Who Wouldn't Like a $10,000 Scholarship?

As London and Maddie get ready to finish up the second and first grade, respectively, I'm not sure I need to be focused on paying for college just yet, but you have to admit, it is never too early to start planning for your kids' future. I found an opportunity to win a $10,000 Scholarship for my girls. While it's been a long time since I've needed to think about baby formula, Kroger owned food stores are sponsoring an online contest to help fund your child's education and help store brand baby formula, Conforts for Baby, name their lovable little Firefly mascot. London and Maddie are planning to suggest the name "Sparky Little."

Going back about eight years, it was about this time of year when Rex and I were just getting used to 5 month old London and I discovered I was pregnant again... with her sister, Maddie. A crazy story about going to our favorite Fifth Avenue deli for lunch, buying my usual potato leek soup, getting back to the office and opening it to eat my lunch, taking one look and sniff at the soup and closing it up, declaring that I was pregnant. Hours and then a day later, both the home pregnancy test and my ob gyn confirmed that the "soup test" was dead on accurate. As the baby books and pediatricians advise new mothers, I had hoped to breast feed London for the first year, but as all but the most militant La Leche League mother will tell you, nursing while you're pregnant is close to impossible.

So Rex and I stocked up on baby formula and London chowed down. I didn't have Comforts Baby Formula at the time, but it contains all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients required for a healthy baby's first year and is also fortified with iron. Comforts Baby Formula contains the lipids DHA and ARA, which are associated with infant mental and visual development, and it is also fortified with choline, a nutrient associated with infant development that is found naturally in mother’s milk. Comforts Baby Formula contains lactose, a carbohydrate that occurs naturally in breast milk, and provides other nutrients found naturally in mother's milk that help to develop a baby's immune system. It is manufactured to exacting FDA standards in the only ISO 9001:2000–certified, infant formula-manufacturing facility in the United States.

Enter the contest online by visiting Comforts for Baby, filling in all of the information requested on the online entry form, including the original name you created for the Comforts firefly, in 25 characters or less. The winning entry and the name of the winner will be announced online after September 21, 2009.