v2.8 has broken multiple loops – helppp!

Okay so here’s the deal, I have a portion in my header which is pulled from a wp_query:

<?php $my_query2 = new WP_Query('category_name=Elements&showposts=1'); ?>
<?php while ($my_query2->have_posts()) : $my_query2->the_post(); ?>
<div id="stats"> <!-- open stats -->
<?php the_content(); ?>
<div class="clear"></div><?php rewind_posts(); ?>
</div><?php endwhile; ?> <!-- close stats -->

This works fine on all posts and the homepage, but royally messes up my Pages. Two things don’t work on my Pages, which are pulled from a specific Page Template
<img id="hmimage" src="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, "avatar", true); ?>.jpg" alt="" />
For this, get_post_meta fails due to the wp_query in the stats. Meanwhile, a wp_query on the Page in the template also fails to bring up anything when the code in the header is in place.

Any ideas how I can fix this? It worked in 2.7.