Because Kayleigh was of “low birth weight” (despite the fact that she was right on track for her gestational age of 29 weeks) she qualified for a type of Medicaid, for special needs children, I believe it is. We were able to apply after she was in the hospital for 30 days and it was in force (and back date-able) for the whole time she was in the hospital. When she came out, we lost it though, didn’t bother to re-apply, because our income is too high. But while they’re in the hospital there’s no income requirement and, as the hospital lady told me, it’s there as a secondary insurance, so it helps pay what our private insurance doesn’t.

Anyway, since we got involved with that, suddenly the floodgates have opened and we’re getting mail from the Missouri Department of Social Services.

They’ve been sending me these little booklets called “Healthy Start, Grow Smart” and each one is for a month of a kid’s life. So there’s one subtitled “Your Newborn” then there’s one month, two months, etc. I think we’re supposed to get these for a year.

But I’m looking at them and it’s like… these things are useless to me. I’m sure someone out there somewhere has found these things to be useful, but anything I’ve seen that could remotely be helpful to me doesn’t apply because of the whole preemie thing. It’s a completely different ball game with preemies, I’ve learned. (For instance, these booklets instruct me not to add anything whatsoever to baby’s milk/formula. Guess what? I HAVE to add 2 cc’s of SimplyThick per ounce to her milk or my baby will choke and maybe die.)

Not to mention, these things are kinda goofy. For example, page 14 of the Newborn booklet is titled “What’s It Like To Be a Newborn?” Yup, capitalized Just Like That. There’s a picture of a little baby followed by a bullet-ed list, the first three items are:

– I need others to take care of me.
– I can’t decide things for myself.
– I need someone to love, feed, hold and play with me.

Um, yeah??? The rest are just as obvious. Hello, McFly?

I had to just laugh and laugh and laugh at page 7 of the three months book that was titled “Your Baby Is Sleeping Longer at Night.” Hill.air.ee.ous.

Then (and this is the best part) these things haven’t even been coming to us at the appropriate times. The other day I got one month and four months together, today I got three months, etc.

I guess I’m a little bit cranky, but there’s our tax dollars at work, folks. I guess it’s the pure waste that gets to me. They should have this on an opt in basis. Ask me, do I think I need this? Then I could tell you, no, I’m not a first time mother, everything is different with preemies, I have other books that doctors and hospitals have loaded me up with (and have recently given away 90% of them), etc. But the genius government we have that is already so much in debt is continuing to be wasteful.

Fail.

(No, actually I have nothing else to say and I’m tired of hearing the crickets chirping around here.)