Mothers

The following is compiled from Howard County police reports. East Columbia Gerwing Lane, 9600 block, 11:53 a.m. April 24. Witness stated that as a mother and child were approaching the business an elderly white man, who was sitting at a picnic table, exposed himself. West Columbia Thistle Brook Court, 11000 block, between 11:45 p.m. April 25 and 6:45 a.m. April 26. Entry gained to an open garage. Cash, credit cards, computer equipment and a GPS unit stolen from an unlocked vehicle.

A Baltimore woman pleaded guilty Monday to helping her 13-year-old son and a 12-year-old friend conceal the fatal shooting last year of 13-year-old girl. Monae Turnage was still breathing when the boys moved her from a Northeast Baltimore rowhouse to an alley, prosecutors have said. The girl's body was found under trash bags behind the Cliftview Avenue home about 20 hours after she was reported missing last March. Veronica Alford, 49, was accused of helping the boys move the girl.

These groups meet regularly. ALS Resource support group - First Saturday, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Educational support for ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) patients, family members and friends. Owen Brown Interfaith Center, Conference Room 116B, 7246 Cradlerock Way, Columbia. 301-978-9855 or http://www.ALSinfo.org. Care for the Caregivers Group - Thursdays, through May 2. The group will meet at 11 a.m. weekly and provide information, support and counseling for anyone in contact with an adult with any kind of cognitive or communication disorder.

Sitting at the kitchen counter, playing a game on his mother's cellphone, Nick Brooks looked like any other 13-year-old, except for an occasional hand clap and the burbles that his brothers affectionately call "Nicky noises. " Soon, he got bored with the cellphone and motioned for the laptop on his mother's lap. Jean Brooks was willing to give it to him, but with one caveat. "I'd like a sentence from you," she said. "Mom's computer, please," Nick said. That's a long sentence for the Roland Park youth.

What we know of what Mother Nature provides in the spring has come to us over years of watching for the emergence of spring flowers, the scampering of the squirrels, and the change in the songs of the birds. We like the idea of knowing when each sprout breaks through the cold earth of winter every green stick and flowering twig. Just getting whiff of the fresh perfume of the daffodils puts life into an otherwise dreary day! The love of flowers is universal. We saw Russian children in Moscow carrying handfuls of tulips in the month of May. In the South Seas, girls wear flowers in their hair and ropes of orchids around their necks.

A Severn mother who, despite a poison center's admonition to get her son to a hospital immediately, waited until her child began having a seizure from sipping his father's methadone, was placed on three years' probation Friday. Kimberly Brooks, 28, feared a huge hospital bill and so waited to see if the condition of her five-year-old son, who had vomited, would improve - a decision that nearly cost the child his life last Sept. 4, Anne Arundel County prosecutor Sandra Howell told Circuit Court Judge Paul A. Hackner.

Moms are feeding their babies solid foods before their bodies are developed enough to handle it, a new study by the Centers For Disease Control has found. The American Academy of Pediatrics has long advised that babies don't get solid food until they are four to six months-old. But 40 percent of the nearly 1,300 mothers surveyed in the study said they introduced food before that. Babies are better developed at 4 to 6 months of age, including having the ability to hold their heads up and open their mouths for food.

The mother of two children who had their throats slashed nine years ago took the stand Thursday in the murder trial of Policarpio Espinoza Perez and described how her husband's elder brother took a romantic interest in her niece. Prosecutors have argued that friction among members of her extended family ultimately led to the 2004 murders of her children and one other young boy. During this week's trial — the third for Espinoza Perez — witnesses have faced questions from both sides about romantic tensions surrounding Noemi "Mimi" Quezada's niece.

While I respect where Ms. Santo is coming from I can't sit by and not address some issues she neglected.  If every life begins at conception - where is that support when that baby is born? It is one thing to say every life is sacred and then stand by silently while WIC is gutted and Head Start is defunded and child care is difficult to find and in some cases out of reach for the working class. Where are all of these day-to-day supports that these children will need? Where is the prenatal care for the uninsured pregnant mother when Planned Parenthood has had to close so many of its doors?

Relatives and friends of a young mother killed by a stray bullet on Labor Day weekend urged witnesses Saturday to come forward and help Baltimore police solve the crime. "People are little bit afraid," to talk to police, said Geron Mills, 23, as he and others gathered to note the six-month mark since LaRelle Ashlyn Amos died. "But you've got to put yourself in our shoes. " The 22-year-old Amos was shot Sept. 2, one victim of a bloody Baltimore weekend that saw 10 other people injured by gunfire and five more killed.