DadTalk

End of Summer Overload

Man, so much to do, so little time. The kids go back to school in just two weeks. Two weeks!

Yikes.

First First

I knew it would happen some day, and today was the day. Seth took his first first in the breast stroke.

Yea Seth
Brett Levy
thejournalismshop.com
dadalk.net

Super Hero Dad

Good deed of the day: A woman slipped on ice cream (painted concrete floor) and started to fall on Lael and Seth who were eating ice cream. Instinctively, I grabbed the woman's arm -- the woman was walking between me where I was standing and the kids -- and caught her.

I'm pretty sure the woman would have crashed clear the ground, pinning Lael beneath her. To be honest, I didn't know I could move that fast.
Brett Levy
thejournalismshop.com
dadalk.net

Arizona Immigration Law Will Punish Kids the Most

Regardless where you stand on Arizona’s illegal immigrant bill, which puts pressure on police to identify and arrest suspected aliens, this state’s children will be the biggest losers when the law soon goes into affect.

There are obvious reasons: Children face the risk of deportation along with parents. Or parents might be arrested and deported without their children. And children will pay the price for the portion of law that allows the state to recoup legal fees from already impoverished parents.

There is another problem, though, that is only now making the news. Like other states, police officers are assigned to public school campuses. Under federal rules, schools must provide an education to all children, legal or not. From educators’ perspective, these rules apply to the on-campus police.

But Russell Pearce, the state senator who authored SB 1070, wants campus police officers investigating children who they suspect being illegal immigrants, reports the Arizona Capitol Times.

Says Pearce:

“To assume that schools are areas protected from enforcing the law is simply not correct. If you have a legitimate suspicion that a person is breaking the law, you have to investigate it.”

Food Recalls Something Stinks in Recall of Four Kellogg’s Cereal

I always knew that eating too much junk food – or cereal for that matter – could make you sick to your stomach. But how about getting sick before eating Apple Jacks or Froot Loops?

Apparently, something has gone wrong with the packaging of some Kellogg’s cereal packages, which are emitting a strange, off-flavor smell, reports the Food and Drug Administration.

As often the case, the FDA says don’t worry about any health problems; nausea or diarrhea won’t kill you. Wait a minute, doesn’t pooping problems imply someone ATE the cereal or gave it to their kids despite the smell? Just saying.

Below are the recalled products:

Recalls 2 Million Cribs

When my wife was pregnant with Seth, we did what a lot of families do: we went to Babies R Us and picked out our favorite crib. We wanted a drop-side convertible so that it would grow with our child.

A relative bought us the crib, but it never made it to toddler bed. We wound up getting Seth a slide bed and Lael a metal-framed white bed. In fact, all that we have left of the crib is the headboard, which is gathering dust in the garage.

Considering all the recalls of drop-side crips – more 2 million were affected by today’s announcement – I suppose it’s for the best. The recall brings the total number of cribs that need to be fixed up to 9 million, reports WebMD.

“They outsource the manufacture of these cribs and are using very inferior hardware to make the side go up and down,” says Consumer Reports safety expert Don Mays. Another problem is poor quality instructions, which leads to upside down assemblies.

Here is the list of cribs recalled today:

• Simmons Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• Million Dollar Baby Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• LaJobi Recalls to Repair Bonavita, Babi Italia and ISSI Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• Jardine Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• Evenflo Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• Delta Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards Child Craft Drop-Side Cribs Recalled Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards

My Daughter Is Famous … Sort of

So I was on the phone with my mom looking for a place to celebrate Seth’s 8th birthday when it struck me that CrackerJax might be the right choice.

The place has miniature golf, go-karts, video games, lousy food, etc. So I go to the website when suddenly a photo of two kids driving go-karts pops up.

Cue double take: Hey, my daughter, Lael, is driving that yellow go-kart! (The photo is actually used twice, once in the flash banner and then again at the bottom of this page.)

So who else thinks we should get free lifetime passes?

FDA Needs to Get a Grip on Food Issues, Report Finds

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s abilities to discover potential threats to food safety and prevent outbreaks of foodborne illness are hampered by impediments to efficient use of its limited resources and a piecemeal approach to gathering and using information on risks, says a new report by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council.

In other words, the FDA is a mess. The Agency only responds after a disaster rather than predicting potential ones. Of course, this is nothing new to those who have been paying attention, but it’s always nice to have a report to make the prognosis “official.”

More importantly, this report, which was requested by the FDA and Congress, proposes solutions, such as:

• Encouraging the FDA to adopt a risk-based approach to health data to more quickly identify potential food-chain problems.
• The FDA should increase coordination with state and other federal agencies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, oversees meat while Oregon’s health department seemingly discovers more problems than the FDA does.
• The FDA should build a centralized food data center that can rapidly collect and disseminate food problems.
• The FDA should standardized testing and rules among states, then farm out inspections to state agencies.
• I’d read the whole report, but it costs $70, even on PDF. Jeesh.

A Tough Lesson to Learn

I spent most of my afternoons last summer teaching my kids basic swimming: putting their faces in the water, holding their breaths, diving down to retrieve torpedoes and basic freestyle.

In March of this year, I began schlepping the kids to the park district aquatic center for more lessons. By April, Seth was on our community swim team.

Not surprisingly, Seth was the slowest of the swimmers. Not only was he slower than his classmates, but most of the younger children as well. I say not surprisingly for two reasons: 1. Because the kids out here have been swimming for years and 2. Because speed is not my forte, endurance is.

After a practice or two, we decided Lael wasn’t ready emotionally to be on the swim team. But physically, Lael is highly advanced in every sport she tries.

Back to Seth: It took a couple weeks before my poor boy could make one length across the pool without flopping onto his back, resorting to chicken, star, rocket. Unfortunately, he was spending so long on his back, he wasn’t really swimming.

Illegal Levels of Lead Found in Juice Drinks and Fruit Cups

Lead exceeding California’s legal limit was found in dozens of popular juice and fruit products, according to the Environmental Law Foundation.

Drinks in violation included Earth’s Best Organics Apple Juice, Hansen Natural Apple Juice, Safeway 100% Juice Apple Cider and Trader Joe's Certified Organic (pasteurized) Apple Juice.

One of the drinks we have in the house for Shabbat – Kedem Concord Grape Juice 100% pure grape juice – is on the list. While we don’t have packaged pears, peaches and fruit cocktail in our house, several dozen products were on the high lead list.

The complete list of products tested can be found here, as well as on the jump. The products, which are in violation of California’s Prop 65, were found to contain more than 0.5 micrograms of lead.

The Environmental Law Foundation has submitted the drinks in violation to the California Attorney General and 58 county district attorneys hoping the government will take action. If California drops the ball, though, ELF plans to file a lawsuit in 60 days, according to the group’s press release.

This report has been slow to show up in the mainstream press, but you can listen to this KQED radio report for more information.