Deer tick

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in Maine. May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month in Maine, so remember to do your tick checks! With the mild winter, it is never too early to start thinking about tick prevention.

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that is carried by Ixodes scapularis (the deer tick). Maine had a record high number of cases in 2011, with positives occurring in all 16 counties. Lyme disease is most common among school aged children and middle aged adults. As the weather begins to get warmer, more ticks will be out in the open. Most Lyme disease infections in Maine occur during the summer months.

The most common early symptom of Lyme disease is an expanding red rash that occurs 3 – 30 days after being bitten. Fever, joint, and muscle pains may also occur. Lyme disease is treatable, and the majority of patients recover after receiving appropriate therapy.

Lyme disease is a preventable illness. Maine CDC recommends following the “No Ticks 4 ME” approach which includes:

1. Wear protective clothing
2. Use an EPA approved repellent
3. Perform daily tick checks
4. Use caution in tick habitats

Ticks must be attached for at least 24 hours for the bacteria that causes Lyme disease to be transmitted, so prompt removal of ticks is extremely important. Anyone with a known tick bite, or who spends time in a tick habitat, should watch for symptoms for at least 30 days after exposure. If symptoms develop, call your healthcare provider.

Additional information:

• Maine CDC has numerous educational materials available on their website at www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/infectious-disease/epi/vector-borne/lyme/index.shtml.
• UMaine Extension Bulletin #5047, Ticks.

The Growing Years is a free publication for parents of children 0-5, check out the link and download as many issues as you would like.

You can also get a similar publication delivered to your email in box!  It is called  Just in Time Parenting and it’s in partnership with eXtension.org, which is a website with information from Cooperative Extensions around the country.  Just in Time Parenting has child develop and parenting information in English or Spanish.

If you have questions, send us an email.

Also:

• OUR WEBSITE – http://extension.umaine.edu/parenting
• VIDEOS – (topics include “Parenting From Away,” “Gift Giving and Overindulgence,” “Talking to Kids When Bad Things Happen”) and coming soon: “Brain Development” and “Screen Time.”
• Twitter.com – for parents of young children (updated daily) our name is @thegrowingyears

Program sessions, each limited to 24 participants, costs $2 per child and will be held at the Cumberland County Extension office, 75 Clearwater Drive, Ste 104, in Falmouth. Students will learn about food preservation science with pickles. In the process, they’ll dissect a pickle, identify pickle flavors through smell and taste, play pickle Jeopardy and sample different pickled products.

Sessions are scheduled Feb. 22 from 9:30-11:30 a.m. and 1:30-3:30 p.m.; Feb. 23 from 9:30-11:30 a.m. and 1:30-3:30 p.m.; April 17, 9:30-11:30 a.m. and 1:30-3:30 p.m.; and April 19, 9:30-11:30 a.m. and 1:30-3:30 p.m.

To register, call (207) 781-6099 or 1-800-287-1471 in Maine. UMaine Extension programs are open and accessible to all in accordance with program goals. Participants with special needs are asked to contact the office at least 10 days prior to the desired sessions to allow accommodations to be arranged.

With the holiday peak still a few days away, retailers are reporting record merchandise returns by gift-givers who have changed their minds. Buyer’s remorse over excessive impulse buying can be mitigated, however, says Cooperative Extension family budgeting expert Jane Conroy.

Before returning purchased gifts that consumers decide not to give, after all, Conroy says shoppers should be aware of store return policies, keep a list of purchases and hold onto a gift receipt for each. When returning an item, understand the reasonable expectations. “Do I want another item, do I want my money back, or a gift card?” she adds.

Another way to avoid overspending next year is to assess what was purchased that may not have been necessary. On other words, Conroy says, “How can I learn from what I did wrong this year? What can be changed in the future?”

For those looking at swollen credit card debt, Conroy advises that solid home budgeting and thinking about the difference between “need” and “want” can help consumers with hard decisions when it’s time to trim spending all the way around following the holiday season.

Conroy can be reached in the Piscataquis County Extension office in Dover-Foxcroft at (207) 564-3301, toll-free in Maine at 1-800-287-1491, or by e-mail: jconroy@maine.edu, to discuss what to get back on track with basic budgeting principles.

An Extension “Experts on Demand” YouTube video on gift giving and overindulgence featuring Extension child and family development specialist Leslie Forstadt also offers ideas for alternative gifts to and from the whole family.

Forstadt was also honored at the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences 2011 Annual Session, as a member of the team that received 2nd place for the Regional Television/Video Communications Award at the conference held September 25-28 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In receiving her award, Forstadt was recognized for her video “Gift Giving and Overindulgence,” a 3 minute video created for University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s YouTube.edu site and gives a brief discussion of the negative implications of giving too many gifts to children. The video discusses “wants” versus “needs” and provides suggestions for affordable gifts or gift alternatives so that viewers can try to create more meaningful gift giving experiences and save money. The Television/Video Communications Award recognizes excellence in an educational or promotional feature in a regular broadcast or a special program. American Income Life Insurance Company sponsors the award. Forstadt’s team, which included UMaine Extension staff Jennifer O’Leary and Aileen Fortune, demonstrated exemplary commitment to meeting the needs of individuals, families and communities.

Who taught you the meaning of words?  Who helped you learn to read?  Did your parents or an older sibling read to you when you were younger? 

What is Family literacy?

Within the family system, parents are a child’s first and most important teachers. Even before a child is born, she will begin to respond to sounds. Making sense of sounds, where they come from and recognition of the tone of a voice are the most basic building blocks to literacy. How speech and sounds connect to printed words and comprehension (making meaning), and understanding printed words is what being literate means. Whether unprompted or promoted by formal programs, family literacy is the process of incorporating spoken and written word into meaningful activities within the family unit. According to the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL), literacy is the root of a person’s ability to succeed and family is at the heart.

Think about all you learn in the first years of your life. Education begins at home in the first years of a child’s life. Being interested and involved in your child’s development is one key way to ensure that you are preparing your child to enter school ready to learn. Our attitude towards reading as parents has a profound impact on our children. Children who have a lot of exposure to books and many experiences being read to from infancy develop the important basic skills to support learning.

Have you noticed how intently a baby stares at light and dark patterns with high contrast? By looking around and staring at interesting things, a baby is completing the connections in the vision centers of his brain necessary for good visual discrimination. When a toddler turns the pages of a board book, or a preschooler recognizes the first letter of his name on a cereal box, each is demonstrating emerging literacy skills. Reading to your child from birth is the best way to make him/her a successful reader. Researchers say that a child must have thousands of experiences with print and listening to words being read to prepare them to read themselves.

Family literacy is based upon the simple, but powerful premise that parents and children learn best when learning together. Research shows that young children’s experience with emergent literacy generally occurs within normal daily routines. Unlike learning to talk, children are not born with the instinct to read. Reading must be intentionally learned. Share lots of conversations and read to your child each day. When your child begins to read, listen to them read to you everyday.

Dr. James E. Van Horn, professor of rural sociology at Penn State University, observed, “Spending time and doing things together with your children doesn’t just happen. Parents must design their life so that time will be available.”

A recent study by James P. Robinson, sociology professor at the University of Maryland, concluded that Americans actually have more time today than they had thirty years ago—but that today’s free time comes in smaller amounts more frequently throughout the day, as opposed to the larger blocks of time people had thirty years ago. And much of the time today’s families spend together takes place while waiting for appointments, traveling, or shopping; at a restaurant; or at the supermarket. These times are usually short, unplanned, and can be stressful, with bored, restless children.

Be prepared, and you can take advantage of these times to have some family fun—and avoid difficult and sometimes embarrassing situations.

Family fun in the car:

• Develop an emergency bag of fun things to do in the car.
• Read license plates.
• Play twenty questions about one another’s fantasy trips.

Family fun at the supermarket:

• Play the alphabet game: a – apple, b – banana, c – corn, etc.
• Have older children find items that you have coupons for.
• Have kids find the cheapest and the most expensive juices and figure the price difference.

Family fun while waiting for appointments:

• Carry flash cards and quiz one another.
• Pose questions pulled from a board or trivia game.
• Pass a pad and pencil around and create a group story.

Family fun at restaurants:

• Play connect-the-dots on the back of a paper placemat.
• Play ”Concentration” by hiding a coin under sugar packets.
• Have your children fold their paper placemats in thirds; have each draw an animal’s head, trunk, or feet. Connect them for some funny results!

By capturing opportunities, you’ll discover that you have more family fun time than ever.

Adapted with permission from James E. Van Horn, “Design Time Together,” Better Kid Care, The Pennsylvania State University, betterkidcare.psu.edu.