Rocket Balloons: Hours of summer fun

Great finds are worth sharing. In LancMom’s “Mom’s Pick of the Week,” we’ll post some favorite things found around Lancaster County … from cool birthday presents and party themes to unique teacher gifts and places to hike.

Our first pick … rocket balloons! Our kids are wild about them. The crazy heights they fly and silly sounds they make always promise tons of fun at block parties, play dates and cookouts. We keep a stash on hand for always-perfect birthday gifts – boy or girl, youngster or tween.

One place you can find them is at the Pennsylvania Toy Academy on Oregon Pike. The pump and 50-count balloon set sells for $12.99 (a totally reasonable price for a bday party gift) and $5.49 for a 25-count refill package.

By Stephanie Witt Sedgwick

Special to The Washington Post.

Corn Bread-Topped Chicken and Vegetable Cobbler

6 to 8 servings

Potpies are just plain appealing, but the crust and filling are loaded with fat and calories.

Here, corn bread takes the place of a standard pie crust. It brings fiber, flavor and a savory-sweet homeyness to the dish. I like to start with the recipe on the back of a cornmeal package, but feel free to improvise.

I use cornstarch, not the usual butter-and-flour roux, to thicken the filling. The only tricky part is that there’s no perfect ratio of cornstarch to broth. You might need to add extra cornstarch dissolved in wine, broth or cold water. Adapted from a recipe on the Indian Head brand cornmeal package.

Ingredients

For the filling

2 tablespoons mild olive oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped (1 cup)

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

6 ounces carrots, scrubbed well, then cut into pea-size pieces (generous 1 cup)

Kernels from 2 ears of corn (may substitute 1 1/3 cups defrosted corn kernels)

1 pound cooked skinless white-meat chicken, cut or torn into bite-size pieces (from 1 1/2 pounds raw)

10 sprigs thyme

By Paul Gabrielsen

(c) 2013, ScienceNOW.

A 5-month-old baby, with his mother, prepares for experiments in consciousness. (Photo by Sofie Gelskov)

For everyone who’s looked into an infant’s sparkling eyes and wondered what goes on in its little fuzzy head, there’s now an answer. New research shows that babies display glimmers of consciousness and memory as early as 5 months old.

For decades, neuroscientists have been searching for an unmistakable signal of consciousness in electrical brain activity. Such a sign could determine whether minimally conscious or anesthetized adults are aware-and when consciousness begins in babies.

Studies on adults show a particular pattern of brain activity: When your senses detect something, such as a moving object, the vision center of your brain activates, even if the object goes by too fast for you to notice. But if the object remains in your visual field for long enough, the signal travels from the back of the brain to the prefrontal cortex, which holds the image in your mind long enough for you to notice. Scientists see a spike in brain activity when the senses pick something up, and another signal, the “late slow wave,” when the prefrontal cortex gets the message. The whole process takes less than one-third of a second.

Submitted by Andrea Stoner Leaman

On the first and third Wednesday of each month, we’ll explore Creative Reuse crafting ideas for kids on LancMoms.com. As the Reuse Alliance describes it, “creative reuse” is when the addition of creativity brings a new function. Simply put, it is arts and crafts with materials that had another purpose than being used for arts and crafts. For example, wallpaper samples become fans and cardboard tubes become robots. This is also sometimes called “upcycling” or “repurposing.”

Why Creative Reuse?

1. Reuse helps children see things differently. The child who has seen the end of an orange juice concentrate can turn into a punch-tin Christmas ornament begins to understand you can conjure what you need with ingenuity. It is problem solving at work when a young artist needs ears for a cat face project and cuts an unwanted ad magnet into triangles to do the job.

2. Kids have better ideas then we do. There’s a place for identical-looking crafts for the same reason there’s a place for TV Dinners. It’s convenient. But

Hungry Stinkbug: A creative reuse creation.

kids thrive when given materials with a general idea to guide, and really surprise us when given materials with no direction at all. Think you’re not crafty? You don’t have to be! Put materials in front of your children, and they will see something in it. See the accompanying photo as Exhibit A: You can bet no one told this child, “Please turn these scraps into a giant stink bug eating fast food.”

3. It saves money we can use for something else, as well as fosters thriftiness. Kids love to create, yet craft supplies are expensive. Noticing what we can use from items around the house not only saves us money, but trains a child to be an adult who finds thrifty ways to reuse in many situations. It’s a skill to not see store-bought-new as the only option.

By SARA MOULTON

Associated Press

Barbecue chicken is one of my favorite summertime dishes. I like every part of it — the tomato-based sauce (the spicier the better), the crispy skin, even the bones.

Easy Baked Barbecue Chicken Breasts (AP/Matthew Mead photo)

And taste aside, it’s also relatively healthy, at least as compared to such sundry first cousins as grilled and/or smoked ribs, brisket or pulled pork. It’s chicken, after all, and it wears that lean protein halo. Unfortunately, when it’s prepared with its skin and bones, and slathered with a sugary sauce, barbecue chicken is very nearly as caloric as its brethren. Know why chicken skin is so delicious? It’s high in fat.

So I set myself the task of coming up with a recipe for a leaner version of barbecue chicken that somehow still boasted the most lovable aspects of the classic version — a mouth-watering sauce and an element of crunch.

I started by enlisting the usual lean poultry suspect, the boneless, skinless chicken breast. The one problem with this virtuous ingredient is that it’s tough to cook just right. Undercook it and you risk getting sick. Overcook it and you’re faced with a slab of protein as dry and tough as cardboard.

And then, as I discovered while developing this recipe, there’s another problem — chicken breasts come in all different sizes and thicknesses. Generally, if it’s labeled “cutlet,” it’s fairly thin. If it’s labeled “chicken breast,” it’s rather thick. But there’s a range of thickness within these categories, too. I tried both and opted for the latter because the thicker breasts were simply harder to overcook.

By AMY LORENTZEN

Associated Press

This publicity product photo provided by Lori Bergmann shows a vintage glass chain Leopard Lanyard by Lori Bergmann (LoriBergmann.etsy.com), with handmade lampwork Leopard glass beads, that uses simple wire wrapping techniques, April 2013. (AP Photo/Lori Bergmann)

Making a pretty chain for Mom’s eyeglasses can be a simple, personal and practical Mother’s Day gift. Depending on your skill level, you could make anything from a basic beaded lanyard to something more elaborate and embellished.

Traditional chains connect to both arms of the glasses, while newer styles offer a center loop on which you hang the glasses by one of their temple pieces.

“Eyeglass chains are a great way to accentuate your personality while also providing a utilitarian use,” keeping glasses safe and handy, says Michelle Sacia, a craft specialist with Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores.

“Just like jewelry, eyeglass chains can be created to match your everyday style while showcasing your glasses,” she says.

Lori Bergmann, who creates glass beads and custom jewelry at her studio in Maple Valley, Wash., says supplies for making eyeglass chains are readily available online and at craft stores.  And depending on the style you choose, it can take only minutes to put together.

By MIKE STOBBE

AP Medical Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Parents are reporting more skin and food allergies in their children, a big government survey found.

Experts aren’t sure what’s behind the increase. Could it be that children are growing up in households so clean that it leaves them more sensitive to things that can trigger allergies?  Or are mom and dad paying closer attention to rashes and reactions, and more likely to call it an allergy?

“We don’t really have the answer,” said Dr. Lara Akinbami of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the senior author of the new report released Thursday.

The CDC survey suggests that about 1 in 20 U.S. children have food allergies. That’s a 50 percent increase from the late 1990s. For eczema and other skin allergies, it’s 1 in 8 children, an increase of 69 percent. It found no increase, however, in hay fever or other respiratory allergies.

Already familiar with the trend in food allergies are school nurses, who have grown busier with allergy-related duties, like banishing peanuts at school parties or stocking emergency allergy medicine.

Sally Schoessler started as school nurse in 1992 in New York state, and didn’t encounter a child with a food allergy for a few years. But by the time she left school nursing in 2005, “there were children in the majority of classrooms” with the disorder, said Schoessler, who now works at the National Association of School Nurses in Silver Spring, Md.