When it comes to babies, at my core, I am a scientist. The process children go through as they transform from a fetus into a walking talking human child in just the first 2 years of life fascinates me. It’s absolutely incredible really. As a scientist, I want to understand all I can about this amazing process. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned that is the same in both my scientific and my Montessori backgrounds, it’s that observation is the key to understanding child development.
Moving toward sustainability
Considering our environmental impact and moving toward sustainability is something that every modern day aware parent is faced with, but sometimes the task can seem daunting and it can be difficult to tell whether we’re really making a difference.
Finding out what your carbon footprint is can be a great jumping off point. There is a list of 15 carbon calculators here http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-change/stories/the-15-best-carbon-calculators# You’ll find that car travel, air travel, and household power are often the largest contributors to your family’s carbon footprint. You can do things like wash clothes in cold, change your light-bulbs to the new more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, and lower your household heat by 5 degrees.
Guest Blog: Conscious parenting: A stepparent’s perspective
This week’s guest blog is from my stepdad Jim:
As a person “of a certain age,” I have to admit to an occasional bit of amusement at Shelly’s parenting tips. Some seem a little odd (as I suppose my ideas about parenting seemed to my parents) and some just seem like old ideas dressed up in new words. But the basic theme of this blog, Conscious Parenting, isn’t a concept I ‘d encountered before and it’s one that has a lot of meaning for me as both a stepparent and a biological one.
A Special Letter to My Soon to Be Born Baby
When I was a teenager I was flipping through my baby book and I saw a letter my mom had written to me before I was born. It was sweet and heartfelt and at that moment I knew on a deeper level how very wanted I was and how special I was to my mom even before she met me for the first time. It has always been important to me that I make a conscious choice to become a parent and that I wait until I’m really ready to take on the responsibilities of parenthood. So here I am, just two weeks away from my “guess date” and I’ve decided to write a letter to my baby to welcome him or her.