With the summer season upon us you can never be too cautious around water or read too many articles on water safety. Most children love water and are like bugs to a zapper when it comes down to it. So vigilance is the watch word while your child is around enough water to drown in, which is less than an inch of water. This includes places you wouldn’t normally think of: puddle, bucket, bowl, and toilet.

What to be watchful of around the swimming pool:
1.) Watch your child at all times. For young children don’t be more than arms length away so you are readily available to grab them.
2.) Pool drains. The suction from a pool drain can be strong enough to hold an adult by the hair or body underwater let alone a child. Drain covers that are missing are usually the cause of this problem.
3.) Swimming pool water should have the proper chemical balance of chlorine. Too much chlorine can burn your child’s skin not enough and the water is ripe for bacteria and pollutants.
4.) Make sure your child walks and not runs around the edge of the pool. One slip is all it takes.
5.) Water wings or a life preserver is a must for young children that don’t know how to swim yet. Don’t rely solely on yourself to keep your child afloat. There is no such thing as too safe.
6.) If you have a pool in your backyard make sure it’s enclosed with a fence that is at least four feet high and has a lock on the gate. Make sure that unless you’re in the pool with your child that it remains locked.
7.) If you have a little plastic wading pool, make sure to drain it and store it in an upright position after each use. Never leave the water in it unattended or overnight. The water isn’t chemically treated and could grow bacteria.
8.) Always carry a cell phone with you to the pool just in case of emergencies.

If the unthinkable happens and your child goes under for longer than a moment, here are the steps you’ll need to take calmly and quickly:

1.) Pull your child out of the water
2.) Carry the child with their head lower than their chest
3.) Wrap the child in a warm dry towel or blanket
4.) Call 911 or take your child to the nearest emergency room (even if the child appears okay they could have water in their lungs which could cause lung damage and pneumonia)
5.) If the child is unconscious, check for breathing and a pulse — if not breathing start CPR while someone else dials 911.

The rule of thumb around the water is: Never leave your child unattended.

If your answer to the lifestyle question was travels a lot then you’ll need a low maintenance pet like a cat, rodent, reptile, or fish. A pet that you can leave enough food and water for short trips and for longer trips have a friend come over every couple of days to refill the supply. These types of pets won’t miss you like a dog will when you’re gone.

Cats. When choosing a cat, you’ll also want to pick one in its adolescence. They aren’t as rambunctious as kittens and less likely to claw and bite while playing. And when you have a small child, the cat is bigger and less fragile in little hands. Adopting is best for a family cat but if you want purebred, Ragdoll cats come highly recommended by experts as being very gentle, laid-back, and friendly. Other things to consider: males are more tolerant of young children than females and indoor domesticated cats are a necessity. Feral, or undomesticated cats, won’t be happy as an indoor family pet and you can expect a lot of scratches in demonstration. Always check with the adoption provider if the cat gets along with children.

Rodents. Caged animals such as rabbits, rats, hamsters, gerbils are fun pets for children to watch but not really handle. They also are messier than cat with cage clean up but have the convenience of cats in not needing constant affection or constant watch while on your travels.

Reptiles. Reptiles have the ease of only needing to be fed every few days but you have to be careful of breeds — turtles can carry salmonella. You also have to be comfortable feeding the animal live crickets or in the case of snakes rats and mice. Depending on your child this can be a neat thing to watch or traumatic so make sure you know your child’s tolerance and feed the animal after your child is in bed if needed. Reptiles are less messy than the rodent breeds but no where close to cuddly.

Fish. Fish are by far the easiest animal to take care of. While they don’t have any “play” value they can be entertaining for kids to watch. They would also enjoy sprinkling in the fish flakes. Tanks do need to be cleaned but if you have a good filter system it doesn’t have to be very often.

A happy pet is a well-placed pet. Make sure the pet you choose, is right for your family, and you can’t go wrong.

When picking the perfect pet for your family, there are a few things to consider:

*are you and your family ready for a pet — do you have the time and resources to devote to a new pet in the home

*is your child old enough to handle a pet — keeping in mind that your child won’t be mature enough to help out with the pet until eight or so years old

*what kind of pet will fit in with your lifestyle — if you’re a traveler you’ll want a cat as they are more independent and can be left alone for several days.

If you’re a dog person and you’re absolutely sure your family needs a dog, it’s best to consider one between one and five years old. They are more mature than puppies and won’t rough house as much, and they’re still young and spry enough to play with your child.

Some breeds are better known for their family orientated personalities like retrievers and spaniels tend to be gentler and love being played with. Whereas small dogs such as terriers and toy breeds are easily hurt so they are more aggressive with nipping children out of fear. The only sure way to get one that is good with children is to measure the dog and not the breed.

Adoption is a good place to start with looking for a dog. The adoption counselors know the animals and their temperaments to tell if they’d be a good match with kids. A lot of shelters test out their dogs with children to verify if they’re good with them. They also foster dogs out to families with small children to accustom the dog to day to day life for permanent adoption.

Here’s a test to conduct for yourself when you find a dog you’re interested in:
1.) make loud noises and sudden movements and gauge reactions
2.) touch the dog in an intrusive way as a child would.
3.) play with the dogs ears, hold the paws, put your fingers in the mouth
4.) pat him, push him, roll him over
5.) run in a circle and jump up and down

You’re looking for a pet that can handle the rougher handling because until your child learns they won’t always be gentle. If the dog responds calmly to these annoyances you inflicted, chances are you’ve got a good family dog before you.

Next installment will be on how to choose a good family cat….

Being healthy is always a hot topic but lately it seems the “be fit” crusade is in a definite upswing. To lose weight or maintain a healthy figure, a person can spend up to 45 – 60 minutes working out three to five times a week. To get healthy or stay that way, we eat right, in the proper amounts, and from all the food groups — and even doing this we still listen to anyone who touts a new way to eat that is “healthier”. We subscribe to yoga, meditation, and wheatgrass all in our effort to start or keep our healthy lifestyle. Even with all this die hard dedication, there is still one key ingredient missing to be completely healthy. It’s just one thing that can and should be done everyday and it’s so easy it only takes a couple of minutes to perform.

No, it’s not a new miracle vitamin, the newest energy health drink, nor a powder for shakes. It’s something you do before bed that will ensure you get a solid night of sleep, which is truly an essential key to staying healthy. There are many culprits to sabotage a night’s sleep besides uncomfortable sleep conditions and outside distractions: stress, anxiety, worries, to name a few. When a body doesn’t get enough sleep, you get run down, easily stressed out, and it can ultimately lower your immune system — allowing you to get sick easier and stay sick longer.

What is the new healthy miracle that will guarantee a full and restful night’s sleep? When you’re feeling particularly stressed or over stimulated take a few minutes, before you lie down for the night, and write all the issues that are bothering you down. Doesn’t matter how trivial you think they might be, if they are bothering you they are keeping you from sleeping healthily. By taking the time to get any and all concerns off your chest, out of your head, and onto paper you make sure you aren’t lying in bed thinking about them which can keep sleep at bay.

There’s nothing much worse than being yanked out of a pleasant night’s sleep by pain and nothing does that better than getting cramps in your calves. You know them, and you lay there whimpering as you try to work them out so you can go back to sleep. The cramp is a result of all the muscles contracting in the back of your lower leg and you swear it’s got to be something more severe than a simple cramp by the pain level alone. Don’t panic. They really are just a cramp and rarely indicative of something more severe. These kinds of cramps most commonly occur when you’re falling asleep or as you’re waking up in the morning.

There are several causes of leg cramps which include:

-Alcohol abuse
-Lowered potassium levels
-Muscle overexertion
-Sitting for long periods of time.
-Diabetes
-Dehydration
-Pregnancy
-Medication induced — albuteral, niacin, diuretics, and some mental health medications.
-Neuromuscular disorders — such as Parkinson’s disease.

Some tips to help you in the dead of night when the cramps strike:

-Flex your foot while straightening your leg out which stretches out the calf muscles — hard to do but very effective.
-Try and rub out the cramp — I find that this coupled with flexing really works it out quickly.
-Take a hot bath — not my favorite choice it’s the middle of the night and I just want to get back to sleep.
-Apply cold pack to the calf — also requires getting up.

There are preventative measures you can take to avoid the cramps all together:

-Drink plenty of fluids — water counts, soda doesn’t.
-Stretch your legs out before going to bed.
-Make sure you get plenty of potassium in your diet.

Some foods that are extra rich in potassium at least 300 mg or more per serving:

-Bananas
-Papaya
-Raisins
-Artichoke
-Broccoli
-Canned Kidney Beans
-Baked Potato w/ skin
-Tomato
-Brazil Nuts
-Hamburger
-Roasted Peanuts w/ skin
-Canned Salmon

asthma – a paroxysmal, often allergic disorder of respiration, characterized by bronchospasm, wheezing, and difficulty in expiration, often accompanied by coughing and a feeling of constriction in the chest.
“asthma.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 18 Jul. 2008. .

Basically, the airways in your lungs are inflamed and swollen causing the chest to hurt, which in turn can affect the ability to breathe. Now, how can you tell if your toddler or preschooler has asthma when they wouldn’t know the words to describe it? By watching for the symptoms and if you think your child does don’t be afraid that you might be over reacting. Asthma can be a life threatening disease if gone untreated.

Symptoms to look for in toddlers in preschoolers. Coughing, sometimes after playing hard or intense crying, or repetitious coughing at night when sleeping or early morning. Symptoms are usually worse at night. Dark circles under eyes, shortness of breath, wheezing — a whistling sound due to the closed off airwaves. It tends to be commonly linked with allergies.

Triggers. Exposure to allergens, most commonly animal dander, dust mites, and mold, can prompt the asthma symptoms or bring on an attack. Common colds and illnesses, tobacco smoke, and in some cases exercise can also perpetuate the affliction.

If the child has some or all of these symptoms you need to consult your pediatrician immediately. It might be just a cold but if it isn’t, you want the child treated before a full blown asthma attack. The pediatrician will assess the child and make a determination if it is in fact asthma or something as simple as a common cold. If it is asthma, it’s important you work closely with your health care provider to come up with a treatment plan.

First, figure out what is triggering the child’s episodes. Three-feet-of-fun has asthma and he was allergic to pet dander so in order to try and avoid attacks we gave our cats away to a good home. There are medicines for cat allergies but the only truly effective one is in shot form and my husband and I decided that until he could make the choice for himself we’d be pet free — we couldn’t inflict shots on him on top of everything else.

They will also teach you how to use a nebulizer, a machine that turns liquid medicine into a mist that goes through tubing into a face mask for the child to inhale. With that, there are too kinds of medicines: a preventative medicine and a quick reliever. The preventative won’t do anything for a child in arrest only the quick reliever will blast the child’s airways open, enabling them to breathe.

Asthma happens. There is no sure fire way to prevent your child from succumbing to it and there is no cure. You can help their chances to avoid it by keeping your house vacuumed, keeping the child away from smokers and smoke in general, keeping the house pet free if the child shows pet allergies, and diminish mold in the home.

Toning your upper body is a topic in and of itself. Weights are one way to fight the arm flab but there are a couple weightless toning exercises that work and don’t require you go out and spend money on weights.

The Chest Expander
Target Area: Chest
Benefits: Firms up the breasts and loosens the shoulders

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, as with all standing exercises, and with a straight posture. Never lock the legs, so keep them bent slightly with your weight in your legs. Fold your arms in front of your chest with one arm over the other, not touching, and the hands pointed down.

Slowly, open your arms like an exaggerated shrug until your arms are straight out from your sides, forming a “T” with your hands facing up. You should be able to feel your chest expanding. Out and back in is one rep and you should do three sets of fifteen – twenty of them with a five second pause between each set.

The Push Up
Target Area: Chest, Shoulders, and Arms
Benefits: Firms up the breasts, targets all muscle groups in your arms, and strengthens shoulders.

To get the best results from push ups make sure you use the full range of motion. On the up, make sure your arms are locked and on the down let your nose touch the floor. It’s important to keep your back straight and support your weight in your arms and legs.

There are variations on the push up if you can’t do a full one.

Knees down. Set up like a regular push up but be on your knees instead. Start with your lower leg and feet on the floor and build up the arm muscles. Gradually you can work into having your feet off the ground while your knees are down. Finally, coming to a full push up.

Against the wall. For those who have bad backs and knees, a vertical push up against the wall. Start with a small angle of 20 to 30 degrees to the wall and do the push ups. They aren’t as weight intensive so you have to do more of them to be effective but still get the job done if you do them enough. Gradually, make the angle from the wall bigger until 75 to 85 degrees to the wall. This will put more weight into the push up and make it more effective and still not a strain on your back or knees.

With swimsuit season upon us, we all go out of our way to try to look our bests. Around New Years it hits us that summer is fast approaching and that is why over half of us always make our New Years Resolution to be losing weight so we can look good in our bathing suits. The mistake is just thinking it’s only losing weight.

When you gain weight, your skin expands to accommodate it. Your skin is like a rubber band and after so many stretches it starts losing its elasticity. So if you just focus on losing weight and not on getting toned and being fit you aren’t going to look great in a bathing suit because your skin will not be taut and will be loose. Beat the sag and focus on not only eating healthy but working out. Here are some excellent ways for women to help their skin regain its firmness after the pounds come off. Don’t forget to always check with your physician before you start any exercise regimen.

Pilates. Keep your joints limber and your body taut with these exercises. They focus on strengthening your core muscles in your abdomen and ultimately help your posture, weight loss, and flexibility. A word of caution: make sure if you’re a beginner you get a video that has different levels of difficulty — you don’t want to hurt yourself.

Weights. One of the biggest complaints in women after they lose weights is having “bat wings” which is the skin the hangs from your upper arms and flaps around when you move. One of the best ways besides stretching to tone those muscles and tighten the skin is using weights. A common fear among women is that if they use weights that it’ll make them bulk up like Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is a myth. Women don’t bulk up just using weights, that takes hard core training, protein shakes, and in some cases hormones. If you get 2 to 3 pound weights and do a lot of repetitions you are doing strengthening not bulking up.

Aerobics. Cardio is a great way to help shed pounds. A lot of time what you think is just loose skin is really disguising fat that is still on your body. Aerobics are a great way to not only to keep you heart-healthy but help get those pesky hidden pounds off so your skin can start constricting again.

Crunches. Crunches are easier on your back than sit ups and just as effective. Depending on your fitness level, if you’re a beginner, start out with 20 in the morning and 20 in the evening and add 20 to that number each week. Do them in 20 rep increments with 5 seconds rest in between sets. Make sure that you don’t stress your neck and are using your stomach muscles to crunch and not your arms and neck.

Stretching. It’s always important to stretch before and after you exercise for warm up and cool down but it’s also very effective for flexibility and skin toning. Toned muscles equals toned skin.

Push ups. Push ups not only help with those pesky “bat wings” but they also use your stomach muscles too. You don’t have to do full push ups. They are just as effective if you do them on your knees instead of your feet. If you have back problems you can do them against the wall — start at a 10 degree angle and work your way to 60.

Water. Water is hugely important it keeps the skin hydrated and healthy. Did you know you burn more calories if you drink ice cold water than if you drink room temperature? When you’re making a life style change every calorie burn counts. The recommended amounts of water vary between 6 and 8 – 8 ounce glasses of water a day. The easiest way to know if you’re drinking enough water is if your urine has color or not. If it does, you aren’t getting enough water in your diet.

One thing I’ve learned is that no matter what a lotion or body butter says it can’t erase stretch marks or tone skin. The vitamin D doesn’t hurt, helping to keep the skin soft and supple, but the only way to firm up skin is the old fashion way. You have to work at it. If you do the exercise while you drop the weight you firm your skin as you shrink and you have less excess skin in the end. But even if you dropped all the weight first, surgery isn’t the only answer; you can still work that skin out and get it back into shape. It may never look like it did when you were in your teens but eventually, with hard work, it will look good anyway.

It’s July and we’re now in the firm grips of sun, heat, and more heat. Here are some tips to keep cool and keep the electric bill from rising. These tips are especially useful if you don’t have air conditioning at all.

Shade. Before it starts to get hot, close the blinds and the curtains. Not having direct sunlight come inside the house makes a huge difference on the temperature indoors. And really it’s cheaper to have a light on than to have the A/C running on full blast.

Windows. While it’s still cool out open up all the windows in your house, letting in all the cool air — better still to leave them open all night when it gets even cooler. Then before it starts to get hot shut them all. It will stay cooler in your house longer if you don’t keep letting in the hot air.

Fans. Fans take up less electricity than an air conditioner and they’re a real life saver if you don’t have any A/C at all. Ceiling fans are best as they keep the air circulating and you can change the direction of the blades but box fans and oscillating fans are better than nothing. A great trick for cooling off your house fast when the sun goes down is to open the windows to create air flow and put the fans in front of the windows on one side of the house. They will suck the cool air in from outside and push the stale warm air out the other side. It doesn’t work if you have fans in all the windows because the air doesn’t move anywhere. When you have the house shut up for the heat of the day, keep them running to help keep the air cooler and to keep it circulating.

Water. If you have access to a swimming pool the best time to go is when it’s hottest. It gets you out of the hot house or apartment and cools you off — don’t forget the sunscreen, though, because that’s when the UV’s are at their worst. But if you don’t have access to a pool, then run a cool bath. Drinking lots of cold water helps to keep you cool internally as well.

Doing any kind of car traveling with a toddler can be an adventure in and of itself. Whether you’re taking a long road trip or just driving to Grandma’s here’s some tips to make the trip a little easier on the whole family.

Breaks. If you are going for any distance, there is no way a toddler can sit the whole trip. Break the trip up into segments — drive for an hour and a half and then take a break, get out of the car, and stretch for a half hour. Sure, it takes a lot longer but you get there with a much happier child. You can combine these breaks when you need to stop for food but make sure that the toddler doesn’t have to sit. Restaurants with play areas or picnics at rest stops are the best bet.

Snacks. You won’t always be someplace you can pull over and pick up a bite to eat. Make sure you’re prepared for when hunger strikes your toddler by packing healthy snacks. Finger foods are best because they give the tot something to do with their hands. Things like graham crackers, cheerios, grapes, slices of cheese, and celery or carrot sticks. Avoid sticky sugary foods, though, because that’s a mess just waiting to happen.

Songs. Brush up on your children songs. Singing silly songs that the toddler can sing a long with you is a great way to distract your kid from the long miles ahead of them. Inventing a silly travel song for that particular trip makes it special and can entertain the little one for a time.

Essentials. Pack a bag of small toys, coloring books, crayons, and books. The best toys to bring aren’t their favorite ones but rather toys they’ve never seen or haven’t played with in a long time. It keeps their attention longer and makes the trip special. Toddlers are smart, and if they get new toys when they travel, they’ll remember and be more agreeable to the trip in general. You don’t have to buy new things or expensive toys, things from kid’s meals or something they haven’t played with in a long time work just as well.