Only the first time of many that we'll hear these phrases

After being told that we needed change to get candy from the machine (25 cents for a small handful of M&Ms), Little Bit ran across the restaraunt, shouting...

"Daaadddyyyy! I need some monnnnney!!"

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We were waiting to turn left when a Saturn Skye pulled up in front of us. Little Bit piped up from the back seat of the car, with wonder in his voice...

"That's a nice car!"

(Only 3 years old, and he's already noticing cars!)

Happy Birthday, Little Bit!

Who knew three years ago such a small being could hold my heart so tightly? Your birth wasn't the way I "planned" it, but that was just the first parenthood lesson in being flexible. When your father placed you on my chest, wailing and red-faced, I said in wonder, "Hi, there, little one..." You stopped crying and just looked at me. You looked into my heart with those big blue eyes. You knew my voice; you knew me.

Now I look at your long legs, and they are already longer than your whole body was when you were born. I look at your hands which still seem small, but you are learning to build things and draw things and throw things (you've got a rocket arm). You keep us on our toes. You surprise us with your sly humor and your thoughtful sharing. We weather the storms of toddler hood together. Through it all, I'm so glad to be your mother.

A short post

One of our two outdoor cats likes to lie under our cars and also walk on the grass beside the driveway. We always try to watch out for him since he's taken to walking nearer than we'd like as we drive up. If he wants attention, he'll flop down onto the driveway showing his belly for pets. It finally happened. He was walking on the grass, when DH was backing out. Only then he was behind the car before DH knew it. Poor kitty seems to be in some pain (maybe some internal damage?), but no broken bones. We have to just wait and see. I hope he's ok, and that he's just used up one of his 9 lives.

Welcome home

I was away last week on travel for work. The morning I left I had to get up at "oh,god"-thirty in the morning to catch my flight. Later, when Little Bit woke, DH said he started playing with his toys. Then, Little Bit picked up his toy phone.

"I calling Mommy...Hello, Mommy!...I love you. Bye-Bye."

He said hello to me on the real phone later that day and told me he loved me, but the rest of my trip he refused to talk to me on the phone. I shouldn't take it too personally though. He does the same thing to his grandparents when he's watching cartoons.

I missed DH and Little Bit a lot. Little Bit asked about me everyday. Sometimes DH had to carry him around the house in the middle of the night to show him that Mommy wasn't hiding somewhere. Once he knew for sure I wasn't there, he let his dad settle him back to sleep.

Little Bit has the habit of repeating the last word or few words of most anything you tell him. He's repeating the words with a question in his voice. Maybe he picked it up from me. I repeat his words in a questioning voice when I'm making sure I understood (translated) his toddler-ese correctly. The repeating can be cute or annoying depending on how many nerves are left (i.e. "You're getting on my last nerve."). He also prefaces many of his statements with, "Hey, Mommy?" or "Hey, Daddy?" to make sure we are listening to what he's going to say.

DH relayed a variation of this occuring every day I was gone:

Where Mommy?
She went on the airplane, to see the rocket. She'll be back in threeeee days. (Hold up 3 fingers.)
Airplane?
Uh huh.
Rocket?
Yes. Remember, we watched it yesterday. It went "whoosh!" up into the sky!
Where rocket?
It's flying up in outer space. The mommies and daddies on it are working on a satellite. They'll be done soon, and will come back down and go home to their houses.
Flying?
Yep.
Home?
That's right.

When I got home from my business trip Friday afternoon, I found a sick little boy. DH had been watching over him all day. He had a virus and hadn't been able to keep anything down. He lay on the couch watching cartoons. I sat next to him where he could put his feet on me, and I could reach over to pat him comfortingly. I was telling DH about my trip, when Little Bit piped up.

"Hey, Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Stop talking." (Said in the sweetest little boy voice you can imagine)

DH and I fell over laughing. Little Bit was trying to watch his cartoons, and I was talking! Never mind that I'd just returned from being gone all week. I was interrupting his cartoons.

Little Bit had a few crackers and some water before bedtime and was able to keep them down. He woke later in the middle of the night asking for milk. I (silly mommy) gave it to him. He promptly gave it back all over our bed where he was sleeping between DH and I. Welcome home and happy birthday to me. (Yep, it was my birthday this last Saturday. Little Bit's is next week.) Thankfully, Little Bit woke up Saturday morning his usual bright eyed self.

Medical bills could give me night terrors

Little Bit woke screaming last night. We rushed into the room to find him sitting upright in the middle of the bed. He wasn't fully awake and continued to scream, cry, or say, "No!" every now and then. I got him to lie down, snuggled up to him, and tried to comfort him. About 15-20 minutes later, he was finally breathing deeper and obviously in a deeper sleep. My first thought was night terrors. Screaming, sweating, thrashing around, impossible to wake up - yep. Supposedly night terrors aren't remembered the next day. He was his usual bright and happy self this morning.

Medical bills and statements from my insurance for the two ER visits this year have been trickling in. Now we're really seeing the disadvantage of working for a small company versus a big company. My insurance coverage is nowhere as good as it was at my previous job. Based on what my current insurance paid and the bills from the doctors, hospital, technicians, etc, we owe $2000+ for two ER visits! Compare this to the coverage at my previous job: Little Bit spent two and a half weeks in the NICU. We paid $0, even though the total bill for all the NICU costs (room, nurses, doctors, labs, xrays, specialists, etc) and my labor/delivery was about a quarter of a million dollars. Again, we paid zero dollars. My insurance at the time, with the large company I worked for, covered it all.

Daycare has a program that will pay up to $5000 towards the medical bills not covered by personal insurance when a child is hurt in their care. So at least we won't have to try to squeeze $2000+ out of thin air.

The whole "in-network" "out-of-network" thing is a crock, too. The first hospital ER we went to was "out-of-network", so not very much insurance coverage. OK. Lesson learned. We went to a different hospital ER for the second incident. My insurance statements say that the hospital was "in-network", so the only thing to worry about was my deductible. However, the doctor who treated Little Bit's arm at the in-network hospital ER is considered "out-of-network". WTF!? That means we owe the ER doc close to $800. That's bulls---!!!