Home And Family USA

Before children enter our lives, our houses are sometimes disorganized. Once children come along, the disorganization can turn into clutter and a pure mess. That certainly held true for me once I had a baby. Suddenly, my house was clean, but cluttered with baby toys and items everywhere. I couldn’t keep up with working and raising a child. I was content if only half of the house had baby toys scattered about. Parents spend so much time putting thought into what kind of baby toys should be purchased and what should be overlooked. Every parent wants their child to have lots of educational baby toys to begin life with. I was one of them. I didn’t want my daughter to have anything but educational toys. I was a big fan of her learning her colors and alphabet way before any of the other children. I didn’t think about the fact that she needed to learn how to be a child too.

Baby toys are sold everywhere these days. You can shop the expensive stores and find gently used toys at yard sales and consignment shops. It always depends on how much money you want to spend for your child. I was not always able to afford to buy the brand new expensive baby toys. When I was pregnant, I registered for many baby toys hoping to cut down my own costs for the future. I was lucky enough to get most of the ones on my list. I also found many of my daughter’s baby toys at neighborhood yard sales. I admit, many of those toys that I managed to find were educational in some manner. I chose baby toys with bright colors and different shapes. That was important to me.

When looking for baby toys or toys for any young child, you should not always get educational or fun toys. Some toys should stimulate their minds and help them develop their intellectual skills. The other toys should revolve around simply playing. Now that my daughter is a toddler, she no longer needs baby toys that teach the simple basics. I do owe some of her knowledge and early learning skills to her baby toys. Now that she is into older toys she still does learn things. For example, her kitchen set has lots of food and dining items. She’s grasped a concept of setting a table and what foods go with what foods. She’s developed an imagination and likes to play “pretend” now as well. I adore watching her.

While I do credit many of her baby toys for giving her a wonderful head start, a lot has to do with what you allow your child to do. Allow them to explore and develop a creative imagination. They will thank you for it someday.

The laws are changing regarding the entrance into Canada and Mexico from the United States. People are now required to have a passport to cross the borders. In the past a driver’s license or birth certificates were suggested, however they were rarely checked. We live in the state of Minnesota so there are many opportunities to cross the border into Canada. Our next door neighbor’s are retired so they spend the winter months in Texas, so they go across the border often. They went to get their passports and have run into quite a problem.

To begin with my neighbor has had a rocky relationship with her mother for her entire life. Her mother has made it very clear that she never wanted a girl. My neighbor’s mother is now 93 years old and has been on her death bed for five years. She tells my neighbor how much she enjoys when her sons come to visit, but she rarely says anything about my neighbor driving four hours to visit her twice a month. My neighbor has a healthy attitude about this poor relationship with her mother, and she does not let it affect her life.

When the neighbors went to get their passports they had their birth certificates and other documents that are required. They were told that the birth certificates had to be certified copies from the county that the birth was recorded in. My neighbor’s husband had his, but she had the certificate that is given out from the hospital with the footprints on it. These are considered souvenir birth certificates and cannot be used for legal documents. My neighbor contacted the county that she was born in and they sent the certified copy of her record of birth. In the location for the name it stated baby girl. The souvenir certificate had her name on it, but not the official certificate. My neighbor did not think this was going to be a problem because all the other information matched.

When she took both birth certificates back to obtain the passport she was told that she needed to show prove that she was baby girl. They told her a copy of her marriage certificate would work, but she is married a second time so her maiden name is not on her current marriage certificate so that the two last names are not linked. She has contacted the drivers license bureau to get a copy of the original drivers license that she had with her maiden name, but that was so many years ago they could not locate it. She did locate her high school transcripts and have had them sent over to the passport bureau. This process has taken several weeks so most of us now refer to her as baby girl. She states that even from her death bed her mother is making it known that she never planned on having a girl because she did not even have a name picked out when she went to the hospital.