Mr. Rogers' Widow Gets The Best Surprise On A Hospital Visit

Newborns at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania childrens'
hospital got dressed up like Mr. Rogers on
World Kindness Day back in November

OK, time for a little sweetness.

Back in November, the widow of Mr. Rogers was invited to visit a Pittsburgh womens' hospital as part of World Kindness Day.

Mr. Rogers was among the kindest people the world has even know, so the visit seemed appropriate.

Mrs. Rogers was led into the nursery, where newborns relaxed and recovered after entering this world.  What Mrs. Rogers found hand to be quite familiar to her, and would make us all go "Awwwwwww."

All the newborn  were dressed in red cardigans, little ties, comfortable pants and sneakers.  I guess that was the perfect way to dress for Pittsburgh's newest neighbors.

As anyone who knows and loves Mr. Rogers knows, that's how he was dressed as he greeted us at each episode, when it was always a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

The mom of one of the newborns said she watched Mr. Rogers as a kid and his message of kindness and acceptance stuck with her.

She and her husband said those are the values they want to instill in their newborn daughter. I guess Mr. Rogers' legacy lives on, huh?

Here's a nice news clip of the event from CBS Pittsburgh:

Intensive Care Unit Babies Become Superheroes In Kansas City

An itty bitty Batman rests in the NICU of
St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City. Photo by Sally Morrow

I'm not a dad, but I can imagine how crushingly scary it is to have a newborn baby in the intensive care unit.

These parents really just want their kids to have a nice, normal childhood free of hospital stays and worries about health and death. 

You can't take ill babies out the NICU, but you can take them into Halloween, and the normal kid stuff they should enjoy today.

So, the NICU at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City and the March of Dimes teamed up to make sure these little babies had their own Halloween costumes, says Good Morning America.

The kids are too young to understand Halloween, of course. (Hell, I'm 54 and I still don't understand Halloween). But the parents get a little levity and "normalcy" for themselves and their kids.

Parents get to pick out the Halloween costumes, based on the personality of their kids. There's lots of superheroes and butterflies and princesses in the NICU, and a couple of the obligatory Kansas City Royals baseball players.

Additionally, the families get the following, says Good Morning America:

"......the volunteers and nurses provided the families with a 'trick or treat, smell my feet' card with the newborns' tiny footprints, a hand-crocheted pumpkin filled with treats and a Halloween book that the parents and babies can read together next year."

This is a great idea that I hope spreads to NICU's all over the nation.

Here's A Devilish Little Leprechaun To Celebrate St. Patrick's Day With

Meet Rockwell Lawrence, aka a naughty Leprechaun, who seems to be causing quite a bit of trouble this St. Patrick's Day.

The six month old's dad, Alan, (proprietor of TheDadBlog) through the miracles of photography and photoshop shows us what the bad little Irish guy has been up to so far on St. Patrick's Day.

Don't worry, the house, and especially the dog are OK. Photoshop, as noted.

You can seen more photos of this at Bored Panda, to make your green Irish eyes laugh even more.

Beneath the series of pics in this post, (below) scroll all the way to the bottomo to be sure and watch the YouTube slide show of little Rockwell both at Christmas and at St. Patrick's Day.

This Blog Goes To The Dogs Again

The Fort Worth Dog Train in action  

Being a dog lover, you have to put up with me offering dog news every now and again.

But dog news is almost always fun.

Case in point: A guy named Eugene Bostick, 80, owns a horse barn on a dead end street around Fort Worth, Texas.

People sometimes abandon dogs there, and he kindly takes them in and offers them food and shelter.

Bostick knows dogs need activity and fun, so he likes to take them to a nearby creek. But how to get them there.

Well, all aboard the doggie train! Here's the video from 2013, and then there's one more great doggie video to share after that:



In the other bit, a man named Scott Moore said at first, he kept his new baby away from beagle, named Buddy, because he didn't want either to get hurt.

But finally it was time for the kid and Buddy to have a meeting.

See for yourself, but it looks like this first meeting went well. Awwww!!!!

Bad Mood? Use This Video As Go To For Better Feelings

Here's a brief video that's gone viral of two eight month old twin girls pretty much enjoying their mom's singing to them.

The kids have pretty good moves for their age, too.

Watch:

Jim Cantore Seems To Enjoy Thundersnow

Jim Cantore awestruck during a thunder snowstorm
in Chicago back in 2011. He was in heaven this
weekend as thundersnow hit during his live
reports during a Massachusetts blizzard.  

UPDATE: See new video below the Cantore Thundersnow Montage video in this post. Totally awesome follow up video from someone else.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION: I usually give all the full weather updates on my sister blog, Matt's Weather Rapport, but I have to post something about the weather here.

The Weather Channel's iconic storm reporter/meteorologist, Jim Cantore, is in Massachusetts covering the epic blizzard.

Rule of thumb: If Jim Cantore is in your town, you're screwed. You're in for a terrible, terrible, awful storm/disaster.

Anyway, Jim's favorite weather appears to be a combination of snow, thunder and lightning.

While reporting overnight and this morning on the snow in and around Plymouth, Massachusetts, the sky occasionally lit up with lightning amid the dense clouds of falling and blowing snow.

Judging from the video you'll see below, Cantore is somewhat enthusiastic about the lightning. (Glad he didn't have a heart attack. Or get struck. )

As Dennis Mersereau of the Gawker weather page The Vane put it in a Tweet today, "Anyone who doesn't understand the passion that weather geeks hold for the weather needs to watch Jim Cantore run around in thundersnow."

The video is hilarious though. I like people who can work up this level of enthusiasm:



As Cantore's thundersnow montage video went viral Sunday, Cantore himself Tweeted the following video that demonstrates just how contagious the Weather Channel meteorologist's enthusiasm is:

Nine Month Old Kid Gets Away With "Attempted Murder"

Ever hear people say the little kid is so cute he could get away with murder?

Little Mohammed Musa, nine months didn't
commit attempted murder in Pakistan,
despite what police tried to say.  

Well, technically, in Pakistan one did. At least attempted murder.

Pakistani police, in a move that made them a worldwide laughing stock last month charged a nine month old kid with attempted murder.  

Authorities claimed the kid joined family members in attacking police and gas company officials with stones and wooden rods.

Yeah, I'm sure little Mohammed Musa was the ring leader of this crime spree, too.

What really seems to be going on, according the kid's grandfather, Mohammed Yasin, is corruption, according to the RT report:

"Yasin claims the police had fabricated the charged because they were colluding in a plot to illegally evict them from their land and had illicityly obtained an order to sever the gas connection.

'The police and gas company officials came without any notice and started removing gas meyters from houses. Residents started protesting and blocked the road but ended the protest when senior police officers arrived in the area and assured them that no injustice would be done,' Yasin told AFP."

Now, after weeks of listening to the world talk about how stupid and moronic the Pakistani police force is, the kid is off the hook. 

According to the New York Times, police have now decided to drop the charges. 

Apparently, maybe it is a little wimpy of police and government officials to be afraid of a nine month old kid, who can't even say the words "attempted murder" much less commit the crime.

Little Mohammed Musa still faces charges of First Degree Cuteness, at least in the Worldwide Court of Public Opinion.

Parents: Let's Do Better With Baby Names in 2013

Though I'm loathe to tell a parent how to raise a child, I have some concerns with a list that came out from the web site Babycenter listing some of the more unusual first names given to children in 2012.

About a half million people shared with Babycenter what they named their new bundles of joy over the course of the year. To qualify for the list of unusual names, at least two kids had to be given these unusual names.

I'm all for giving kids unique and memorable names, but there is a danger with that idea. Below is a list of names and why I think they could be dangerous. Let's start with the girls' names:

Admire: What if she grows up to be a jerk and everybody hates her. Admire wouldn't work in that case, would it.

Excel: You're naming your kid after a spread sheet. Is she going to be as boring and colorless as a spread sheet?

Fedora: Better have a big budget for hats with this kid.

Inny:  And meet her twin sister Outie.

Jury: When she grows up, will she be stuck with jury duty like, every week?

Rogue (Also a boy's name) Well, if the kid grows up to lead a life of crime, the name sure fits.

Sanity: And if she's crazy?

Sesame: I can hear the school yard taunts now. Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?!?

Thinn: And if she ends up overweight?

Zealand. And if she has a daughter once she's grown and married, the kid's name will be New Zealand.

Let's go to the boys now.

Alpha: What happens if the kid turns out to be a milquetoast?

Cobain: Naming him after a supremely talented but very troubled man who committed suicide? Seems risky to me.

Drifter: Aren't those the guys who wander from town to town committing petty crimes?

Hippo: Opposite problem of his sister Thinn. What if Hippo is the preverbial 90 pound weakling?

Hurricane: The name hurricanes after people. Will the coast one day be struck by destructive Hurricane Hurricane?

Neon: Don't blame me if the boy comes one day with his hair died bright fuschia, spring green and fire engine red.

Savior: Oh, please. I know you love your kid, but he's not the second coming of Christ. Trust me.

Vice: He's grow up to be a chain smoking gambler.