Rice can be a great addition to your sensory table. It is easier to vacuum up than sand. It pours well without splashing. The young child will mix it, pour it, measure it, and bury his hands in it. He can hide small toys in it to dig up. After your child grows tired of playing in white rice, you can put it away for a while, then bring it back out, and color it.

If you place your Sensory Area in the house, you can spread a sheet or shower curtain under it, to aid in clean-up.

Coloring Rice is Super Easy All you need is: rice rubbing alcohol tempra paint or food coloring zip-lock bag paper towel You’ll color it in batches, so to color enough to fill a sensory table could take a while.	Ingredients for Coloring Rice
Put Rice in Zip Bag Add a splash of rubbing alcohol. I never measure anything – why waste a perfectly clean measuring spoon? But if you’d like some general idea, try using about a teaspoon or two of the alcohol per cup of rice. If you use a larger zip bag, you can do several cups of rice at once.	Rubbing Alcohol Speeds Up Drying Time
Add Paint You can use liquid tempra paint or food coloring. I chose green tempra paint this time – as my grandchild is going to play in it with construction trucks. I suppose brown for dirt would have been better than grass green!	Add Paint or Vibrant Food Coloring
Seal Bag, Mush Contents Close bag tightly. Mush the bag to mix the paint, alcohol, and rice thoroughly.	Mush Bag to Spread Paint Evenly
Air Dry Spread the colored rice on a paper towel to air dry. It must be completely dry, or it rub off on your child’s hands when he plays in it. The alcohol helps it to dry faster. It should be dry enough in a few hours. Now you can add more rice, alcohol, and paint to the used zip bag to make the next batch. Keep repeating these steps until you’ve colored a sufficient quantity for play. Twenty pounds of rice is enough for one child. Thirty to forty pounds will work in a sensory table that accommodates four children.	Spread Colored Rice on Paper Towels Until Dry
Ready For Play Once dry, pour into the sensory table (or splash pool, as pictured at the top) and add toys. Children will supply the creative play.	Finished Colored Rice

Related Articles:
Sensory Play
Sensory Activities for Early Childhood
Home-Made Playdough Recipes

Photo Credits:
Girl in Rice: by Grandma Musher
Remaining Photos: by Lorelei Sieja

Play Dough is a nice, quiet toy. It’s cheap, easy to make, and entertains children again and again. It’s also educational! It helps young children develop fine motor control (necessary for holding a pencil in school), eye-hand coordination, and stimulates the brain. Your child can let off some steam as he punches and pokes it. It can provide a science experience, if you talk with him while you make it. Ask him how it looked before and after you cooked it. It provides sensory experiences – as he smells it, touches it, sniffs it, and tastes it.

I like the purchased play doh just fine! It was originally created as a wall-paper cleaner in the 1930s. It wasn’t marketed as a children’s toy until the mid 1950s, and the recipe for it is still a secret. It is labeled non-toxic, yet it does contain a petroleum additive and borax, to prevent mold – and neither of those ingredients are non-toxic. It’s probably harmless enough in small doses, and children do eventually learn not to eat it. I like to keep a container of purchased play doh in my purse. It’s just great for those moments when you need to calm a whiny child. My favorite time to whip it out is when we’re waiting for food at a restaurant. My granddaughter plays with it with the restaurant silverware, and she’s happy until dessert!

Here’s a great recipe for making play dough at home. It’s cheaper than purchased play dough, and is a little softer to manage for younger hands. You can also make it in large quantities, or in a variety of colors. You can substitute different flavorings for the vanilla. I like almond flavoring with brown coloring, or banana flavoring with yellow. The flavorings will encourage your child to taste it, but it isn’t harmful in small amounts. There’s too much salt to let him gobble it down. But creating it with an interesting scent and taste is a good sensory experience for the young child.

Cooked Play Dough:
2 cup flour
1 cup salt
2 tsp. Cream of Tartar
2 cup water
1 TBSP vanilla
2 TBSP vegetable oil
food coloring

Mix flour, salt, and cream of tartar in a small pot. Add water and oil, stir well, then cook while stirring over medium heat until it is the consistency of thick mashed potatoes. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla, and food coloring. Then knead on lightly floured counter until smooth. Children can play with it as soon as it is cool enough for them to touch. Store in an air-tight container or bag.

You can use unsweetened Kool-aide to color the play dough, and then you might skip the vanilla as well. Cherry Kool-Aide works great. The cream of tartar is the most expensive ingredient, but it is the preservative. If you skip it, the play dough will be gooey in a day or two. Try to find it at a warehouse store (Like Sam’s Club) or online, where you can get a larger container at a better price.

Edible Play Dough:
18 oz. jar of creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
3/4 cup non-fat dry milk

Mix all ingredients together. Have child wash hands first! Then he can play with this dough, and eat it. If it is too dry, add a little more honey. If it is too sticky, add more powdered milk. You can keep this in an air-tight container, or have child roll all of it into one-inch balls, roll the balls in shredded coconut or chopped nuts or powdered sugar, and eat! Makes a great, no-bake cookie (if your child isn’t allergic to nuts, of course).

Great Play Dough Toys:
children’s safety scissors
measuring cups
spoons
rolling pin
cookie cutters
muffin tin
toy doll dishes
Play-Doh: Fun Factory Deluxe Set
Melissa & Doug Shape, Model and Mold
Play-Doh Creativity Center
Play-Doh – Chomposaurus Playset

Related Articles:
Good Ol’ Raisins and Peanuts recipe
Home-Made Laundry Soap recipe
Home-made Baby Wipes recipe

Photo Credits:
Top: Barry Thomas
Bottom: Abigail Batchelder

Sand might be called the world’s most perfect toy. It is natural, readily available, generally affordable, and will provide hundreds of hours of enjoyment for your children and grandchildren. If you’re on a limited budget, the backyard sandbox should be the first thing you build, before a swing set or climber. Many families like to put the swing set and climber directly IN the sandbox, but I recommend that you don’t. First off, sand isn’t the softest thing a child could land on when he falls. It would be better to place wood chips, pea gravel, or recycled rubber under the swings. Secondly, children like to travel. If they have a sandbox in one area and a climber in another, they have two play spaces. Besides, if you have more than one child, naturally one is going to want to build a sand castle when the other would rather jump on top of it. Two play spaces is definitely better than one!

Select an area in your yard for the sandbox. Place it towards the back of the yard, so much of the sand falls off your child’s shoes (or bare feet) and clothing before he makes it to the door. Place it where you can see it from a window, but not too close to the fence. Find an area that is mostly flat, and gets shade for part of the day, unless you are planning to build an awning over of the box.

Think BIG! Build the biggest box your budget and your yard will allow. Ten-feet square is a nice size for two or three children. Mark out the area, then remove the grass and dig down. Sinking the box down into the ground will help keep the sand in the box and not blowing around in your child’s eyes on a windy day. It also helps prevent grass from growing up through the sand. Once you’ve dug the area out, level it as best you can, then loosely spread landscape fabric and staple it into the ground. This allows water to drain, but blocks weeds from sprouting.

You can build your box walls out of boards, or landscape timbers, or landscape blocks, or old tractor tires, or old splash pools, or any other material you can think of that is not toxic to your children. (Do not use pressure treated lumber, for that reason!) You don’t even have to use any walls at all, but fill the dirt hole up with sand. However, most sandboxes do have wooden sides, and some even have wooden benches for little bodies to sit on.

Finally, fill the box with sand. Many recommend buying play sand in 50 pound bags. It would take a lot of bags to fill a large sandbox! Washed sand is the same thing as play sand, and can be bought in bulk. Washed sand is free from dust and debris, weighs about 2700 pounds per cubic yard, and is tan in color.

Six Methods to Discourage Cats from Using Your Sandbox

Most websites recommend covering the sandbox to prevent cats from dirtying it, but I always felt that covers were unwieldly and limited how much use the sandbox would see. Small children can’t move the cover by themselves. There are a number of cat deterrents that may work just as well.

1) electric fencing. If you have a tall backyard fence, then run a string of electric wire across the top of the fence out of your child’s reach. No cat will cross it.

2) Keep a non-cat friendly dog in the yard. However, although the dog might not mess in the sand, he will still leave calling cards somewhere in your child’s play area.

3) Scarecrow Sprinklers are motion sensitive and hooked up to a garden hose. They will blast unwanted pests with water, but not harm them. (Of course, teach your child to turn it off, or it will blast him, as well!)

4) Motion-activated pet deterrent uses a high-pitched sound and blast of air to send cats on their way, without water. Great for indoors, too.

5 Smells. Some smells are offensive to cats, even when humans can’t smell them at all, such as the wintergreen scent of Keep Away. Other homemade cat deterrent sprays use a variety of herbs and spices like lavendar, cayanne pepper, rosemary, or citronella. These sprays will last up to two weeks, but need to be reapplied regularly.

6) Texture. Cats don’t like to walk on certain bristly, rough-textured products like pine cones or gravel. You can surround your sandbox with a wide ring of shredded coconut shell mulch, and it may stop most cats.

If none of these methods work for you, then a web search should reveal more than fifty other options. Something will work. Of course, you could just cover your sandbox. I’d suggest screen instead of tarp for covering the box. You want the rain to wash the sand clean, rather than the damp dark tarp to keep the sand the right temperature and humidity for breeding bacteria.

Finally, you’ll want sandbox toys! Rotating the toys periodically will keep the interest level high. After spending all that time making the sandbox for your child, the best reward would be watching him enjoy it! So, for younger children, keep a supply of plastic measuring cups and spoons, small plastic cars, and play figurines will provide many hours of enjoyable, educational activity. As your child grows, add sand pails and sturdy shovels, then construction trucks like a dump truck and a steam shovel or back hoe. Children can bury things in the sand for scavenger hunts, or sculpt sand into interesting shapes with the addition of a little water. And sand can still be played with in the fall, even though the beaches are closed and it’s too cold to take off a jacket! There is a small window in the northern states when the sand simply freezes – effectively ending the sandy season for a little while.

Don’t forget, children model us. If you want your child to reap all the benefits of sand play, play with him in the sandbox! Once he sees how important you realize sand play is, he will play in the sand more. So what if he gets a little dirty? That before-bedtime bath is a great way to wind down from an exciting, educational day of play.

For further reading:
Sensory Play
Water Play
Working with Wood
Sand Castle

Photo Credits:
Top: amrufm
Middle: tammra
Bottom: bruno brujah

Some preschoolers really put up a fuss when it’s time to brush their hair! I’ve had a number of young moms ask me how to fix this problem. My granddaughter used to resist having her hair brushed, too, but with the suggestions I list below, we’ve conquered that.

First off, don’t use shampoo when you wash your child’s hair. Shampoos may contain harsh chemicals, which scientists are now discovering are absorbed through our skin! They have identified dozens of toxins in the umbilical cord blood of newborns, believed to have passed through the mom to the baby from her shampoo and other common household products. Shampoos may sting the eyes, or make baby-fine hair more unmanageable than ever.

I never use shampoo. I haven’t for over years, and I wash my granddaughter’s hair the same way. I wash my hair with baking soda, and about every third or fourth wash, I rinse with an apple-cider-and-water rinse, which restores the natural pH balance of the hair. (Lemon juice will do, too) My hair is cleaner, healthier, longer, shinier than ever, and baking soda costs pennies to the dollars of fancy shampoo. It doesn’t sting the eyes, or contain harmful chemicals. If you want more info on baking soda shampoo, it’s all over the web. It’s often referred to as “no poo” or “no shampoo”. I have a previous post here, Never Shampoo Again.

I make my own “conditioner” too. I float a tablespoon of light olive oil in a small amount of water in a spray bottle. I shake well, and spritz this on my granddaughter’s hair in the morning before brushing. It helps make the hair shiny and tames down the frizzies. It even helps with detangling.

I bought a super-soft hair brush. Don’t get something stiff and scratchy and made of plastic. For your preschooler’s hair, you can get a natural boar’s bristle brush, which is often very soft. It may seem like it doesn’t do the job, but it will, and it won’t pull. Your child may enjoy having her hair brushed again when she learns it doesn’t hurt.

I bought a bunch of pretty hair things. I let my granddaughter pick out a couple in the morning that she wants in her hair. She holds the hair things, and she holds a small hand-held mirror while I brush. This keeps her interested, as she can’t see herself in the big bathroom mirror. Some mornings, if she’s very wiggly, I let her watch a cartoon while I fix her hair in the living room.

Finally, I let her brush my hair. I let her see how much I LOVE to have my hair brushed. I let her put funny hair things in my hair. I’m modeling preferred behavior for her, the way I want her to act.

This is a “killer combination”. You use modeling, positive reinforcement, and make it a really enjoyable experience, and the hair battles should end. If after you’ve tried everything else, and it’s still a problem, then you may want to discuss a very short hair cut with your child. Don’t cut her hair without her permission- she may never forgive you! But she can help to be part of the decision making process. Either she lets you brush her hair, or she needs to have it cut short.

Good luck!

For Further Reading:
Meal-Time Battles
Traveling with Tots
Nail Biting

Photo Credits:
Top: http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonlooks/ / CC BY 2.0
Bottom: http://www.flickr.com/photos/table4five/ / CC BY 2.0

Raising a Budget Baby in a Consumerist World

I hesitated to write this article, as the focus of my blog is on toddler and preschool age children, but I’ve been asked for advice on this topic often enough to guess that it still might be relevant for some of you. The big question is, what does baby need? Or rather, how much can baby do without! I just laugh when I read articles or headlines about how much it costs to raise a child these days, and I wonder what criteria they use. I can quite honestly tell you that much of the baby paraphernalia on the market today is useless, and some of it might even be harmful.

So here is a discussion on the various things you can buy for your nursery and the costs involved, to help you make an informed decision before you work it into your budget.

Basic Items:

crib	car seat	rocker	layette	stroller	sling	baby gate	total:
$150.00	100.00	150.00	100.00	100.00	35.00	50.00	$685.00

A bed

That’s basic. Your new baby will need a place to sleep. For some famillies, this may mean sharing your bed. For others, this may mean an heirloom cradle with a brass name plate, followed by a solid-maple six-year crib only used for a year and a half, which is then transformed into a toddler bed. Some families may also invest in port-a-cribs and playpens.

Cradles, bassinets, and playpens have fallen out of favor in recent years. A newborn will only use a bassinet for two months, three at tops. You cannot use the bassinet once the baby is rolling over or sitting. A bassinet starts at around $100 (not including the bedding) and a cradle at $150. Since a newborn will sleep just fine in a crib, here is one expense you can do without.

Get a good crib. Your baby can sleep in the crib until he starts first grade. Because nearly everybody gets a crib, you can always find one used. Don’t get one that’s too old, as the older cribs may not meet current safety standards. But if you check around, you should be able to find a really nice used crib for around $150.00. Check rummage sales and Good Will for crib sheets and blankets.

If you choose to go with a new crib, you can still save money. It isn’t necessary to get one that converts into a toddler bed. Toddlers may actually sleep better and feel more secure if they stay in their crib, even after toilet training. Think about it – do you really want your little child up wandering around the house when you might still be asleep? If your child calls for you, and you don’t wake up to answer, it is probably better to have to deal with wet pants and bedding, than whatever mischief or danger your child could get in to. Get a crib and use it.

The issues of a family bed could fill an entire post, if not a book, so I won’t do more than mention that some families choose to keep their baby in their bed. For safety reasons, you should not do this if either you or your significant other smokes or consumes alcohol, to reduce the risk of rolling over on top of your baby.

A Car Seat

Here you can spend as little as $50, or well over $400! It may actually be cheaper to get a separate car seat and a separate stroller, than one of these multi-purpose combinations. Most car seats will convert from the newborn/reclining position, to the forward-facing upright toddler position. However, there is more research to suggest that you should keep your baby in the rear-facing reclining position until he is two to two and a half years old.

For the car seat, it might be wisest to go new. Go ahead and check the garage sales and second-hand shops, but again, older ones may not meet current safety standards. Not all car seats fit in all vehicles – we had a car seat with the padded shield that comes down overhead – it was really hard to use in our Pontiac Firebird, where the roof sloped sharply down in the rear. There is a really great website that discusses car seats, how to use them, how to buy them, by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

A Rocker

This really is a must. You will want to rock your baby to sleep. You’ll want to cuddle your baby in the rocker after a bath, before bed, after nightmares, the rocker may become your favorite chair in the house! It certainly will be the most used. Find a rocker that fits you! I’m a little short, and I always wanted to have my spouse cut the legs off my rocker and put the rockers back on, so I could make it rock without getting a crick in my back.

Used rockers are really hard to find. I think that’s because people who own them, use them all up. So shop around, but you should be able to get a solid, wooden one for around $150.00.

The Layette

“Layette” comes from the French, for “little box”. Supposedly, all the things a baby needed to wear would fit in one – a little box, that is. Many babies today have their own chest of drawers and a closet to hold all their things, which is really ridiculous when you figure how fast they’ll outgrow them. Little tiny baby things are just so darn cute! It’s hard to resist buying them, almost as hard as it is to walk past a display of chocolate bars, only they won’t break your diet. Just your budget.

How many clothing items you’ll need to buy for baby depends on how often you plan to do laundry. If you have a washing machine in your home and can throw in a load every day, then you’ll need a lot less than if you have to haul everything to the laundromat every other week. Start out with: six onesies, six pair of bootie socks, six sleeper-pajamas or nightgowns, and one cute outfit. Add to that some small flannel receiving blankets, a couple of larger, heavier blankets, and depending on the season, you may need a jacket or snuggle-sack – just be sure that the outer garment will “fit” in the car seat.

If you’re choosing cloth diapers, start with three dozen. One dozen plastic diaper covers, and two waterproof pads to lay baby on while changing. You don’t need to buy a special baby towel – assuming that you have a bathroom already, you must also have towels. You don’t need to buy special baby wash cloths. Baby does not need shoes – he isn’t going walking anywhere for about a year.

A stroller

Even if you’re very much into Attachment Parenting, and you want to carry your baby everywhere right next to your skin using the sling, a stroller may be very helpful. At the least you can put the diaper bag in the stroller. If you live in the country and have no sidewalks, get a stroller with larger wheels, like a Jogger stroller. If you live in town, and will spend a lot of time getting in and out of the car, or on and off a bus, consider the smaller, more portable Umbroller- type stroller. The Umbroller wheels do not turn well on rough pavement. The jogger stroller does not collapse very small to fit in the trunk of your car. If you shop at garage sales, you might be able to afford one of each. Or, you could get a big red wagon, and skip the stroller completely. That’s a matter of preference.

A sling

There are many designs of baby carriers today. I strongly advice AGAINST the hard-plastic baby carriers that are so popular. The kind where you see parents carrying a baby like a basket of fruit. Babies want to be held! Hold them close, next to your heart. Let them hear your heart beating. Let them get jostled around as you walk. They’re used to it – they’ve been inside you in that neat waterbed for nine months, they’ve been listening to your heartbeat for nine months.

I can’t help but wonder if the sudden rise in diagnosed cases of autism isn’t somehow related to the sudden rise of plastic baby carriers? Get a carrier that holds your baby close to you. Choose a design with wide straps, for your comfort. It will allow you to have your hands free, so you can go on with your life, but keep baby close and happy, so the two of you can bond.

A baby gate

You’ll need either a baby gate or a playpen – you’ll need a safe place to put your baby when he starts to move around. If you have older children, then a playpen may be more practical. Otherwise, I keep the nursery “baby-proof” and put a gate up over the door. Then, for those times when you can’t be with baby (for a run to the bathroom) you know that baby will be safe until you return. As baby grows, you may continue to use the gate, to teach baby to learn to amuse himself for a short period of time.

That’s All, Folks

And there you have it. All the “must haves” for your newborn. For well under a thousand dollars, you’ve got the necessities covered. You do NOT need to buy swings, jumpers, shakers, rollers, monitors, bottle warmers, baby wipe warmers, shoes, boots, or toys. You do not need to buy a dresser for baby, unless you plan on buying too many clothes. You do not need to buy a changing table for baby. While they may be convenient, they also take up space. It may be easier to change baby on the floor, or on the foot of a bed with a large, waterproof pad over it. You do not need a diaper bag the size of a suitcase. You can use any backpack, just make sure you restock it after every trip – take out the soiled items and put in fresh. If you plan to nurse, you do not need baby bottles and formula. You do not need baby dishes and silverware – baby shouldn’t be eating solid foods until he is nearly a year old, and then can just use the same dishes as the rest of your family (unless they are fragile. Then buy him something unbreakable). Eventually, you may want to buy a high chair, but not for many months. You can get a cheap plastic booster seat and strap it to a dining chair. These don’t work for very young babies, but very young babies do not need solid food.

Some families swear by baby swings. Some never use them. See if you can borrow a swing before you decide to buy one. But consider this – in many American homes we swing, rock, and jiggle our babies. We can put babies in contraptions that let them jump, bounce, hop, and wiggle. When a baby is fussy, someone is sure to recommend that we put the baby in the car seat and go for a drive. Baby is constantly in motion… and then when baby is old enough to start school, teachers wonder why baby can’t sit still!

I can’t think of anything else in a “basic” list of baby needs. Of course, if you can work it into the budget, you could buy more of anything – more diapers, more pajamas. You could buy lambs wool and bumper pads for the crib. You could invest in a collectors set of children’s books. You could buy every educational CD and DVD on the market. You could buy only organic fruits and vegetables and start making your own baby food, canning or freezing it until your baby is older. There are a lot of ways you could spend your money, but before the budget is spent, just make sure you’ve got the basics covered. Then don’t sweat the rest.

Related articles:
Wonderful WIC
What NOT to do at bedtime
Going Raw

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Jonny Hunter
Middle:photo by Valentina Powers
Carseat: photo by Benjamin Hoyt
Rocking Chair: photo by author
Bottom: photo by Summer

GORP is a great snack to keep on hand. I like to keep a jelly-jar of it in my car glove box for those emergency moments, when my stomach (or my granddaughter’s stomach) is growling, and I can’t get back home in time to fix a snack. Because the recipe is flexible, you can keep it around all year and never grow tired of it.

Begin with:
2 cups raisins
2 cups peanuts

Add some or all of the following:
Cheerios
pretzels
M&Ms
dried cranberries
dried apples
dried peaches
dried pineapple
dates
almonds
cashews
sesame seeds (raw, unsalted)
banana chips
dried zucchini chips
chocolate chips (will be messy in the car)

Chop anything that is too big and poses a choking hazard. Mix, and store in an airtight container.

Enjoy! It beats stopping for French Fries and a shake. It’s lower in fat, higher in nutrients, and may save you money in the long run.

Any time you can make your own something, you can generally make it cheaper. You can also make sure that the ingredients are safe for your child, and if you chose the cloth method, you can even help save the planet. Not bad for a day’s work!

The wipe
You can use paper towels, or wash cloths, depending on your level of green-ness. If you chose the disposable route, you’ll want a better quality paper towel than the el-cheapo brand. Cut the roll of paper towels in half so that you have two rolls shaped like a roll of toilet tissue. Pull out and discard the cardboard insert. You may find that an electric knife works great for the cutting part. Otherwise, be careful as you saw away! Pull towels from the center, just like you would with a commercial brand of wipes. Find a round container with a snug fitting lid that will hold your paper towel half-roll, or recycle an empty commercial wipes container – but their lids tend not to shut very tight and the wipes dry out.

If you chose to recycle, buy a stack of cheap wash cloths. You can keep them dry and store a wetting solution in a spray bottle, or you can soak the washcloths and store them in a zippy bag, or recycled plastic container with a tight fitting lid, or a glass canning jar. If you store them wet, rotate them frequently so they don’t get musty or moldy. Storing them dry, and bringing along some wash solution in a spray bottle works best for me.

The solution:
recipe #1
2 cups water
2 tablespoons baby wash or shampoo
2 tablespoons olive oil

Mix together well. For disposable wipes, pour solution into the container, add paper towels and snap the lid shut. Shake and set aside. Towels will eventually absorb all the solution. Otherwise, pour solution into a spray bottle. Spray solution on a wash cloth right before using.

recipe #2
2 cups water
2 drops tea tree oil
2 drops lavender oil
2 drops chamomile oil
1 vitamin E gel cap

Cut open gel cap and squeeze vitamin E into the water. Add the essential oils, and shake. Be sure to use pure essential oils, and not synthetic ones. They are available in health food stores. Tea tree oil acts like a disinfectant. I think the others just smell nice. Vitamin E is good for nourishing the skin. Full-strength essential oils are toxic, so keep the bottle out of reach of your child. Two drops of oil diluted in 2 cups of water is relatively harmless.

Related Reading:
Earth-Friendly Cleaning Products
Home-made Laundry Soap
Raising Baby on a Budget

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Linda Aslund

Years ago when my husband and I were young, we struggled to make ends meet. We were both full-time students, with one infant and another on the way. For about a year we lived in subsidized housing. We used food stamps, medical assistance, and stood in lines to receive government commodities distributions. I was grateful, but I sort of hated it, too. I mean, my parents had struggled when they were newly weds, but that was long before I came along. I was fourth out of five, and grew up in a lovely parsonage, and was used to a higher standard of living. My husband was the only son of a first generation Polish Catholic family. He’d grown up on a dairy farm, and had learned to be independent, self-sufficient, and proud. We did not want to be on welfare. But the alternative – drop out of school and try to find a decent job – just didn’t seem to make sense in the long run. And so we accepted the help. We both graduated, and have been paying taxes ever since.

I remember how it felt to use food stamps. Back then we got colored bits of paper that looked like Monopoly money, and everyone who stood in line in the grocery store knew that we were buying our groceries with their tax dollars. I felt like they were checking out the items I had chosen, wondering if I were spending their money on pop and candy. I felt like I had no business driving a decent car – that we should sell the Firebird and buy a wreck, even though my husband’s car was paid for in full, ran well, and cost us no repair bills. Accepting Federal Aid made me feel stupid. All except for WIC.

WIC is Not a Welfare Program

W.I.C. stands for Women, Infants, and Children. It is NOT a welfare program. It receives its funds from the Department of Agriculture, not the Department of Human Services! I don’t know why that makes a difference, but it does. I was always treated with respect as I went to the required monthly meetings to get my dose of nutritional education along with the coupons that would supply me with free milk, eggs, juice, and iron-fortified cereals.

Just last week I dragged my daughter in to the W.I.C. office to get her signed up. She dreaded the trip, perhaps because she’s had such dreadful experiences with the Department of Human Services. We waited less than five minutes in a cheery waiting room filled with other young moms and their babies. We met with a social worker who took her information, checked my granddaughter’s weight, height, and blood iron-level with calm patience, even when the 2 yr old was acting particularly two-ish. Then we met with a nutritionist who gave her some advice on meals and menu-planning. We left less than an hour after we arrived, and walked out with a cute, generic looking “credit card” that will make all her purchases discretely.

We Can All Benefit From Nutritional Education

I used to feel a little superior – like I didn’t need the nutritional part of the W.I.C. program. I graduated suma cum laude from college! But being smart doesn’t necessarily make you a smart shopper. And even after years of meal planning and preparing, I can still learn something new! The W.I.C. nutritionist told my daughter and me that you should never serve your bologna raw. I have never heard of cooking bologna, have you? She claimed that bologna and hot dogs are basically the same, and that you would never give your child a hot dog raw. Bologna is moist, and exposed to other raw meats on the deli slicer, and is a perfect environment for food-born contaminants like salmonella. She said, “Always cook your sandwich meats, especially when you are serving them to a young child.”

Studies Show That WIC Works

W.I.C. works. It provides supplemental nutritious foods for women who are pregnant, nursing, or postpartum and not nursing. It also provides such foods for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers up to age five, who may be at nutritional risk. Studies have shown that spending the money on nutritional programs like W.I.C. is cheaper in the long run, as medical care expenses drop. Women on W.I.C. have healthier babies. Children on W.I.C. have larger vocabularies and better memories. Infants on W.I.C. have higher birth weights, lower mortality rates, and are more likely to get all their vaccinations and receive routine medical care.

Currently, I believe the income guidelines for W.I.C. is $39,000 a year for a family of four. If you fall below that, you may be eligible to receive W.I.C. You can contact your state agency to find out where to apply.

In some states, W.I.C. also provides vouchers to take to the farmer’s markets in the summer! Fresh, locally grown, organic vegetables! I feel kind of proud. My tax dollars are doing something good, after all.

For further reading, check out:
Feeding the Finicky Eater
Raw for Life
Going Raw

Photo credits:
Top photo: Leonid Mamchenkov
Middle photo: Andrew Eick
Bottom photo: ultrakickgirl