You might have found the perfect nanny or live in couple s and then gone ahead and hired the individual or pair of caretakers that you want to take care of your kids Of course installing that nanny camera (as mentioned in the previous blog) is probably something that you might want to do. You can watch your kids from any laptop – even at work. This gives you a great sense of security and peace.

A lot of people who hire nannies or any kind of live in help just write it into their contract.  You need to specify the locations or you could get into legal trouble. However not all nannies or people who respond to your live in couple jobs are happy with the idea of being spied on.

So what do you do if you find the perfect couple or live in nanny and there is an objection to the nanny cam that you were thinking of using? You could even lose the perfect nanny because of this.  It is time to explain why you would want such a device in the first place and the reason is not negative.

Your first question should be “Why?”  Ask the nanny directly what she is afraid that you will see. It may be a very simple reason such as just feeling very self-conscious or on edge at being watched all the time or has a genine need for privacy. Let’s face it. Nobody likes being watched.

Another reason that your help may object to the cameras is that they might make her feel like you don’t trust her. Not many people want to work for someone who has no faith in them.

At this point it might be good to explain that it is not so much about not trusting her but because you miss them during the day. This is a particularly effective argument if you are away for long periods of time and your children are quite young. It is completely understandable that you would want a cam if your nanny is looking after an infant. 

Yet another justification for the nanny cam is quite simply that having a video. I taped  record of everything simply prevents any misunderstandings. Explain to the nanny that it is protective of her as well. Many nannies will simply accept these reasons for having the cam and agree to let you have one.

If the nanny really protests and you cannot make arrangements to have her under surveillance you may have to move onto the next person to be hired or opt to not inform candidates that they will be under surveillance in the first place.

So after a long search you have finally found that nanny . Now you are wondering exactly how well she will attend to your child.  Will she plunk your kid down in front of the television drinking, watching television and smoking cigarettes? Or will she spend the day playing and caring responsibly with your child as they promised?

You did not hire your nanny or so that you could be in the same room so the answer is some type of surveillance system. These are called nanny cams.  They take footage of the live in couple or nanny and relay the images back to you on your computer or you can watch the footage on a VCR later.

You have probably seen this type of thing on Oprah. Oprah devoted several episodes of her show to nanny cams and using them to catch bad nannies doing things like swatting children and shaking them.

There are many great places in your home where you can hide a nanny cam.   A good place is through a two way mirror. You will probably get lots of footage of your nanny putting on her lipstick and brushing her hair.

Lamp stands are also a good tucking place for a camera.  Umbrella stands, sculptures, ceramic busts and teddy bears are all great places to hide a wireless camera.  You can roll tape and record or just always have the camera running in live mode and check up on what’s happening at your leisure on your computer at work.

A vase of flowers can hide a camera.  The same goes for any type of container that has hany oles in it through which lenses can see the world.

One way to keep your nanny or live in couple on their toes is to simply put tiny little bullet cameras in every room and the nanny they may or may not have those cameras on any time. This means that they must be on their best behaviour at all times. These types of cams also are cheap, wireless and can usually relay back views of any room that you want within seconds.  You simply view what is happening on your laptop or from any computer in the world.

You can be nice and also inform your employees that you have hidden cameras and just dnotto tell them where in the house you have them.

The best places to hide a nanny cam are in the kid’s rooms and the living room. There may actually be privacy laws against having a cam in your bathroom and some trouble would definitely be caused if you hid a cam in the nanny or live in couple’s quarters. That would be an invasion of privacy.

My kids love making pickles with me.  The easiest to make with them as a project are the Bread and Butter Pickles. These are milder pickles that can be made without being boiled and sealed so there is less danger to kids. There is no real hassle and there are plenty of recipes online for these pickles.

Bread and Butter Pickles are some of the most misunderstood of the pickles as they are often mistaken for their more garlicky and dill flavored look-alikes – the Dill Pickle. This is because dill pickles are also sold as coins, slices and half pickles. A major difference in terms of packaging is that a bread and butter pickle will rarely be sold whole like dill pickles are when you see them in the jars in the store.

The main characteristic of a bread and butter pickle is that it looks like a dill pickle but tastes more like a sweet pickle. However it is not as sweet as a true sweet pickle.  A true sweet pickle almost tastes like sugar. They can hurt your teeth. Bread and Butter pickles are a little healthier for the kids and easier to eat as far as I am concern.

Bread and butter pickles are the preference of people who don’t like pickles with overpowering garlic or dill flavoring or a very sweet pickle. I know that my kids simply cannot stand any food that is way too garlicky and I don’t blame them. Their taste buds have yet to develop.  Bread and butter pickles are neutral pickles and go great in sandwiches because taste-wise they do not steal the show.  You can put them in everything from a salmon salad to ham sandwich to a hamburger and their taste will not overpower what you are eating. You cannot necessarily say the same of the garlicky pickles.

In England it is very common to be served bread and butter pickles for high tea.  There is even such a thing as a bread and butter pickle tea sandwich. However bread and butter pickles go the best with a slice of mild cheese on white bread.

Use bread and butter pickles in any dish where you don’t want the flavor of the pickle to overpower everything else. For instance, diced bread and butter pickles go better in tuna and chicken salad or even coleslaw.  Another reason I like them is that they are small and coin shaped. This means it is easy for a toddler to hold in his or her hand.  A toddler holding a full dill pickle can be a messy sight sometimes.

As bread and butter pickles are milder in taste then other types then they might also be easier on the sensitive taste buds of children.

Various governments around the world, including the United States and Canadian governments have constructed guidelines for healthy eating for its citizens. Now here comes the tricky part. Whereas there used to be just one food guide pyramid called the USDA Food Guide Pyramid there are now several types including the Mediterranean Pyramid, the Vegetarian Pyramid and the Asian Pyramid. The challenge is now to help you figure out which one is best for you.

If you need help on choosing the type of food pyramid that is ideal for your health the United States government has a very detailed site at www.mypyramid.gov that helps you choose your optimum diet by giving you an online questionnaire to fill out. This questionnaire helps analyze the lifestyle, food preferences and cultural factors that may be affecting your overall health and helps you choose the diet pyramid that is best for you.

On this site you will also find the typical USDA Food Guide Pyramid (which is also reproduced below.) This pyramid, which was revised in 1991, features six to eleven servings of bread a day as the bulk of the food that is eaten – followed by vegetables and fruits as the next major food group and then proteins such as milk and poultry. However this is not necessarily best food pyramid when it comes to eating an anti-aging diet, as it is heavy on potentially aging carbohydrates in the form of bread. It is also lower on protein then most aging experts would like.

More and more diet experts have determined that the Mediterranean diet is much healthier food pyramid when it comes to preventing aging.

The Mediterranean food pyramid is forty percent higher in fat than the U.S. Food Pyramid. The key is that the fats are from heart healthy sources –in particular olive oil.

This food pyramid diet is inspired by the lifestyle practiced daily on the Greek island of Crete where people live longer than any other populations in the world. it is widely recognized that the rates of chronic diseases were lowest in the world in Mediterranean culture and that adult life expectancy was high despite limited medical services. This pyramid was created in 1960 when researchers first began to notice that people from Mediterranean cultures just seemed to be thriving compared to their North American counterparts.

Studies conducted over the past few decades have concluded that the people from these cultures are also twenty percent less likely to die of coronary artery disease than Americans. The citizens of these Latin countries also have one third less cancer than citizens in the U.S. which nutritionists often attribute to the generous amount of antioxidants and phytochmeicals that are naturally contained in all of the fruits and vegetables in the diet.

There have been lots of studies and research done to support the idea that the Mediterranean Food Pyramid is much healthier for you than other types of eating schemes.

For instance, one French study assigned 600 heart attack survivors to follow either a Mediterranean diet or a regimen similar to the one recommended by the U.S. Government. Both diets reduced cholesterol levels by comparable amounts, only eight new heart attacks occurred over the next two years in the Mediterranean group, compared to thirty three occurrences in the U.S. Food Pyramid group.