Everyone is Talking
About the toddler who was snatched by an alligator at a Disney resort while wading in shallow water.
Why do I care?
It’s a reminder to cherish every minute with your children.
Tell me more.
A toddler from Nebraska, Lane Graves, was visiting the happiest place on earth with his family this week when they decided to take some time to leisurely stroll through their resort’s property. What they didn’t expect was that tragedy would strike. Lane was playing near his parents in the shallow water of a man-made lagoon on the Grand Floridian Resort property when an alligator came upon him and dragged him into the water. His parents, Matt and Melissa, both attempted to save him from the alligator to no avail. He was found dead yesterday afternoon – it is believed that the animal drowned the boy.
Since the incident, there have been five alligators caught and euthanized for analysis – the goal being to eliminate the alligator who attacked the boy and any other nuisance alligators on the property.
Our hearts go out to their entire family. We’ll be hugging our little ones a good bit tighter today.
Go Ahead, Indulge in Your Cup of Jo
Raise your hand if your eyes only begin to open after that first cup of jo? Us too.
Well, you can breathe a sigh of relief if you worried about those beans being linked to cancer, because a WHO panel just released their findings and we’re all good. In fact, if you have a regular coffee habit, it may even be a protective measure for uterus and liver cancers. Other studies suggest it also helps colorectal cancers and NPR links coffee to longevity.
We don’t know about you, but we’re going to go pour another cup.
Hack it Up
Instagram is more than just a place for selfies and bragging. It’s a place to find genius ideas for life hacks, and Michael Sphor of Buzzfeed gathered 25 gems for you in a recent post.
Our favorites?
- Using coffee filters as snack bowls. Um, this is a SUPER cheap solution to snacks on the go.
- Using a grabber to hand snacks to your kids in the car. Dude. Game changer.
- Missing things? Make it a scavenger hunt for your kids. Why didn’t we think of that?!
- In flight entertainment with window clings. Perfect for when you have to shut down the electronics in those last 30 minutes.
- Command hooks on the back of high chairs to hang bibs. Very handy.
The Kids Really are Alright
Parents can rejoice because today’s teens are smoking less, drinking less and having less of the S-E-X.
Every couple of years, there is Youth Risk Behavior study conducted by the CDC which monitors six types of behaviors – those that contribute to injuries or violence, sexual related behaviors and the results of those behaviors, consumption of alcohol and drugs, tobacco, and unhealthy diets. According to Vox’s analysis of this data, the trends in many of the areas are at an all time low.
- Teen sex is at an all-time low and teens are more mindful about their contraceptive use. Over the past three decades, teen pregnancy has declined dramatically.
- Teens are using less drugs and the choice of drugs, if they use them at all, are not of the hallucinogenic nature, they don’t choose meth or ecstasy and, cocaine is on the decline as well.
You’ll want to check out Vox’s interactive comparison of teens today to when you grew up. Use their slider to select the year you were born and it will then note the year you were sixteen and how that compares to a teen today. In our case, nearly 35% of teens smoked when we were sixteen while only about 11% smoke today. In our teen years, 80% of teens had tried drugs and alcohol while now it’s only about 60%. The details are dare we say, comforting? They remind us that teens today are truly doing alright.
Parting Thoughts
“When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it’s amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.” – Greg Mortenson, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan
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