Day Care Sells Cocaine

Finding a good day care is so hard these days, you have to accept compromises. Maybe your kid’s day care is a little pricey, doesn’t stay open as late as you’d like, or maybe the day care sells cocaine.

An Arkansas couple was arrested for selling cocaine out of the same house where they operate a day care. Husband Timothy Boston got caught in a sting operation by police. Catching a whiff of the jig being up, Boston fled to Texas where he was arrested. His wife, Denise, was arrested at the couple’s home/child care center the same day.

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Woman Arrested While in Labor Sues Police

A Jacksonville, Florida mother has been given a green light to sue local police after they first tackled her and then arrested her for running a red light on her way to the ER. She was in premature labor.

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Marshmallows or Murderers?

The other day, a coworker, knowing that my kids do not watch scary or violent films and that we eschew excessive competitiveness, said I was raising marshmallows.  While I disagree with him for a number of reasons, he is correct in that I am doing my best to raise kids who don’t find violence amusing or acceptable.  That’s why, when I came across an article about the recent gang rape of a 15-year-old Richmond, California girl, I found it especially interesting.
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Women Shamed Outside Court for Stealing from Kid

Two adult women stood outside a Pennsylvania courthouse for four and a half hours with giant signs: “I stole from a nine-year-old on her birthday! Don’t steal or this could happen to you!”

A little girl had placed her gift card on a shelf while a Wal-Mart employee assisted her - ostensibly with her purchases. Continue reading »

11-Year-Old Girl Gives Birth on Her Wedding Day

Upon holding up her newborn child for cameras, 11-year-old Kordeza Zhelyazkova said, “I’m not going to play with toys any more - I have a new toy now.”

Yikes.

Kordeza went into labor during the wedding ceremony to her teenage boyfriend Jeliazko Dimitrov. She still was still wearing the white dress and tiara when she gave birth to her daughter, Violeta.

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Teenage CSI Fan Nabs Locker Thief

For a high school student, $150 is a lot of money.  Whether earned at a job sandwiched between classes and homework, stored up after multiple birthdays, or even just collected, week after week, as an allowance, that kind of money doesn’t come easy to a teenager.  Heck, it doesn’t even come easy to adults.  So you can imagine that high school senior Tiana Rapp must have been rather upset when $150 went missing from her gym locker, despite the presence of an adult hall monitor.

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When It Isn’t the Baby Keeping You Awake

For most of us, the first weeks or months after a new baby are a haze of sleeplessness. But for some mothers, it never quite goes away. Instead, we develop postpartum insomnia, staring at the ceiling while our babies snooze blissfully away.

And that, I can tell you as someone who’s contending with it right now, pretty much sucks. I’ve gone from being someone who sleeps like the dead for as many hours as I can cram in to someone who usually wakes at least once or twice in the night. And then the real fun starts — I worry about money, about the economy, about rising crime and plummeting property values in my neighborhood, about swine flu, car accidents or many other ills which could befall my kids. And just as I am starting to think I might be able to go back to sleep, my husband commences snoring, or the kitten decides it’s playtime, or one or both of my kids needs some attention.

As one of the insomniacs profiled in the story says, “your brain goes to these really dark, twisted places, which, in the cold light of day, seem like nothing.”

I’d be willing to bet that lots of parents are experiencing this right now. We’re living in very anxious times, and the kind of small interruptions you’d normally be able to roll right over and ignore can snowball into big anxious worries at night. The story has a few suggestions: first, do what you can to break the cycle by taking medication, leaving the house for the night, even taking to a spare bed somewhere in the house and putting your kids and spouse on notice that you are not to be disturbed. Exhaustion can breed anxiety which breeds insomnia, so breaking the cycle by getting a few good nights of sleep can sort of hit the “reset” button.

Also, try to avoid middle of the night interruptions to prevent those scary thoughts from creeping in.Your body transitions into a pre-awakening lighter sleep at around 3 am, and being stressed and hyperalert can make your body very receptive to those waking-up signals. And finally, breathe slowly and consciously to relax and allow yourself to fall back asleep.

My trick? Naming all 50  states. It’s engaging enough to keep my mind from wandering, but boring enough that eventually I just drift off.

Anybody else out there? And do you have any tricks to beat it? Share!

First Picture of Grown Up Jaycee Duggard Released

People magazine has published the first picture of a smiling Jaycee Dugard since she’s been reunited with family after 18 years in captivity.

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Bad Parent Alert: Mom Strips to Avoid Arrest

Just when you’re feeling particularly crappy, a mom strips in front of her kids to avoid getting arrested! And she does it AFTER shoplifting with her kids along for the ride.

Any guess on what Wisconsin police say Julia Laack took? Continue reading »

DUI Mom Breastfeeding While Driving

Police were shocked when they pulled over an erratic driver to find the drunken 19-year-old mother was attempting to breastfeed while drive.

After almost creating a collision, the drunken mother gave chase while the police followed, assumed still breastfeeding. Oh, and she was driving without a license in an unlicensed vehicle.

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