It’s a new week, and a new month. Somehow, amid all the chaos of the last year, time keeps chugging along, which can feel really refreshing or very overwhelming, depending on your mood. Which is why it’s so nice to start the week with a dose of good news that will put a smile on your face and restore a bit of your faith in the world. Here are our favorites.
Kids Are Returning To The Classroom
With vaccines being distributed and the administration urging that students return to the classroom as soon as it’s safe, more and more children are returning to school for the first time in a year. Today, Monday March 1, Chicago students in kindergarten through 5th grade will be reunited in person with their teachers for the first time in nearly a year. That’s a major milestone for the country’s third-largest school district.
Janet Luszczki, a Chicago mom of a 5th grader, told ABC7 that she’s happy to have her son back in the classroom.
“I look at this as his first chance at normalcy again,” she said. “This is going to be so important for the kids. It was a very unusual year with a lot of stress for the kids, a lot of stress for the parents, stressful for the teachers.”
Texas Parents Reunited With Infant Quads After Storm, Blackout
After a winter storm froze Texas and disrupted the power supply in the state, Bill and Starlyn Cafferata were separated from their newborn quadruplets for eight days. The babies, born on Jan 18, were quite the shock to the Caffaretas, who only transferred one embryo during their IVF procedure. They were relieved when all babies arrived healthy at 31 weeks, but then a freak storm put their celebration on hold. During the storm, the parents weren’t able to travel 40 miles to the hospital to visit their infants.
“We’re from the Northeast, so the snow wasn’t scary. But it never stopped. The roads were terrible,” Starlyn told Today. Starlyn used battery packs and a Yeti cooler to be sure that her breast milk was available for the babies after the outage and that her supply didn’t dip.
Although being apart was difficult, once they were reunited, the parents got good news: two of their babies were ready to be discharged from the hospital. Now, they’re home with big sister Zoe, waiting for their brother and sister to come home too.
Dogs Mirror Kids’ Behaviors, Which Benefits Children
Dogs are an important part of many families, but introducing them to the kids can be stressful. New research might set some parents’ minds at ease. It indicates that dogs mirror children’s behaviors, suggesting a bond between kids and canines.
“The great news is that this study suggests dogs are paying a lot of attention to the kids that they live with,” Oregon State animal behaviorist and lead study author Monique Udell told Science Daily. “They are responsive to them and, in many cases, behaving in synchrony with them, indicators of positive affiliation and a foundation for building strong bonds.”
Udell pointed out that earlier research has shown that having a dog is good for kids, helping with things like socialization and emotional regulation. She said that the study shows that kids can play an active role in interacting with their favorite pooch.
“What we are finding is that kids are very capable of training dogs, and that dogs are paying attention to the kids and can learn from them,” she said. “Sometimes we don’t give children and dogs enough credit. Our research suggests that with some guidance we can provide important and positive learning experiences for our kids and our dogs starting at a much earlier age, something that can make a world of difference to the lives of both.”
Beyonce Idolizes Her Mom, Too
We might all idolize Beyonce, but the queen’s idol is closer to home: her mom, Tina Knowles.
“I always say that my goal is to grow up and be like my mother,” Beyoncé told Access Hollywood. “And I would love my daughter to feel about me the way I feel about my mom, because I love her so much.”
She continued, “I’m trying not to cry, but she is the perfect mother. She is the perfect amount of friend, and she teaches me things and corrects. I’m very blessed to be able to work with my mother. It’s a beautiful thing that she still is my best friend and it’s a dream for me to work with her.”
A dream, indeed. It just goes to show what an impact us mamas can have.
