NATURAL LABOR INDUCERS

I heard about a few natural labor inducers that sound like fun ways to induce labor naturally at home. Before you kick up your heels and shout HOORAY, you should know that nothing's going to work if your cervix is not ripe and ready to rock and roll. HOWEVER, there are a few ways that may help ripen your cervix by softening it and making it efface and dilate.

VALID REASONS TO INDUCE LABOR

So, you're pregnant and want to get the show on the road! Wanting to deliver in time to go on a Christmas ski vacation or a rock concert are NOT good reasons to induce. You know that I'm NOT a medical professional, this blog is for entertainment only AND that you should always take the advice of a trusted medical professional rather than trusting somebody that slapped a blog up on the internet...like me...but here's a short list of reasons for your entertainment ONLY!

• Mother's Health - If mom has heart problems, hypertension, a seizure disorder, cancer or any number of serious medical condition, induction may be necessary. That being said, lots of moms with medical conditions manage to give birth naturally. Whether or not induction is needed should be determined by the medical professional in charge.
  
• Baby's Health - The doctor may feel the baby needs to be delivered ASAP
  

Before trying any of natural labor inducers or the fun ways to induce labor naturally that I teased you with, you should talk to your doctor to be sure that it's ok. But just for kicks, here are some natural ways to induce labor.

• SEX
  
• STIMULATING YOUR NIPPLES
  
• LAUGHING
  

Here's an idea...if your OB/GYN says it's cool, you might talk your partner into having sex, stimulating your nipples all the while telling you funny jokes and kill three birds with one stone! How's that for multi-tasking? You might call them natural labor inducers but they sound like good old-fashioned fun to me!

NATURAL SKIN CARE TIPS

I thought I would share my natural skin care tips that will help your skin to look its best even when you don't have money for expensive creams...like me. I don't have time for an elaborate treatment program. In fact, some days around lunch I have to stop and think if I've washed my face or not that day. YET...I get lots of compliments on my skin so I must be doing something right.


And what I came up with is that it has to be my diet that is very rich in good stuff that I try to focus on to boost my family's immune system. Evidently, there is an added bonus to fighting illnesses...your skin is smoother and looks healthy!

While other moms are spending a lot of money for exfoliates and moisturizers, I'm buying cherries, berries and veggies that I hope are helping me to beat wrinkles, acne and dry, flaky skin. Here are some fruits and vegetables that may help you fight illness and look super! Natural foods may be one of the best, cheap and most effective remedies for illnesses and I believe that working on our skin from the inside out is a very good idea.

Natural cures and treatments are always best in my book. And since we have to eat why not buy foods that are nutrient rich and have disease fighting properties. The right foods will not only cleanse and protect our bodies' immune system but they will produce beautiful skin and a clear complexion with less acne (hello...teenage boys and girls, are you listening?).

Here are some of the foods that I buy either to eat raw or to use in my healthy old fashioned recipes for my family. Why don't you give them a try and see how much they improve your skin. It's true that good food is not cheap, but if you break it down you will see that they cost a fraction of the price of even discount creams and lotions.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU DRINK

In my humble opinion, colas are evil. They pack on pounds and I have to believe that drinking out of a mudhole might be more healthy in the long run. Well, not really but drinking colas is something I don't promote. On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of drinking fruit juices either because of sugar.

I prefer to drink water and green tea. I don't love the taste of green tea but it has been proven to reduce the damage of sunburns and overexposure to ultraviolet rays of the sun, which in turn reduces the risk of skin cancer.

As far as the benefits to your skin, green tea contains polyphenol which has recently been reported to reactivate dying skin cells. Holy Moly!!! That has to be one of the best natural skin care tips ever. This stuff might just be my own, personal Fountain of Youth.

IT'S FISHY BUT IT'S GOOD

I would eat tuna everyday but the mercury thing gives me pause. So, we eat a lot of sardines at my house. Yeah, we smell bad but our skin looks good. Probably because of the many, many essential fatty acides that protect our cell membranes healthy by keeping out harmful substances as well as allowing nutrients to enter cells and then leave carrying nasty waste products.

BERRY, BERRY NICE!

You know how you see some kids popping M&Ms and Skittles? Well, mine pop blueberries and strawberries. This is a good thing because of the antioxidants that attacks free radicals that can ruin skin cells.

Protecting our skin cells from disintegrating makes the skin look younger.

THAT WASCALLY WABBIT WAS WIGHT!

If Elmer Fudd ever manages to bag Bugs Bunny and shave him clean of hair, we will probably see an amazingly smooth and youthful hide! You see, carrots are an excellent source of vitamin A, which is a nutrient that skin loves because Vitamin A is required for developing and maintaining skin cells.

These natural skin care tips are not very exciting but you don't have to mix up a recipe and wear goo all over your body to reap the rewards! Give them a try for a couple of months..your skin and your bank account should be showing marked improvement by then.

HOW TO STOP SCREAMING AT YOUR KIDS

If you've started yelling, you need to know how to stop screaming at your kids. Yelling and screaming to get the kids' attention is a nasty habit that probably started one day when you were overwhelmed and too tired for positive parenting practices and then before long, it was your secret weapon aka nasty habit.

Believe me, I know what I'm talking about here. As the stress of taking care of a chronically ill child and then my husband started to take its toll...my voice started rising in lockstep. And it worked for a little while but then one day I realized I was turning into THAT mommy.

There was a mom like that in my neighborhood when I was a kid. It was the joke of the block. I can remember hearing this lady's loud, loud voice and the adults laughing and saying stuff like, "There goes Mrs. So and So on her evening rant". Why nobody actually tried to help is beyond me. The woman worked several jobs and had no husband, but if anyone did I was not aware of it.


Getting back to my own life, awhile back, I realized that my speaking voice when dealing with my older girls had risen to levels that probably could be heard next door. An echo that came back at me from across the valley tipped me off and a little voice whispered in my ear, "You need to learn how to stop screaming at your kids!"

Once I dedicated myself to keeping household's noise level to a low hum, I realized I didn't just need to lower my voice. I needed to take a look at where the yelling was coming from. It hit me that my nerves and emotions are shot from sheer overwork and exhaustion. The reason I have started to lose it with the children is because I am overworked and they have started to "take control" which is only natural since mommy appears to have lost hers. They have become powerful as a group in the face of my weakness.

I am going to have to turn the tide, regain control and win back my kids' respect and there is no time like the present. The loving family that I dreamed of and started out with is not going to slip through my fingers for one more minute. I am pledging to take control of my emotions and keep my cool.

Here are some ideas that I I'm putting to work today.

• 
  Stop feeling sorry for myself
  
• Take an attitude of gratitude
  
• Stay in the moment and don't drift into the past or future stressing about what could be or what might have been.
  
• Take a little time for myself so that I'm rested and better equipped to handle things
  
• Take a minute to calm myself before opening my mouth
  

I'm going to read some books on the subject of how to stop yelling at your kids and take the best tips to heart and chunk the rest. I am not going to be the village joke just because my life has not turned out just the way I planned it. My plan is to replace my stressed out chaotic reactions with calm reasoning.

Please pray for me and if you have any suggestions on how I can stay on track and start parenting my kids again rather than losing control and yelling at them I would love to hear from you.

MAKE YOUR CAR A NO PHONE ZONE

Texting while driving is dangerous and downright dumb! Please, make your car a no phone zone for the safety of both my family and yours. I've watched more vehicles swerving and running off the road since texting began than I ever saw driving home from concerts at 2am in the morning! Does that mean that cell phones have made clean and sober drivers more dangerous than those that are driving drunk or high?
We may never hear the results of that study, but don't we expect more out of people who are NOT under the influence?

I've been a fan of banning TALKING on cell phones while driving for years. I actually thought that not texting while operating a moving vehicle should have been a no-brainer. Unfortunately, busy people with busy lives are choosing a very dangerous way of staying in touch with their offices and their loved ones.

Joining the fight to give you inspiration and tell you why and how to make your car a no phone zone became very personal to me not so long ago. A friend, texting on his cell phone, ran his front tire off the edge of the road and over-corrected into the next lane of traffic. Some bull-shit text cost this talented young man his life. The world is a sadder place without his music and his uplifting love of life. All because some bored friend felt the need to say, "Wut's up?".

Tell me, do you want to have been in the other lane when somebody jerks the wheel under similar circumstances? I don't...

PLEASE
When you get a call on your cell, let voicemail answer and call back later when you are not driving. If you are expecting an important call, pull over to check to see who called and listen to the message after you stop! When you are traveling let driving be your priority and don't succumb to distracted driving.

EDUCATE YOUR DRIVER'S ED PROGRAM
Contact your local high school (even if you don't have a teenage driver in the house) and ask if the instructor teaches a class on how to avoid being a distracted driver and if he tells his students NOT to talk or text while driving and make this a topic of one (or more!) of your parenting chats.

Please learn how to make your car a no phone zone and stick to it! I don't want to lose any more friends due to "death by texting". And if you're walking as part of your efforts in going green, you should know that more pedestrians are stepping off the curb and being hit by moving cars than ever before because of typing on their cell phones.

Common sense should tell you that if you are moving...NO TEXTING!

LIST OF GOALS for 2010

I found a list of goals for 2010 yesterday that I made late in 2009. Yes, I was already thinking about insuring that this year would (just had to be!) better than the last few.

The idea for the list came about after reading a Guide to Setting Goals for 2010 and thinking...how the heck can someone tell ME what my personal goals should be? With a rather defiant attitude I found a notepad and started to scribble out a few goals, some easily attainable if I tried at all and others that were going to be a challenge.

For those who are interested, here's what I wrote.

• Organize at least one closet -- This might seem too easy to some but you haven't seen my closets, right?
  
• Lose 5 pounds with healthy exercise not by dieting
  
• Check into going back to college and getting a degree in something that will be focused on green parenting like maybe becoming a family counselor or a lactation consultant
  
• Read and Re-read the classics so my babies will be duly impressed when they have to read them in school and mommy knows all about them
  
• Get a few chickens
  
• Visit my elderly family members who are in the nursing home. I figure if I want my kids to visit me, I should set an example.
  

Is it lame that I only had time to write a list that fell short of 10 goals? I took a look at a list of goals for 2010 that I found on the net that had more than 30 one of which was to star in a movie! Frankly, this made me feel like cracking the paper on a chocolate bar and throwing up my hands in shame and dismay until I realized that more than half of my list of goals was geared toward doing something for the planet and for family rather than myself. It made me feel much better until I realized that we are now five months into 2010 and I haven't attained one single goal! So, my goal for today is to get started checking the first item on my list of goals for 2010...wish me luck!

Recycled Artwork

Pay close attention while I tell you about how I found my recycled artwork because you are probably going to want to copy my idea! I love to buy old, previously loved items and give them new life. During my latest foray through the flea market, I picked up some old children’s storybooks that had seen better days. Actually, they were literally falling apart and my friends thought I was totally crazy at the time, but now they are so jealous of my recycled art!

Luckily, all of the other shoppers skipped over these wonderful Mother Goose books because their covers were so damaged and worn. I, myself, almost didn’t take the time to open them and see what was inside. But when I did, I found the most precious illustrations that after my recycling efforts, have a new life as my kids wall art!

What I did was to pick the books clean of all the pages that had frameable pictures on them. The results were delightful art prints that didn’t set me back a bundle. And I didn't even have to pay for framing. I don’t believe that I could have done better than the plain, wooden frames that I had bought at a thrift store awhile back.

A fancy, new (read: expensive) picture frame would have detracted from the beauty of the slightly aged pictures. To make them look just right I wanted to surround my recycled artwork with wood that was either reclaimed or that had been rescued from a second hand store and thankfully, the ones that I had on hand were just the right size.

I would have felt lousy tearing the old book apart if the binding had been in good shape. But as it was, the pages were coming loose from the spine and were headed for the landfill. What once was a beautiful book that when read by a loved one eased a sleepy child into dreamland was no longer suitable for its original purpose.

Should the book have been better taken care of, there is no way that I could have violated it even though I may not have wanted my teething babies to chew on it in fear that the book’s print may have contained lead. But as it was, I pulled off the ultimate recycling coup and my recycled artwork looks super in my kids’ room.