Cristen Pascucci is Vice President of ImprovingBirth.org, an organization that works to educate women about evidence-based childbirth and empowers mothers to not feel pressured into medical practices and procedures. She is also a Lexington mom of one, a political and communications strategist and a writer.

Her post, titled “Selfish Women and Their Silly Birth Experiences,” can be found here on the Improving Birth website. The post discusses a women’s choices to have a safe and positive birthing experience and has had more than 60,000 views so far around the world.

For more information on Improving Birth you can visit their website here.

Each 45-minute class is designed to engage young children and families with songs, rhymes, stories and activities that stimulate the language centers of the brain.

Signing Safari, based in the Cincinnati area, was founded in 2004 by Sharon Said, a doula, hypo-birthing instructor and certified Happiest-Baby-on-the-Bock educator. Said is a certified sign language specialist, as are all the teachers with the company.

Rebecca Flanagan, a free-lance American Sign Language interpreter with a background in language study, said the benefits of learning sign language as a family include increased vocabulary, increased literacy skills and decreased behavior problems.

“Imagine having a meaningful conversation with a 14-month-old,” Flanagan said. “Children who sign can communicate their needs, wants, interests and desires up to a full year earlier than children who don’t sign.”

Baby Moon owner Anne Rust has offered different baby signing classes over the years, but she also used signs with her own children. She wants to educate parents about how fulfilling it can be to communicate with your baby.

“My oldest signed “more” just before her 7 month birthday,” she said. “Words cannot describe the feeling you get as a parent when your baby uses a word to ask for something she wants.”

Signing can also help cut down on temper tantrums. When children can communicate their wants and needs, they are less likely to become frustrated and angry. Rust watched her daughter ask for more water and knew she could have whined or cried for it.

“Instead, we had this beautiful moment where she used her skills to think through what she wanted, ask for it, and was rewarded with my overjoyed response.”

Parents sometime worry that signing will interfere with acquiring spoken language skills. Flanagan assures parents that 30 years of research shows those fears are unfounded. Sign language just taps into the language skills babies already possess and allows them to use their hands in meaningful ways, making shapes that they are developmentally able to create.

“Young children have the ability to acquire and use language six months to year before the muscles in mouth, throat and tongue are able to produce recognizable speech patterns in the form of words,” she said.

Parents are able to join Signing Safari classes when their children are six months to three years of age. Flanagan said it is never too early or too late to start signing.

Parents should start start signing when they are ready to commit to it, since consistency is key.

“When parents are ready to sign to their children, that is the best time to start signing,” she said. “We speak to our children from the moment they are born, we can sign, too.”

Rust hopes parents will learn more about signing and try the classes, especially since it can offer a “sneak peak” into your child’s world.

“It’s a wonderful way to learn to express their needs but also just to connect with you about their thoughts and feelings.”

The next class session is scheduled to begin Saturday, May 11 at 9 a.m. Classes include Signing Safari’s DVD, “Teach Your Child to Sign: Beginner Signs and Alphabet” DVD with all registrations. For more info or class registration visit, visit Signing Safari on Facebook or call Baby Moon at (859) 420-6262.

Swimways Baby Spring Float

Babies can splash away in the big pool while floating comfortably in this inflatable seat. It includes a sun canopy to keep baby in the shade.

$19.99 at Buy Buy Baby

iplay Swim Diaper

Many pools required swim diapers for babies and toddlers. iplay has a collection of reusable, washable swim diapers in adorable patterns and styles, many with matching swim shirts.

$13 at www.iplaybabywear.com

Kids Hooded Towel

Your kids can slip on these hooded towels and be covered front and back for easy drying after a dip in the water. The cute animal pictures make them fun to wear!

$7.99 at Bed, Bath & Beyond

Baby Blanket SunBlankie Towelette

These towelettes are SPF 45+ and offer UVA and UVB protection. Simply tear open the single-use towelettes and rub on baby’s skin. They are perfect throw in the diaper bag for on-the-go moments.

$18.99 for a six-pack at Amazon.com

You can also watch our local news segment reviewing these products HERE, under the title “Pool Time Fun.”

Fifteen years later, the Picadome Elementary teacher relishes every day she spends with her special education students.

“I love being able to reach children who learn differently,” Blair said. “Like when I work with children with autism, they see the world differently from me. Their creativity and thought-processing are different, and that’s exciting.”

It’s also exciting for families whose children get to work with Blair, according to Picadome Principal Jennifer Hutchison, a former special education teacher herself.

“Sarah builds relationships with both students and parents and uses her creativity to find ways to motivate reluctant learners,” said Hutchison, the mother of three school-aged children. “I would be beyond ecstatic for my children to be taught by Sarah Blair.”

Enthusiasm and high spirits are watchwords for Blair, a 32-year-old who has taught special education at Picadome for three years. Previously, she taught third grade at Lexington Christian Academy.

“I wanted to come to Picadome because of the special education program,” Blair said. “It is a terrific school with a strong community.”

And strong academics. Last year in state testing, Picadome placed third among Fayette County elementary
schools.

With her case load of 13 students, all of whom are mainstreamed, Blair teaches reading, writing and math and is a first-grade math co-teacher.

It makes for a busy, varied day that starts at 7:45 a.m. Good thing Blair is nimble as evidenced by her work with the school’s running program.

She helps out with the Girls Empowered and Motivated to Succeed program, running 5Ks with the girls all over town. Blair also organized a Fun Run fund-raiser that raised $13,000 for the school.

“That shows her ability to go above and beyond for the students,” Hutchison said.

Blair routinely asks students for their after-school activity schedules so she can attend games and performances.

Said Hutchison: “She does much for Picadome inside and outside the classroom.”

Kaitlind Hydorn

• School: Henry Clay High

• Grade: 12th • Sport: Archery • Academics: Kaitlind has a 4.386 weighted GPA, has taken four A.P. classes and won a President’s Scholarship to EKU.

• Parents: Kathy & Dennis

Not many Scholar Athletes in the 15 years of the program can match the variety of accomplishment of 19-year-old Kaitlind Hydorn of  Henry Clay High.

Kaitlind is the first-ever archery team member chosen as a Scholar Athlete.

She joined the Henry Clay club team as a junior and excelled for the Blue Devils this year when archery became a state-sanctioned high school sport.

As a high school freshman in Florida, she helped the JV cheerleading squad to the state championship.

Florida is also where she went four-wheeling through the mud at a place called Hog Waller. (And who else has that on her resume?)

A history buff, Kaitlind has been profiled in the National History Club Newsletter for her work as the archivist of the school club.

Kaitlind is an avid reader (James Patterson is a favorite author) and always has a book going.

She’s a gung-ho member of the school Outdoors Club and tutors two neighborhood sisters after school as part of her community service class at Henry Clay.

In the classroom, Kaitlind carries a 4.386 weighted GPA, including four A.P. classes – which is even more impressive when you learn that Kaitlind has been diagnosed with ADHD.

“I have to write all my assignments down every day in my planner,” Kaitlind said.

That system obviously works. Along with her stellar GPA, Kaitlind already has passed three A.P. tests, all in history, and is enrolled in A.P. calculus.

She has earned a President’s Scholarship to Eastern Kentucky University where she plans to study chemistry.

“I don’t have a hard time with math and science and I like working in labs,” she said. “I like the precise, step-by-step procedures in science.”

She also relishes her role as the archivist for the school history club. She gathers information about the school and sends it to UK’s Special Collections.

“She is very motivated and independent,” said her father, Dennis. Added her mother, Kathy: “She is a hard worker and will stay up as late as she needs to get her work done.”

And then there’s archery where Kaitlind led all the females on the team.

“I love being the girl no one expects to be any good and then shoot 10’s and beat them,” she said.

Her parents are still wondering about the source of her interest in archery but have no quibbles with their daughter and her choices.

Said Kathy: “She is the best teenager you could ask for.”

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Research data collected by Keep It Real officials demonstrate that the campaign worked – the incidence of binge drinking and alcohol use among teens has dropped over the past four years.

Officials attribute that to the power derived when the anti-underage drinking message is delivered to teens by peers.

The hallmark of the campaign, which was funded by a federal grant that has expired, is the Keep It Real video contest.

For the past nine years, high school students from Central Kentucky and beyond entered 30-second PSA videos with an anti-alcohol message in a competition for cash prizes.

Winners in a variety of categories, which were patterned after the Academy Awards, were chosen by a panel of judges.

In addition, an annual People’s Choice award was determined by Internet voting.

In the past nine years, more than 2,000 students from 67 schools participated in the contest.

During the Internet voting, the Keep It Real web site (www.keep-it-real.us) received nearly one million hits and more than one million votes.

In addition, winners collected more than $17,000 in cash prizes.

“The thing I loved most about the campaign was the diversity of students who participated,” campaign official Donna Wiesenhahn said.

“We had students from traditional high schools, and alternative and technical schools compete.

“We also had a lot of males who got involved, which can be hard to do.”

Fellow campaign official Lynsey Sugarman was struck by the quality of the videos and the thought that went into them.

“Students loved the creativity involved in the contest,” she said.

“They also had to learn about the issue first so this was an effective way to engage students in the discussion.

“Kids told us that they talked to their parents about the issue, so the campaign helped to bring up the topic for discussion.”

For John Lynch, editor of Lexington Family Magazine and a charter member of the group that launched the campaign, the Keep It Real message clarified his position on alcohol as a parent.

KIR emphasized that underage drinking is illegal, unsafe and damages an adolescent’s developing brain.

“That was the clincher for me,” Lynch said. “Once I learned about the research that showed alcohol’s effect on a developing brain, it made it so easy for me to talk to my son about its dangers.

“That made my message clear – don’t do it. That helped me as a parent.”

This month marks a final celebration for Keep It Real with a special day at the Lexington Legends on May 14 at Whitaker Bank Ballpark.

Wiesenhahn not only invites the community to join the celebration, but she also hopes community members “will step up to support the underage drinking campaign.”

While the Keep It Real campaign is idled until more funding comes through, the Youth Coalition for Alcohol Education remains a strong community presence.

Consisting of about two dozen high school students, the Coalition has entered its fourth year of promoting alcohol education.

A popular innovation is the group’s alcopops parent presentation in which Coalition members demonstrate the sly ways alcohol drinks are marketed to young people.

The group also has a prom campaign, reminding teens that “You don’t have to drink to have a party.”

Last summer, the Coalition hosted a Breakfast of Champions, a program for area school coaches that outlined alcohol’s negative impact on fitness.