Thursday, July 31, 2008

A week of chaos

I am behind in my blogging! You are shocked, I know. OK so really anyone who reads this probably expects this .. but anyway ...
I have a whole week of things to report. Last Friday I took my children to Chuck E Cheese (a place I despise) for my nieces b-day party. That actually turned out well .. only 144 missing tickets with no other catastrophe. Of course these would be Witchlet's tickets and she was only on day 2 of her new meds. Ahhh .. no fun. But it was not too terrible as my mom was very sweet and gave up some wonderful tokens so that the tickets could be won again.
Then comes the joys of preparing for travel. We have not even gone anywhere yet and I am fully exhausted. I made a spreadsheet of everything that needs done. Spreadsheets are my saving grace. I would totally fail without them at just about anything I do. I have been shopping for things we need .. and I keep thinking I am done .. and then think of something I forgot. Over and over again I do this. Then there are the meds. I take meds and Goobie-kins and Witchlet take meds. Normally this would not be a hard thing. Get letters from docs about meds. Simple right? No. Why you ask? Because July 1 was a change in insurance for me. Old insurance covered everything no questions asked. New insurance is not as easy. They want you to try this med before that med .. etc etc. Except I already tried first med and had side effects .. bad ones. So then the insurance realizes this is pre-existing. They say they have no record of previous insurance (funny that they had this last week when I called about approval for my sons meds). So anyway I have to call the old insurance and have them fax this over. Interesting thing .. I had old insurance for over 4 years through my previous job. I never had to call them until I quit my job and got new insurance. New insurance I have had less than 2 months. Several calls into them and several hours on the phone. Anyway I find out tomorrow if my meds are straightened out. There was a problem with one of Witchlet's meds too .. and that I think gets cleared up tomorrow.
Tomorrow I also need to contact the BMV. Now I keep trying to do this. I spend a bit of time on hold and the call disconnects. I tried emailing .. no reply. Basically I have an issue with my license and car insurance. If I can get something straightened out on there I can get much better rates and I would like to save the money .. but since my license expires and my policy expires all in August (of which half of it I will be out of the country) this needs to be done now. And then there is packing. This is not something I have ever done for 3 kids. I have never taken any of them on a commercial flight. With all the security regulations though about what I can bring in carry on and what I cannot, this is stressful. I need milk for the baby. I know I can take formula but she does not drink that. I also know I can take breast milk .. but she no longer drinks that either. So can I take whole milk? I dont know. I know I can take juice .. but in general I dont really give her juice. I guess I try it and hope they do not take it from me. We are trying the tetra packs.
There has been a lot more chaos than this .. and someday I may write about it .. but for now, I think I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day .. and I am sure that there is chaos lurking there.

Friday, July 25, 2008

American Idols

Like every other day of my life, yesterday was busy .. only to complicate things, we had tickets to go see American Idols Live. We wanted to leave town by 4:30 so that we could hopefully get to the Arena by 6:30 as it started at 7. Did that happen? No way! In my chaotic life, absolutely NOTHING goes as planned.

Before I could leave I had to install a car seat in my SIL car. Why? Can't she do this? The answer is no. She would put Butterfly's seat in forward facing and I extended rear face. Also I insist on solid installs .. and this is not likely to occur to my satisfaction unless either a. I do it myself, b. a carseat tech does it, or c. someone as equally picky as me does it. None of those 3 would include my SIL, who is otherwise really good at caring for Butterfly. So this took awhile. And then of course Goobie-kins may be 8 but he is small so he is in a car seat too. For the short trip with SIL, I did let him just use a booster though because I really did not have the time to install the radian. Believe it or not, he prefers to have the 5 point harness. This is because with the boosters he has a hard time getting himself buckled .. yes he IS that small.

So back to the Idols trip. Anyone who has ever driven in Michigan knows that Michigan is just one huge construction mess in the summer (year round in some areas). So basically the part of 75 that runs through Detroit (you know only the MAIN part of 75 in Michigan) is not simply under construction ... it has been blown up .. seriously mounds of dirt almost as high as the overpasses .. in other words, you have to go around .. through detours. This definitely slowed down our progress towards that 6:30 goal. So we arrive and get into the parking garage and we get directed ALL the way up to the top.

We walk quickly across the tunnel bridge to the Arena, by this time I seriously have to pee. We get inside and we are going through security as the announcer comes out and does the show opening stuff. The door is not far from where we need to go to get to our seats and there is a bathroom right there!! So I say something to my husband about going .. somehow he and I were not on the same page. I thought he was waiting for me. I come out of the bathroom and cannot find him .. so I look all around and then think maybe he went to the bathroom too .. wait there a little. Then realize he went without me. I was pretty upset by this. It is halfway through Chikezie's first song when I go through the curtain to where I need to go to get to my seat. There is NO light AT all .. very steep steps that I have to go down (and due to a tumble down some steep steps during my pregnancy with Butterfly I fear steep steps even in good lighting) and NO railing to hold. The steps are 2 sizes .. a big one then a little. And we had great seats. Not on the floor .. but 2nd row pretty close to where the centerline would be for the hockey games. The downside? I had a lot of steps to get down in the dark. I start to have a panic attack. One of the ushers decided she would "help" but she went flying down the steps with her little light that illuminated them for her .. but I could not keep up. I was about a 4th of the way down when the song was over and we got some lights and I was able to get down and to my seat.

I was upset and my husband instantly knew it. He had misunderstood what I was saying. This does happen with some frequency when you marry someone from a different culture who has a different language. It did not take me long to forgive as he was very sincere in his apology and really just misunderstood. The concert in itself was really good and I really enjoyed it. At the intermission I asked him to get me a soda and he did .. and brought me a snack too. Edy's Dibs are quite yummy if you have not yet tried them.

After the concert, we stop at the souvenir table and buy some teddy bears for the kids. Then we get to our van and I have to pee again. I was seriously considering using a cup that was left in the car from Red Lobster. But thought I better not. So it takes forever to really even move at all in the parking garage .. or should I say on top as we were not yet IN the garage.

We get down one level and then this woman gets in front of us and by the way she is maneuvering her vehicle I can tell she is stupid. Finally we go from not moving much at all to making some real progress. We are happy about this. I look at my husband and I said at some point this woman in front of us will stop when she does not have to. She will hold everyone up .. I can just tell. So down on I think level 5, maybe 6 .. there is someone selling T-shirts to people as they drive by. GRRRR .. I seriously have to pee at this point! A car stops. Sure enough ..she does NOT go around .. she stops. My husband was trying to be polite and it started to look like she would go around but she was acting indecisive .. so he went around her ..and it was not long at all after that before we were out of the garage. But all down the street were even more people selling these shirts and lots of people stopping for them. SLOW!!

So anyway, remember that construction? Well we remembered which way we came from and wanted to return the same way .. however there was a lack of lighting and we could not see street signs well so we figured we would just follow the signs to 75. So we are going down a road called Rosa Parks and find the sign to 75 .. says to Turn left. So we do. Then it says Turn left again .. and then again turn left. At Rosa Parks .. turn right. We were going right back to where we came from!!! We had to turn down a road called Fort. Why didnt it just have us turn on Fort the first time (there was a sign there that said to go straight .. so we followed the signs)? The only answer I have to that, it's Michigan. I learned long ago to not expect logic when it comes to driving in Michigan.

It was over an hour before I got to use a bathroom and 1 am before I made it home. And lucky me, I had to get up early this morning to get Witchlet to gymnastics camp. No time for a nap today, and tonight is Bears b-day party at Chuck E Cheese. CEC on a Friday night = Pure Chaos!

Kids, activities, and an extra child.

So all this week, Witchlet has had gymnastics camp. This means I get up early, make breakfast and pack her a lunch and get her to camp by 9 am. Then I have the stuff I needed to do at home, appointments with doctors, lunch for the other kids, naps, and picking her up at 3. To complicate things Goobie-kins is in baseball and the first several games we rained out. His team already plays 2 games a week but now they are playing 3!! I also had my niece, Bears staying with me on Tuesday and Wednesday because her parents were remodeling her room as a birthday present to her. On Wednesday the kids wanted me to take them to the zoo. I had to stop at the zoo to pick up Bears birthday present after an appointment on Wednesday and learned 2 things. 1. The zoo was packed that day!!! and 2. I would have to park about a mile away and I really did not want to walk that with 4 kids! So I compromised with them (sometimes you can do this) and said that since we have a zoo membership and can go anytime, why dont we take this extra money I had in my pocket (I NEVER carry cash) and go to the movies!! Now I rarely take my kids to the movies .. so for them this is a major treat. So my husband kept the baby home while I took the other 3 kids to the movies and we saw WALL-E. Very cute movie. It has so far been a very busy week! And of course .. it isnt over yet.

Billing Issues

So Witchlet had some appointments to clarify her diagnosis at the behavior health center. These all occurred in June and I was waiting for results for what felt like forever. Finally I find that the billing department put a block on my account not allowing me an appointment because I owed $462. Now my insurance had already told me they would pay most of this so I called to find out why it was not paid. They said the claim was never submitted. So I call the center and ask why it was never submitted. They said most insurance wont pay for testing. So I said but mine said they would, please submit it. They refuse. Tell me submit my bill to Insurance. So I do that. Insurance says that bill does not have any of the information they need and not only that it does not even have the logo of the center .. (basically it looks fake .. I agree with them on this). I call center and again request they submit the claim because their statements look fake and insurance wants something that looks official .. they refuse. I talk to the doctor herself (she is getting increasingly concerned about my daughter and asks if there is anything that she can fill out to help so we can get around the billing department). I find a claim form online. We discuss the feasibility of me paying the bill and submitting the claim form to be reimbursed. I pay the bill and send her the form through email. She filled it out (this is the exact same form that billing department refused to fill out) and I mailed it myself. Why was this so hard? I have no freaking idea. Some stupid policy about not wasting time on a form that most likely wont get paid. However they wasted over an hour on the phone with me arguing about a form that took the docter less than 2 minutes to fill out.

So now we have a little bit better understanding on what is going on with Witchlet and last night we started her on new meds. Hopefully these help her out. I know life it very hard on her. She has had so many traumas and now has little control over herself. Her father is not exactly very supportive of her .. and at her age she is seeing this so clearly (and the tests confirmed this). So in therapy she will be working on gaining that control of herself and in feeling safe. The feeling safe part is really hard for her.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Just another day

For the most part today was uneventful if you discount the storms and tornado warnings and such. A day with no chaos at all? IMPOSSIBLE.

Anyway I thought that we had averted a day without crisis but after dinner Witchlet asked to go talk to one of her friends .. well it turns out all the girls in the neighborhood are at a slumber party and she was not invited. She is heart broken. So now we are planning to let her have her own slumber party 2 days before we leave for Sweden so that maybe by inviting these girls to a party .. she will get invites in the future.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Midnight Drives

So last night my ex called and he was arguing with my 11 year old daughter and wanted me to come and get her. I will admit she can be a pain .. she has been through a lot and does have some mental issues that we are trying to get a diagnosis on so we can treat them. However, he never deals with her. He just sends her back home whenever it gets hard. So last night at midnight Butterfly and I go on a trip to pick up Witchlet (I have not called her that in years actually but it used to be what I called her :P ). The reason I was taking Butterfly is that she was refusing to sleep and my husband needed to work today so he needed to get to bed.

So anyway, she is screaming before I get out of our driveway. 10 minutes later I decide to stop at the only store that is open along the way and buy a new sippy and a drink for her. They do not have the kind of sippy cups that she likes and the one I choose is not good enough. She screams at least 15 more minutes of the way to Witchlet's father's house .. which btw is close to an hour away .. though it wasn't quite so long since it was night time and no traffic.

So I don't really mind picking up my daughter. It does really bother me though that whenever things get hard my ex gets all immature and decides he does not want to be a parent anymore. He actually said yesterday that he does not care if he never sees her again. WTF? This is not the first time he has said that .. and what kind of person tells an 11 year old that he does not want to be her father anymore?

Sunday, July 6, 2008

3 weeks alone

I know I have been terrible about blogging. I really do mean to blog regularly .. at least once a week .. but I just have not figured out how!!

My husband left on Father's Day for a business trip that took him back to his home country for nearly 3 weeks!! At the same time Butterfly started getting extremely mobile. She is everywhere. I am constantly chasing her down. The older 2 kids have a ton of activities that keep me going all the time. And this house is just a lot of space to clean. I also have not been caught up with laundry since we moved here. I am 3 loads away though!!! Yay!!

Once the laundry is caught up I really need to spend some time on the garage. Basically I would like a really nice clean organized house to leave behind when we go on vacation in August. I also need to start preparing for that too.

Right now I am focusing on getting my cloth diaper stash up to par and then also looking into becoming a pampered chef consultant.