Feed Me Books Friday: The Cupboard Was Bare

Sunday morning, T woke up with a congested nose and a cough. This afternoon his pediatrician said his cough will probably linger and I should use a saline rinse in his nose, but he's otherwise just fine. In the three-and-a-half days in between, we had two trips to urgent care, an ambulance ride to the ER, diagnoses of respiratory distress and pneumonia, two nights in the hospital, seemingly countless nebulizer treatments, and some major disruptions to our household. We are grateful to be on the recovering end of this little curve-ball life threw at us, but I can't say we are quite back to normal. 
I am behind on visiting the friendly and talented folks who link their posts and leave comments here. I have no review prepared for this week, and while I could stay up tonight and write something, I'm going to trust that my readers will afford me the luxury of catching up on sleep now, and catching up on blogging later. I do have a request of you though: B has been coming home from kindergarten reciting nursery rhymes (Three Little Kittens, Jack and Jill, etc) and I'd love to encourage his interest. There are any number of collections and anthologies of nursery rhymes, but I'm wondering if anyone has a favorite? Best collection? Best illustrations? Some other intriguing reason? 
For those who loyally visit and link up every week, I am including a link tool in this post, and I hope you'll visit one another until I can get caught up and make the rounds. 
Counting my blessings and soon some zzzz's.

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Feed Me Books Friday: Grown-ups Get Sick, Too?

And We Keep Plugging Along…

It was during a conversation about why kids nap and grown-ups don’t that B had this revelation about adults and illness. I told him grown-ups nap sometimes when they are sick to help them get better faster, and he responded incredulously. B is a pretty observant kid, so I think the fact that it had never occurred to him that Mommy and Daddy get coughs and runny noses was less due to inattention than our habit of trying to keep up the pace. As parents, many of us feel compelled to make sure our kids don’t suffer for our infirmities, so we have some hot tea with a day-quil chaser and try to go on with our normal day. Last couple days, I’ve been fighting some virus that B has been battling all week. My throat is sore, I’m achy and tired, but he’s feeling worse than me, so I’m putting aside my complaints to try to make him feel better.


If Laughter is the Best Medicine…

Bring out the silly books! We are entertained by Farm Flu, by Teresa Bateman, anytime, but it’s especially good to coax out the grins when we’re under the weather. In this playful rhyming story, the young narrator is left in charge of the farm while his mother is gone. He finds a cow has come down with the flu, so he takes her inside to care for her. As time passes, other animals all over the farm begin to exhibit symptoms, and each is dutifully cared for by our sympathetic narrator who continues to base his treatment on the refrain, “I knew what Mom would do, If it were me that had the flu.” He also gets a taste of any mom’s frustration when her coddling has been taken advantage of. When he sets some limits for the “sick” animals and cuts out their unlimited TV, games, and popcorn, they quickly decide they aren’t so sick after all! They do, however, show their appreciation for the treatment they received when the boy comes down with the flu himself and they attend to him. I like both messages in this book, first (and funniest) that while being babied might feel nice when we’re sick, there is a limit to the “have-it-your-way” treatement; and second, sometimes the caretaker in the family needs some care too. Makes a nice springboard for discussion of caring for others and not taking advantage of others – both social emotional skills to cultivate.
Appropriate for: toddlers, preschoolers, primary grades.
How do you take care of yourself when you’re under the weather without letting your kids down? After another cup of herbal tea, I’ll be visiting all the links you leave as well as those over at Read.Explore.Learn.

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Alternatives to TV

When Your Child is Glued to the Couch

Thanks to a bout with the stomach flu, B has pretty much lived on the couch or in bed for the last few days. He has been absolutely drained of energy. It’s times like these that I most appreciate the worthwhile children’s programming on PBS. However, even on a sick-day, I just can’t live with myself if I let B sit in front of the TV all day.




Books for a Busy Mom


photo courtesy ginnerobot

B would be perfectly happy to listen to me read books all day. And when he’s feeling icky, I really try to put aside as many items on my to-do list as possible and do just that. Unfortunately, T has not yet acquired the interest or attention span for our read-a-thons, so we can only read a couple at a time before he interrupts, or wait for naptime. Technology comes to my rescue to feed B’s book appetite (which seems even larger when his food appetite shrinks). So these are more situationally than developmentally appropriate recommendations, though I would have to say exposure to books is better cognitive development than most passive TV viewing.

Audio Books


You can find many of your favorite books on CD, older ones on tape, and even some on MP3. The challenge for preschool age kids is that most picture book readings don’t last as long as their attention spans. We have two selections in our personal library that occupy a little more of B’s time and attention than others. First Disney’s Winnie the Pooh CD Storybook was a gift from B’s aunt. It has 4 stories in 125 pages, which actually prevents it from being a frequent read-aloud choice because B isn’t very amenable to breaking mid-story. Putting on the CD when B is lounging in bed is very successful, and it runs well over an hour. My only complaint is that there are no page chimes, but B doesn’t seem to mind; he sometimes follows the pictures and other times he just sets the book aside to sit back and listen.

We also have a compilation CD featuring Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? And Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See? All read by Gweneth Paltrow. We have board book versions of each story, and even with the lack of page chimes, B is able to follow along easily thanks to the repetitive pattern of the text and the illustrations. For bilingual families (or those who’d like to be) the CD also includes the Spanish version of each story.


Books on Screen

Like audio books, the number of books on DVD is rapidly growing. Normally, I would pass over DVDs in favor of experiencing the real thing, but during weeks like this one, they come in handy. B received theDVD version of Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom and he loves it. I don’t know if it’s because he already loved the book, or if it’s thanks to the songs and animation, but this is a much requested feature at our house. It includes 6 other stories, bring the running time to 60 minutes. B loves to get his copy of the book and read along with the story. I’m still working on purchasing copies of the other featured stories.


Tumblebooks Mascot


B also enjoys selections from the Tumblebooks library. Tumblebooks is a subscription ebook service that you can access from the internet, but thanks to our public library system, if we access it from their portal page, it’s free! Book selection and page navigation is pretty simple, meaning that when B had the energy to sit at the computer desk for a while, he could listen to some virtual books and enjoy the original illustrations brought to life with some extra animation.
Appropriate for: preschoolers, primary grades
Linking Up with Show and Tell at ABC and 123


What do you do to occupy sick kiddos who have the energy of a slug?

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