If you have an activity for children that takes place in Orange County California or San Diego County California please leave the info in the Comments below and we’ll add it to this post or our San Diego County California Summer Activities post.

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Materials:

• pipe cleaners (assorted colors)
• coffee filters (large size)
• water-based markers
• small spray bottle filled with water (optional)

Give each child a coffee filter and have them color on it with markers.

Hold up the coffee filter, and spray with water or dip fingers in water and shake them at the coffee filter. Watch as the colors spread and run together.

Once the filter is dry, bunch it in the middle and wrap a pipe cleaner around it. Make sure you leave a little extra pipe cleaner to make two antennas.

The teenager half a block away is now a five mile drive. That doesn’t sound like much of an obstacle, but when she doesn’t have a car, it can make all the difference between having a reliable babysitter on a Saturday night and being stuck at home staring at leftover macaroni and cheese with your DH. The neighbor who was happy to run over for a few minutes while the baby napped and you ran out to pick up your toddler from preschool when the nurse called to let you know he’d thrown up twice is no longer available and your new neighbors all work a  nine-to-five schedule.

Find a Neighborhood Babysitter

So how do you find a babysitter in your new Irvine neighborhood? You can start by taking a walk around the area with your kids in a stroller or wagon and be open to talking to the neighbors you see out and about, especially the teenage girls. Cute kids, tend to attract teenage girls. Just let your kids be their own charming selves and they’ll draw in potential teenage babysitters.

You can hang out at the park and talk to the mothers and nannies that are there hanging out with their children and charges.

Find a Babysitter By Networking

Talk to moms and teachers at your kids school and ask who they use for babysitting.You might have to be careful here because some parents are reluctant to give out their coveted babysitters contact info for fear that she won’t be available when they need her. You might start by asking how they found a good babysitter in your Irvine neighborhood and hope that they volunteer their favorite babysitters phone number, but even if they don’t, they may give you some good tips for finding a wonderful new babysitter for your family.

If you go to church, get to know the nursery workers and find out if they are available for babysitting. Even if you don’t have babies or toddlers yourself, you can still drop into the nursery to help out during the rush when kids are being checked in. This gives you a chance to meet and get to know the nursery workers and determine if they would be good candidates as potential babysitters for your family.

Use A Licensed Babysitting Agency

If this all seems like too much work, you can always look for a licensed babysitting agency who will work with you to find prescreened, CPR and First Aide Certified babysitters.

Sitters Unlimited, will only send tried and true babysitters to our new clients. We do not send new babysitters to new clients. That’s a huge advantage to you, as you know you’ll be getting a babysitter who other parents have already given their “seal of approval”. If you like the babysitter that we send, then she’ll be placed on your Favorite Babysitters list and next time you call we will try first to secure her. If we can’t then we look for a babysitter who sits for the same clients as your preferred babysitter in the hopes that you will also like this babysitter. If so, then you will now have two babysitters on your Favorite Babysitters list. And so on.

The further ahead you can plan your outings the more likely you are to be able to secure the babysitter of your choice. The closer to your date that you call to book your babysitter the more chance you take that she will be booked elsewhere. This is why its good to have a couple of babysitters that your family knows and is comfortable with.

The beauty of using a licensed babysitting agency to find your prescreened babysitters is that if you have to cancel a date it is likely that they will be able to rebook her so that you won’t feel bad about her missing a work date and/or you having to pay a cancellation fee.

You should be ready now to start finding a babysitter in your new Irvine California neighborhood.

If you have a business or service that serves families, children, teens or pets that you would like to be included on this Family Resources page please leave your information in the Comments section.

Or maybe you do calculate your carbon footprint and do all kinds of things to reduce your carbon footprint, like setting up your own paper recycling bins,  composting food in a garden compost bin … but your looking for something else you can do to offset your carbon footprint.

Or maybe you don’t give a darn about saving the earth but your tired of selling gift wrap to co-workers who have a closet full of last years gift wrap and over-sized candy bars to neighbors who buy them only out of a sense of guilt then maybe its time to look into eco-friendly or green fundraising. This is a new way to raise funds for your school, church or other non-profit organization that capitalizes on the trend towards buying green and environmentally friendly products. Just think – if your next door neighbor will buy a giant candy bar that she doesn’t want out of a sense of guilt or the desire to do the right thing, how much will she buy if you’re offering something she really wants? Its a win-win!

It’s a tough economy and the companies featured here can provide you with solutions that will take you way beyond cookie dough and magazine subscriptions. And who knows, maybe just because you’ve got something to offer that’s unique, your fundraiser will be more successful this time around.

Greenraising

In case you’ve never heard of Greenraising, you can check out their founder Lisa Olson who was featured in the April 17 issue of Family Circle magazine  and KABC Los Angeles’ feature by Ellen Leyva.

Greenraising offers schools, churches and other nonprofit organizations several ways to raise funds for their organizations. An organization starts by filling out an online form. We like that! No need to meet with an overeager salesperson with one eye on his commission. Approval takes one to seven days and then you can start fundraising immediately by sending people who are interested in helping your organization to the Greenraising website.

Website Sales
This is the quickest way to start earning money for your organization. Their website contains variety of eco-friendly products. Greenraising gives you 25% of all sales from people who name your group as the beneficiary.

They also offer a “Website Drive” program which allows your organization to earn 40% on all sales. This is similar to a “catalog drive” without the waste of printing up all those catalogs.

Catalog Drives
Greenraising provides you with catalogs and you keep 40% of all money raised by your organization both through catalogs and on the website.

Products
They offer environmentally friendly gift wrap, natural cleaning products, recycled lunchboxes, reusable bottles, reusable bags and many more items. You’ll have a hard time finding someone who doesn’t fall in love with something in their line.

Mother Earth Fundraising

Mother Earth Fundraising offers the usual array of gift wrap, home and garden products, food items, candles … but with a twist – all of their products are earth friendly. Not only will those supporting your organization by buying their products feel good about supporting you but they’ll get the extra bonus of supporting a greener earth. And get this – they do not offer catalogs. And if you want to support a friendly environmental company get this – their fundraising programs are all web-based – no paper catalogs or order forms!

With their online online application process you can be ready to go within one day. Once approved, they provide downloadable marketing materials and an email solicitation service.  You can schedule a 2-week ‘bonus period’ and earn 40% profit during that time. Groups can run 2 ‘bonus periods’ each year and for the remainder of the year, your group earns 25% – 30% profit. They even provide you with ways to continue earning passive income for your group.

Bright Green Kids

Bright Green Kids is an environmentally friendly school fundraiser network, with a charitable giving educational element as well.

BGK has partnered with Children of Uganda, a four-star rated charity, for an Educational Incentive Program. Essentially, when a group signs up for fundraising a portion of their fundraising proceeds goes back to Children of Uganda.

Now we don’t know if BGK has gone so far as to make their buildings green but we love that BGK’s packaging is green also.

Recycle Cell Phones

Get Green joins with your group to keep our planet green and healthy by reusing or recycling all those cellphones that we all have in our junk drawers. Get Green pays your group for inactive cell phones that they then Reuse, Refurbish, and Recycle. They mail you a Fund Raising Collection Kit which contains everything you need to run a successful fundraiser: flyers, posters, collection boxes …  and they have more support resources available for download on their web site.

The program is simple – you place their collection boxes in high traffic areas and when the boxes are full you ship them to Get Green – they even pay the shipping.

Place Styrofoam in the acetone. It should fizzle. Keep adding more Styrofoam until you have a good sized blob. At this point you can pick it up and play with it.

You can wash your Stretchofoam if you don’t want to get acetone on your hands. The acetone might dry your hands out, but washing it will cause it to lose some of it’s stretchy properties.

Summary: A (hopefully) sensible laying out of the pros and cons of breastfeeding your baby while working outside the home.

Staying Healthy

Getting both good nutrition and a proper amount of sleep are critical for any breastfeeding mom. If you’re lacking in either area, your milk supply can be reduced and  while this doesn’t necessarily stop you from breastfeeding it can make breastfeeding more frustrating.

Working at a career outside the home makes it especially difficult to make your health a priority. Getting enough sleep to function well can really be a challenge if you’re working during the first few months of your baby’s life, when two or three feedings throughout the night is the norm.

One solution that many nursing moms have implemented is to hire a night nurse. The night nurse can either bring the baby to you, change diapers, etc. so that you can breastfeed and get right back to sleep, or you can express milk and  the night nanny then bottle feeds the baby with the expressed milk.

Resources

Check out these discussions from moms who’ve hired a night nanny:

Charlotte Smarty Pants

Lil Sugar

Many nursing moms find that certain foods impart a taste to their milk that the baby doesn’t like or which cause digestive upset and/or gas. If you suspect that food is a factor in your baby’s digestive problems, start a food journal to ecord what you ate and how the baby reacted. You should be able to track down the food culprit easily this way.

Pumping Breast Milk

Most moms who breastfeed and work outside the home are pumping breast milk so that they or another family member can feed the baby when breastfeeding isn’t possible or isn’t convenient. Successful expressing requires a good breast pump and a little practice. There are many features that can make pumping work much better for you. Some new moms find it helpful to talk to a lactation consultant or connect with other moms through online forums before buying a breast pump.

Resources

Breastfeeding.com

International Lactation Consultant Association

American Pregnancy Association

Berkeley Parents Network

Got Breast Pump

Practice pumping before you need to rely on it for your baby’s needs, and don’t be discouraged if these first attempts don’t give you much milk. Store any milk you express to use later on.  Using a breast pump can take some getting used to; it may take some time to get it right.

Checklist to Successful Breastfeeding at Work

• Nurse As Much As Possible – The more you nurse, the more likely you are to be successful.
• Find A Private Place To Pump -  a private office (either yours or a sympathetic coworkers), an empty office, a conference room, the restroom
• Get Support From Your Coworkers - Support from your coworkers, boss and employers goes a long way toward helping to make breastfeeding work for you while working.
• Commit to A Pumping Schedule – Try to pump at the same time every day. Your body will respond by giving you a good milk supply when you’re ready to express.
• Have Extra Pumping Supplies - Extra pumping horns, sterile containers, nursing pads and an all purpose blouse stashed in your office or cubicle can be the difference between a disaster and a blip in your work day.
• Storing Pumped Milk – There are lots of options for storing milk at work; the employee refrigerator, a mini fridge in your office or cubicle, or a cooler will all work just fine.

If you’ll be expressing and storing breast milk store it in the proper type of container. A mothers antibodies that reside in breast milk stick to many types of plastics and therefore cannot be passed on to the baby who needs them. Use bags designed for storing breast milk. They’re made of a type of plastic that reduces the loss of antibodies.

What If It’s Just Not Working?

If  breastfeeding while working outside the home isn’t working for you, I would encourage you to not give up. Start by talkiing to a lactation consultant. There may be a very simple fix that you’re not seeing.

If a lactation consultant isn’t an option for you then connect with a local support group or look for an online forum.

If you’re thinking about giving up you may be able to supplement your  breast milk with infant formula. Just don’t mix formula and breast milk in the same bottle. The advantage to storing your breast milk or supplementing it with formula is that other family members can be involved in feeding the new member of the family.

If you do decide that breastfeeding isn’t for you, I hope you won’t feel guilty about this. Breastfeeding isn’t for every mom. If you’re not going to be breastfeeding, you and the rest of your family will still be able to enjoy bonding with your new baby while bottle feeding.

Read the rest of this article geared towards working moms at About.com