You know how they always tell you to never leave your babies alone in the car -- not even for a minute? One poor mom in New Jersey found out how very true this is. After spending the night in the emergency room with one of her six-month-old twin boys, who was suffering from an ear infection, this mom needed to get a prescription filled for the little guy. Both of her twins were asleep in their car seats when she got to the drugstore. Knowing that she just needed to drop the prescription on the counter, she decided not to wake her sleeping babies. What she had hoped would be a quick in-and-out trip, turned into a much bigger ordeal however, when her minivan (which was in neutral) rolled backward, almost hitting another car. Luckily, the babies are just fine. One slept through the incident entirely and the other one woke up only briefly before nodding off again as soon as a passerby picked him up. As NorthJersey.com reports, the mother of five was then taken by police to a processing cell where she was held for eight hours. This breastfeeding mom is said to have been very upset about being separated from her babies for so long, since she'd never been apart from them for more than two hours before. She has since been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, which is a second-degree crime. Do you think she should have been charged or do you think this is the kind of thing that could happen to anyone?
Is this Bollywood starlet-mom fat or fabulous?
For most of us, the desire to lose baby weight is a fairly private matter. Usually we're largely motivated to lose the weight because we want to ditch those paneled-maternity pants and get back into our favorite pair of jeans. For celebrities, the pressure's way more intense and public. As Mommyish reports, new mom and Bollywood actress, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, has been getting a lot of criticism lately for not losing the baby weight fast enough. Apparently, some have even called it her "duty" to regain her shape. Not letting the criticism get to her, this stunning new mom took to the red carpet in Cannes recently, and for that, we'd like to say, "Bravo!" Honestly, we think she'd be hard-pressed to look any better than she does right now.
Be extra careful with laundry detergent packets -- many kids mistake them for candy.
Thanks to the posters our pediatricians had in their offices when we were growing up, we all know that prescription pills and candy can often look a lot alike. But, have you thought about how much the new laundry detergent packets can look like candy to a kid? As MSNBC reports, doctors around the country are concerned because a growing number of kids have eaten the packets, mistakenly thinking they're candy. Though the numbers of calls to poison control centers about the brightly-colored packets remains relatively low, doctors are concerned because the symptoms are more severe than with typical detergent-poisoning cases (possibly because they're more concentrated than traditional laundry detergents).
17-year-old honors student who works two jobs sent to jail for truancy
Normally, a 17-year-old honors student who works a full-time job and a part-time job to support her siblings would be applauded. But, in Texas, one such girl got thrown in jail for truancy. The 11th grader works a full-time job at a dry cleaner and a part-time job at a wedding venue to support a brother who attends Texas A&M University and a baby sister who's living with relatives. She's taking care of her siblings because the kids' parents got divorced and both left town. In between all of that, she's also managing a course load that includes advanced placement and dual credit college level classes. So, what's the problem? The problem is, sometimes she's too tired from her overly-full schedule and misses school -- enough school that a Texas judge ordered her to spend 24 hours in jail and pay a $100 fine. As KHOU Houston reports, the judge admits he wants to make an example of this young lady and has said “If you let one (truant student) run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ‘em? Let them go too?” However, many think the judge showed a real lack of judgment by making an example of this hard-working young gal.
Dana Macario is a TODAY Moms contributor and Seattle mom to two sleep-depriving toddlers.