No matter your religious persuasion, your nationality or any other discriminating factor - this time of year should be one where we come together as one humanity. There are many people around the world who have never be taught some of the events in history where our humanity has shown through.

At this time of year there is one event in history that really stands out - and no it's not that one 2000 years ago.

During one of the world wars - even I don't know which one (I am not that old). The soldiers from both sides met and agreed to a Christmas truce - for that short period of time, on that particular battle field, no one died on Christmas Day through war.

I know in the hundreds of years before hand, that similar events may have occurred. However, this one is closer to our lifetime, and it was probably the last time it we will see it happen. These acts of humanity seem to have disappeared from our thoughts.

In this violent world, I hope you all find that little period of peace - a time when you can enjoy the company of friends, the fun and laughter of children at play and perhaps - one day - a return to peace.

I find Christmas to be one of those occasions that I love and hate at the same time. When I look around the world, most of the trauma and drama that is taking place - is being done in the name of religion. I cannot accept the concept that one god is better than another and therefore I must destroy you and your god - yet that is essentially what is happening.

I wish you all a very merry and a very happy Christmas. And when I say I wish you all - I do mean ALL - each and every person on this planet. HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

It had to take hold eventually. Shane Warne was an expert (if you believe the media) and now it seems our teens using it, and more graphically than you may know. It's is messaging taken to the next level - sexting - and as the name suggests, it is sex by text message on the mobile or cell phone.

Apparantly it is not just messaging either. Many teens are including photo, video or even life images - I will leave the rest to your imagination - let's just say they are not shy.

Of course texting has been around for a while and we know of some of the issues. Texting while driving is said to be responsible for many accidents. Texting has also been used to cheat on tests. Judging by the number of ads on TV late at night the mobile phone (or cell phone) is also frequently used for sexual flirtation. The next step had to be sexting.

As parents, the question is, what can you do about it? Do you know it is happening? Furthermore, as a parent, what rights do you have to take their phone and examine its contents? These are all difficult issues. If your paying the phone bill you would have the right to take the phone, but would you have the right to read the messages or view the photos or videos?

Communication is one of the most important keys in any parent - teen relationship. If you have good open and honest communication channels then you can discuss these types of issues.

The Sumo Omni is one big bean bag (see my review article) and for any one on the east coast of Australia (Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic), you can win your very own Sumo delivered to your door.

The rules are really very easy - there are only two. ONE: Give me a caption to this photo, it is my three month old daughter testing out the Sumo Omni. Just leave your caption in the comments and the caption that catches our attention will win provided - TWO: once you receive your Sumo Omni you write your own review - a link back to the Sumo site would be nice. The RRP is around $200 - with luck you may have it by Christmas (no guarantees there).

See How You Can Win A Sumo Omni For Yourself


I have never really liked bean bags. I find I end up sitting about two inches above the floor and need a crane to get to my feet. The beanbag principle I think is great and they are comfy. Now along comes the perfect answer. The Sumo. The Sumo Omni measure around 4.5 feet by 5.5 feet and is huge and very comfortable - in fact, too comfortable. Look at this!

Now tell me, how many bean bags do you know that can comfortably sit four youngsters - but it's MY Sumo Omni! I must say they do look comfortable and it does keep them quiet for a little while.

I remember when my second oldest was born, the midwife asked if I wanted to cut the baby's umbilical cord. It was a tough bugger to cut, like cutting through a garden hose, but I got there. Prior to her birth we had discussed cord blood banking. It had been on the news quite a bit at the time. When we asked the mid wife, the answer was no, they didn't collect the umbilical cord or the umbilical cord blood. It's strange since we are only 100 miles from the third largest city in Australia, and they do collect the umbilical cord blood. You may be wondering why they collect umbilical cord blood?

Umbilical Cord Blood And Cord Blood Banking

Umbilical cord blood is not the mother's blood, it is the baby's blood therefore it is in its most basic form. In fact, it is full of stem cells, those little cells that has science going mad at present. Stem cells are the basic building blocks of our body.

Research at present has seen stem cells being trialled on individuals with spinal cord damage, various cancers such as leukemia, and the rebuilding or regeneration of our organs. There is hope that at some stage in the future they can take our stem cells and 'grow' new organs like a liver or heart. The best stem cells to use for this new science are those taken from a new born baby through umbilical cord - hence the name umbilical cord stem cells.

How Are Umbilical Cord Stem Cells Collected?

There are several methods used to collect umbilical cord blood. First, it should be remembered that this is not an invasive process. Once a baby is born, the umbilical cord is removed and along with the placenta, disposed of as hospital waste. There are some societies that collect these and either bury or burn them, but in most western societies, they thrown out as hospital waste.

Parents go through many changes with their children as they grow from babies to young adults. Most parents live with a fear that one day there will be a knock at the door and the news wont be good. An accident or perhaps an arrest? I think one of the hardest things to wake up to, or come home to, is the realization that your teen has simply run away.

There are many reasons for this. They maybe running away from something, or they maybe running to something. Often it is a mixture of both. Escaping authority to a land of freedom.

Once they realize that freedom isn't all it stacked up to be, mixed feelings of shame, fear and sense of not giving in prevent them from returning.

In Australia we have an agency known as the Child Support Agency. Their role is to collect child support from the non-custodial parent and pay it to the custodial. They assess what should be paid and you pay it. If you don't, they take it out of your paycheck or from anywhere else.

There are a growing number of fathers in this situation who have decided to undergo DNA tests to see if in fact they are the biological father. 25% of those tested so far have been negative when it comes to fatherhood. In other words, they have been paying child support for a child that is biologically not theirs.

Courts are now ruling that the Child Support Agency must repay these fathers the money they have take as child support payments. I guess in the long run this money will be taken away from the mother unless she can tell the agency who the real father is.

There is now talk of having all children DNA tested at birth to ensure the parents are who they say they are. I can see good points to this process and bad points. However, I feel the whole DNA issues misses one vital point. It is not who the biological father is that matters, it is who has been the 'dad' for these kids.

I am often amazed when I read stories of toddlers surviving accidents that we as adults could find fatal, or at least in hospital in a serious condition.

The latest incident involved an 18 month toddler who had climbed a balcony rail and fallen two meters (about seven feet), landed on the roof of a shed where she rolled and fell another two meters to the ground. For some reason there was an old mattress on the roof of the shed which helped to break the first fall, but there was only solid ground awaiting the next fall.

There are not that many opportunities to monetize a parenting blog. Most opportunities fall under the realm of affiliate advertising which of course relies on visitors buying products from your affiliate links.

Income can be derived from some pay-per-click ads such as Google Adsense, however they are unreliable. One income area that I am keen to investigate, whilst not necessarily incomes, is in the form of product reviews. These are reviews of actual products, not site reviews which most pay for post reviews are, actual product reviews. This is where you are sent a product to use. Once you have used it you write an honest review. They provide real value to readers since it written from a users perspective. If you're looking for product reviews, you know what you need to do, contact me and send me samples of your product that I can actually use.

It is strange because in the past I have ignored requests for product reviews without realizing there is a benefit to all. The readers get an honest opinion of a product; the seller gets advertising promoting their products (if the review is positive) and the blogger of course receives products to use. Everyone wins.

Most babies suffer some form of colic during their first six months. Often it can go unnoticed and not cause to much stress. At other times, it can lead to a baby that screams for hours on end leaving the parent tired, frustrated and even a little (or a lot) grumpy.

What Is Colic In Babies?

A recent article on Yahoo! News caught my attention and, while brief, takes a swipe at fathers and the amount of time they spend with their children. By time, I am talking about one-on-one, not including with the mother.

According to the article most Australian fathers spend around one minute per day during the working week. Have you actually analyzed the time you spend alone with your child.

For many fathers, they get home from work, have dinner with the family, and perhaps spend a short time reading or talking, or just tucking their child into bed - and that's it.

This humble blog of mine has just turned one years old so I thought it time for a clean out and a fresh new look. This is it for now.

The sidebars are far less cluttered and the whole look I hope is more relaxed, less busy. If you have any suggestions let me know.

If you're a Drupal whizz let me know - I want to upgrade to 6.?? but can't find GOOD info on how to do it.

Finally, I am redeveloping my blogroll so if your a parenting site interested in a blogroll exchange let me know.

Parents who can't be parents are becoming parents through the creation of an extremely life like new born baby. The 'doll', for want of a better name, is called Reborn Babies and are made of a soft rubber with skin and hair texture and colour that is almost identical to a real baby.

As a parent there is one guarantee in life. Your child is going to catch a cold at some stage in their life. For new parents, a babies first cough, cold or runny nose can be a worrying experience. It needn't be. Follow these simple tips and life for you and baby will so much easier.

Most children, particularly when they hit school age, suffer around 10 coughs or colds each year. The effects remain for two to fourteen days depending on what type of cold they have.

Coughs, colds and some runny noses are generally result of a common cold virus. These viruses cannot be treated by anti biotics, in fact there is little that medicine can do to 'cure' a cough, cold or runny nose in a baby.

Classic signs of the common cold in babies

Sometimes you read stories that make you sad, angry and little thankful all at the same time. The latest story to catch my attention involved a family, consisting of a single dad with nine kids, who finally had to give them up.

His story is sad in itself. He is single dad due to the death of his wife of 17 years. She died shortly after the birth of their youngest.

It seems that Nebraska is one of those forward thinking states that has made their hospital an official place for parents to surrender their children without fear of prosecution for abandonment. I really don't like the word abandon in this case, surely they are voluntarily surrendering their children?

Why does it make me angry? In a society like our surely we have reached a level of maturity (society that is) where we can put our hand up and say help? Rather than looking down on anyone in this situation - and let's face it, raising nine kids aged 1 to 17 is not going to be easy, we should doing everything possible to maintain that family unit.

I can only imagine what he must be going through. I am sure there is a mixture of relief, grief and guilt constantly running through his mind. Hopefully, friends and relatives can help maintain some type of family unit for those children, particularly the younger ones who will struggle to even understand the situation.

If your a breast feeding mum then you may want to watch your back, or at least, your milk supply. PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants ice cream manufacturers to replace milk meant for calves with - you guessed it, breast milk.

The request comes on the back of an "innovative" move by a Swiss restaurant owner who will "begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," according to a PETA statement."

PETA is urging ice cream giants Ben & Jerry's to do cows a "big favour" and switch to human breast milk in their products.

In a statement, Ben and Jerry's said: "We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child."

Are you a Halloween person? Do you get into it, dressing up and having a real party. Cartoon Network have a full range of costumes to help you wow the party atmosphere.

Their Ben 10 costumes are back along with DVDs, figurines, games, watches and apparel. Their current promotion is Free Shipping with orders of $50 or more.

Ben 10 is not the only range of course, Cartoon Network has a huge range including Camp Lazlo, the Powderpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory. Pay them and visit and check out the low prices.

This is the third part in my best of series highlighting the best post from the last 12 months as we head towards our first birthday at the end of this month.

In the parenting section, I got a little controversial with some of my posts, covering topics that irritated me at the time. This included topics such as What Is Wrong With The Dads Of This World. Unfortunately, some fathers just aren't fathers when they need to be.

Another set of posts had a dig at society and the media with What Is Wrong With Our Society, which followed a previous post . Just a little controversial, however many parents agreed with me.

With our society so intent on hygiene, I had to cover a topic which is I feel very strongly about. I finished up with two posts, Are We Too Clean and one that was fairly similar, it certainly covered the same topic, Cleanliness vs Sterilize.

A news story that struck me was Couple Beheaded, beheaded for cruelty to their daughter - you have to read it.

As I move closer to this blogs first birthday I am putting together a series of 'best of' posts. The previous 'best of' post was the "baby' series. Today's post is the best of 'toddlers'.

It is difficult finding the best of posts particularly when I have done so many. This is part one and contains a real mixed bunch.

You don't have to have a speech or hearing impairment to use sign language. Many parents find they can communicate with their toddlers from much earlier age and my reprint of an article by Jackie Durnin on Using Sign Language With Toddlers was very popular.

Sign language may help in teaching your toddler to use the potty, if not, my post on Is Painless Potty Training Possible For A Toddler may help ease the trauma.

Toddlers and potty training often leads to temper tantrums, particularly the two year old tantrums. My post on How To Deal With Toddler Temper Tantrums will be of great benefit to those experiencing tantrums - toddler tantrums that is.

As September rushes upon us I realized today that this site, Just4Families is about to have its first birthday. The year has certainly flown by.

Over the last 12 months I have published a lot of posts that have proved to be popular so I am going to review them by category for those who may have missed them. I am going to start with the articles related to babies, for obvious reasons, our is about to turn three weeks old. With a total of five girl five years and under, I am surprised I can five minutes to even write a post these days. Here are my best baby articles from the last 12 months.

One of my favourite articles when it comes to research was the Cord Blood Banking article. Why more hospitals don't utilize this service I don't know. It can help to save so many young lives.

Have you wondered about the The First Moments Of Your Baby's Life? I did so I did a little research. Read the outcome of that research.

Of course, the time comes to take baby home from hospital. An exciting time for many, for others it can be hard to handle. Learn how to deal with Baby's First Days At Home.