Guest blogger over at Hearts at Home

My post, "Loves Me, Loves Me Not," is running today on the Hearts at Home blog.

Just wondering: how do your children respond when you give them gifts?

Photo by pirshulet/StockXchange.com

Top News Headlines for Moms

News to know:

Study: Children reaching age 3 before speaking a word
The average age for babies to speak is 10 or 11 months. However, a new study found that a significant minority of children said nothing until age 3.
The British survey also reported that boys are twice as likely to sruggle to speak as girls.

Vaccine refusal raises chickenpox risk
Since a vaccine to prevent chickenpox became available 15 years ago, chickenpox cases have dropped almost 80 percent. However, many parents reject the vaccine because they are worried about its safety.
New research found that children were nine times more likely to get chickenpox when their parents refused to get them vaccinated.

Later-to-bed-teens risk risk sadness, suicidal thoughts
Teens whose parents enforced bedtimes of 10 p.m. or earlier were less likely to be depressed or have suicidal thoughts than teens whose parents let them stay up past midnight, according to a new study.
Researchers looked at a nationwide group of more than 15,000 seventh through 12th grades, surveyed in 1994-1996.
Teens who got five hours of sleep a night (or less) were 71 percent more likely to be depressed than their peers. They were also 48 percent more likely to have suicidal thoughts.

More toddlers, young children given antipsychotics
The rate of children age 2 to 5 who are given antipsychotic medications has doubled in recent years, new research shows.
In 1991-2001, about one in 1300 children were being treated with antipsychotics. By 2007, that number had risen to one in 630.
The most common drug given to young children was risperidone, which is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat unstable mood or irritability in autistic children age 5 or older.

A gift for you this Christmas: A peek at the 12 Pearls of Christmas

Over at The Writing Road, I'm participating in the 12 Pearls of Christmas blog tour. From December 12 until Christmas Day, there will be a new story posted, written by well-known authors like Susan May Warren, Tricia Goyer, Mary DeMuth and Melody Carlson.

I thought I'd post one of the stories here for you to enjoy. You can find the rest of the 12 Pearls of Christmas over at The Writing Road.

Leave a comment on this post or on any of the The Writing Road posts and you'll be entered to win a pearl necklace!

Merry Christmas--and I'll see you in 2010!

12 Pearls of Christmas: God With Us

LISTENING FOR CHRISTMAS
by Deb Kalmbach

I used to be the queen of over-commitment, and December brought out the worst in this malady. It was as if I were poised at an imaginary starting line, and when I flipped the calendar page, I was off and running--the December dash!

You could hardly see any white space on my daily planner it was so jammed with events. Kids' Christmas programs, church programs, and endless lists of things-to-do obscured my calendar and my vision to see what really mattered. Each day when we hung another ornament on our Advent tree, I felt my chest tighten, and my breathing get shallower. Only single-digit shopping days left...Panic mode was about to set in.

Of course I was singing in the Christmas choir. I love music, and the heavenly Christmas anthems we sang. The neighborhood cookie exchange was an annual tradition. Forget about the old standards, chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies. Let's talk about jam-filled tea cookies, chocolate-dipped peanut butter balls, or iced sugar cookies with colored sprinkles. My kitchen looked like a Martha Stewart test kitchen gone awry.

My head spins just thinking about it. I usually felt so frustrated and exhausted by Christmas Day, I barely enjoyed the celebration. I repeated this drill for many Christmas seasons, before I finally decided to step back and think about why I was trying to accomplish the impossible. I learned to take a deep breath and accept the fact that I can't do it all-and I'm much better off if I don't try.

That's probably why I'm writing this. The tendency to revert to this frenzied pace by mid-December is still a challenge. I need to be reminded of the quiet simplicity of this season, so I can hear the age-old message once again.

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel." Isaiah 7:14

Immanuel! Our God is with us. If we can stop long enough to listen-we will hear the invitation that beckons us to come, to wait, to get ready for our coming King.

No doubt, December will be as busy as ever with gifts to purchase, trees to decorate and carols to sing. But this Advent season, I pray that in the midst of everything contending for our time and attention, our hearts will be moved and our senses sharpened to rejoice in God's greatest gift.

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Deb Kalmbach is the co-author of Because I Said Forever: Embracing Hope in a Not-So-Perfect Marriage and the author of a book for children, Corey's Dad Drinks Too Much. Deb and her husband, Randy, make their home in a tiny town in Eastern Washington. Visit Deb at her website or blog.

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A three strand pearl necklace will be given away on New Year's Day. All you need to do to have a chance of winning is leave a comment here. Come back on New Year's Day to see if you won!

12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info

Frosty the Snowman and Porn

Photo by barrym67/StockXchange.com


I have a sense of humor.

Really.

But I can't see the humor in having Frosty the Snowman talk about his porn collection.

(A Fox News video clip that contains the ad is below.)

The TV show, "How I Met Your Mother" used the clip from Frosty the Snowman and coupled it with some dialogue from an episode. So, what you have is Frosty supposedly showing the kids his porn collection and then giving the guy selling tickets at the train station his porn collection.

Funny, right?

Sorry, I don't think so.

I just don't find pornography humorous. I don't like how it degrades women. I don't like how child pornographers go after our children. I don't like the fact that school-age children are being exposed to online porn.

Did you know that federal law makes it illegal for anyone under 18 to look at pornography? And yet:

• Forty-two percent of children ages 10-17 were exposed to online pornography
• Forty-seven percent of school age children (7-18 year olds) receive spam with links to X-rated Web sites on a daily basis. One in five open the spam.

Pornography harms our kids. It harms our marriages, our families.

It's not a joking matter.

News of Interest for Moms December 7, 2009

News to know:

When parent is deployed, kids struggle

Children whose parents are deployed have more struggles with anxiety and depression than their peers, according to a report published in the Dec. 7 issue of Pediatrics.

Researchers interviewed more than 1,500 military family members, including children ages 11-17. Nearly all had a parent who was deployed or had been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Thirty percent of the military kids who were 7 to 11 year old reported elevated anxiety symptoms. Researchers also found that children fared worse if their parents struggled with their own emotional or mental health issues.

Sex talk taking place after the fact

Too often, parents talk to their kids about sex after kids start experimenting sexually, according to a study that will be in the January issue of Pediatrics.

Researchers found that more than 40 percent of adolescents are having sex before their parents have talked to them about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or birth control. Conversations with boys always took place later than conversations with girls, according to the report.

News of Interest for Moms December 2, 2009

News to know:

Some fathers suffer from postpartum depression

Doctors believe dads struggling with postpartum depression is a more widespread problem than most people realize.

Men who have a history of depression or who have partners who are depressed have an increased risk of postpartum depression.

Symptoms usually develop within a month after a child is born, but can show up three months later. Typical symptoms include:

• tearfulness
• decreased energy
• low-self esteem
• loss of sleep/appetite
• suicidal thoughts

HPV sometimes a factor for increase in oral cancers in women

In people under age 50, the human papillomavirus (HPV), may be replacing tobacco as the primary cause of oral cancer, according to recent data from the Oral Cancer Foundation. In previous decades, oral cancer was primarily a men's disease, affecting six men for every woman. However, in the last decade, the ratio has decreased to two men to each woman. About 34,000 new cases of oral cancer are diagnosed in the U.S. each year.

Increase in babies born with Down syndrome

Babies born with Down syndrome increased by 31 percent between 1979 and 2003, according to a report published in the November 30 issue of Pediatrics.

Researchers said their findings could reflect an increasing proportion of births to older moms during this same time, as well as medical advancements that improve survival rates of babies born with Down syndrome.

Newest celebrity Mommy-Come-Lately: singer Lisa Loeb

Singer Lisa Loeb, 41, and her husband Roey Herskovitz, 31, welcomed their daughter Lyla Rose on Dec. 1.

Their word, my word

Photo by sallydell/istockPhoto.com

So the wordsmiths over at Oxford University Press chose their 2009 Word of the Year. They announced their decision Nov. 17 -- drumroll, please--and the word is: unfriend.

Unfriend is a verb that means to remove someone as a friend on a social networking site, such as Facebook.

I had lots of fun over on The Writing Road blog talking about other words that were in the running for OUP's 2009 Word of the Year. Funny thing is, I pick a Word of the Year too. However, my reason for selecting a word has nothing to do with it's popularity the previous 12 months.

Nope.

About five years ago, I abandoned New Year's Resolutions. The whole list thing--I failed that. I usually lost my list of good intentions by the end of January.

Then I read an article--and I so wish I could remember who wrote the article so I could give much-deserved credit where it is due. The author talked about focusing on a word for one year. 365 days. Living out that word as your theme for the year.

Simple theory. I liked it.

And so, after mulling and pondering and praying, I've selected words each year. So far, my words have included:

1. gratitude
2. content
3. simplify

For 2009, my word was forgiveness. To be honest, I asked God if I could trade that word in for another one. He ignored my suggestion. And so, I've wrestled with the heart-wrending truths of forgiveness for the past 11 months.

I've re-discovered that I am not naturally a forgiving person--and that young children are. I've discovered that forgiveness is a choice--again and again and again and again and again and again. You get my point. I've spent hours on my face before God wrestling with the who and the what and the how of forgiveness.

That's not bragging. That's confession.

And guess what? I already know what my word for 2010 is.

Forgiveness.

Yep.

I've got miles to go before I understand and live out forgiveness on a daily, breathe-in-breathe-out basis. I find that my focus is off of "them" and on me right now.

When you think about it, their word--unfriend--and my word--unforgiveness--are related.

Gotta' think about that. But I've got 13 months, don't I?