About Martha Speaks: Martha Says It With Flowers

MARTHA SPEAKS is a production of WGBH Boston and Studio B Productions Inc. Martha Speaks is part of PBS KIDS Raising Readers, focused on helping children learn to read, and is funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through a cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Education’s Ready to Learn Grant.

Martha Speaks: Martha Says It With Flowers Synopsis

Episodes Included:

• Raiders of the Lost Art
• Martha Says It with Flowers
• Martha Gets Spooked
• Martha Changes Her Luck
• Martha Sings
• TD Makes the Band
• There Goes the Neighborhood
• Ice Scream

Our Rating of Martha Speaks: Martha Says It With Flowers

Fluffy loves Martha Speaks, having a DVD full of episodes made her day.

Martha Speaks: Martha Says It With Flowers at Amazon

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This was published on 5 Minutes for Special Needs last November.

Looks like we’ll be changing insurances this open season. Three years of hand and foot orthotics have brought us to Bear’s lifetime maximum benefits for durable medical equipment. I hate that they are not covered separately. There is not cap for therapy because she’s under 6, why is there a cap for her therapeutic needs? It’s so frustrating because we really like this insurance company.

We are blessed with federal health insurance. This allows us about a dozen options to choose from and change every year in November. Right after Bear turned one. We switched from the cheaper HMO to a PPO so we could have easy access to specialists. The referral process at the HMO had screwed up majorly 3 times. You all know that can’t have that with a special needs baby. When she needs to go from the neurologist to the neurosurgeon, we can’t wait around for the PCP to approve the referral and have it processed. We need to walk across the street to the surgeon’s office and be seen.

It took me almost a month to find the right coverage. Of course, over the past 3 years, said PPO has been taken over by our former HMO. Coverage has changed and we are stuck. Bear is at $7,700 of her $10,000 lifetime maximum benefit. The stroller we were going to order is $2,200. That would make it very difficult for us to have any I am no playing a numbers game to find out if we can order a cheaper stroller so we’ll have enough to last through next year.

Besides the stroller, we’ll need at least 2 sets of custom molded below ankle orthotics, and 2 sets of wrist cock-ups and night splints. I don’t think $2,300 is enough but trying to scrutinize the 4 available PPOs before December 14th frightens me. Deductibles, copays, out-of-pocket maximums and co-insurance. Figuring this out is a job in itself.

This was published at 5 Minutes for Special Needs last September.

That’s my mantra. My concrete brain wants to connect all the dots to my daughters. I have a control-freak hiding deep inside that whispers, if you know why, then you’ll know how to make her all better.

Then I open the fridge to make breakfast and see this:

My kids don’t make any more sense than the neighbors. In a way, I am lucky because I have a team of medical geniuses to help me through the mind-boggling times. Not everyone can call have a developmental pediatrician walk them through discipline and IEP strategies. Or have an Occupational Therapist give you a list of ideal ways to run your kid into the ground to guarantee naps optimum sensory input.

Now that I look at it that way, I am ahead of the game. Fancy that.