The Baby Buzz

Clare/Gladwin Budgeting for Gifts County Baby Pantries Stuck with little to no money and • Plan ahead. Set aside a small children you don’t want to disappoint at amount each week to build your Christmas? Here are some tips to put Christmas Fund. the magic back into your holidays. Volume 5 | Issue 5 • The Baby Pantry allows you to select Look at what your child plays with one toy and book each week. Start early now. What do they need for their and set aside these toys and books for December, ’14—January, ‘15 next level of development? Write a Christmas or birthdays. The Christmas list at home. • drawing is always full of great “like new” Less is more, pick the right toy and items. Be sure to put your name in for Inside this issue: don’t load up on lots that you really one of the toys that best suits your child. can’t afford. • Young children learn best through When selecting a toy, think about how ☺ Play Tips from Fisher play with open-ended toys such as you can play with your child, but follow Price his lead. Instead of running the show, blocks, crayons, paint and paper, ☺ shape sorters, nesting sets, dolls and observe your little one’s skills and ex- Winter Vegetables to pand on them. dress-up clothes. Enhance Your Meals • Part of making the right toy choice is The gift of time is one of the biggest price, age of the child and potential gifts for your child. Develop traditions ☺ Hearty Vegetable Soup that help celebrate the season. Making hazards. ☺ Winter Play Ideas • Make sure the toy you choose is an ornament for the tree, decorating something your child is ready for by cookies together, singing songs, and ☺ Stuck for What To Buy? reading stories: time well spent. checking the suggested age for the ☺ toy. Holiday Budgeting by FlyLady ☺ Library Information “Pretend Play” Advice from Great Start Educators agree that playing make- believe is an important part in every now let’s pretend we can fly!” child’s development. It teaches many • Keep an eye out for ordinary social skills such as language develop- items that can spark creativity. ment, empathy, and coping with diffi- Empty toilet paper tubes be- cult situations. It is creative play that come binoculars; outdated junk Help Raise helps expand your child’s imagina- jewelry becomes sunken treas- tion. ure. One Million Some guidelines may be helpful: • Try to keep in mind children • Set a time limit. Say to your child, spend much of their time being Nickels “I’ll play school for 15 minutes and told what to do and when to do for DIAPERS then I have to clean up.” it. Playing pretend gives them a • Suggest changes when you and rare chance to make the rules. InInIn your child do something too And it gives you a chance to see many times. If you have crawled the kinds of ideas that are churn- Clare County! on all fours until your knees are ing around inside those little raw, suggest a change like, “Hey, heads. Play Tips from Fisher Price

When your baby makes something happen with a toy, Moving from imitation to imagining is a signifi- like rotating an animal character or pushing a button cant milestone in the life of your little one. Acting for music, he begins to understand cause and effect. out well-known movie scenes with favorite char- As your baby grows you’ll see his outward play start to acters helps your little one try out different roles express his inner feeling. By providing toys that allow in a way that’s comfortable and reassuring. your baby to make things happen, you create opportunities to nurture every expression. Mastering physical skills is such an important part of childhood and it paves the way to all kinds of From sitting and crawling to standing and cruising, learning. Whether your baby is grasping a toy, your baby’s journey is filled with physical milestones. holding a pencil or learning to ride a bike, fine With each of these milestones, baby becomes more and gross motor skills continue to be refined as self-reliant and confident, building fine and gross your child grows. motor skills. Playing “let’s pretend” sets the stage for a rich Every day your baby is determined to discover imagination. It also helps kids make sense of something new, like how to maneuver a walker around things, express individuality and gain a sense of the corner, or match one shape to another. With control. Settings like a castle or outer space in- growing self-confidence and an instinctive drive, baby spire thinking beyond the everyday, so your little will overcome obstacles and develop patterns of one can transform himself into another person in thinking for future problem solving. another era. From there his imaginative thinking will soar!

Winter Vegetables to Hearty Vegetable Soup Enhance Your Meals This recipe comes straight from my Cousin Mary’s As we are learning more about nutrition, we know Kitchen. She makes it in a stock pot and takes it to that one half of our plate should be vegetables. neighbors and freezes it too. Winter Vegetables include broccoli, cabbage, car- 1# beef cut in small chunks, brown with rots, cauliflower, turnips, winter squash, and sweet 1/2 cup chopped onion potatoes. Here are some great reasons: Add: 1/2 bottle V-8 juice (her secret ingredient) • High in folate, vitamins A, C, and E • 1/4 c beef bouillon crystals Fiber in veggies produces fullness 1/4 c sugar • Can replace high-calorie foods in menu 1/2 tsp garlic powder • Greater variety yields more benefits gained 1 tsp seasoned salt • To get this variety try turnips in place of carrots 1/2 tsp Montreal Steak Seasoning in stews and soups. 1 tsp onion powder • Use both the leaf and the root of beets in differ- Same amount of water as V-8 (about 12-15 oz) Cook 1/2 hour ent dishes. • Buy only what you can properly store. Add vegetables (your choice) • Winter squash can be stored up to 3 months in 3 stalks celery a cool, dry place. 1/2 bag frozen mixed vegetables 1 c diced potatoes 2 carrots sliced Zucchini sliced 1/2 red pepper diced 1/2 green pepper diced Handful frozen peas 1 can black beans 1 can green beans 1/4 c barley 12 oz water (1 1/2” from top) Taste, add one shake of Worcestershire Sauce. Simmer for an hour.

The Baby Buzz Page 2 Play Ideas

Ugh, another snow day! Now what do we do? Doesn’t Follow the leader - Have your child it seem, by February, that the children are climbing follow you, and also imitate the kinds of the walls and 10 degree below weather will never steps you take. Go fast, then slow. Take end? At least last winter seemed that way. Then we big giant steps, then bitty steps. Hop like had mud season, then mosquito season, then hot a kangaroo, leap like a dolphin, and humid summer weather, then fall rain…. slither like a snake.

Our kiddos NEED to move their bodies! Here are some Catch - It's a classic that you can adjust ideas, outdoors and in, to help them do just that: to your child's abilities. Start by rolling a big ball back and forth on the floor between your open legs. Switch to a • Create indoor games for free or cheap by keeping smaller ball. Gradually increase the a roll of masking tape and using any paper you distance between you. Then see if your have on hand (why not recycle the junk mail?) child is ready to catch a big ball thrown

• underhand; start by standing just a few You can make hopscotch on the floor, tape out a inches apart. square target and try to throw a paper “ball” in the target. Danceteria - Play different kinds of music and encourage your preschooler to • Make paper balls and throw them into a basket, make up a dance that matches it. (All of bowl, or box like basketball. the dances may look the same, but that doesn’t matter.) Fox and geese is played outside in fresh snow. This requires making a large round “wagon wheel” pattern Use your imagination. Dance to a silly in the snow. The center is “safe”. Choose a person to song. Crab crawl across the living room. be the fox and chase everyone around the trails until a Your children will be much more likely to goose is tagged “it”. behave and you all will be much happier for it!

Stuck for what Holiday Budgeting to buy? By FlyLady First of all determine how much you can Here is a simple formula to keep afford to spend on gifts and menus. When you Christmas shopping under control: establish a budget and try very hard to work within that budget you will find that you do not • go overboard on your spending. Take the time something they want out to plan your menu and have your list of food ready and a separate list for gifts. Think things • something they need through instead of shopping impulsively. Try to establish when you can start your • something to play wiwithththth shopping and to break it down into small manageable tasks. Buy what you can ahead so • and something to read! it’s not one big bill at the last minute. You need to figure out how much money you can afford for: gifts, mailing, wrapping supplies, travel expenses, meals, baking etc.

Volume 4 Issue 6 Page 3 ur baby Clare County Baby Pantry ecycle yo Clare County Baby Pantry R thing toys, clo uipment, 211 W Spruce Street eq Harrison, MI 48625

Open Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., unless Harrison Community Schools are closed due to inclement weather

Phone Sue for more information at 989-539-7956 Email: [email protected] Find us on Facebook

Gladwin County Baby Pantry Support Clare and 110 Pearson Street Gladwin County Beaverton, MI 48612 Baby Pantries Open Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. NonNonNon-Non ---ProfitProfit Organizations For more information or directions, please call Pamela Allen at 989-515-3310.

Check Out your Local Library

Pere Marquette District Library Gladwin County District Library 185 East Fourth Street 402 James Robertson Drive Clare, MI 48617 Gladwin, MI 48624 989-386-7576 989-426-8221 Website: www.pmdl.org Website: www.gladwinlibrary.org

Surrey Township PubliPublicc Library BeaverBeavertonton Branch of GCDL 105 East Michigan Street 128 West Saginaw Street Farwell, MI 48622 Beaverton, MI 48612 Phone: 989 588-9782 989-435-3981 Website: www.stpl.org Website: www.gladwinlibrary.org

Harrison Community Library SPRING INTO BOOKS! Make a weekly visit to 105 East Main Street the library for story hour and learn about Harrison, MI 48625 their other great events. Make books an important part of yoyourur family’s happy Phone: 989 539-6711 memories. Website: www.harrisonlibrary.net