Most child drownings are preventable.

92-year-old swimming teacher Jen Fielding said it best recently in a KWWL story:

“Everyone should learn to swim because it’s for their own safety. They should be able to save themselves.”

Teaching children to swim is one of the single greatest services we can provide. Even teaching them to swim in their clothes!

Drownings are the second leading cause of accidental injury death for children under the age of 14.

One swimming school in Texas is doing something I thought was really cool – teaching kids (especially young ones) to swim IN THEIR CLOTHES.

Why?

Because most emergencies don’t happen when children are in their swimming attire.

Teacher Jane Emler put it succintly:

“When you talk about pre-schoolers anything can throw them off. And when they practice over and over again with goggles on and a swim suit, they think that’s the only way they swim. So it’s really important that we broaden their understanding that swimming can occur, maybe not as well, but it can occur with your clothes on.”

So Emler holds “Clothesline Day” at her school where kids take the plunge in their every day duds.

To read the story, click here.

Of course, places like the YMCA and community recreation centers offer swimming lessons year round.

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Some parents say they’re concerned not enough children are getting vaccinated, and that is putting infants and other children at risk.

Three-year-old Tyler Grimm of Waverly laughs now, but recently he came down with the chicken pox.

“I had to keep him home from day care, his mother Lilah said.  To watch the story, click here.

Chicken pox was an inconvenience but more so a surprise to mother Lilah, because Tyler had been vaccinated against chicken pox, which made her concerned that not enough parents are immunizing their children.

“Because he was vaccinated, his case was very mild.”

Dr. Brian Sims said, “When we start having a large number of children not being vaccinated, you’re going to see a resurgence in diseases we’re trying to prevent.”

Sims at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo says unfounded fears of a link between vaccines and autism have led fewer parents to immunize their children from deadly diseases.

“In Japan we have one in four children not getting vaccinated for anything. Specifically the measles, and so I’m aware the measles rates in japan are skyrocketing. Even deaths.”

Sims says cases of measles have emerged in recent years in Iowa, and the rate of whooping cough increased 66 percent last year.

But co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center Barbara Loe-Fisher said parents still have the right to decide whether to vaccinate or not.

“We feel it’s very important for parents to get all the information they can about the risks and complications of infectious diseases, the risks and complications of vaccines. And then sit down with their doctor, ask questions,” she said.

Grimm says she does respect parents’ rights, but she also wants to make them aware their child could transmit a dangerous disease.

“For a long time all these children’s diseases were eradicated: mumps, measles, whooping cough, we all got our shots,” she said. “It’s just important to get your kids vaccinated.”

Even though chicken pox is generally considered mild compared to other diseases, Dr. Sims said before the vaccine, 200 children would die each year in the U.S. from chicken pox-related infections.

Now after the vaccine, that number has gone down to 20 deaths. Doctors say vaccination risks are increasingly small. Possible reactions include a fever or swelling near the vaccination site.

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Doctors agree: breast milk is simply the best food for babies.

A group of moms support each other in their determination to breastfeed.  To watch their story, click here.

Double the fun and double the feedings.  No problem according to mother of twins Anne Duncan.

“With twins it seemed logical to breast feed. All that formula would be expensive There’s no more natural food that exists,” Duncan said.

Duncan and other moms come to Covenant Medical Center each Wednesday as part of a breastfeeding support group.

This week mother’s milk takes center stage with World Breastfeeding Week.

“It’s beneficial to me, I get to be closer to him,” mother Meagan Slee said. “Something my husband doesn’t get to do. It’s hard to explain the bond.”

“You can see the babies behind me,” Lactation Consultant Rhonda Thompson said, motioning to the group of babies in the room. “They look pretty healthy, pretty good. It’s not unusual for breastfed babies not to be sick at all their first year of life.”

Duncan agrees on the health benefits for twins Leyton and Riley, born six weeks premature. She says the proof is in the doctor’s bill.

“We’ve had less trips to the doctor than not just the average baby, let alone premature baby,” she said.

As part of world breastfeeding week, these moms want to celebrate benefits like bonding, reduction in allergies, reducing the risk of breast cancer in moms and more.

“There’s nothing to lose. Give it a shot. If you really don’t like it, you don’t have to do it,” Thompson said.

Some moms feel so strongly about breastfeeding, they switched employers to do so.

Duncan decided to make that switch.

“There are many businesses that support family values and will give you the opportunity to pump or take a long lunch and nurse your kid,” Duncan said.

Whether it’s time, energy, or even changing jobs, these moms say the benefits of breastfeeding double any sacrifice.

Doctors say once in a while because of medical issues, mothers cannot breastfeed. But they encourage moms to believe in themselves and give it a try.

Stats show about 74 percent of mothers breastfeed nationwide.

American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding the first six months of life, and to continue breastfeeding through the first year, and even beyond if mother and baby choose.

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My parents taught me many wonderful things growing up, and I will always be grateful for them.

Unfortunately I didn’t learn a whole lot about money.

When my husband and I got married, we had different ideas about money – how we should use it, how we should earn it, how we should save it, and also we had different ideas about its intrinsic value and role.

Financial Peace University teaches simple principles that most people don't practice. But following them can mean the difference between a life of peace or conflict.

Needless to say, this created some conflict.

For a few years,I’d been hearing about fincial guru Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University.

I liked what I heard on his radio program, and thought maybe one day my husband and I might go.

We actually just enrolled. It’s aweseome!

If you’d like to learn more about it, click right here.

He teaches seven “Baby Steps” to help people achieve – just like the name of the class - financial peace.

The steps include funding a $1,000 emergency fund, paying off all your debts using a “debt snowball” method, putting 3 to 6 months of expenses in savings, investing 15 percent of your income in ROTH IRAs and pretax retirement, starting a college fund for your children, paying off your home, and building wealth and saving.

It’s a wonderful program.

There are classes springing up all the time.

More than anything, it teaches what we all should have learned, but most of us didn’t.

And, it makes money a viable topic of conversation – it takes away the emotion behind it.

Only when you undersand something can you truly succeed at it.

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And sooner than you can blink, 8 years have come and gone.

I’m not sure how to react to this one…

Today is my husband and my wedding anniversary – a good thing.

Number 8!

Where did the time go?

I remember hearing older people say “time simply picks up steam as it rolls forward”, and wondering exactly what they meant, but now I know.

It really feels like time went into warp speed. 

More proof of how fast time flies, and the issue at hand: we both just realized yesterday that our anniversary is today!

Whoops.

I never thought we’d be that couple.

It’s not that we didn’t know August 1st was our anniversary, it’s just that it arrived so quickly!

Who knows how the day will turn out… it’s still young.

Maybe we’ll think of something independently to do… on a Monday…. last minute.

Talk about romantic!

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