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Halloween Safety Tips
Most moms are very familiar with all of the Halloween safety tips, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to review them for yourself and of course, review them with your children.
You may be surprised to find out that tainted candy is NOT the number one safety concern at Halloween…experts at a children’s hospital say the biggest hazzard is traffic, not tainted candy.
Doctors at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, advise parents to accompany their children while trick-or-treating and remind them to walk carefully, stay on sidewalks and cross streets at crosswalks or well-lighted intersections. Parents should take along a flashlight but try to get home before dark.
Other safety tips include those for costumes, trick or treating and candy. Here are some for your and children to review:
Costume Safety:
- Hem costumes so you don’t trip and fall
- Use only hypoallergenic or non-toxic make-up
- Try to wear make-up instead of a mask as it allows for greater visibility
- Keep costumes and wigs away from candles
- Swords, knives and other props should be make of flexible plastic so they are not hazardous
Candy Safety:
- Never eat candy until it has been home to be inspected by a parent
- Only eat homemade treats if you know and trust the person that made them
- Throw out candy or treats that are homemade, unwrapped or if they appear to have been tampered with (pinholes in wrappers, torn wrappers, etc.)
- For small children, remove any choking hazards such as gum, peanuts, hard candies or small toys
Trick or Treating Safety:
- Children should be well supervised and with an adult while trick or treating
- Add some reflective tape to costumes and/or candy bags for good visibility
- Carry a flashlight
- Only go to well-lit houses
- Follow traffic signals
- Drive extra cautiously
- Avoid short cuts…stick to the sidewalks and stay out of alleys
- Stay in familiar neighborhoods
- Watch for cars backing up out of driveways or turning
Trick or Treating Safety Especially for older kids:
- Never accept rides from strangers
- Be polite: always say ‘thank you’
- Don’t trample flower beds…stay off lawns…stick to sidewalks and walkways
- Don’t approach unfamiliar pets/animals
- Stay out of backyards
- Respect other people and thier property
- Report suspicious activity to the police
- Never go into a stranger’s house
- Make sure your parents always know where you are and who you are with
- If you are driving…make sure you have enough gas…don’t run out on a dark street
- If your parents give you a curfew…follow it…it builds trust
- It is NEVER cool to vandalize
- It is NEVER cool to hurt an animal
For homeowners:
- Be sure the dogs are restrained
- Be sure obstacles are removed from walkways
- Be sure your home is well-lit
And for everyone…please do not drink and drive. Here in Colorado the police will be out in force this weekend watching for drunk drivers. I would be it’s a common occurrence nationwide. Get a designated driver or a cab…it is not worth it EVER to drink and drive.
Be safe and have a very Happy Halloween!
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
Mel Brooks Was Right
by Chris Loprete
In one of his brilliant albums that I endlessly listened to growing up, Mel Brooks said “We mock the things we are to be.” My father and I always loved that line, but he obviously understood it more than I did at the time. Now I get it. Mel was talking about kids. And parents who used to be kids. And their kids… and their kids. It’s an endless cycle. “We mock the things we are to be”. It’s inevitable no matter how we try to stave it off or deny it. There should be a drinking game. Every time a kid says” I’ll never be like my parents” everyone has to drink. And then everyone has to take another drink when the parents says, ”Uh…yeah you will so just accept it.” At first, young parents look at it as a bad thing. Hell, even older parents cringe at the thought of it. Don’t believe me? Try telling your wife ‘You’re beginning to sound just like your mother.’ Just make sure you have a pillow and blankets when she makes you sleep in the car.
Here’s just one example. My father and I are very close, but he tended to be a little tough on me when it came to little league sports whether it was baseball or soccer. I have many rough memories of him sitting in the bleachers screaming instructions to me or chastising me for swinging at a ball in the dirt or kicking at a soccer ball that’s still about 10 feet away (to be fair, the poor man got saddled with a son with the hand/eye coordination of a T-Rex) . It’s the main reason why I now sit on the safe confines of my couch watching sports as opposed to playing them. I’m not talking out of school here. My father admits that he got a little intense. Actually he doesn’t remember being THAT bad, but it’s always tougher on the small ears hearing it rather than the big mouth yelling it (love you, Dad). He also lets me know that he has the same memories of his father growing up. I promised myself “I will never subject my boy to that torture. Some people are born athletes. I am not one of them and I will go easy on my boy in case he is not one either.” So maybe you can explain to me why it is that every Saturday
morning for the last two months I have been running up and down the sidelines of a soccer field at my neighborhood park yelling, “BRADEN,CHARGE THE BALL! GET IN THERE! DON’T BE AFRAID OF IT! FOCUS! BE SOCCER READY!” It’s almost like I black out or have an out of body experience. One part of me knows it’s wrong. The other part of me doesn’t care because DARN IT! THE BOY’S GOT TO EXCEL AS AN ATHLETE! I mean GEEZ! He’s ALREADY 4 ½ YEARS OLD! Down in Naples, Florida my father is laughing his ass off. And so is Mel Brooks.
Chris is an actor/writer living in Los Angeles. He’s performed in movies, TV and on stage with the Groundlings Improvisation troupe, and the award winning Circle X Theatre Company. He recently performed his self penned critically acclaimed one man show “You’re From Philly, Charlie Brown” in several cities across the US. Chris currently works as an Associate Writer/Producer for ABC On-Air Promos for Reality and Comedy. He lives north of Los Angeles, in Santa Clarita, with his wife and two children.
The Phone Rings – Pavlov's Kids are Conditioned
by Judith Cassis
Working from home is a gift to the family, but is not without its challenges. This is one I
remember best.
Psychology buffs may recall Ivan Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning, where
dogs were trained to salivate in response to the pairing of meat with the ringing of
a bell. After several pairings, the bell, which had been a neutral stimulus, became a
conditioned stimulus causing the dogs to salivate when they heard it, even when there
was no meat present. Complicated?
Not when you think about what happens every time the phone rings. Your previously
busy youngster is drawn to you like a magnet. One who was reading quietly in the
corner is now draped from your waist with alligator tears running down his face, or the
kids argue – and it just so happens that client you’ve been waiting for is on the phone.
Sound familiar? This was a regular occurrence in my house.
My solution: I rarely gave my kids cookies, saving them for when I was on the phone
and needed them to be quiet. Consequently, every time the phone rang, they cried,
yelled or whatever, making it necessary for me to hand them cookies. I never figured it
out; not until years later. I had turned them into little Pavlov’s kids:
Phone Rings —– Child Cries —– Mama Grabs Cookies. Classical conditioning at its
finest.
Judith Cassis,C.Ht. is a Personal Development Consultant with 26 years experience. Known as “The Bounce-Back Coach”, she works with people who are “bouncing back” from failure, loss or tragedy. Judith is co-owner of a small newspaper,Tidbits of Santa Clarita Valley, www.tidbitsscv.com a family business she and her husband, Lee Cadena run with their sons. Through a monthly teleseries, Mama Come Home, Judith supports mothers in staying home or returning home to raise their children.
The Family That Laughs Together, Stays Together *
How to Have a Successful Mommy Blog
All of us (mommy) bloggers want our blogs to be successful. Many want to secure advertisers to make their blogs something they can use to not only share their knowledge with others, but to also help support their families by making an income.
In order to do that, blogs need to be successful.
How is that done, you ask? It’s not overly complicated.
The first thing a blog requires is your commitment. You must post frequently. Search engine spiders look at your blog when it starts. They’ll go back in 24 hours and look again for new content. If it’s not there, it will be 48 hours until the next sweep. Nothing new again? The time doubles. Pretty soon, your blog won’t be indexed because the search spiders aren’t looking for new content anymore.
If your blog is in this situation, hate to break it to you… you have to start over with a new blog. Trying to resurrect an old blog is near impossible.
However, you CAN re-use the content from you old blog and get your new one up and running with consistent posting. In fact, when Our Milk Money decided to relaunch and upgrade the business directory, this is exactly what we did. (Worked like a charm!)
The next thing you really want to think about is your keywords. Long tail keywords, or keyword strings, are now used for indexing. Do a search on the keywords you are using to tag your blog posts. Ideally, you want the search to yield less than 100,000 results. Keywords should be nouns, as that is typically what is used to run a search. They should definitely not be ‘flowery’ words. Simplicity works best.
Use keywords people will use to conduct a search so you can be found. When in doubt, think about the words you enter into a search engine. When writing, you can certainly put the words into your own voice, but make sure it is direct and to the point with words every age can understand. You may be tempted to show off your vast vocabulary… and while your mom would be proud, it won’t help you get found. Write specifically. For example, when describing a building, don’t say the beautiful building, say the 1920s victorian style building.
In addition to being specific and using keyword strings, be sure to use your name and the name of your business and company as tags. Make sure to hyperlink tag words that are in the body of your post.
Another important thing to remember when blogging is that once you hit the ‘publish’ button, it is out there in cyberspace for ever! It cannot be taken back.
Set up your blogs to automatically update to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Be sure to add your blogs to different blog directories, such as:
- Top of Blogs
- Blogtoplist
- Blogarama
- TotalBlogDirectory
- TopBlogArea
- SpillbeanDirectory
- Bloghub
Trade in the Suit for a Fluffy Bath Towel
If there’s one thing I love it’s a nice, expensive suit. Since presently my budget is targeted for things like trade shows and computer repair, let’s just say I’m a little dated in the fashion department. Okay, a lot dated…
I remember the days when my professional attire vacillated between a bathrobe or sweats and at times a bath towel. Oh yeah, there’s a story here, and I’ll bet when you hear it, more than one work-from-home parent will relate.
From a birds-eye view, the daily shenanigans of a work-from-home household are literally a three ring circus, sans popcorn. We learn to balance responsibilities and juggle chores with one hand, while caring for our children with the other. The day can be flowing along nicely when all of a sudden, the phone rings. Yikes – a client! Quickly, dry your hands, turn off the stereo/TV, close the door (if possible) to the playroom (if you have one), clear your throat, smile and answer the phone. Whew!
I did this for many years –yes, often in my sweats or bathrobe, and none of my clients was ever the wiser. So, what about the towel? You guessed it – fresh out of the shower and the phone rings. No one ever knew.
Judith Cassis,C.Ht. is a Personal Development Consultant with 26 years experience. Known as “The Bounce-Back Coach”, she works with people who are “bouncing back” from failure, loss or tragedy. Judith was the co-owner of a small newspaper, Tidbits of Santa Clarita Valley, www.tidbitsscv.com a family business she and her late husband, Lee Cadena ran with their sons. Through a monthly teleseries, Mama Come Home, Judith supports mothers in staying home or returning home to raise their children.
Lowe’s Build and Grow Workshops is a win-win campaign!
I have to say, the marketing team behind the Lowe’s Build and Grow is beyond brilliant.
It’s a marketing concept that is guaranteed to bring people in droves to their stores all over the country at least twice a month. For parents like me who are looking for free and inexpensive activities for my 1 and 4 year old, this is something you can’t beat it.
It’s free free free, did I mention free?
But back to why it’s so brilliant…when you walk into a Lowe’s, whether its for a free event or not, you are most likely going to buy SOMETHING. Lowe’s knows that everyone, including YOU, has probably put off the extra trip out to their store to buy a little spare part to cover the sharp edge of the screw sticking out of the table, or gunk in a tube that will repair that dreaded hole in your drywall, or anything else that doesn’t justify one trip to the store….unless you are already at the store to take your kids to a fun and free event.
Still, its a small price to pay for a few hours of fun and a finished project our little growing builders can feel proud of.
How does it work? Visit www.lowesbuildandgrow.com to get your little builder registered- although if you forget to register, and they aren’t overcrowded, you can do it once you get there. Your little builder will get a starter kit, complete with an adorable builder’s apron, protective goggles and a hammer. In addition, you’ll receive all the materials you need to assist your little builder in building themselves a workable toy.
Together we’ve built tic tac toe game boards, mini baseball stadiums and basketball hoops, robot transforming race cars, and a pocket change bank.
On Sept 25, 10am, Lowes will be celebrating “Safety Saturday”, a nationwide campaign to educate parents and children on the importance of child safety. Every Lowes across the country and Canada will be participating in the event. The build and grow project? A red fire truck complete with a working siren. We had a ball building ours this afternoon- and look, its even safe for a 16 month old!
Hypocritical Much?
A Passion for Freedom
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is the new Director of Communications for OMM. In addition to working behind the scenes to promote OMM and you, she also works with legislators and the national and state levels as advocate for parents in business. She will be writing a column for OMM, entitled Wishful Thinking, in which she will bring you items of importance from a legislative, business and parental perspective. She looks forward to serving you and your comments and suggestions.
Part I – What’s at Stake: As parents, there are many things in life we are passionate about – our children, our spouses, our families, etc. The political landscape of today has brought another passion to the forefront for me: Freedom. Continue reading here.
Part II – The Excesses of Democracy – The Framing (Federal) Convention’s record proves that by dcrying the ‘excesses of democracy’ the Framers were not opposing a popular type of government for the United States – their whole purpose was to create a sound system of this type. To contend to the contrary is to falsify history – which not only maligns the Framers but also the spirit of the Free Man in America – all those people of that period who were grateful for the Constitution. The Constitution provided, under the Republic it created, liberties protected against abuse by all possible violators, including the Majority. Continue reading here.
Part III – Our Form of Government – With regard to the Republican form of government (that of a Republic) Madison wrote in The Federalist:
“As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust: So there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the influence would be that there is no sufficient virtue among men for self government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.” Continue reading here.
Part IV – Doing Your Part – There are many political organizations online that offer free newsletters to keep you informed. Simply search online for liberal newsletters or conservative newsletters…or liberal or conservative political organizations. There are a plethora of them. Continue reading here.
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