MommyTwinGirls is rethinking her policy about children watching TV. I laughed when I read this post! How many of us have walked this same path with our kids?

4Tunate reflects on an ordinary day of blessings. Can you imagine parenting quadruplets? I can’t.

Dawn of The Joys of Twins has a post detailing how her boys fingerpainted for Father’s Day. I don’t think I tackled fingerpainting when the boys were 2. That takes bravery!

Mom of Twin Girls appreciates the peace and sweetness of her girls napping.

Also. Do you recall Sammie, the daughter of two HIP parents from last month? As of this past Sunday she was still fighting, but the end is quite near. She’s sleeping most of the time and eating very little. If you wouldn’t mind praying for this sweet family, and possibly stopping by Sammie’s Caring Bridge page to leave a supportive comment, that would be great.

Thanks.

Our new HIP bloggers are invited to take a badge back to their own site if they like. That’s completely optional, of course, as explained in the how it works post.

Do you know someone who’s HIP? Are you HIP? Contact me, and tell me all about it!

Related posts:

1. Heroes In Parenting, May 2009
2. Heroes In Parenting, 4th Edition
3. Heroes In Parenting

Are Contact Lenses Safe For Children And Do They Improve Self Esteem?

Nowadays, the wearing of glasses do not appear, on the surface, to have much stigma attached to it. The vast array of colorful, trendy, glamorous frames can even make some children welcome the prospect. Times have changed since, for example, the 1970’s where the only choices were black or brown.

There have also been scientific advances since the 1970’s. One of the biggest challenges facing parents, today, is when to allow their child to wear contact lenses. Common thinking has been that contact lenses are only suitable for older children and teenagers. However, the eye can actually cope with using contact lenses when the child is still very young. Some babies are fitted with contact lenses. Although this is only done if an eye condition is diagnosed when the baby is born.

Myopic vision or short sightedness is the most common eye condition amongst children. However, a recent study surveyed five hundred children with myopic vision between the ages of seven and eleven. Some children wore prescription contact lenses whilst others wore glasses. The survey concluded that there was nothing to suggest prescription contact lenses damaged the children’s eyes. Both eye corrective treatments worked, and were safe.

There appears to be no medical reason why children should not wear contact lenses.

The wearing of contact lenses is a huge responsibility for a child. The decision should be based on whether the child is emotionally and psychologically mature. A survey conducted by Prof. Jeffrey Wallen concluded that children thought the wearing of contact lenses, as opposed to glasses, improved their own self image and helped them feel more accepted by their peers. Professor Wallen argued that children should be allowed to wear contact lenses to better their self esteem. However, self esteem should not be determined by whether a child can ‘fit in’. A child should be taught to accept themselves for who they are, and not be encouraged to conform to a looks and beauty driven society.

It is up to a parent to decide whether their child’s motives for wanting contact lenses are correct. A parent also needs to make sure the child is responsible enough. A parent should look at a child’s behavior in other areas, such as, taking the trash out, doing their homework on time etc. Looking at these areas might be good pointers in deciding if your child is mature enough for contact lenses. It is ultimately a parent’s individual choice and should not be made without consulting an eye doctor. Whatever a parent decides, the freedom always exists to change his/her mind.

Great post! Thanks, Maria.

If you’d like to submit a guest post to Earnest Parenting, please contact me and we’ll talk about it.

Related posts:

1. Have You Honked at Your Children Lately?
2. 2 Ways to Tease Your Children
3. Do Interfering Parents Raise Successful Children?

Anywho. Ryan from Readsake contacted me recently to introduce me to the web site. Readsake is about making children’s books and coloring books. When you visit the site, you can download coloring pages for free. There are already dozens available. Alternatively, when you join (also free) you can create an actual book with the site, personalized for your child. There are templates available or you can upload your child’s own artwork to use in the story. In addition, there’s a pretty large gallery area where drawings created by other members are available to view or even print and color in.

If you want Readsake to make an actual book for you, that’s also possible. Here’s the really super-neat giveaway part: I have 3 gift certificates to give away! Ryan assures me that each $30 USD certificate should be enough to cover printing AND shipping a book. Is that cool or what??

So here’s what you can do. Enter by commenting below. You can earn additional entry by Twittering the giveaway (just comment again with a link to that tweet).

Giveaway will be open until 11:59 pm EDT Tuesday, June 30, 2009. Winners will be chosen randomly and notified on Wednesday July 1, 2009.

I’ll be grinning all day in anticipation of the giveaway! And enjoying the chicks. We’re up to 9 now, with more to hatch soon!

UPDATED! Here are the 3 winners – ta da da daaaaaaa!

derekp, Jenny, and Jenna, please contact me so we can arrange your prize.

Also! It turns out I have one more gift certificate to give, so back to Random.org we go.

Marci, please contact me as well.

Congratulations to all the winners!!

Related posts:

1. Make Some New Friends!
2. Heroes In Parenting, 4th Edition

If you read my post at GNMParents you know that the boys were gone last week. The older boys went to Scout Camp and the youngers went to Camp Grandma. Did I mention that here? I don’t recall. As usual I managed to fill the week with activity and time just plain flew by. The Scout portion of the family came home Saturday, and we picked up the Grandma Campers Sunday afternoon.

We were literally driving home Sunday when some friends called to say that they’d found a lone chick wandering their farm, and would we add it to our little flock. (Which at that point numbered 4. Six chicks had hatched but we lost two over the course of the week.) Oh, and by the way, they’d also found 2 hens nesting and wondered if we wanted to incubate the eggs for the rest of the time. Our friends were done dealing with chicks for the year and the hens weren’t in a safe place to hatch out and handle that many babies on their own.

So. We hurried home and got ready, then went over to pick up the chick and the eggs. Twenty seven eggs. The chick was ADORABLE! They’re Bantam Chickens; they grow to be about half the size of a standard chicken. The boys kept calling them Phantom Chickens, which caused some giggles. We got the eggs into the incubator and set chickie up in a safe place. I’d just served dinner when our friends called again. They had 6 more eggs and two live chicks….would we take them?

So now, we’ve got 31 eggs in the incubator (one hatched and one…didn’t) and 8 chickens in the pen. The boys just love them! It’s so cute when they go out and pet the chickens and talk to them and take care of them.

What does all this mean? Well, we’re back in the egg-watching business. We don’t know exactly when these eggs will hatch, so everyone’s keeping a close eye on them. The boys are doing a great job of chicken wrangling. Each chick has been named and is handled frequently so they get used to people. Then everyone Washes Their Hands With Soap Thankyouverymuch.

It’s crazy hot here, how about you? We got up early today to do chores, then the boys played and later we went to Tae Kwon Do. It was a very busy day. Oh yeah, we took time out to witness a car accident as well. No one was hurt and the boys were very sweet while we waited for the police to arrive.

Tomorrow I expect some more work but we’ll try to be hiding in the basement where it’s cool by midday. Hopefully I can get the lawn mowed, some weeds killed, and make a batch of jam. And of course we’ll watch the chickens. And eggs.

It’s a very exciting life I lead.

Oooooh! Speaking of exciting. Stop back tomorrow for an announcement. It’s a giveaway! And yes, I’m really excited about it. So. Come back and I’ll give you all the details.

Bring friends!

photo credit: star5112

Related posts:

1. You May Now Call Me a Mother Hen
2. I Think I Killed the Chickens
3. City Chic

All you need is a tortilla, slices of lunch meat and cheese, and a little mayonnaise. (Mustard or even cream cheese would work too.) If you want to get really healthy, a nice bit of lettuce or other greens would be lovely. I stuck with the basics for my “not-gonna-eat-leaves” boys.

Start by spreading the tortilla with some mayonnaise, then laying the rectangular lunch meat on top of the tortilla. Cut off two sides of the tortilla so that it is the same width as the meat. Save the two slices for later – they’ll be our butterfly wings. They should each look like a semi-circle about an inch wide at the center.

Next I cut the cheese slice into strips and laid them across the ham, spaced evenly.

Roll up the tortilla, wrapping the meat and cheese inside. A little mayo on the starting end can help keep things glued together.

Lay the roll on its side and cut into half-inch slices.

Lay the slices out flat in a row and run a skewer through each slice crosswise.

Once you have all the slices skewered*, lay the food on a plate. Take the two semi-circles you cut earlier and lay next to the skewer, forming the wings of a butterfly.

There are plenty of variations you can do on this theme: add lettuce to the wrap, use cream cheese instead of mayo, and even decorate the wings with cucumber or tomato pieces (use mayo or cream cheese as glue).

So what do you think? Do you have anything fun and creative that you do for lunches?

*If you’re serving this to young children, take a moment and cut off the sharp end of the skewer. You can also just lay the slices out to make the butterfly. My boys were old enough to handle the skewers safely.

This post was submitted to Scribbit’s June Write-Away Contest.

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