The federal Food and Drug Administration has told families to stop using a popular brand of face paints often applied to children’s faces at birthday parties and fairs. The six recalled products, all produced in China, are made by Fun Express Inc., whose products are sold by its owner, Oriental Trading Co., through its popular goody-bag and party-goods catalogs. The FDA reports that the products had yeast and mold counts above industry guidelines. According to the Associated Press, the agency fielded several reports of children suffering rashes, itchiness, burning sensations and swelling from the paints. One of those reports came from Delaware, Ohio, where several children developed red, itchy rashes at a Girl Scouts event. You can check here for product codes to see if your grandkids have any of the recalled products.
They’ll certainly have plenty of hand-me-downs to share: Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, stars of the TLC show, “18 Kids and Counting,” will become first-time grandparents in October. The couple’s son, Josh, and his wife, Anna, both 20, announced the news from the Duggars’ Arkansas home during an exclusive interview with Meredith Vieira on NBC’s Today show.
The Duggar family has become famous since the 2008 premiere of the reality series showcasing their inexplicable knack for managing so many children under one roof. Devout Christians, the Duggars are part of the QuiverFull movement, whose adherents reject the use of birth control. Josh and Anna, who had a chaste courtship and kissed for the first time on their wedding day, plan to follow a similar path with regard to family planning.
Four months before Josh married Anna, Michelle Duggar, 42, announced that she was expecting her 18th child. That baby, Jordyn-Grace, will be 10 months old when her niece or nephew is born. Michelle told Vieria that she didn’t think it would be odd having a daughter and grandchild so close in age – in fact, in an earlier interview, the family matriarch said she may yet have more children: “We would love more. We really believe that each child is a gift from God. We would love to receive more gifts if the Lord sees fit. I guess we’ll just wait and see.”
On the Today show, Michelle had some simple words of advice for her son, which apply equally to families with one child or 20: “Just enjoy them because they will grow up really, really fast.”
From a recent Jay Leno monologue:
“And politicians in the state of Iowa have voted to rename their Department of Elder Affairs. They’re changing the name to the Department of Aging. Have they thought this through? I mean, now, elderly people will be calling the D.O.A.”
The New York Times reports that some experts are linking the recent rise in vasectomies to families’ financial concerns during the recession.
From an interview with ABC News in which the First Lady described the instructions she’s given to White House staffers regarding daughters Sasha and Malia:
“That was the first thing I said to some of the staff when I did my visit: Don’t make their beds. Make mine.”
Grandmother-in-Chief Marian Robinson doesn’t much like the spotlight and has been, so far, reluctant to discuss with the press her historic role as a live-in-grandmother at the White House. But now Malia and Sasha Obama’s favorite babysitter has opened up to Essence magazine, in a joint interview with daughter and First Lady Michelle Obama. Excerpts of the magazine’s May cover story are on its website now, along with images of the duo dressed in their signature looks: Obama in bold graphics accented with a sweater and a wide belt; Robinson in classically-tailored pants and a melon-colored sweater.
According to Essence’s editors, we can thank the First Lady for making Robinson finally feel comfortable enough to talk with the media — she eased her mother’s nerves by cracking jokes during the interview. In the article, Robinson shares what her late husband, Fraser Robinson III, would have thought about his daughter’s success — “You would not be able to shut him up!” — and of her daughter’s years in Washington, she says, “I just hope she does what she wants to do. Because the things that she wants to do are very important.”
Americans have embraced the Obamas’ little girls, who appear to be bright, well-behaved, and respectful, and the First Lady says Robinson’s parenting style has been the model for her own. “From the time we could talk,” Obama says, “she talked to us endlessly about any and everything with a level of openness and fearlessness that made us believe that we were bright enough to engage with an adult, that we were worthy enough to ask questions and to get really serious answers — and she did it with a level of humor.”
In a minor scoop, the magazine reveals that Robinson will stay at the White House as long as the family needs her help, contrary to earlier reports that she might only stay in Washington temporarily. It’s hard to imagine the Obamas asking her to pack her bags anytime soon.
When President Obama signed an executive order establishing the White House Council on Women and Girls, he was surrounded by female luminaries who broke barriers, made history, and set records. But even in that august company, he confessed that his thoughts were focused on a lesser-known trailblazer – his grandmother:
“I saw my grandmother work her way up to become one of the first women bank vice presidents in the state of Hawaii, but I also saw how she hit a glass ceiling – how men no more qualified than she was kept moving up the corporate ladder ahead of her . . . . In so many ways, the stories of the women in my life reflect the broader story of women in this country – a story of both unyielding progress and also untapped potential.”
The new council, he said, will be charged with ensuring that “our daughters and granddaughters have no limits on their dreams, no obstacles to their achievements – and that they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers never dreamed of.” To that end, the group will address issues ongoing income disparity between men and women in the U.S., where working females earn 78 cents for every dollar males make.
Ed Doud, the grandfather of the octuplets born to Nadya Suleman in California in late January, asked the public to reach out and help his daughter during a recent appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Doud has called Suleman’s actions “irresponsible,” but told Winfrey, “You know what? She needs help. I say to everybody now — people — we do need help. Do not punish my daughter for what she had done and do not punish the babies, because they were given by God.”
Apparently, Doud’s wish has been granted. Several groups have stepped up to offer donations to the family and Angels in Waiting, a California-based nonprofit group, has offered to temporarily provide Suleman with nurses trained in caring for sick children.
On the home page of the Girl Scouts of the USA’s website, there’s not a single image of one of the group’s once-iconic green vests. The message: Hey, kids, we’re not nearly as behind-the-times as you think we are. After enduring a membership decline of more than eight percent in the last decade, the group is undergoing an extreme makeover of sorts, shifting its image of the ideal scout from 20th-century goody-goody to 21st-century activist. They’ve even hired one of the brains behind American Express’ successful branding campaign to help them get there.
But as the group hurtles into the future, those vests, and the merit badges that once covered them, are being left behind. The group still awards them, to be sure, but it de-emphasizes the textbook-style lessons girls once completed to earn badges in favor of fictional stories of girls living up to the group’s ideals, with little mention of doing good just for the sake of winning a patch. Some things haven’t changed: The group still organizes camping trips as bonding exercises, and it continues to peddle its profitable cookie line each year, although much as the group claims to embrace the internet, it recently cracked down on one little girl who tried to sell her cookies online.
The federal Food and Drug Administration has told families to stop using a popular brand of face paints often applied to children’s faces at birthday parties and fairs. The six recalled products, all produced in China, are made by Fun Express Inc., whose products are sold by its owner, Oriental Trading Co., through its popular goody-bag and party-goods catalogs. The FDA reports that the products had yeast and mold counts above industry guidelines. According to the Associated Press, the agency fielded several reports of children suffering rashes, itchiness, burning sensations and swelling from the paints. One of those reports came from Delaware, Ohio, where several children developed red, itchy rashes at a Girl Scouts event. You can check here for product codes to see if your grandkids have any of the recalled products.
