Posts Tagged ‘kansas city star’
Written by nurse mommy on 06 September 2010
Labor Day Takes on Different Meaning
previously printed on September 1, 2010
The Kansas City Star news
I grew up as one of those average kids who treated school as a social arena instead of the learning institution it should be.
At a young age, I performed well enough in the classroom to keep the parents happy in between cutting up with friends. Why did I need to learn about fractions, when I was going to be a famous actress? See how well that worked out for me.
It seems that my lack of Trivial Pursuit skills — due to ignoring teachers — is kicking me in the gluteus maximus these days. (I only retained information from nursing school.)
History is actually interesting, and I now yearn to learn about the world and what has occurred off the Broadway stage since the beginning of time. I had no idea people were so busy and not singing and dancing their way through life!
So for all of these years I haven’t bothered worrying about Labor Day. Never once did I ask, “Why is there a holiday about work?” I wasn’t going to work; I was merely acting! But a national holiday doesn’t come around just because someone influential wants another day off between July 4th and Thanksgiving — or does it?
In 1894, in Pullman, Ill., railway workers were protesting unsafe working conditions and were not happy about the increasingly long shifts and decreasing pay. Bunch of whiners! I love working long hours and not getting paid. That’s why I became a mother!
So seriously, the demonstrations turned violent, so Grover Cleveland (not really sure who this guy is) sent in troops to break up the strikes. It turned quite ugly. People died, so President Cleveland felt bad he had made a gigantic mess of things and decided to right his wrong by giving the American working man one day off. (This way Americans could take their family to the last day of the summer pool season and eat hot dogs and apple pie.)
I couldn’t quite find out if the people actually forgave Mr. President for slaughtering their townsfolk in exchange for a vacation day, but that was so long ago.
Labor Day, according to the government, will always be the first Monday in September. Yes, a vacation day to separate July 4th and Thanksgiving. But it is truly a day to remember the American men and women who were killed by U.S. troops on their own streets in Illinois. All these poor irritated Illinoisans wanted were better working conditions. Can you blame them?
I guess they got a day off for subsequent Americans, so we should stop and raise our beverage from poolside this Labor Day. And while dodging the black cloud of smoke from the barbecue, take a moment to thank these brave workers for helping us celebrate the end of another wonderful summer.
Tags: american holidays, Grover Cleveland, history of Labor Day, kansas city star, Labor day
Posted in Kansas City Star | No Comments »
Written by nurse mommy on 16 August 2010
The Ice-cream Man Cometh
STACEY HATTON COMMENTARY
Close your eyes and think back to any summer of your youth.
Didn’t you love to hear the calliope music faintly at the end of the block? You would stop dead in your tracks, gasp and stridently whisper to your friends, “Did you hear that?” And in unison everyone yelled, “It’s the ice cream man!”
Then pandemonium! In a frantic, wild disbursement of children, short legs sprinted inside to their piggy bank or their mom’s purse. There was boisterous begging for spare change or last week’s allowance so they could be first to get to the truck ladled full of pure sugar, chocolate and food coloring. The Bomb Pop was the “bomb,” the Drumstick was “banging,” and there was nothing funny about missing a Good Humor bar.
Oh, memories of a simpler time when children were allowed to run the streets with friends and chase trucks stocked with high-fat dairy products. Life was good!
But it’s not the same world now. There are recommendations to refrain from high-fructose corn syrup and high-fat dairy. And I’m sure some study somewhere indicates that food coloring causes behavioral problems in children from Dayton, Ohio. It’s enough to shut down the ice cream business all together. And if that isn’t bad enough, there are documented cases of children being accidentally run over by the trucks!
I have been researching how to resolve this summertime trouble, and an acquaintance in the Chicago area mentioned that she and her young children call the ice cream truck the “music truck.” Her children have no idea the truck is filled with glorious cold snacks. They think it’s nice that a truck periodically comes down their block to provide some music while they are out playing. What a nice person to fill the neighborhood with circus music! She will let them know when they can cross the street carefully.
I know another woman — let’s call her Miss Popular — who for years kept her basement freezer swollen with a variety of icy treats. Every time the ice cream truck would approach her home, her children and those playing with her kids would stop what they were doing and run to her basement. It was their cue to grab a free dessert. My guess is the ice cream man in her neighborhood wasn’t fond of her.
Now, I am not trying to close down the mobile ice cream business. Far from it. I love a good Bomb Pop when the heat index starts climbing. I just advise parents to educate young kids that even though the ice cream truck can be a sweet summer experience, they are no different than any other vehicle driving down the street. It’s best not to run in front of one.
So may your family have a safe summer, and remember to supply your children with the appropriate ice cream requirement mandated by the USDA’s food pyramid. You might have to squint to see it, but I’m pretty sure it’s there. At least that’s what I tell my family.
Stacey Hatton is a pediatric nurse and freelance writer in Overland Park. Her blog can be found at http://nursemommylaughs.com.
Posted on Tue, Aug. 10, 2010 10:15 PM
Tags: children, ice cream, ice cream man, ice cream truck injuries, kansas city star
Posted in Kansas City Star, Parenting Tips | Comments Off
Written by nurse mommy on 10 February 2010
Do you remember a time when Valentine’s Day was about young, sweet flirtations and chock full of excitement?
And speaking of chock, those dreadful candy hearts molded out of blackboard chalk were such a hit. He gave me, “Be Mine!” Or better still: He thinks I’m a “Cutie Pie!” Ah, so creative, so deep — sheer poetry at its best!
And do you remember making Valentine mailboxes out of your dad’s big-footed shoe box so your loving suitors could cram bountiful love letters and joke cards into it? Then ever-so- carefully, you covered your romantic dowry trunk with red and pink construction paper hearts and lacy doilies with thick white paste — the very glue that one kid in first grade secretly ate off the stick whenever the teacher faced the chalkboard. If memory is accurate, the paste (and the boy) smelled like peppermint.
When I was in second grade, another boy even cut off his ponytail and put it in my Valentine’s box. I know many of you are thinking, “Eww!” But it was this boy’s kind gesture that first taught me about crushes. Looking back, I hope his mother didn’t freak out when he came home from school missing his hair, but I digress.
Now as adults who have been brained-washed by mass marketing and societal pressures, Valentine’s Day has morphed into elegant dinners, aromatic bouquets of crimson roses, shiny heart-shaped boxes of fine chocolates the size of your head, and diamonds…oh, yes, the diamonds! But do we really know how and why this beautiful holiday for lovers came to be?
I went to my most reliable source on the internet, Almost-the-Truth-Ipedia, and searched for the history of Valentine’s Day. Now if you are faint of heart or can’t talk about lab dissections at the dinner table, you might not want to research this topic. I would like to summarize what I learned, so you can see how far our demonstrations of love have come over the ages.
Valentine’s Day started as a darling, little pagan holiday called Lupercalia. This Roman festival, held in February, always began with an animal sacrifice; afterward, the men would remove the animals’ skin and then slap young women with bloody skin strips. (I did not make this part up!) This was to protect their women from curses and increase fertility. Charming!
In third century A.D., the Roman Emperor Claudius II decided all this festival love stuff had to go and banished the pagan festival, as well as all future marriages and engagements. He felt his army would be more aggressive if they weren’t homesick for loved ones. However, a priest named Father Valentine ignored the Emperor’s rulings and secretly married young lovers. This occurred until the Emperor found out and threw Father Valentine in jail.
Of course, the priest fell in love with the prison guard’s daughter, and on the day of his execution, February the 14th, he passed a note to his beloved, which read something like, “Sorry about the beheading… I think you’re great… Signed, Your Valentine.”
After a commercial break, someone high up felt bad about killing Father Valentine, so they declared him a saint, which was a pretty good way to make up to his family for the head-chopping incident. It’s the same old story: take a life, feel a touch of remorse and then make amends by dedicating a statue to your victim. Get it right the first time, perhaps?
So as you are picking out the perfect gift for your love, my advice is you might want to steer clear of the whole Roman tradition. If diamonds aren’t in your budget, a jar of that sweet peppermint glue could take your beloved back to a time when people really knew how to woo and pursue!
Stacey Hatton is an Overland Park pediatric nurse and freelance writer.
©2010, Hatton. All rights reserved.
Tags: crushes, holidays, kansas city star, valentines
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Written by NurseMommyLaughs on 22 January 2010
As a humorist, I can usually find the “funny” in about anything. However, this is a difficult time to find material when all everyone wants and needs to do is to aid the people of Haiti. The earthquake last week deeply saddened my heart and photos in the media have made it impossible to ignore. Which is finally a good thing!
However, as I sit down to write this posting, my heart is pained on a personal note. This morning the Kansas City Star ran a front page article on the disappearance of Dr. Frank Vaughters, a beloved Kansas City pediatrician who was doing mission work in Haiti at the time of the earthquake. No one has heard from him since. Even though I only worked with him briefly as a home health nurse, his compassion and love of his job shined through the phone when I would call with worries about his patients. Obviously, with his dedication to the people and children of Haiti, his passion for healing was greater than most and his disappearance is devastating.
If you are a prayerful person, please take a moment and send a prayer to Dr. Vaughters, his family, his fellow co-workers, his patients and their families. And please pray for a miracle for this doctor (who so selflessly creates miracles for children and families every day) so that he will call home once again… God bless you, Dr. Vaughters.
Here is the link to the KC Star article from this morning: http://www.kansascity.com/842/story/1699780.html
Tags: Dr. Frank Vaughters, Haiti, kansas city, kansas city star, pediatrician, prayer
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Written by NurseMommyLaughs on 20 January 2010
Here is today’s article from the KC Star. My next blog will continue on Wednesday!
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THE KANSAS CITY STAR (January 20, 2010)
STACEY HATTON COMMENTARY
Slow down and take a deep breath
While leaving my children’s preschool one morning, I fortunately was reminded what every parent needs to hear at the beginning of the day: slow down!
Who would say that to your face? No one with any sense of decorum — maybe with the exception of hall monitors or lifeguards. I was indirectly asked to slow down by a woman walking behind me who let out an audible exhalation. Actually, she could have blown me out the door with it!
Now, she didn’t realize she had done this, because when I turned around and mentioned it, she was embarrassed, so sorry. But I think she did me a favor. I am here to pass on her exhalation to you parents of young children out there. (Please, insert yours here. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.)
As the caregivers of our offspring, today’s society has programmed us to be in high gear all day long. How many times have you gotten through the kids’ nightly bath and thought, “Where did the day go? Didn’t I just have my first cup of coffee a minute ago?”
We are creatures of habit and nurturers, so we run through the day repeating: feed, clean, feed, clean, feed, clean, clean, read aloud, fall into a pile of mush and pass out. Doesn’t this sound familiar?
I think breath-holding has become an epidemic problem. We need to start a movement to change this behavior. No more walking through life with our shoulders up to our ears, wracked with stress! No more headaches brought on by forgetting to eat or drink water for half the day! No more absentmindedness from multi-tasking to the extreme when you really aren’t doing anything well because you can’t focus on one thing at a time! No more weekly appointments to the massage therapist or chiropractor! OK, I take that back. I didn’t mean to say that.
Let me break down this problem medically. Our body needs oxygen (and food and water) to survive. When we are stressed, humans have a tendency to take shorter inhalations and not exhale completely. Breathe in oxygen; breathe out same amount of carbon dioxide. That’s what we should do.
Many of us stressed individuals walk around holding our breath the majority of the day. This is not good for us or the plants, which need our carbon dioxide to survive. It really isn’t just something made up by yoga instructors or granola crunchers of the 70s. You need to get rid of extra carbon dioxide in your body. And if Whitney Houston can do it, so can you! No waiting to exhale.
So when you feel your stress creeping up on you, stop and exhale. Exhale daily and deeply. Think about it. You might even save a plant.
Stacey Hatton is an Overland Park pediatric nurse and freelance writer. Her blog is at http://nursemommylaughs.com.
Posted on Tue, Jan. 19, 2010 10:15 PM
©2010, Hatton. All rights reserved.
Tags: deep breathing, kansas city star, nurse, Parenting, slowing down, stress
Posted in Kansas City Star | 2 Comments »
