Rylan Springfield, 6 months, reaches out to one of two family cats as his dad, John, watches. TORU KAWANA / TRIBUNE

Healthy lives off and running
BY CECE TODD
TRIBUNE, Sunday July 28, 2002

At 16 months, Carson Caccamo has developed a taste for fettuccine, chicken, and anything with teriyaki sauce on it. But just try offering him broccoli or spinach — and look out.

“Carson throws everything green off of his plate,” said the Chandler toddler’s mother, Christine. “Sometimes, he won’t eat for half the day, and then he wants french fries.”

Eating may be a battle for Carson, but exercise is not, as the active toddler runs around the house and climbs everything in sight.

“My kids run around so much I think they burn all their calories,” Caccamo said. “But you want them to eat well, too. You stress out when they don’t eat right.”

Carson is one of five young Trib Kids whose development the Tribune is following this year. Ranging in age from 6 months to 5 years, the children are at a critical point in their formative years — years that will set the foundation for how they grow and learn.

It’s a time when eating and exercise habits, both good and bad, can take hold.

So at the Butler household, which recently moved from Mesa to Gilbert, mom Dawn Butler is making sure 2-year-old Mackenzie and her brothers, Dylan, 6, and Dallas, 5, get nutrition instead of sugary empty calories.

“Mackenzie eats all day long, but her idea of a snack is an apple, cheese or bananas,” Butler said. “I do keep junk food in the house, but I’m modest with how much they eat of it.”

Candy is a treat Mackenzie may have only on weekends.

“She eats very well, and she eats a lot,” Butler said of her 23-pound daughter, who, like Carson, never sits still for long. “She runs around and she likes to dance.”

Five-year-old Shyan Bannon of Mesa is developing good eating habits, too. Her mother, Loretta Tsosie, admits that with her older children, she allowed more junk food and less nutrition. But Shyan’s father, Brenden Bannon, encourages his daughter and her mother to eat more healthy foods.

“Every morning, her dad eats cereal with her and says, ‘This is good for you,’ ” Tsosie said.

And not just any cereal. Bannon convinced Tsosie that giving Shyan some brands of cereal “is like pouring a pound of sugar in her mouth.”

But Shyan likes the sweet stuff, so Tsosie takes a little Honey Nut Cheerios and mixes it with healthier cereals such as regular Cheerios or Life and raisins.

Unlike many kids, Shyan loves fruits and vegetables. She also loves to exercise.

“She goes outside and runs or rides her bike,” Tsosie said. “She loves to go swimming.”

At just 12 months, Bryson Zimmerman of Gilbert is learning the habit of exercise. His parents, David and Shelly Zimmerman, and his siblings, Spence, 5, and Paige, 3, are very active. Spence can ride his bike for six to eight miles while his dad runs. Paige dances. The family swims every day and goes to the park.

“Bryson plays with his brother and sister. He chases balls. I don’t believe in just letting them sit in a chair,” Shelly Zimmerman said. “It’s harder on me to let them explore, but I know it’s what they need.”

She is also careful to watch what Bryson and his siblings eat.

“My 5-year-old would eat candy all day if I’d let him, so it’s just easier not to have it in the house,” she said. “Bryson is so young, he’ll eat anything. He’ll eat steamed broccoli like he would some ice cream.”

Bryson’s favorite food is bananas. He can even say “banana” in sign language, as well as another favorite, “cookie.”

There’s not much variety in the diet of Rylan Springfield, who, at 6 months, is the youngest Trib Kid. His parents, Adrienne and John Springfield of Scottsdale, feed him baby oatmeal cereal in the morning and rice cereal in the evening and, of course, formula. Once in a while, Rylan, who is now about 20 pounds and 2 feet tall, also enjoys some fruit juice.

“Eating is pretty easy for him,” John Springfield said.
Exercise is easy, too. Rylan doesn’t sit up or crawl yet, but he loves to stand, with some help from his parents, and bounce.

“He’s like a miniature-me pogo stick,” his father said. “He’s also discovered his feet, so he tries to suck on his toes. That gives him his stretching exercise.”

LITTLE BITES
Growing preschoolers need snacks. Small children have small tummies and typically burn lots of energy.
— Think of snacks as mini-meals and serve foods from two or three food groups. Make up for food groups missed at meals.
— Keep small servings of healthy snacks within easy reach of your child. Create a snack basket or drawer in the refrigerator that children can choose from.
— Space meals and snacks one to two hours apart and have children sit down to eat. Don’t allow eating while watching TV or playing.
— Get creative. Serve foods in different shapes — strips of cheese, thin, round apple slices, animal-shaped pancakes. Use cookie cutters to make sandwich shapes.

SMART SNACKS
— Cheese stuffed into a tortilla or pita pocket. Melt it on bagels or serve it with crackers. Try string cheese. Add vegetables to a cheese quesadilla, or tomato to a grilled cheese sandwich.
— Mini-muffins, graham crackers, animal crackers or vanilla wafers.
— Yogurt topped with fruit.
— Slices of hard-boiled eggs.
— Bean dip on tortillas.
— Cold cooked potato wedges.
— Steamed pea pods, broccoli or carrots.
— Fresh, frozen or canned fruit.
— 100 percent fruit juice pops.
— Remember: Large chunks, hard foods and round pieces of food can be choking hazards.

RESOURCES
Here are government and community organizations that can offer help:
— Arizona Department of Health Services. For information about food stamps, nutrition and exercise, call the Office of Nutrition Services, (602) 542-1886, or the Arizona Nutrition Network, (800) 695-3335.
— La Leche League. Information and support for breast-feeding mothers. Call (602) 234-1996, or go to www.laleche.org.
— Women, Infants and Children. Nutrition program for pregnant, breast-feeding and postpartum mothers and children up to age 5. For the East Valley office nearest you, call (602) 542-1886 or (800) 252-5942.
 

No pay, great benefits
BY CECE TODD
TRIBUNE March 26, 2002

Carson and Bryson stay home with their moms. Mackenzie goes to child care where mom works.

While Rylan's mom teaches, he attends school-provided child care. And Shyan's mom has stayed home during her child's youngest years but says she plans to work when her daughter starts school.

The Trib Kids — five East Valley children whose development the Tribune is tracking — are growing up in a range of settings. But their parents all agree: If the family can afford it, mom or dad should make parenting a full-time, stay-at-home job.

“If I had the option of staying home, I would definitely take it,” said Mackenzie's mother, Dawn Butler, 31, of Mesa. “But being single, I have to support myself and my children.”

So she's chosen a career where it's possible to be near her kids and make sure they and other children are getting the nurturing they need: Child care. Butler is a field director for Tots Unlimited, which has several sites in the East Valley.

All three Butler children — Mackenzie, 2; Dallas, 5; and Dylan, 6 — attend Tots Unlimited for part of the day.

“Overall, it's beneficial to them, especially in learning to socialize with other kids,” Butler said.

Being around other children every day has made Mackenzie, who was a shy baby, much more outgoing. Her vocabulary is expanding, partly because her mother works on Mackenzie's language skills at home, and partly, because Mackenzie listens to and mimics other people.

Recently, Mackenzie overheard a child care worker tell another employee to feed the children before they started “freaking out.”

Later that day, the 2-year-old walked up to one of the workers and asked, “Could you give me some carrots so I don't freak out?”

Shyan Tsosie, who turned 5 this month, doesn't attend child care. But in the Family Tree preschool program at Mesa's Lincoln Elementary School, she is learning to socialize with other children and make friends.

Shyan attends the program with her mother, Loretta Tsosie, 40, who is studying to earn a General Educational Development diploma. In Family Tree, children are in preschool while their parents are in the next room receiving parenting classes and adult education.

When Family Tree is over, Shyan and mom go home, where Tsosie reads to her daughter and teaches her about her Navajo heritage.

Tsosie worked in construction when she had her three older children. With Shyan, though, she has stayed home while the girl's father, 30-year-old Brenden Bannon, works for a business that creates designs for sinks, tubs and toilets.

Tsosie is itching to get back to work, so when Shyan goes to kindergarten this fall, Tsosie will look for a job. She has no regrets, however, about being home with Shyan during her youngest years.

“She feels safe, and there's a lot of learning,” Tsosie said.
Four-month-old Rylan Springfield of Scottsdale already goes to school — with his mother. Adrienne Springfield, 31, is a teacher at the private TesseracT school in Paradise Valley, where child care is provided for the school's employees.

Her husband, John Springfield, 34, said they pay about $150 a week for Rylan to be in the school's child care center — a temporary situation until the family can afford for Adrienne to stay at home.

“This has made it possible for her to go back to work for a year so we can take care of some financial stuff,” he said.

Parents, he added, need support. The Springfields draw theirs from a close-knit group of friends who have young children.
They share their joy over the way Rylan can now stand and hold onto the coffee table, the way he follows his parents with his eyes.

“When he's awake and happy, he just smiles and grins at everything,” Springfield said.

Those are the kinds of moments that make stay-at-home mothering worth it for Christine Caccamo, 29, of Chandler, and Shelly Zimmerman, 27, of Gilbert.

Her husband's job in technical sales makes it possible for Caccamo to devote her full attention to sons Carson, 1, and Justin, 4.

And these days, Carson needs his mom's attention more than ever.

“He's running. He's climbing. He's a little monkey,” she said. “He's in trouble all the time now.”

Caccamo and husband Rob were both raised by stay-at-home mothers.

“There was no question I was going to stay home and raise our children,” Caccamo said.

Caccamo realizes her family is fortunate in a way others are not.

“The reality is people have to work,” she said. “Children are expensive.”

Zimmerman learned how to be a mom from her own mother, who stayed at home to raise six children while her husband worked as a firefighter.

“We had special days, and if it was your special day, you had no chores and you could go to the store with mom,” she said.

Now Zimmerman tries to make each day special for her children, Bryson, 11 months; Paige, 3; and Spence, 5; while husband David, 28, works as a physician's assistant. Mother and children read and play together. They go swimming. And as she did with Paige and Spence, Zimmerman is now teaching little Bryson sign language because some research shows signing can be beneficial for young children who don't yet speak.

“He can say ‘more’ in sign language and he's working on ‘drink,’ ‘eat,’ and ‘done,’ ” Zimmerman said.

That's not all Bryson can do. The Gilbert baby is now crawling everywhere and opening cupboards.

“There are times when I do yank my hair out,” Zimmerman said of her full-time job as mom.

“But then there are also the times when you rock them to sleep or you hear them say, ‘I love you.’ That's worth all the gray hairs I'm going to get.”
 

EAST VALLEY EDUCATION
Courtesy of East Valley Tribune
Unaffected by his celebrity status, Rylan is the center of his parents' attention..
BY CECE TODD
TRIBUNE

She felt a bond as soon as they met. He cried at their first touch. And now, each moment they share is wondrous.

Adrienne and John Springfield of Scottsdale are in love — with a tiny, wriggly being who doesn't do much more than eat, sleep and poop.

Their son, 4-week-old Rylan James, is affecting them in ways they never imagined.

"This is easily the most extraordinary thing of anything I've ever experienced," John Springfield, 34, said. "I cried the first time I bottle-fed him. I cried when we brought him home from the hospital. I've experienced so much wonderment."

Rylan is one of five young Trib Kids who will be profiled this year as the Tribune explores early childhood issues.

Snuggled close to his mother, he opened his eyes now and then as his parents raved about him. During most of his debut interview, though, Rylan preferred to sleep.

Like any newborn, he is a superstar in the eyes of his parents, but unaffected by his celebrity status.

Although Rylan appears to be doing little, his brain is hard at work forming neural connections as he absorbs everything happening around him.

"As soon as I gave birth and they put him on my chest, he seemed to respond to my voice," Adrienne Springfield, 31, said. "We bonded right away."

Rylan already has learned an important lesson: Mom is the food source. When he gets fussy, he'll take a pacifier from his father, but rarely from his mother. He expects her to nurse him instead.

Rylan only weighs a little over six pounds. His parents have to coax him awake every two hours to feed him.

"Wake up, little dude," John Springfield said as he rubbed the baby's stomach. Rylan yawned, but remained sacked out on his blanket.

While they love their son, the Springfields also admit the first days of parenthood were much harder than they had expected.

"At the very beginning, you're very hormonal, and then, there's the lack of sleep," Adrienne Springfield said. "Giving birth and being pregnant was a lot easier."

She stays home with Rylan while her husband works at Sales Logix in Scottsdale. But when he gets home, John Springfield is an equal partner in baby duty.

And he doesn't mind one bit.

"I love to kiss him. I kiss him all the time," he said, nuzzling Rylan's forehead. "He's so soft against your lips."

The couple find entertainment simply in watching their baby.

"He makes so many faces," Adrienne Springfield said. "It's just hysterical watching him and trying to figure out what he's thinking."

Her husband added, "I talk like an idiot to him all the time. I make goofy faces. I love it when he grabs my finger."

As if on cue, Rylan curled his long toes around dad's finger.
"I'm learning that newborns make so many noises," John Springfield said. "They burp, they toot, they cry."

"And they surprise themselves at times," his wife said, referring to the way Rylan's eyes widen when he burps or passes gas.

As much as they are enjoying these first weeks with Rylan, the Springfield's are looking forward to all that is yet to come as the baby grows into a toddler and the toddler grows into a little boy.

"It's so amazing — just the thought that he started as a kiss," John Springfield said. "We came to the hospital as two people, and we came out as three."