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The talk among teenagers and adults recently has been all about The Hunger Games. Hopefully children will take a life lesson or two away with them. Some may already have preconceived notions...

Learning how to win and lose is a large component of children's sports. It teaches them proper decorum and coping mechanisms to deal with adverse situations in life. Although these days with the helicopter parents getting air time, sports fanatical fathers making the news for the wrong reasons, and dance moms getting their own television shows, we may be going in the wrong direction...

It may not have happened to you yet but someday, if your lucky, you'll get to have THE TALK with your children. My wife Ann made it very clear that I would be in charge of talk. Come to think of it, she made it clear that I would be in charge of speaking to the kids on all uncomfortable subjects. The first time didn't go so well...

My children may never get their drivers licenses, but for different reasons...

Researchers say there's a new way to tell if infants are likely to become obese later on:

This year, my children had the great idea to make Thanksgiving craft puppets. I may just have to take a break from the kitchen and join them. http://kidscraftsblog.hyglossproducts.com/2011/11/21/pilgrim-and-indian-puppets-thanksgiving-craft-activity/

When your child grows up, there is a whole lot of excitement in celebrating his/ her birthday or you may even just throw a party for your child and his/ her friends to enjoy and have fun together. Club Kids is an indoor kids play centre and cafe that offers variety of kids party venues and kids party ideas.

Support for Birth Mothers & Young Adults with Disabilities When You Need Help, You Need it Now Providence Place is Right Here 24/7 Pregnant - Now What? It's important to know your options - and there may be more options than you think. Providence Place has been helping young women facing an unexpected pregnancy

There is something fishy going on, going on your plate that is. Recent studies have found fish to be highly beneficial in the diet of expecting women for improving overall health of both mother and baby. Eating fish just got even better as a new study found that letting babies eat fish may keep eczema at bay.

Getting a good night's sleep with a newborn baby in the house, as many parents know, is not going to happen anytime soon. Despite the odd waking hours of babies, the first 6 months of life are critical to helping a baby set their circadian rhythms (regular sleeping and rising patterns) that will stay with them for years to come. Some babies, however, may have some hurdles to overcome as a new study explains babies' with depressed mothers experience disruptive sleep.

Surrogacy is a path that many couples who are unable to have children of their own have chosen due to the intimacy and experiences involved in the process. There are many things that should be taken into consideration before you make the choice of becoming a surrogate mother. You should first speak with an attorney and/or an adoption agency specializing in surrogacy. They can provide you with a list of things to consider and agencies available to start you on your way, educate you on your rights as well as those of the adoptive couple and what you can expect and what is expected out of you. When you consider on becoming a surrogate mother, you also need to decide whether you will be an independent surrogate or agency surrogate. As an independent surrogate, you need to be responsible for your own arrangements, finding the right couple, working out a contract and, if anything goes awry with the arrangements, you will be responsible for finding another couple. As an agency surrogate, all of these arrangements and legalities are managed for you by your agent. Either route you choose, make sure that you have consulted an attorney who specializes in surrogacy and adoption to serve your best interests. The next step in becoming a surrogate involves the physical aspects or extent of the measures you are willing to take to become pregnant. You need to decide if you are willing to undergo artificial insemination, hormone therapy and/or in vitro fertilization. Each of these measures are time consuming and not fail proof, so it is always best to have an alternate plan, if possible, in case your first choice for conception does not work. Finally, once an agency or attorney is employed in your journey to becoming a surrogate mother, psychological and physical tests need to be done to make sure that you are healthy enough to carry a child to term and that there are not any past medical or family histories that may cause pregnancy or genetic issues. Extensive counseling will be

There are pros and cons to both sides of this argument. With the private arrangement, you will first of all need to find your surrogate mother. This is usually much easier done through an agency, as all surrogate mothers to be will have been screened and will have gone through a comprehensive health screening. Also, all of the surrogate mothers with an agency will have had psychological screenings to guarantee the fact that they will be able to deal with the very strong emotions that will be coursing around their bodies during the pregnancy. Unless, of course, your surrogate mother is a relative or close friend of the family in which case it would seem to be a lot easier. Ethics, moral code and emotions will still loom large in all of the concerned parties worlds. So it would still be wise to involve an attorney and legal contracts so that everyone knows exactly where they stand, and what is expected of them. In most countries and states legal and binding contracts written up by attorneys, are needed by the parents to be anyway. As they are going to have to be legally adopting the child everything, will need to be written clearly and legally about the birth and how it came about. Very often during the pregnancy the doctors and nurses will need to know why there are two women, one pregnant, the other not, and very often two fathers who are so interested in this one child. If you have gone through an agency, they will be able to advise you on what to do and say in this situation. If you are sorting out surrogacy arrangements privately then yes but if anything unexpected should happen and you are unable to deal with the problems there is a reasonable chance you will end up wishing you had gone to the agency. Agencies do have trained professionals that can help you with all of the different issues that are involved in surrogacy. From the emotional feeling of all parties, the majority of agencies will have counselors who can help you work your way through any difficul

School is just around the corner, and our lazy days of summer are coming to an end. Okay, who are we kidding? The Daily Kool family doesn't do lazy days. We have to admit though...our boys may have kept us on our toes this vacation, but it was pretty nice to have them all to ourselves for a change. In a couple of weeks, we are back to being overwhelmed with activities. School (one half-day, the other three towns over), homework, soccer, hip hop, basketball, karate, birthday parties (there are a ton) playdates...not to mention our own work, home and Pepper (our lovable pooch) responsibilities. Pretty exhausting, huh? As our boys get older, it's really becoming harder to keep track of it all...we need some serious organization!

The Daily Kool family has always toyed with the idea of getting an ice cream maker for our home. As parents, we are often concerned about controlling the quality of ingredients in the food our children eat. Store-bought ice cream often has additives, so we often prefer the premium brands...hey, if we can't pronounce it, we certainly don't want to eat it. But, wow. Premium ice cream definitely comes at a premium price. An ice cream maker may seem like a perfect solution, but since no one in our household can ever agree on one flavor (heaven forbid), we always figured it would be a wasted investment...until now.

Yesterday, we returned from our gluttonous trip to our local Carvel ice cream shop on a euphoric sugar high. Oh yeah...The Daily Kool family has officially kicked off our celebration of National Ice Cream Month! Needless to say, we were in a fabulous mood when we walked through our front door. Of course, so was our lovable dog, Pepper...we may have mentioned him a few hundred times or so in our previous blog posts. Well, Pepper (as usual) was beside himself with joy when we came home, wagging his tail a mile a minute to show how excited he was to see us. We're telling you, there's not much that beats the feeling of unconditional love from a furry friend. Wait a minute...did we say unconditional? Because when Pepper got closer to lick our faces (hey, he's a French poodle, after all), he literally took a giant sniff of our ice cream breath and reeled back from each of us in indignant shock. Okay, we realize we're attributing human characteristics to our dog (doesn't everybody?). But seriously, you should have seen the accusatory look on his face before he pointedly turned his doggie butt on us and walked away to pout on his bed. Yep, Pepper's big brown eyes can really bring on the guilt. No doubt about it, our dog wanted to be a part of July's National Ice Cream Month holiday.

Surrogate motherhood is an option for couples who are unable to have children, whether it be from age, infertility, or some other medical issue. It is also for women who can have children but choose not to have the pregnancy experience. The other option for women to have children is via adoption. Surrogacy can be accomplished by one, of two ways. In most cases, a man's sperm is instilled into the surrogate by a procedure called artificial insemination. If this is done, the surrogate is considered to be the biological and birth mother of the child. Another name for this type of surrogacy is traditional surrogacy. The other way surrogacy may be accomplished is by the man's sperm and woman's eggs being implanted into the surrogate. This process is known as vitro fertilization. In this case, the surrogate is not the biological mother but is still considered the birth mother of the child. This type of surrogacy is gestational surrogacy. Surrogacy has both supporters and opponents, and both parties have strong arguments that work in their favor. All that are against surrogacy feel it is unnecessary and it dismembers a woman's body, especially considering that surrogacy is a profitable transaction. Many build their belief against surrogacy on their religious beliefs, while others base it on political and legal beliefs. Roman Catholics are strongly against surrogacy and feel surrogacy takes away from the sacredness of marriage and the connection between father, mother, and child. They also feel that commercial surrogacy is greatly offensive. In commercial surrogacy, a child's birth is turned into a financial matter. They feel it turns women into reproductive robots and exploitation of children. Other groups that oppose to surrogacy are feminists. Many feminists will argue that surrogate women are pressured or forced into being surrogates when they really do not want to be. Feminists have even gone so far as to call surrogacy a reproductive prostitution. On

When a couple can not have children, they will often seek out a surrogate mother. This is a person that will carry the couple's child and deliver the baby. Once the baby is born the child will be handed over to the couple. Anyone wanting to become a surrogate mother should look into it thoroughly. You can be an independent surrogate or you can use an agency. The first thing you should do is find out what is expected of a surrogate mother and evaluate yourself to see if you can handle it. Read stories from women who have done it and how it affected their lives. This is not just business, this is your body and you will never be the same. Once you have decided that you can handle it, find out what you need to have a healthy pregnancy. What vitamins and diet you should be on are two very important things to look into. You should find out what the laws and rights are in your area concerning surrogate mothers. Surrogate Agencies There are many agencies out there. You can research them on line or look in the phone book. Each will be different in how they handle a case. Find out from them how they work and what they can do for you. Ask for references of other women who used the agency. Contact those women and ask them about their experience there. Once you have decided on an agency; you will be required to fill out an application. After that you will be checked by a doctor from the agency to make sure you meet all the requirements needed. Once you are signed up and deemed healthy by the agency, they will begin looking for couples that they think would be a good match for you. You will be contacted and meetings will be arranged with possible couples. After having several meetings, you will need to choose a couple. This couple should share your views on pregnancy. If you like coffee and they don't want you drinking it during pregnancy, then they may not be the right couple for you. This is a very important part of the process. Don't forget it isn't only you ch

When a couple cannot have children, they may look into the cost of using a surrogate mother. The details for this are very extensive. There are so many scenarios that can play out that it is impossible to give a solid figure. We can, however, look at the general costs of surrogate pregnancy and some possible extra costs.The fee paid to the surrogate mother can vary. The average rate however is a flat fee of $18,000. Some woman will do it for less and some experienced surrogate mothers will ask for more. This does not include any medical bills or food and vitamins. If at 13 weeks the ultra sound shows that the surrogate mother is having multiple children, there will be an extra fee of $5,000 dollars. There will be contracts drawn up for both parties to sign which means there will be lawyers to pay. Legal fees come to about $5,000. The surrogate mother will need to have a psychological evaluation which costs around $500. With pregnancy comes a bigger body and maternity clothes. Maternity clothes usually run you $750. The surrogate mother will have to drive herself or take a bus to the doctor's appointments. She is typically reimbursed 50.5 cents a mile. Any extra, invasive procedures, like Cerclage, DNC, Amniocentesis or FUC can be another $500. If you are going with the gestational surrogating, transfer will run you $750. Insemination for traditional surrogating costs $500 IN a case where a surrogate mother becomes pregnant with more then one fetus inside her, there is something called selective reduction. This operation removes the extra fetuses, leaving only one. The operation fee is $2,000. If at some point both the surrogate mother and couple decide to abort the child, the fee is $2,000. If a C-Section is involved, this will be another $1,500. If there is a canceled cycle fee then you will pay $350. Often times a Mock cycle will be given. This is to test the surrogate's eggs to see if all will go well. The fee is $350. When the surrogate mother gets

Though many professionals are recently adopting a more informal attire in the workplace, the males in The Daily Kool family are die-hard suit wearers. Sorry, President Obama...no business casual in the office for our men, especially Dad. He is meticulous about his appearance, even on the weekends...he wears a polo and dress pants to clean the pool, for goodness sake! Okay, we are the first to admit that his standards may be unreasonably high (and quite possibly, unnecessary)...but, the majority of men (and women) we know do like to look good. Unwrinkled, pressed pants are often high on their list of wardrobe priorities. After all, who wants to come to work looking like they've just rolled out of bed (even if they have)?