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Bub courtney General mom mother

TGIF

Today is a good day! The sun’s out – rain’s gone. I’ve spent the morning singing as Lennox played happily in his room. We have these little concerts daily, Lennox makes for a good audience clapping and dancing along with me. I wish I was coordinated enough to play an instrument and sing at the same time…I would totally take over all the local bars and coffee houses. More about this later….

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Bub courtney Ev General mom mother

Buyers Beware

Today was a bad day. We got another bill in the mail for Lennox’s surgery… another very large bill. So I call and hope that maybe there was a mistake and there is actually only one bill. No luck there. Then I hope maybe it hasn’t been submitted to insurance yet…. yeah no luck again. So then starts the negotiations… I tell her(employee of hospital) what we can pay and she says how bout this much- 4 times more then my offer -and I say no this is what we can pay – same amount – I get put on hold – she comes back ands says Ok how bout this much? Almost 3 times more then my offer. Again I say NO WE CAN PAY THIS MUCH… and really we CAN’T pay that much but we are going to skip eating for the next 2 years so that we can pay you this amount you won’t except. She puts me on hold again – comes back and says ok, we’ll send you a financial aid application (which I already have for the other half of the bill that we can not pay off in 2 hours) and you can apply for prolonged monthly payments. WELL GEE maybe we could have come to this conclusion the moment I told you HOW MUCH I COULD PAY and you decided it wasn’t enough instead of trying to barter like I’m on the street in mexico. I mean it’s not like we are trying to get out of paying or pay less WE JUST NEED MORE TIME TO PAY.

Maybe if you had let us in on the cost of the surgery (like you said you were going to) before it actually took place, maybe we could have planned better and maybe able to pay what we deemed worthy of your services. It’s not like I bought my 18 month old son breast impants… HE HAD TO HAVE THIS SURGERY regardless of the cost. It’s just so frustrating!!!! I mean I understand their end services rendered and all but doesn’t that also usually involve knowing the cost up front or at least having an idea of the total cost. So you can then discuss it with your insurance provider and get an idea of what will be covered. Sure it does… you said yourself someone would sit down with me and figure that all out… but guess what? That never happened. I called and tried to get the information on my own… “Sure Mrs. Eckard it’s just going to take me a few days…” I get a call back 2 WEEKS AFTER his surgery has already been preformed and told the cost. How was I supposed to know that Lennox’s surgery would cost more then giving birth to him.

In the end, it’s all my fault for not being a pain in the butt and bugging them everyday until they gave me the info I needed… it’s all my fault for not being able to afford the good insurance… it’s my fault for growing a baby who would need surgery. So now I’m in tears and thinking this was supposed to be funny but it’s not, because I’m really mad at these people and at myself.

My husband leaned over and says you spell machette, m-a-c-h-e-t-t-e. So there’s the humor in it. I’m so angry I want to take Evan’s m-a-c-h-e-t-t-e over to the hospital and demand a more reasonable payment plan. But I can’t even spell machette.

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Bub Ev General the kiddos

My Perfectly Wonderful Husband

Thank you for making an extremely tasty dinner and for washing-drying-putting away the dishes and for cleaning up the kitchen! It made my night and morning. Even after almost 4 years he still gets me all tweeterpatted!!! And speaking of wonderfully sweet things…Lennox gave another little girl his size a big hug at the park yesterday. He’s never done that before…and you could hear the awes from miles away. She didn’t like it so much and ran away. So he chased her down and tried again. It was both cute and tramatic depending on which child you were. He’s been hugging and kissing us for a while now and actually gave our friend Mel a big hug just a few days ago. He hugs the dogs and all his toys and sometimes even hugs the characters on his shirts….he’s got a lot of love to give.

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Bub courtney General mom mooshoo mother pregnant the kiddos

Ranting

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about being a stay at home mom – the pros – the cons. How we are perceived by the world…our peers. Usually there are 2 views to this topic…the “how nice you get to stay home with your child” and the now defensive feeling insignificant stay at home mom who feels like she has to defend herself and goes into the how hard it is to be a stay at home mom at which point the other person/ people shut off and begin to think about how full of poo we are. So yeah it is nice to stay at home with my child because I know where he is…know he’s getting enough to eat and drink, enough kisses and hugs, enough diaper changes, enough fun inspirational educational activities. And yeah it’s nice not to have to get up and rush out the door in the morning only to sit in the sh*t ass California traffic. I don’t have to get out of my PJs or fix my hair, put on makeup..even shower for days at a time. And as cliche as it is I can and do watch a soap – All My Children – which I have watched since before I was born(it’s required in my family) Yes I go for walks to the park and sometimes(rarely) get to take a nap in the middle of the day. But on the other hand I provide all the safty and security for my son, my husband, 2 dogs , and turtle….I make all the meals, change all the diapers, provide the endless kisses and hugs, come up with and execute all the fun inspriational educational activities. And yeah I don’t have to get out of my PJs which is good because some days I can’t there is to much else to do….no time for a shower and even if I did get to have one it’s not alone. And let me tell you the pjs no shower thing isn’t great for the self esteem. And no I don’t have to get up and rush out and sit in traffic..but that doesn’t mean I get to sleep in and drink tea while reading the newspaper. I don’t get to sleep in ever. I am the first one up getting everyone else ready for their days. Yes I watch All My Childern but is usually while I’m doing 8 other things and the TV is turned up so loud the people down the street wonder if anyone will figure out it was Johnathan who drugged Greenly. Oh and those naps in the middle of the day…from time to time Lennox will fall asleep on me and I have no choice but to sit down and usually just end up falling asleep then being woken up by what ever part of my body I can no longer feel. I do all the shopping, pay all the bills, wash and put away all the laundry. I’m on 24 hours a day 7 days week… no vacations, no lunch/coffee breaks, no thank you-great job on the laundry today – no verbal validation. So for as many ways as my job is easy it is also hard…just like yours. Stay at homes are lucky to get to stay home with their kids…but not because it’s all bonbons and soaps but because it’s hard as much as it is easy and it’s life changing as much as it is fullfilling. It’s not only a job it’s a life!
Now having gone back and reading this it sounds defensive but I don’t mean it that way…I just mean it’s a whole different world with different rules. Stay at home moms just want the world to reconize how significant our job is. We have a partnership with our husbands and both sides are equally important. Money makes the world go round….but you still need someone to prepare the food you buy. Homemaking is a real profession that deserves respect.

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Bub General mom pregnant the kiddos

Turkey

It’s raining again today – Yuck! Atleast yesterday it was clear long enough to go to the park but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen today. So mall is on our to do list today. I’m having the worst time with Turkey. I want to open the front door and set him free. He annoys the crap out of me….it’s like he was born to make me miserable. I try to remind myself that he is still techincally a puppy…but gesh. Every morning he decides when everyone should get up. And it’s not because he wants to go pee – No he just wants to drive me insane. So if I don’t get up he will go and let himself into Lennox’s room and wake him up…knowing then I have to get up. You son of a bitch. So I remind myself again he’s just a puppy and couldn’t possible be doing these things on purpose…it’s all just a coincidence that he does this almost everyday. Ya know when pregnant there is always that one person who drives you insane…you can’t stand them and even the fact that they are alive bothers you…well this time mine is not a person…it’s a DOG. He is lucky that Evan is here because in my pregnant logic I would have dropped him off at the pound a long time ago. He’s just so different from Pepper…yeah she might have social issues and acts like she’s going to eat everyone she meets but once she’s gets to know you she is the sweetest dog you’ll meet. She likes to sleep in and holds it as long as she can on rainy days to avoid going outside. She mostly just hangs out and bugs you only when she wants out….although when we she was puppy…holy moly did she do some damage. Our first place was a little apartment in Oceanside and it was on the very back of the complex , you had to walk around the building from the parking lot to get to our front door while also passing the patio with a slidding glass door. On this day I must have forgotten to close the blinds…we came home from work and stopped infront of the patio because through the glass doors you could see Pepper laying on her back feet in the air asleep on the couch (well what was left of it) On the floor were the remains of an ottman, guinea pig hay, numerous dvds, a game boy-that didn’t belong to us, all the remote controls, and newspaper. This is what we could see from outside so inside left us both in awe. Anything she could have eaten she did…even things we didn’t think possible like the walls. This was the worst but she continued on her destroying binge for the first 2 years of her life….even eating an entire chocolate cake and a can of cleanser in one sitting (she was fine by the way vet said she has a stomach of steal) We still don’t trust her with the run of the house alone. Remembering these things makes me hate Turkey less…there is a chance that light may be at the end of this tunnel. He may turn out to be a wonderful dog and he makes Pepper happy and plays well with Lennox. That is why we got him anyway – to be Pepper’s friend.
lennox and turkey
Lennox lovin on Turkey
Pepper
Pepper trying to sleep in