Tag Archives: CNN

I have a niece who is deaf. She's a married working mom with two sons. I have another niece with Down Syndrome who works full-time and has won awards in her local Special Olympics. So people with disabilities have a special place in my heart. I've watched my nieces do things some people might have thought was impossible for them. If they had been born 20 or 30 years earlier, no one would have expected them to work outside the home or support themselves. Thank God that's not the expectation now. That's why tears came to my eyes when I saw this story on CNN about a Florida family who opened Casey's Cookies so their disabled daughter and other young people with special needs could get vital job skills.

As a TV journalist I was trained and conditioned to keep my emotions in check while covering tragedies like murders, fatal fires and natural disasters. For years, I did a pretty good job of that. I wasn’t cold and emotionless. But if a story made me upset I could usually …

This is the time of year when we buy Christmas toys for our children. Here's a reminder that you can't always trust the "age suggestion" about which toys are appropriate because they can still pose a choking hazard. In this CNN video, a mom describes how she helped her son when she realized he was choking on a toy she thought was safe. Her description is an alarming reminder that sometimes you won't hear your child choking. So it's important to keep an eye on them at all times. If you must be in another room, set up your baby video camera to watch them.