Baseball season may not be over, but we're ready to give out the coach of the year award. One dad and Little League coach, who's battling stage four melanoma, has had to miss a lot of his son's games and practices due to his treatments. During an ambulance ride on his way to a radiation treatment one day, the dad jokingly told the paramedics they could drop him off at his son's ball game. Knowing a good idea when they heard one, they arranged to do just that. The heart-warming heroes surprised the father, his son and the whole team by bringing him in his gurney (and team jersey) to a game. It is said there wasn't a dry eye on the field and we believe it.
While many governments proclaim themselves to be pro-family, Israel's putting its money where its campaign promise is -- right down to the state-funded IVF treatments. Israel is reportedly the only country to offer not just unlimited IVF treatments for women up to age 45 for up to two "take home babies," but to also offer them to women who are either single or gay. A lot of women seem to be taking the government up on this offer, as the country has the highest rate of babies conceived via IVF in the world. All of this practice has made Israeli fertility doctors quite the experts, and their ability to fine-tune treatments to women's specific circumstances has also helped lower costs significantly, with treatments costing only a fraction of what they do in the U.S.
In what might be the ultimate revenge of the nerds -- or bullied kids, as the case may be -- author J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame, has revealed that she, too, was bullied as a teenager, yet went on to write some of the most popular books of all time. In a letter to a fan, the wildly successful author is said to have called her teenage years "completely horrible" and said that she was picked on throughout her adolescence. Her story is just one more reminder for teens who are suffering socially that life does indeed, get better. She is now a household name and one of the richest women in England, which makes one wonder just what her former Slytherins are up to these days...
I'm not her nanny, I'm her mom! Those are words Rose Arce, a Latina mother, whose daughter is much fairer in complexion than she is, routinely finds herself telling people who assume she is her daughter's babysitter. Arce, who says she has spent her whole life being mistaken for babysitters, sales clerks and waitresses, says that while she's gotten used to it, she hasn't gotten used to what it does to her daughter. It's difficult for her to watch her young daughter have to explain to people that she's her mama, not the babysitter. Arce feels that even at a young age, her daughter has come to recognize a perceived subservient role attached to being an Hispanic babysitter and that the little girl already wants to protect her mother when people make comments like, "I don't think we know anybody Hispanic who isn't a babysitter."
Will the term SIDS soon be a thing of the past? Many medical professionals now say that the vast majority of infant deaths that are labeled SIDS, are actually the result of unsafe sleep environments. This has officials in Baltimore replacing mention of SIDS with the ABC's (Alone. Back. Crib.) in public health literature. In fact, some are saying that the Back to Sleep campaign, which advises parents to put babies to sleep on their backs, has been so successful that talk of SIDS may be phased out. Some even say that the term SIDS can be confusing to parents who question the safe sleep guidelines as a means of preventing something that supposedly doesn't have a known cause.
Dana Macario is a TODAY Moms contributor and Seattle mom to two sleep-depriving toddlers. She is currently developing an alarm clock that will start an IV coffee drip 10 minutes prior to wake-up time. Once properly caffeinated, she also blogs at www.18years2life.com.