There are days when life for Adwai Malual looks like an endless wheel. Already she has lived through much: growing up in Sudan as war tore apart her homeland, discovering in the midst of it that she was pregnant, coming to this strange land of America.Then, weeks later, she gave birth to quintuplets.

Now, in a small, crowded apartment in Laurel nearly two months after the babies’ delivery, Malual’s life is dominated by another kind of chaos. It begins every day at 3 a.m., as she wakes up to take over feeding duties from her mother, visiting from Sudan. One by one, she tends to her five babies in 40-minute shifts. By the time she has changed the last one’s diaper, the first is crying for food again. And so it goes for 12 hours straight, until she hands them off to her mother so she can sleep for a little while before waking do it all again.

Life is now confined to this second-floor apartment and to the most basic of human needs: eating, peeing, pooping, burping and sleeping.

“I am grateful for the blessings in my life,” the 28-year-old said recently during a rare break from her babies. “And I am tired.”

All day long, her mind alternates between those two states. She thanks God for the people — many of them complete strangers — who donated diapers, time and money to help her through her grueling first few weeks out of the hospital. Then she prays for some way to survive the weeks ahead.

When Malual, who had been working as a branch inspector of a bank in southern Sudan, first learned that she was pregnant with multiple children — three or four, her doctors in Sudan guessed — she thought it would be easy. “It was my first time as mother,” she laughed.

She traveled to Minnesota when she was 16 weeks pregnant to seek the blessing of her mother-in-law, a family figure who plays a large role in a Sudanese woman’s pregnancy. When they met, her mother-in-law placed a hand upon Malual’s head and then on her belly, anointing both with water. Later, after she left to visit her sister in Prince George’s County, she was rushed to the emergency room with complications. Over the next 11 weeks, a team including more than 30 doctors and nurses was put together to handle her case.

And last month, as her successful delivery of four girls and one boy was announced, television crews and newspaper reporters rushed to Anne Arundel Medical Center to cover the first quintuplets in the hospital’s 106-year history and the first in Maryland in more than three years. Calls poured in to the hospital from people asking how they could help the children, Deng, the boy, and his sisters, Nyantweny, Nyandeng, Abyei and Athei.

In the days that followed, however, many of the offers faded away. The hospital has said it will work with the uninsured family to pay for the costs, but no avalanche of outside support has materialized, nor have companies like diaper manufacturers stepped in to help as sometimes happens in such births.

“I think part of it is the economy,” said the Rev. Barbara Sands, a hospital chaplain who has been trying to coordinate help for the family. “It’s just the times we’re in right now.”
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Loaded weapons and lil ones don’t mix in my opinion. I hope my daughter and son never wrap their hands around a gun. Not now or ever. Growing up in San Francisco in the 80s, it wasn’t all too unusual to see a gun cabinet at a friend’s house or hear a rumor that their father had a gun. My own dad took me target shooting when I was ten. But, times have changed and I’m not keen on my children attending a playdate in a home that had firearms. Why? Because accidents happen and not all people take the proper precautions in storing weapons and as a result, kids die.

We told you about the four-year-old that shot herself when she pulled her grandma’sloaded gun from her purse in Sam’s Club and a father who forced his six-year-old daughter to pose with a pistol. Yesterday, news reports said  a child was shot when her drunk father cleaned his firearms. Though the headlines are few and far between, every fatality is worrisome. Are you a gun free family?

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Q.My family moved to South Florida recently and Fay will be our first tropical ”event.” My husband and I are a little worried about how our two kids might handle it and, with the prospect of being without electricity, it will be harder than usual to keep them distracted. Does Action Line have any ideas to share?
A.First of all, try to keep a level head. With all the rushing around to stock up on hurricane supplies, the calamitous TV newscasts and worsening weather, it’s easy to get worked up about an impending storm. But, if your children see you keeping your cool, they will, too.

Here are some tips for keeping the young ones occupied and calm before the storm:

• Don’t leave the TV on constantly: Check periodically for updates, but you don’t need to follow continuous coverage; it only heightens stress.

• Get a tracking map: Teach them how track the storm themselves. Getting a grasp of the storm’s location and intensity will empower them with some sense of control over the situation — and make it interesting. You can download a tracking map at www.nhc.noaa.gov/at_track_chart.pdf.

• Let them help around the house: Besides cleaning their own rooms (as if!), have them take inventory of hurricane equipment; fill flashlights and radios with fresh batteries; hand dad fasteners while he puts up shutters; bottle tap water for the pets. Such small — but important — tasks will keep them focused and give them a sense that they’ve had a role in protecting the family.

During and after the storm, you may be without power. Some basic entertainment should serve you well:

• You can’t go wrong with board games. And some, like Monopoly, can drag on for hours. Bonus!

• You may already have some of the kids’ required reading for school; even if they didn’t get the bookworm gene, there’s just something about reading in the dark with a flashlight that kids universally seem to love. Or, when you have some down time, read to them out loud; humor and sound effects are a plus.

• Speaking of flashlights, what’s a ghost story without one? Gather ’round after dinner and spook each other out.

• Whip out the crayons and (washable) markers to let the little ones take out their stored up energy on paper.

• Before letting the kids frolic outdoors, make sure it’s safe; downed wires, flood waters, tree limbs and other debris can pose serious dangers.

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Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of “The Secrets of Happily Married Women,” says stay-at-home wives constitute a growing niche. “In the past few years, many women who are well educated and trained for career tracks have decided instead to stay at home,” he says. While his research is ongoing, he estimates that more than 10 percent of the 650 women he’s interviewed who choose to stay home are childless.

Daniel Buccino, a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine clinical social worker and psychotherapist, says stay-at-home wives are the latest “status symbols.” “It says, ‘We make enough money that we both don’t need to work outside the home,’” he says. “And especially with the recent economic pressures, a stay-at-home spouse is often an extreme and visible luxury.”

June Cleaver, minus Beaver and Wally

Davis says her life isn’t luxurious. “Tuesdays are my laundry day,” she says. “I go grocery shopping on Wednesdays and clean house on Thursdays.” Mondays and Fridays are reserved for appointments and other errands.

But her schedule also allows for charity work and leisure: reading, creative writing and exploring new hobbies, like sewing.

It’s a lifestyle, Davis says, that has made her happier and brought her closer to her husband. “We’re no longer stressed out,” she says; because she takes care of the home, there are virtually no “honey-do” lists to hand over.

Stay-at-home guilt

“If you told me years ago that I was going to be a stay-at-home wife, I would have laughed at you,” says Catherine Zoerb, 27. Yet after the Wichita, Kansas, resident finished graduate school in 2005, she found herself unemployed, childless — and strangely happy. With her husband’s support, Zoerb decided to just stay home.

“I was able to clip coupons, do all the chores and make nice dinners,” she says. “I was much less stressed and tense.”

But she was concerned, too — about not using her master’s degree in English and how future employers would view her work history. “I worried about gaps in my resume,” she says. And there was something else: “I thought about the feminist movement — all those women who worked so hard so that I could go out and have a good career, and I was kind of saying ‘no thanks.’”

Recently, Zoerb took a temporary job at an engineering firm. It will boost her resume, and although the Zoerbs don’t need the money, it will help pay down their mortgage. Still, she hopes to return to stay-at-home wifedom soon.

“I’d never say that a woman shouldn’t work,” she says. “But I don’t see what good it would do to work in a job that I couldn’t stand, and if I have the choice not to, why wouldn’t I take that opportunity?”

Retro marriage, 21st century-style

“Everyone seems to be OK with women staying home when they have kids,” says Davis, who currently doesn’t plan to have children. “I’ve actually heard people say that women who don’t work are a drain on society.”

Don’t be too quick to judge, says Haltzman. Women might give up a job to focus on an advanced degree, pursue artistic or creative goals, or deal with health issues.

Surprisingly, though, Haltzman says the biggest draw is homemaking itself. “Many women I talk to take care of the household seriously, and they want to focus on caring for the home, whether or not it involves children.”

Sometimes a wife’s desires don’t align with her husband’s. “I hear frustration from men whose wives choose not to work,” Haltzman says, “but only if there are financial stresses. One of the realities is that few men appreciate the scope and difficulties of managing a household.”

Kirk Zoerb is an exception: The 27-year-old engineer says he’s happiest when his wife is jobless.

“When Catherine stays at home, I feel the house is more together because she has the time to do things like in-depth cleaning and can be more attentive to the garden,” he says. “She also has more time to find good deals at secondhand stores, garage sales and at grocery stores.” As a couple, he says, “we have more energy and are generally emotionally healthier.”

Still, “I don’t believe that the woman has to be the exclusive cook, cleaner or shopper, and I don’t believe the man must be the breadwinner. I wouldn’t mind staying at home while Catherine works!”

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In February, doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston removed the fetus from McCartney’s uterus, took out the tumor and then returned the fetus. Ten weeks later, on May 3, Macie Hope McCartney was born again. Read The Full Story

A very small percentage of women will suffer from an ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy is defined as: development of a fertilized egg elsewhere than in the uterus (as in a fallopian tube or the peritoneal cavity)

According to WebMD,

There is no way to save an ectopic pregnancy. It cannot turn into a normal pregnancy. If the egg keeps growing in the fallopian tube, it can damage or burst the tube and cause heavy bleeding that could be deadly. If you have an ectopic pregnancy, you will need quick treatment to end it before it causes dangerous problems. 

In a very rare case, doctors missed the opportunity to diagnose Meera Thangarajah with such a pregnancy. After enduring an ovarian pregnancy, the happy family welcomed a daughter into their family. The couple named their baby girl Durga, which means Goddess.
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From Green Eggs and Ham to To Kill a Mockingbird, kids seem to pick the classics when it’s time to read, according to a study of 78.5 million books read by more than 3 million children nationwide.

Dr. Seuss’s book was the most popular choice among first graders, Renaissance Learning found. The company, which looked at kids in 9,800 schools for the study, manages a program in which students take computerized reading comprehension quizzes. Students earn points based on the book’s word difficulty, word length, sentence length, and total number of words. Many schools even award prizes to students for their efforts in the program.

Some teachers were pleased with the popularity of To Kill a Mockingbird, which topped the list for ninth-through-12th graders. Others say the book owes much of its success to the fact that teachers make it a requirement. (The report doesn’t distinguish between books that were assigned and those students chose.

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NEW YORK, May 2 (UPI) — She may be one of the world’s most famous women, but U.S. actress Gwyneth Paltrow says she doesn’t think her two small children are aware of what her job is.Asked what her daughter Apple and son Moses think about mommy playing an action hero in “Iron Man,” Paltrow told UPI: “They have no idea what I do. I don’t think they have a clue. I’m not an action hero, I’m just a secretary.”In the blockbuster-to-be, Paltrow plays Pepper Potts, resourceful assistant to Tony Stark, aka Iron Man.Paltrow, who has made a career in grown-up movies like “Shakespeare in Love,” “Emma” and “Possession,” said “Iron Man” isn’t more on her kids’ radar because it is a superhero flick.

“They’re only 3 and 2, not really. No,” she said.

Director Jon Favreau told UPI he thinks many people will check out “Iron Man” because of its cast.

Although Paltrow and her co-star Robert Downey Jr. are not normally associated with big box-office hits, Favreau noted, “They are people everyone is very interested in.”

“Literally, we would go to the London premiere and the shoes (Paltrow) wore would be on the front page of every London paper and (on) every Internet blog,” he said.

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Competition for spots in acceptable state schools is so fierce in Spain, that parents are getting divorces in order to give their children an advantage. Under Spanish law, children living with a single parent get extra points on their applications.

Family courts have noticed that the numbers of official separation rose by 50 percent right before the deadline for school registration. In Spain, spouses can secure a divorce in only five weeks. After school placement is over, officials claim that many couples are back in court seeking reconciliation.

Competition for placement in the few good schools is also causing neighborhood paranoia. To see how, read more.

The BBC reports that private investigators are seeing a flood of business, as snoopy parents want to make sure others are not lying about earnings, addresses, or marital status as a way to get ahead.

Since feigning divorce isn’t a crime, can you blame these concerned parents? Should students get extra points towards their selection in a school on the basis of factors like their parent’s marital status, where they live, a disability, or economic disadvantage? Spain isn’t the only country with educational disparity among state schools. How can government funded schools become more universally attractive?

Its really hot in Texas so we decided to give him sugar free popsicles . Can you tell his happy? I’m sticking to sugar free treats from now on because we were at Starbucks yesterday and I gave him some of my vanilla frappuccino and it turned out to be a really bad idea! It was non stop jumping he was everywhere. I’ve never seen him so excited and full of energy and I never thought he could ever get any more hyper than he already was. He was babbling, and spinning, jumping, crawling around ,picking up and touching everything he could get his hands on. It was like he drank 10 red bulls and when into fast forward. We all had a pretty good laugh, and it took hours for him to calm down, so I learned a very valuable lesson as a new mom, NEVER EVER give your toddler vanilla frappuccino or anything too sweet. The results will vary but you will have your work cut out for you trust me!