• family - Health - parenting

    Give the Gift of Fire Safety This Christmas

    December 18, 2014 - By 

    Shutterstock photo by Olga Kovalenko Fire Safety It’s the busiest time of the year. As soon as the snow falls the kids start building their Christmas wish lists and everyone rushes around trying to make the season magical. It’s a given, a tradition, and a blessing too to be able to share time with family, even to be able to afford to entertain, to create moments that are memorable and last for a lifetime. Everyone should be able to share the season with their family. With so much riding on the holidays every year it’s not hard to understand how…

  • home_safety_at_Christmas
    Health

    Twelve Home Safety Tips for the Holiday Season

    November 14, 2014 - By 

    We had a strange event in our neighbourhood last weekend involving one of my children. A person we did not know pulled over at the side of the road where my one daughter was playing with a friend and started taking pictures of them. The girls had been out playing on their bikes, in daylight, after school. Normally I can see my child out front. That afternoon I couldn’t see her, nonetheless, I knew she was riding her bike, helmet on, safe on our street with a friend. But the safety I take for granted was taken away when the…

  • Giveaways - Health - Parenting

    Levana Sophia Digital Video Baby Monitor #Giveaway ARV $100

    September 29, 2014 - By 

    Every new parent is nervous, I think. But new adoptive parents are a whole different level of nervous and anxious. We are crazy from the waiting sometimes and so grateful for our precious gift of parenthood that we can be hyper vigilant about our new roles and responsibilities. I can easily recall how we (mostly I) spent many nights hovering outside the door of Payton’s nursery. I remember how I didn’t trust that Payton would keep breathing all night long on her own. I read a lot about SIDS and I worried about the things that could go wrong. I…

  • make_roads_safer
    family

    Sign The Pledge with Your Teen and Make Roads Safer

    February 27, 2014 - By 

    If you are a parent of a child about to start driving then you want to hear about this pledge to make roads safer.     Driving is one of the biggest rites of passage for a young adult. Getting your driver’s license is an epic event, one children begin fantasizing about from the time they are small. Little boys practice driving their imaginary cars almost as soon as their brains are capable of creative play. Girls too. My oldest daughter just last year pulled her iPhone out at the beach and warned me she was only 1598 days away…

  • active family travel - family - parenting - Travel

    Addalock Review – Safe on the Go #Travel Lock

    April 30, 2012 - By 

    Addalock Review   Imagine a lock on the go. Addalock is a simple effective little invention you can toss in your suitcase and carry with you anywhere. When I heard about the device I was interested because safety is a huge priority here and because I have a child with special needs who wanders. Now, I am pretty sure that Addalock wasn’t intended necessarily as a special needs tool, but I can see useful applications here. My daughter from a very young age could get out any door and had very little impulse control, so we were hypervigilant, and we…

  • FASD - Giveaways - special needs

    My 411 Mabel’s Labels Review and Giveaway Open to Canada and US.

    November 8, 2010 - By 

    My 411 wristbands from Mabel’s Labels: Good for All, Excellent for Kids With Special Needs It is a moment, hardly longer than the blink of an eye, and your child disappears from your line of sight. Your stomach sinks, breath catches in your throat, heart freezes and your mind races. Where is she? Did someone take her? Is she hiding? You tell yourself it will be okay, but newspaper headlines are all you can see or think and you fly into panic mode, or maybe survival mode. Every parent on the planet, if they have a child who is old enough…

  • family

    Day Camp Rules

    July 5, 2009 - By 

    I recently read in an article by the excellent old colleague of mine Randy Richmond of the London Free Press of the city of London’s new day camp policy. So I was not surprised when a London YMCA day camp counsellor called to advise me I would need photo ID to pick my daughter up from camp next week. The policy has recently been changed as a direct result of the tragic abduction and murder of Tori Stafford from Woodstock. Stafford, 8, was taken from her school before Easter weekend. A massive search and media outpouring went on for months as parents held their children…