My weekly round-up scours the internet for the best stories relevant to the preschooler set. Or at least the parents of the preschooler set. This week’s news involves a five year-old dancing in Times Square and a baby forgotten in a shopping cart.
5yo Hits the Quan
Five year-old Heaven King is back! Possibly topping her Whip and NaeNae performance. This time Heaven and her back-up dancers are shaking it to “Hit the Quan” by iHeart Memphis. When they aren’t dancing, Heaven and her friends are seen shopping in NYC wearing giant pink tutus— Harlow and Mazzy approve this message!
————————
3yo Sings song from Les Miserables
Three year-old Koen proves he’s ready for Broadway by belting out “Do You Hear the People Sing?” with an enthusiasm that totally eluded Russell Crowe. Honestly, I kept waiting for him to forget the words or lose interest in singing and wander off, but he stays focused and in tune the entire song. This kid has some serious star potential.
——————————————
Mom Forgets Baby in Grocery Cart Outside Store
Cherish Peterson, a mother of four in Gilbert, AZ, had a momentary lapse in parenting when she left her 10 week-old baby in a shopping cart outside a grocery store and drove home. She says she was distracted by her one year-old and three year-old and it wasn’t until she pulled into her garage that she realized her mistake and drove back to the store. By the time she returned, the infant (who was thankfully, fine) had already been found by an off-duty police officer, who called the authorities.
Peterson is now facing Child Endangerment charges but maybe this woman just really needs a nap? I’d love to know your thoughts on this in the comments.
————————————
7yo Cancer Patient Sings Duet with Rachel Platten
Jeremiah Succar was diagnosed with stage four cancer last spring and is currently a patient at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. Jeremiah’s favorite song is “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten and he likes to sing it to help him get through his treatments. Platten found out about Jeremiah and surprised him at the hospital where they sang the sweetest duet ever. I’m not gonna lie. This video is gonna punch you right in the gut. Grab your tissues.
—————————-
• BABY COVERED IN PEANUT BUTTER BY BIG SISTER, PARENTS STILL CLEANING HIM TEN YEARS LATER
• BABY CRIES EVERY TIME BOOKs ENDS; ALL BOOK LOVERS CAN RELATE
• HUMAN TODDLER PLAYS PEEK-A-BOO WITH GORILLA TODDLER
Any news stories about babies, toddlers, kids I missed? Leave them below!
——————————–
Want more parental distraction? Follow Mommy Shorts on Facebook andInstagram!
Ok… that took about 1.2 seconds to start balling my eyes out on the “Fight Song” video.
okay… You warned us about the tears… Damn allergies.
OMG!!! You posted year inducing videos after the Puffs video… Sneaky sneaky! Lol
Oh my heart! That little kid singing Fight Song!! I can’t take it!
WOW! Yup – I’m crying! I love Fight Song and Rachel and now I LOVE them even more and that sweet little boy!
Leaving the child in a grocery cart is unacceptable. As a former educator, had I left a child somewhere on a field trip, I would have been fired. Why should teachers require training and have such strict rules when parents don’t have any?
You could have actually had helpful constructive advice here by suggesting that parents are taught skills that professionals use everyday while looking after a large number of children. But no you decide to go with judgemental never made a mistake in your life instead! Obviously kindness and understanding is not something you were taught in your training. (See how I made a snap judgement about you and your character from a small price of information I read about you on the Internet)
While no it’s not ok that this mom left her kid in a parking lot I can definitely imagine sleep deprivation and post partum could be doing a number on her topped off by three older children. I just feel for this poor woman who is probably traumatized
Maybe little Aylan Kurdi deserved to be mentioned here too.
agreed, vivica. .
Try watching that video 20 weeks pregnant! Thankfully I waited until I was home ???? re: the mom, I am sure she just honestly forgot and the worry/panic/regret she felt was punishment enough.
Re: the Mom who left her kid in the shopping cart. I am not going to criticize her nor defend her, but instead say this: (it can be applied across the board, but for simplicity will keep to the context of social media “parent shaming”): before anyone is allowed to write anything negative or critical about someone’s parenting snafu, they must first ensure that they have their full (legal) name attached to their comment (ie not be anonymous) … AND they must write their worst parenting moment before writing their criticism of the other person’s. And not just whitewash it either or write something benign like “once I fed my kids un-organic apples”. I mean really THINK about it, and post the moment where they are “Whew! Glad THAT wasn’t captured on camera!”. Because know what? I guarantee we all have at least one, one moment that we are SO glad isn’t spread all over social media for the world to see and anonymously judge (though congrats to all the commenters who chime in with “I would NEVER do that, I am the BEST parent, I LOVE my kids” on the great reception they are getting, all the way up there on their high horse!).
Maybe this Mom did it on purpose (seems unlikely as um, hello – she returned). Maybe it was a mistake that should be further investigated (as it WAS a dangerous error that could have led to horrible circumstances, and maybe is an indication she is overwhelmed and needs some additional outside help). I don’t know – I don’t know her – but I trust that the people who do know her, as well as the authorities in her area who are trained to handle just such circumstances are perfectly capable of assessing and figuring it out. I am sure that me, some random stranger, who doesn’t know her or her kids or her life is NOT.
And I promise you this, I think I am a really good Mom. My kids are happy, healthy, and thriving, we have a fantastic bond, they are well adjusted, have lots of friends, do awesome at school, are loving, social, just all around great kids – and I get tons of compliments from a wide variety of outside sources on my parenting, my discipline choices etc. But I would never. Never. Never!!! Post with my legal name, my worst parenting moment. The moment that when I think of makes me cringe and brings me shame. And guess what – it is NOT even anything that would be considered abuse or neglect, or “calling the authorities” worthy; but just a moment where I made a mistake and would not want to be judged on – I don’t need others jumping on the bandwagon to try and make me feel worse for what purpose? To try and make me see the error of my ways and not recreate it? I already know, I already feel bad, I already know to not do it again. No, if you read the comments the overall sense I get isn’t empathy, or trying to figure out how to prevent others from making the same tragic errors, but rather to feel superior and like the Best Parent Ever because “wow, maybe I fed my kids chips for breakfast but I never left them in a shopping cart so #winning, boo her, yay me!”
So how do I honestly feel? I don’t feel anything but pity for this poor woman, who now has HER worst parenting moment, plastered permanently on the internet – thanks to news, social media, the way the world is today where people feel they have the right to judge everyone in every circumstance based on a snippet of time. Yet God forbid they do it with their actual name rather than hiding behind an anonymous user name, or that they spend even 5 seconds of time first reflecting on how they would feel if the world found out and judged them on THEIR worst moment.
And then as a second follow-up …. maybe people could END their comment stating why they believe social-media-bullying between children is becoming so increasingly common (spoiler alert – may have something to do with the terrible example so-called “adults” are setting).
AMEN
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The mother who forgot her baby, if she hasn’t had any previous incidents, I’m not sure I would charge her with child endangerment. Or if I did, I’d expect the punishment to be maybe a fine or probation rather than jail. I would, however, expect social services to become involved.
Not just to ensure the safety of the children in case there was some malicious intent (which is I don’t believe there was, but it’s better safe than sorry), but also because it sounds like the poor mother is overwhelmed and I’m worried about her possible level of exhaustion and her mental health.
I also second the comment about Aylan Kurdi. I understand that this is not a political blog, that it’s not even a particularly serious blog, but to have a segment about the children in the news and then to ignore the one child who has been on all of our screens this week is not good. It smacks of avoidance. If you didn’t want to show the actual picture, you could show some of the illustrations that have been done of the poor boy by several artists, or just put a small obituary to him.
I am especially disappointed because you have in the past mentioned the importance of looking after people worse off than yourself and how important you think that is to teach your wonderful girls. In the end though, it’s your blog, and I can understand why you don’t want to unleash the powder keg of debate that would follow a mention of the refugee situation.
Thank you for not mentioning Aylan Kurdi, actually. I am the mother of a toddler and that story has been all over my Twitter feed constantly. The plight of people who are oppressed and underprivileged is huge to me, so every time I see it for more than a split-second, I literally come to tears. I came really close to losing it in the airport yesterday morning because they were talking about it on CNN. So I appreciate that we can have a round-up of sweet, funny items that don’t dwell on so much of the horror in the world. I think choosing not to write about it isn’t denying that horror, but merely pointing out that there are a lot of beautiful things going on that the news often doesn’t cover.
The Bloggess wrote a great post a while back about how there are so many things she COULD blog about, but that she won’t be shamed by people who think she isn’t blogging what they want. (That was a complicated sentence. Sorry. )
http://thebloggess.com/2015/06/this-is-my-house/
I appreciate the mommyshorts content: funny, lighthearted, sweet and sometimes sentimental.
Posting about a kid with stage 4 is not funny or sweet. That is some serious material and there is a place on this blog for him. To say that Aylan Kurdi shouldn’t be mentioned because of the debate it could open up is just sad. It’s ok to mention a girl who has a lemonade stand for refugees but not the refugee himself. #firstworldproblems I guess
One of my favorite parts of Mommy Shorts is the weekly roundup of baby/toddler/kid news.
Did you see this adorable little girl dancing to salsa music? – http://www.popsugar.com/latina/Little-Girl-Salsa-Dancing-Video-38285207