July 2009
Don Rhodes exudes a gentle calm. It could be the grandfatherly grey hair or tempered voice. Seated in a rocking chair, Rhodes shelters a premature infant in a red and white crocheted cap and hums. “I put them over my heart. The vibrations come through my chest to soothe them,” he says.
Rhodes has been putting babies and parents at ease for nine years. “I always tell any moms or dads I see in the nursery that I’m healthy, and the baby is in good hands. I think about how they might feel if they came around the corner and saw a strange man holding their child.” Continue reading “Tiny Treasures”
A couple took their fourteen-month old son to an animal fair where the little boy especially enjoyed the snuffling pigs. A week later, the family walked by that same area with their son in his stroller. He began pushing at his nose—the sign for a pig. The parents looked at each with wonder. The pigs were long gone, but their son remembered them.
Special to the Daily Sun
The couples talked intimately, tenderly. They touched one another in the same way as they moved around the room’s mock labor stations. Backs were kneaded and acupressure applied, utilizing tennis balls in tube socks and paint roller covers. The group progressed from wariness to confidence in the third session of the class “Preparing for Baby.” A Registered Nurse at Flagstaff Medical Center rocked and swiveled atop a birth ball–a rubbery ball about 30 inches in diameter–reassuring the parents-to-be with her friendly voice. It’s about information allaying fear. 
