Insurance Coverage - So Intimidating

It’s incredibly depressing. I looked up whether speech therapy is covered by our insurance policy. Essentially the answer is not unless your child has speech and then loses it due to head injury or stroke. They don’t cover developmental delays.

My understanding after doing a bit of research is that I can appeal that. I can argue that Ava does not have a developmental delay. A developmental delay implies that if left alone, she’ll eventually catch up on her own. That is definitely not the case. Ava has a neurological speech disorder. She will only catch up if she has intensive, specific types of therapy.

I’ve read that if you make the right kind of appeals with the appropriate insurance diagnostic codes (neurological disorder, lack of muscle coordination problem, etc.) and you have a lot of persistence and luck you can get some insurance coverage. To be honest, I read a little bit about the process, I get discouraged, and I promise myself I’ll look at it again next week. Well, that was three months ago.

This therapy stuff is expensive and it is putting a significant strain on our family’s budget. I’m already having to fight balancing budget needs with Ava’s need for intensive therapy. I think to myself, “Does she really need to see Ms. E twice a week, or would once a week be enough?” The real answer is that she definitely needs twice a week. Three times would be even better. I hate letting money dictate my decisions about what is best for my daughter, but that is a practical reality.

Having some insurance coverage would make a huge difference, but I don’t know where to start. I’m paying two different therapists out of pocket. Neither therapist submits to insurance for you. I don’t even know how to do it myself. I guess I need to find out. I understand that the appeals process can take months, so I suppose I should get started soon.

The endless cycle of feeding

I thought the feeling that you barely finished feeding your child before it’s time to start again would be forever gone after breastfeeding. Not so much.

To be completely honest, I am not a kitchen person. I don’t have a history of enjoying cooking. I have no significant experience or skills or natural inclination to cook. To some extent, necessity is the mother of invention. I am interested in feeding my children healthy food. I made baby food when they were little. Michael ate pretty much everything. Ava not so much. I actually stopped making baby food and switched to finger foods pretty quickly because she just didn’t seem to like the baby food and it was a lot of work.

Now that they’re at the toddler / preschool stage I find myself in a serious rut. For breakfast they eat a banana, baby yogurt (whole fat, supplemented with iron) with some multi-grain baby cereal mixed in, or a relatively healthy cereal (Cheerios, Mini-Wheats, Kashi) dry. This is pretty much every day. Lunch is fish sticks and sweet potato fries, peanut butter crackers and carrots and grapes, and whole grain pasta with peas and parmesan. I’m having trouble thinking of more. Dinner is often some kind of pasta: spaghetti and salad or cheese tortellini and broccoli. If my husband takes over it might be pot roast or chicken from a crock pot. We tried hamburger helper. The kids won’t eat it so that was kind of a fail. Not really a nutritional win anyway.

There must be more simple, picky toddler friendly, quick meal ideas out there right? I came across a website devoted to healthy meals for small children. We found some ideas we like and were inspired to try for a very simple goal. We want to make one week of meals that we can regularly prepare here at home that minimize dependence on pre-packaged material, have some variety in all the food groups, and that the whole family will eat. (Ok. We had to give Ava a pass on three of the dinners. It just wasn’t possible. She'll eat leftovers or just the sides on those nights.) Just one week’s worth of meals. I’m willing to eat the same thing week after week. That’s what I’m doing now anyway really. Maybe we can eventually build up to a Week A and Week B plan, but let’s start small.

Here’s the current rough draft of the meal plan. We’re starting this week. Wish me luck. Tuesday and Thursday have no lunch because they eat at school. Friday’s lunch has a question mark because we usually meet my husband at work and all eat Chick-Fil-A for lunch on Fridays. The arrows to the right on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday breakfasts indicate planning to eat leftovers from the day before.

So, does anyone have other suggestions? What are your “go to” meals? I could really, really use the help.

Fine Motor Activity - One

I came across this webpage on handwriting. The entire site has been fun to browse. I don’t even remember how I ended up at the site, but I'm glad I found it. The page has a great list of fun fine motor activities. Since I’m looking for fine motor activities to do with Michael, and fun activities to do with the children in general, I was pretty excited.

I decided to do the eye dropper art. I gathered eye droppers (something I had gotten months ago for art projects and never used), paper towels, cookie trays, food coloring, a cup of water, and ice cube trays before I called the kids over to the kitchen table. (Please excuse the blurriness of the picture. I didn't realize it was so bad, but at least it gives you an idea of what the prep looked like.)

I did a sanity check and decided propping the eye droppers in ice cube trays wouldn’t work and switched them out for empty baby food jars: two for Michael, two for Ava, and two for me. I brought the kids in and we talked about how water is clear but when we add the food coloring to it we can make it pretty colors. I let them choose the colors to make. Ava chose pink and green. Michael chose pink and yellow. I chose purple and blue. They loved watching the food coloring drop into the water and combine as we swirled.

Then I stuck an eye dropper in each jar and let them start. I quickly realized neither child knew how to use an eye dropper. Michael picked it up pretty quickly. Ava took a little more time but eventually got it. Michael didn’t have the patience (or fine motor control) to do only one drop at a time even when I encouraged him and showed him with my picture that you could do things like make flowers using one drop at a time.

He did stay engaged in the activity for nearly twenty minutes though which is a major accomplishment. Usually he’ll only do an art activity for a few minutes before getting bored/frustrated and wanting to quit. Ava loved it too. She actually remained at the table another ten minutes or so after Michael left to do another one.

I think the finished products are rather pretty. Mine is the one that looks vaguely like flowers. Ava’s are the small ones and Michael’s is the other large one.

I’m going to do this project again. We all enjoyed it and it’s good fine motor practice. Perhaps if I demonstrate how to make a train track or road or something like that he’ll be motivated to fine tune a little more?