kidHaven – things to do with kids in New Haven

Jan 30

Developmental Resources for Parents

Submitted by Alida Engel, CCC-SLP

CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR CHILD’S DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRESS? If you want information on evaluations and treatment, the Center for Speech and Learning, LLC in New Haven, CT has created a list of child development resources available to New Haven area parents. Use these resources to determine whether your concerns merit more attention. If you are aware of other resources we might add, please inform us!

Is your child on-track developmentally?

Developmental Milestones from 2 months to 5 years. A checklist from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC): http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/index.html

Milestones for Hearing and Language, provided by the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA): http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/chart.htm

How to determine if your child is late-blooming or has a language problem (ASHA): http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/LateBlooming.htm

Fact Sheets and Web pages about many developmental concerns (CDC): http://cdc.gov/NCBDDD/actearly/facts.html

Free parent resource kit about Child Development (CDC): http://cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/freematerials.html

Stuttering checklist, from the Stuttering Foundation of America (SFA): http://www.stutteringhelp.org/Default.aspx?tabid=554

Stuttering Questions for Parents (SFA): http://www.stutteringhelp.org/Default.aspx?tabid=99

Help talking with doctors and educators

Tips on how to express your concerns to your child’s physician or school personnel (CDC): http://cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/concerned-whattosay.html

Good places to get your child evaluated

For a speech evaluation, or to receive a free stuttering screening, call the Center for Speech and Learning in New Haven, CT— #203-397-3224 Read more

Jan 29

1 Comment

Valentine’s Photo Mini Session – Giveaway!

Ritu Nett Photography is offering one free Photo Mini Session to a kidHaven reader! Follow this link to leave a comment on her blog to be entered in the giveaway. Like her page on Facebook and be entered a second time. Whichever way you enter, be sure to mention ‘kidHaven’. Winner must be available for a session on February 4th.

Winner will be chosen on Tuesday, January 31st!

Jan 27

Holiday Debrief: So How Green Were the Holidays?

Written by Green Mama

The holidays can certainly be a busy, stressful time, a time when all around us waste goes up and conservation goes down. I admit that holidays throw me for a loop; I can get easily overwhelmed and let best practices slip. A month later, I have finally caught my breath! Below is a quick assessment of how I did this year during the holidays — What I did well and not so well. How did you do? What will you try to change next year? (Remind me to look back at this next November!)

Top 5 Things I Did Right (i.e. Green) This Holiday Season

Santa goes tag-sale-ing: My son’s gifts included a secondhand stroller and kitchen (plus a new water bottle “like Mommy!”)

1. Giving: Our son was over the moon about his two big gifts — a wooden kitchen and a baby stroller — both of which Santa acquired at a tag sale last August. For my son’s teachers, we candied organic almonds and packaged them in reused (and reusable) decorative tins. For a close friend, I bought a gift certificate at an upscale local consignment store.

2. Wrapping: We wrapped everything in reused or reusable materials, including cloth, empty cereal boxes, pillowcases, and decorated bags/boxes, old wrapping paper, and re-used ribbons seeing their nth Christmases.

3. Receiving: We convinced grandma to give my son about half the number of gifts she gave him last year (yay!) and requested from grandpa a stainless steel water bottle and dish set — both of which my son adores.

4. Cleaning Up: I meticulously separated out every piece of shrink wrap (recyclable with grocery bags), paper & cardboard wrappers (went right to my son for drawing), and reusable material before putting anything in the garbage. (After a chaotic Christmas morning, it was rather soothing to drink a cup of tea and smooth old tissue paper into neat piles for next year.)

5. Swapping: A few weeks after the holidays ended, I hosted a swap meet. Friends cleaned house and showed up to trade no-longer-needed clothes, children’s stuff, and housewares. (Think tag sale, but everything is free!) All leftovers were donated to charity.

Resource in Progress

See greenHaven’s newest page Buying Greener and help us build a list of sources for locally made, organic, fair trade, or otherwise greener gifts in our area.

Top 5 Things I Want to Change Next Year

1. Better Buying: While I purchased a number of things locally this year, I still depended way too much on ultra-convenient two-day shipping. Ugh, the size of those boxes!

MY GOAL: Next year everything I give for Christmas will either be made locally (including home-made by me) or will be a non-tangible/non-shipped (a gift card, a charitable donation, a coupon for babysitting, etc.). Read more

Jan 26

1 Comment

Fictional Me

Written by Aviva Luria

One question that comes up often when writing a personal blog is just how personal to get. Before embarking on Old Mom, Young Child, I debated (for instance) whether to refer to my child by his real name, his first initial, or a pseudonym. I settled on the last, both in respect of his privacy and to offer him a little protection, because, well, you never know.

How much of my personal life should I share to make this blog “authentic”? I wonder about this regularly. On the one hand, I’d like to have the cajones to just lay it all on the table (so to speak), but on the other, that seems like a truly boneheaded thing to do. Especially in this day and age when you can’t take stuff back: You never know where in cyberspace your shit is floating around. Uh… so to speak.

A friend, whom I’ll call Sue Collins, left Facebook for privacy reasons. She was afraid the opinions and affiliations she disclosed might one day come back to haunt her. I told her, C’mon. Your name is Sue Collins. If one day somebody confronts you with something you wrote you can claim it was one of the other 63,452 Sue Collinses on Facebook.

Moi, last I checked I was the only Aviva Luria on Facebook. (There is an Aviv Luria, though. He’s a young Israeli.) Still, without being a complete moron about it (“Going on vacation. Door unlocked. I’m sure no one will steal the heirloom jewelry”) I make my posts available only to my Facebook friends and state my opinions pretty freely. I’m sure I piss even my friends off at times, but I truly consider airing my opinionated opinions on Facebook an expression of free speech. If someone decides not to hire me one day because I stated that Rick Perry is an ass (which is a fact, not an opinion), then they’ve saved me the misery of working for someone who doesn’t think Rick Perry is an ass. And that can only be a good thing.

But back to the question at hand, which is, in case you’re wondering, What is “authentic,” anyway? It’s not just an issue of what makes a blog, or a memoir, or novel, film or whatever else authentic, but what makes a person authentic? How can we tell if we, ourselves, are authentic in everyday life, or with our partners, or children? Read more

Jan 25