What Mom wouldn’t want to know the best secrets to create a fun-filled holiday season without wearing herself out? The life of a mom during the holidays is beyond hectic, with many women finding themselves hosting one winter holiday and traveling to another. The hectic pace of having it all leaves Moms scrambling for everything from presents for teachers to a well-stocked fridge before the relatives arrive. To help families enjoy the five weeks spanning the Winter Holidays with all their charm and wonder, Moms need to plan ahead. Check out Mickey’s Holiday Planning Guide and Calendar on www.MickeyDVD.com for scheduling solutions for a Happy Holiday Season.

Tackle the November Trio — get ahead of the game now!
Three important tasks must be accomplished by December 4 to allow room for holiday fanfare.

1. Write holiday cards now.
   Purchase cards, reproduce a family photo, write your holiday letter, address envelopes, and assemble. Thanksgiving weekend, let your children help stamp and apply return address labels and then drop them in the mail with plenty of time for your loved ones to enjoy. 

    

2. Review your Gift List and tackle it now.
   You will save time and money with preseason sales. Take it one step further and shop online. You can finish it all in one sitting and relax while gifts are shipped prewrapped! 

    

3. Take inventory of your holiday décor now.
   The stores are stocked to fill in the gaps so you are ready to go when the time comes.

Apply the Rule of One
One holiday social event per weekend, that is. And when you accept an invitation, contact your babysitter immediately so you won’t find yourself scrambling. We tend to over schedule during the holidays and then wonder why the season feels more like a treadmill than a celebration. With her planner in hand, Mom can carefully commit everyone’s time, leaving room for winter sports, the usual tour of weekend birthdays, commitments at your place of worship, and just plain hang-time to enjoy the warmth of your own home and family. While you are scheduling, review all school holiday performances and events with your partner so if needed, time off can be requested now and sitters for younger siblings can be arranged. If simultaneous events occur, have each partner take one event so everyone is covered with an adoring adult.

Family Traditions
Winter holidays just can’t commence without a huge batch of your family’s favorite cookies to start the season off right. This year it might be Daisy’s Sugar Cookies (visit “Just for Mom” at www.MickeyDVD.com for a great recipe). Maybe you decorate your home Thanksgiving weekend, or maybe you believe in Santa and visit him at the mall every year Christmas week. You need to schedule these celebrations to make sure they occur, just as they do every year, while you zoom through the fun. Offer your children the rituals you cherished as a child. Tell them why these rituals are special and together, start some of your own. You can create a Family Traditions Book where you record each activity with its history and then add to it through the years. Your children will grow to love this routine and you will offer a legacy for their children to cherish someday as well.

Act from the Heart
Teach your children the significance of their affections by encouraging personalized, handmade gifts for their favorite friends and teachers. Offer your child a choice between activities such as baking cookies or decorating candle votives. Check out some of Mickey’s craft ideas and resources at “Just for Mom” on www.MickeyDVD.com and schedule family time. Be careful not to curb your child’s creativity with a drive for perfect presentation. Remember the lesson here is showing the value of heartfelt gestures for gift-giving occasions. Go one step further and have your children sort through their toys and offer items outgrown or less favored to local charities. Throw away anything broken and help your children deliver their gifts to their charity of choice.

Entertain Early
Remember flu season? It’s back just in time for the holidays. Murphy’s law dictates that on the very day you have your annual open house for 75 friends and neighbors, someone under your roof will have a fever. So what’s a mother’s best defense? Entertain early in the holiday season and be prepared ahead of time so you can handle last-minute challenges such as this. Have your event before the season gets the best of you. Then you can enjoy the preparations to welcome loved ones to your home. By minimizing last-minute party tasks, you will build in time to handle the unexpected bumps life always hands us. And if you have to reschedule the entire event, remember it’s not the end of the world.

About the Author:
By Molly Gold, nationally known scheduling expert and creator of The Go Mom Planner. Molly has been featured on Good Morning America and her articles have been featured in Better Homes and Gardens, Woman’s Day and numerous other women’s magazines. For fun games, activities and family fun visit MickeyDVD.com.

In actuality, infant development experts have discovered that your behavior – how you interact and respond to your baby – is the key to stimulating your infant’s emotional and intellectual growth. During his first years, your baby’s brain will develop billions of pathways. Everything that your infant sees, hears, or touches during his earliest years of life will strengthen these pathways. As the pathways mature in your baby’s brain, they will enable your baby to think, learn and eventually talk.

To stimulate growth, infants don’t require expensive toys; they learn by doing. In addition to loving, nurturing care, what they most need are new things to try. Therefore, if you want to provide nourishment for your infant’s mind, offer experiences that stimulate your baby’s senses, as well as encourage his interaction with his surroundings. For example, holding, cuddling, playing, talking and other similar kinds of nurturing activities all stimulate brain development. And they are all free!

Here are six simple ways you can support your baby’s healthy development:

Language
Talk to your baby to help him develop language skills. Long before babies begin to form words, they are learning language and creating “conversations.” Encourage your baby’s vocabulary to grow by repeating the sounds he makes back to him. Play a face-to-face game as you interact. Enunciate each word clearly so he can see how your mouth moves. Imitate your baby’s sounds and gestures, and add to them. When he makes a certain sound, tell him actual words that start with that sound. Then, pause for a moment and give him a chance to respond.

Touch
Touch is one of your baby’s most effective methods for exploring and learning about the world around her. Your baby’s hands are her first tools, and she will be fascinated by what they can do. Not only will she use her hands to explore new and interesting objects, she will use them to become aware of the boundaries of her own body. Let your baby touch and handle a variety of textured and smooth objects, as long as they are nontoxic and safe. Try materials that are gentle to the touch, such as velvet, fur, silk, or terry cloth. Wooden building blocks, plastic balls, rubber squeak toys, cloth books, or crumpled paper can also provide another set of interesting textures.

Scents
Introduce scents to your baby since pleasant aromas will enhance his sensory awareness. Try lotions, perfumes or after shave—any mild pleasing scents. Use everyday activities to explore the discovery of scents. For example, while you are cooking, let him smell the cinnamon, then the vanilla, or cut up pieces of fragrant fruit or fresh herbs and hold them under his nose. When you are outdoors, introduce him to the scents of nature. Let him feel the soft petals and smell the fragrance of fresh blossoms or cut grass.

Play!
Floor games offer a wide variety of play options, as well as the opportunity for your baby to perfect her new motor skills. Since babies are fascinated by objects that move, use brightly colored balls for bouncing and rolling fun. As your baby gains better physical control, try placing one or two colorful toys just out of her reach. Give her a few minutes, and see if she wiggles or scoots forward while trying to reach the toys.

Rhyme Time!
Recite nursery rhymes. Rhymes and poems that demonstrate an up-and-down rhythm and tone emphasize the musical characteristics of language. Rhymes will help your infant link certain words with certain actions. In combination with gestures, rhymes will also aid in improving your child’s memory and anticipation skills. As your child grows older, these familiar nursery rhymes will also help in the beginning phases of reading. So, build a repertoire of songs and rhymes, and sing, say, or play them frequently.

Get Silly!
Silly face games are great fun for you and your baby. Different facial expressions and sounds help develop your baby’s vision and hearing. Sing a song and use exaggerated facial movements and gestures. Smile wide, act surprised, blink your eyes, or wiggle your nose. Make different sounds—pop air through your cheeks, yawn, or sneeze. You can even make peek-a-boo toys out of cardboard toilet paper tubes and paper towel cylinders. The more animated you act the more delighted your baby will be.

Always celebrate and praise each little step your baby achieves as he develops. By recognizing his behavior, he will learn that his actions matter. Acknowledge his attempts as well as his accomplishments, since both are equally important. As you consistently validate his achievements, you will also help him to establish a positive self-image, which is critical to the development of his personality. If you give your baby the opportunity to develop this positive awareness of himself right from the earliest stages of his life, his feelings of success will further his incentive to achieve.

About the Author:
Susan Stelfox, mother of one, is the author of Baby Be Loved: Growing and Learning Together During the First 24 Weeks. To learn more about infant bonding and play visit http://www.BabyBeLoved.com