AA Gifts & Baskets Idea & Advice Blog

It is good luck for a squirrel to cross one’s path. It is good luck to see a red bird fly up.

It is good luck to spill wine on the tablecloth. It is good luck to dream of silver money.

Wednesday is the luckiest day in the week for a wedding.

It is good luck to get white flowers on your birthday.

If one eats peas on New Year’s Day, he will have good luck all the year.

A cricket on the hearth will bring good luck.

It is good luck to look at the new moon over your left shoulder.

A windy day for a wedding is a sign of good luck.

It is a sign of good luck to find a pin with the point turned toward you.

When starting on a journey, throw a teaspoon of salt over the right shoulder to insure safety.

To catch a falling leaf means that you will have twelve months of continued happiness.

To find a rusty nail is good luck. The nail should not be picked up, but the ends should be reversed so the luck will come your way.

If two or more people go fishing together, they must all cross the fences at the same time if they are to have good luck at catching fish.

It is bad luck to drop a book and not step on it. It is bad luck to bring a hoe into the house.

It is bad luck to sweep the floor before the sun rises. It is bad luck to count the stars.

If one dreams about rats fighting, he will have bad luck. It is bad luck for

one to comb his hair after dark.

It is bad luck to rock an empty chair.

It is bad luck to burn apple trees for firewood.

It is bad luck to wash a garment before it is worn. It is bad luck to burn the cob when popping com. It is bad luck to burn salt.

It is bad luck to count graves.

If one sees a red bird and it flies down, he is sure to have bad luck.

It is bad luck to take the ashes out when there is sickness in the family.

It is bad luck to make a new opening in an old house. It is bad luck to look at the moon through brush.

It is bad luck to meet a left-handed person on Tuesday. It is bad luck for sweet potatoes to bloom.

It is bad luck to watch a person out of sight.

It is bad luck for a black hen to come into the house. It is bad luck to milk a cow on the ground.

It is bad luck to sell a crowing hen.

It is bad luck to break a bird egg.

It is bad luck to spin a chair around on one leg. It is bad luck to dream of eating cabbage.

It is bad luck to see a pin and not pick it up.

It is bad luck to open an umbrella in the house. It is bad luck to sit on a pair of scissors.

If you find a cat sitting with her tail to the fire, expect bad luck.

Sunning of bed clothes on Friday will bring bad luck. Sitting on a trunk invites bad luck.

It is unlucky for a girl to be in church when she is asked to marry.

III fortune is created by bringing eggs into the house after sunset.

It is bad luck for a sick person to cut his fingernails while sick.

Finding that just right, reliable person to whom you will entrust the care of your precious baby may be something of a challenge and you will be glad if you began your search before the baby was born. Many mothers feel most comfortable leaving their new babies with grandmothers or other relatives, but family members are not always available. And while you know and trust them, they may be critical or make you feel as if you are imposing on them. Later you will probably look into the availability of teenage sitters in your neighborhood.[you’ll find that it is wonderful when you can find a family with two of more young people who like to babysit so that when one is not available, the other may be]  Until your baby is a little older, you will probably prefer someone more experienced-perhaps a woman who has had a baby herself-unless you can locate a mature teenager who has a certificate from a good babysitting course. Check with such local agencies as the YWCA, Girl Scout Council, Campfire Girls office, and the park or recreation department. If any have offered courses, they probably keep lists of dependable, qualified sitters. Other possibilities are a college home economics department or a hospital school of nursing. A good idea when you have a young new sitter is to arrange for a get acquainted visit before you leave him or her alone with your baby. You might wish to have such a young person come in on a regular basis to help you with the baby.

You may not be ready yet to accept the responsibility for caring for others babies as well as your own, so you may not now consider making reciprocal baby care arrangements with a friend or neighbor or joining a babysitting co-op, but you may find that there’s a capable neighborhood woman who ants to earn a little money. Agencies that supply trained and bonded adult sitters are listed in the Yellow Pages, but their fees are higher than those charged by individual sitters.

Your sitter ahs the heavy responsibility of caring for your child, but you have a responsibility to the sitter, also. You should be as reliable as you expect him or her to be, returning home when you say you will and paying fairly and promptly. Always leave a phone number where at least one of the parents can be reached in case of an emergency. It’s a good idea to leave other emergency numbers as well, such as a nearby neighbor, and of the police and  fire departments. Don’t make your sitter guess what’s to be done, leave careful instructions about feeding and caring for the baby and tell the sitter where to find diapers, bedding and other supplies. If you have pets, give instructions about them too. It’s also a good idea to give them basic information about your house available, such as the locations of fuse boxes, or circuit breakers, flashlights and fire extinguishers and how the smoke detector and burglar alarm work.

Information to Give a Babysitter

• Address and phone number of your location.
• Doctor’s name and phone number.
• Emergency room phone number.
• Police department phone number.
• Poison control center phone number.
• Fire department phone number.
• Phone number of neighbor and/or relative.
• Time you will return.
• Locations of:
• Phone
• Exits
• Bathrooms
• Food and baby supplies
• Medication
• Fire extinguishers
• First aid supplies
• Timing of feedings, medication, bedtime

Making the decision of whether or not to go back to work after having the baby can be an agonizing one. Whatever their intentions, some mothers eventually decide not to go back to work. Commonly, this happens when the mother’s only option is to go back to full-time work, and the money involved is not critical.

“I hadn’t expected to find motherhood so fulfilling,” says Laura, who was 40 when her first child was born. “I feel very lucky that I didn’t have to go back to my job. This is my full-time job, the most important one there is. It would be crazy for me to be paying someone else to do what really matters while I’m out there pushing around pieces of paper.”

The financial equation can be important. “I worked out what going back to work was going to bring in after I’d paid for child care, fares and lunches, and after I’d paid taxes. It wasn’t worth it,” says one mother who considered going back to teaching. “I decided to wait until the children were in school.” Other families are not in such a fortunate position. Carol found that working part-time in a boutique, after childcare and other expenses were accounted for, brought in fifty dollars a week. Her husband had a low-income job and this money made all the difference. “People would say to me, ‘Why do you do this? It isn’t worth it for fifty dollars.’ And I would say, ‘Of course it’s worth it. With that fifty dollars I pay for the week’s groceries.’”

Other women work because they cannot risk losing their job and they fear new opportunities won’t be waiting for them in a few years’ time. This is particularly true in times of high unemployment. “I knew the children would become more expensive. So, although we could afford for me not to work now, that might not be true in five years. I wasn’t confident I would get a job after I’d been away for a few years. People would have forgotten who I was.”

It’s true: Women who choose not to work may find it isn’t easy to get a job when they try to go back. “The women I knew who hadn’t had children were in management positions. Now there were all these younger people coming in below me and at the level I’d been when I left. I realized they didn’t want people with my age and experience in these jobs, they wanted youth. I realized it was going to be much more difficult to get back into work than I had originally thought.”

Overcoming the spirit of competition within the family and especially between the children is one of the most difficult, yet most urgent tasks for conscientious parents. Just as this competition inhibits the children from enjoying each other, any experience of mutual enjoyment lessens the competition. What the family needs is united activity and common interests to increase this feeling of belonging together, which is the best antidote to segregation through competition. Games, which give everyone an equal and fair chance, tours and outings, alluring common interests, discussions inviting everyone to express his opinion, are extremely effective, especially if both parents participate. But without deliberate effort, real group activity will seldom develop: The games may sustain the competition by permitting to one child his customary superiority while assigning to the other his customary submissiveness. Although some kind of equilibrium always exists, it is not necessarily a happy one and if it is unhappy it can be definitely destructive psychologically. Each child should be trained for occasional leadership and for occasional submission if democratic ways are to develop within the family and thence extend to broader social groups.

One word as to the pressing problem of whether children should be saved from the «ugly” influences of the outside world. One hears persistently the cry, «Let’s protect our children!” This demand is well intentioned but dangerous. Our children are protected too much anyhow. By protecting them we do not prepare them to face life later on. What they need is not protection, but encouragement. Let them face the facts of life squarely; one can’t conceal them anyhow. But parents can help their children to develop a correct attitude toward life, to be courageous and sympathetic, understanding and helpful. Instead of forbidding children to listen to the horror stories of the radio, parents can help them to evaluate the stories correctly and to scorn what is just cheap and sensational. They can’t successfully forbid their children to play with guns, if their playmates do so (by the way, playing with guns is not appropriate preparation for being a soldier and serves only to foster a misguided sense of superiority); but parents can teach their children the true meaning of gunplay. They can give them a better approach toward achieving superiority and demonstrating their own value.

Given this help, the child will become, in his group, a force of enlightenment. He will spread moral values which he learned from his parents. We cannot prevent our children’s learning about the horrors of war, but we can discuss with them the ideals of democracy and liberty. We can make them understand that fighting is not an effective way for establishing superiority, but a necessary means of sell defense. The child can find adequate ways of dissolving friction and should be strong and sell confident enough to resist aggression.

Interference by parents in the conflicts that children have with each other is mostly harmful. If the friction is within the family, the parents’ meddling increases the competition and encourages only more fighting, which gives wonderful opportunities to evoke the parents’ attention. If the fight is outside the family, parental influence helps little to lessen the tension and undermines the child’s ability to take care of himself. In emergency, of course, educational considerations must be put aside in favor of safety. Such situations, however, are far less frequent than timid parents believe. If siblings quarrel, don’t think that they will kill each other. I like to put two children who are fighting vigorously into a room by themselves, with the remark that I will see which one comes out alive. Usually that device helps. After a short while each child is sitting in a corner, or both are playing harmoniously together.

Yes, bringing up children is difficult. We know that we must have sympathy with parents. If there is only one child, he is in the difficult position of living among giants. If there are two children, strong competition develops and the children fight and quarrel. If there are three children, one is always the middle child, and, comparing his position with the privileges of the older and the younger one, he is inclined to feel neglected. If there are four children, we often find two antagonistic pairs of first and second children, but, as a rule, with four the situation improves considerably. But who can wait until he has four children?

Thus, we must have sympathy for the poor parents, or at least the poor mothers, because fathers tend to withdraw from a job which is often more difficult than their daily work. Parents are the real problem-not children. We must help them so that they will be able to enjoy the deepest pleasure human beings can experience-having children. Whoever learns to enjoy his child is glad to pay the price demanded-sleepless nights at the bedside of a sick child; fright and consternation at dangers; disappointments and concern when the child fails. Watching the child grow up is a pleasure unequaled. It reverses the meaning of time; every year lost to us is gained by the child. Our own stepping aside is more than compensated by our child’s taking up where we leave off, not for our personal prestige, but for the maintenance of our ideals, of our convictions, of all that we consider worthwhile. Through our children we build the future, and the future alone can appraise what we do today.