In my inbox this week

I found two great preemie related things in my inbox this week:

1) The Toys R’ Us Catalog for Differently-Abled Kids. I LOVE that Toys R' Us makes this catalog. They take their toys and divide them into appropriate developmental categories including sensory, gross motor, fine motor, etc. As parents of preemies, we quickly start to train ourselves to view products for more than just the pretty packaging. We constantly ask "What will my child learn/get out of this product?" I think it's great that Toys R' Us takes the time to create this catalog and give parents a head start for choosing products that will be helpful to our kiddos.

2) The NY Times article: For Parents on NICU, Trauma May Last I know this article has been passed around quite a bit this week but I wanted to post it just in case some of you hadn't seen it. So many times the stories about preemies focus solely on the babies. And more specifically the babies who are doing quite well. And while I love a good success story as much as the next person, I think people need to read that the NICU experience extends far beyond the actual experience. It becomes that much harder to survive the experience and get beyond it when no one around you understands what you went through. And they start to get bored hearing about it. I hope that more and more reporters will begin to seek out these stories. They need to be told. They deserve to be told. So thank you Laurie Tarkan for taking the opportunity.