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Family

How one mom is coping with not being able to protect her preemie daughter from germs.

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Healthy Essentials

As the thermometer drops outside and the bare trees begin to collect snow, I take a deep breath.

Despite the beautiful winter landscape, the first thing that comes to my mind is that we are officially in cold and flu season.

A little over three years ago, I gave birth to our daughter, who was more than 17 weeks premature. Our surviving triplet spent nearly four months in the neonatal intensive care unit, and when she finally came home, on oxygen, we avoided germs like it was our job.


Image by Stacey Skrysak, used with permission.

Being a micro-preemie, our daughter is more susceptible to getting sick, so we spent the first few years of her life avoiding illnesses. Giant bottles of hand sanitizer and a sign that our daughter is more susceptible to illnesses greeted guests when they entered our home, we kindly said “no” to friends who were not vaccinated, and our daughter only left the house for doctor appointments. The doctors had warned us that a simple cold or the flu could land my daughter in the hospital or, even worse, could kill her.

After essentially living in a bubble for more than three years, our daughter started preschool this past fall.

Image via iStock.

The days of isolation suddenly turned into a jam-packed adventure filled with recess, music, and crafts. But with the excitement came fear, on my part — the school setting is a cesspool of germs. I could no longer shelter my daughter.

It was a learning curve for this first-time mom. But rather than be a paranoid parent, I decided to be proactive.

I realized that the classroom setting, coupled with coughing kids, would create a cycle of illnesses. Once my daughter came down with a virus, it would most likely pass over to me, then to my husband. Once we all felt 100% healthy, the next virus would soon plague our family and start the whole cycle all over again.

Image via iStock.

After a few weeks of never-ending sickness, I learned my lesson — and took action.

  • In anticipation of future colds, I printed out our trusty medicine dosage chart from the makers of Children's TYLENOL®, hung it inside our cabinet, and bookmarked the HEALTHY ESSENTIALS Program® page.
  • The thermometer went front and center in our daughter’s room, and boxes of tissues began appearing throughout the house.
  • We all received our flu shots, and we make sure to wash our hands often, especially when my daughter first gets home from preschool.

I also found ways to help my child better understand different ailments.

She loves her pretend doctor’s kit, complete with BAND-AID® Bandages and pink sparkly tools. We introduced the kit over a year ago, when she was constantly being poked and prodded by doctors. Many kids have a fear of needles and of the doctor’s office as a whole, so this is one way to help ease the nerves. By spending countless hours checking our blood pressure and heart, my daughter has no fear of going to the real doctor. Plus, she’s more in tune with her body and can tell me when her ears hurt or if she's struggling with her breathing.

Above all, I learned the best way to help my daughter is to watch for signs and trust my instincts.

Each time she comes down with a cold, I know that sleep, a humidifier, and a box of tissues is the best remedy. If she’s wheezing or acting lethargic, or if I have any other questions or concerns, then I know it’s time to call her doctor. Every child is different, but the more you can read into their symptoms, the easier it may be to treat them.

Image by Stacey Skrysak, used with permission.

As I stare outside at the cold and dreary day, I’m ready — bring on flu and cold season! We got this.

We’re loaded with all the health and wellness products we need, and even if an illness knocks us down, you won’t see me complaining.  A day home from school to cuddle and hold my daughter sounds good to me. She won’t stay little forever. I need to cherish these precious moments, for some day, those hugs will be few and far between.

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

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Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

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Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

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“It’s important to know that he’s been unemployed since 2021,” the woman wrote on Reddit’s AITA subforum. “He receives benefits. It’s also important to know that he’s extremely lazy. He doesn’t cook, clean, or help out in any way. I was nervous about leaving her home with her father, but I had no choice.”

The mother had reason to be worried about leaving her baby home alone with her husband, but in the beginning, things seemed fine. “When I came back from work, she was clean and sleeping. The next few times I came home, he was either playing with her, feeding her, or out for a walk with her. I was happy,” she wrote.

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“This system has worked swimmingly for us since it started, the boys have always complied with completing their chores,” the mom wrote on Reddit.

Her 12-year-old son was getting ready to play Fortnite with a friend and told him he’d be ready in 15 minutes once he finished his chores. When the boys started playing the game, he told the friend he was in charge of dusting and sweeping the stairs, to which the friend responded, “It’s a good thing my parents don’t make me do girl chores.”

After learning what the friend said, the mom told her son that chores are genderless.

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Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

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Derrick Downey Jr. has been dubbed the 'squirrel whisperer.'

Most of us who live in the U.S. are used to looking out a window or walking out our front door and seeing squirrels. The cute, fluffy-tailed rodents often appear perfectly pettable, but they generally scamper away when humans get too close.

That is not the case for TikTok creator Derrick Downey Jr., however, as he has not only befriended his neighborhood squirrels but goes all out to help them live their best squirrel lives.

Downey shared a video in May of 2022 in which he chats with a couple of squirrels on his porch while feeding them and offering them water. That video received over 26 million views and kicked off a whole series of videos showcasing the adorable antics of Richard, Maxine, Hector, Consuela, Norma (may she rest in peace), and Hood Rat Raymond. He's built Richard a house, rescued Maxine's babies, mourned Norma's transition (to wherever squirrels go when they die) and more.

People can't get enough, and who can blame them? Squirrels are the best (when they're not tearing up your patio furniture and stealing cotton for their nest, as Downey has experienced.)

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Education

Voice recordings of people who were enslaved offer incredible first-person accounts of U.S. history

"The results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting, almost unbelievable. The idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful—as startling, really—as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee speak." - Ted Koppel

Library of Congress

When we think about the era of American slavery, many of us tend to think of it as the far distant past. While slavery doesn't exist as a formal institution today, there are people living who knew formerly enslaved black Americans first-hand. In the wide arc of history, the legal enslavement of people on U.S. soil is a recent occurrence—so recent, in fact, that we have voice recordings of interviews with people who lived it.

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