The First Years Last Forever

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

 

*The First Years Last Forever*

As a mother feeds her child, she gazes lovingly into his eyes. A father talks gently to his newborn daughter as he changes her diaper. A caregiver sings a child to sleep. 

These everyday moments, these simple, loving encounters, provide essential nourishment. Just as their bodies need food to grow, science now tells us that the positive emotional, physical, and intellectual experiences that a baby has in the earliest years are equally necessary for the growth of a healthy brain.

At birth, the infant's brain has 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons. These neurons will grow and connect with other neurons in systems that control other functions like seeing, hearing, moving, and expressing emotion. These systems, activated by repeated experiences, provide foundation for the brain's organization and functioning throughout life. The absence of appropriate activation results in the lack of development or the disappearance of these connections.

At birth, the brain is remarkably unfinished. The parts of the brain that handle thinking and remembering, as well as emotional and social behaviour, are very underdeveloped. The fact that the brain matures in the world, rather than in the womb, means that young children are deeply affected by their early experiences. Their relationship with parents and other important caregivers, the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings they experience, they challenges they meet - these don't just influence their moods. These experiences actually affect the way children's brains become "wired."

Recognize that each child is different. How to you react when they do something bad can have negative effects. Use discipline as an opportunity to teach. Establish routines and rituals. Take care of yourself. When you feel overwhelmed, take care of yourself. Reach out and get some help. When you make a mistake, as all parents do, you have many opportunities to make up for it. The new brain research informs us of the vital importance of the relationship between parents and child in the first years of life, and affords us a wonderful opportunity to enrich the lives of our children and help them realize their full potential.

............The first years truly last forever.

    *Much Love*

    

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

     Wow! I haven't blogged in awhile! I am getting rusty (lol!) Things are busy at home with Jaa being gone and only home on weekends it's hard to find time to sit down in front of the computer, and when I do get the chance to time for myself I usually just relax and rest my brain from to much thinking. There's a few new things in store for us; Jaa got a big raise at work and we are all so thrilled! We're able to save a huge amount of money on the last little while..it's our "Bora Bora Vacation" fund as we like to call it. Braelan is doing great in Preschool. They recently had a Halloween party and Jaa went with him. We're still trying to conceive and it's been a long, frustrating ride BUT we're not giving up..yet. I joked about maybe returning to work full time and maybe then fate will turn and get us pregnant, how awesome would that be?! 

    We are getting a pug puppy! We saw her on November 5th, 2010 and she is just adorable! There were 2 fawn females and 2 black males. We fell in love with the cutest most adorable little fawn female and have decided to name her Penny. We will be picking her up on November 12th, 2010 when she ready to come home. I just know she is going to be spoiled, BUT training is still a must. Everything she has is pink and we love it! The breeder was very nice and intelligent, she had been breeding for 9 years...that's a lot of experience! Her prices are fairly decent, the parents of the puppy are CKC Registered but the pups aren't..but that is OK. 

    Over all it has been a busy and eventful October. November is going to be busy as well but I'm sure time will fly. We are looking forward to December when Jaa gets to take some time off work and be with us. We will continue to try and conceive another child and hopefully we'll succeed. 

*Much Love*,

    

For Love is the most powerful word and action, man was ever taught; Love is what we are and children are the greatest gift of Love.

       We have recently redecorated our 55 gallon fresh water fish tank, one week ago today. We've added some fine white sand and more live plants. Our fish tank is a cozy home for our two Angelfish, one Three-spot Gourami, one gold Gourami, one Opaline Gourami, one Pearl Gourami, one Pleco, and two Shubunkins. The tank has a wood trim and the stand also coordinates with the fish tank. We scored pretty big when we bought this tank! We got it second hand from a lady in Bashaw, AB back in April 2010. She had to downsize her tank because the 55 gallon wouldn't fit in the office where she wants the fish tank to go. She paid over $1000 US dollars for both the tank and the stand together plus the gravel and all the gadgets she had to have in able to run a fish tank. BUT guess how much she sold it to us??? She gave it to us for $150 (Canadian) cash! We were astounded! There was absolutely nothing wrong with the tank, no leak, no broken pieces, it was absolutely in 110% excellent condition! 

   (ABOVE) This was the set up that we had when we first got the tank. Of course the picture was taken a few weeks later. I loved the very natural looking gravel/pebbles. We bought more plants, most were fake because we had a Jack Dempsey that would probably ravage live plants. He did manage to pull the plants and dig the gravel but we would always fix it right away. Sadly, we got rid of our Jack Dempsey because we miss having a nice community tank instead. We still had our 37 gallon running which was the previous home to our  two tiny angelfish and three-spot gourami. We've just recently added the gold, pearl, and opaline gouramis 2 months ago. 

   When we first got this tank it had an undergravel filtration which we didn't like the most for biological reasons (if you google and research you will know why.) Some people prefer it but we personally don't. We bought a Top Fin 60 Dual Filter from PetSmart and also added an extra Top Fin 15 filter on the left side so that we would have a good filter system in our tank. 

    We change all our filters once every 3 weeks and do a water change once every week. This method has worked for us for the last 6 months and all our fish stayed healthy and happy. Below you will see a few pictures of the tank and some our pet fish.

     This is a little bit of a close up photo of the tank. I had the flash turned on so it created a very different image. We have a mixture of both fake and live plants but I think eventually we will get rid of some of the fake plants and stick with live plants which is beneficial to the fish' environment.

   We chose to keep the gravel along with the white sand and create a very different looking set up. We also made the left side dense with more plants and the right side with just wispy plants like the corkscrew val and small ludwigia. We also have a couple live horn worths and sword plants.

This is Lulu, Jaa's black Angelfish.

more of Lulu.

Here you'll see Lemon, my yellowish/gold Angelfish. 

more of Lemon...and a little bit the the pearl gourami on the right side!

   

   We've had Lulu and Lemon since beginning of April 2010. They were half the size of what they are now! We love them so much and they definitely have distinguished personalities than the other fish. They remember us and seem to interact with us when we are looking at them. It's really hard to explain without sounding like a crazy fish owner HAHA! 

Pearl Gourami

Haha, it's really hard to see and identify them here if you've never seen our fish before. The fish you see to the right is the Gold Gourami. If you look closely in the middle you will a fish looking right at the camera, that is the three-spot Gourami. If you look just above the three-spot gourami you will see a blue and white marble looking fish (you can't see its head, just the body), that is the Opaline Gourami.

Three-spot Gourami close up.

Our fish' are so funny! Everytime they see us standing in front of the tank they all gather in front because they think its feeding time! Like the photo you see above.

   Another we bought for our tank is a Moonlight Lighting System for 55 gallon tanks. We bought it on eBay for $50, you will find a bunch of different types but I would only buy from someone who knows exactly what he's talking about. Our MLS did not come from China, it came from the US and was made in the US so it's guaranteed to work and last for a very long time. It's basically a set of blue LED lights that serves as a Moonlight lighting at night. It's definitely better than turning the fluorescent light off completely at night. FYI..you have to do this in able for your fish to distinguish the difference between light and day. If your fish is constantly on the bright light it might stress them. Think of the ocean, the sun isn't always shining down. The moonlight system was definitely a great buy because not only does it provide some lighting to the tank but any light colored fish or gravel or plants or rocks that you have in your tank will glow. It is very nice for night viewing only. 

     The pictures are a little hard to capture at night due to the fact that blue lights are a little harder to see or look at. Other than that it is beautiful!

   Anyway, our 55 gallon fish tank will be around for awhile unless we upgrade to a bigger tank eventually. We have spent quite a bit of money to maintain our tank but mostly I think because we buy fish, plants, and decorations for it. We wanted our tank to look as natural as possible not crazy-like with multi-colored gravel and outrageous decorations. It's something we love to do as a hobby and something that we are very proud of! :)

*Much Love!*