Self Improvement

A Day of Love

Mother’s Day is a special holiday occasion when people show their love, respect, and admiration for mom. Celebrated every year, Mother’s Day is an occasion when individuals express their love and respect that they have for their mother. On Mother’s Day you can tell your Mom that she will always be important to you all and that you will continue to love her for ever.

Everyone has a mother and everyone’s life is affected by the mother child relationship.

It is a time of breakfast in bed, family gatherings, and crayon scribbled “I Love You’s”. The time to give back to your mother a fraction of the love and care that she showered on you all her life. She is usually regarded with much love and affection, as the benign, loving presence in our childhood. She cares for us and loves us, and her patience is near boundless.

Wondering how to express your love for your beloved and caring Mother? On Mother’s Day, we honor our mothers and pay tribute to their devoted work and selfless gift of love. A mother’s love inspires children to achieve their full potential and strengthens the character of our country.

Since a child’s basic personality is formed in the first year of life, a mother’s role cannot be underestimated – she makes us what we are. The commitment and love of mothers reflect the best of America.

How to Appreciate Mother

For most mothers, appreciation takes the form of knowing that they are loved, respected and held in high regard. Gifts are nice but it is the underlying consideration and return of love that is important. And if the gift is long lived, it reminds mother of her special place in the family throughout the year.

In 1872, Julia Ward Howe — a reformer who wrote the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic– suggested the idea of a Mothers Day dedicated to peace. With mothers day coming soon many of us are trying to find that perfect gift or something creative to do for our mom, why not just make it simple like a cup of hot rich tea delivered to mother as part of breakfast in bed.

You can also make this Mothers Day truly special by sending a delicious Mothers Day tea gift. The perfect Mothers Day Gifts are now available online so you can order at your convenience in the comfort of your own home. So now you have no excuse to not wish your mother happy Mothers Day.

Traditional versus Unique Gifts

Traditional gifts like flowers, candy and Mother’s Day dinner are nice but short lived.

Finding a gift that is practical yet serves as a reminder throughout the year is a better way of expressing your appreciation. A tea gift set or sampler is thoughtful and long lasting and each cup will bring pleasant memories of the celebration of Mother’s Day.

Show mother that you have put thought into her gift by offering her a healthy, enjoyable tea gift that she will remember.

Why Tea?

Tea is consumed by more health-conscious people and in greater quantity than any beverage except water. Tea is made with tea leaves from the Camellia Sinensis plant which is an evergreen related to the camellia and indigenous to Assam India and also parts of China and Japan. Tea makes a great gift in the form of tea, iced teas, tea gift boxes, tea gift baskets, tea pots, tea clubs and recipes.

Tea is the perfect way to start and end the day. It provides energy in the morning and serenity at night and reduces stress throughout the day. Lower in caffeine and higher in anti-oxidants than coffee, tea is often part of a healthy, stress free lifestyle.

Tea gifts have always been a bracing experience for everyone. A Mother’s Day tea gift can include a little bit of all of Mom’s favorites including high quality flavored tea, honey, tea brewers, mugs, tea clubs and other accessories. Give Mom a gift that will help her relax with a perfect Mothers Day tea gift that is now available online.

Shop online for: flavored tea gifts, traditional tea gifts, green tea gifts, herbal tea gifts, decaffeinated tea gifts, decaf tea gifts, caffeine free tea gift, iced tea gifts, loose tea gifts, tea gift boxes, tea gift baskets, tea pots, tea accessories, and America’s number one specialty tea flavor, Coconut Pouchong tea.

Marcus Stout is President of the Golden Moon Tea Company. For more information about green tea,tea gift sets and chai tea go to goldenmoontea.com

Taking toxic materials out of the nursery is becoming a top priority for new parents. Creating a green nursery just makes sense since your delicate little one will spend up to 17-hours a day in there! Consider everything your baby comes in contact with and choose your nursery furnishings with natural, organic materials in mind.

Use Non-Toxic Paints and Finishes– Before baby comes home from the hospital you can start preparing your green nursery. Painting should be done at least a month before the new addition arrives and it should be done by someone other than a pregnant mom. Avoid residual toxic chemicals found in typical paints and finishes by choosing Zero VOC or Low VOC options. Babies are particularly vulnerable to the dangers of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) found in common commercial oil and water based paints.

Using healthy non-toxic paints and finishes for the creation of an organic baby nursery is a must. The crib is your baby’s “home” and needs to be as pure as possible in every way. Choose real wood and natural finishes.

Choose Safe Flooring– You can be sure your baby will spend a lot of time on the floor, so stay away from new carpeting. Instead choose natural and hard surfaced flooring like wood (with a low VOC sealant), linoleum or cork. Hard surfacing is easier to maintain and less likely to trap potential contaminants than wall-to-wall carpeting. If an area rug is needed, be aware that VOC’s can be found in carpet backing, adhesives and the fibers themselves, as well as stain or water resistant treatments that have been applied to the carpet. Make sure to choose natural fibers and untreated options.

Choose Organic Baby Clothes, Organic Bedding and Natural Toys– Choose certified organic cotton that’s been untreated, unbleached, and unprocessed for bed sheets, baby clothes and toys your baby will use. Also make sure that colored dyes in the fabric have all-natural ingredients derived from nature’s plants and minerals.

Make sure your baby sleeps on an organic mattress that is free of dangerous flame retardant chemicals like the Green Nest organic crib mattresses, which are made from certified wool, natural rubber and organic cotton.

In 2007, 12 million children’s toys were recalled. Be aware of imported toys from China, which may contain lead, a neurotoxin. But that’s not the only toy hazard. Most toys sold in major toy stores are made from plastics. Plastic is a major contributor to indoor air pollution. There are many natural cloth and wood toys available on the Internet.

Use Safe Baby Bottles– Bisphenol-A is a hormone-disrupting chemical considered to be potentially harmful to human health and the environment and is found in common plastic baby bottles. It has been known that scratched and worn polycarbonate feeding bottles will leach Bisphenol-A into liquids. Studies have been shown that very low levels of Bisphenol-A in a baby can cause behavioral effects like hyperactivity, and impaired learning. Make sure to use BPA free plastic baby bottles or glass bottles for feeding your baby.

It may not always be possible to determine which materials are used in nursery products, or their safety, but there is one tool you have that you can rely on to evaluate any product—your nose. If the smell bothers you, it will bother your baby, so don’t put it in the nursery. Once you have a natural, organic, green nursery, keep it safe by using only natural and nontoxic cleaning products and pest controls.

A good book for parents and children is ?My Body My House? by Lisa Beres. Lisa and Ron Beres are Building Biologists, Certified Green Building Professionals and the founders of http://www.GreenNest.com. Get FREE healthy home tips at http://greennest.namasteinteractive.com/sweeps3_holiday/subscribe.htm

I went looking for Mother’s Day articles for my blog and ezines. I write my own stuff, but I wanted to see what the temperature would be this year. As I perused the article warehouses, I found there wasn’t much, and what there was, was defensive.

One site I scanned had poetry submitted by readers. The titles? “Mom, Give Me My Baby Back,” “So Much to Forgive,” and “I Know I Was Difficult to Raise.” Young women seemed to want their mothers to back off, while men were characteristically silent. If there’s one subject both sacred and profane, it’s a grown man and his mother.

Most men struggle for years trying to manage the women in their lives: the mother, the wife, the daughter. He loves them all, and cannot please them all. In fact pleasing one will often displease the other. It takes EQ and maturity to maneuver this land-mined territory, to appreciate the plenty, and dole out his attention with confidence. The place of the mother? He loved her first and has loved her the longest. More true today than ever before, with the divorce rate at 50%, and the fact that daughters often alienate from their father when he remarries. “Blood is thicker than water,” my middle-aged client told me, as he faced losing not just his wife, but her family, and all their in-common friends as well. “My mother told me that,” he said. Then he added, “But who ever listens to your mother.”

As the proverb goes, “When you die, your sister’s tears will dry as time goes on, your widow’s tears will end in another’s arms , but your mother will mourn you until the day she dies.”

But how yuchy. How unmanly. Well, that, too, needs to be worked out.

There were some sentimental poems of praise, but they read phoney. “You were always there when I needed you”? No one can ever be that. That’s simply not possible. “You will always be my mom”? Yes, in the grand sense. No, in the other sense, at least for those of us who don’t try and steal our grown children’s babies and lives. But, yes, the feeling will always be there, packed away in the place where we put the deep feelings we had, have, for relationships the nature of which has changed. My little boys are somewhere with their father, my ex, with my own mom and dad, now deceased, and a few others.

The silence is both sacred and profane. The love too great to write about, and the anger too uncomfortable to think about. Let’s use a child-like word - “hate.” Well, you can’t hate your mother, that’s all there is to it. That we spent a fair portion of our childhood being thwarted by her, as it seems to us as children, and therefore quite angry with her, is something we certainly wouldn’t want to talk about on Mother’s Day, but which will certainly come to mind, so we are silent.

We all harbor within that shrieking, finger pointing School M’arm who visited in our home at times, ready to crack us across the knuckles with a ruler, or worse. She took away whatever we wanted and loved - the kitten, staying up late, the “inappropriate” boyfriend, the spandex mini, THE FREEDOM.

To confuse things, our home was also visited by the Angel of Mercy, by Kwan Yin, the goddess of compassion, the One Who Comforts. Yes. She comforted us, the hardest thing on this earth to come by.

We seek it later in drugs, alcohol, strangers in the night, therapists, counselors, and ministers, as well as in prescription medication, yoga, mystical experiences, running, massage, and music.

That anxious, scratchy feeling we live with, which is a combination of physiological reaction, emotions and thoughts we call stress, is harder to assuage as we age, and we live in a society that’s particularly opposed to the idea of a need for soothing. We would rather sweep it under the rug, endure our heart attacks and keep going.

It’s as if we thought if someone took a 15 minute break during the day and sat in a rocking chair with a headset on, listening to Rachmaninoff, well, next thing you know, they’d be sucking their thumb and crying, or, worse, would never return to work.

Other cultures build more time into the day for soothing, like a long lunch hour, where everyone goes home for a visit with loved ones, a good meal, a nap, who knows what. Few of us in the US will ever know. One term being used these days is “cocooning,” which is nice, because it doesn’t raise alarm that we’re all infants inside and likely to crumble at the slightest mention of that fact. Having recently moved to a new city, a big metropolis, I’ve noted that the large skyscrapers have a masseuse on-site – for the whole deal, or just a “chair massage,” with charges by the minute. I see this service being used.

It isn’t “infantile” to react physiologically to stress by wanting to get the heck out of there. Like every other living creature, we like to feel good, and things, and others, and deadlines, and crabby people, and nasty tones of voice, and worries plague us and make us feel otherwise.

We want to feel smooth, with no negative emotions. We want out nerves and emotions soothed, comforted, smoothed out. Where is Kwan Yin when we need her most?

Mothers have it easy, because to comfort an infant is pure reflex, and feels just as good to the mom as to the infant. After that, once the infant is perambulatory, it is never so easy again, but every infant remembers, and every mother as well, and hopefully we learn a little emotional intelligence of our own.

So we get rid of that school m’arm finally, and take off on our own, and find a partner and set up our own home, and we don’t miss the school m’arm, not at all, but the angel of mercy? What an ache. The partner can’t quite get it right. He reaches out when you want to be left alone. She talks when you want silent understanding. He tries to hug you when your nerves are on edge. She won’t let you get physical when that’s the only thing that would help.

Mom would’ve known exactly what to do. Or so we think, in retrospect.

That part is true, or partly true. I generally knew what my sons needed. I might not be able to supply it at the time for various reasons, ranging from being busy with something else crucial, to not being there at all, to sensing they would fight my ministrations as “infantilizing,” but I knew. Perhaps more importantly, I cared. I would have soothed and comforted them if I could have, and/or if they would have let me. I saw they were upset and I cared. Sometimes you can go days without having that happen in your adult life.

Of all relationships, the mother one is the most complex, because it’s the most primitive. We knew when we entered this world we could not survive without her. Therefore it mattered a lot what she did.

I hope your mom was “good enough,” that she got it right most of the time, and you knew she cared. Most of us, once we have kids of our own, get a big “ah hah” about the whole thing. I remember standing in the kitchen one day with the 6 year old screaming for help with some toy, and the infant just screaming, and their father screaming in his own way for something else, thinking, “Oh. Now I see. That must’ve been going on that time my mom forgot to pick me up at school.”

Actually we work on this into adulthood. At one point my mother said, “I knew you were hurting, but there was nothing I could do.” One day, in respect to my own grown child, I grew into an understanding of that as well. I had felt abandoned by my mother, and knew my son was going to feel abandoned by me. However, she did care, she listened, and she knew, in her wisdom, that anything more she might do would be moving in and taking over my life, which neither one of us would ever forgive. Now it was going the other way.

My mom and I, we had our good times and our bad. My feelings about her will always be ambivalent, and strongly so. That’s how most of us feel about our moms. But I feel about her very deeply, beyond words.

That’s why there’s so little written about it. It’s too important.

So go ahead and celebrate Mother’s Day with all your various feelings, just like the rest of us, acknowledging what is rarely written – that it’s probably the most emotional ‘occasion’ on the year’s calendar. My son will be coming over at noon to take me out for lunch. I’m really glad he’s coming. I just hope he chooses a decent restaurant, not one of those …

JUST KIDDING!!

?Susan Dunn, M.A., Life Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc Specialty-dating coaching. Susan offers a coach training and certification program. No residency requirement. Drop-in coaching, short or long-term in all areas.