Health

Imagine a theme park where a family of four could get in for fifteen dollars – for the entire day. Imagine arriving by public transportation or enjoying free parking right outside the park’s entrance. Imagine bringing your own food and drinks through the gate, rather than paying extortionist prices for less healthy options. Imagine never waiting longer than ten or fifteen minutes to board a ride, and never worrying about losing a child in the crowd. Imagine a place where people of all levels of physical and cognitive ability are welcome and even celebrated.

Open your eyes. You’re at Morgan’s Wonderland.

He was always the worst-behaved child in the room. It didn’t matter where he went. Or when. Three-year-old Cameron* simply couldn’t control himself — ever.

“He was bouncing off the walls all the time,” recollects his mother, Susan*. “I loved him dearly but couldn’t bear to be around him because he was so obnoxious, in-your-face, he could never sit still, never stop moving, couldn’t control his impulses—he was always hitting, kicking, jumping or touching.”

Desperate to figure out what was going on with her son, Susan stumbled onto an article about a little girl whose behavior seemed nearly identical to Cameron’s and who was “cured” through a special diet.

It happens to the best of us. Speeding through the supermarket, we grab the staples of the “kid lunch”: string cheese, small bags of chips and cookies, single serving applesauces and puddings, Lunchables. Uncrustables. Maybe a package of brown lunch bags, plastic spoons and paper napkins. It’s easy. It’s convenient. And sadly it’s, oh, so typical. But not if one school in Austin has its way.

Walk into many a school cafeteria in this country, and you’ll see kids settling down to those hastily packed lunches. By the end of the meal, each child has a small handful of garbage: chip bags, plastic wrap, aluminum foil, juice pouches. Every year, one child can produce an amazing 67 pounds of lunchtime trash per year. This, according to wastefreelunches.org, an internet site run by a group of “green” California moms who are getting the word out about the trash generated by the nation’s schools. Over a 13-year school career, the mounds of garbage produced by a single person can reach more than 870 pounds! How many plastic baggies does it take to produce a pile of trash that heavy? It’s a mind-boggling amount of waste being dumped into our landfills on a daily basis. By some estimates, an average size elementary school can generate more than 18,000 pounds of lunch waste every year.

Let me tell you about my first step aerobics class.

I was in my twenties and, like all 20-somethings, I was thin. Problem was, I lived in Los Angeles, where any woman who weighs more than 100 pounds automatically qualifies for a spot in the hippo exhibit at the L.A. Zoo. So I decided to get fit.

My company offered all employees a health-club benefit: $50 a month paid directly to the gym of our choice. This was a long time ago, when nobody except people in L.A. went to gyms. It was also a heap of cash, so I could join the fancy-schmancy Gym-To-The-Stars only 15-minutes (and a world) away from my (crummy) apartment.

I promptly went shopping and bought a pile of aerobics outfits—those little thong things that looked so good on Jane Fonda (note: I do not now nor have I ever looked like Jane Fonda)—and a pair of pink sneakers.

I was ready.

Two years ago, Mary Barnett had a thriving career as a certified nurse midwife. She delivered eight babies a month – a lot by midwife standards – while working with Women Partners in Health, a clinic comprised of obstetrician/gynecologists and three midwives.

But that all changed in May of 2002.

That’s when Women Partners in Health followed the lead of Capitol Obstretrics & Gynecology Associates and terminated its midwifery program. By December 2002, only ObGyns could deliver babies in Austin hospitals. Like the other five nurse midwives in town, Mary was out of a job.

If you’re stinging from the pain of ‘this economy’ or suffering nasty paper cuts from your post-holiday credit card statements, consider cutting back on child-related costs this year.

The Austin Independent School District and the Austin Parks and Recreation Department are offering free food at school campuses and parks this Summer.

The meals are part of the Summer Food Service Program, which offers free meals to children regardless of their families’ income.

I wanted to be a chubby mom.

I wanted doughy arms and big bosoms and a comfortable lap to sit in.

I wanted my little nuggets to be enveloped in the soft cushion of my embrace as I squeezed them to my to my heart’s content.

These somewhat crazy aspirations were a lot easier to have when I was comfortably tucked into single-digit jeans. Yes, I’m talking about high school. It was cute then, to think of the perfect world of motherhood, of sweet little cherub children staring up at me with their big doe eyes and listening to my syrupy lullabies as I rocked them to sleep in my loaf-of-bread arms.