Saturday, September 26, 2009
Exersaucer time!
Look what Daddy brought home from storage today! Since Jack can use his hands now he can enjoy all the toys on the exersaucer. Jack took right to it, made the complete circle and played with everything. An excellent investment, I must say.









Baby Einstein Exersaucer from Alex High on Vimeo.

Insurance saga continues...
When we added Jack to the individual policy that M has it bumped us up to $538 a month out-of-pocket. When I see that number, combined with what we pay for rent, we could be paying a mortgage on a house of our own. It kills me. My whole family is healthy, we hardly use health care. October 1 is the renewal date for their policy each year. You want to guess how much the premium is going up this year? Try $91 in one year, a 17% increase. We're not rich people, folks. $7548 is a significant amount of money for us over a year's time.

We deliberated over this increase and decided to bump up our deductible and just keep enough in our Money Market to cover it. Our current deductible is $750. Now, guess what the next step up is, without having to totally re-apply and be underwritten again? $2500. Is it any wonder why people despise insurance companies? We did it anyway. We mainly need insurance for something catastrophic, but this is really driving that point home. By increasing our deductible by that much we get our monthly premium back down to $518, which somehow I can live with.

Don't ask me what happens when they do this to us again next year. And then there's this:
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

The note was a follow-up to Ensign's questioning at the markup.

Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot. Is this really what the Democratic leadership has in mind? Really?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Update on Emma
She's loving school. I've already attended one parent/teacher conference. The teacher's comment was that she's really smart. I like to hear that. They've also found Emma to be a picky eater. But they'll keep trying new things on her and let me know if she likes something.

M takes her to school every day. He says he's noticed that other parents drop off their preschoolers, which is technically against the rules. But he plans to keep walking Emma to her classroom until she tells him not to. He's a good daddy.

If you ask Emma what she likes she'll tell you the playground. She likes recess and center time. She likes riding the bus to the store after school. I expected she'd ride home with me every day because I get off at least an hour earlier than M. But it turns out that she'd rather stay with him. As long as they're both happy with that arrangement I'm fine with it. I'm enjoying the relative peace and quiet of being home with Jack alone for a little while.
Update on Jack
Jack had his 4 month ped appointment last week. Everything is looking good. Developmentally he's on schedule. He weighed 15.5 lbs. and was 25.5 inches long. In weight percentiles he's right at 50th. I'm getting mixed feedback on the height. The doc said 90th percentile and that Jack would be long and lanky. My NICU nurse friend said it was 75th percentile. My research found 58th percentile. So, all I can say for sure is he's above average in height and exactly average in weight.

He got two shots, which pissed him off big time for about two minutes. The nurses there are awesome because they'll come in three at a time so they can give all the shots he needs simultaneously. One nurse will hold him while the other two count down and poke him.

I'm enjoying Jack's recent achievements, which include grasping things with his hands and pulling them to his mouth and rolling over front to back and back to front. He also moves all around the floor when you lay him down on his back. I think he's starting to be interested in real food now because he watches us avidly when we're eating. The doc said to start him on cereal and veggies at five months. That's about two weeks away. Sigh, my baby's growing fast.
Noni's Birthday Party
Last weekend we celebrated Noni's birthday at her house. The cousins came and we partied all weekend, celebrating three family birthdays.

Trying to get the recycled candles lit.


Uh...nevermind.


Reading her shmaltzy card.


The present opening assistants are here.

Back on the wagon
The weight watchers wagon that is. I know, here we are again. Remember me crowing about losing 24 lbs. after giving birth. Yeah. I gained it all back and added one extra pound for good measure. I blame my post partum depression. Being at home with a colicky baby was very difficult. It was either Zoloft and therapy or M&M's. I usually go with what's familiar.

So, I'm two weeks along with the new regime and I've lost 8.6 lbs. Yes, we count those tenths of a pound because sometimes, baby, that's all you have. I do weight watchers on my own. I'm philosophically opposed to paying someone else for me to lose weight. Besides, I paid them their dues back in the eighties.

I'm not exercising yet. I just got the treadmill cleaned off of all the stuff that belonged on the storage shelf in the laundry room. The water pump is finally fixed so the stuff could be put back where it belonged. I have a long weekend at home coming up so I'll commit to getting on the treadmill then.

I weigh in on Wednesdays so I may update you here. It's another good way to help hold me to my commitment to get healthier.

Started: 9/9/09
Lost this week: 2 lbs.
Lost so far: 8.6 lbs.