Enjoy the uplifting experience of a whole day full of yoga! Nine knowledgeable yoga teachers will be teaching varies styles throughout the day, including yoga for children of different age groups. 

K’S PATH in cooperation with grounded growth is organizing its first Yoga Fest, a novelty in Kuwait, to be held on Saturday 29th of March 2014 in Bayan Bilingual School in Jabriya. Registration starts at 9am, with classes starting at 10am. The last class finishes at 3.15pm. During the whole day you can shop in the bazaar for mats and other yoga related items. For the hungry, vegetarian and vegan delicacies will be on offer.

Register now, the yoga sessions have limited capacities. Pre-registration closes Monday 24th of March. If you decide to register on the day, payment at the door is possible for a slightly higher entrance fee. All proceeds support K’S PATH’s programmes.

I adore shopping at Ikea - everything there can help you be more organized and I need all the help I can get! I've been wanting a scarf rack for some time and found them at Ikea as well as lots of other fun and cool stuff. Random pics of stuff I found that I like (no furniture as my hubby refused to give me the credit card!!) 

A full day of chaotic fun yesterday at Kuwait came out in force along the Gulf Road to celebrate the National & Liberation Day holidays. We still have one more day of events and activities but wanted to share with you all some of the cool photos from yesterday's fun.
Don't miss the March 3 issue of the KMG Newsletter for news, information and events and exciting details about the upcoming Mommy's Market. Sign up below and receive it directly to your inbox. (We will never spam, share or sell your info.)
- Photos courtesy Kuwait Times/ Yasser al Zayyat

Here's the schedule of events this week for the Remal Sand Sculpture Village at the Mishref Fairgrounds. Lots of fun shows for the kids during the holidays. 

Check here for photos and more details.  

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in Issue #3 of the Kuwait Moms Guide Newsletter. To get more great articles, news, events and information sign up below and have the newsletter delivered to your inbox. 

How to choose the right parenting books

 By Stela Pasic

Cherry pick the advice that works for you 
   
“Madam, madam, quickly!” my son’s nanny said and rushed towards me holding my one month old baby. Warm breast milk, which I’d just pumped, poured from my son’s nose. I panicked and grabbed the phone and called the only other person in Kuwait I knew at the time who had a baby, a colleague from work. I told her what happened and asked her advice. She snapped, “Oh, sorry, that has never happened to me.”  

A quick internet search revealed that such incidents are common when a baby is gassy, which my son was. I felt relief. But I will never forget the cold, superior voice of my colleague when she said: “that has never happened to me.”

I realized that instead of reading all those pregnancy books while pregnant with my first child, I should have been reading about what happens after the baby is born. Granted, most pregnancy books have a short section on your baby’s first three months. But that was hardly enough.

Parenting by the book
The problem is there are thousands of books on infant and child care available. So how do you choose? I’d say all of them, at least for a while. There is nothing more terrifying than being stuck with just one school of thought, one supposed right way to do things. You want to be able to pick and choose, mix and match and survive!

If breast feeding is not really your thing, there are books that won’t judge you. If you want to wear your baby or do total attachment parenting, there are books supporting that. If you want to co-sleep or put baby in her own room, you will find advocates for both. If your child isn’t hitting her milestones as predicted, there is a book which will advise how to speed her up or alternatively, how not to worry about milestones.

Whatever philosophy you want to follow, there is a book to help you out. The trouble is too much information can be confusing for new moms. So what do you do? Simply remember that you know best.

Not all advice will be applicable to your own child. So cherry pick information that is useful. Forget the rest. Incorporate what works into your own life as a mom in Kuwait.

I spent the first three months of my four month maternity leave holding my baby day and night as that was the only way to get him to sleep, watching reruns of Emergency Room and reading baby books. Thankfully in Kuwait we can afford help and have the time to just sit and hold our children and read. (It didn’t do much wonder for my waistline but that is another story)

What to read – everything!
Reading the parenting and baby books helped me feel confident in my own parenting choices. I didn’t need to ask others for advice. Even if I heard “That has never happened to me” or “Don’t do it that way” I knew one of the books would tell me otherwise. Just like everyone else, I ended up doing what I wanted anyway.

When my son started biting, I read that you shouldn’t react to it. Just put him down and walk away. It worked like a charm, and I had to do it only twice. – Check.

When he started throwing tantrums, I read that you need to go down on their level and just show them you understand. My husband loved that one; it always made my son laugh when his daddy would throw himself on the floor, the tantrum immediately forgotten. – Check.

I read you need to put them to bed as early as possible, before the sun sets even (this one was equal to child abuse here in Kuwait where people were shocked my son goes to sleep for the night at 6pm) because “sleep begets sleep”, the more they sleep the better and longer they will sleep. But it worked for me. – Check.

If all the above didn’t work, well, I would have found some other advice in some other books that did.

The philosophies of parenting
Then I moved onto more interesting topics, the more philosophical ones:

Raising boys: How to protect their emotional lives. – Check.
One is enough: Why one may be just enough for me. – Check.
Why multiples may be better than one or even two. – Check.

I even read a book called “Two is enough” for those who don’t want to have any children at all. It was too late for me at that point, but I can now see why some people choose to be childfree. (Not childless, but child free!)

As I have finally moved away from reading parenting books, I find that everything else I read has a little bit of parenting wisdom in it. Mainstream fiction, mainstream non-fiction, biographies, Classics. I pick and choose and marvel at how I never paid any attention to it before I was a parent myself.

It’s liberating to have access to so many different perspectives, to just know it is out there – in books. I continue to read and to learn. And most importantly, reserve my right to change my opinions often as I learn more. 

Check out my collection of parenting books on Goodreads.com.

This may be a old and corny but it still true. 

Check out all the great concepts that will be at the exciting new Mommy's Market at the Lilly Center in Shwaikh on March 8. 

This is my weekend downtime project. Pronounced 'ah mee gu ru mi', crochet toys are a popular trend in Kuwait. They look cute and simple but are in fact quite difficult to do for beginners, especially if you are not used to working with smaller hooks or thinner yarns. 

I've tried and failed a few amigurumi toys before, including a whale, but refusing to give up I found this video online for beginners who want to learn amigurumi. Most of the stitches you will need to know are very simple: chain, single crochet, decrease (together) and slip stitch. The video calls for worsted weight yarn. I used Excel, which is soft, flexible and of medium thickness and a 4mm hook. 

I have actually finished the first part of one ball and will hopefully have time over the weekend to make a few more. The video is super easy to follow and I'm thinking to make a set of the crochet balls for the girls and even perhaps start on some crochet Christmas tree balls for the next holiday season. 

You can find yarn, embroidery thread, buttons and fiberfill at Swaad al Damkhi, Barakat and other yarn and craft shops in Kuwait. I found glue on eyes at the stationary shop in the Salwa coop.