Snacks My Kids Love + Coupons

I wanted to share with you a few of the snacks my kids love to munch on now and when they were tots in between meals.  To get the coupons below, click on the coupon, select the coupon, and print!  You may need to install the coupon printer on the website before printing the coupon.  It's fast and easy.  By the time I finished this post, it was installed on my laptop!









































Happy shopping and eating!

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Breastfeeding & Healthy Living: The Best Affordable Healthcare

"Prevention is the foundation of public health, and prevention is the foundation of my work as Surgeon General. If we want to truly reform health care in this country, we need to prevent people from getting sick in the first place, and stop disease before it starts."

Dr. Regina Benjamin

Surgeon General of the United States

As many of you know, I was one of 200 guests invited to the White House on Monday for an African American Women's Forum entitled, "Mother, Daughter, Sister, Leader."  Regardless of ethnicity, that pretty much sums it up for all of us.  I will share my excitement of meeting the First Lady, Michelle Obama, in an upcoming post. Yes, I am still on cloud 9. 

We discussed topics relating to women and children such as health care, economics, and education which again, effects us all.  My friend Dr. Worokya Duncan sums up the day very eloquently so you should hop on over to her blog, Duncan Educational Consultants, for her view on the day.  Instead of writing a summary, I wanted to highlight various things that caught my attention and affect the mothers, daughters, sisters, and leaders who read ValleyStreamMom.com.

I had the pleasure of sitting directly behind Dr. Regina Benjamin, Surgeon General of the United States.  That's THE top doctor in the country.  Wow!  However, she was extremely approachable and really felt like she could be one of my aunts.  I took a photo with her but I don't think I can post it.  Dr. Benjamin is a champion of the power of prevention and says that prevention does not happen AT the doctor's office.  It happens before you get there.

PREVENTABLE 

Tobacco Use

Alcohol Use

Poor Nutrition

Drug Use/Abuse

One startling fact, among a few, that stood out for me was that 90% of smokers started lighting up before the young age of 18.  Some of us moms need to have conversations with our children now before it's too late.   I tell my kids to cough uncontrollably when they see a smoker or say, "that stinks."  Proudly, my daughter said it just today.  Ha!  What about the poor children who have to inhale second-hand smoke while their parents drags on a cancer stick while riding to the store?  No chance.  

Breast feeding: It was mentioned that we must support African American women when it comes to breastfeeding.  I don't think anyone in my immediate family breastfed.  My mom attempted to breastfeed with me but I wouldn't latch on.  Fortunately for me, the women at my job in which I worked during my first pregnancy were all very supportive and helped me keep an open mind about it.  I breastfed one child for 10 months and the other for 7 months.  I didn't stop, but my milk did. I was so sad when it ended so suddenly.  I was extremely stressed out and highly recommend that you stay stress free while breastfeeding if at all possible.  Most, if not all, of my friends have breastfed.  See?  Beyonce isn't the first and certainly won't be the last African American woman to breastfeed her child.

The benefits of breastfeeding is that the mom is less likely to get breast or ovarian cancer, and you're children are less likely to be obese. I personally breastfed to keep my children from developing asthma and allergies like their father.  So far it has worked.  

STARTLING FACTS

40% of African American and Latino Kids are obese

African American girls have the highest rate of obesity

Healthy Apps Challenge:

Includes healthy eating, physical fitness and apps for children

Download these apps to help you enjoy health promoting behaviors

Stay tuned. There's so much more to learn about my experience.  I simply couldn't put it into just one post.

Kids & Cavities

 

Today Moms:  Preschoolers in Surgery for a Mouthful of Cavities

This story totally floored me.  On a day where I JUST returned from a second week of pediatric dental visits for my 3-year old, I see that our household situation is not as bad as the teething tots in this article.  To not brush your child's teeth because he/she doesn't like it should be seen as a form of neglect.  In my opinion anyway.  The result is a mouthful of cavities so bad that a child has to undergo surgery?  I can't imagine letting my child's teeth get that bad.  Who wants to smell that breath too?

The moment our daughter neared two years old, we went to a local Brooklyn dentist recommended by neighboring parents.  He got paid to do nothing.  Our daughter wanted nothing to do with the dentist and cried the whole time. He may have looked inside her mouth but I don't recall him brushing her teeth with bubblegum toothpaste.  We still got a bill.  We didn't go back.

My son getting "gassed" in the Candy Shop Room

 xxThe second time she visited a pediatric dentist way out in Manhassett, where a snotty receptionist made me feel as if I were inconveniencing her, my daughter peed on me.  How?  She wouldn't sit in the dental chair alone so I was asked to sit with her to subdue her if she were to resist the dentist's requests.  All of a sudden things started to get warm and wet.  Note to new parents: make sure your kids go potty before dental visits.  Bring a change of clothes too.

The third time I searched far and wide to find a pediatric dentist.  We did and we love her.  However, she is out of network.  That means outta pocket.  She always seems to find at least one cavity in our children's mouths.  The first time, I get it.  The second time, what's really going on?  We brush our children's mouths twice a day, but their juice intake needed adjustment.  Now we are discouraging strawberry milk and trying to limit their juice intake to just breakfast and dinner.  Our kids are great about drinking water.  As long as it's ice cold. 

My daughter in the "Barn Yard Room"

Two weeks ago during the last visit to the dentist, each kid was diagnosed with two cavities.  We were previously encouraged to brush their teeth and not to let them brush them.  Our dentist still brushes her 9-year old's teeth.  Dreaming of the day where I can send my daughter into the bathroom dirty and she miraculously comes out clean has now been pushed further into the future.  The bedtime routine is, as my son would say, super-duper-ooper-schmooper long as it is.  However, we brush them.  Cheese.  Ahhh... Cheese. Tongue.  That's the brainchild of my husband.  He's cool like that.

Our kids still developed cavities.  How?  They brush twice daily.  They take multi-vitamins with fluoride.  Water on Long Island does not have fluoride in it.  We buy the mini Poland Spring water bottles which I have both in the house and in my trunk.  We have never sent them to bed with a bottle of juice.  Candy is limited if at all.  We do keep a mini bottle of water in their rooms so we won't have to go downstairs for a glass of water, the universal request at stall tactic used by tots across the world at bedtime.  As I write this post, I notice that the drops my 6 year old is taking is for children 6 months - 4 years old.  Hmmm.....I'm on the phone now with the dental office now.   Could this be the culprit?

$240+ in dental work later per child, turns out my daughter's fluoride prescription was wrong.  Great. 

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New Year. Better You.

My original New Year post was a bit too sappy so I scrapped it.  I didn't have the traditional NY day meal because I don't like black eyed peas nor do I like greens, or was it spinach?  I lost a friend to leukemia, an aunt to congestive heart failure and a few other ailments, learned of two friends getting enganged, and have a great niece on the way.  However, last year was a memorable one and like most other bloggers and the media, I'll list a few of my New Year's resolutions which I don't want to call resolutions because it just sounds like a definite failure.  I mean, how many of us actually keep them?  I want to call them lifestyle changes because that's what they are and I'm more likely to keep them.  Here goes.

In the year 2012, I plan to:

1. Learn how to put on my own false eyelashes.
2. Learn how to apply eye shadow.
3. Get more sleep. (It's 12:01 a.m. Monday now)
4. Stop donating to my gym and actually use my gym membership 2-3 times/week.
5. Drink a few less sugary beverages and a few less french fries. (everything in moderation)
6. Get my son to school 5 minutes before the bell rings as opposed to the minute it rings.
7. Eat less cheese because I don't think it's agreeing with me these days.
8. Watch a few less reality shows because they're not real anyway and they're not my reality.
9. Continue to give my children a memorable childhood.

What are you resolutions?  Do you even make them?

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Apple Juice & Arsenic

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I really don't know what to think about this but I do plan to read this report and watch the video carefully.  I vividly remember reading and watching the movie Children in the Attic where little brother Corey was poisoned by the grandmother by eating the "powdered" white doughnuts everyday.  I also think Arsenic is used to kill rats.  Legal or not, why is this being used?  I do understand that some ingredients "produce" arsenic but what doesn't the FDA or some entity find a supplement to this? I think I'll add a juicer to my Christmas list.

Stay informed!

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Wheeler Elementary Promotes Healthy Lifestyles

Congratulations to Wheeler Avenue Elementary school for promoting healthy lifestyles in their students.  I personally am pleased to know that one day my children will be part of this school and it is refreshing that the faculty truly care about the well being of its students.  To read more about the Mileage Club, click here.

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