A buffet of choices can seem great--but if none of them are worth having, what's the point?

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Instead of making long lists of things I need to do to improve my house: tear down the wall between the kitchen and dining room/get all new appliances/paint the living room/rip up the carpets/refinish the floors/swap out the countertops, I can try harder to keep the home I already have clean and tidy, make it feel warm and snug, and hang those darn pictures in my living room already.

Instead of collecting catalogs from every health club and YMCA in the county and then planning out a schedule that would have me taking Zumba on Monday, Pilates on Tuesday, spinning on Thursday, etc, I can actually…show up for the yoga class that’s 4 blocks from my house. Regularly. And work hard while I’m there.

Instead of making elaborate plans to take the kids to story hour at the library every week (even though I hate it), working into the evening so we can afford a ski vacation, and dreaming about when the weather gets nice enough that I can take them to the nature center, I could read them a book. Go play in the snow with them. Go for a walk around our yard. Help them with their homework.

The truth is, every day brings with it plenty of opportunities for us to do better–not perfect, but better–at small, familiar things instead of chasing down the next new thing that will “make” us more: fulfilled, successful, better parents, more in shape. The more I try to do everything, the more elaborate a schedule I cook up–the more I slack off, drop the ball, leave things hanging. Because I can’t do everything and do it well. So-

Do fewer things.

Do them better.

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so. dang. good.

important stuff to think about...especially if your'e a blogger.

"All three studies suggested the same thing: children who are shown more affection early in life reap big benefits. Researchers found that kids who were held more by their parents, whose cries received quick responses in infancy and who were disciplined without corporal punishment were more empathic — that is, they were better able to understand the minds of others — later in life.

Although there were some differences between American and Chinese practices, "we found mostly parallels," Narvaez notes.

Given that highly affectionate parenting practices are similar to the practices anthropologists believe parents used during the thousands of years that humans lived in hunter-gatherer societies, it's likely that they are closely matched with what a developing baby's brain naturally expects.

Consider the way babies instinctively cry when put to sleep alone. In the early human environment, a child would never have slept more than arm's reach from his parents or other caregivers. Lone sleeping may elicit a stress response in the baby because it's not the "safe" environment that the brain is programmed to expect. The fact that most babies can adjust to it anyway shows how flexible and "plastic" brain development is — but Narvaez' research suggests that meeting the brain's early expectations may have added benefits.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/29/no-such-thing-as-too-much-love-spoiled-...