My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com
Baby #3 will be making an appearance sometime in early April 2010!
Self-Portrait
My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com
Month: November 2009
My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com
Prepared Mama: Ready for Illness
Has this flu season got you worried? It seems like something flu related is always in the news, with a lot of dire reports. I have decided not to stress myself out worrying whether we are going to get sick or not, and am just doing my best to be prepared in the event that we do get sick. In the last 6 weeks or so everyone in my family has been sick with something. Nothing terribly serious (mostly coughs and runny noses and some fevers and ear infections), but it’s been enough that I am ready for everyone to just be healthy.
So…this is what we’re doing to be more proactive about our health.
We had a Family Home Evening lesson on staying healthy, including lessons in hand washing and how to properly blow your nose with a tissue. (You can view my staying healthy lesson here.)
We wash our hands a lot and keep the hand sanitizer handy.
We checked our cupboard and stocked up on essential medicines and supplies so we don’t have to make a midnight or Sunday run to the pharmacy in an emergency. Items like children’s ibuprofen and Tylenol (and some for the adults), extra diapers and wipes, Lysol cleaning wipes, etc. Ready Set Plan has a great list to give you ideas of what you might want to store.
We’re working on getting our flu shots (but we keep getting thwarted by a child is already sick and therefore shouldn’t be vaccinated whenever we have an appointment). We’ll keep trying!
I’m educating myself about the flu and related illnesses. Here are some helpful articles/sites that I have come across:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: H1N1 General Information
American Academy of Pediatrics: H1N1 Flu Information
The Mayo Clinic: Hand Washing
Web MD: 12 Tips to Prevent a Cold
Questions and Answers about the Flu on Teach Mama
A story of a real family’s experience with swine flu on Prepared LDS Family
I hope your family and mine can be healthy this season!
“Un”Prepared Mama: 72 hr Kits
Remember the posts about 72 hr kits I wrote last July? This one and this one and this one?
Well. Today I pulled out our food packs to check the expiration dates on the food items and see if anything needed to be replaced. I had planned to do this General Conference weekend, so I’m only a month behind schedule. As I started pulling out the food I discovered that all of the fruit cups, pop tarts, and peanut butter crackers are expiring either this month or next. That is a good portion of our food packs, and to me that is an unacceptable amount of food to have to replace in 4 or 5 months. That is just way too much effort.
So I’m going to have to rethink our food-pack menus and figure out something that is little longer lasting. I would love to hear your suggestions!
Friday Nature Walk on November 6th
We’re going to be brave this week and explore someplace we’ve never been before.
When: Friday, November 6, 2009 at 10 a.m.
Where: Broken Arrow Bluff, 5724 SW 46th Place
Driving Directions: Since I haven’t been here before, I’m not exactly sure of the directions. The park is located near Kanapaha Botanical Gardens and Lake Kanapaha. Take a look at this map. From Archer Road, it looks like you will turn on SW 57th Dr. and hopefully find it somewhere close!
What to bring: Drinking water, bug spray. Maybe snacks or a picnic lunch? You might also like to bring a camera or a journal for your children to record their discoveries.
Things to note: This park does not include a playground, but there are picnic tables.
Hopefully we can all find it! Let me know if you plan to attend so I can keep an eye out for you.
Teach your children to seek good friends.
In a talk given to the women of the church in November 2000, President Hinckley suggested several things that parents might teach their children. Here is the first suggestion:
“Teach them to seek for good friends. They are going to have friends, good or bad. Those friends will make a vast difference in their lives. It is important that they cultivate an attitude of tolerance toward all people, but it is more important that they gather around them those of their own kind who will bring out the best they have within them. Otherwise they may be infected with the ways of their associates.
I have never forgotten a story that Elder Robert Harbertson told at this Tabernacle pulpit. He spoke of an Indian boy who climbed a high mountain. It was cold up there. At his feet was a snake, a rattlesnake. The snake was cold and pleaded with the young man to pick it up and take it down where it was warmer.
The Indian boy listened to the enticings of the serpent. He gave in. He gathered it up into his arms and covered it with his shirt. He carried it down the mountain to where it was warm. He gently put it on the grass. When the snake was warm it raised its head and struck the boy with its poisonous fangs.
The boy cursed at the snake for striking him as an answer to his kindness. The snake replied, “You knew what I was when you picked me up” (“Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood,” Ensign, July 1989, 77).
Warn your children against those with poisonous fangs who will entice them, seduce them with easy talk, then injure and possibly destroy them.”
“Teach your children when they are very young and small, and never quit. As long as they are in your home, let them be your primary interest.”
Gordon B. Hinckley, “Your Greatest Challenge, Mother,” Ensign, Nov 2000, 97–100