Pet Proofing Your Home: When Your Kids Want to Have Pets

 

There will come a time in every parent’s life when their child will want to have a pet. You can say no, if you want, but it has been noted that having a pet teaches a kid to not only love unconditionally and to have a companion they can care about, but also to be responsible for another living thing. If your child wants a goldfish or a turtle for a pet, then you won’t really need to pet proof your home. If your child wants a puppy or a kitten for a pet however, then pet proofing is indeed needed.

How do you pet proof a home and why should you do so? For starters, if you do not want your dining table’s legs to become a scratching post or your carpet to become a litter box, then pet proofing is a must. Not only do you need to protect your furniture from the onslaught of claws, pee, and poop, but you also need to protect your lamps, appliances and other electrical devices from becoming useless or from breaking.

Pets can wreak havoc to a home, and while it is a good idea to give your child a pet to teach them how to be responsible for another life, preparing your home for such an addition is necessary. For your furniture’s legs, you will need to protect these from scratches by spraying these with citrus scented furniture polish or air freshener. Cats hate this and will avoid anything that smells of citrus.

For your cables and cords, try to find a way to tuck these away in places where pets cannot get to them. Tacking them to walls and covering them with cord covers will not only keep them from becoming a chewing toy for puppies and kittens, but also helps make your home look neater.

For your rugs or carpets, to stop or prevent your pets from peeing on them, you can use the same tactic that you used for your furniture legs. Spray your carpet with a solution that is made out of water and anything that has a citrus scent. Lemon works best for this, and can help stop your pets from peeing on your rugs, not to mention making these and your home smell really fresh.

Pet proofing your home is a good idea since it helps protect the pet and yourself from safety issues (exposed electrical cords from chewing, wet spots on the floor that you can slip on, etc.). It also gives your child the chance to own a pet that can become their lifelong friend.

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Finding My Dream Furniture Online

Working moms know what I mean when I say that there is never enough time for everything that needs to be done. Aside from needing to take care of the major chores at home, you have to do the groceries, buy your kids the stuff they need, help them with homework, and be the supportive parent that you should be. Oh, and did I mention that I also have to go to work every day? Like I said, there is never enough time to do everything that needs to get done.

Keeping your home from looking drab is also another thing that a mom like me has to do. I dream of having a house that looks like those amazing images found in architecture and interior design magazine. While most of the furniture in these spreads are made by some of the more expensive manufacturers of furniture around, you can always try to find cheaper alternatives elsewhere. The only problem is, where can I find the time to do this?

With a day that is pretty full with PTA meetings, work, laundry, still more work, preparing dinner, and yet still more work, I could very well wave my dreams of a picture perfect home goodbye. Thank goodness however that I am one of those people who work from home (some people call it telecommuting), and I am allowed a flexible schedule, so even when I do have a mountain of work waiting for me, I can still adjust my days according to what is needed. That does not include, however, time to go to furniture stores to do some window shopping and comparison shopping.

How do I find the time to slowly but surely put together my dream home? By doing online shopping, of course. Thank goodness for the internet, and for sites that allow you to have furniture you order delivered to your doorstep. Not only do I have this convenience (which I can sometimes do while working), but I can also easily compare prices without needing to walk or drive from one store to another. No more painful feet and pavement pounding for me.

The great thing about this particular convenience is that it does not eat up whatever extra time I have for my kids, my chores, and myself. I get to put together the kind of home I want, at a budget that I can readily afford (thanks to comparison shopping and free deliveries) and without having to worry that I won’t have enough time for everything that needs to get done. Do I consider myself lucky? Indeed I do, and thanks to modern day conveniences like online shopping and telecommuting.

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How to Train Your Kids to Be Organized

Training kids to be organized is probably one of those tasks that most parents dread doing mainly because the terms “organized” and “kids” don’t really go together. While it may seem like an impossibility, you can actually teach your kids to be organized; however you have to start them young. In order to do this, you also need to have the kind of furnishings needed for the proper organization of your kids’ things.

When teaching your kids organizational skills, you not only teach them how to keep a place clean and orderly, but you also teach them how to manage their time wisely. Being organized, after all, means that you have things in proper order, and that can mean anything from being able to keep to a set schedule, to keeping things in the proper place, to looking neat and tidy. Organizational skills is something everyone should have in order to reduce clutter in their lives, and having your kids learn this at an early age will benefit them in the long run.

To start your kids down the right path to being organized, you should first have storage furniture that they can use. Make sure that each kid has their own storage unit so that they know that things have to be in the proper place all the time. Have storage units for the different things that they own, like toy chests or cubbies for their toys, bookshelves for their books, and drawers or dressers for their clothes. Once you have a defined storage system for their things, you can then move on to teaching them where to put what they own.

For your kids to truly embrace being organized, you need to set a schedule for when they can play with their toys, read their books, and other similar activities. You also need to set rules for keeping things in proper order, like returning one toy before getting another, or putting books away first before they can watch cartoons on television. Setting ground rules will help them realize that they need to put things in order first before they can do other things, or before they can get the privilege of enjoying other activities.

While this particular endeavor may take a lot of patience and time to get done, being able to teach your children to put things where they should go is an achievement. This will benefit them till they have their own families and kids to teach such skills to, and will benefit you as well since you will have an organized home that you won’t have to stress about being too messy because of disorganized kids.

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Messy Home Problems Discouraging Parents from Having More Kids

Okay, maybe not really discouraging them to have more kids, but certainly making them think twice, or even thrice, about adding more children to the brood. When you have one kid, you find that following them around and cleaning up after them is easy enough to do. When you have another one however, you find that after you have cleaned on kid’s mess, you have to go take care of what the other kid just did, and so on and so forth.

Some parents find that thinking about the work involved with having another child, in terms of keeping a home clean anyway, is rather discouraging. Imagine having to clean after one kid, then needing to do the same with another kid, and then another kid. This does not have to be the case. You can actually find ways to make the task of keeping your home clean less stressful and tiring, and all you need are clever ways to teach your kids to clean up after themselves, as well as storage units that they can easily use.

One particular storage unit that you can consider for your kids toys, books, and other odds and ends, is the storage cubby. You can find this kind of storage furniture used in many pre-schools, and you can use this in your home too. These can come in various configurations, with the most popular being the 12 cubby variant. There are smaller versions of such a storage facility, like the 6 cubby and 9 cubby ones, however the one with 12 storage slots is chosen more-often-than-not due to it not being too big or too small.

Having a storage unit is just one of the things you need. Next thing you need to consider is how to teach your kids to put away their stuff when they are done using these. To make such a task appealing to children, you should try to make a game out of it. First thing you need to do is to divide the cubbies among your two kids, and assign them their own units. You should then label each one with their name and the kind of things that should be placed in each cubby.

In order to encourage them to put their things away, make this into a contest for both of them. The last one to put away everything they own will have one less cookie, or one less scoop of ice cream for their snack. This will make them want to put away their stuff after using these, and eventually, they will get used to putting these away without a fuss.


Image Credit: Design Bolts

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Believing In Oneself – It Starts at Home

Some people blame their children’s peers for their lack of confidence in themselves. Others point out that bullies make their kids feel inferior about their looks, and who they are. What they might have forgotten is that in order to raise a confident and well-balanced child, you need to start instilling in them a sense of self worth at home, and there are many ways for you to help them achieve this.

While today’s society puts a lot of stock in how a person looks, with magazines even going out of their way to alter how a model looks on its pages with the help of a photo-editing programs, you should not have your kid focus too much on this. Of course, you cannot also tell them that looking clean, neat, and presentable can be neglected. You cannot tell them that looks do not matter. Balance is the key to raising a child that is confident and is well centered.

Teaching your kids confidence in themselves by being as presentable as they can be with clothes that suit them, and in believing in what they are capable of, despite what others may say or think. How do you do this? You can start by giving them what they need in order to help them build up their confidence in themselves. This includes clothing that suits them, talks about balancing looks with smarts, and telling them that they are special no matter what.

As they grow up, help them see themselves as good looking, neat, and well-dressed individuals with the help of mirrors. Invest in a good mirror that they can grow up with, one that they can see themselves from head to foot in. They can use this mirror to develop their own fashion sense (with some help from you, of course), and do not discourage them or ridicule them when they come up with mismatched clothing the first few times. Teach them how to dress fashionably but without using ridicule as a tool.

Tell them that looking neat and clean is a good thing, and that they should always strive to look as neat and clean as possible. That while you are aiming for them to not center themselves on how they look, but rather on what they are capable of, you don’t want them to become an outcast either with an attitude that tells others that they don’t care about how they look. Confidence is not only about them knowing that they are special and that they are smart, but it is also about them seeing that they can look good as well.

 

 

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Do You Believe That Happy Kids Make Happy Parents?

When you become a parent, one thing that you realize after having to control your bladder numerous times to take care of a crying baby, is that your life is essentially not yours alone anymore. You realize that your life now belongs to one other person, and that is your kid. You then find yourself devoting a lot of your time to ensuring not only your child’s wellbeing and future, but also seeing that they are happy.

Some people say that happy kids make happy parents, and I for one believe that this is true. When you see your child smile for the first time, it generates a warm glow inside of you that you find hard to describe. When your baby gurgles with laughter at something silly you did, you can’t help but smile as well. You even go out of your way to be silly and stupid just to see them smile or hear them laugh, not minding what people around you think. In short, you devote yourself to their happiness, no matter what.

When it comes to their belongings, no matter how expensive some things may be, you want what is best for your child, and so you go out of your way to get it for them. You take on two, maybe even three jobs, just to afford that amazing looking toddler bed, or that adorable desk and chair set they can use when they do their arts and crafts. You even max out your credit card just to be able to buy that bedroom set, complete with curtains, bed sheets, and rugs, for your little girl who simply has to have it.

You do everything in your power to provide more than what people deem as your obligation to your child. You do everything you can to make them happy, even when it means having to spend countless hours working to save up enough for that trip to Disneyland, to buy them that new toy they were talking about, and to get them that dress they want for the prom.

Of course, you will need to balance what you give to them with certain rules. Giving without any rules in place is really not a great idea, even if you know that they will be happy with what you give. Parenthood after all is not just about being happy that your kids are happy. It is also about raising responsible kids who know how to value what they get and to appreciate it, no matter how big or how small the gift may be.

Image Credit: Design Bolts

 

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Lowest Priced Nursery Furniture Choices on Timeless Elements

Finding nursery furniture can be such a pain, especially if you cannot find all that you need in one go. Luckily for me, I was able to locate a site that not only provides me with options that I know are of a good quality, but also provides free shipping. The site I am talking about is TimelessElements.com. This particular site has a number of categories that I find rather useful, like the one I just mentioned earlier.

This particular shopping site has everything I need to put together an amazing nursery – from crib mattresses, to cribs, to changing tables, to dressers and nightstands. You can mix and match the items that you find on their list. You can also opt to buy these baby items in sets, if you would rather go that route. What is even more amazing is I do not have to get out of my house to do my shopping since everything is conveniently available and can be purchased with a click of my mouse.

While the site does carry only a number of items for a nursery, these are still, in my opinion, the essential ones and the furnishings that are rather difficult to lug around when you buy these in stores. Cribs, changing tables, and storage units are all very bulky, making these difficult to bring home yourself (especially if you are out shopping alone). Think about it. Having to drag these large items to your vehicle (if you have one that is large enough to accommodate these items), and driving these home, unloading them, and getting them into your house…and in your pregnant condition.

Of course, you might tell me that you can get the stores you buy these from to deliver these furnishings to your home, but then again, not all stores offer free delivery. With my discovery of this site, I found it to be more than a convenience. Not only do I get free shipping and delivery of the crib and changing table that I chose from the Whitney Brothers brand, but I also get these items at a bargain. Imagine getting both items at a total cost of what the changing table was originally priced! Now that is what I call a bargain!

The site also has a return policy that is hard to beat. This is usually the problem people face when they order items online – the item that arrives at your doorstep is not what you expected, or something is not right with what you bought, you can have this returned within 30 days. This will entitle you to an exchange, refund, or store credit that you can use for purchasing a like priced product on the site!

And speaking of price, I was surprised to see that the site also guarantees a lower price match for any item you find on the site that is being offered at a lower rate elsewhere! There is a catch though. You need to discover the lower priced items on other sites before you make your orders, for them to lower these to below what is being advertised by competitors. Suffice it to say, I am generally happy with the site and the nursery furniture I see being sold on it.

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