Your Gemini Baby..

May 21 - June 20

Gemini children are lively youngsters who can seem to be everywhere at once! They can be precocious and are often chatterboxes. Your Gemini baby will love to explore and needs plenty of space to do so. In fact, a Gemini baby may become irritable if cooped up. Geminis are friendly and bright and alert. A young Gemini will enjoy playing with toys that involve using his hands and fingers and some Geminis may be ambidextrous.

Gemini children have lively imaginations and often live in a world where reality and imagination are mixed together. They are very inquisitive and will want to explore anything that takes their interest. Young Geminis will be interested in a wide variety of sports and will want to be friends with other children of both sexes.

When raising a Gemini you should ensure that he has the freedom to explore and investigate. Geminis need to be free to follow several interests at once and to be able to change direction. You will need to teach your child to distinguish between illusion and reality, encouraging him to tell the truth. Geminis are naturally honest but may avoid telling the truth as a defence against being misunderstood.

Young Geminis enjoy learning to communicate and can easily become bilingual if spoken to in different languages from an early age.

Typical Geminis may suffer from chest problems: coughs, colds and brochitis. They make little of any illness however, and dislike being confined to bed.

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Author: Tony Luck who runs a website about raising babies.

As you start having a family of your own, it is important to create Christmas traditions that make the holiday special for your family. As your children grow up, they will sincerely appreciate and have fond memories of the Christmas Traditions that you did year after year. And who knows, maybe they’ll carry those traditions over to their adult families. Here are some great tradition ideas that work well for families.

1) Go to Candlelight Christmas Eve Service.

2) Go Christmas caroling with your family, group of friends or church group.

3) Let the children open one present on Christmas Eve or if you get gifts in the mail from Grandparent’s, Aunts and Uncles, etc., let the kids open the gifts from out-of-town relatives on Christmas Eve. Some families give each child a pair of pajamas that they open on Christmas Eve so that they can wear them Christmas morning.

4) Make popcorn, hot chocolate, chestnuts or whatever food your family enjoys and then watch a Christmas movie like “It’s A Wonderful Life”, “Christmas Vacation”, “Charlie Brown Christmas” or “The Santa Clause.”

5) Buy your child, niece, nephew, etc. a unique tree ornament each year. They will have fun putting the ornaments on the tree each year and the ornament collection will be treasured when the kids grow up and have their own Christmas tree to decorate.

6) Drive around town to see all the beautiful Christmas lights and decorations.

7) Give back to the community and get in the Christmas spirit by involving your family in a charitable event or cause such as helping serve Christmas Eve dinner at a homeless shelter or buying presents for the local Angel tree. Perhaps let your child pick a child his/her age from the tree and then help you select a gift for that child.

Leave out cookies & milk for Santa & reindeer food for Santa’s deer outside on the lawn (pretzels, nuts, etc) before the kids go to bed on Christmas Eve.

9) Make Santa “footprints” from the door or fireplace to the tree or elsewhere in your house. After the kids go to bed, sprinkle baby powder or baking soda on a jelly roll pan, tray or on newspaper, then dip the bottoms of a pair of shoes/boots in the white powder and make prints on the floor. The kids will be thrilled to see evidence of Santa’s visit.

10) Create a Christmas memories book for your family where you document the events and happenings from each holiday season - be sure to include lots of pictures.

11) Bake a birthday cake and sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus to commemorate and remember what Christmas is all about.

12) Visit Santa Claus and get a photo of your entire family sitting on his lap. This makes an excellent photo for all those Christmas cards you send to family and friends.

Bill Smith is the owner of
http://www.holiday-gifts-gift-baskets.com which offers hundreds of Christmas gift ideas for the kids, family, co-workers, neighbors and more. Offering gourmet gift baskets, chocolate towers, cookies, popcorn, fruit, nuts, cheesecake, and more. Send them a memorable gift this Christmas from Holiday Gifts & Gift Baskets.

Bird flu is an infection caused by avian (bird) influenza (flu) viruses. These flu viruses occur among birds naturally. Wild birds all over the world carry the viruses in their intestines, but usually do not get sick from them. However, bird flu is extremely contagious among birds and can make some domesticated birds, including ducks, turkeys, and chickens, very sick and kill them.

Bird flu viruses do not usually infect humans, but several cases of human infection with bird flu viruses have occurred since 1997.

The World health Organization (WHO) issued a prophetic warning in December 2004. It claimed that if bird flu triggered the next pandemic, the virus would likely originate in Asia. This seems to becoming a harsh reality. As of September 2005, a total of 63 people have died in Southeast Asia. 11 countries have now fallen victim, as more and more people are infected and hospitalised.

“No government, no head of state can be taken unawares,” said WHO director general Lee Jong-Wook. “It is very important for all of us to be prepared…”

He advised countries should prepare for a pandemic by stockpiling antiviral drugs and positioning them in high-risk areas; intensifying efforts in vaccine development; and planning for massive economic and social disruptions.

Remember governments and wealthy commercial companies are rapidly buying supplies and stockpiling known antiviral drugs. It is prudent to start protecting your family now by ordering drugs such as Tamiflu®, as pharmaceutical companies are warning that stocks are quickly being depleted.

Studies of Oseltamivir (sold commercially as Tamiflu®, and manufactured by Roche Laboratories Inc.), show promise against H5N1 Influenza Virus - bird flu virus. The drug dramatically boosted the survival rate of infected mice.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), funded this mice research in mid - 2005 and the results are published online in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. British researchers reported finding H5N1 flu virus in the spinal fluid of a young boy who died of influenza in Vietnam earlier in the year 2005, an indication that H5N1 is able to infect the human brain.

Symptoms of bird flu in humans have ranged from typical flu-like symptoms (fever, cough, sore throat and muscle aches) to eye infections, pneumonia, severe respiratory diseases (such as acute respiratory distress), and other severe and life-threatening complications. The symptoms of bird flu may depend on which virus caused the infection.

Infected birds shed flu virus in their saliva, nasal secretions, and faeces. Susceptible birds become infected when they have contact with contaminated excretions or surfaces that are contaminated with excretions. It is believed that most cases of bird flu infection in humans have resulted from contact with infected poultry or contaminated surfaces.

The H5N1 virus currently infecting birds in Asia that has caused human illness and death is resistant to amantadine and rimantadine, two antiviral medications commonly used for influenza. Two other antiviral medications, Oseltamavir (Tamiflu®) and Zanamavir, are proving successful in the battle to treat flu caused by the H5N1 virus. Studies and research continue.

“In 1999, The US Food and Drug Administration approved these two new drugs that are effective for the treatment of both influenza A and influenza B. These drugs, called neuraminidase inhibitors, block the normal function of the viral neuraminidase.” (Source: NFID)

Tamiflu® (Roche Laboratories Inc.) and Relenza® (Glaxo Wellcome) are both drugs classified as neuraminidase inhibitors and do help protect you and your family.

The antiviral medication Tamiflu® was prescribed more often than any other during last year’s (2004) flu season. It is indicated for the treatment of influenza in patients 1 year and older who have had symptoms for no more than 2 days.

It attacks the influenza virus and stops it from spreading inside your body. Tamiflu® treats flu at its source by attacking the virus that causes the flu, rather than simply masking symptoms.

This antiviral is also indicated for the prevention of influenza in adults and adolescents 13 years and older.

Make contact with your doctor and ask if Tamiflu® is right for you for the treatment or prevention of flu. These drugs can be ordered online.

Tamiflu ® - The first known antiviral known to be effective against the Avian Flu. A tablet that is taken by mouth twice a day for 5 days. Should be used within 48 hours of onset of symptoms.

Relenza ® - The second known antiviral known to be effective against the Avian Flu. Inhaled as a powder twice a day for 5 days. A special device called a diskhaler is supplied with the medication.

In conclusion, the best methods for protecting you and your family, is to ensure that after taking advice from your health care provider, you become vaccinated. Purchase antiviral drugs and familiarise yourself with the new drug-free 3 minute Cold and Flu procedure, discovered by doctors after an accident with polio virus research.

Stay up to date with the excellent free information provided online by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (Center For Drug Evaluation And Research); World Health Organisation (WHO) and Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC).

Please remember, this article is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own physician, doctor or any other health care professional. The writer is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this article.

Steps to Keep Your Kids Safe - What Can and Can’t Be Done

Home security is about protecting your family, and the most overlooked means of entry is sitting in your living room…your computer…this article discusses the Commission for the Online Protection of Children’s recommended steps to keeping your children safe online…home security system, alarm, camera

There are many steps we could take to protect our children from unsuitable materials we see in everyday life. We could hide the newspaper from them so that they won’t see any articles or advertisements, throw away the television, trash the VCR, etc. Obviously, these are not the types of steps we want, nor should take. The Internet is a vast resource of good information for our children to use and to grow by. However, those sites and publishers of adult material know this also, and have a very powerful weapon at there disposal to use when the screws are tightened for them to clean up their act. That tool is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The First Amendment, for those of you who have been out of 8th grade Civics class for a while, gives Americans the right of free speech. This amendment does not state that we have the right to free, and suitable, speech; the right to speech suitable to all Americans, the right of speech that does not include pornography. This is what the adult entertainment industry uses as their defense to all encroachments on their ability to market and sell their materials. Government has been effective in a couple areas of entertainment in at least providing consumers with information that content may not be suitable for children as in movie ratings and parental advisory stickers on music. However, this does not prevent young children from purchasing or viewing this type of material. It also does not provide recourse back to the seller for this material being available for use to children.

The COPC has reviewed how other industries handle this problem, and have incorporated these same processes into their recommendations. There is currently software available to consumers that may be installed on your computer to block specific content from the Internet. This software will also provide reports that show attempts made to access sites. Some software will also allow access to sites to the point where explicit material is accessed, kicking the user off the Internet when that area is reached. This process is effective to a point. That point is where it interferes with the ability for a young user to gain valuable and useful information on a topic the software may see as offensive, including research on breast cancer (breast is a “lockout” word), other forms of reproductive cancers, etc. This type of material we want our children to be able to access. The software does not make it easy to add/remove words such as this, so it becomes a complex issue. The recommendation has also been made to add rating designations to websites. This presents basically the same issues experienced in the entertainment industry, with one exception. It is hard to verify that the person actually sitting at the computer is under 18 years of age. With the knowledge most of our children have today, it is not difficult to circumvent the system.

The COPC has also made recommendations to add domain names that reflect the content being marketed or distributed by the sites. This would include domains such as .XXX or .SEX for adult entertainment sites. Again, the First Amendment argument arises in that these domain names make it easier to filter out this material which they are free to distribute. It would also provide an unwanted designation on the site that would make it more recognizable as an adult entertainment site and drop the number of hits to the page. Recently this was rejected by the ICANN board in a 9 to 5 vote. The adult entertainment industry opposed it as “increased state control” &, oddly enough, anti-pornography advocates also opposed, believing it “legitimizes an illegitimate industry…”

In the last article in this series, I’ll state what the commission’s final recommendation is, as well as what other advocacy groups have to say on this issue.

©Walter Stone
Home Security Online
Security Systems, alarms, motion detectors
Read more on protecting your home.

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What is your main consideration when you are searching for gifts for a newborn baby or an infant

When we are hunting for gift ideas for babies and infants, one of the main consideration is to get a gift that can stimulate the baby’s development of the brain or his co-ordination of reflexes, and thus help him in the development of his 5 senses as a baby.

Here are some ideas that are helpful:

1. Give the baby a gift of “mobiles”. Mobiles refers to those toys that you can dangle or hang from the ceiling or attached to a cot. There are two predominant choice of colors for these mobile toys. You can either choose a combination of colors to stimulate the brain or you can decide on a black and white theme which has been found to provide opportunities for the baby to learn how to contrast shapes. Adding some ribbons that move when blown by the wind is also an excellent idea, and will look colorful and inviting to the baby. It is important that the mobile be out of reach of the baby though.

2. Provide an activity center or activity gym for the baby during floor time. Activity centers do cost money but they can be used for a longer period of time and until the baby becomes a toddler. Select an activity center that allows you to add your own material toys and to add on to it. Activity centers and gyms encourage the development of baby’s motor reflexes and coordination,

3. Mirrors- Get a plastic mirror for safety, and not glass mirror. Your baby will be greatly entertained to see his own image, and his own movements.

4. Books - When choosing books for babies and infants, choose those that have simple pictures with very little or even no words. If you are making your own books, you can make a book of your family tree or with photographs of the brother or sister or the aunt or uncle who lives far away or overseas. You can provide information on them when talking to your baby and showing him the photographs.

You can also make a texture book. A texture book will contain cut ups of different materials that can be kept in a scrapbook for your baby to feel and learn the different textures and shapes.

Give gifts that are useful and enjoy the laughter of the babies when they play with those gifts!

Peter Lim is a Certified Financial Planner and webmaster. If you are looking for answers to problems affecting your baby or kids, or for more useful and free parenting ideas and tips, visit “The Complete Parenting Guide” at http://parenting-guide.dynamic-resources.info