Astro Boy (McDonalds toy)

My friend and i went to mcdonalds and i got this lame toy in my happy meal!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp6oqrJiuiw&hl=en

Potty Training Trials and Triumphs - One Mother's Story

If you are struggling with stress, frustration or anxiety over potty training your child or bedwetting, you are not alone. I am hoping that by sharing my story I can help you find the encouragement you need to put your mind at ease.

Here is my story.

I thought potty training my son was going to be the death of me! I read all the books, did all the research, spoke to his pediatrician and thought I was prepared for this new challenge.

When he was 18 months old we bought a potty chair. I introduced it to him and let him explore it on his own. As the books I had read suggested, I looked for signs that he was ready to begin learning how to use the potty.

Showing discomfort in a soiled diaper.
Asking to have his diaper changed.
Telling me immediately after soiling his diaper.
Demonstrating the ability to stay dry for longer periods of time.

He never showed any of these signs. When it came time for his two year old check-up I spoke to his pediatrician about the lack of progress. His doctor assured me that everything was fine and that it would happen when my son was ready.

For the next year, I tried everything that was suggested to me: sticker charts, rewards, books, music, videos, you name it. If somebody told me it worked for them, I tried it.

Finally, on my birthday and just two weeks before my son's third birthday, he went pee in the potty for the very first time. We celebrated this huge accomplishment with lots of hugs and kisses, clapping and silly dancing which my son loved. Then I realized that this was just the beginning. We still had a long way to go before we could say that he was officially potty trained.

Very slowly, over the course of the next year I was able to get my son fully trained to go pee in the potty. Bowel movements, however, were quite a different thing. Much to my surprise, I learned that my son is prone to constipation. Unfortunately, I found this out the hard way. He never exhibited any recognizable signs of constipation. This constipation seriously complicated matters. What began to happen was a vicious cycle. My son began to find bowel movements painful as a result of the constipation. In order to try to avoid the pain he would hold the bowel movements back. In holding them back he was allowing them to grow bigger, making them more painful to get out. Despite my best efforts, the cycle continued.

After a phone call to the pediatrician's office I promptly put my son on a low sugar, high fiber diet. I took him off of juice altogether because of it's high sugar content and allowed him to drink only water and milk. I pushed raisons, fresh fruit and vegetables and rid the house of sugary snacks. I also gave him teaspoons of mineral oil to help lubricate things and make bowel movements easier for him. By the time his 4 year old checkup came around, we hadn't made much progress.

After an examination by his pediatrician, we learned that my son had actually enlarged the end of his colon to three times it's normal size. The effect of this was that his stool would have to grow to three times it's normal size before his body would even sense that it was there.

We left the doctor's office with strict orders. He was to drink an 8 oz. glass of Citrucel every morning. He was to take 1-2 teaspoons of mineral oil every night and he was to sit on the potty for at least 10 minutes after every single meal to try to train his body to eliminate. He was to stay on this regimen for three months, at which point we would follow up with his doctor.

That three month period was awful! He hated the Citrucel no matter how I tried to make it more appealing to him and the trips to the potty were a constant battle. There were more tears, frustration, negotiations and tension in that three months than there have been in my whole life, but finally we made some progress.

The road has not been completely smooth since then, though. After yet another discussion with his pediatrician about his inability to stay dry at night we learned that his constipation probably plays a big role in his bedwetting. If there is stool putting pressure on his bladder he will not be able to control his bladder while sleeping. That and the fact that it could be genetic. As a child, I, too, was a bedwetter.

Fast forward three years. My son is now seven years old and a very happy and healthy first-grader. He has his bowel movements under control and very rarely do we have to remind him to use the bathroom. Now our only issue is bedwetting.

After nine months of washing bed sheets every single day I decided to do some more research about solutions for bedwetting and I found a moisture sensing alarm made by a company called Sleep Dry. There is a sensor that is clipped to the underpants and a wire that connects the sensor to an alarm that gets clipped to the collar or neck opening of pajamas. The idea being that the alarm would shock the body into stopping the elimination process and it is loud enough for the parent to hear. The parent gets the child out of bed, brings him to the bathroom to urinate and puts the child back to bed. It works similarly to the theory of Pavlov's dogs - training the brain to recognize the sensation of a full bladder. I decided to give it a try.

The first night the alarm scared him so badly that it took a few weeks for me to convince him to wear it again. When he finally agreed, he wore it every night for three months and it worked like a charm. Before the end of that three month period he was actually sleeping the whole night through without ever setting off the alarm. In the morning he was as dry as a bone. One night he asked if he could try sleeping without his alarm and I agreed. Things went well for a while, but then he slipped back into bedwetting.

I suggested reverting back to the alarm but he feels very strongly against it (he has always had a fear of loud noises). I am trying to be patient with him, but I am also working to convince him that the alarm is the best way to go. For now, though, we are relying on Good NIghts Underpants and he is actually starting to have some dry mornings all on his own.

He had his first sleepover not too long ago and we came up with a plan to keep the Good Nights discreet. The plan worked and the sleepover was a success.

Right now the only thing that I am concentrating on is making sure that he does not feel inferior or ashamed in any way. I am putting faith in his doctor's advice that everything will come together in due time when his body is ready.

I wish I had some answers to offer you if you are struggling to potty train your child. I don't. The right answer is going to be different for each child. I wanted to share my story with you simply so that you would know that you are not alone and that there is nothing wrong with your child. Focus on being there to provide love and encouragement for your child and remember that this, too, shall pass.

Dog Crate Training

Crate training your dog or puppy is worth the time and effort. It can take days or weeks depending on the dog's age, temperament and past experiences. Provide a crate throughout your dog's lifetime; it is your dog's private sanctuary. Always respect your dog's right to crate privacy.

Limit access while off leash until house rules are learned. Crates are plastic (often called "flight kennels") or metal and collapsible. Different sizes are available. They should be just large enough for the dog to stand up and turn around.

Choose a crate size that will accommodate the adult dog.

Crates satisfy the dog's need for den-like enclosure. A dog crate refuge reduces separation anxiety and destructive behavior, while keeping the dog safe from dangerous household situations. It doubles as a mobile indoor dog house when traveling by car or plane, although avoiding plane travel for the dog is recommended.

The crate should NEVER be used as punishment.

You want crates to be associated with something pleasant. Place your puppy's favorite toys and dog treats at the end opposite of door opening. Drop pieces of kibble or dog biscuits in the crate until your dog walks calmly all the way into it to get the food. If the dog isn't interested in treats, try tossing a favorite toy inside. Toys and balls ought to be large enough to prevent being swallowed and unbreakable to small pieces. While investigating the new crate, the puppy will discover edible treasures. Praise and pet your puppy when it enters. Bring your dog over to the crate and talk to it in a happy tone of voice.

Don't force the puppy into the crate.

After introducing your dog to the crate, begin feeding regular meals near the crate if your dog remains reluctant to enter it. Put the dish only as far inside as the dog will readily go without becoming fearful or anxious. Once your dog is standing comfortably inside to eat, you can close the door while eating. When you first do this open the door as soon as the meal is finished. This creates a pleasant association with the crate. If the dog begins to whine to be let out, you may have increased the length of time too quickly. Next time, leave it in the crate for less time. If the dog whines or cries, do not open the door until the whining stops. Otherwise, the lesson learned is the way to get out is to whine.

At first, crate your puppy for short periods of time while you are home with it. Training is best accomplished while you are in the room with your dog, to prevent associating the crate with your leaving the dog alone. Water dispenser with ice water should be attached to the crate if your puppy is confined for more than two hours.

The crate should have a soft mat or towel as a bed for the puppy. If the puppy chews the towel, remove it. Some dogs prefer to rest on the flat surface, and may push the towel to one end to avoid it. If the puppy urinates on the towel, remove bedding until the puppy no longer eliminates in the crate.

Place the crate near you while at home when the puppy goes inside, so the dog doesn't feel lonely or isolated. In most cases, it should be placed next to your bed overnight. Very young puppies under 9 weeks should not be crated, as they need to eliminate very frequently (usually 8-12 times or more daily).

Do not crate a dog when temperatures reach uncomfortable levels.

Always remove the collar before confining in the crate. If you must leave a collar on the dog (i.e. for its identification tag), use a safety "break away" collar. If your puppy messes in its crate while you are out, do not punish. Simply wash the crate using a pet odor neutralizer. Don't use ammonia-based products -- their odor resembles urine and may draw your dog back to urinate in the same spot. Block off excess crate space so your dog can't eliminate at one end and retreat to the other.

Except for overnight, dogs should not be crated for more than 5-6 hours at a time. Children should not play in your dog's crate or handle your dog while it's inside it. Do not crate your dog if it has diarrhea. Diarrhea can be caused by worms, illness, intestinal upset such as colitis, too much or wrong kinds of food, diet changes, stress, fear, anxiety, or because it has not eliminated shortly before going inside the dog crate.

USS SongPoop Part 2

USS Songboat PART 2 commercial included: - mcdonalds Happy Meal faster video - Skittles



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijB1EXiXH2Q&hl=en

Reklam för Happy Meal

Happy Meal enl Tallriksmodellen



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKWLWXMJxfA&hl=en

Action Day - Mission: McDonalds

The mission for the Happy-Meal toy -



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GBn4wrEngI&hl=en

Bringing Out The Best Behaviour In Kids

Bringing out children's better behaviour is easy if you have easy children. It can be more testing if you have challenging kids or when you are raising active toddlers and feisty teenagers with plenty of 'tude (attitude).

My work over two decades shows that those parents who are most successful at bringing out their children's best behaviour use a variety of strategies, rather than one or two.

They also get help when they need it, whether sharing the parenting with a partner or calling on broader family or friends for support. Sometimes taking a break is the best strategy to use rather than get a locked into power struggle with strong-willed kids.

Some strategies are more successful than others however here are seven simple but significant strategies and ideas to help you bring out your child's best behaviour:

1. Avoid your impulsive reaction when kids are less than perfect. Generally, the first parental reaction to children's uncooperative or poor behaviour can actually encourage more of the same. Sounds bizarre, but children often keep repeating the behaviours that work in achieving a result. Whinging, for example, is a brilliant way for a child to get his or her own way. Like ancient 'water torture' it effectively makes us lose our cool and give in for some peace and quiet.

2. Teach kids manners. Old fashioned good manners such as making eye contact, addressing people by name and using please and thank you's are basic social skills that many of our current generation don't possess. Manners is respect in action and very empowering so don't leave it up to schools and pre schools to teach. Insist on it yourself.

3. Cure parent deafness by acting rather than talking. Often when kids ignore our requests for cooperation we simply repeat ourselves or raise the volume of our voice. Forget it. Cure parent-deafness by acting rather than talking. For instance, put the meal on the table and let it get cold rather than repeatedly tell kids to come to the mealtable. Kids learn from our actions as much as from our words.

4. Set consequences like a good cop: Behavioural consequences are all the rage in schools, pre schools and child care centres. I love them as a way of shifting responsibility onto kids to behave well. Consequences have their own set of rules if they are to be effective. But the key to their success is to set them like a good cop, as a opposed to a rude cop, so the kids are mad at themselves rather than at you.

5.Use the language of cooperation to get .... err....cooperation. Some parents use the wrong language to get what they want. They you use the language of coercion ("Do this now!") to get cooperation, however all they get is confrontation and conflict. For some hard-to-shift kids you need to use the right language to win their cooperation. They are puppy dogs really if you use the right words. The language of cooperation is about choices, not backing kids into a corner and focusing on yourself rather than the child.

6. Use behavioural rehearsal with kids: If you want kids to behave in certain ways then it is useful to get kids to practise in fun, low or no stress ways. For instance, if you want to bring out your children's best behaviour when eating out then set up the meal-table at home like a restaurant and have some fun serving them the meals and using their 'best going out' manners.

7. Put yourself in timeout - tactical withdrawal: Most parents have heard of timeout for kids but timeout for parents is effective too. If that sounds bizarre then consider a child with 'last wordedness' or a child who keeps nagging or arguing with you to get his or her own way. You need to tactically withdraw from these kids to save your sanity or stop yourself from giving in. If you can't move away from your child then disappear psychologically - that is, imagine your child is not there and refuse to respond while your child behaves poorly.

patrick and mcdonalds dont mixx ep. 4 kids meal in patricks drink

i poured pepsi in patrick's coke the n put a kids meal in patricks drink



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlVKYhwkcXo&hl=en

Try Avocado as a Great First Food for Baby!

Pediatricians continue to acknowledge that babies do not always need to start solid foods with bland and pasty infant cereals. Many suggest the goodness of avocado as a first food for baby. It is said that an avocado is so packed with nutrients that it is the only single food that a human could survive on if lost in the jungle!

Babies need carbohydrates, and fats as well as proteins for their growth during the crucial first year and avocados deliver these essential nutrients and many more! An avocado is smooth and creamy when mashed - a perfect food that will be more readily accepted as baby begins solids. A wonderful "good fat" food for baby's brain and physical development, try an avocado as baby's first food instead of refined cereals! Avocado may be offered as early as 4 - 6 months old! As you begin to introduce a wide variety of foods, you will find that mashing an avocado and mixing with applesauce, peaches or pears, bananas and even yogurt make a wonderful meal or snack.

Do you doubt the goodness of avocado? Have a look at the nutrients in one medium avocado:

VITAMINS: (one medium)

Vitamin A - 1230 IU

Vitamin C - 15.9 mg

Vitamin B1 (thiamine) - .2 mg

Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) - .25 mg

Niacin - 3.9 mg

Folate - 124.6 mg

Pantothenic Acid - 1.95 mg

Vitamin B6 - .56 mg

Contains some other vitamins in small amounts.

MINERALS: (one medium)

Potassium - 1204 mg

Phosphorus - 82.4 mg

Magnesium - 78.4 mg

Calcium - 22 mg

Sodium - 20 mg

Iron - 2 mg

Also contains small amounts of selenium, manganese, copper and zinc. USDA-NAL source

"Sodium- and cholesterol- free, avocados contain valuable nutrients including 8% of the recommended Daily Value (DV) for folate; 4% DV for fiber and potassium, 4% DV for vitamin E; and 2% DV for iron. A serving of avocado also contains 81 micrograms of the carotenoid lutein and 19 micrograms of beta-carotene. Per serving, avocados have 3.5 grams of unsaturated fats, which are known to be important for normal growth and development of the central nervous system and brain. "California Fresh Avocados

Avocados are high in fat and calories and we are often told to stay away from them due to this. A medium size avocado contains approximately 700 calories and up to 30 grams of fat - WOW! While avocados are indeed full of fat, infants should not be on a "low fat" diet so disregard any advice to not feed avocados because they are high in fats! If you have any doubts, as always we recommend you consult your pediatrician. The benefits of avocados far outweigh the "risks". Avocados contain monounsaturated fats which are said to lower "bad" cholesterol and also aid in maintaining a healthy heart. Also high in fiber, avocados are great aids in reducing the risks of cancer and heart attack.

Just how does one select the perfect avocado for baby's first solid food? When selecting an Avocado, you want a dark green color with bumpy texture. The fruit should be firm yet yielding when gently pushed. When an avocado is sliced in half, the flesh color should be a green that gently transforms into a buttery yellow around the pit. Avocados are served fresh from their peels! There is no need to cook avocados for baby or adult! Give an avocado a gentle roll around your counter to help separate the meat from the shell before you slice!

If you want to freeze avocados, I suggest peeling and piting then freezing avocados in slices. You may then take out a slice, mash it up and then serve at room temperature. You can also create a bath of:

1/2 cup water and * 2 squeezes-drips of lemon juice Bathing the slices in mixture will help to retard browning. **Don't feed citrus or acidic fruits to a baby before 1 yr esp. if your baby gets rashy from other foods! Using a drip or 2 of lemon juice in a puree or to bathe several avocado slices is not the same as pureeing up a few orange slices and serving them!**

Enjoy some simple avocado baby food "recipes":

Mashed Avocado

(4)6-8 months old

Peel and pit a ripe avocado

Cut "meat" out and mash with a fork

There should be no need to use a machine as just like bananas, avocados have a very soft consistency and texture. Avocados do not need to be cooked.

Banana-Cado
(4)6-8 months old

Peel and pit a ripe avocado

Cut "meat" out and mash with a fork

Peel and mash 1 banana

Place in a blender or food processor and puree until desired texture is achieved.

Avocados and Bananas do not need to be cooked.

Guacamole for Baby
8 months (due to wheat germ & Cheerios)

1 ripe avocado

wheat germ or crushed cheerios (optional)

pinch of garlic powder, pepper & basil

Peel and pit a ripe avocado and cut "meat" out and mash with a fork. Mix avocado, wheat germ/cheerios and spice then blend.

Fold in plain whole milk yogurt until a texture good for your baby is achieved. Allow baby to dip toast, soft cooked veggies or even her own fingers in the guac. for a yummy meal accompaniment.

Avocado & Cream Cheese Delight
8months

Prepare avocado as shown above then blend with Cream Cheese until a semi-smooth mixture is formed.

Add wheat germ or crushed cheerios and shape into little balls or spread on toast or crackers or blend with cereals.

Avocado Fruit Salad

6-8 months

3 or 4 ripe avocados

3 or 4 ripe bananas

3 or 4 Pears (steamed)

A couple of dollops Yogurt (for 8 months +)

Peel, deseed and slice fruits as needed.

Place in a blender or food processor and puree until desired texture is achieved

Add a couple of dollops of Yogurt if desired

*Use diced fruits as a Baby Finger Food snack for older infants and toddlers - drizzle the Plain Yogurt over the fruits.

Here are a few great foods to mix with avocados for baby:

Bananas

Pears

Apples

Summer Squash - Zucchini, Yellow (Crooked Neck)

Chicken

Yogurt

Always consult your baby's pediatrician prior to introducing solid foods. Generalities may not apply to your baby's particular circumstances!

The Psychology of Collecting

Where do I get off writing about the Psychology of Collecting? I have no degree in any of the behavioral sciences. (Took a Psychological Foundations of Education to get my teaching credential some years ago. Got an 'A', but frankly, I thought it was all a bit silly.) The answer is simple. I've made a hobby of observing people's hobbies. Talking to them -or more accurately- listening to them talk about a subject they love. (And I have to say that there are worse ways to learning about something. An interesting discourse and a dull discourse are often separated by little more then the discourser and his or her interest in that subject.)

Collecting might be thought of as a subset of a larger human behavior named -if only for the sake of convenience - hobbies. But I'm not sure this is true. I theorize that collectors and hobbyists are entirely different things. Take model train people as evidence. I used to take my casework to train shows when they came to northern California. Nice people the model train 'hobbyists', but they come in two distinct flavors. There are those who build tracks and little cities and mountains etc. and then play with their trains.   Then there are collectors who are somehow compelled to own a sample of every locomotive the Lionel made in a given year. Or all the locomotives Lionel ever made. Or all the locomotives, cars, tankers, cabooses, etc of a given scale / year / manufacturer. Often they don't even open the package -reduces the value, I'm told. Both the builders and the collectors go to the same show and -I suppose- talk to each other -but they are completely distinct species.

PATHOLOGICAL COLLECTORS:

There are some poor souls who are pathological in their collecting. Not my word, 'pathological'. The research folks use this word to describe collecting to the point that it interferes with daily life. Their houses are filled -and I mean literally every-square-foot- floor-to-ceiling-filled- until-it-crashes-through-the-floor-below FILLED with stuff. These people usually have no interest in the stuff in their collection, but pitch a fit if someone tires to take any of it away. There is some research indicating how this might be explained.   Steven W. Anderson, a neurologist, and his colleagues at the University of Iowa studied 63 people with brain damage from stroke, surgery or encephalitis who had no previous problems with hoarding before their illness, but afterward, began filling their houses with such things as old newspapers, broken appliances or boxes of junk. The good Doctor says:

These compulsive collectors had all suffered damage to the prefrontal cortex, a brain region involved in decision making, information processing and behavioral organization. The people whose collecting behavior remained normal also had brain damage, but it was instead distributed throughout the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

Anderson posits that the urge to collect derives from the need to store supplies such as food--a drive so basic it originates in the subcortical and limbic portions of the brain. Humans need the prefrontal cortex, he says, to determine what "supplies" are worth hoarding.

I need to make one last point before moving on to the merely nutty-non-pathological-collectors. All the reading I've done suggests that collecting for -what-ever reason and to what-ever degree- is little understood and there is really not all much clear research out there. This takes me back to my starting point -I get to pretend to be an expert on the psychology of collecting because t'aint no one else out there who is any better qualified then I am.

NUT-CASE (non-clinical) COLLECTORS:

Somewhat less 'traumatic' / 'dramatic'? - and it's pretty clear I'm on thin-ice psycho-babble here - are the merely obsessive compulsive disorder collectors. No detectable brain damage - just good old OCD - or we might call it OCCD, (Obsessive Compulsive Collecting Disorder). But I wonder how many people who are truly committed to a given subject, (coin collecting, the Denver Broncos, UFO's, conspiracy theories, you name it) have family and friends who look at them, shake their heads and mutter something about OCD under their breaths. But before we get on to collectors -Collectors with a capital C, coins, stamps, model railroad car Collectors, etc., we might consider the collector in all of us. There is a delightful story written by Judith Katz-Schwartz - Remembering Grandma. Her grandma was a refugee -as a very young girl- from Tsarist Russia who collected.... and I quote...

...the tops of Bic pens neatly wound with rubber bands; hundreds of tiny garment snaps threaded onto safety pins; at least one hundred glass jars, all sparkling clean; eighty-seven neatly rolled and clamped Ace bandages.

I thought this was a little funny, till the chap with whom I share a wood shop reminded me about the two big garbage bags I have filled with carefully cleaned BBQ sauce bottles. I love BBQ sauce and eat it on almost everything.   About a bottle a week. No idea what will ever come of them, but I KNOW the day will come when I'm dang glad I have all these empty BBQ sauce bottles.

Judith sums it up beautifully and with kind & rare insight, I think. In the above mentioned article, she closes with....

Some people collect for investment. Some collect for pleasure. Some folks do it to learn about history. And some people "save things" because it helps them to fill a gaping hole, calm fears, erase insecurity. For them, collecting provides order in their lives and a bulwark against the chaos and terror of an uncertain world. It serves as a protectant against the destruction of everything they've ever loved. Grandma's things made her feel safe. Though the world outside was a dangerous and continually changing place, she could still sit safely in her apartment at night, "putting together my things".

Then there was an episode from the TV sit-com Third Rock from the Sun. You might remember that Dick -(John Lithgow) became obsessed with Fuzzy Buddies. I take "Fuzzy Buddies" to be the producer's way to avoid being sued by the folks that make "Beanie Babies."   If one were to be perfectly honest about things, I suspect most - if not all of us - saw a little of ourselves in the character.  

There is another quite unique kind of nut-case collecting -that practiced by dictators as they accumulate bric-a-brac. Possible motives for collecting abound: compulsion, competition, exhibitionism, desire for immortality and the need for experts' approval. According to Peter York, a British journalist who studied dictators' decor for his book Dictator Style, recognizes all of the above in his subjects. It's basically a dictator's job, he says, to take everything over-the-top. For example...

Saddam Hussein  

Sci-fi fantasy paintings featuring menacing dragons and barely-clad blondes.

Adolf Hitler    

Bavarian 18th century furniture. Munich antique dealers were ordered to keep an eye out for him.

Kim Jong II

20,000 videos (Daffy Duck cartoons, Star Wars, Liz Taylor and Sean Connery flicks)

Idi Amin

Several racing cars and loads of old film reels of I Love Lucy reruns and Tom and Jerry cartoons

Joseph Stalin   

Westerns with Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and John Wayne. Stalin also inherited Joseph Goebbels's films.

He also points out that "Some of these people," he says, "were really very short."

VICTIM COLLECTORS:

Don't know what else to call this set. There are a few companies that sell stuff so well -and with such frightening insight to their customers, and do so with such deliberate marketing plans carefully designed to exploit the poor collector's peccadilloes, that these collectors are victims of something -themselves - or the mean old marketing companies, don't know which.

Case in point is Hallmark Cards and their Christmas Keepsake Ornaments. Note particularly the word "keepsake" and compare it to the idea of "nostalgia". (Any research into collecting by the PhD crowd seems to hang on the word "nostalgia.") It is reasonable to collect things that speak from the past. This is no more nor less then any historic museum does. It is also reasonable to collect things that trigger -let us hope- pleasant memories of our own past. (People of my age remember Chutes and Ladders and Candy-Land games. This it the sort of thing Daniel Arnett writes about in her article Why We Collect, published elsewhere on this site.) But these things are authentic. 

Hallmark has made millions -and I have nothing against making money- selling fake nostalgia -and let us not mince words here- to women. If you were to read the articles I have, it also seems clear that these women are not women with careers, educations, children to raise, or -and we are still not mincing words here- much else to do.

And what lengths will Hallmark goes to get these poor women to buy the next ornament -or series of 5 or 10 ornaments? Seminars, conventions, news letters, autograph opportunities (the artists), and advance viewings. (Advance viewings for plastic ornaments stamped out in by the millions??? YEP!)

Not just Hallmark either. Consider Franklin Mint, Hummel Figurines, little ceramics of English cottages, memorial plates with Elvis painted thereon. Not for nothing are these things 'nostalgic'. When ever a kid's movie comes out either McDonald's or Burger King has little plastic toys / figurines / antenna balls of each character. Then kids of a certain age must be fed Happy Meals until they have the entire collection. (For kids "nostalgia" stretches all the way back to the movie they saw a whole week ago.)

ACCIDENTAL COLLECTORS:

My sister tells me of a fourth and final category of collector.  This sort might well be viewed as a victim as well, but I chose to call them accidental. She writes... 

Someone mentions once that they like X and then for years later all their friends give them is X and then they really start to hate X. Loren and Bonnie [my nieces] once had a teacher that everyone in the whole school knew loved giraffes and collected them. I was talking to her one day and she said it all started years ago when she was explaining a project the kids had to do to tell about themselves. She used herself as an example and said out of the blue that she liked giraffes. Now this poor women has received every possible giraffe thing ever made. She told me that she doesn't even like the damn animals.

The psychology of these poor souls is easy to understand. They are the 'co-dependent,' ('accidental enablers'?) nexus of a mild mass-OCD. They know it to be well meant but they are too kind to say anything to get themselves out if it. What are you gonna do?

Judith has a wealth or excellent advice to offer collectors. And some very nice stuff of her own for sale. Check out her site Twin Brooks and her book Secrets of a Collecting Diva. If I had her book before I wrote some of my articles it would have saved me a lot of time researching and making-up stuff.