Last summer, one of my husband’s college friends, Steve, came to visit with his wife and two children, a little boy a bit older than my daughter and a baby. They stayed with us for a couple of days and we all had a nice time, visiting the Long Island Sound and just relaxing. It was the first time I met his wife, Jennifer, and we hit if off right away. The Pumpkin fell in love with the baby. A few months later, we found out they were expecting a new baby who was due in June. But something went wrong. They’ve spent the last several days in the hospital delivering the baby, who died. We’ve been getting e-mail updates about the experience, including a last e-mail that came at 2 a.m. this morning with details about the keepsake box with a lock of hair and some photos that they brought home instead of a baby.

It’s been hard to get Jennifer and Steve out of my mind. I could easily have ended up with a similar box if it weren’t for the life-saving treatment my daughter received at White Plains Hospital Center.

Four years ago on April 20, I went into the hospital showing symptoms of preeclampsia, a disease that affects about 5 percent of pregnancies and poses risk for both mother and baby. I hadn’t read about preeclampsia before and didn’t really know what the doctors were so concerned about. I had been showing the signs of preeclampsia for a couple of weeks and had even spent a weekend on bedrest, but the doctors didn’t use that word yet. Here’s a clue: If your hands are so swollen that you lose sensation, it’s time to worry. Swollen ankles in pregnancy: Not so much.

My first night I was dazed, suffering from a horrible cold, unable to sleep. Over the next few days, the signs were clear that the doctors expected me to deliver my daughter early, but wanted to wait as long as possible. I was given steroid shots to mature my daughter’s lungs, moved to a private room and ordered to rest on my left side. In retrospect, I think I went into a bit of denial. After my cold cleared up by the weekend, I actually felt really great. It was sunny outside and I didn’t feel like staying in bed. It seemed absurd that I would actually have the baby that early, and so I discounted the idea, especially since I felt so healthy. The swelling had gone down and I didn’t have other classic symptoms, like a headache or pain in my abdomen. (I found out later that these are important symptoms of something going wrong. At the time, I just knew that nurses came into my room every four hours to ask me, “Do you have a headache? Any pain in your abdomen?”)

Every day, I rode a wheelchair down to radiology and got a look at my baby, who was healthy but tiny. Things were going so well that after a week and a half, on May 2, my doctor during rounds that morning even talked about maybe letting me go home on bedrest for a while. That was before he got the results of that morning’s blood draw. (Oh yeah, every morning I gave about five vials. Fun stuff.)

Later that afternoon, I had just showered and was sitting up in bed, making phone calls and relaxing when a phalanx of nurses from labor and delivery strode into my room with a gurney and told me I was coming with them to deliver the baby. This was a shock. My own nurse came in behind them and said the doctor had been trying to reach me, but I had been on the phone. My bloodwork showed that I had developed a complication of preeclampsia called HELLP Syndrome, which basically meant that internal organs like my liver weren’t doing so hot. The baby had to come out, or else we both would be in trouble.

After panicked calls to reach my husband to come as quickly as possible and to my sister-in-law for reassurance, I was prepped for a C-section. That evening, my daughter was born at 26 weeks, five days, gestation. She weighed just 1 pound, 13.4 ounces, or 834 grams. I didn’t even get to see her born because I was so swollen the anesthesiologist couldn’t get a needle into my spine. I had general anesthesia. I didn’t get to see her for more than 24 hours because I was stuck in bed in a haze thanks to a magnesium sulfate drip. I didn’t hold her for almost a week because she was so delicate. I just sat by her incubator, lightly touching her with my hand and talking to her. Her entire hand was the size of the tip of my pinky finger. The first days were so scary that it’s hard to even describe what it was like. The first week of a preemie’s life will determine what happens for the rest of it. And for us, the news was all good. She didn’t need a ventilator, and was breathing with just positive air pressure. No bleeding in the brain. Lots of pee. A feisty attitude. (That hasn’t changed.) I got to hold her for the first time six days after she was born. It happened to be Mother’s Day. Part of me is still in that chair, holding my swaddled baby for the first time, oblivious to everything else. One of the neonatologists walked up to me and started to talk to me about how well she was doing, but I ignored him, repeating over and over, “My baby, my baby.”

Today, she weighs about 33 pounds and is as tall as some 5-year-olds. And when she climbs into my lap for snuggles, the world still disappears and my mind repeats, “My baby, my baby.”

On Sunday, for the fourth year, I will be lacing up my sneakers and heading to White Plains to walk with hundreds of other parents who know exactly how I felt in that first moment I held my daughter. Parents of preemies never take a day or a minute for granted. We know how easily we could have come home with nothing but heartbreak. We are thrilled for the chance to help out the March of Dimes, which is committed to making sure that more babies come home with their parents. I pester my family, friends and coworkers for donations because I know that every dollar raised will go to programs to prevent premature birth and to make sure that the ones who are born early, like my Pumpkin, will live.

While I was writing this, my daughter came over to me to give me a hug and show off the blue ponytail holder her grandmother put in her (long and messy) hair today. I have never cut her hair, which is below her waist. I hadn’t realized until this moment why I haven’t, even though I know that it would be nice to have a lock of the baby blond at the tips before the whole head turns darker. I don’t need a keepsake. I have my baby. I’m marching on Sunday so that other moms can say the same.

My father in-law, who is a brilliant doctor, worried a few months ago that his only grandchild might have a hearing problem. It seemed that when he and my mother-in-law sat with the little boy, he wouldn’t respond to the simplest of commands.

He has nothing to worry about. Turns out it was just stubbornness, not hearing impairment or disrespect.

Our toddler now sits in the living room of our 4th floor apartment and screams out each time he hears a city bus near the stop on the corner. It’s very impressive.

Now while hearing isn’t an issue, pronouncing the letter ’s’ might be. As the M7 or M11 approaches our block, my son breaks into a smile, points to the window and yells out ‘Bu, Bu’.

When did you teach your children about the dangers of “strangers”? We started earlier this year and have approached the topic in a measured fashion, trying not to freak her out but also hoping to instill caution.

This is on my mind this morning thanks to my colleague Janie Rosman’s article about a seminar on “stranger danger” held in Scarsdale. It’s well worth a read. I particularly liked the advice about helping children find “safe” strangers if they get lost. Telling your child to go up to a mom with children and ask for help is a great idea.

The Scarsdale mom who organized the workshop was inspired by a scare in a store when she lost track of her 5-year-old for a moment.

I’ve always kept pretty close tabs on the Pumpkin while we shop — which won’t surprise any of my friends and family who know my protective parenting style. But I have to admit that I used to relax some of my vigilance when we shopped in kids’ stores like Baby Gap and Gymboree, letting her wander around a bit while I browsed.

An experience I had in December put an end to that casual attitude.

I was shopping for Christmas gifts at Danbury mall with my daughter one evening just a few days before the holiday. It was a special trip just to buy her daddy’s presents. We first went to Lord & Taylor and spent about 45 minutes at the men’s fragrance counter with a very patient saleswoman who helped us pick out a shower gel and deodorant. Pumpkin must have smelled a dozen scents. Then we stopped at Pottery Barn to pick up two more place settings of our flatware to have enough for an upcoming party. Then we went to Jos. A. Bank to pick out a tie. Because my husband is tall, we asked where the long ties were displayed in the back of the store. I put down my Pottery Barn bag, which had the Lord & Taylor bag tucked inside, and both Pumpkin and I talked with the salesman. They were having a “buy one, get one” promotion, so we picked out two ties. Then we found out there was the same deal for dress shirts, so we picked out two of those as well, moving perhaps a total of eight feet from where the ties were displayed.

So, I go to the register to pay, and I realize I don’t have my bag. I head to the back where I left it, and it’s nowhere to be found. Now, this is a very small store that’s long and narrow. Even just days before Christmas, it had less than a half dozen customers in the store the whole time I was there. I proceeded to hunt for my bag, but it was nowhere to be found. I made the manager call mall security to report the theft. It took them 45 minutes to show up and they didn’t even write anything down. They were completely uninterested. I thought to myself that it was amazing that my bag could disappear in the few minutes that we were picking out ties and dress shirts. Maybe it was a customer who I hadn’t noticed in the very back of the store. But it seems hard to believe that the one or two customers in the vicinity just happened to be a thief. I’ll leave the reader of the blog to come to the other obvious conclusion about who else was in the vicinity, as my husband did when I told him the story.

After I left the store, and after I went back to Lord & Taylor to re-buy the bath stuff (we skipped a return trip to Pottery Barn, too depressing), I realized how lucky I was: Someone stole a bag with maybe $140 in merchandise inside. But holding my hand was my most precious person. If a bag can be stolen in a few minutes, so can a child.

So I asked the Pumpkin what she wanted me to make for her to eat on her fourth birthday. She said, “rice and cabbage.” Perhaps I’m taking the idea of teaching her healthy eating habits a bit too far.

Seriously, though, my child is as vulnerable to the allure of junk food as anyone’s. Even though dinner always includes at least two vegetables and her lunch is often a big plate of broccoli with parmesan cheese, she has a big sweet tooth and a taste for french fries. A taste, I’ll admit, that is my fault.

It all started last fall shortly after she began taking dance lessons on Saturdays. To say that her compliance in obeying the teacher was poor is an understatement (more on that another time). To encourage her to follow directions, I made a deal with her (we’re big on deals): If she obeys, she gets a treat of french fries at the neighboring cafe. Well, two seasons later and this reward is pretty firmly seated in her synapses. She knows that if she has a good class, she will be eating french fries.

It’s a big treat for her. I do feel a bit unhappy about it because I know she enjoys it so much, and I fear I am circuiting her brain to perceive food as reward. Next year, I am going to try introducing something different, like a trip to the bookstore. Though that has the problem of being expensive and teaches another problematic behavior: shopping. Maybe I can think about an experience as a reward that’s free and desirable.

In the meantime, I’ll make her the cabbage (purple) and rice on her birthday. (Though NOT at her party. I won’t subject our family to cabbage for a celebration!)

The folks at Child Care Aware sent out a reminder that next month will bring National Provider Appreciation Day, when child care providers we entrust with our kids get honorable mention.

Not a bad idea, depending on the care the kids receive. We’ve been lucky that way, so I figured I would send CCA’s press release along for your consumption:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 11.3 million children under the age of 5 that spend some part of their week in child care. If this number includes your family, chances are you’ve added an extended family member or two to your daily routine. And you’ve selected a person that you feel will provide the best care for your child.

Child care providers put a lot of love and hard work into their careers, and they’re often rewarded with little hugs and a “thank you” every now and then. As your child spends time with his/her child care provider, a special bond begins to form. This person is an additional teacher, friend and trusted caregiver. Your child shares many special moments with the child care provider, and you enoy the benefits of these relationships on a daily basis.

This year, take some time to show your child care provider how much you appreciate what she does for your family. On Friday, May 8, 2009, the nation will celebrate National Provider Appreciation Day – a day set aside each year to honor those who are caring for our young children.

For more information on Provider Appreciation Day, go to www.providerappreciationday.org.

YMCAs across the nation will hold free and fun activities for kids on Saturday as part of Healthy Kids Day. The event “celebrates making fitness fun, and  introduces kids to an array of YMCA programs and tools that teach healthy behaviors and healthy ways to play,” according to the group.

In Rockland, events will be held at two sites. Activities will start at the Y’s Beginnings Nursery School, 18 Parkside Drive, Suffern at 10 a.m.

At noon, the main YMCA center at 35 South Broadway in downtown Nyack will host Jeffrey Friedberg of the Bossy Frog Band. A  one-mile fun walk starts at 1 p.m., all youth walkers will receive a free t-shirt.

Other activities planned include: sports and games, a family boot camp, arts & crafts,  healthy snacks, face painting and a  2-hour family swim that begins at 2:45 p.m.

Admission is free, but YMCA staff will be collecting non-perishable food items for donation to People to People.

Call your local Y to see if it is participating.

We got back to our apartment yesterday afternoon following the longest trip away for our toddler, a five-day trip out of state to my parents’ house.

While there he went on several adventures and got to know his 6-month-old cousin. He climbed stairs which he doesn’t have at home. He grabbed a broom every chance he got and swept the kitchen floor – although it confused him a bit because it had a sponge on one side and a brush on the other. He scavenged under a glass table, bumping his head most times he emerged. And he leaned against the living-room window for peeks outside – with a relatively boring view considering the suburban block my parents live on can’t offer the Manhattan taxicabs, buses, firetrucks, and delivery men on bikes he’s used to.

He woke up so early Friday that it was still dark outside. When he couldn’t see anything beyond one window, he ambled over a few feet to look behind the next shade. Nope, same view of the dark.

We brought along his favorite toys and books. But he didn’t have his little kitchen, or his toy chest or his regular high chair or the neighbor kids playing in the hallway. 

So when the long drive ended and we walked back into the apartment, my 16-month-old had one plan: he walked straight over to his little blue chair, folded himself over the arm and buried his face in the seat. 

Today, he’ll probably have a play date with his favorite Swiffer broom.

Who wears the pants in a blended family? More to the point, who handles discipline?

According to blended-family blogger Cathy Meyer, the biological parent should discipline their own child or children. The stepparent should, in turn, deal with their own child.

Well, it’s an interesting dilema. I find that in our home my girlfriend and I often defer to the biological parent to dictate terms and punishment for misdeed by the kids. For us, this always entails a verbal reprimand and nothing more. But the tendency of both our children to be a tad more uneasy with the stepparent issuing the reprimand is part of a learning curve that I think takes time – and we’re still working on.

But I have never seen it as a black-and-white issue. We do consult each other regularly and we have gotten comfortable with correcting or issuing mild reprimands to the others’ child. If it’s still a learning process it is more so for our two boys, and they are coming along.

Still, Meyer seems to take a harder line in her blog:

“As a stepparent, you should avoid any decisions about the discipline of your stepchild. This can and does depend on the situation but in most cases, it is best to leave issues of discipline up to the biological parent. Your role as a stepparent is that of mentor and supporter, not parent. This is something many stepparents have a hard time coming to terms with.”

I don’t think it’s that rigid, and I think it is something that has to be overcome for a blended family to eventually succeed. What do you think?

No, not from me. But this is something that really moved me and I felt it was worth sharing.

A co-worker today attended the Westchester County Women’s Hall of Fame Awards luncheon, at which his daughter was receiving the Merrill Lynch Westchester Leadership Award.

I think her words best relay why she was worthy of the honor and the scholarship it brings. These are excerpts from the essay she submitted as part of her application for the award:

“I have always been different. In books and movies, being different is always good. The hero and heroine are never ordinary people, they are special and gifted.
“But being different in real life is not always a good thing; most of the time it’s painful, lonely, and just plain hard. I have cerebral palsy and other learning disabilities including difficulty reading and writing.
“I would have to say that my disability, and more importantly people’s reaction to it, has had a big impact on my life and made me who I am today.
“It’s amazing how being different can be like holding a magnifying glass up to reveal those who are kind as well as those who are cruel. While I consider many of my ‘disabilities’ to be ‘abilities,’ I have had to spend much of my life learning how to be like others so I will be accepted.
“I hope to become a teacher, a special education teacher or maybe a social worker or an advocate for people with disabilities. I’d like to help other people like me get the help they deserve. Maybe I’ll even get a PhD.”

Wow. That’s some young lady.

Last week I discovered how to stop my youngest son from being late to school. At least it’s worked so far. You can say my youngest son, a high school freshman, has a chronic lateness problem. He hadn’t been on time for school since October.

We talked to him about his lateness; The school sent home notes about his lateness; He lost the privilege of leaving school for lunch; And we took his electronic games, except for his computer. None of that made a difference.

Then last week, a school staffer suggested a solution that went to the heart of being a high school freshman – not wanting to be seen with your parents. The plan was diabolically simple: If he couldn’t be responsible and get to school on time, treat him like a second grader and bring him to school.

To make sure this scheme worked I upped the ante, saying I would accompany him all the way to his classroom, the better to be seen with him. The fact that we live only two blocks from the school made the plan easy to carry out.

The first morning, last Friday, I woke my son and reminded him that we’d walk to class together if he was late. I said I was looking forward to our walk: It would be like the old days when he was younger. He was not similarly nostalgic.

That day he was on time for class. So, too with the next two days. Tomorrow could be the fourth day in a row. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find parenting a to be a little like guerrilla warfare. You’re in it for the long haul, so you need strategy and much patience. Change usually doesn’t come quickly. This battle was different, however, and now it feels like cause for celebration. But I have two things to do. First, praise him for his promptness; Second, hope he doesn’t lose his embarassment over being seen with me.

Sure, I should’ve paid more attention. But I didn’t.

So, here I was taking my 11-year-old son to see Watchmen at the theater, not having done enough legwork to know that there was heavily graphic violence, sex and nudity. Whoops.

Well, he knows enough to cover his eyes during certain moments (aided by me, of course). But I did stay the course and we sat through the whole movie. Yes, I considered walking out, but I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong: This wasn’t Last Tango in Paris, nor was it Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was just a tad over the top.

In hindsight, I wouldn’t take him to see it had I known the extent of it all. But I also reason with myself that you can’t shelter a kid from everything. My philosophy on cursing, for instance, is that he is in no way allowed to use foul language. However, I know he hears it in the course of his day and has to simply censor himself.

I see this movie experience similarly. Of course, now he figures if we saw that he can go see Slumdog Millionaire and it would be okay. Not sure I’m ready to make that leap.

Most adults old enough to be parents remember kindergarten activities like finger painting, cutting triangles and circles out of colorful construction paper and spending long periods of time on the playground.

Not any more. As most parents known, today it’s full-day kindergarten, with lots of time spent on reading, spelling, even math. Not so much time on the playground.

Educators and advocates for children have also noticed the trend. A group called the “Alliance for Childhood”:http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/home, which describes itself as an advocacy group that” promotes policies and practices that support children’s healthy development, love of learning, and joy in living,” has just released a new report, “Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School”:http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/kindergarten_report.pdf.

The report confirms what many parents have already noticed. Time for play in most public kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing.

Classic play materials like blocks, sand and water tables, and props for dramatic play have largely disappeared from the 268 full-day kindergarten classrooms studied.

The report is based on studies conducted at three universities, including Long Island University  and Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers.

Looks like the latest iPhone feature will allow parents to check their kids’ blood glucose level from afar, according to U.S. News & World Report. That would add to the plethora of health-related functions already available on iPhone applications. But this is the first that monitors remotely, the magazine says.

And a prototype is already out there: It was just unveiled out on the West Coast.

Obvioulsy, this is marketed for kids with diabetes. And, in that regard, it’s a marvelous and valuable technological development. It could easily save lives.

(photo courtesy of Jason DeCrow/Associated Press)

There’s also a blood-pressure remote function on the way, and other medical tools in the works.

Clearly, these aren’t limited to children, but it certainly helps parents of kids with related health issues breathe a sigh of relief. And the way things are going, my son will probably be using this technology to keep tabs on me in the years to come.

So my wife and I were trying to figure out last week how to dress up our 15-month-old son for Purim, the festive holiday that commemorates how the Jews were saved in ancient Persia.

She spent quite a long time online and came up with some possible costumes: a bumble-bee, a cuddly lion, a UPS delivery man and a cute, fuzzy bear. The ears were off on some, the bumble-bee looked fat and the UPS outfit would have just been weird.

We settled on the cuddly lion and ordered it, and were told it would arrive in plenty of time for the holiday. The package arrived four days earlier but we were too busy to open it up until last Monday, the day before Purim.

When my wife finally did, inside the box was …. a duck costume.

It didn’t look anything like a lion, in fact, it didn’t look much like a duck. And it wasn’t even particularly cute. The body was made of tiny little yellow feathers that were shedding even inside the bag. And my son had worn a duck hat on the holiday last year.

We decided to return it and my wife went to a store Tuesday and found a replacement – a puppy costume with floppy ears and paws.

He was adorable. We took lots of pictures. His grandparents kvelled.

My wife, the Jewish mother, though, still thinks he would have made a great lion.

Troubling report his week from The National Center on Family Homelessness, which released a study that found 1 in 50 children in the U.S. were without a home. That’s about 1.5 million kids, according to the study. And the troubling thing is that the figures were compiled in 2005-2006 — before the current economic downturn that has more and more parents without jobs.

(Angela Gaul/The Journal News)

The study ranks New York 38th overall in a national review of states. The Empire state was 39th in child well being, 31st in risk of child homelessness, and 22nd in extent of child homelessness. It also classified New York’s policy and planning on the issue as inadequate.

It’s just a reminder that as more folks end up out of work, there’s a whole generation of kids tagging along.