Families Staying Connected with Technology

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Years ago, the primary methods of maintaining long-distance connections with family members were handwritten letters and, eventually, telephone calls. Thanks to modern technology, it is easier than ever today for families to stay connected, even if they live on different continents.

Whether your children have gone off to college or your relatives live 15 minutes from you, you can connect with them at any time from anywhere. Here are five technologies that will keep your family close:
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Raising Your Children to Not Feel Entitled

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I’m in a serendipitous situation, I suppose. I write this while sitting in a sparsely populated coffee shop. And in knowing that I’m writing on the idea of entitlement, I’m witnessing two events with, perhaps, a critical eye. To my left is a little girl who’s throwing a tantrum. I think you’d need the Richter scale to measure its magnitude. She wants a chocolate covered strawberry that she sees in the display, but her parents are telling her that she can’t have it. “WHY NOT?!” the little girl screams. “Because you’ve already had your breakfast, and it’s too early for a snack.”

I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but judging from the expression on her father’s embarrassed face, I think this little girl will win (she does). Over to my right, there is a girl who appears to be in her early twenties. She’s telling her mom why she needs a new cell phone. As an objective witness to this (apparently one-sided) conversation, I’d say that she doesn’t need a new phone. It sounds like she wants one, and not even badly. This conversation seems routine, and this girl is not trying hard to be persuasive. I get the feeling this happens a lot. And, ah yes, her mother looks out the window, exhales a cloud of apathy and says, “I’ll let your father know.”
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Dogs False Pregnancy – My Dog is Having a False Pregnancy

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After considerable worry about whether my dog is pregnant or not, we found out that our dog is actually having a false pregnancy and is not really pregnant after all. False pregnancy in dogs, you may ask? Yes, dogs can and do have false pregnancies, where the dog shows signs of being pregnant and exhibit various characteristics of canine pregnancy.

Here we were, making phone calls to various local vets to get quotes to have our female dog spayed, when my husband began suspecting that our dog might be pregnant. We made an appointment with the vet two weeks ago and took our dog in to find out for sure if our dog was pregnant or not, and hopefully be able to proceed with having her spayed. The vet asked us to bring our dog back in today, two weeks after the last appointment, because by now the vet would be able to feel growing puppies inside the mother and would be able to tell by x-ray if our dog is really pregnant or not.
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