Our Medicare plans keep urging us to sign up for Hinge and I didn’t realize there was free stuff involved, so maybe I’ll stop just throwing those letters out.
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The things I received in the mail explicitly say “at no cost the you” or “provided by your company for those on XYZ plans” or similar, so I guess look for that wording!
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I also got a free tens unit, and a little stand that holds my iPhone (meant to use for virtual PT sessions 
) but really handy if I’m cooking and using my phone for a recipe!
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A zillion years ago I agreed to some sort of asthma support thing through my insurance, which consisted entirely of a nurse calling me every month and asking me a set of questions and me answering “I’m fine.”
So I have been disinclined to sign up for anything else, but I could definitely use some free exercise bands.
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Haha that was me with my high risk pregnancy. A lot of questions and then her being like “well, it sounds like you’re doing well then. Call if you need anything!” Honestly she always sounded bummed I wasn’t a more needy patient I’m sure my chart makes me sound much more exciting than I really am.
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Foster until foster fail?
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That was me too. I think once I hit the OOP max they were like “I guess we should pay attention to this one.”
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What are good bedtime calming strategies for a late elementary aged child? Posting it here for a wider audience.
Current ideas:
- 1 minute breathing meditation (using my Fitbit)
- 1 smell, 2 sounds, 3 touches, 4 sights
Possible ideas:
- Massage at bedtime
- Suck on an ice cube
- Glitter jar/lava lamp
- Rainbow breathing
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One thing a friend gave me a tip on that has worked for my toddler and works for her 5 y.o. where you do grounding exercises by just trying to find things that are different colors. Like let’s find one yellow thing. Let’s find two green things. Let’s find three red things.
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how far in advance of bedtime could the calming strategies start? what would a 1 hour before bedtime ritual look like?
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Right now we do bath/shower, book (I read and try to get him to settle down), and then at lights out he has a kids podcast episode he’s heard a billion times and a projector night light. All of that over an hour or a bit more.
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Possibly he needs the opposite? Like, a heavy work session, then calm down bed routine.
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I don’t know if this fits what you need, but when I had trouble sleeping as a child, my mom would do a progressive relaxation exercise/meditation with me. The one where you tense then relax each part of your body, starting with your toes and working your way up. I still do it sometimes if my other methods don’t work. It was good because it was done laying down in bed all tucked in, so I could just drop off.
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My kid is younger than yours but we’ve tried different things with some success.
For about a year our bedtime routine included several minutes of jumping on the play couch or a race around the room after the first book chapter.
We’ve also tried muscle group isolation, first wiggle your body–>legs->arms–>neck. Then tense each muscle group one at a time and feel it relax into the bed.
We dim lights and have calm music playing on the hatch for most of the bedtime routine. We also do a book chapter at the very beginning and she earns a second chapter if we finish the rest of the bedtime routine before the timer goes off.
We do a bedtime story but it’s different every night so Pipsqueak has to be still in bed if she’s going to hear the story. Pipsqueak loves Koala moon but an older friend likes something about breakfast cereal (the empty bowl?).
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I was Instagram influenced into buying a zenimal which is a screen-free kids meditation device and it has helped my bad sleeper fall asleep independently without calling us 100 times.
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Pride was great! Everyone (like fully 20% of people) had handheld fans like from the 1800s and were using them instead of clapping in a way that seemed like a pop culture thing had happened and I missed it. Does anyone else know why this is a thing?
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I have seen lots of videos where you quickly snap a fan open, like in dances. That’s my best guess.
Google - Fans in gay culture
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Do these look like tomato or maybe pepper plants to anyone else?
Things are starting to grow where my chicken run previously was and they ate a lot of compostable table scraps so I am sure there are seeds in the ground. I’m wondering if this is some kind of yummy volunteer?!
Please ignore the little container of dog kibble. I had too much in my hands while I was trying to take a picture. lol.
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Looks tomato to me
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Right?!?!
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