Aurora Borealis

Last night we had the opportunity to attend a Mass honoring Fr. Fred, the priest who married us.  He is going off to be an Army chaplain.  He spent a couple of years in the Army before he went to seminary and his dad was career Army.  Now he’s going back as a much-needed chaplain.  I read somewhere that the Army needs 300 priest chaplains and has 90.  Fr. Fred’s parish, of course, and we will miss him.  They did a bang-up job at putting together a wonderful send-off, and I’m glad we were able to be there - two kids in tow.  (Yes, Foster Mulan has been here for a week.  More on that later.)

Fr. Fred gave one of his usual strong homilies.  It’s so nice to hear a priest talk about how much he likes being a priest.  And, as was often the case when he was my pastor, some of his message hit very close to home and was exactly what I needed to hear last night.  I’d been in something of a funk since the night before, and an hour of Eucharistic Adoration yesterday morning as part of IHM’s 40 Hours Devotion (in honor of the parish’s 50th anniversary and the building of our new church) didn’t help; but last night finally hit the reset button for me.

Not surprisingly, the Mass went long, and it really pushed Agent Murphy to his limits, given that it started around his normal bedtime.  We thought he might go to sleep, as is fairly typical for him during Mass.  But a new place provided just enough different stimulation (plus it was really warm in there) that he stayed wide awake.  So we didn’t even try to participate in the reception afterwards.  Fortunately, we got in position to be among the first in the receiving line to greet Fr. Fred.  I gave him a hug and shoved the Agent into his arms and snapped a picture before we hit the road.  Now one day when Agent Murphy is old enough to watch our wedding video and says he doesn’t know that priest, we can tell him that he met him once.

Agent Murphy was definitely over-tired.  Riding in the car usually soothes him, but he shrieked for the first half of our 45-minute trip home before finally falling asleep.  So we had a lazy morning today and skipped prayer vigil so we could all catch up on some sleep.

Poor Agent Murphy is starting to understand that he’s at the doctor’s office and what happens there.  Today he screamed when they put him on the scale to weigh him (18 pounds, 8 ounces; 28.5″).  He used to love the scale, but now he knows what’s coming next.  This time it was 4 needle sticks and 1 oral vaccine.  They tell me next time, at 9 months, there’s only one needle stick.

He used to love the paper on the exam table, too.  He’d wiggle around and make it crinkle, all smiles and happy.  Then he got his first batch of needle sticks.  Now he screams as soon as he’s put on the table.  Poor guy screamed when I put him back on the table to get dressed and go home.  I wish he could understand when I say it’s all over and we’re just getting ready to go home.

Doctor’s office should be in a new, larger location when we go in at 9 months, just 1 mile from (and closer to us!) the current location.

My birthday was yesterday, but Mr. Tldz and I went out for dinner on Saturday.  (The restaurant isn’t open on Sundays.)  Yummy Thai food from Phuket.  Leftovers for lunch today.  It was a leisurely meal with no baby in tow.  Yep, it was a big day for Agent Murphy’s half-birthday - he stayed with a babysitter for the first time.  His Aunty M. was nice enough to come over for the evening, and apparently he comported himself well.

Even though it was a day early, I got to open my presents when we got home - Alton Brown’s kitchen manual for organizing our own recipes and kitchen notes and Joseph and Chico.  An authorized biography of the pope for children written from the perspective of a cat he used to own - how cool is that?!?  A quick glance at it suggests it will be a lot of fun and well worth reading.

Yesterday, we enjoyed sweet tea - our first batch of sun tea of the year.  That went along with leftovers for lunch - green tomato pie and barbcued green beans.  Gosh, you’d think I was a Southerner or something!  Then it was homemade pizza for dinner, followed by chess pie.  We also made an egg custard pie for the week, so we’ll be able to compare and contrast the pretty similar recipes.

All in all, a lovely weekend.

In recent weeks, I’ve had niggling thoughs about not having started Agent Murphy’s baby book.  For whatever reason, this afternoon I picked it up and looked at it.  This evening I spent some time picking Mr. Tldz’s brain and started to fill out the basic information.  We need to work on the month-by-month milestones, but at least there’s some information in there now - two whole days before the kiddo’s 6-month birthday.  (6 months!)  I hope that means I’ve avoided complete slacker mother status.

Agent Murphy had his post-op appointment with the surgeon’s nurse practitioner.  Happy to report his toe is healing nicely.  But the whole thing was an exercise in frustration.  We arrived at 11:00 for our 11:15 appointment.  At 11:50, we still hadn’t been called back to an exam room so I said something.  We were taken to a room a few minutes later and were finally seen at about 12:05.  And the “seeing” involved literally about a minute of her looking at his toe.  She could have done what she did in the waiting room for heaven’s sake!

Agent Murphy was a very good boy, but he was reaching the limits of his patience…

We go back in 6 months so they can check for any bone remnant.

C came over with E today.  E’s older brother stayed home with his uncle.  Last time they had a play date, they just looked at each other.  Today they did a little more, but to say they played with each other would be a bit generous.  E is 8 months old to Agent Murphy’s not quite 6 months, but Agent Murphy is bigger.  And perhaps the more dominant one.  He reached over to touch E first, and since Agent Murphy wasn’t wearing any socks of his own, he tried to pull E’s socks off.  Agent Murphy scooted and wiggled all over his mat while E mostly sat there, more interested in watching me than anything else.  Agent Murphy has to learn about sharing.  He took E’s toys and didn’t want to give them back.  It’s good he has a friend to practice with.

The Dog was quite interested in all the goings on and had to be repeatedly reminded to go on her couch and leave the boys be.

…and the sad state of “customer service” and health insurance.

While I’m washing baby bottles, phone rings and I answer promptly only to be greeted by a recorded message from the billing office at the hospital where Agent Murphy was born, telling me they need to discuss an important matter with me and giving a number for me to call back.  Are you kidding me?!?  But I call back, and wait on hold for 5 minutes or so, hearing a friendly voice every 30 seconds or so tell me to “Stay on the line for an important call.”  Finally a live human picks up and says they’re trying to resolve the matter of a small balance on Agent Murphy’s account.  I rattle off the amount we sent in for my care, and the amount we sent in for his.  The man says, “Did you send in a payment or the whole balance?”  I again stated the amount we paid and that it was the balance due.  He then notices that the payment has been posted, but hadn’t posted to the system that places the calls.  I told him he might want to pass on to customer service that I found that system offensive.  I answered my phone, and if the call was so important, someone should have talked to me about whatever the issue was rather than making me call back only to wait on hold.  He said the system is used by many places other than hospitals.  I reiterated that I find it offensive and he should pass that on, because it makes me think about whether I want to do business with this hospital again.

This is the same place that sent us for our first post-service correspondence a letter saying we were late in paying, blah, blah, blah.  I called about that and said this was the first bill/request for payment we’d received.  “Oh,” the woman said, “does it say 115 in the lower left corner?  You should have received a 105, but our system has been having problems and sending the wrong letter.”  Whatever.  We then promptly sent in a payment.  That was for my services.   More time passed before we received a bill for Agent Murphy.  We could have/would have paid our balance right after Agent Murphy’s birth if they could have given us a bill.  Not our problem that they can’t get payment statements out for months and months.  I’m sure it’s at least in part an issue of how slowly the insurance company processes claims - more evidence of Mr. Tldz’s assertion that health insurance is the problem in healthcare.  But then there’s no reason to treat us like we have to be dunned for the money.  We pay promptly when we’re shown a statement of what we owe.

Just another day in another week at the Tldz household.  I’ve been feeling a little headachy and not very productive today.

Agent Murphy took in a pretty full complement of food.  But he was pretty sneaky during what we’re trying to establish as his formal afternoon nap time.  Very quietly, he got on his tummy and turned around in his crib and was trying to figure out how to get to his toys which were stashed down at the foot of his crib.  I peeked in expecting to see my sleeping baby, and was greeted by a big grin instead.  Mind you, this was after he drank his lunch practically in his sleep.  He really struggled to be awake enough to eat.  But he did eventually take a little nap.

Had a phone conversation with K. this evening, Agent Murphy’s godmother.  Good to catch up with her.

Homemade calzones hold up pretty well as leftovers; but they’re better fresh.

Yesterday I cleaned the bathrooms and scrubbed the kitchen floor.  Some of my least favorite chores.  But they earned me a back rub from Mr. Tldz last night.  Lovely.

Today we made it to the prayer vigil for the first time since a few weeks before Agent Murphy’s birth. We attempted to go a couple of weeks ago, but we’d barely gotten on the road when it started pouring. It’s one thing for us to tough it out through the rain, but quite another for Agent Murphy. Today the weather was beautiful.  He behaved wonderfully and had his first chance to play with the rosary his godmother gave him.  But he was a little too sleepy to eat much when the time came.

After a stop at home, we headed off to lunch at Los Bravos with J from my MBA program.  It was her first time to meet the Agent.  As we hoped, he took a nice nap.  Upon returning home, he just downed 10 ounces of milk - his largest intake in a single sitting ever.  And we read about Tootle the train, part of an anniversary collection of Golden Books from J.  Good fun.

Agent Murphy came through his surgery with flying colors.  We are very relieved.  The procedure was quick enough that by the time I pumped milk for his post-surgery meal, I only got half a rosary in before the surgeon came to tell us he was finished.

Agent Murphy hardly fussed at all.  He’s such a good boy!  He’ll like getting back to his regular schedule tomorrow, though.

We get to take the bandage off his foot on Monday, but we have to keep his foot dry until next Friday.