The past few weeks have been a whirlwind for me. Since the launch of the Five Moms Campaign, we Five Moms have been going full force to make sure that every parent in America knows about cough medicine abuse. On May 9, the Five Moms flew to Washington, D.C., to speak with our members of Congress and conduct phone interviews with the media. I met with Senator Barbara Boxer's Legislative Assistant on Health and we spoke in detail about the dangers of cough medicine abuse. Barbara Boxer is one of our California senators. I am originally from Kansas City, Missouri, so on my last day in D.C., I called the office of Congressman Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver. Rev. Cleaver is the pastor of St. James Church in Kansas City. He married my husband and me and he baptized my daughter. So I really hoped that I could go in to see him. Even though the congressman was on the House floor speaking and voting, I was asked to come to his office for a visit. His staff treated me with great hospitality and I got to sit in his chair and take a picture while we discussed the dangers of cough medicine abuse. It really made my day. I left Washington later that day to fly home to be with my family. To my surprise, as I was headed to the airport, I received a call asking if I could fly to New York to be on a morning show on Saturday. Of course I said “heck yeah.” (That is how we speak in Missouri). As you may already know, on Saturday morning at 9:40 a.m., we had a segment on Fox & Friends. Becky is going to post more about that later! This campaign has been full of surprises and goodwill for me. I only hope that you can have a similar experience with the Five Moms Campaign. I would like to encourage all of you to go to chpa-fivemoms.local and look over the web site. Please send it to five other people to view. And please remember:

1. Educate yourselves about cough medicine abuse.
2. Talk with the children in your families, church and in your neighborhoods about drug abuse, especially cough medicine abuse. Children who talk about drug abuse with their parents are half as likely to use drugs.
3. Safeguard the medicines in your home. Throw away old medicines, and become aware of the medicines that you have so that you know if they come up missing.
4. Visit the Five Moms page to get the tips and tools that you need to become educated about cough medicine abuse.