We all savor those moments of contentedness when what we see before us isn’t a sink full of dishes or the amount due on our credit card bill, but a sight that’s truly a pleasure to behold.
It might be those bulbs you planted last fall that are finally blooming and you can see them from your kitchen window. Maybe it’s a rare moment when your children are happily playing together or a photograph album filled with vacation memories. Or perhaps it’s not even a concrete image at all, but your outlook on life or how you feel about your family. Tell us about your best view - what you envision when you’re happiest.
For many of us, our best view is right here at home. So this week, we’ve teamed up with Windex to introduce their new Outdoor All-in-One glass cleaning tool. It’s a quick and easy way to help see your best view more clearly.
Here’s how to participate:
Write a post on your blog about your best view and upload your photos to our Flickr pool! Post anytime this weekend - today, May 15 to Sunday, May 17 and include links to:
Make sure to send your blog post link to parentbloggers@gmail.com and we’ll round them up right here, below - so give your post a creative title!
What can you win?
We’ve got a $250 VISA gift card to award at random, plus a Windex Outdoor All-in-One starter kit for the first 20 bloggers to send us a link to their post.
NO PRE-SCHEDULED POSTS. You’ve got to publish your post, copy and paste your permalink, and email it to us - anytime after 12:01am ET on Friday, May 15. Placement in the first twenty bloggers will be based on the order in which we receive your emails, not the date/time stamp on your posts.
It seems as though the instant we become parents, we also become much more aware of the home environment we’re creating for our families. From our clothing to our food choices, and almost everything in between, many of us have been making different choices - more natural choices - to benefit our families.
So when it comes to your life, your family and your home, tell us about some easy, affordable steps you’ve taken to live more naturally - whether it’s hanging your laundry on a line vs. using the dryer or growing a garden in your backyard. And if you’re still just getting started, what steps do you want to try first?
This week, we’ve teamed up with SC Johnson to help introduce their new line of natural cleaners, Nature’s Source. It combines simple, biodegradable, plant-based cleaners with the cleaning power of Windex and Scrubbing Bubbles, so you never have to choose between natural and effective cleaning. The products are also easy to find and easy on the wallet.
Here’s how to participate:
Write a post on your blog about how you’ve begun living more naturally. Post anytime this weekend - Friday, March 20 to Sunday, March 22 and include links to:
Make sure to send your blog post link to parentbloggers@gmail.com and we’ll round them up here at PBN - so give your post a creative title!
What can you win?
We’ve got a $250 VISA gift card to award at random, along with a full set of SC Johnson’s new natural cleaning line. Also, we’ll be giving Nature’s Source samples to the first 15 bloggers to send us a link to their post.
NO PRE-SCHEDULED POSTS. You’ve got to publish your post, copy and paste your permalink, and email it to us - anytime after 12:01am ET on Friday, March 20. Placement in the first fifteen bloggers will be based on the order in which we receive your emails, not the date/time stamp on your posts.
Check out all the posts below for some great natural living tips!
It seems as though the instant we become parents, we also become much more aware of the home environment we’re creating for our families. From our clothing to our food choices, and almost everything in between, many of us have been making different choices - more natural choices - to benefit our families.
So when it comes to your life, your family and your home, tell us about some easy, affordable steps you’ve taken to live more naturally - whether it’s hanging your laundry on a line vs. using the dryer or growing a garden in your backyard. And if you’re still just getting started, what steps do you want to try first?
This week, we’ve teamed up with SC Johnson to help introduce their new line of natural cleaners, Nature’s Source. It combines simple, biodegradable, plant-based cleaners with the cleaning power of Windex and Scrubbing Bubbles, so you never have to choose between natural and effective cleaning. The products are also easy to find and easy on the wallet.
Here’s how to participate:
Write a post on your blog about how you’ve begun living more naturally. Post anytime this weekend - Friday, March 20 to Sunday, March 22 and include links to:
Make sure to send your blog post link to parentbloggers@gmail.com and we’ll round them up here at PBN - so give your post a creative title!
What can you win?
We’ve got a $250 VISA gift card to award at random, along with a full set of SC Johnson’s new natural cleaning line. Also, we’ll be giving Nature’s Source samples to the first 15 bloggers to send us a link to their post.
NO PRE-SCHEDULED POSTS. You’ve got to publish your post, copy and paste your permalink, and email it to us - anytime after 12:01am ET on Friday, March 20. Placement in the first fifteen bloggers will be based on the order in which we receive your emails, not the date/time stamp on your posts.
The name “MilkBank” may conjure up some interesting images. One of our reviewers exclaimed, “When I first received the email about reviewing MilkBank, I thought they were asking me to review an actual milk bank - I’d pump and then ship them my milk. I’m stingy with my milk so there was no way that I was going to do THAT.” Rather, think of MilkBank as a vault for your important milk: keep the valuable breastmilk fresh, and prevent it - or stain-prone formula - from leaking.
Fourteen of our bloggers were given the opportunity to try MilkBank products, as well as to host giveaways for their readers to win breastmilk storage systems and bottles for both breastmilk and formula feeding.
Why MilkBank? Explains one reviewer, “BPA, PVC and phthalate free MilkBank Storage system is different from the traditional methods of storing and freezing your breast milk. Instead of using a bag or the supplied breast pump bottles MilkBank has a vacuum that sucks out the oxygen and keeps breast milk fresher longer.”
A veteran mom explained that she pumped exclusively for her first daughter. She remarks, “At the time, the best method to store the milk was in a zippered breast milk storage bag. I noticed that my daughter didn’t seem to like the milk as much after it had been frozen and sort of wondered why… Now that I’ve seen the MilkBank system and read about what it does I understand why she didn’t like the frozen milk as much.” She further explains, “It’s the air trapped inside the storage containers that causes milk stored in traditional ways to degrade. With the air removed from the containers [using the MilkBank system] the milk stays good and retains more of the nutrients for longer than 6 months in the freezer.”
MilkBank is not just for breastfeeding moms. Their bottles have several important features. One reviewer describes, “The bottles are insulated, making it easier to keep the milk warm, much as it is when you feed from the breast, and the triple-vented bottles help reduce colic and prevent leaking.” She further explains, “My son has a condition that restricts his airway, and so for us, vented bottles were a must.” She described another brand of vented bottles, saying, “man, do they leak like the dickens.” Thankfully, MilkBank was successful for her: “Along came MilkBank—I can tell you, those suckers (hehheh) DO NOT LEAK. And the venting system is great. Not even a burp after a feeding, and my son’s condition makes him gulp a lot more than the average kid.”
The “leak free” is very important: “Have you ever arrived at Day Care or at a sitter’s only to find that an entire bottle of breastmilk has leaked into the bottom of your bag? (Then had your brain explode?) I have. It’s not pretty,” asks one reviewer, “Lucky for me, there is MilkBank, a patented, clinically-proven breastmilk storage and feeding system that treats every drop like the precious commodity it is.”
One dad was a big fan of the insulation: “The insulated liner was a brilliant addition: basically, it’s a slightly larger bottle that fits over the smaller bottles (2.5oz and 5oz) and can be filled with warm water to maintain a more even temperature throughout a long feed.”
One reviewer was particularly concerned about the bottle-composition: “With all of the scares due to plastics and safety regarding baby bottles, I rushed out and purchased a whole slew of glass bottles. The problem is that every single time my little guy drinks milk from a bottle, he spits up. I have come to the conclusion he spits up so much after drinking from bottles because of the air bubbles that form in his little tummy.” She found success with MilkBank’s BPA, PVC and phtalate free vented bottles: “After feeding my son a few times with these specially designed bottles, he is a much more content baby with less gas and spit-up.”
Our reviewers had plenty to say about the system’s benefits. Sums up one reviewer, “There’s way too much for me to say about this system, other than ‘you need this now‘…”
It used to be that feeding Baby was easy. Or at least it seemed easy. Parents had glass bottles or Mom breastfed while she stayed at home. But these days, parents are on-the-go and becoming more eco-conscious, so milk storage systems and bottles have come under heavy scrutiny.
Nearly every nursing mother has made that horrifying discovery of a leaking container of their precious pumped milk because the lid didn’t fit tightly enough. Bottles once prized for being easy for infants turned out to be a pain for parents to clean, plus they leaked: New mothers have to do enough laundry as it is. Unknown to parents, other bottles contained BPA, phthlates, or PVC.
A bottle may seem like a simple product, but with different sizes, shapes, nipple-flow, ventilation, and insulation, the choices are endless. It is difficult to determine what is best for Baby and for the parents.
Fourteen of our bloggers were given the opportunity to try MilkBank products. These breastmilk storage systems and bottles for both breastmilk and formula feeding have some pretty impressive credentials.
First off, they are free of lead, phthalates, and PVC. They are BPA-free, as is the MilkBank packaging. Both milk storage containers and bottles are guaranteed leak-proof. The bottles have an insulation system that keeps milk warm throughout the feeding, thus improving Baby’s nutrient intake. The triple-vent system provides unrestricted milk flow, apparently preventing colic, spit-up, burping, gas, and fluid in the ear.
The breastmilk storage system includes a vacuum, as even the smallest bit of oxygen exposure begins to spoil milk. MilkBank explains that milk stored using their system will last for well over six months and will be fresher than breastmilk stored using other systems.
The components of both the breastmilk storage system and the bottles are dishwasher-safe, and that is certainly a relief to overworked parents.
Go see our reviewers’ posts to discover their thoughts about MilkBank. Each is holding a giveaway for MilkBank products, so visit them all for your best chance to win:
A universal parenting truth is that we believe that at their core, our kids are “good kids,” even if they act out, lie, or exhibit oppositional defiant behavior. But behavioral challenges can become a big problem, especially if left unchecked. Even for kids who are well-behaved most of the time, there may be moments where we simply don’t know what to do (thus creating a weakness that the kids can then exploit.) Five of our bloggers had the opportunity to review the Total Transformation Program, created by behavioral therapist James Lehman to offer parents practical, real world solutions for children’s behavior challenges.
Our bloggers opened up to us about the problems they’ve been having with their children. One writes, “Three of [my children] have attention and auditory processing issues and my oldest has issues with impulsiveness along with her ADHD. Dealing with her discipline issues has not been easy and those issues are compounded with my ineffective parenting and all three of my oldest children respond disrespectfully to not getting their way.”
Some might think “auditory processing issues? ADHD? Doesn’t that deserve a lighter hand?” In fact, as one of our reviewers notes, it is our special treatment of kids who might have other challenges that sets them up for defiant behavior.
She explains, “Sometimes, our children have health, emotional or behavior issues that ‘they just can’t help,’ and we become lax at enforcing the limits and rules we’ve set for everyone else in the family. Soon, this becomes a habit…Lehman explains that the real world will not compensate our kids for their excuses. It’s up to parents to teach our kids to take responsibility for their own behavior, and to learn to function and lead a productive life with whatever handicaps they may have.”
One reviewer reveals, “My kids are pretty good kids. [They] are fairly well behaved for other people and most of the time for us. However, [my son] has several problems that I refer to as ‘lacking a moral compass.’” She goes on: “The Total Transformation Program couldn’t have come at a better time. We’ve been having a tough time with [my son] already this year at school. He zooms through his school work, and turns in sloppy, half done work… We think it’s focus, motivation and a work ethic issue.”
Another reviewer has a similar story: “My son is bright but he gets very frustrated when he doesn’t understand something and that’s usually when he acts out. I’ll admit that I get frustrated as well when he acts out in this manner.”
Kudos to these reviewers for coming forward with their concerns. But don’t worry, although improvements in parental technique help manage the child’s behavior, the Total Transformation Program is not about tearing down the parents’ self-esteem: “What this program does well is not make parents feel guilty or even insult them for bad parenting. For the most part, parents feel terrible enough that their kids are having issues, so there’s just no sense in getting beaten up. What the program does do is arm parents with all the skills they need.”
How does the Total Transformation Program change these behaviors?
Explains one reviewer, “[Lehman] believes that kids don’t have the skills they need to deal with things and problem solve, and so they act out. In turn, parents need to develop effective parenting skills to teach their children the skills they need to get through life.”
Another takes us through the process, “…the questionnaires helped me identify the behaviors of my kids that I need to focus on with the program. I also learned what are my ineffective roles that fail to promote responsibility, accountability or change… James Lehman knows how to transform ineffective parenting roles into effective ones. The skills he teaches in the program are excellent and make sense to me. I especially like his analogy about how adults are expected to follow laws just as kids should be expected to follow the family rules.”
A third sums up the program nicely: “The longer I listened and learned from the Total Transformation Program, the more I began to believe that ineffective parenting causes problem behavior in children…I realized how I had been setting my own kids up to misbehave. The good news is, the program shows you step by step how to stop what you’re doing, so you can reverse the spiral of bad behavior.”
She wasn’t alone in her concern about the timing: “It takes a long time – seven weeks – to get through it. The first three weeks seem more about how you and your child think and act than about changing it. You have to be patient enough to wait for weeks four through seven to work on action items. So I really haven’t seen much change in my son’s behavior. But I have thought differently about how I approach his problems.” She recommends, “Plan the same time each week to work on the program – and put it on your calendar.”
Visit the Total Transformation Program website to start your own 30-day trial of the program and to sign up for the free e-newsletter “Empowering Parents.”
Tiny*Prints sounds fabulous so far, doesn’t it? Here is a “secret:” Despite absolutely loving the holiday greetings I purchased from tiny*prints last year, and knowing how my fellow PBN reviewers felt about the company, I purchased my son’s birthday invitations from another site. My son had a gymnastics-themed party and I really wanted an invitation with a little gymnast on it. But I was duped. I should have taken a photo of my own little gymnast to put on one of tiny*prints’ excellent photo birthday invitations.
Although the invite I got from the other company was cute, it took several tries to get the proof right. Each time, a different staff member sent out a new proof, clearly not actually looking at it before sending. I received someone else’s proof. I received one that was nearly right but had the address wrong (clearly left in their “cut n’ paste” from a previous client.) Then I received one that was oddly spaced. Each time there were no apologies, just “Attached is your proof! Please email confirmation that we can print!” Happy Use of Exclamation Points Does Not Make Me Like You! The invites cost more than they would have from tiny*prints and took longer to ship.
Meanwhile, I purchased personalized thank-you notes from tiny*prints for my son. The card I selected was designed for two people so had an ampersand as part of the design. The proof has a little notice saying that if only one name is submitted the ampersand will be deleted, even though it will appear on the instant online proof. I wasn’t worried because I knew tiny*prints actually looks at the design before printing it. Less than five minutes after I pressed the “place order” button, a tiny*prints designer phoned me. She wanted to confirm that I was using a single name and probably didn’t want the ampersand. I laughed a little and told her that I had read the little notice on the site so wasn’t worried. Still, I was impressed that she had called to double-check. This personalized attention to detail was completely absent in that “other site’s” so-called “customer service.”
Indeed, re-read this summary and that of the the first eight reviewers if you still don’t recognize our undying love for this excellent company. Trust me: I tried another company and will not make that mistake again!
In the next couple weeks, more of our bloggers will reveal their opinions of Were You Raised by Wolves?: Clues to the Mysteries of Adulthood. I expect that like the batch so far, these will be similarly humerous to match Christie Mellor’s entertaining style:
Our bloggers are directed to write frank and honest reviews assessing their personal experience with a product or service. Their reviews may include both positive and negative feedback.
For more information, please refer to our Disclaimer.
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Why MilkBank? Explains one reviewer, “BPA, PVC and phthalate free MilkBank Storage system is different from the 
A universal parenting truth is that we believe that at their core, our kids are “good kids,” even if they act out, lie, or exhibit 
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