One of Anna's favorite places to play is our local mall's Playland. She likes the waterfall themed slide, the hollow log topped with a lounging bear, and the big red canoe. I like that there is only one way in or out, so it's easy to keep an eye on her.

We were there a few days ago. I sat by the entrance, notebook at the ready to catch any cute or funny things Anna might say, while Anna ran around, slid down the slide, and made friends with all the kids - thanks to spring break there were lots of kids to play with. She approached an older girl who was seated on the aforementioned bear and asked - as she always does:

"Do you want to play with me?"

The girl didn't quite understand, so I repeated what Anna said, then the girl turned to me.

"She got a bit of an accent," she said.

"Yeah," I replied. "She's in speech therapy."

The girl kind of shrugged her shoulders, slid down off the bear, and ran over to the slide. Anna followed, of course.

A few minutes later, I saw Anna talking to the older girl, who sat by the slide with two other girls closer to Anna's age. The other girls struggled to understand Anna, so I walked over and offered to help.

"She said 'My name is Anna, what's your name?'" I explained.

"I'm Whitney," the older girl said.

"Do you want to play with me?" Anna asked again. I repeated what Anna said so the girls would understand.

"This game's for three," Whitney said. "I'm the mommy cat, and they're the kittens."

I wasn't sure if the girls were excluding Anna specifically, or if they had just made up a three person game already. Almost immediately, though, I thought of a way they could include Anna.

"But can't there be three kittens?" I asked. "Like the song?"

I sang a verse of The Three Little Kittens. Anna and the two younger girls smiled, but Whitney shook her head.

"This is a different game," she replied and got up and walked away. The two younger girls followed her. Anna started off too, but I called her over.

"Anna," I said. "They've already started their game."

"But I want to play with them," she said sadly.

"There's lots of kids here," I said. "Why don't you find another one to play with."

I gave her a hug and sent her on her way. Within five minutes, she and another girl were running around the play area, sliding down the slide, and laughing out loud. She got over the snub so quickly.

And I on the other hand? Not so much. It's something I've worried about since she was first diagnosed with Apraxia. She makes friends so easily now, but she's only four. As she grows older, enters kindergarten, and then first grade, will she be seen as different and shunned by some of the kids? Her speech is improving so quickly, but she may need years of therapy to be completely understandable and even then she may never completely lose her "accent."

How will she handle the rejection? How will I? How much do I shield her? How much do I let her experience so she can learn to take it and ultimately ignore it?

Those questions were on my mind the rest of the day.

We as a nation need to pass health care reform, but that's not what this post is about. Arguments for reform are numerous and easily found online - so are arguments against. This post is about why we—myself and my family— need health care reform to pass.

2009 was a disastrous year for us financially. In the span of eight months, we went from upper middle income to no income whatsoever. By the end of the year, my wife had found a temp job that just barely paid the bills, but our savings were all but gone and now we are truly living from paycheck to paycheck.

Our health insurance was one of the expenses we could no longer afford. As an outsourced subcontractor, my wife had to pay our insurance out-of-pocket. It was very expensive - almost $1000 a month for a family of three - but we could afford it on our previous income. By the end of 2009, though, we had to cancel and find something cheaper.

First, we applied for short term insurance. The coverage was similar to what we had through our previous insurance, but we had to reapply after six months. It was a stop-gap until a job with benefits came along.

We were rejected for pre-existing conditions.

Then we applied for catastrophic care from a second company. The deductible was huge, and prescriptions weren't covered. but there was no cap so in the case of an unexpected disaster it would prevent medical bankruptcy. It also offered preventative coverage with no deductible or co-pay, which we saw as a big plus.

Again, we were rejected for pre-existing conditions.

What were these pre-existing conditions? My high blood pressure which I control with generic medications, my wife's allergies - again controlled with medication - and my daughter's repaired cleft lip.

You read that right. A birth defect is a pre-existing condition.

This is insane. It needs to end NOW.

A ban on denials due to pre-existing conditions is one of many good parts of an admittedly imperfect Health Care Reform Bill. For us it is the difference between affordable insurance and possible medical bankruptcy.

We are among the over 30 million Americans who will be able to get insurance if this bill passes. We need this to pass.

Pass the bill NOW.

We moved into our current apartment about a year ago. We hired a local moving company which did an exceptional job. The two guys they assigned to us worked really hard—we were moving from a two story townhouse to an upstairs apartment, so they hauled three rooms full of furniture downstairs and everything upstairs. We were both amazed at their stamina.

At one point, as I watched one of the movers carry boxes downstairs on his back, I apologized for all the stairs. "We don't mind," he said. "It's like a free gym membership."

I think of that story from time to time—I thought of it yesterday when I took Anna to the park. Her new favorite game is to roll her favorite princess ball up and down the slide. She sits at the top, I bowl it up—it really is like bowling—and she rolls it down. We did that about two hundred times before she got bored.

Then we moved to the swings. Anna loves the swings, but is too young to kick just yet so I have to push her. After about ten minutes on the swings we switched to the see-saw. Anna loves the see saw too, but when she's the only kid, as she often is during a weekday, I get to counterbalance the see saw.

Obviously, I'm way too big to sit on a see saw with her, and bending over to push it with my hands is hard on my back, so I place my foot on the opposite side from her and push the see saw up and down. Fifty reps with one foot, then I switch to the other—just like leg lifts.

So I too have a job with a "free gym membership," and it's by far the most rewarding job I've ever had.

Wednesday, I took Anna to her favorite pizza parlor for lunch. She's not a big fan of pizza — she prefers the salad bar—but loves the pizza parlor's enclosed play area. It's perfect for both of us: she gets a safe place to play and I can keep an eye on her while I write.

As usual, I was sitting where I could see Anna play. She was in the ball pit with a boy and a girl both about her age. Suddenly, the boy picked up a ball and threw it at Anna. Understandably, she screamed her head off.

I got up immediately and ran in to get her. I gave her a big hug right away, then walked her out, and sat her on my lap for a few minutes to calm her down. Meanwhile, the boy walked out of the play area too. His mom called him over to the table.

"What did you do, Spencer?" She hadn't seen the incident.

He mumbled something in reply.

"Well you go over there and apologize to her right away," she demanded.

He resisted at first, but then gave in.

"I'm sorry," he said pouting.

"Thank you for apologizing," I said to him. He walked back to the play area. Soon he was playing with the other girl again.

"Are you ready to go back in too?" I asked Anna.

"Yeah," Anna said wiping a tear away.

I set her down and she ran into the room. The boy had returned to the ball pit, and Anna started to walk over to him. He said something to her, but I couldn't hear it. Suddenly she stopped.

Again, she screamed her head off. I went in and got her. I put Anna on my lap again and tried to figure out what upset her. The boy walked out too, and headed straight over to his mom.

"What did you say to her, Spencer?" she asked.

He mumbled something in reply, and his mom started laughing.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"He asked if he could throw the ball at her head," she replied.

Anna didn't get the humor, of course.

"That's not fun-ny!" she said. I can't help but laugh when she says that.

Anna was done playing, so we headed home. That night I told the story to Julia and the two of us sat down with Anna. We explained to her that while we understood why she screamed and cried when the boy threw the ball at her, she should have just told him 'no' the second time instead of screaming her head off again.

"So what do you say the next time a kid says something you don't like?" Julia asked.

"I say 'no,'" Anna replied.

"And what don't you do?" I asked.

"Scream off my head."

Yesterday, NBC almost got lucky. For two weeks, they've made us sit through highlight reels of tape delayed events, inane commentary, meandering interviews, sappy human interest stories, and countless plugs for NBC programming. I had just about given up on watching. Then came the one event they decided to air live and uninterrupted from coast to coast: the Gold Medal Hockey Game.

What a game it was. The U.S. trailed Canada throughout only to tie the score at 2-2 with 24 seconds left in regulation. Both teams played great, both goalies were superb, and the coverage was excellent.

For Canada, it was the crowning moment of a spectacular Olympics. Every Canadian old enough to remember will tell their kids where they were when Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal in overtime.

For the United States it was a disappointing end to an amazing tournament. Team USA played their hearts out and did better than anyone thought they would, but sometimes even when you give everything you've got, you still lose.That's a lesson we all learn at some point in life, and a lesson we all pass on to our own kids. When it happens, like it did yesterday to Team USA, you hold up your head, shake your opponents hand, and know in your heart that no matter how much it hurts you can be proud that you gave everything you had.

That's where this piece would have ended, but like I said above, NBC almost got lucky. Then came the closing ceremonies.

I've never been a big fan of the closing ceremonies, and given NBC's poor coverage of almost everything else I decided to take a pass on watching. I'm very glad I did, because in the middle of the closing ceremonies, NBC cut away for a half-hour to show an episode of "The Marriage Ref." Whoever was responsible for that decision should be ashamed of themselves, and NBC should either apologize and fire whoever was responsible or pull out of covering the 2012 Games.

That's another lesson we all learn in life at some point. Take responsibility for your screw ups. I doubt NBC will.