Excitement and Hesitations

Sometime soon, Tyler, Genevieve and I are leaving on our week long vacation.  I am getting SO excited for the trip to see family in Chicago, then visit my best friend Kevin and his wife and daughter up near Grand Rapids, then head to our big family reunion down in Cincinnati.   This has been a trip in the making for almost 2 years.   We've been saving money, planning my vacations days for this trip, and gotten pretty excited about seeing everyone.  I haven't been this excited for a vacation in a long time.

However, there is one aspect of the trip I'm not very excited about... in fact, I'm pretty hesitant about it... it's the 29 hours of driving in the week.... with a one year old.  Before you all give me your amazing ideas about how to travel with kids, I promise I've heard most of them.  Not to shoot you down or anything, but I've met with other moms, I've looked up ideas on Pinterest, and I am as prepared as a mom can be... it doesn't mean I'm looking forward to it.

She's at that fun age where she can't quite communicate or participate in almost any road trip games... and... my child is sensory driven.   Most kids like to go in and play with their toys, my child does not.

What we have here is a box full of uninteresting, unimpressive toys.  I haven't bought her any toys personally, these have all been generous gifts that my child is just not interested in.  Sure she'll play with them sometimes, if just to take them out of the box while laughing as she throws them around the room.   But as far and playing with or engaging with the toys...she's just not quite there yet.   So if I want to entertain my child for any amount of time, I can do so with things around my kitchen.  A sure way to keep her entertained for at least 45 minutes is rice or beans with a bowl, spoon and cup of some kind.  Cups or bowls of water...finger painting... piles of leaves... also successful entertainment for my child.  Sure it's messy, but the kid loves messy, that's what she lives for.  I love watching her doing what she loves... if you want to see sheer joy on a one year old's face, come watch my kid when she's playing with one of the messy things I give her for entertainment.

Joy in painting.

Playing with rice, not happy that I'm interrupting her play by taking a picture.

Which is why I'm kind of nervous about 29 hours in a car.   How can I entertain this wild, sensory driven child?  I've got all the tricks I know hidden in a bag to pull out as surprises throughout the trip. 

These are some kind of rubber tile samples that Karlie got from a home improvement store of some kind for the child care.   I borrowed them for the trip, the different colors, textures and sizes should keep her entertained for a little bit.

These are some sensory bottles I made up for her.  The first one is some multi-colored rings (you can't seem them until you shake it) in with some glitter-glue and some water.  The second bottle is aloe vera and red marbles.  The third jar is just water and some fun items, pom poms, beads, a little rubber frog, a marble.    Not pictured are lots of touch and feel books, bubbles, magic markers, beaded necklaces, a little mirror, and lots of movies to go in the portable dvd player we are borrowing from a road travel pro friend.    I'm not sure how the movies will work since for the most part Vi isn't that interested in watching movies with the exception of those Wee See videos.   She could just watch those over and over, but unfortunately we don't have them on DVD, we just watch them over and over for free on YouTube. http://www.weeseeworld.com  Maybe it'll rain on the way and we'll be able to stop and let her out to play, that'd be perfect. 

Splashing in rain puddles is the most fun!

So wish us the best!  I'm sure we'll be fine, and have a fantastic time!  Maybe she'll be perfect the ENTIRE time, I'll be sure to let you know.  Also, if you feel you have a sure fire tip that I am missing and would save us completely, leave me a comment, but quick!  

My non political post on the new health care bill

The truth is, I'm not nearly up to date on politics to usually have much of an opinion.  As far as I can tell I really am more libertarian but typically vote Republican.   This health care bill has come and gone with little notice from me until today.

When it passed I asked my super informed cousin, Jason, what that meant...for me.

 Jason: well depending on how poor you are you will either be covered by medicaid

4:08 PM or if you make to much money for that you will have to buy insurance or have to pay a tax by 2015

 me: how do you know if you're too poor

  i think i'm too poor

  so you have to apply for medicaid?

4:09 PM Jason: hold on one sec, earlier i found a caluclator

4:10 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/what-health-bill-means-for-you/#

 Alright I think, hope this is easy to follow because I don't really care what happens to everyone else, I just want to know how this will affect my husband and myself.  Sure enough, it was pretty simple and I discovered we would quite easily qualify for Medicaid.  I wasn't sure how I felt about that in and of itself though.  I thought about it, and hated the idea of it, but what else are we going to do?

Then I discovered this:  http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/07/05/156312388/medicaid-expansion-whos-in-whos-out 
This link is a picture map of the state-by-state analysis of the medicaid expansion.  Kansas is out. " So the states can skip of the expansion and only miss out on those federal funds that would have gone toward it" 

sprained wrist from cleaning accident

 Hmmm... so many mixed emotions.  Good for Kansas, the last thing we need is to tax people to fund Medicaid right?  Except that means I now won't qualify... yet Tyler and I cannot afford insurance.  I know, we looked into it because we know it's a good thing to have, especially if you are me.  Within the last couple years I have had 3 UTI's, a kidney infection, an ulcer, a torn ligament in my ankle, a sprained wrist, a car wreck where I jacked my shoulder and it is still in pain, (and I didn't have car insurance at the time either...but that's another painful story) and a baby... those are expensive, but for that one I did in fact qualify for Medicaid.  Let's just assume I'm remembering everything here.

torn ligament from tripping on the trail after hiking The Incline

bruised arm from air bag, little did I know that my shoulder was the real injury

So here I am, kind of disappointed that I now don't qualify for the coverage that I didn't agree with in the first place.  One thing that I was kind of looking forward to was being on Medicaid because I legally "had" to.  Why you ask?  Because as I just mentioned, I had my first baby by being on Medicaid.  I know there are ways around it, we could have saved up and paid cash for her to be born, except we moved during that time and Tyler didn't have work right away, once he started working we were in catch up mode and there was NO way we could have had the cash to pay for her birth up front.  I also know of the birthing center, and while I am totally down, my husband was NOT comfortable with that.  So after not knowing what to do, and freaking out about being uninsured after Tyler got laid off, and moving, my cousin Amanda encouraged me into applying for Medicaid.   She reminded me, "I know it's a flawed system, but it's in place to help people like you.  People who are hard working, live within their means and just need help at the moment".  She also said a bunch of other really nice things, but in general, ESPECIALLY within the Christian community, any kind of government assistance is SO looked down  upon that I was constantly feeling ashamed and guilty for using it to have my child.

If you look closely there's a scratch across my forehead, fortunately I walked into a
tree and only got a scratch, we were all very surprised I didn't poke my eye out!

I don't know where this leaves me in the end, or how I really feel about any of it.  Mostly confused.  I know my God is my provider and better yet, my Healer, so I'm not terribly worried about it.  However, I'm also not terribly thrilled with where this is all going with our socialized health care either.

A perfect solution to the healthcare problem.