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They woke up to sirens. Thanks to foster parents, they're falling asleep to a reassuring voice.

Foster parents can be a safe harbor for children who are lost and drifting.

No one wants to break up families. But sometimes it's what has to happen.

Although most social services programs work hard to keep families together, sometimes they have to remove kids from dangerous homes. Many children enter foster care confused, angry, and with literally nothing to their name.

There are over 400,000 children in foster care in the United States.

That's 400,000 disrupted lives. 400,000 questions about when or if they'll go home. 400,000 different stories.

Some of those kids will stay with their foster families for only a few days. Others may never go home. Around a quarter of them are eligible for adoption, but only about 10% will be adopted.

While the kids are in safe homes, their parents receive support services to try to make their home safer for the children, including drug rehab and parenting classes. Around half of the kids who leave foster care return to their parents.

All images via Foster Care Support Foundation.

The good news is, there are lots of great families welcoming these kids.

About 23% of them are relatives or close friends of the children — these "relative placements" help kids maintain ties to their birth families. Of the kids who end up being adopted out of foster care, over half were adopted by their foster parents.

The great news is, even if you don't have the resources to be a foster parent, you can totally help foster kids.

  • Mentor foster kids and teens. Young adults aging out of foster care are more successful when they have an adult they can trust to guide them through their first steps out on their own.
  • Serve as a special advocate to keep foster kids from getting lost in the shuffle of the legal system. You don't have to be a lawyer or a social worker. Anyone with good common sense and a desire to help kids can volunteer and receive training.
  • Volunteer for respite care, which is like being a foster parent but just for a couple of days at a time. Kids would come to you when their birth, adoptive, or foster families need a break. Think of it as a chance to be the fun aunt or uncle for a kid who could really use one.
  • Support political initiatives that keep families together and reduce stress on parents, like increasing the minimum wage and providing health care services for children.
  • Donate items to or fundraise for social work organizations. They need clean clothes in sizes from preemie to adult, safe infant equipment, and toys in good condition. They also need luggage because these children move around a lot; not having to use garbage bags gives them a little dignity.

The actors in the video below show the story of two children who have to leave their home in the middle of the night with nothing but their pajamas.

The next day, their foster parents take them to a distribution center run by Georgia-based Foster Care Support Foundation, where they can choose what they need from an array of donated toys and clothes. Cue all the good feelings. It's an example of how a community can come together to help children when their lives are turned upside down.


They miss their home and are uncertain about their future, but the support of their community stabilizes them.

Family

'It's not Little Sun': Mom admits she's having trouble pronouncing her newborn's name

It was fine 'til other people tried to say it and now she's confused.

via JustusMoms29/TikTok (used with permission)

Justus Stroup is starting to realize her baby's name isn't that common.

One of the many surprises that come with parenthood is how the world reacts to your child’s name. It’s less of a surprise if your child has a common name like John, Mohammed, or Lisa. But if you give your child a non-traditional name that’s gender-neutral, you’re going to throw a lot of folks off-guard and mispronunciations are going to be an issue.

This exact situation happened with TikTok user Justus Stroup, who recently had her second child, but there’s a twist: she isn’t quite sure how to pronounce her child’s name either. "I may have named my daughter a name I can't even pronounce," Stroup opens the video. "Now, I think I can pronounce it, but I've told a couple of people her name and there are two people who thought I said the same exact thing. So, I don't know that I know how to [pronounce] her name correctly."


@justusmoms29

Just when you think you name your child something normal! #2under2mom #postpartum #newborn #momsoftiktok #uniquenames #babyname #babygirl #sahm #momhumor

Stroup’s daughter is named Sutton and the big problem is how people around her pronounce the Ts. Stroup tends to gloss over the Ts, so it sounds like Suh-en. However, some people go hard on the Ts and call her “Sut-ton.”

"I'm not gonna enunciate the 'Ts' like that. It drives me absolutely nuts," she noted in her TikTok video. "I told a friend her name one time, and she goes, 'Oh, that's cute.' And then she repeated the name back to me and I was like, 'No, that is not what I said.'"

Stroup also had a problem with her 2-year-old son’s speech therapist, who thought the baby’s name was Sun and that there weren’t any Ts in the name at all. "My speech therapist, when I corrected her and spelled it out, she goes, 'You know, living out in California, I have friends who named their kids River and Ocean, so I didn't think it was that far off.'"

Stroup told People that she got the name from a TV show called “The Lying Game,” which she used to watch in high school. "Truthfully, this was never a name on my list before finding out I was pregnant with a girl, but after finding out the gender, it was a name I mentioned and my husband fell in love with," says Stroup. "I still love the name. I honestly thought I was picking a strong yet still unique name. I still find it to be a pretty name, and I love that it is gender neutral as those are the type of names I love for girls."

The mother could choose the name because her husband named their son Greyson.



The commenters thought Stroup should tell people it’s Sutton, pronounced like a button. “I hear it correctly! Sutton like Button. I would pronounce it like you, too!” Amanda wrote.

“My daughter’s name is Sutton. I say it the same way as you. When people struggle with her name, I say it’s Button but with a S. That normally immediately gets them to pronounce it correctly,” Megan added.

After the video went viral, Stroup heard from people named Hunter and Peyton, who are dealing with a similar situation. “I've also noticed the two most common names who run into the same issue are Hunter (people pronouncing it as Hunner or HUNT-ER) and Payton (pronounced Pey-Ton or Pey-tin, most prefer it as Pey-tin),” she told Upworthy.

“Another person commented saying her name is Susan and people always think it is Season or Steven,” Stroup told Upworthy. After having her second child, she learned that people mix up even the simplest names. “No name is safe at this point,” she joked.

The whole situation has Stroup rethinking how she pronounces her daughter’s name. Hopefully, she got some advance on how to tell people how to pronounce it, or else she’ll have years of correcting people in front of her. "Good lord, I did not think this was going to be my issue with this name," she said.

This article originally appeared last year.

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Irish girl with rare heart condition was given 24 hours to live. Six months later, she's home.

Callie is the only person in the UK to be diagnosed with the genetic condition.

Photo credit: Belfast Live

Little Callie was given 24 hours to live. Now she's enjoying life back home.

For her first year of life, Callie McKinney of County Down, Northern Ireland was a healthy, happy baby. Then she had a heart attack out of nowhere.

Doctors at the hospital told her parents that she suffered extensive brain damage and gave Callie about 24 to 48 hours left to live. After over six months of treatment, she’s finally back home and seemingly living the normal toddler life.

"We were told that Callie would be severely brain damaged as a result of what she went through and would essentially have no quality of life going forward,” said Caitlin Turner, Callie’s mom, to Belfast Live. “But the resilience that she has shown is nothing short of a miracle as now she is laughing, sitting up, eating and learning to walk and finally getting back to the normal life that she used to have.”

Little girl with a medical device up her nose, smiling outside on her parent's lapCallie is living each minute to her fullest.Photo credit: Belfast Live

The online comments have been encouraging:

“Callie is a wee fighter. 👏👏👏💙”

“What a beautiful smile, wishing her all the love in the world.”

“Great to hear some good news for a change.”

Callie was diagnosed with inorganic pyrophosphatase 2 (PPA2), a very rare genetic condition that triggers cardiac arrest suddenly, usually triggered through viral infection or ingestion of alcohol. In order to provide instant help should she experience a cardiac issue, Callie had a defibrillator surgically implanted in her heart.

Baby girl in hospital bed with a teddy bear and oxygen mask.Callie was hospitalized for over six months, but is finally home after extensive treatment.Photo credit: Belfast Live

Due to its rarity, there haven't been many studies regarding PPA2. PPA2 is so rare that Callie is currently the only person in the United Kingdom diagnosed with the affliction. The only reason Callie’s PPA2 was diagnosed was due to one of the doctors performing a genetics test while Callie was fighting for her life. Had Callie died, her cause of death would’ve been classified as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

An August 2023 study of PPA2 at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York had trouble collecting data. Not just because the condition is so rare that they had such a small sample size to study the condition, but out of 59 people diagnosed with PPA2 in the study, only 10 were living. Usually PPA2 isn’t diagnosed until it is too late or a young person has survived a cardiac event like Callie did. PPA2 usually goes undiagnosed unless a genetic test is done to children who had a sibling that passed away from it, such as with two children in the United States and Australia.

These survivors are fighting and it’s inspiring that they continue to make the most out of life, especially since they risk triggering a heart attack from even minor viral infections. It reminds those that aren’t diagnosed with PPA2 take certain things for granted as they continue to fight to enjoy each bit of laughter they can experience.

Nurse with a child patient at a hospitalWe can all help young children fight for their health, no matter how rare the condition.Photo credit: Canva


If you are interested in helping provide more support for survivors and study into PPA2, Callie’s mom is planning to run the Belfast City Marathon to provide funding and support to the Children’s Heartbeat Trust. You can also learn more about PPA2 and other similar heart conditions through the SADS Foundation, along with providing a donation should you be in the position to do so. These children are fighting to stay alive and fighting for every minute, but the cool thing is that they don’t need to fight alone.
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How often should you wash your sheets? Experts settle the debate once and for all.

People have all kinds of opinions on this.

Kampus Production/Canva

How often do you change your sheets?

If you were to ask a random group of people, "How often do you wash your sheets?" you'd likely get drastically different answers. There are the "Every single Sunday without fail" folks, the "Who on Earth washes their sheets weekly?!?" people and everyone in between.

According to a survey of 1,000 Americans conducted by Mattress Advisor, the average time between sheet changings or washings in the U.S. is 24 days—or every 3 1/2 weeks, approximately. The same survey revealed that 35 days is the average interval at which unwashed sheets are "gross."

Some of you are cringing at those stats while others are thinking, "That sounds about right." But how often should you wash your sheets, according to experts?

Hint: It's a lot more frequent than 24 days.

While there is no definitive number of days or weeks, most experts recommend swapping out used sheets for clean ones every week or two.

Dermatologist Alok Vij, MD told Cleveland Clinic that people should wash their sheets at least every two weeks, but probably more often if you have pets, live in a hot climate, sweat a lot, are recovering from illness, have allergies or asthma or if you sleep naked.

We shed dead skin all the time, and friction helps those dead skin cells slough off, so imagine what's happening every time you roll over and your skin rubs on the sheets. It's normal to sweat in your sleep, too, so that's also getting on your sheets. And then there's dander and dust mites and dirt that we carry around on us just from living in the world, all combining to make for pretty dirty sheets in a fairly short period of time, even if they look "clean."

Maybe if you shower before bed and always wear clean pajamas you could get by with a two-week sheet swap cycle, but weekly sheet cleaning seems to be the general consensus among the experts. The New York Times consulted five books about laundry and cleaning habits, and once a week was what they all recommend.

Sorry, once-a-monthers. You may want to step up your sheet game a bit.

What about the rest of your bedding? Blankets and comforters and whatnot?

Sleep.com recommends washing your duvet cover once a week, but this depends on whether you use a top sheet. Somewhere between the Gen X and Millennial eras, young folks stopped being about the top sheet life, just using their duvet with no top sheet. If that's you, wash that baby once a week. If you do use a top sheet, you can go a couple weeks longer on the duvet cover.

For blankets and comforters and duvet inserts, Sleep.com says every 3 months. And for decorative blankets and quilts that you don't really use, once a year washing will suffice.

What about pillows? Pillowcases should go in with the weekly sheet washing, but pillows themselves should be washed every 3 to 6 months. Washing pillows can be a pain, and if you don't do it right, you can end up with a lumpy pillow, but it's a good idea because between your sweat, saliva and skin cells, pillows can start harboring bacteria.

Finally, how about the mattress itself? Home influencers on TikTok can often be seen stripping their beds, sprinkling their mattress with baking soda, brushing it into the mattress fibers and then vacuuming it all out. Architectural Digest says the longer you leave baking soda on the mattress, the better—at least a few hours, but preferably overnight. Some people add a few drops of essential oil to the baking soda for some extra yummy smell.

If that all sounds like way too much work, maybe just start with the sheets. Pick a day of the week and make it your sheet washing day. You might find that climbing into a clean, fresh set of sheets more often is a nice way to feel pampered without a whole lot of effort.


This article originally appeared last year.

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17 people share the most tragic name they've ever encountered in real life

"I’m in healthcare, and the worst name I’ve seen on a kid is Meatball."

via Canva/Photos

A woman is shocked by someone's name.

We live in an era where many parents want their children to have unique names to stand out. Studies show that uncommon names have gained popularity since the 1950s because American culture has become more individualistic. “As American culture has become more individualistic, parents have favored giving children names that help them stand out – and that means more unique names and fewer common names,” psychology professor Twenge told the BBC.

Recently, there’s been an added twist to the trend of parents electing more unique names: search engine optimization. In today’s world, where everything is online, it can be harder to stand out in search or on social media if you have a common name. Good luck finding someone with a name like Chris Smith or Mohammed Singh on LinkedIn.

The problem is that having a unique name is good, but if it comes off as too strange, it can cause real problems in life. Studies show that people with names too out of the ordinary have a harder time getting a job interview or finding romantic relationships.


Station19 Andy Herrera GIFfrom Station19 GIFs


A viral Reddit thread is hilarious and sad because people shared the worst names they have ever heard in real life. Many are funny, but unfortunately, those people have had to live their lives having people constantly making fun of their names. We made a list of the 17 most “tragic” names, and here they are.

1. A very predictable name

"I once met a girl named Cliche."

2. A 2-time unfortunate name

"I had a customer named Dick Butts. I thought it was a joke, but one of the employees asked to see his driver's license and it was truly his name."

"Just introduce yourself as Richard at that point."

3. Clueless parents

"In elementary school, there was a boy named Famous. His younger sister was Fashion."

"Is his mom a youtube vlogger mom? its sounds like it."

"Parents must have been David Bowie fans."


Bowie GIFfrom Bowie GIFs



4. Tasty food, bad name

"I’m in healthcare and the worst name I’ve seen on a kid is Meatball."

"I am Meatball, son of Meatloaf. You ate my father. Prepare to die."

5. Don't feed her after midnight

"An 80+ year old lady called Gremlin."

"If I met someone as a kid, or even now named Gremlin... I definitely want to hang out for a moment or two. As a kid with a weird name, there is some camaraderie there."

6. The prophetic name

"Messiahiscoming is, by far, the worse I've heard. It's beyond ridiculous. She was 12-14 years old and said nothing. Mother did all the talking."

"That's less of a name and more of a threat..."


Dune Dune Part 2 GIFfrom Dune GIFs


7. Pick a winner

"Met an elderly man with the name Booger."

"I have a three-month-old son that I call booger, and now I wonder if that will stick his whole life."

8. Come again?

"Once at work, I met a guy whose first name was Greg, which is not all that bad. The only thing is, is his last name was also Greg."

"In Australia, our education minister is the Honourable Grace Grace. I laugh every time."

9. Seagent Sergent

"In the military, there was this guy called Richard (Dick) Sergeant. Who was a Staff Sergeant. So his name was Staff Sergeant Dick Sergeant. He owned it though so good for him."

"In real life I knew a Sergeant Sergeant, a Major Major, and a Captain Captain."


Drill Sergeant GIFfrom Drill Sergeant GIFs


10. Take the whole bottle

"Clindamycin. Yes, spelled exactly the same way as the antibiotic. When questioned, the mom said, 'I just thought it was pretty.'"

"Friend from Eastern Kentucky knows a Syphilis but pronounced Si-Phillis. Her parents said the same thing that 'It sounded pretty.'"

11. It burns!

"My mom had a coworker who named her child Tequila."

"A friend I had said she met a lady that named her 3 daughters Tequila, Margarita, and Chardonnay."

"Got a missing child alert recently (he’s fine now, thankfully) for a kid named Whiskey. Not Whiskey, Wiskey. Couldn’t even bother to spell it right. Poor kid."

12. Did he play for Milwaukee?

"My sister's sister in law named her son Brewer literally because they are alcoholics."

"I know a boy named Blayze because his parents are dumb dumb potheads."


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13. Jump, Jump

"My dad's coworker is named Chris Cross. Edit: we are from west Texas. I've only know one other person with the same name."

"He was more into Saaaaaaailn.'"

14. Rock on, Ricky

"I taught a kid whose real name is Ricky Rock n’ Roll Smith."

"Sounds like a '90s WWF wrestler name."

15. Say that again?

"Guy named Ashley Hole who went by Ash."


Huh Hmm GIFfrom Huh GIFs


16. Can I buy a vowel?

"Cts. Parents were immigrants and chose random letters for an English name without knowing about vowels and consonants."

"So, the name is basically the sound a beer can makes when cracked open?"

17. Say it 3 times and he'll appear

"My brother went to school with a kid named William William William."

"Will Will Will, what do we have here?"

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Bleaching white clothes seem to turn them yellow. Laundry expert shares why and how to fix it.

"Chlorine bleach is fine if you're cleaning or disinfecting with it but it's really not for laundry anymore."

Photo credit: Canva

Why bleach turns white clothes yellow? Here's how to fix it.

Washing laundry often involves taking time to separate things into piles: towels, delicates, colors and whites. Some people only care about separating out the white clothes to keep them looking white as long as possible. But that doesn't always prevent them from looking dingy–enter, bleach.

It has been boasted as a whitening agent for generations, encouraging the use of a capful of the solution to keep whites bright. Except, after using bleach on white clothing, over time instead of clothes continuing to maintain their bright white appearance, they look yellow. It seemingly happens for no reason since bleach whitens everything from grout to teeth to t-shirts. So what's the deal with bleach eventually turning white clothes yellow?

Melissa Pateras, a laundry expert explains why bleach has a yellowing effect and how to reverse it before damage sets in from trying to overcorrect with more bleach.

Church Bleach GIF by Robert E BlackmonGiphy

"Chlorine bleach is fine if you're cleaning or disinfecting with it but it's really not for laundry anymore. It's super old school, your grandma used it because it's all that she had. I don't even keep it in my house because it's corrosive, it smells and it causes damage," Pateras explains.

According to Stanford Health, bleach is an oxidizer and corrosive which is not only an irritant to skin and eyes but can cause damage to certain surfaces. This is why it's advised to dilute bleach before use but if it's harmful to skin, it would be a reasonable expectation for that to extend to clothing.


@melissadilkespateras #stitch with @Meredith Steele #laundrytok #laundry ♬ Black or White (Single Version) - Michael Jackson

"You can only use chlorine bleach on whites, it's really easy to overuse it, to spill it, to drip it and it's also super easy to accidentally damage an article of clothing with it. And because bleach stains aren't stains, they're an absence of color, you can't fix that. Chlorine bleach causes yellowing while it weakens and damages the fibers. Whites over time always look yellow and dingy when you use chlorine bleach," the woman says.

Instead of using bleach, Pateras says to use oxygenated bleach like OxyClean or a similar product because they're less harmful and don't damage fabrics. As for the clothes that have already started turning yellow due to the use of bleach, the laundry expert has a quick fix for that. You dye them blue, well kinda.


@melissadilkespateras Reply to @_itschris_0 ♬ original sound - Laundrytok | Melissa Pateras

When someone asks Pateras how to make their yellowed whites perk back up to their intended whiteness, the mom excitedly spills her favorite secret fix.

"This is my favorite question and you have no idea. When you have white fabrics that you've bleached, the bleach is the actual culprit, that's what's making them yellow. So what you need is, believe it or not, is to put a blue tint back into them to make them appear white. You need a bluing liquid and Mrs. Stewart's is my absolute favorite," she shares before adding. "All you need to do is dilute it, follow the instructions, you'll be amazed at the results."

Adding the blue tint makes your whites whiter and brighter, according to Pateras. In a follow up video she explains that you need to put a quarter teaspoon of bluing liquid into a glass container before adding four cups of water to dilute it.


@melissadilkespateras Replying to @Rose #laundry #laundrytok #bluing ♬ Paper Birds (3 min) - Jordan Halpern Schwartz

"All you need to do is add it to the final rinse of your wash, so if you have a front loader, you're going to add it to the dispenser. If you have a top loader you're going to add it directly to the drum," Pateras says before sharing that you can use it several times if the whites are really dingy.

Just because your whites are yellowing or looking extra dingy doesn't mean you need all new white clothes, you just need to add a little blue.

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