When Kids Are At Play, Parents Should Be On Alert

Well, spring is officially here and that means kids will be heading to playgrounds all across America and so it is appropriately Playground Safety Week. I don’t know about your family but our two sets of twins could spend hours on the slides, swings, monkey bars and climbing wall screaming and laughing and chasing each other around till they are red in the face. And then of course there is the racing up the slide in the wrong direction. What’s up with that, I’ve always wondered why is that so appealing?

While the risks associated with swimming pools or riding bikes might seem more obvious to most of us, Safe Kids USA reports that each year thousands of children are injured on playgrounds around the country. I remember a few years ago when my husband’s nephew fell off the monkey bars this first Spring week end and broke his arm. So while it’s exhilarating to feel the sunshine on our bodies and smell the flowers blooming and run outside to play, as parents we need to dust off the bike helmets and the knee pads and check the swing sets and the sporting equipment to ensure getting this spring sporting season off to a good start.

As parents Safe Kids USA says we need to need to stay attentive and be aware of certain safety precautions to ensure our kids remain safe. Here are some of their tips:

Playgrounds should have safe surfacing beneath all playground equipment. The ground should be covered with energy-absorbing materials like shredded rubber, wood chips or sand, extending at least six feet in all directions around the equipment-grass and soil are not good playground surfaces.

Remove hood and neck drawstrings from children's clothing and outerwear and don't let kids wear helmets, necklaces, purses or scarves on the playground.

Don't allow your kids to engage in, or play near, any pushing, shoving or crowding around playground equipment.

Keep toddlers under age 5 in a separate play area, away from equipment designed for bigger kids. Playgrounds should be separate for children ages 2 to 5 and 5 to 12.

Above all, keep your kids in sight and in reach on the playground at all times and give them your undivided attention.

Encourage your children to get up from their computers, and get outside and play. And better yet, get out there and play with them. It’s good for your health, it’s great “family time” and you will be setting a good example.

Take Your Daughters to Work Day

16 years ago I remember getting research on an interview that I was going to be doing later in the week on Good Morning America. It was about a new program called, “take your daughters to work day” where people all across America were being asked to bring their daughters to work so that they could shadow their parents throughout their work day. This experience would allow young women to not only have a better appreciation for their parents hard work but would be an opportunity for inspiration and exposure to the workplace and. The thought was that boys had always been raised to believe that they could be successful business leaders in life, and this was a step towards letting young women know that they too could achieve greatness in life and there were many opportunities out there for them in life as well.

When the day arrived I awakened my daughters at 4 AM in the morning and brought them into the Good Morning America studios. They were mostly interested in the hot chocolate and donuts as opposed to the senators we had on that morning, however my 12 year old daughter Jamie was excited to meet her favorite author Mary Higgins Clark who was scheduled for an interview that morning. Jamie stood before me in the make-up room suggesting questions for me to ask about Clark’s latest novel. When one of the producers walked by and overheard her, they decided to mic her up and put her in the interview with me! It made for good TV, but more importantly it made a life-long impact on her. To this day she has the confidence to speak in front of a crowd or to the camera, she’s inquisitive and loves journalism. I was raised by parents who constantly told me that I could be anything I wanted to be and I truly believe that encouragement gave me the confidence to be where I am today. And for young girls across America, Take your Daughters to Work Day can provide opportunities for that same kind of encouragement just like Jamie found that day. So take your daughters to work!

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

It is so easy for all of us to live upon this planet of ours and forget about how amazing it is, how it sustains us, and provides us with food, water and oxygen. I remember when I was a little girl, about 7 or 8 years old, my father planted a vegetable garden with me and my brother, filled with zucchini squash, tomatoes, corn, watermelon and green beans.

My dad was a surgeon so he was neat and methodical. He made tidy even rows in our little vegetable garden with tiny mounds of dirt evenly spaced down the rows into which we dropped seeds, or in some cases little baby plants. We then watered them and covered them with potting soil and checked back daily to care for them and watch them grow. We squealed with glee when we started to see vegetables growing! I swear we grew so much zucchini that my mom couldn't figure out enough ways to cook squash! What I gained from this experience was a love of vegetables, which to my father was the main purpose since he was raised as a vegetarian not to mention he was an oncologist and knew the importance of eating an abundance of fruits and vegetables in your diet.

I learned to appreciate what comes from our earth and I'll always remember that very important lesson. I plan to pass it on to my little ones this year and I am so excited!

THE AIR INSIDE YOUR HOUSE MAY BE MORE TOXIC

I made a resolution this year to try to go green in my life. It has turned out to be a little more daunting than I originally thought. During the holidays, my staff gave me a great "Go Green" basket (actually a Trader Joe’s recyclable bag) filled with green household cleaning supplies to help get me off to a good start! Since then I have been reading about being green in countless magazines. But the subject became real to me when I spent time with Emme Aronson to interview her for my television show Health Corner (Lifetime, Sunday mornings 9:30 ET).

Emme burst onto the fashion scene as the first hugely successful plus size super model, and throughout her career as an actress and super model Emme Aronson has inspired full-figured women to feel confident in their skin. But today she's inspiring people in another way; she is a cancer survivor, beating Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Emme knew something was wrong with her, the nagging cough that wouldn’t go away and the itchy skin. She went to five different doctors before finally finding out what was wrong with her. Only a few months after her diagnosis, surgery, and the first of many chemotherapy treatments, Emme came with a friend to my women’s summer camp in Naples Maine, “Camp Reveille”. Since she came as a guest of another camper, I had not spoken with her and had no idea what she was going through in her life when she joined us at camp. It wasn’t hard to figure out from the short hairs peeking out from the scarf she wore on her head that she was undergoing chemotherapy. But despite that, while at camp she ran around and played like a kid with the other campers. Emme said she actually gained a lot of personal strength from her experience at camp and from the other women who were there. She said Reveille really helped her at a critical time in her struggle.

I would later learn that she was not only forging this battle against cancer, but she was also embarking on a difficult divorce. However a lot has turned around this past year for this brave hard working mom.

During the interview Emme discussed her ordeal: surgery, including the removal of a banana-sized lymph node in her body; chemotherapy and hair loss; and of course, stress. She said one of the most stressful moments came when someone told her that living inside her home might be more dangerous than living outside considering all the toxins she was being exposed to. “Oh my God, my daughter lives here too. I’ve got to make it safe for both of us.”

Her recovery has led her to change to a holistic lifestyle both in what he eats and in how she and her daughter live in their home. "I wanted this next step to be self-sustainable," she said. That meant overhauling her eating habits; including going as organic as possible, juicing in the summer, vegetable soups in the winter. It meant changing to natural cleaners, like baking soda and vinegar, and making improvements to her home and garden. These days Emme shares her ideas and tips on websites that offer simple, easy steps.

Cancer changed her life--but Emme believes it was the greatest teacher. She's been cancer-free for a year and believes living a greener lifestyle has played a major role in her good prognosis. I learned a lot from her and you can too. Visit http://simply-green-with-emme.ivillage.com/green/

I will also be exploring the subject of living green here on my web site and I welcome tips and ideas from all of you.

Disney Moms Unite!

I've been in Orlando all week with my family enjoying the magic of Disney. Yesterday we started at Magic Kingdom - always a hit with the little ones (and there's always Space Mountain and Splash Mountain for the older girls). After lunch we moved on to the Hollywood Studios. Our top choices there are Rock ‘n Rollercoaster, Tower of Terror, and a new favorite is the interactive Toy Story Mania. So much fun. We ended our day with dinner at Prime Time Cafe - always fun.

Today we started at World Showcase since Disney invited me to speak with moms on http://www.disneymoms.com/ and share my tips for travelling with kids. My top tips are: plan ahead and pack a bag of activities they'll like to do, snacks, even lunch (we always pack sandwiches for all of us before every flight-so we can stay away from airplane food, if they even serve it). We keep our 2 sets of twins on KinderKord so we never get separated. When going to Disney we plan our days, wear sunscreen and comfortable shoes, get to the park early and get fast passes and enjoy the magic.

Disney Makes Dreams Come True!

I remember when I was a little girl I went to Disneyland with my family shortly after its opening in 1955. I was so taken with the unique magic Walt Disney had created, that I dreamed of being able to work for Disney someday.

25 years later I became the host of Good Morning America and was sent to Orlando Florida to cover the 10th Anniversary of the opening of Disneyworld. A year later I was sent back again to broadcast live for a week for the 1982 opening of Epcot Center. I was getting to know the Disney execs who were feverishly working on the finishing details so that Walt Disney's dream for EPCOT could become a reality. They were all so proud to be a part of his "Florida Project." They told me the story of Walt sending a team to central Florida in the early 60’s to scout a location for a second theme park. They returned from Orlando saying it would never work because it was too far north, the weather would be too cold and it was too rural – not enough roads and infrastructure and a very tiny airport...and so on. But Walt had fallen in love with the area and was convinced that if he built it, they would come. (and boy did they!) He then, as the story goes, drew on a cocktail napkin the plan for the layout of the Magic Kingdom, Epcot and the World Showcase. They purchased almost 30,000 acres and Walt said his dream was that the "Florida project" would never be "finished," that they should always be working to bring more magic to the people. A big dream! But a magical one that has delighted audiences for many generations.
In true Disney fashion, in the midst of the Epcot opening the Disney execs made a decision to begin another new project - televising live parades from the Florida theme park at Christmas and Easter. But for me, the fairy tale ending to this story is that they asked me to be the host for the parades! Now my Disney dream had come true!!

We broadcast our first Very Merry Christmas Parade in 1983, my co-host was Mike Douglas. Over the next 15 years my other co-hosts included Bruce Jenner, Ben Vereen, Alan Thicke, Rick Dees and Regis Philbin. My daughters Jamie, Lindsay and Sarah grew up spending a lot of time with me at Disneyworld, even performing in the parades. There came a time when my schedule became so demanding that I stopped hosting the parades, but I visit often and know enough trivia to step in at any moment as a Disney guide! It’s been so much fun to once again introduce my two sets of twins, now 4 and 5 years old to the Magic Kingdom. I see in their eyes the same wonderment that I felt the first time I visited Disneyland!

Isn’t it amazing how one man created so much magic!

GENESIS

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth and populated the Earth with broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow and red vegetables of all kinds, so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.

Then using God’s great gifts, Satan created Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and crispy crème Donuts. And Satan said “You want chocolate with that?’’

And a man said, “YES!” and Woman said, “And as long as you’re at it, adds some sprinkles.” And they gained 10 pounds. And Satan smiled.

And God created the healthful yogurt that woman might keep the figure that man found so fair. And Satan brought forth white flour from the wheat and sugar from the cane and combined them. And woman went from size 6 to 14.

So God said “Try my fresh green salad.” And Satan presented Thousand-Island dressing, buttery croutons and garlic toast on the side. And Man and Woman unfastened their belts following the repast.

God then said “I have sent you heart healthy vegetables and olive oil which to cook them.” And Satan brought forth deep fried fish and chicken –fried steak so big it needed its own platter. And Man gained more weight and his cholesterol went through the roof.

God then created a light, fluffy white cake, named it “Angel food cake,” and said, “It’s good.” Satan then created chocolate cake and named it “Devil’s Food.”

God then brought forth running shoes so that his children might lose those extra pounds. And Satan gave cable TV with a remote control so man would not have to toil changing the channels. And Man and Woman Laughed and cried before the flickering blue light and gained pounds.

Then God brought forth the potato, naturally low in fat and brimming with nutrition. And Satan peeled off the healthful skin and sliced the starchy center into chips and deep-fried them. And Man gained pounds.

God then gave lean beef so that man might consume fewer calories and still satisfy his appetite. And Satan created McDonald’s and its 99- cent double cheese burger. Then said, “You want fries with that?” And Man replied, “YES! And super size them!” “It is good.” And Man went into cardiac arrest.

God sighed and created quadruple bypass surgery.

Then Satan created HMOs.