Eating for Two? How to Eat Healthy While Breastfeeding The quest to see their pre-pregnancy body staring back in the mirror or to finally eat the foods that couldn't’t be tolerated during pregnancy haunts many breastfeeding women. Seeing a favorite pair of jeans hanging lonely in the closet or having to steer clear of spicy foods not tolerated by an infant can be disheartening for new mothers hoping to maintain specific slivers of their pre-baby life. With the arrival of a beautiful new baby, the role of mother and nurturer has only just begun, especially for a breastfeeding mom. “As you ate for two during pregnancy, you are now eating for two during breastfeeding,” says noted pediatrician Dr. James Sears, M.D., co-author of The Baby Book. Improving your diet and perhaps making adjustments with foods that may upset the baby does not have to be a hardship. In honor of August’s distinction as Breastfeeding Awareness month, learning not only how you can get in shape but how you and your baby can enjoy satisfying meals will ensure this special time in your life is as memorable as it is meaningful.

Bully Proof Your Kids

Bullies. Every school has them. They taunt, tease, shove, and beat up other kids. Indirect bullying -- where kids are ignored or excluded -- can be just as devastating as a physical assault, say experts.

To Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, bullying is "one of the most underrated but enduring problems in schools today." In the U.S., surveys show that as many as one in four kids say they've been bullied recently in school. Kids may be afraid or ashamed to tell adults about a bully. Some parents don't intervene because they think kids should work it out on their own. What can you do to help your kids protect themselves from a bully? * Encourage your kids to tell you, a teacher, or another adult when they're having a problem. It's important for them to let someone know early, before the situation escalates.

Second Wind
''Big Brother'': It's a do-over! After technical difficulties on last night's telecast, a new HOH competition yielded interesting results by Lynette Rice

I actually started writing this column the minute Tuesday's episode was over, mostly because I knew that Kaysar's ouster was a fait accompli and that Janelle wouldn't be able to convince enough floaters that James was playing both sides. Too bad — not because I thought Kay-Kay deserved to stick around (his dour intensity was matched only by his inability to say or do anything even remotely interesting), but James was such an idiot for bidding for prizes during that veto competition that he deserved to be back-doored. What a duplicitous, indignant boob he's turned out to be. Didn't he learn anything last season by putting Sarah and himself at risk that when he attempted to play both sides? All I can say is, poor Danielle. Will was right to point out how harsh it was that the house's only mom was stuck in solitary confinement (not that I didn't enjoy watching her eat crow. Girlfriend gets awfully cocky when you give her a little power). Still, she deserved better from her partner-in-crime, James. As the shrewdest female player in BB history, Danielle came into this house with a pretty significant target on her head and a bitter enemy in Marcellas. And though she suffered a tremendous brain fart during the first week, she made a necessary course correction, kept her mouth shut, and look how far she's come! Of course I attribute her staying power to her secret alliance with James and Chill Town (yes, I learned that by watching the feeds. No, I don't always acknowledge them because this is about the TV show. So ease up on the smack talk, will ya, folks?). But Danielle is still smart enough to stand on her own. Gotta hand it to home girl for not giving into pressure Tuesday to nominate Marcellas when she knew that picking a Sixer was the wiser way to go (but I also gotta hand it to Chill Town for shrewdly positioning Marcellas as the greedy new owner of $5,000 and a plasma TV. Can Will get any better at playing this game?). But that's ancient history now, especially since we have a more pressing issue to address: the next HOH. No, it is not boring Erica (cue Hallelujah chorus). For anyone who doesn't have the privilege of an internet feed (or the patience to pull a late nighter while waiting for a damn answer), you didn't learn from last night's episode that BB opted for a do-over on the HOH competition because Howie couldn't push his button. Now I'm sure there wasn't a soul in the BB universe who thought Big Boy was robbed of a much-deserved win (it's not like he's normally a lightning-fast thinker). They just thought he faced some unfair technical difficulties so a new competition was deemed necessary. All I can say is, hell yeah! [SPOILER ALERT! Stop reading if you don�t want to know the results.] The contest finally commenced around 11 p.m. PT with the HGs using those silly wheel thingies instead of the unpredictable buzzers. And though the questions were far less interesting than the first time around, the results were much more enjoyable (and well deserved). Janelle won again! Now my first thought was how James was probably thinking to himself, ''Man that fat beeyotch is gonna come after me now. Probably shouldn't have bid for those prizes this week.'' Then my second thought was how that skinny tool deserved to be the next to go because he bid for those prizes this week. And my third thought? What a lovely time it must be for Will and Boogie. A win for Janelle means another free week in the house — though those guys would be wise to stop relying on Will's uncanny ability to schmooze the women and start actually competing for a change. Seriously, has Will managed to go beyond the first round of any of the competition? But that's a problem for later. I do hope Janelle goes with her gut and nominates James; if there's anything he's done this week, it's proven how much he lies. But my fear is that James and Chill Town will convince her to pick Marcellas, who I don't believe deserves to hit the road when far more useless players remain intact (hello, Chicken George? Erica? Chicken George? Erica?). So what do you think? Do you like the sound of the coup d'etat twist? Were you disappointed to see Kaysar go? Did CBS do right by Howie by staging that do-over? Will Janelle put her Sixer alliance in jeopardizing by targeting James?

What is ‘safe food’?

By ‘safe food’ we mean food that is free of pathogens (bacteria, viruses and parasites) that can cause illness in humans. Why is safe food important in pregnancy? Food that is safe to eat is important for pregnant women. While you are pregnant your levels of immunity are lower than usual, so you are at more risk of getting diseases carried by food. Your illness may also be worse than it would normally have been. Rarely, certain pathogens – such as those described later in this booklet – can cause miscarriage, still or premature birth, and serious illness or even death to newborn babies. The good news is that following simple rules on food safety can help prevent most foodborne illness. Remember the 4 Cs – clean, cook, cover, chill.

Gillian Anderson Talks About Pregnancy

Former X-Files star Gillian Anderson, who is expecting her second child, has opened up about her pregnancy on her personal Web site.

"I am pregnant; which I have no doubt many of you know," Anderson, 38, writes on her site's "Latest News" page. "And I am very excited. And I am very fat." Anderson separated from her second husband, foreign correspondent Julian Ozanne, in April after 16 months of marriage. Her baby's father is businessman Mark Griffiths, Anderson's manager told PEOPLE in July. In her Web posting, Anderson writes, "This year has not been about work at all really but about endings and beginnings and change and growth and pain and happiness and ultimately SLOWING DOWN … on a personal front. Taking stock of what is important to me, what matters, what I actually want my life to look like." Anderson, who had a daughter, Piper, 11, while on The X-files, writes that this pregnancy is different. "I have to say, the first time round I was oblivious to the miracle and the stages and the joy.

Dalai Mama Written By Catherine Newman

A busy mother learns to get her mind off the to-do list and into the here and now of raising kids. At a red light recently, I got to witness, from my car, the very incarnation of earthly bliss: a dog — a gigantic, shaggy mutt — rolling on his back in a snowbank, his head thrown back in joy, the tongue lolling from his doggy smile while snow flew up in a delirious cloud around him. Such a splendid spectacle! My heart filled with delight. And yet there on the curb was the dog's oblivious owner, facing the other direction. The man spoke into a cell phone and tugged crossly on the dog's leash, waiting to move ahead, waiting to be somewhere else. I experienced the full, smug weight of my disapproval — "That poor fool!" — until it occurred to me that dozens of strangers every day might watch me with my children and feel the same way about me. They might catch me scanning the aisles for cheaper Oaties while my rosy 2-year-old smiles up at me — unseen — from the shopping cart, her eyes on my face like moonbeams. Or they might notice me checking my watch while my 5-year-old son stops to look up at the twilit sky and snowflakes fall around him, as glorious as a flock of tiny angels. They might see me doing the mental equivalent of channel surfing while life, as beautiful and riveting as anything a person could ever hope to find, spreads itself out around me. Jon Kabat-Zinn would have parents like me put down the remote control and refocus on this miraculous show, the one that's on now and always — to notice, as he puts it, that "the utterly ordinary is utterly extraordinary." Kabat-Zinn is a researcher in the Eastern concept of a mind-body connection and founder of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School; he's a kind of East-West mixer, working to integrate meditation practices into more prevailing lifestyles and health care. It's true that much of Kabat-Zinn's thinking is distilled from Zen Buddhism, but don't worry — he's not sitting peacefully on a mountaintop in his saffron robes while you scrub mashed banana from your pajamas. He's a parent too, of three kids no less, and his years of experience working in society's mainstream have helped him distill deep, centuries-old spiritual philosophy into a deceptively simple premise: Pay attention to this moment, now.

by Catherine Newman
wondertime.go.com

It doesn't have to be a chore getting your kids to help out in the kitchen, in the garden, around the house. Here's how — and why.

My son has never leafed through "Martha Stewart Weddings." He doesn't care one whit that his newly invented "pinwheel rollups" are a commotion of cheese and tortilla rather than the dainty spirals one might imagine. All the boy cares about is that he's made a snack for himself and his little sister. "Ta da!"

Kids want to help — or can be made to want to, at least, with a bit of finagling on the part of savvy grown-ups. When I visit the Amherst Montessori School, just down the road from us, it's snack time there too, and the youngest preschoolers are studying bananas like rocket science. One tiny girl in dark pigtails tries to wrangle one out of its peel, and the naked fruit skids to the floor like an eel. She opens her hand, and her fingers are spackled with banana pulp. Once she gets it onto the cutting board, the banana's remains are sliced, mounded into a bowl, and devoured with relish.

This "I can do it myself" lesson extends beyond snack time: Children from 18 months old to just under 3 cheerfully hang dish towels and sweep the floor, and down the hall, in the classroom for kids up to age 5, dishes are being washed and silver polished. Adult caregivers mill around, of course, demonstrating a new task or clarifying a familiar one, untangling one boy from an apron's Velcro tentacles and offering encouragement. But their real work has been in the setup, and now they stay out from underfoot. The kids are doing their own thing, and because nobody has alerted them to the fact that housework is drudgery, it's not.

"From the time you're tiny until you're old, you need to be needed," the teacher, Alice Charland, explains, gesturing from the snack table to the low sink where a boy is resolutely scrubbing dishes. "It's what makes you feel empowered. It's what makes you a person."

The 6 A's of Good Parenting
By: Family First Staff

Parenting is all about relating. The better our relationship with our children, the better our chances at effective parenting. Youth expert Josh McDowell believes there are six factors that play into good parenting. He calls them the 6 A's. Affirmation When we affirm a child’s feelings it gives them a sense of authenticity. Have you ever heard the old saying, "Laugh with those who are happy and cry with those who are sad?" It means that when our child is sharing his feelings or opinions, they want us to listen and affirm them. It would go something like this. Your son comes home and says, "Man! My math teacher made me so mad today, he said I wasn’t trying." Well, your instinct might be to try to downplay the situation like this, "Oh son, he probably didn’t mean anything by it. Let it go." Or you might say — before you even address his feelings — "Now son, were you trying? Maybe he had a point." Or, "You’re a big boy now, you can’t get so upset about things." Those are all attempts to control or fix the situation. Instead try, "Son, I am so sorry that happened. How do you feel about it now." Even when we don’t agree with our children, we can still affirm them as individuals. Acceptance When you give unconditional acceptance you give a child a sense of security. This basically comes down to one principle that must be conveyed to our children: I don’t love you because of what you do or achieve, I love you because you’re my child. Our love and affection should not be based on grades, behavior or achievements. Appreciation When we express appreciation it gives a child a sense of significance. Appreciation is one of the most powerful motivations for right behavior. So, the more we "catch" our children doing things right, and we express our appreciation, the more motivated they will be to behave better.

I found this article to be very helpful. Below are exerpts from a parenting.com article. To read the entire article, please visit the link below.
"Gimme a Break! 9 ways to get the help all new moms need By Ylonda Gault Caviness
1. Sway your partner. Most dads really do want a prominent role in taking care of the baby, but they get intimidated. So if you want your husband to pitch in more often, don't bash him for what he's not doing ("How can you just sit there?!"). Instead, tell him what he can do. ("Here, sweetie. You play with the baby while I get dinner"). Encourage his attempts to help, even if he doesn't do things the same way you do. "From the day we brought our baby home, I resisted the urge to criticize my husband for the way he held her. Babies are a lot tougher than we moms sometimes think," says Christina James of Alexandria, Virginia. "Now I know he's fine taking care of her alone when I need a break." 2. Don't stress the mess. With a baby around, a clean and orderly house is the exception, not the rule. Don't be so hard on yourself: Instead of being embarrassed about the to-be-expected mess, encourage close friends to drop by. You never know when you might need an extra set of hands to help with the kids. 3. Try group therapy. Many new moms let off steam and gain emotional support through mothers' groups. But finding the right fit is crucial; you want to feel comfortable, not judged. Don't love any of the established groups in your area? Start your own. Post a notice in your pediatrician's office, daycare center, or online, looking for moms with babies around the same age as yours. 4. Work it out. If you miraculously find the time to add exercising to your busy schedule, join a gym that offers childcare for members. Even when you're not in the mood to work out, you can drop off your tot in the childcare room and walk at a turtle's pace on the treadmill while you watch soaps on the gym's televisions. (To find a fitness center with babysitting in your area, log on to healthclubdirectory.com for a list of more than 7,000 gyms around the country.) 5. Strike a friendly deal. Agree to trade off nights of babysitting on occasion with a good friend (or friends) so that each of you gets a date night with your husband or just some time to relax on your own. This works best if the kids are of similar ages so that the time can double as a playdate."