Monday, August 18, 2008
Learn Your Baby's Secret Language and Gain More Confidence
I remember when my children were babies and cried often. Sometimes no matter what I did, they continued to cry. It was frustrating and heartbreaking not knowing why my babies were crying. Since they couldn't talk, I had no idea what I could do to help them.
As a new mother, you know this feeling of helplessness, right? Lucky for you, Priscilla Dunstan, who appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, has a unique talent known as a photographic memory for sound. Priscilla's talent allows her to determine--from the cries of babies from 0-3 months old--what could be wrong. She decided to share her talent with other new mommies and daddies so they don't have to go through the frustration and heartbreak that I encountered when my children were babies.
Through The Dunstan System, which contains two DVDs, a 24-page booklet and a reference wall chart, Priscilla Dunstan will teach you how to recognize your baby's language through his or her sounds and cries, so your baby will be happy again. For example, Priscilla says when babies make the sound "Neh," it means they're hungry, and "Owh" means your baby's sleepy or tired.
To eliminate the stress and helplessness, check out The Dunstan System at Priscilla Dunstan's official website (http://www.dunstanbaby.com/).
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Sunday, May 27, 2007
Take some time to just be friendly
Hi everyone
Yesterday I got into the lift in my office block with my 4 year old daughter. There were 6 other people in the lift with us, all facing the lift doors. My daughter said “Mom what is so interesting about the door that all of you are looking at it? Wouldn’t you rather talk to each other”.
So I turned around to all these strange faces staring at me and said “Hi”. Well everyone else in the lift joined in and we realised in 30 seconds how much we had in common. I ended up swapping business cards with two people and we are getting together for a coffee chat next week.
Out of the mouth of babes comes the honest truth! We spend so much time rushing from place to place that we don’t take advantage of the time we could spend just being friendly.
So next time you get in a lift with other strangers, say “Hi” and you may be pleasantly surprised what happens next.
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Monday, April 23, 2007
Run off my feet
Well, I am exhausted. I have been caught up in the busy, busy, busy cycle working long hours, trying to keep abreast of all the demands of family life, doing the grocery shopping and trying to help my kids with their homework.
Things are crazy at the moment and I just cannot seem to get a grip on everything.
Last night, at 7pm I was on a work teleconference and trying to prepare dinner for my kids at the same time! When I finally had a chance to sit down and eat dinner myself, it was 10.30pm (and I still had to put the washing in the washing machine, sew a button back onto my daughter’s school uniform and read a pile of work emails!!!!
The only thing keeping me sane is the fact that I have organised some Helpinghero time with my HelpingHero group. I’m so looking forward to having some free time where I can catch up and get my crazy life back on track.
Boy, I was so happy that I had accumulated some HelpingHero points a couple of months ago, because I had enough points to have gardening done, lift club for my kids on Saturday and still points left for a couple of hours of babysitting.
What would I do without the help of my HelpingHeroes?
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Thursday, March 01, 2007
Running a babysitting co-op the easy way
I receive many emails from people telling me how joining a HelpingHero team has helped them. Recently one in particular caught my attention. It’s from a mother who originally joined a HelpingHero team for the babysitting coop services.
She was already in babysitting coop but dreaded having to take her turn to be the secretary. Her babysitting coop used the approach where the secretary made all the calls to book appointments and manage points. As a divorced working mother she just did not have the time to manage the process as well as she would like. Plus she felt like she ended up with no time to herself.
Here is part of her email “Thanks helpinghero for giving me my life back again! I finally have some me time. My helpinghero team are a babysitting co-op on steroids. Not only does it make it easy to be in a babysitting co-op, but I also get handy man work done for cooking an extra meal in return.”
That’s the sort of email that makes it all worthwhile from my perspective.
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007
My Online Sharing Community
Well the vacation is over and my kids are back at school.
I can cope with juggling schooling, helping them with homework, volunteering as a class mum, making school lunches and still working full time. But sometimes in the past my kids missed out on doing extra activities after school because there was no one to fetch and drop them off. That was until I started using online sharing.
Community based sharing used to be taken for granted. When I was a kid my mom would take turns with other moms to take us to basketball practice, ballet, swimming lessons and music.
But what happened in the last 20years? We seemed to have forgotten how to share in our community. Now of course I am part of the HelpingHero online sharing community. The group of friends in my community help each other out by swapping different tasks and services with each other – just like the old days.
For instance there is a retired couple in my online sharing community and they provide a lot the lifts to and from after school lessons for our kids. In return, we look after their house and the pet cat when they spend our winter overseas, in a much sunnier climate!
It’s a win-win situation.
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Thursday, February 08, 2007
A HeroFlash happy ending
Hi everyone.
Well, time sure flies. The festive season is a distant memory and we are all back to our busy lives.
We’ve had such an overwhelming response to the HeroFlash that we sent out recently. Many people have let us know what a great idea the mobile contact is and one person in particular (Sally from San Francisco) told us about her experience.
“Thanks HelpingHero for such a great suggestion.
I was sent your HeroFlash two days before going on holiday to Australia, though it was a great idea and updated my mobile contact list.
When I landed at Sydney Airport, I collected my baggage, went through security and was met by my daughter. Suddenly I realised that I had lost my handbag with all my travel papers, money credit cards, the lot. I had the handbag at customs so must have been robbed after that.
We quickly went to report it to the airport security, and while we were filling out the report, my daughter’s mobile starting ringing. She answered it. It was another traveller who had found my handbag in the airport toilets, where I had forgotten it.
I could not believe my luck, but was very confused how she had found me. Then she explained that she had been sent an email by a friend that told her about putting emergency contact into a mobile phone for emergencies. So she found my mobile in the handbag and to her surprise there was an emergency contact, that is my daughter’s mobile number.
So HelpingHero, you are truly my hero and I’ll be telling this story for years to come. Keep up the great idea’s.”
Well that’s a happy ending if ever I saw one. If you have a HeroFlash idea or story just let me know.
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Monday, January 15, 2007
HeroFlashes – little ways to build our community
I was thinking over the Christmas vacation about the little things that can just take a few minutes of our time but really make a difference in our community.
For instance have you ever wondered what would happen if you were in an accident and you could not tell a stranger how to contact your family or friends to let them know that you were in trouble.
There is a simple solution, just create a contact in your mobile phone with the name EMERGENCY CONTACT. Under this name put the phone number of the person that you want contacted when an emergency arises.
That way people can quickly get in touch with your emergency contact.
I’m calling these ideas HeroFlashes and I’d like to build up a list of them in this Blog. If you have an idea for a HeroFlash just let me know (email me on t.ahhee@helpinghero.com or leave a comment on my Blog (http://www.helpinghero.com/pt/blog/default.aspx)) and I’ll post it for all to see.
UPDATE 14 February: HeroFlashes have been so popular that we have put up a dedicated HeroFlash page where you can also request future HeroFlashes via email.
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HelpingHero the Online Community Creator
It’s great to get so many emails from HelpingHero members, letting me know how their Team has made their life easier and better. As an online community creator, we strive to create online groups with strong ties that extend off-line. That is the best part -- the ties are not just within the online community, creator groups then meet face to face and help one another with daily chores to build stronger communities.
The value that members get from HelpingHero, as an online community creator, is the ability to interact with people online and also meet face to face when helping each other. That means that there is a purpose to becoming a member of the community.
Whether it is creating an online community, creator of social networks or just helping neighbors to help one another, HelpingHero is based on the premise that people genuinely want to help each other so that everyone benefits from a better quality of life.
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HelpingHero the Online Community Creator
I get many emails from HelpingHero members, letting me know how their Team has made life so much easier and better for them. It makes me very happy to know that as an online community creator, we are able to help our members to create community groups with strong ties. Most importantly these ties are not just within the online community, creator groups then meet face to face in order to help one another with daily chores.
The value that members get from HelpingHero, as an online community creator, is that you interact with people both online and also help each other, so there is a purpose to meeting one another.
Whether it is creating an online community, creator of social networks or just helping neighbors to help one another, HelpingHero is based on the premise that people genuinely want to help each other so that everyone benefits from a better quality of life.
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Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Only 4 Sleeps to Christmas!
Wow, only 4 more sleeps and Santa will arrive. My kids are so excited and I’m looking forward to spending some time with all our family and friends. This year we are having a family reunion and we have relatives coming to Australia from US, UK and South Africa.
My HelpingHero group have been so helpful in helping me to organise the family reunion . Some of them members have even swapped “homes for the holidays” with some of our relatives and are now enjoying holidays overseas.
I am also earning many HelpingHero points in my group, as my husband and I are house sitting for some other members whilst they are on holidays and we’re also petting two dogs, some goldfish and a budgie!
Well I need to earn some points as my New Year’s resolution is to get the house tidied up. So, I’m planning to use them for getting some household chores done that I hate doing like cleaning out the garage and weeding the garden.
Well, I better sign off, as I am still doing last minute grocery shopping to prepare for the big family Christmas day at our home.
Have a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2007.
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Monday, October 30, 2006
Babycenter: Community groups are a great start
I was recently at a picnic for a mothers and babies group. The most talked about topic was what was the right babycenter for your child.
Are you looking for a babycenter? Community groups are a great place to start when trying to find a babycenter for your child.
As parents, we all want to make the right decisions, but there is so much conflicting and confusing information when trying to decide on the appropriate babycenter. Community groups in your local neighbourhood can provide a lot of helpful information on the different types of babycenter, community based, and those available in your local area.
These babycenters, community based, are also usually managed by not for profit groups so they are more cost effective and any profits are invested back into the babycenter.
Do you know of a good local community babycenter? Leave a comment and let the rest of us know about it.
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Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Babysitting jobs for teens 13up
My 15 year old niece does some babysitting for families in her local neighbourhood so that she can supplement her weekly allowance. The demand for babysitting jobs for teens 13up is quite high in her neighborhood, as parents are often looking for a babysitter for an hour or two after school.
Recently she took her part time job one step further. For a school project she had to develop a business plan for a business that meets a need of the current market. So she decided to do her project on babysitting.
Soon she realized that her school project could actually be a very lucrative business if she created a service that supplied babysitting jobs for teens 13up instead of trying to do all the babysitting herself.
So, with a loan of $100 from me, she started advertising in her school magazine to recruit schoolmates for babysitting jobs. For teens 13up this was an opportunity to earn extra pocket money and she got an overwhelming response.
She also spent her weekends dropping flyers in mail boxes around the neighbourhood to advertise her babysitting service. Her business grew from suppling 3 babysitting jobs in the first week to 8 per week.
Unfortunately, babysitting jobs for teens 13up has one huge downside, that is EXAMS! Recently, my niece stopped organizing baby-sits as none of her school friends are available: doing well in the exams is far more important at this point.
Hopefully she will be able to pick up her business again in the new year.
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Sunday, October 15, 2006
A great idea for not for profits
This week I received an email from a not for profit organisation that focuses on helping less fortunate people in the community through a variety of free support services.
Recently they have started using HelpingHero to organise and manage the people using the services and best of all, allow the recipients to give some services back to others. In her opinion this is a fantastic way to re-build the community and build self esteem in people who normally just use their services.
I felt really good when I read that email. We started HelpingHero to make communities stronger by swapping each others skills, knowledge and experience so that everyone benefits. This is a whole new angle that takes the community approach to another level.
In my HelpingHero team we started out swapping babysitting, pet sitting and carpooling, especially lifting our kids to after school activities like swimming lessons and soccer practice. Now we swap minor repairs and John, who is great handyman, is very popular. He never has to mow his lawn because our husbands swap minor repairs for lawn mowing with him.
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Monday, October 09, 2006
Getting ready for school holidays
It suddenly occurred to me the other day that I should start planning what I'll be doing with my two daughters during the school holidays, as I have to work for most of that time and my husband has already used up most of his annual leave.
So I have started racking up HelpingHero points by doubling up on the chores that I have been doing for my other HelpingHero members.
Last week I babysat five children on Thursday afternoon. By the time Wednesday arrived, I was a nervous wreck trying to work out how I was going to survive looking after two 4 year olds girls, a 7 year old boy and two nine year olds (a boy and a girl) for four hours.
I had visions of a wrecked house after I had babysat five kids of differing ages and gender. But this was not the case at all. Both my kids love playing outdoors so I also volunteered to do some gardening for our neighbour.
All the kids were assigned different gardening duties and they each earned rewards for completing little tasks along the way. We had a great afternoon, and John, our neighbor, was very pleased with all the weeding, soil churning and leaf clearing that went on. Best of all is that the kids had a great time and did not get up to mischief or fight with each other.
When the HelpingHero parents came to fetch their kids, they all commented on how I had babysat all five kids so well.
Now all five are asking when they can be babysat by me again!
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Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Finding the time to get things done
This is my first Blog post, and blog for that matter, and I must admit that I didn't have anything planned to say. But once I sat down and started typing it was difficult to stop. I suppose that is because we are all in the same boat with family commitments, long work hours and trying to find that elusive work life balance.
I am proud to say that I think that I have finally found the balance with help from my heroes in my helpinghero group. I volunteer to do the things that are convenient and I enjoy doing and I trade them for the chores that I hate, especially grocery shopping with my four year old daughter.
I end up with groceries in my trolley that I have never seen and spend most of the time trying to work out a way to avoid all the junk food aisles in the supermarket.
Now I do my neighbours grocery shopping when I do mine and she babysits my daughter. Grocery shopping now takes me less time, is less stressful and I get to have a quiet coffee and snack at the local café before returning home with the groceries.
What chore do you hate and what would you like to swap it for?
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