Conscious Mom

Here's a random collection of photos from the last couple of months: Hanging around on a summer day At Ellacoya State Park At The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows launch

Several weeks ago I wrote about my lack of success enrolling Maia in NH Healthy Kids, the program designed to make sure low income children have medical coverage. In order to enroll Maia I would have had to leave her without insurance for three months, then buy into the system at a higher rate for another three months, before finally qualifying for the rate designed for our income level. I finally figured out why this wacky system is in place: it's part of our government's love of private free enterprise. They need to make sure that the new government insurance program didn't undermine private insurance companies. This was probably obvious to everyone, but I can be a little slow ...

Maia has discovered the wonderful world of mobility. No, she's not crawling yet, though Bodhipaksa is trying his best to teach her. Right now Maia gets around by rolling over. She's been rolling from her stomach to her back for months. A couple of weeks ago she learned how to go from her back to her stomach, and this week she has put them together to get wherever she needs to go. She loves putting things in her mouth, too, paper, CD's, her toes. Between her new found mobility and propensity to taste everything, Bodhipaksa and I have become very aware of just how many choking hazards there are in our house ...

About ten minutes into Sicko I began to wonder why I had been looking forward to seeing it. Sure, I know all about the downfalls of our insurance-based medical care system and can rattle off the statistics: 50,000,000 uninsured, 18,000 annual deaths due to lack of insurance, million dollar salaries and bonuses for the insurance industry CEOs. But knowing the statistics and seeing people tell stories of losing their homes, spouses, and children due to denial of coverage are very different things. I felt sick, depressed, angry, helpless. And that was in the first ten minutes. I am glad I stayed until the end, though. Sicko tells stories that need to be told. After a while my depression was replaced by ...