy and eeeeeeat. Or have a couple drinks and lay around being completely unproductive.  Luckily, my house is stocked with healthier foods. Unluckily, I haven’t gotten rid of the rest of my birthday cake yet, so it was staring at me last night when I was feeling like crap and craving chocolate and lo and behold, I caved.

Knowing the reason why doesn't make the sluggishness go away, but it does give me more determination to push through it. So that is what I’m going to try to do for the rest of the day today, tomorrow and the rest of the week.  Usually when I get my period, I let these feelings linger for a week. ONE WHOLE WEEK! One whole week of eating poorly, not exercising much, and just feeling like poop… I just can’t do that anymore. 

If you're like me, that time of month is a week of weakness. How do you not give into that desire to be a lazy bum? To be quite honest, sometimes it's not so bad to use menstruation as an excuse to slow down and become more introverted.

No, this doesn't mean its okay to stuff our faces full of chocolate in the name of expelling cramps. But it does mean its okay to pamper yourself.

I’ve used my excuse – I had Sunday and Monday to be essentially a lazy bum all day.  Tuesday morning came and I didn’t work out but I am going to take a walk this afternoon and get back to the more intense workouts tomorrow morning (as a means to not waste the whole week being a lazy bum).

Ladies – What do YOU do when you’re combatting all the woes of your monthly visitor?