Halloween Is Coming/Safety Tips

Come October 31 there will be lots of little goblins in the form of super heros and faerie princesses running around our neighborhoods and we all need to think SAFETY! First and foremost here's a recipe for a wash-out fire retardant for your child's costume: 7oz of Borax, 3oz of boric acid, 2qt warm water: stir solution til it's dissolved, and then dip or spray fabric until it's saturated/drips and then let dry. It is always important to make sure you and child/ren are seen so be lit up if you can by wearing a glow in the dark tape strip or carry one; next, use a large flash light at all times so that you can see before you trip, DO NOT Zig Zag across the street or jaywalk/run, make sure your child/ren's costume fits well and won't be able to trip over it, face painting is better than masks, DO NOT allow your child/ren to go alone, allow only wrapped items and nothing homemade or unwrapped, have your child/ren wait until you are home to eat the candy after you have inspected them, have a route that you have gone over in case you get separated and you need to find each other.

Hand Washing Revisited: A British Study

In a recent joint British study by The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and The Queen Mary University of London disturbing results were found regarding the population's failure to properly wash their hands with SOAP. The study found that 1 in 6 mobile phones are contaminated with fecal matter. 16% of phones harbored the harmful E-Coli bacteria...this is very disturbing indeed. 95% of the people studied said they washed their hands and yet 92% of the mobile phones and 82% of their hands had bacteria on them. So, what's to be gotten from this info? People world wide need to not only wash their hands frequently as well as each time they use the facility, they need to use SOAP when they do wash their hands. It's not enough to rinse your hands under some cold water. Hands need to be washed with SOAP for around at least 60 seconds to make sure they are free of bacteria. It's also a good idea to swab one's mobile phone with an alcohol wipe regularly to free it of any lingering bacteria. There is a great danger to the world's public health if this isn't followed. And yet, it's so simple to contend with...use SOAP when washing your hands.

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Return Of The Snake

A child recently plugged up a toilet where I was working and it flooded the bathroom which in turn meant that a teacher had to check it out to report. There in the bowl was a poop the the size and shape of a tennis ball. I began to wonder what happened to the snake poops that are the healthy ones to eliminate. A few of the teachers said that the snake is long gone due to the change in children's diets. How could this be possible? Healthy diets are a thing of the past? In an effort to keep healthy diets in the forefront, Musings would like to offer up a few tips to keep your child's snake moving. First is water. Make sure that your child is properly hydrated at all times. This rings especially true during the summer months when water is lost due to sweating. It's okay to offer a child water during a meal instead of or with milk. Ask your child's pediatrician how much milk your child should be drinking and take it from there. 8 glasses of water is the minimum your child should be drinking. Dairy products can plug up a child if consumed too much. Secondly, make sure that there are pro-biotic yogurts in your child's diet. There is soy yogurt if you prefer which also contains pro-biotics. Thirdly, roughage. Add lots of salads for roughage to your child's diet and start early on adding this to your child's diet so that they develop a taste for them. Less processed foods and more roughage. Roughage can also come from fruits and vegetables as well and should be given at least 3 times a day each. Don't ever make the mistake that your child will be able to discern what they need to keep their young bodies moving...that's why they have you to make those choices for them. The following three ideas should help your child to keep their snake moving. If they don't, maybe it's time to visit the doctor to get to the bottom of it.

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Hand Washing...Too Little or Too much

When Musings spotted Beverly Hills Plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Rey waving around a hand washing report on TMZ as his "latest" news, we knew how he felt. Dr. Rey was obviously grossed out by the facts that human feces were found on fresh fruit and vegetables in markets and farmers markets as well as salad bars. "People just aren't washing their hands!" Brazilian born Dr. Rey exclaimed. If one pays attention and looks, trash picking recyclers rarely wear gloves when they gingerly dip their hands into garbage cans around town and who knows where they work...do they touch food and if they do, do they ever wash their hands before they do? How many people wash their hands after using the toilet? According to a report recently released, not enough as hepatitis and other illnesses spread among the city's inhabitants for lack of proper hand washing. Given the fact that the USDA has altered it's requirements for meat packers and handlers such as gutting machine cleaning, and saw sharpening and there is an allowable amount of feces in the meat products that you purchase...one needs to keep cleaning every time they touch or cut a piece of meat. What does this have to do with me you may be asking. Simple, no one is immune to their fellow community members' germs. Most stores now carry sanitary cloths to wash the handles of their shopping carts. The National Association For The Education Of Young Children (NAEYC) has a list of when to wash your hands. Some have seen this list and have said it's from the food handling regs, maybe it is. The NAEYC wants us to wash our hands when: we transition from one area to another that is where the children are; every time a person wipes a child's nose with gloves on; whenever a child's diaper is changed as well as them washing their hands; when they use the toilet they wash and we do, before and after eating; if a baby spits up one has to put on gloves and wipe it up with bleach water and wash/change the baby; if one sneezes washing one's hands is required; before and after handling food. Excessive...maybe, but in a society that likes to sue perhaps it does limit a child-care facilities' liability. So, where does that leave the average person you may be asking. Wash your hands whenever you know that there has been an opportunity to spread your germs to others. Get ready, aim...WASH!

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