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| [Please forgive me for posting this, Future Joe!] |
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy belated Thanksgiving from Joe, the kid for whom the holiday was made. Exhibit A.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Some Love for Ian
I realized the other day that most of my posts are about Joe. The only post lately about Ian was that he isn't sleeping (which he still isn't, really). Sorry Ian! You're just too much of a sweetheart -- Joe's antics usually way trump yours.
Anyway, this post is all about you, littler kiddo. "Littler" is definitely key, cause there is no measure by which you are "little." At your four month appointment last week, you weighed in at almost 16lbs 15oz--almost two full pounds bigger than Joe was at that age. Which I thought was impossible. You're off the charts long, and only barely on the charts heavy. Your weight and height were the weight and height of an average eight month old baby. Wowza, buddy.
As you can tell from this picture, you look ridiculously like your Uncle Matt. You're all Lavalley, for better or for worse. Goes well with the middle name, right?
See this one-socked look you're rockin' in this photo? That's because you always like to kick that leg out of your swaddle at night. It's not cool enough yet for full-on footie pajamas, so this is your dad's solution: one socked foot and one non-socked foot. It may not be the most fashionable look, but at least your toes are warm.
You're teething, as the excessive amount of drool in this super out-of-focus picture is meant to show. This is what happens when mom trusts her camera to dad. He also promised that I was not in this picture at all when he took it?? Anyway, no little white buds yet, but you chew on anything and everything, all the time, and you drool buckets. Oh, and you still have a mohawk. Weird.
One of your favorite pastimes is to hang out on the bed every morning while Joe eats his breakfast (and Charlie stalks you guys for any unmanned food particles). Joe makes sure to re-plug that binky whenever it falls out. He is outrageously attentive to you. Every time he comes into a room from a nap or from being out of the house, the first thing he does is find you and check on you to make sure we haven't negligently killed you while he was away. He loves to give you hugs and kisses, and every time he finds anything of yours out of place, he brings it to us and says "Ian! Ian! Ian!".
You've rolled over all the way a couple of times (yay!), but usually you only get halfway and get stuck on your arm. See.
They say babies your age don't have allergies, but you are definitely the exception that proves that rule. Your piping upstairs is just not awesome. Every early morning since you were about 4 weeks old, you have had terrible congestion that wakes you up and makes you very, very pissed. I think this problem contributes to your less-than-desirable sleep patterns. We use saline drops and the sucker (a baby version of the netipot, which will change your life once you're old enough to use it), but you still had boogers the size of Alaska clogging up your nostrils every morning. The next thing we're trying is the half raised up crib. I really, really hope this works, cause the 5:00am booger hunt is growing a little old.
It may not look like much of an incline, but it's clearly doing something, since two mornings in row you may have, eh-hem, tumbled down to the bottom by that giraffe. But hey, if it leads to less congestion and more sleep, you're okay with a little tumbling, right? Right.
Dad and I can't believe how fast you're growing up. We're so happy to have you around, even though having two of you under two can get pretty fiesty at times. You're as easy and fun and happy as you could be, so thank you for doing your part to make our lives a little easier. Love you, Cutepie!
Anyway, this post is all about you, littler kiddo. "Littler" is definitely key, cause there is no measure by which you are "little." At your four month appointment last week, you weighed in at almost 16lbs 15oz--almost two full pounds bigger than Joe was at that age. Which I thought was impossible. You're off the charts long, and only barely on the charts heavy. Your weight and height were the weight and height of an average eight month old baby. Wowza, buddy.
As you can tell from this picture, you look ridiculously like your Uncle Matt. You're all Lavalley, for better or for worse. Goes well with the middle name, right?
See this one-socked look you're rockin' in this photo? That's because you always like to kick that leg out of your swaddle at night. It's not cool enough yet for full-on footie pajamas, so this is your dad's solution: one socked foot and one non-socked foot. It may not be the most fashionable look, but at least your toes are warm.
You're teething, as the excessive amount of drool in this super out-of-focus picture is meant to show. This is what happens when mom trusts her camera to dad. He also promised that I was not in this picture at all when he took it?? Anyway, no little white buds yet, but you chew on anything and everything, all the time, and you drool buckets. Oh, and you still have a mohawk. Weird.
One of your favorite pastimes is to hang out on the bed every morning while Joe eats his breakfast (and Charlie stalks you guys for any unmanned food particles). Joe makes sure to re-plug that binky whenever it falls out. He is outrageously attentive to you. Every time he comes into a room from a nap or from being out of the house, the first thing he does is find you and check on you to make sure we haven't negligently killed you while he was away. He loves to give you hugs and kisses, and every time he finds anything of yours out of place, he brings it to us and says "Ian! Ian! Ian!".
You've rolled over all the way a couple of times (yay!), but usually you only get halfway and get stuck on your arm. See.
They say babies your age don't have allergies, but you are definitely the exception that proves that rule. Your piping upstairs is just not awesome. Every early morning since you were about 4 weeks old, you have had terrible congestion that wakes you up and makes you very, very pissed. I think this problem contributes to your less-than-desirable sleep patterns. We use saline drops and the sucker (a baby version of the netipot, which will change your life once you're old enough to use it), but you still had boogers the size of Alaska clogging up your nostrils every morning. The next thing we're trying is the half raised up crib. I really, really hope this works, cause the 5:00am booger hunt is growing a little old.
It may not look like much of an incline, but it's clearly doing something, since two mornings in row you may have, eh-hem, tumbled down to the bottom by that giraffe. But hey, if it leads to less congestion and more sleep, you're okay with a little tumbling, right? Right.
Dad and I can't believe how fast you're growing up. We're so happy to have you around, even though having two of you under two can get pretty fiesty at times. You're as easy and fun and happy as you could be, so thank you for doing your part to make our lives a little easier. Love you, Cutepie!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Ouch.
You parents out there know that most of the first couple of years of having a baby basically involves waiting for them to have all their baby "firsts." The first time they hold their head up, first time they roll over, first time they pee on you, first time they sleep through the night...just imagine any activity you could possibly perform throughout the day, except maybe blinking and breathing, and there's probably some mom out there who noted the first time their baby did that activity in the baby book (or the baby blog).
As a parent, you're usually eagerly anticipating all of these firsts--in my case, mostly because I was shamed into thinking they should happen earlier than they did because of the silly questionnaires I had to fill out at every doctor's appointment. But a "first" that every parent knows is inevitable but that they are definitely not eagerly anticipating: baby's first trip to the emergency room! yay!
Look, Joe is almost 2 years old. That's 24 months. John and I used to joke that we felt like we were successful parents if we didn't have to make a trip to the ER before he was 18 months old. So, by my math, we are officially successful parents. Unfortunately, I definitely did not factor in myself being the cause of the accident that sent us there. One thing about being a mom (as opposed to a dad, nanny, grandma, or other non-mom caregiver) is that you think you do everything related to your kid right, and everyone else could really benefit by just watching what you do a little closer, cause you are just so awesome. I mean, I'm not saying this isn't still true for 99.99% of things out there, cause again, I'm just super awesome at momming. But I guess causing your kid an injury that requires an ER trip means you've officially lost the argument that you do literally everything better.
So here's the sitch. Joe likes to watch morning cartoons after he wakes up but before Lindsay gets here. Ian likes to lie down on his back and look up at me super cutely after he wakes up but before Lindsay gets here. I need to get my hair straightened for work (otherwise I'd bear an eerily resemblance to a young Albert Einstein) after the kids wake up but before Lindsay gets here. The only way these three things can get done efficiently and with the least amount of tantrums, fussing, and tears: all of us perform these various activities on the bed together. Unfortunately for all, and especially Joe, Yo Gabba Gabba (last Thursday morning's cartoon) has a "dancey dance" segment that he likes to imitate -- which involves, you guessed it, twirling, jumping, dancing, and bouncing all around on the bed. So I set the straightener down for .0234187284 milliseconds to stick the binky back in Ian's mouth, and in that teeny weeny timeframe, of course, Joe manages to fall down directly onto the 450 degree Chi. Yikes.
Full-on family panic ensues. I yell, John runs in from the bathroom, and Ian starts crying--basically, chaos. But Joe didn't do anything more than make a tiny frowny face of displeasure, and grunt at us for getting in the way of the TV. This lack of reaction worried me and John more than anything else, because we both know that burns hurt. So why wasn't he acting like it hurt? Of course, Google confirmed our fears (because Google can confirm any fear, as long as you use it right), and we read that third degree burns have associated nerve damage that would make the burnee not feel any pain at first. And we read that both second and third degree burns require immediate medical attention. So we headed to the hospital.
The rest is uneventful. Burn was second degree, so no permanent damage done (other than a super awesome and manly scar). We were out of the hospital within the hour, and Joe was all bandaged up and given the stamp of approval to do whatever he felt like doing at home. Since then, Joe has not acted in any way like the burn was causing him trouble. Mostly he just likes to play with the bandage and hold his arm out to people who ask what happened. And we learned two new words out of it: "burn" and "boo boo." Success?
So, all in all, no big deal. But a few takeaways:
1. Not all minor injury emergency room trips are created equal. I totally expected having to run him to the hospital because he banged his head on the cement and needed a few stitches, or he jumped off the couch and broke his collarbone. I did not expect to take him to the emergency room for a second degree burn injury. Does the type of injury really matter? Probably not. But for whatever reason, the "burn" part of this was hard for me. To me, stitches and broken bones are a normal part of childhood. Burns are not. To me, burns come from totally avoidable neglectful parenting, not unavoidable crazy kid stuff.
2. Burns actually are a normal part of childhood. I realize I just said the exact opposite. But the other day I heard so many stories of people getting burned accidentally as kids, or people's siblings getting burned, or people's cousins getting burned, that I guess it's just something that happens. You all know that toddlers get into everything. It's really hard to be 100% hyper vigilant all day every day. That doesn't make those random neglectful moments okay, I guess, but it makes the few times where things do go wrong seem more accidental than negligent (boom, lawyered).
3. Other parents are very helpful people to have around when you've been a part of some less-than-stellar parenting experience. I can truthfully say that every single parent I talked to first asked if Joe was okay, and when it was clear that he was fine, they immediately asked me how I was holding up. Every single one. Lindsay, my work neighbors, my family members - everyone. This was, for some reason, unreasonably touching to me. Maybe because I was beating myself up for letting him get hurt. But if any of you are reading this, thank you, truly, for asking.
Joe's burn is fine, and I am fine too. Don't worry, I'm not beating myself up as much as this post seems like I am. I just wish I hadn't been the cause of my baby's first major injury. Sorry, Future Joe!
As a parent, you're usually eagerly anticipating all of these firsts--in my case, mostly because I was shamed into thinking they should happen earlier than they did because of the silly questionnaires I had to fill out at every doctor's appointment. But a "first" that every parent knows is inevitable but that they are definitely not eagerly anticipating: baby's first trip to the emergency room! yay!
Look, Joe is almost 2 years old. That's 24 months. John and I used to joke that we felt like we were successful parents if we didn't have to make a trip to the ER before he was 18 months old. So, by my math, we are officially successful parents. Unfortunately, I definitely did not factor in myself being the cause of the accident that sent us there. One thing about being a mom (as opposed to a dad, nanny, grandma, or other non-mom caregiver) is that you think you do everything related to your kid right, and everyone else could really benefit by just watching what you do a little closer, cause you are just so awesome. I mean, I'm not saying this isn't still true for 99.99% of things out there, cause again, I'm just super awesome at momming. But I guess causing your kid an injury that requires an ER trip means you've officially lost the argument that you do literally everything better.
So here's the sitch. Joe likes to watch morning cartoons after he wakes up but before Lindsay gets here. Ian likes to lie down on his back and look up at me super cutely after he wakes up but before Lindsay gets here. I need to get my hair straightened for work (otherwise I'd bear an eerily resemblance to a young Albert Einstein) after the kids wake up but before Lindsay gets here. The only way these three things can get done efficiently and with the least amount of tantrums, fussing, and tears: all of us perform these various activities on the bed together. Unfortunately for all, and especially Joe, Yo Gabba Gabba (last Thursday morning's cartoon) has a "dancey dance" segment that he likes to imitate -- which involves, you guessed it, twirling, jumping, dancing, and bouncing all around on the bed. So I set the straightener down for .0234187284 milliseconds to stick the binky back in Ian's mouth, and in that teeny weeny timeframe, of course, Joe manages to fall down directly onto the 450 degree Chi. Yikes.
Full-on family panic ensues. I yell, John runs in from the bathroom, and Ian starts crying--basically, chaos. But Joe didn't do anything more than make a tiny frowny face of displeasure, and grunt at us for getting in the way of the TV. This lack of reaction worried me and John more than anything else, because we both know that burns hurt. So why wasn't he acting like it hurt? Of course, Google confirmed our fears (because Google can confirm any fear, as long as you use it right), and we read that third degree burns have associated nerve damage that would make the burnee not feel any pain at first. And we read that both second and third degree burns require immediate medical attention. So we headed to the hospital.
The rest is uneventful. Burn was second degree, so no permanent damage done (other than a super awesome and manly scar). We were out of the hospital within the hour, and Joe was all bandaged up and given the stamp of approval to do whatever he felt like doing at home. Since then, Joe has not acted in any way like the burn was causing him trouble. Mostly he just likes to play with the bandage and hold his arm out to people who ask what happened. And we learned two new words out of it: "burn" and "boo boo." Success?
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| He's only crying here because he was afraid of the machine the registration lady brought in to check us out. Seriously. |
1. Not all minor injury emergency room trips are created equal. I totally expected having to run him to the hospital because he banged his head on the cement and needed a few stitches, or he jumped off the couch and broke his collarbone. I did not expect to take him to the emergency room for a second degree burn injury. Does the type of injury really matter? Probably not. But for whatever reason, the "burn" part of this was hard for me. To me, stitches and broken bones are a normal part of childhood. Burns are not. To me, burns come from totally avoidable neglectful parenting, not unavoidable crazy kid stuff.
2. Burns actually are a normal part of childhood. I realize I just said the exact opposite. But the other day I heard so many stories of people getting burned accidentally as kids, or people's siblings getting burned, or people's cousins getting burned, that I guess it's just something that happens. You all know that toddlers get into everything. It's really hard to be 100% hyper vigilant all day every day. That doesn't make those random neglectful moments okay, I guess, but it makes the few times where things do go wrong seem more accidental than negligent (boom, lawyered).
3. Other parents are very helpful people to have around when you've been a part of some less-than-stellar parenting experience. I can truthfully say that every single parent I talked to first asked if Joe was okay, and when it was clear that he was fine, they immediately asked me how I was holding up. Every single one. Lindsay, my work neighbors, my family members - everyone. This was, for some reason, unreasonably touching to me. Maybe because I was beating myself up for letting him get hurt. But if any of you are reading this, thank you, truly, for asking.
Joe's burn is fine, and I am fine too. Don't worry, I'm not beating myself up as much as this post seems like I am. I just wish I hadn't been the cause of my baby's first major injury. Sorry, Future Joe!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Sleep Regression. Help.
Ian hates sleep. Every kind of sleep -- naptime sleep, bedtime sleep, 4:00 am sleep, car sleep. Lindsay (the nanny) fights with him all day to get him to stay down long enough for his naps. I fight with him all night to stay asleep more than an hour and a half at a time. Needless to say, Lindsay is probably ridiculously frustrated and I am definitely ridiculously sleep deprived.
It wasn't always this way. I have a very clear memory of staying up until 2:00am with our friends one night when Ian was about 8 weeks old. That's laughable now.
I am in unfamiliar territory here. Joe was a huge napper, and from like 10 weeks old was sleeping 10 hours at a time. We may have had some sort of sleep problem with him around this age that I just don't remember (it's funny what you forget), but all I remember about Joe is that he loved sleep from the very beginning.
So, those of you with kids who hate sleep, please give me any advice you have. I vaguely remember a couple of you mentioning that your kids had sleep regression at similar ages (my whole life is sort of a fog right now). Is this is a phase or a character trait? Is there anything I can do to keep him down longer that I'm not already doing? He's still eating three times a night on bad nights, and twice on good nights. Is this a breastfed baby thing I can't avoid? We start rice cereal soon, but I hear it's a wives tale that that will help. But tell me your experience.
I will try anything. I need SLEEP!
It wasn't always this way. I have a very clear memory of staying up until 2:00am with our friends one night when Ian was about 8 weeks old. That's laughable now.
I am in unfamiliar territory here. Joe was a huge napper, and from like 10 weeks old was sleeping 10 hours at a time. We may have had some sort of sleep problem with him around this age that I just don't remember (it's funny what you forget), but all I remember about Joe is that he loved sleep from the very beginning.
So, those of you with kids who hate sleep, please give me any advice you have. I vaguely remember a couple of you mentioning that your kids had sleep regression at similar ages (my whole life is sort of a fog right now). Is this is a phase or a character trait? Is there anything I can do to keep him down longer that I'm not already doing? He's still eating three times a night on bad nights, and twice on good nights. Is this a breastfed baby thing I can't avoid? We start rice cereal soon, but I hear it's a wives tale that that will help. But tell me your experience.
I will try anything. I need SLEEP!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Some Bad Behavior and an Almost-Milestone
I'm going back to work tomorrow. Did I have any intention of disciplining my kids in any way today? No. Did Joe realize this about 5 minutes after the nanny left for the day? Yes.
But check it out. Ian is almost rolling over one way! A big step in baby world. Since I probably won't be around to catch his first time rolling all the way, I figured this almost roll-over would suffice. Go Ian!
You can't see his target: it's Ian. Sigh.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho
Tomorrow is my last day of maternity leave before I have to go back to work. Ian will be four months old -- a seriously great maternity leave, right? My mom took 6 weeks with me. But, even with such a long leave, time flies. I feel like I was just a couple days ago I was getting my work self organized to take all that time off.
People keep asking how I feel about going back. And truthfully, I have no idea how to answer this question, because I don't really know how I feel about it. And my feelings on the matter change daily, hourly, minutely. Am I excited to go back? Definitely not. But I'm also not completely dreading it, either. Thus, the typical, endless struggle with working mom guilt begins again.
Here are the two sides of the coin. The "going back is going to be horribly sad and I'm dreading it completely" side: I love my children. Seriously, love them. I love being involved in their lives the way I've been able to while I was on leave - being the face Ian sees when he wakes up from his naps, and getting to pick Joe up at school every day. I love having the control over their days that I won't have when the nanny is there all day instead of me. I love being able to stop Joe mid-sprint and give him a huge kiss on the cheek. But most of all, I love that they know I'm there for them whenever they need me.
The "seriously, I really need to get the heck out of this house" side: Staying at home drives me a little nuts. I don't love that my biggest activity for the day is taking a shower (eh-hem, when that even happens), and I don't love that my biggest contribution to the world is making sure that the laundry is done and the bathroom is clean. I went to law school, for goodness sake. We have the monthly loan payments to prove it. So, I am excited to be back among the land of the living, where no one knows the names of all of Handy Manny's tools and very few can recite every word of The Belly Button Book. Where I can use my brain and my skills and help people. Not to mention that it will be nice to actually put on cute clothes again every day (once they start fitting again).
I think everyone who knows me would tell you that I wouldn't be happy not working. I'm not convinced that this is completely true, but I am convinced that I will never know if it's completely true. I'm coming to the realization that I'll probably always work, and that by the time we can afford to give our kids the life we want without my salary, they will be old enough to be at school all day anyway.
But all of this is really beside the point. I am going back to work, and I will continue to work for the foreseeable future, for one big huge fat reason that will never go away, no matter how much money we have and no matter how old the boys get. I'm going to work because I want to be the best possible role model for my boys. What better way to teach them to respect women as equal to men (which, seriously, a depressing number of men truly do, even these days...what does it say about my fellow lawyers that that the "dumb blonde" card is the easiest one for me to play to get my way?) than to have a mom with a great career? My mom had a stellar career for my entire memory, so it never occurred to me, or to my siblings, that women shouldn't be entitled to have every single opportunity that they are willing to go for. Being a working mom isn't the only way to instill this lesson, of course, but it sure is an easy way.
The key, as they all say, is balance. My mom may have had an intense career, but she was home for dinner every night and was with us all weekend. She went to all of our soccer games, football games, baseball games, dance recitals, piano recitals, and on and on and on. All of us knew that we were way more important to her than her job--but, inexplicably, we also knew that her job was part of what made her her. She loved going to work and kicking butts all day, just as much as she loved curling up on the couch in her comfies with her latest romance novel (sorry for outing you, Mom).
So that's my new goal. Letting my kids know that they are the loves of my life, but that they aren't my entire world. Trying to tread that fine line between neglecting the kids for work or neglecting work for the kids. I think I can do it, with the help of my ridiculously understanding husband and my sainted nanny. And a lot of wine.
People keep asking how I feel about going back. And truthfully, I have no idea how to answer this question, because I don't really know how I feel about it. And my feelings on the matter change daily, hourly, minutely. Am I excited to go back? Definitely not. But I'm also not completely dreading it, either. Thus, the typical, endless struggle with working mom guilt begins again.
Here are the two sides of the coin. The "going back is going to be horribly sad and I'm dreading it completely" side: I love my children. Seriously, love them. I love being involved in their lives the way I've been able to while I was on leave - being the face Ian sees when he wakes up from his naps, and getting to pick Joe up at school every day. I love having the control over their days that I won't have when the nanny is there all day instead of me. I love being able to stop Joe mid-sprint and give him a huge kiss on the cheek. But most of all, I love that they know I'm there for them whenever they need me.
The "seriously, I really need to get the heck out of this house" side: Staying at home drives me a little nuts. I don't love that my biggest activity for the day is taking a shower (eh-hem, when that even happens), and I don't love that my biggest contribution to the world is making sure that the laundry is done and the bathroom is clean. I went to law school, for goodness sake. We have the monthly loan payments to prove it. So, I am excited to be back among the land of the living, where no one knows the names of all of Handy Manny's tools and very few can recite every word of The Belly Button Book. Where I can use my brain and my skills and help people. Not to mention that it will be nice to actually put on cute clothes again every day (once they start fitting again).
I think everyone who knows me would tell you that I wouldn't be happy not working. I'm not convinced that this is completely true, but I am convinced that I will never know if it's completely true. I'm coming to the realization that I'll probably always work, and that by the time we can afford to give our kids the life we want without my salary, they will be old enough to be at school all day anyway.
But all of this is really beside the point. I am going back to work, and I will continue to work for the foreseeable future, for one big huge fat reason that will never go away, no matter how much money we have and no matter how old the boys get. I'm going to work because I want to be the best possible role model for my boys. What better way to teach them to respect women as equal to men (which, seriously, a depressing number of men truly do, even these days...what does it say about my fellow lawyers that that the "dumb blonde" card is the easiest one for me to play to get my way?) than to have a mom with a great career? My mom had a stellar career for my entire memory, so it never occurred to me, or to my siblings, that women shouldn't be entitled to have every single opportunity that they are willing to go for. Being a working mom isn't the only way to instill this lesson, of course, but it sure is an easy way.
The key, as they all say, is balance. My mom may have had an intense career, but she was home for dinner every night and was with us all weekend. She went to all of our soccer games, football games, baseball games, dance recitals, piano recitals, and on and on and on. All of us knew that we were way more important to her than her job--but, inexplicably, we also knew that her job was part of what made her her. She loved going to work and kicking butts all day, just as much as she loved curling up on the couch in her comfies with her latest romance novel (sorry for outing you, Mom).
So that's my new goal. Letting my kids know that they are the loves of my life, but that they aren't my entire world. Trying to tread that fine line between neglecting the kids for work or neglecting work for the kids. I think I can do it, with the help of my ridiculously understanding husband and my sainted nanny. And a lot of wine.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Mustaches Mustaches Everywhere
Hello dear friends and fam. I hope you have your charitable panties on today, cause it's time to bust out the cash in support of a great cause!
Ever heard of Movember? It's prostate cancer's answer to October breast cancer awareness activities -- except instead of adopting a bright girly color and auctioning off random players' NFL gear, Movember is about growing as intense of a mustache as possible, and getting donations from friends and family for doing it. Probably explains why you've been seeing all those young men around town sporting some super sexy prepubescent-looking mustaches, yes?
Well. One of my oldest and dearest friends is accepting donations in her son's name for their family friend's Movember team. Thatcher, her son, will donate a penny to prostate cancer research for every pageview that my friend's blog gets (just click here! it's that easy!). And for every donation received directly through their site, my friend will wear a mustache around town for the day! So please, get into the pre-holiday holiday spirit and donate for a great cause. Cause even though they drive us insane sometimes (okay, most of the time), we want our men to stick around as long as possible, right? To kill the spiders in the bathtub, if nothing else.
So come on, don't be lame. Help out a good cause. Click here to donate through my friend's site...and remember, just clicking the link is a help!
Ever heard of Movember? It's prostate cancer's answer to October breast cancer awareness activities -- except instead of adopting a bright girly color and auctioning off random players' NFL gear, Movember is about growing as intense of a mustache as possible, and getting donations from friends and family for doing it. Probably explains why you've been seeing all those young men around town sporting some super sexy prepubescent-looking mustaches, yes?
Well. One of my oldest and dearest friends is accepting donations in her son's name for their family friend's Movember team. Thatcher, her son, will donate a penny to prostate cancer research for every pageview that my friend's blog gets (just click here! it's that easy!). And for every donation received directly through their site, my friend will wear a mustache around town for the day! So please, get into the pre-holiday holiday spirit and donate for a great cause. Cause even though they drive us insane sometimes (okay, most of the time), we want our men to stick around as long as possible, right? To kill the spiders in the bathtub, if nothing else.
So come on, don't be lame. Help out a good cause. Click here to donate through my friend's site...and remember, just clicking the link is a help!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Maybe Don't Read This if You're Politically Inclined
Time for a non-speech related update about Joe's speech therapy. I debated not writing about this issue since it can be kind of sensitive to some, but I'm selfish and it will help me to know that other people out there are aware of what we're dealing with on this one.
It probably won't come as a shock to you that private speech therapy lessons aren't free - in fact, they are pretty absurdly expensive. The reason Joe and I drive all the way up to 635 and Hillcrest twice a week for two 25 minute speech classes is that the office up there is the closest one that accepts our insurance.
To back up a bit. Back in August, we got Joe's hearing tested by a pediatric ENT. Joe's hearing was fine, thank goodness, but the ENT was adamant that we get him in speech therapy, like, yesterday. The ENT's lecture to me was the kick in the pants I needed that instigated the original blog post about speech therapy. Anyway, the ENT told us that we had two options for speech therapy for Joe. Private speech classes, which is expensive but more often than not covered by insurance (according to this guy) or Early Childhood Intervention (better known to some of you as ECI). ECI is a state-sponsored program where a person comes to your house to evaluate, and later treat, your kid for developmental delays, including speech therapy. This service is a ridiculously good benefit of living in Texas. The ENT we used, however, made the point that ECI is sort of a 50/50 proposition. Since it's free, and state sponsored, you don't always know what kind of help you're going to be getting. He was adamant that there are plenty of highly qualified speech therapists working for ECI - but he was just as adamant that there are plenty of less qualified speech therapists working for ECI. You're sort of rolling the dice. He suggested we at least investigate our private therapist options before committing to ECI.
So, right after the good news that Joe's hearing was fine, I called our insurance company to make sure that speech delay was covered by our insurance policy (assuming that we met all of the red tape requirements associated with filing a claim). The lady I spoke with on the phone assured me that speech therapy for speech delay would be covered by our policy if speech therapy was determined to be "medically necessary." So, I scheduled an evaluation of Joe at the speech therapist's office. At the same time, I called ECI to see if we could get on their schedule for an evaluation. They told me that the earliest they could have anyone contact me (contact me, not come out to evaluate Joe) was seven business days from my phone call. Yikes. Seven business days is not much in the grand scheme of things, of course, but to me it was sort of indicative of the whole "state-sponsored" quality of service we'd be getting.
After Joe's evaluation at the private speech therapist, he fell into the "severe speech delay" category of their magic evaluation tools. Which makes sense, since he was completely silent 99% of the time at that point in his development. Actually, to quote the letter the speech therapist sent to the insurance agency: "Joe presents with a severe expressive language disorder...that will not likely correct on its own." (By the way, I'm not naive enough to be ignorant of the fact that the speech therapist has an incentive to write these kinds of reports so that they can get clients whose appointments are paid for by insurance. But try using that kind of logic when it's your own kid's development at stake.)
So we started with the private speech therapist. Unfortunately, it takes them about a month to get their evaluation written, sent off to the insurance company, processed by the insurance company, and responded to by the insurance company. They assured us, though, that almost no one with Joe's level of speech delay gets denied coverage. So, we agreed to pay the speech therapist out-of-pocket for each appointment during that month while everything was getting processed, and the speech therapist agreed to reimburse us everything we'd paid out-of-pocket once the insurance company approved coverage. Joe started speech classes with Kristen, and as you know from being a loyal blog follower, he thrived under her tutelage.
I'm sure you can see where this is going. Six weeks into speech classes, we got the news that the insurance company had denied our claim. "No worries," says the speech therapist, "we'll appeal the decision to the insurance company and they'll probably cover you. Just get a letter of medical necessity from Joe's pediatrician, and send it on over." Okay, no problem.
We head to the pediatrician for a consult about this letter of medical necessity. The doctor asks me a stock list of questions about his speech development -- which basically comes down to "how many words can he say." I was honest (stupid me.), and said that as of that time, after about 7 weeks of speech therapy, he could say about 30 words. The doctor looked at me like I was the biggest idiot and the most paranoid, over-involved mom to ever walk into his office, and said, "Well, then he's on track. He doesn't need speech therapy for speech delay." ...seriously? So no letter of medical necessity from him.
So, to recap: Joe isn't talking, so, according to several different and disinterested medical professionals, he needs speech therapy. Speech therapist evaluates and agrees that speech therapy is necessary. Insurance claim takes time to process, so Joe starts classes before coverage is guaranteed. By the time coverage is denied, Joe has been doing so well with speech therapy that he is now on track to meet his two year old speech-related milestones. So the doctor won't write the letter of medical necessity, which means the speech therapist can't appeal the denial of coverage, which means that John and I continue to pay the ridiculously exorbitant out-of-pocket cost to the speech therapist. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that maybe the insurance company knows that this is the typical order of things, and knows this exact situation will happen in a lot of cases because speech therapy can be so helpful to kids like Joe.
Of course, the reason John and I agreed to pay out-of-pocket in the first place is that we are very, very on board with how important these speech classes are to Joe. At first, this may have been just blind hope in the process, but now the results have been so great (and continue to be so great) that the importance and success of these class is impossible to deny.
So we are left with two poor options. Either we continue to pay almost every cent of our truly disposable income (seriously) to the speech therapist every month, or we sign up for the free state-sponsored ECI services. Which, of course, also entails pulling Joe out of classes at the place where he is currently thriving, with a teacher that he has clearly bonded with (and as you know, Joe doesn't bond that easily to grown ups). And entails rolling the dice on getting someone who may not be as good, and therefore may not be as helpful to Joe.
For me and John, the choice is clear. Our kids are the most important thing in the world to us - more important than wine to John (I know, right?!) and more important than shoes, clothes, and vacations to me. We are fortunate enough to be in a financial situation that even allows us to have the option to pay for private speech therapy. Making the sacrifices for Joe is the easy part.
But my main question, and the reason I've been hesitant to post our experience in this area, is: WHY? Why is this the way our whole insurance situation in this country works? I can assure you I'm neither right wing nor left wing, and in fact I'm pretty politically ambiguous, so please don't think I'm making this a political matter. But our experience with Joe's speech therapy has just been a shining example to me of how our insurance situation is broken. The state obviously recognizes that these developmental delays are an important enough issue that they offer free services to anyone to help fix them (which I know is something that plenty of people will think is a waste of state money in the first place, but again, that's a political issue that is neither here nor there to my checkbook). The insurance company, on the other hand, to whom I pay a ton of money every year in premiums, does not acknowledge that this kind of developmental delay is worthy of their help paying for, even though I pay the insurance company money so that they willhelp me pay for things like this.
Ignoring all the political rhetoric: I pay loads of money to the insurance company so that they will help me pay for the really expensive healthcare stuff that will come up with me and my family. Joe's speech delay is, according to two pediatricians, a pediatric ENT, and a speech therapist, a severe developmental issue. So please fill me in, Aetna: what exactly am I paying you premiums for? Thank you for helping pay for Ian (helping to pay, let's be clear, not paying) but how about next year, when I don't have a baby and, God willing, everyone remains relatively healthy?
Healthcare and insurance are broken. Someone has to fix them. Please do it soon so that I can retire before I'm 95.
It probably won't come as a shock to you that private speech therapy lessons aren't free - in fact, they are pretty absurdly expensive. The reason Joe and I drive all the way up to 635 and Hillcrest twice a week for two 25 minute speech classes is that the office up there is the closest one that accepts our insurance.
To back up a bit. Back in August, we got Joe's hearing tested by a pediatric ENT. Joe's hearing was fine, thank goodness, but the ENT was adamant that we get him in speech therapy, like, yesterday. The ENT's lecture to me was the kick in the pants I needed that instigated the original blog post about speech therapy. Anyway, the ENT told us that we had two options for speech therapy for Joe. Private speech classes, which is expensive but more often than not covered by insurance (according to this guy) or Early Childhood Intervention (better known to some of you as ECI). ECI is a state-sponsored program where a person comes to your house to evaluate, and later treat, your kid for developmental delays, including speech therapy. This service is a ridiculously good benefit of living in Texas. The ENT we used, however, made the point that ECI is sort of a 50/50 proposition. Since it's free, and state sponsored, you don't always know what kind of help you're going to be getting. He was adamant that there are plenty of highly qualified speech therapists working for ECI - but he was just as adamant that there are plenty of less qualified speech therapists working for ECI. You're sort of rolling the dice. He suggested we at least investigate our private therapist options before committing to ECI.
So, right after the good news that Joe's hearing was fine, I called our insurance company to make sure that speech delay was covered by our insurance policy (assuming that we met all of the red tape requirements associated with filing a claim). The lady I spoke with on the phone assured me that speech therapy for speech delay would be covered by our policy if speech therapy was determined to be "medically necessary." So, I scheduled an evaluation of Joe at the speech therapist's office. At the same time, I called ECI to see if we could get on their schedule for an evaluation. They told me that the earliest they could have anyone contact me (contact me, not come out to evaluate Joe) was seven business days from my phone call. Yikes. Seven business days is not much in the grand scheme of things, of course, but to me it was sort of indicative of the whole "state-sponsored" quality of service we'd be getting.
After Joe's evaluation at the private speech therapist, he fell into the "severe speech delay" category of their magic evaluation tools. Which makes sense, since he was completely silent 99% of the time at that point in his development. Actually, to quote the letter the speech therapist sent to the insurance agency: "Joe presents with a severe expressive language disorder...that will not likely correct on its own." (By the way, I'm not naive enough to be ignorant of the fact that the speech therapist has an incentive to write these kinds of reports so that they can get clients whose appointments are paid for by insurance. But try using that kind of logic when it's your own kid's development at stake.)
So we started with the private speech therapist. Unfortunately, it takes them about a month to get their evaluation written, sent off to the insurance company, processed by the insurance company, and responded to by the insurance company. They assured us, though, that almost no one with Joe's level of speech delay gets denied coverage. So, we agreed to pay the speech therapist out-of-pocket for each appointment during that month while everything was getting processed, and the speech therapist agreed to reimburse us everything we'd paid out-of-pocket once the insurance company approved coverage. Joe started speech classes with Kristen, and as you know from being a loyal blog follower, he thrived under her tutelage.
I'm sure you can see where this is going. Six weeks into speech classes, we got the news that the insurance company had denied our claim. "No worries," says the speech therapist, "we'll appeal the decision to the insurance company and they'll probably cover you. Just get a letter of medical necessity from Joe's pediatrician, and send it on over." Okay, no problem.
We head to the pediatrician for a consult about this letter of medical necessity. The doctor asks me a stock list of questions about his speech development -- which basically comes down to "how many words can he say." I was honest (stupid me.), and said that as of that time, after about 7 weeks of speech therapy, he could say about 30 words. The doctor looked at me like I was the biggest idiot and the most paranoid, over-involved mom to ever walk into his office, and said, "Well, then he's on track. He doesn't need speech therapy for speech delay." ...seriously? So no letter of medical necessity from him.
So, to recap: Joe isn't talking, so, according to several different and disinterested medical professionals, he needs speech therapy. Speech therapist evaluates and agrees that speech therapy is necessary. Insurance claim takes time to process, so Joe starts classes before coverage is guaranteed. By the time coverage is denied, Joe has been doing so well with speech therapy that he is now on track to meet his two year old speech-related milestones. So the doctor won't write the letter of medical necessity, which means the speech therapist can't appeal the denial of coverage, which means that John and I continue to pay the ridiculously exorbitant out-of-pocket cost to the speech therapist. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that maybe the insurance company knows that this is the typical order of things, and knows this exact situation will happen in a lot of cases because speech therapy can be so helpful to kids like Joe.
Of course, the reason John and I agreed to pay out-of-pocket in the first place is that we are very, very on board with how important these speech classes are to Joe. At first, this may have been just blind hope in the process, but now the results have been so great (and continue to be so great) that the importance and success of these class is impossible to deny.
So we are left with two poor options. Either we continue to pay almost every cent of our truly disposable income (seriously) to the speech therapist every month, or we sign up for the free state-sponsored ECI services. Which, of course, also entails pulling Joe out of classes at the place where he is currently thriving, with a teacher that he has clearly bonded with (and as you know, Joe doesn't bond that easily to grown ups). And entails rolling the dice on getting someone who may not be as good, and therefore may not be as helpful to Joe.
For me and John, the choice is clear. Our kids are the most important thing in the world to us - more important than wine to John (I know, right?!) and more important than shoes, clothes, and vacations to me. We are fortunate enough to be in a financial situation that even allows us to have the option to pay for private speech therapy. Making the sacrifices for Joe is the easy part.
But my main question, and the reason I've been hesitant to post our experience in this area, is: WHY? Why is this the way our whole insurance situation in this country works? I can assure you I'm neither right wing nor left wing, and in fact I'm pretty politically ambiguous, so please don't think I'm making this a political matter. But our experience with Joe's speech therapy has just been a shining example to me of how our insurance situation is broken. The state obviously recognizes that these developmental delays are an important enough issue that they offer free services to anyone to help fix them (which I know is something that plenty of people will think is a waste of state money in the first place, but again, that's a political issue that is neither here nor there to my checkbook). The insurance company, on the other hand, to whom I pay a ton of money every year in premiums, does not acknowledge that this kind of developmental delay is worthy of their help paying for, even though I pay the insurance company money so that they willhelp me pay for things like this.
Ignoring all the political rhetoric: I pay loads of money to the insurance company so that they will help me pay for the really expensive healthcare stuff that will come up with me and my family. Joe's speech delay is, according to two pediatricians, a pediatric ENT, and a speech therapist, a severe developmental issue. So please fill me in, Aetna: what exactly am I paying you premiums for? Thank you for helping pay for Ian (helping to pay, let's be clear, not paying) but how about next year, when I don't have a baby and, God willing, everyone remains relatively healthy?
Healthcare and insurance are broken. Someone has to fix them. Please do it soon so that I can retire before I'm 95.
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