Recommended Books: Christmas Edition (pre-k)

I may have mentioned before that our son, T., has been memorizing books that we read to him on a regular basis. Wonderful to see him sit down, and recite the lines on each page — I figure that this is building pre-reading confidence, and sometimes encourage him to read to D., who still lives in Mama’s belly. Since he is building confidence with shorter and easier stories, I’ve been selecting more advanced literature for him from our own shelves and from the library. The Mother Goose treasury I was given as a child is a new favorite, as are the following, which we discovered at the library:

The Little Fir Tree (Margaret Wise Brown and Jim LaMarche)

• A young fir tree grows alone in a field, and wants nothing more than to belong to something bigger than he is. He soon gets his wish, by helping a young, house-bound boy enjoy his Christmas celebrations more thoroughly.

One Cool Friend (Toni Buzzeo and David Small)

• Excrutiatingly proper Eliot discovers that he has more in common with his father than he ever could have imagined, when he takes a penguin from the local aquarium and brings it home to care for it.

Coal Country Christmas (Elizabeth Brown and Harvey Stevenson)

• Young Elizabeth shares her Christmas celebrations, which involve a trip back to Coal Country in Pennsylvania, where her grandmother and other relatives still live. Living is harsh there, but nothing can take away the warmth, faith, and love the family feels for one another.

The Christmas Promise (Susan Campbell Bartoletti and David Christiana)

• A young girl and her father find themselves homeless during the Great Depression. As Christmas approaches, she wonders if her father will ever be able to find work and a safe, warm home for them. The ladies at one of the missions teach her to pray, which she does regularly. Her prayers are answered after their adventures take a seemingly hopeless route.

 

OK, OK … the penguin book has NOTHING to do with Christmas. It is, however, a warm, sweet story about unexpected similarities between a father and a son … the adventure is appealing to children (who HASN’T wanted to create their own indoor ice skating pond?) … the lad has impeccable manners … and we’re doing a winter animals theme right now, so the book was an excellent and lucky find. We’ve been focusing on reindeer, penguins, animals in hibernation . . . nothing captures T’s imagination quite like animals do.

In addition to watching short videos about the animals, reading about them, and talking about them, we also learn quick, easy facts (like what they eat, what sounds they make) and make simple crafts featuring the animals. DLTK’s websites have become a favorite resource for us. A variety of coloring pages, premade crafts, instructions for self-directed crafts, songs, poems, and more are available here. It WILL take a while to plow through the pages to find what you are looking for. Here is a link to activities featuring penguins, for example: Penguin Activities. We’ve also found fun things to do for Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and more. We keep a stack of coloring pages ready at any given time so that T. always has something to do. And several times a day, he will ask to color. A few times per week, we will do a more involved activity, which he loves. He sometimes wants to do the same activities a few times, too. He feels such pride in his creations, and loves seeing them up on the walls in our kitchen, taped to his bedroom door, and given as gifts to family and friends.

The key to enjoyment and learning? Do the activity WITH your child, not for him or her, and praise specific actions they are taking. Example: “Oooh, I like where you decided to put the white circle. Where are you going to put the orange square?” These are productive and help build confidence and delight. The goal is to help your child fall in love with learning, and to get into encouraging, productive habits as a teacher — all from an early age. This is true whether your child attends a mainstream school or is educated at home. Regardless, you are your child’s first and most important teacher. Big responsibility, but loads of joy!

 

 

 

Enjoy all that “free” birth control! In the meantime, can you spare a few dimes to help us pay for our son’s allergy medicines?

I’m really hoping to avoid too cynical or too angry of a theme to this blog, but today’s revelations have made it nearly impossible for me to be silent.

Month after month, I tried to persuade my friends and family that “free” birth control is impossible — somewhere down the line, we will all pay for these and all compulsory programs. Additionally, I do not believe that someone’s personal choices should override our constitutional rights; normally, most of these people agree, except when it comes down to sex. WHY do we think that sex-without-consequences is a right, along the lines of food, shelter, humane treatment, etc? It’s sex, for goodness sake . . . not life-saving surgery, minimal nutrition and hydration needs, shelter from the elements, clothing . . .

But, no . . . rights guaranteed by the constitution fall far short of the sort of rights imagined by Helen Gurley Brown.

Now, the price will be paid in ways unforeseen by those who refused to see ANYTHING aside from their whitewashed image of a messiah, come to save us all from personal responsibility.

Let’s start with basic insurance coverage.

If your employer provides insurance, no matter how costly and poor the coverage, you MUST buy into it. You are not allowed to shop around for better rates and better coverage. We are stuck in that position now.

Your insurance provider WILL cut other benefits to pay for all of that free birth control (and, let’s face it, free abortion is next … many companies already provide that, but maternity care comes at a premium.).

1. Less than 50% of my son’s allergy testing blood work was covered by our insurance, in spite of the fact that he tested positive for peanut, soy, sesame, wheat, egg, dairy, and cat allergies. These are critical to know about because a) they can be deadly, if severe enough; b) continued exposure to these allergens can, and often does, result in poor future health. If his wheat allergy had been severe enough, and he’d continued to be exposed to it, he probably would have developed a complete gluten intolerance, celiac, and possibly other autoimmune disorders.  Autoimmune disorders are rather more expensive to treat than a mere avoidance of a substance, no? So why cut the blood work coverage? In my darker moments, I snap and snarl about “baby haters,” but the reality is that these companies are just as short-sighted as are the legislators, the president, and the people who voted and revoted for these people: they see a short-term solution and think it the right one.
2. One of my son’s allergy medicines is no longer covered. The insurance company claims that it is over-the-counter, which is true for the adult version, but not the pediatric form. The other medicine used to cost $15, but now costs $28.

Please note: my two-year-old son is not engaging in recreational cat-snorting, and demanding that the government make it free for him to pursue this activity, free of consequences. He is a person, a tiny person, dependent on my love and care, on my husband’s love and care; he NEEDS these medicines, just as he NEEDED the allergy testing.

I am certainly not demanding free goodies from the government; I am merely demanding that the government back off and make it possible for me and my family to pursue the best way for us to take care of ourselves and our children. The ACA is most decidedly NOT the best we can do.

Our old insurance cost $350 less per month, and we only paid a $25 co-pay per office visit. Now, we are paying over 1/3 of our monthly income to an insurance company that makes us pay $50 co-pays, and twice the deductible. We’re losing coverage of medications necessary to our son’s health. I’m terrified to receive the final bill for this pregnancy and delivery; my OB will not bill us until after D. is born. I’ve already had to contest some charges as it is, and I’m guessing that, while I’m recovering from a necessary c-section and establishing a nursing relationship with my newborn son, I’ll also be calling our insurance provider and demanding what little coverage we’re entitled to.

Had I decided that my convenience mattered more than my precious son’s right to life, they would have covered an abortion fully. The thought makes me sick.

Comic CREDIT: http://morisecomics.com/ Comic Artist: LARRY WEST