How to Really Love a Child.

Alison’s friend from Melbourne, Australia sent her these words she found painted on a wall.

It’s something we both deeply believe in, so we wanted to share it with you.

How to Really Love a Child.

Be there.

Say yes as often as possible.

Let them bang on pots and pans.

Encourage silly.

If they are crabby, put them in water.

Keep the gleam in your eyes.

Read books aloud with JOY.

Invent pleasures together.

Remember how really small they are.

Giggle a lot.

Express your love.

Reveal your dreams.

Surprise them.

 Go barefoot more often and eat ice cream with your kids.

Relax with them.  It’s ok to do nothing.

Don’t forget to spend time on yourself – they need you to love you.

And most of all…each moment passes too quickly (we know), so enjoy the breath between the (somewhat harried) breaths.

-Alison and Allison

we were inspired by this commercial

Here is what we like about this commercial by Dove 
(no we are not getting paid to post it…we wish).

We like that the girls and their moms are not wearing make up.

We like that they look and sound like real girls and moms.

We like that they don’t hide the truth or the honest emotions – even when it is not so pretty.

But mostly we like what the commercial doesn’t say, but what we got from it, about how we feel about ourselves at different ages, about judging ourselves, about worrying about how others see us and our kids, this whole idea of posting pictures online and mostly how our kids absorb, react and are influenced by how we feel about ourselves and what we can learn from them.

7 Things I Want My Kids to Learn from Martin Luther King, Jr.

by Lori Garcia's Mommyfriend
from www.babble.com

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an incredible man. I know you already know that, but will you be using his national holiday to talk to your children about his legacy and spirit? I’d really like to.

I’d like to believe tolerance and acceptance of all other cultures is not only evident, but celebrated, within my multicultural family. Just the other day my 4-year-old asked me why he doesn’t have “yellow” hair or light skin like I do. It gave me great pride to remind him that our beautiful family is the creation of two people from two different races that met, fell in love and started a family. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said himself, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” How lucky I am indeed to be in the same ship with these beautiful people.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s light shown so brightly that this year, 44 years after his untimely passing, we still look to the wisdom of his incredible spirit and realize not only how far we’ve come, but how far we have yet to go.

Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed a dream we all share for our children. I hope to pass along these seven lessons inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. to my children.

1. The Gift of Acceptance

"I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
As parents, we must do everything we can to encourage open-mindedness, kindness and tolerance.

2. The Necessity of Social Responsibility

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"
Allow your family to engage in social good — volunteer at a kid-friendly organization, help clean up a park, or help your kids donate their gently used toys to children in need to show them the gift of giving back. Together we can do anything!

3. The Courage of Faith

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."
Bravery isn't the absence of fear, but rather the courage to face the unknown with faith — a powerful lesson for kids, whether they're afraid of monsters under the bed or something more.

4. The Power of Love

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."
Love is all you need. Showing love and kindness, especially to those who've done little to deserve it, sends a powerful message to our children.

5. The Dream of Peace

"Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal."
Peace can start in the home: showing peacefulness and alternative methods of conflict resolution during a household argument or disagreement is the first step to really being able to picture a world without violence.

6. The Ultimate Sacrifice

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
I'd like to teach my children the power of Mr. King's quest for social equality and the ultimate sacrifice he paid

7. The Importance of Truth

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

Honesty, integrity, and accountability are the greatest character building blocks we can offer our children. We must lead by example..

We were on TV twice this week! Crazy.

It was a pretty big week around these parts. We were interviewed for 2 different TV shows…Good Morning America and Fox News!  Both experiences were so much fun. Here are the highlights…

When we arrived at apple seeds on the UWS to tape our interview for Good Morning America’s segment on how to prepare your first child for baby #2, GMA was already interviewing a social worker for our segment.  The social worker turned out to be one of Allison S.’s girlfriends from high school (a total surprise), Donna (Weinman) Ellenbogen.

The GMA correspondent that did the interview was Melissa Rycroft of  The Bachelor and Dancing With The Stars fame.  Yes she is pretty…very pretty. She is 6 ½ months pregnant and looks adorable. She is also very sweet and a great interviewer. She was extremely easy to chat with, super honest about her own experiences raising her daughter and has a great sense of humor. We did our own hair and make-up so we pretty much will look exactly like we do after a day of dropping off the kids at school, working, picking them up, afterschool activities, homework…super glamorous.

We are also so bad at this social media thing we totally forgot to take pictures at the shoot, so our apple seeds multi-media coordinator, Tom DelPizzo, mocked one up for us.

The Fox News shoot was in the Fox studios.  One of us worked in TV for 5 years (Alison B.) and the other for 13 years (Allison S.) and it is still fun for us to be in a TV studio. We were smart enough to get professionals to do our hair this time and the Fox make-up artists were kind enough to do our faces.  We shared the segment with our friend Ali Wing – co-founder of giggle baby stores (another total surprise).

Fox correspondent and apple seeds member Julie Banderas did the interview. 

She could not be nicer – telling us how much she and her daughters love apple seeds and calling Dan Griffith, our songs for seeds coordinator and band leader, the Justin Bieber of the kiddie music world.

After the interview we actually remembered to take pictures! 

Then one of us (Allison S.) went into the restroom only to realize that the lipstick the make-up artists applied had worn off but the lip liner remained leaving her with what can only be described as duck lips.

She emerged from the restroom to hear the producer tell Alison B. that this particular segment will air every day for years in over 100 of Fox’s international markets.  It will never go away…and neither will the duck lips.      

Thanks for reading!

A&A

The Clothes Make the Madness

Welcome to this week's Wednesdays with Wendy!

Wednesdays With Wendy: The Clothes Make the Madness

by Wendy Bradford 

Each morning, my husband gives the kids breakfast and starts to get them ready for school while I sleep for a little longer. (Yes, he’s the best husband ever. I also do dinner and bedtime by myself each night. It's our system.)

But each morning, I hear—in my sleep and as I wake up—“I hate these tights! They are scratchy!” and “These are too tight! They’re twisty!” and “I hate this! This has a BOW!” and "THIS SHIRT LOOKS SILLY!"

I have two girls: one turning five in April, and one who turned six in September. Like most mothers of girls, I imagined the dresses and shoes and headbands I’d buy for them. The little lady coats.

And I did buy those things for them--and had so much fun picking out miniature versions of clothes I'd like to wear--and they were happy with them until about last year. That is when the youngest began refusing to wear her clothes. Any of them. She wears ballet tights and tee shirts. Now, exclusively.

Her older sister caught on and now insists every article of clothing—including her socks—doesn’t fit. “I cannot wear these socks! They are so uncomfortable! I’ll BE SO UNCOMFORTABLE ALL DAY!”

And as Molly cried over her socks, and Ellie cried over the buttons on her sweater this morning, their brother lay naked on the living room floor watching Despicable Me, completely oblivious to time, my voice, his father’s voice, and likely, the urge to pee.

People – who know nothing about me apparently – have told me to resist getting upset and battling with them over outfits. I find this, like Ellie’s new corduroys, impossible.

“You have no idea what you have. One day I’m going to throw away all your clothes. I’ll give them to a little girl who appreciates them. And you’ll go to school naked,” I told Ellie this morning.

“Good,” she answered. “Give them to a little girl. I’d like to go to school naked.” I believe her.

I heard my husband tell Molly that from now on she has to pick her clothes for the next day out the night before. I laughed to myself. That only gives them more time to decide why they won’t wear what they’ve picked out.

I am outsmarted. I have shopped at fifteen stores, gone through catalogues with them, asked them to circle what they like, let them choose their clothing to buy. They change their minds as soon as I cut the tags off of their new leggings. Ellie liked a dress from Old Navy this fall. I bought her seven in different colors. She no longer likes the teeny, tiny button on the back. “I CAN FEEL IT ON MY NECK! GET IT OFF!”

Letting go of my expectations and disappointment may be the only way I can survive this stage without losing my mind. You may, however, run into a pair of very sweet girls with expensive shoes, glittery head bands, but who are otherwise entirely naked. Those would be mine. You can recognize their brother because he is the four and one-half year old whose pants are so short you can see the top of his socks. He’s been wearing those pants since he was two.