MoneyMoney...Moneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey

Can you hear me singing?

Well, first there wasn't singing. There was an actual gasp when I opened yet another explanation of benefits from The Great Coin Incident. Our running total was already about 6K, but we hadn't gotten explanations of benefits for big stuff like the medical care in the hospital, or the 60 something mile ambulance ride.
So todays mailing was finally for the inpatient care at the hospital. $12,399. The gasp came as I closed one eye and moved the other eye over to see what our insurance paid. You see, I had gotten a letter from Blue Cross saying that for my "elective surgery" I had "chosen" a "non participating provider" and might have "considerable out of pocket expenses"
Now let me begin by addressing some of those quotables.

• Elective surgery? What was I supposed to do? Leave the 20P Euro at the top of my kid's esophagus, leaning toward his airways and hope someday it would come up with the brocolli he spits out?
• Chosen? Oh, no. Of all the places on this earth I would have chosen this was NOT it. Well, let me amend that...the PICU was FANTASTIC and the ACTUAL CARE he got was FANTASTIC and so I guess knowing that I might have chosen it....but I don't think I've told the story of the REST of our lovely visit. Like how they sent me downstairs to register him and every single security guard I asked for help was extraordinarily rude and also didn't give me accurate or appropriate directions (there was no one else as it was around 5am when we arrived). Also the woman in admitting yelled at me a lot for not "pre-registering" and some other stuff and I was trying, really I was, to respond to her questions appropriately but I was covered in vomit had been up for more than 24 hours, hadn't eaten in forever and WAS WORRIED TO DEATH ABOUT MY KID WHO JUST ARRIVED VIA AMBULANCE TRANSPORT. I kept trying to tell her that that was the sum total of my knowledge. I keep telling these people that I CHOSE NOTHING. I got on an ambulance with my kiddo and got off of an ambulance with my kiddo. That's it. And let's mention, just for a wee moment, the coup de gras....when I finally found a bathroom by the ER to find relief I couldn't go on account of the homeless people asleep all over the bathroom and the actual and quite literal piles of poop all over the room.

So you can imagine my suspense and trepidation when my eye wandered over to what we owed after the insurance paid part of this $12K bill....

Nothing. We owe nothing. Oh, sweet and loving Jesus that was a balm to my heart.

But that brought our current total of the Great Coin Incident to over $17,000. And we haven't even seen the cost of the ambulance trasnport yet.

A 20P Euro*? Pshaw. That's more like a 20K Euro....

*this picture might explain to ya'll why he thought it was a chocolate coin. He's so cute these days--he'll take you through opening an imaginary chocolate coin--"you unwrap the wrapper." "you bite the chocolate" "you chew carefully" I think he probably popped it into his mouth and the shock of it not being chocolate made him inhale it.

You say its your birthday...

Well its my birthday too.

For our birthday (which we share) hubby took me to:

And then to: (where Liam refused to take pictures)

It was a whole globe-trotting, I mean, up-and- down-the-street-walking weekend affair in Vegas. We had a lot of fun. We played a lot of skeeball and I infrequently thought about how I have now crossed over into the land of attempting elderly primigravida, which is medical science's way of saying 35 is too old for popping out babies.

We needed time as just the three of us.

We returned to a living room full of grandma's furniture that had been delivered as they are emptying her apartment and a house that has gone too long without a proper homekeeper's attention. I'll get to that. I think.

Life is still stressful and hectic and el husbando's mom is currently in the hospital with a collapased lung. Please pray that they find the cause and that they are able to successfully re-inflate it.

The other day I was talking to my Nana and she told me that my cousin is buying this super posh 4200sq ft house. I looked around at my tiny 1475 sq ft house that is old, and needs pampering and sighed. Jealousy siezed me.

But the days have passed and I have done a lot of thinking. I have followed the Compassion bloggers and their "survivors guilt" and the idea of defining what "enough" is in our lives. As I thought about a really pretty 4200sq ft house with marble inlaid floors and a spiral staircase, I was sure that yes, that would be a very lovely place to live. But would the life I live inside the walls change any? Would the food I cook taste better? Would the games I play with my family make me laugh harder? Would cuddling with Liam feel sweeter? Would my tv shows be any better? Would my dogs guard more fiercely?

The answer is no.

I think I am near to finding my enough. The last few months of trial and loss that we have endured as a family have taught me that God's blessing doesn't come in granite countertops. It comes in the ability to sit near a hospital bed and offer comfort, even in the last days of life--a promise of going shopping that will never happen. It comes in sharing time together, even if one of us has to lay on a sofa with her eyes closed as we talk. It comes from screaming in pain and having a mother drive over at five am, to hold me on the potty while I lose yet another baby. It comes from a three year old boy who smiles as his daddy goes to lock the house and says, "Daddy's a good man."

We are eachother's blessings from God. However and whenever He gives us to eachother. That's my enough. My prayer is that it will continue to be. So whether or not elderly primigrava gives me another child to tuck in, or whether or not another tragedy strikes us, my enough is already here and I need to remember that.

Right Hook

Do you ever feel like life is one big boxing match and you're getting the crap beaten out of you?

Someone hit one of my feral cats this morning and she was laying dead at the end of my driveway. I saw that it was a black and white cat and ran in the house to check on my beloved Zoe, who was sitting on top of the fridge. I was relieved, but that meant it was our Stellah. Our kitty who hates us, but loves the dogs. Its funny...if you say her name the dogs go nuts and run all over the house looking for her. They could be standing by one of the other cats, but could care less.

And I could live with the news about the cat...

The news about my Mother In Law not so much. It is not good. We don't know how long she has left, but it is growing clearer that is not a matter of if, but rather a matter of when. My heart hurts when I think about it, and I have spontaneously been bursting into tears. We are all praying for ways to put life into her days, whatever number they may be.
My mom is going to get birthday cards for Liam up until he's 21 that she can sign and that we'll save and give to him every year and some gender neutral ones for if I have any other children.
Just thinking about that makes me ache.

Automatically, unintentially as a matter of habit

It is Ash Wednesday the beginning of the Lenten season and our march toward Easter. I went to the dispensation of ashes and service at lunch today, and when I kneeled up at the alter my pastor made a perfect, dark cross on my forehead. I feel during the dispensation of ashes just as I do with communion: whole with God.
I was not in my seat a whole minute afterward, I think, when I automatically, unintentionally and as a matter of habit wiped my hand across my forehead, smearing my mark. I kept whispering to my mom, "Is it still there?"
When I got in my car and looked in the rear view mirror I saw that I no longer had a cross, not even a smudgy one. I just had a big black mark on my forehead. I was disappointed in myself. I couldn't even keep the perfect cross of Christ for minutes. That disappointment went in the car with me to McDonalds, where it gnawed at me. While I sat in line at the drivethrough, I looked into the mirror and decided to try and reshape the cross myself. By the time I pulled up the the window for my food the cross was there again, smudgy, imperfect and a lot lighter---but it was there.
And then I was thinking how brilliantly metaphorical that was. Because I am always automatical, unintentionally and as a matter of habit sliding away from God until my vision of him in our relationship is blurry and sometimes unrecognizable.
And it will remain that way, unless I try and reshape a cross out of all of the mess.

Super Fat Tuesday

Its like supersized, Yo.

Voting, cavorting. It all goes together.

I got up this morning and decorated our breakfast nook and then I voted at 7:15 am and then promptly lost my sticker, which, let's face it, is the reason we vote.

So I made myself a little sign to wear at work that said "I VOTED (but I lost the sticker). My mom brought me two stickers from her polling place because she likes to keep me happy.

I hear Liam came downstairs this morning and said "Oh! Mama decorated!" and I'm glad he knows its me and not some magic elves that come in the night.

After I voted, I hit a dog. Or rather it hit me. It ran into the side of my car and then dashed in front of me, but I didn't hit it then. I was going to go check it, but it was a pit bull and running just fine.

The rest of the day was A-ok.

And now we're having us some jambalaya, listening to zydeco and maybe playing Uno.

We know how to party, wanna come?