Week 164

April 18-24

So this week we made a trip to see the pediatrician.  FINALLY!  Yeah, my kids haven't been to the doctor in awhile.  Jack hasn't been since he turned 2 years old.  Which technically is normal since there are no well-baby appointments in between 2 and 3 years so that is fine.  Abel hasn't been since his 2 week check up.  Not so normal since there is a 2 month, 4 month, and 6 month check up.  No bueno.  Abel is 7 months.  He has had some of his shots due to our trip to the health department.

The first part of this post I want to talk about our checkup.  The second part of this post I feel like I have to give a little excerpt on healthcare today according to me.  Yeah wine is fueling this post so it should be a good one. Haha.

So to start with the appointment.  Abel had his "6 month checkup" at 7 months of age.  He is 23 lbs (97.5% for 7.4 months) and 29 in (95.6% for 7.4 months).  Big boy.  I was super concerned about his weight.  I know based on knowledge, my nursing background, and personal reading that breast fed babies are large.  I know that he has a decreased risk of being obese when he is older.  But when everyone you know tells you he is huge, and he is, you doubt yourself.  I asked the doctor many times if his weight was okay.  He reassured me multiple times that Abel is a healthy, normal, breast fed baby boy.  He meets and even exceeds all of his expected milestones.  The doctor was very impressed with him.

Jack is 37.5 lbs (90% for 3 years old) and 39 in (80% for 3 years old).  Apparently the new thing is to check a blood pressure and a cholesterol starting at age 2.  My mom was appalled.  I explained to her that childhood obesity is an epidemic in this country.  There are SO MANY obese children.  Kids are eating more fast food, microwaveable food, and junk food than ever before!!!!  Jack was perfectly normal.  His cholesterol was way below the normal.  His blood pressure was fine.  He peed in a cup.  Yeah, my little baby peed in a cup on command.  I was so proud of him!

Both kids surpassed all of their milestones as far as expected development.  I am so very blessed to have two healthy, happy kids.

The reason my kids have not been to a pediatrician in 6+ months (yeah I know you are all curious, especially since I am a nurse and I know how important these visits are) is that we have not had health care for a little gap in time.  Let me backtrack.  From the time we were married up until October 15, 2011 we had full blown healthcare.  Ed was in the Navy full time so we were not only covered...but we didn't pay for anything.  Literally.  This is the experience I was familiar with prior to getting married because my dad was also in the military.  You basically don't pay for anything.  If I chose to fill a prescription outside of a military base I might have to pay a small fee.  When I say small I'm talking <$10.00.  I am not used to worrying about healthcare.

Fast forward to when we moved here.  Luckily I had Abel in the middle of September.  We knew our insurance would end October 15th.  Yeah we planned that one closely.  We barely made it through his initial checkup with the pediatrician.  We had to pay for his follow up x-ray to make sure his right clavicle (collar bone) was healing from breaking it at birth.  The x-ray was done on October 17th and even though we were told the follow up x-ray had already been paid for, we sure were charged for it.













So after our insurance ran out we were kind of stuck.  We were at a loss.  Neither one of us had ever really had to pay for health insurance.  At the moment it ran out neither one of us was employed.  WTH?  We had two kids and no health insurance.  We started researching a little and found that we did not qualify for medicaid.  Well it's a sticky situation.  We technically qualified because to get it a family of four had to make less than $932/month and we did not have any income.  Sounds great, like we should have just signed up and taken our kids to the doctor, right?  Yeah, okay.  Well I looked up how to "prove" that we qualified and it basically said you would have to bring in your tax return.  Well that was based off of both of our full incomes which is well over the minimum.  They would have laughed in our faces.

We were stuck.  We couldn't qualify.  Thank goodness we had saved up a bunch of money to cover us if we needed it.  In the meantime, what were we to do about our kids?  We decided to get our family health insurance through a private provider.  We did.  It definitely cost us.  Basically though this was only for super duper emergencies.  If any of us would have been admitted to the hospital we would have paid a $5,000.00 deductible and our bills would be covered in full.  For three months of coverage this was well over $3,000 before the $5,000 deductible.  I got some slack for not taking Abel to his well baby check ups.  I can totally appreciate the concern, but when you are a family trying to stay above water, unsure of when you will get a job, paying this amount of money for emergencies...you aren't about to pay full price cash value for a well baby checkup.



 This involves the following: a head to toe assessment, questions concerning growth and development, measurements, immunizations.  Head to toe assessment is pretty well covered by a board certified pediatric nurse with 5 years under her belt.  I "head to toe assess' many, many, many babies every single day.  I think if something was glaringly wrong I would bring my child in to be seen.  Trust me, I would bring my child in to be seen if I even slightly questioned anything.  Growth and development is another thing I feel I am qualified to assess.  This is part of our assessment as a nurse.  I am familiar with what a baby should be doing.  If I have a question I look it up.  Luckily I have been blessed with smart children who have met their milestones easily.  Measurements are easy.  Again, a nurses job in the office/hospital setting.  I can measure a head circumference, length, and weight.  I can also look it up on the most current charts and see where the kids are.  No problem.  Last, but not least immunizations.  What a pain.


When it was time for Abel's 2 month shots I called the health department.  I got an appointment.  He got shots.  No problem.

When it was time for his 4 month shots I got the runaround.  What a pain in the ass.  He is now 7 months and just got his 4 month shots.  Sad for sure.  I called that stupid health department all the time.  They only apparently book 1 month at a time for appointments.  When they are full they stop taking appointments and you have to "call back" for the next time they start filling up.  I must have been very lucky the first time to get an appointment right away because I probably called 8+ times after that and never could get one.

I can't tell you how embarrassing it is to be me and go to a pediatrician with a child delinquent on shots.  Seriously, not having health insurance blows.  It blows.  You feel like such a bad parent.  What do you do though?

Luckily now that I have been employed full time for 90 days our health insurance has kicked in .

Week 163

Apr 11-17

We had a good week.  Ed is on spring break so he did not have to go to classes.  That did not stop him from studying every day.  I guess spring break is different when you are 32 years old as opposed to 21 years old.  Haha!  I planned it so that I would have some days off in a row during his spring break and am currently on a 5 day stretch.  We were planning on going to the beach, but that fell through because somehow the fact that we have a dog slipped both of our minds and we did not arrange care for her.  Yeah, how responsible are we?  At least it was the dog and not one of the kids...

So instead of a mini beach vacay we enjoyed some family time at home.  Probably a good thing anyway because we won't spend money and we did need to do some things around the house.  We got the grass mowed, all the laundry done, house cleaned up, grocery shopping for the week, and managed to squeeze some QT with the kids playing outside.  Now that Abel can sit up without support we spread a blanket out on the grass and let him play with toys.  Jack just runs around the yard and plays with his toys, swing set, t-ball, basketball, anything really.  He loves being outside.

Jack got to enjoy a fun morning with his Auntie Amanda and Uncle Ryan.  They got him tickets to see Disney on Ice-Toy Story.  He had a blast!  Afterwards we all went out to eat pizza at Mellow Mushroom.  Jack talked about Buzz and Woody the rest of the afternoon.  He suddenly started playing with all of his Toy Story toys again too.  I took pictures but they are on Ryan and Amanda's camera and I don't have them yet, will try to add them in later.

Big announcement...we are buying a house!  :)  More to come on that.  Here is a picture of the front of it.  It is BEAUTIFUL on the inside!!

Here are some pictures I took of Abel the other day.  Random fact: this outfit was Jack's but he never got to wear it.  Abel turned 7 months this week and he is such a big boy!  He still breast feeds, but has now started eating baby food 2-3 times a day.  Suddenly in this month he started sleeping through the night.  I mean 8-9 hours through the night...score!!!  It has been so great to get sleep again.  He also sits up unsupported.  No teeth yet.  Sorry this is so random, I am in a hurry.  I really wanted to get this post in though so I can be caught up.

Have a wonderful week!

Week 162

Apr 4-10

Happy Easter!

We had a lovely Easter weekend.  I had to work some of it, but I strategically placed my days so that we could hang out with family and enjoy ourselves.  I worked Friday night, slept Saturday morning until around 11:30.  Ed got me up and we all got ready to go to my Aunt Joan's house for lunch followed by a short walk across the street to my Aunt Ruthann's house for an Easter Egg Hunt and dessert.  The food was delicious!  We had everything good to eat that you can think of for Easter.  The highlight of the afternoon (for Jack at least) was the egg hunt!  My uncle was supposed to bring his two boys, which would have made for a more interesting time, but they weren't able to make it so Jack got to find 60+ eggs all by himself.

It was fun to just relax and enjoy ourselves.  My Aunt Ruthann has a gorgeous backyard that is fenced in so Jack could just run around.  He had an amazing time and didn't want to leave when it was time to go.  Eventually both kids were getting tired (Abel refused to nap due to all of the excitement) so it was time to go home.  When we got home we gave Abel a bath and put him to bed so we could dye our eggs!!

Big boy after his bath!  

Jack was so excited about his kit that Ed had bought him a couple weeks ago.  He had been eyeing it for awhile.  We let him put the vinegar in each cup and then drop the tablets in.  It is a fun science experiment to see what happens.  I was very impressed with him.  With minimal instruction and guidance he dyed the eggs all by himself.  He was very careful not to drop them in the dye too hard so they wouldn't break.  We were so proud of him.

In the middle of dying eggs the dog started barking and whining at the back door.  We all got up to see what was going on in the back yard and saw a bunny rabbit hopping around!!!!  It's hard to see in this picture, but he is right in the middle of the photo.  Jack was so excited, he thought it was the Easter bunny.  Ed and I told him it was the Easter bunny coming to bring him his basket, but since he wasn't in bed he didn't leave anything and would have to come back.  We told him he had better get in bed and go to sleep so the bunny could come back and drop off the goods (we are so mean!).  He finished up his eggs and we put him in bed.

It was super fun putting together the boys' baskets!  Ed's family has a tradition of hiding the basket (which I love) so we carefully placed each basket in a hiding spot that would be slightly challenging, but not too hard for a 3 year old.  Ed put Abel's basket in the fire place and Jack's basket behind the TV (don't look at all the dusty mess back there please!).

The next morning Jack was very excited to find his basket from the Easter Bunny.  It took him a minute, but with some help he found it!  He was so happy!  He kept saying, "Oh wow!  Candy, and toys, and cars, and movies!!  Wow!!!"  It was hilarious!  Needless to say he was a very happy boy.

The candy and baskets certainly didn't end there.  We made some breakfast pizza (yum!) and then Mimi and Aunt Caroline came over with more stuff.  We hung out for a bit and then got ready to go to Grandma's house in Sumter.  There were MORE baskets for the kids (and us) in Sumter.  We have a ridiculous amount of candy.  Apparently there are even more baskets waiting for the boys from my dad and also from Uncle Ryan/Aunt Amanda.  I am candied out!

At Grandma's house we had another awesome lunch (two days in a row, we are so spoiled!) with family.  She had everything you can imagine and then an endless array of desserts.  We had fun spending some QT with Grandma, Big Harvin, Uncle Ryan, and Auntie Amanda.  Jack got to go on another Easter egg hunt.  He is a pro!  We even managed to sneak in a family photo.  :)

After all the Easter fun it was time to pack up and head back to Hopkins because I had to go to work that night.  I was beyond exhausted after a weekend of fun, but it was worth it.  We had such a great two days with everyone!  :)