With baby #4 due in October, I realized that I wanted to spend a little more time with my 2 older children. Aidan is starting Kindergarten next week, so I decided to take him to see the St. Louis Cardinals play baseball. It was his first game and BOY was it memorable. We took the Metro Link to the stadium and for all practical purposes, we took a TRAIN! He was soo excited. When we got to the stadium, I thought he was going to dance out of his shorts he was so excited. He bounced and bopped all the way up to the upper deck where our seats were. We bought peanuts, cracker jacks and lemonade and settled into our seats to watch Chris Carpenter pitch against the Cincinatti Reds. He was yelling and laughing the entire time and even had the people around us singing ” Take me OUt to the Ballgame” in the 5th inning!!! When Albert Pujols hit a homerun, I thought he was going to lose it! The fireworks went off and he turned to me and said..”Mommy, I don’t want to watch them on TV anymore…we are going to come here all the time instead!”

The night ended with a nice train ride back to the car and choruses of “Take me out to the Ballgame”!

2 tickets in the upper deck to see the Cardinals play…$40

Lemonade, cracker jacks and peanuts…$20

Mommy and Aidan Night Out at the Ballpark……Priceless!!!

If you are pregnant, considering getting pregnant or just downright curious, you NEED to check out this amazing website that has tons of full color photos of embryos and fetal development from Week 1 – Week 40. Take a sneak peak at your unborn baby, every step of the way! You will want to bookmark this site I promise!

Fetal Development: Inside the Womb from Week to Week

If you are trying to potty train your boy or girl, you absolutely must plan ahead.. Do your homework, come up with a potty training plan and put it into action. When we potty trained our little ones, it took a lot of planning and even more patience…but in the end it was worth it.

So many parents ask me how to begin potty training their boy or girl. There are so many great potty training tips, I couldn’t possibly know where to start. So….I created a few articles and other free resources for parents looking for answers on how to begin potty training their children. Is your child a stubborn potty trainer? Just not interested in potty training? Don’t worry, with these tips, your boy or girls is sure to be potty trained in no time.
Check them out….

Potty Training Girls: Everything you need to know about Potty Training
Potty Training Boys: Everything you need to know about Potty Training
Potty Training Tips: Books, Movies and more!!!
Potty Training 911

SO this month’s edition of MomSense Magazine features a personal essay written by Bonnie Ferrar….OctopusMOM. NO…not Octo Mom, but rather the editor and founder of Octopusmom.com, a parenting and pregnancy website designed for busy moms who have their hands full.
Check it out
Becoming Human- by Bonnie Ferrar
http://www.christianitytoday.com/momsense/2009/julaug/becominghuman.html

Is your little boy giving you trouble about potty training? Don’t you wish there was a way to potty train him in less than a week? Well there is!!!! Little boys are notoriously more difficult to potty train than girls, but there are a few tricks to get them interested in potty training. From potty training books for boys to fun potty training pottys designed specifically with boys in mind, getting them excited about potty training is the first step towards potty training success!!

Check out these great resources:

Potty Training Boys: Everything you need to know

Potty Training 911

How to potty train your girl in a few days!!!! Are you about to begin potty training your girl? Well believe it or not, girls are a bit easier to potty train than boys. Yet there are some pitfalls new parents make when they begin potty training their little girl. Find out if your little girl is truly ready to potty train and what you can do to make potty training a success. These are two great resources to get you started!

Potty Training Girls: Everything you need to know

Potty Training 911

Got any great potty training tips?? Share them with our readers NOW!!!!!

If you are pregnant, there is a 1/1,000 chance that you could be diagnosed with a molar pregnancy. But what exactly is a molar pregnancy. A molar pregnancy is not a typical pregnancy. There is usually no embryo, just a mass of cells that clusters together like grapes to form the “mole’.  What makes a molar pregnancy so devastating is that there is a chance that the cells could be cancerous. What starts out as a happy occasion (a couple find out they are having a baby), can turn into a frightening one in a matter of minutes when it is diagnosed. For the next year, the mother may need to undergo chemotherapy and put off getting pregnant.

To find out more about Molar Pregnancies, read this great article ” Molar Pregnancies”

When news first broke of the Octuplets’ birth in California, I didn’t think much of it. Like most Americans, I am disgusted by the fact that any doctor would implant more than 2 embryos in a female uterus. Any more than that is simply unethical. As a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit RN, I have seem the problems quads and even sextuplets face as they struggle to breathe and eat on their own. Chronic disablities are a real consideration and can bring a lifetime of pain and suffering.

Now she is labeled as Octo Mom and we have a situation. I am Octopus Mom, not Octo Mom and the two are vastly different.

An Octopus Mom is a mother with 2-4 small children at home, juggling life and work at the same time. We are confident, active and the ultimate multitaskers.

Please do not confuse the two!!

I am currently reading a book titled ” The Trouble with Boys” and let me be the first to say that it is amazing. If you have a boy, you owe it to yourself to read this book. The author, Peg Tyre, sheds light on a troubling statistic—that our schools are failing our boys. Throughout the last few decades,  the school system has been changing. Different teaching styles, longer hours, less recess and different expectations have morphed schooltime. Boys, who notoriously need more “wiggle room”, find themselves crammed into desks, punished for fidgiting and as a result, begin to slip behind in school. By the time boys enter middle school, the majority of them are not living up to their academic potential and the majority of  “behavioral” problems in school are boys. More “honor students” are girls and more women are attending college then their male counterparts.

If you are a parent with a young boy, you know all too well that “circle time” has become the dreaded regiment they all must conform to before they head off to kindergarten. Many boys are inappropriately labeled as ADD or ADHD when 40 years ago they would’ve been just a normal kid.

Cultural changes have also changed the way boys are allowed to play. Good ol fashioned games of tag have been replaced by adult driven “kiddie soccer” classes. Free time spent lazily swimming in rivers and creeks have been replaced by “swim lessons” with a certified instructor. No splashing, no running.  Boys are discouraged from aggressive play to “prevent” them from becoming aggressive bullys. Sword fights and gun fights are discouraged and video game have replaced board games.

As a result of society’s changes, the school system inevitably changed as well. Now, it favors girls and the style of learning that is best suited for the female gender. Boys need to learn in a more hands on way and need to have access to sports and recess throughout the day. If our school systems fail to see what a diservice they are doing to our boys, we may end up with a generation of slackers and underachieving men.
As a mother of 2 sons, I found Peg Tyre’s analysis of the problems boys face in the school system  absolutely enlightening. I encourage all mothers with boys and all educators to read her incredible book. If you are a mother struggling with your boy in school, you need to read this book and realize that it is not your fault….and it is not his fault. It is the school system that is failing them and unless we speak up, the situation will only get worse.