Cold Spaghetti

Cabinets, cabinets in my room.

Places, finally, for a broom.

My husband is the hottest guy,

’cause he can build ’em up way high.

Ugh.  I didn’t like the pictures when they were big (it seemed too big) and in gallery mode they aren’t even.  *sigh*

Will’s Summer Camp is a series of four 2-week sessions. At the end of each session is an afternoon performance from each class. Last Friday was the first. Will’s class, the 4-year olds, sang “Bonjour” to open the show to a standing-room-only crowd.

Will walked in hand-in-hand with the little girl on the right. He left hand-in-hand with the little girl on the left.
Will was pretty animated before the song started. But when the singing began, his little mouth barely opened. He completely clammed up. Later that day, he sang the song for us (with hand motions). Although he had the tune, it seems like he is not quite sure what the words are and that this is the reason for his hesitation. It must have made him feel uncomfortable? Since Paul and I won’t begin our French until the fall, we can’t help him out too much. His teacher will send home word-sheets next session so that we can help him a bit more.

But he is rolling with it pretty well, all things considered.
When they were finished (45 seconds after the song began), we filed out into the hallway to let other parents take our spots to see their kids perform. Lucky us, because we got to follow Will back to his classroom and get this cute shot:
Which Will quickly altered to our amusement:

In Kate’s classroom, there is a poster with drawings of faces reflecting different feelings, a face drawn in a frown to be sad, a face with furrowed brows for angry, a face with squinted eyes and wavy mouth for frustrated and so on. As part of their daily activities, the kids use Polaroids of themselves and place them beside the face that matches how they are feeling. The exercise helps them identify what they are feeling, normalize it within the context that we all sometimes feel this way, and then give occasion for discussing how to deal with these emotions.

I am doing my best to be an adult and deal with my emotions in a rational way, but I admit that I do not always succeed in this effort. I’ve said it before, by definition, I am just Too Much. I love too much, believe too much, trust too much, and give too much. And when I get burned, I feel angry, disappointed, frustrated, and hopeless — and, characteristically, I feel all those things too much. And now, although I’ve named everything I am feeling, I still don’t feel any better. It’s no wonder that Kate does this exercise everyday in school and still throws things when angry. Right now, throwing something (preferably at someone) would make me feel better, too. Mental note: remember how hard this is next time the kids try to destroy each other.

Yesterday, we got notification from Humana (our current health insurance provider) that the family insurance plan we requested had been denied — or, at least, parts of it had. Plans were offered to Paul and Will, but not to Kate and I. This is after spending more than an hour, during the bedtime rodeo!, on the phone with a nurse representative going over 10 years of medical history for all 4 of us, including Every Single claim for a doctor’s visit or a prescription. Looking back on my notes for the week, I see that I’ve spent about 12 hours on health insurance research, phone calls, and applications. And now we have to do it again.

I can almost see how they might deny me. I have allergies, my BMI puts me in the “overweight” category and I have a prescription for acne treatment. Definitely an insurance risk, me. But Kate? She’s 2 and has had maybe 2 prescriptions in her life (one for thrush, one for her ear infection earlier in the year). It makes me feel better to say that they are women hating and leave it at that.

Today, Paul began to pursue getting our life insurance policies in order. So this morning, I spent 54 minutes on the phone giving medical history which will influence both IF we can actually get life insurance for me and HOW MUCH it will be when we do. One of the questions was if I had ever been denied health insurance. Following up this invasive interview, which included a 10 minute line of questioning about the fact that I see a dermatologist for the acne that I’ve had since puberty, someone will call me within the next 2 days to schedule a blood draw, urinanalysis, and height/weight check. For life insurance.

What the whole experience has shown me, for one, is that I do not ever want to see a physician ever again for anything. That preventative care is a BAD IDEA if you want to coverage for anything. Want or need a prescription? Steal it or cross a border. In short, the smart thing to do is to avoid the medical establishment all together, because anything you do can and will be held against you.

University of Michigan, the source of my graduate training, recently had articles about health insurance in it’s School of Public Health alumni magazine. Several of our illustrious faculty discussed the insurance industry and how it’s not that bad, it actually works well, and it keeps costs relatively low. I remember reading it thinking that maybe the arsenic in the city’s water supply had gone up dramatically or perhaps the legalization of marijuana had finally been passed. Academics are the most famous Mr. In-Between-ers on the planet, being completely unable to commit to a solid ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on any topic, so it makes sense that someone would try to balance out arguments against the way insurance companies work. But I also noted that the faculty who were the most supportive of the current system were also consultants to big insurance companies.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I know this is suppose to help, but all I really want to do is find someone to call a douchebag. Ah, it felt better just to type the word.

Thank you, Robin.

“Daddy, can we go to the place that’s spelled W – O – W ? I love their cheeseburgers. They are soooo good, I think I like them, too!”

I consider myself to have been a pretty darn good pregnant woman. I generally did all the stuff one is suppose to do and held a reputation for being good natured and easy going. This is despite spending virtually all of my second trimesters of both pregnancies in hot Central American and South American (respectively) summers with no A/C. (And for the first pregnancy, spotty running water and electricity.)

My caveat to all of that is to say that it’s hard to complain about discomfort when you work in remote clinics, the kind that are miles and miles by dirt road away from advanced medical care, and see women peddling bicycles uphill, in active labor, to deliver their babies without anesthetic… it just puts it all in perspective.

And then there is my friend Robin. Robin, who is in the third trimester with her second baby and just ran a half marathon. No, scratch that, ANOTHER half marathon. Not to be confused with the triathlons she competed in during her second trimester. Oh, and did I mention that she did it in Dhaka, where it is about 345 degrees out with 170% humidity during the coolest part of the day? The Asian version of Runner’s World even published an article she wrote about running in Dhaka, which features her running while 24 weeks pregnant. Go Robin!

This morning, Paul and I dropped Will off for his Alliance France summer camp, the first step in his transition to Kindergarten, which happens the day after Labor Day.

Which means that last Friday was his last day at Abeona.
While we were in Peru, Emmy took Will and the other kids moving to ‘big school’ to lunch at the sushi place across the street from the school, Ninja. She kindly sent us an email about how great the kids were at lunch at how much they enjoyed it; Will tells us regularly how much he loves “shush-she.” A few days later, the school had a ceremony for the kids graduating from pre-school, but Will wasn’t there. So on Friday, the school held another little ceremony for Will.

First, the twos and preschoolers lined up with flowers and streamers waving. Then, they sang “You are my Sunshine” (note: one of the teachers, a professional musician/singer, would sing this to the kids at naptime and I forever hear her voice in this song). Then Will and Emmy came hand and hand down the ramp (yup, that ramp that Paul mobilized in construction). At the end, she read a certificate written just for Will about his special talents — all the ones that she has so lovingly taught us to see and appreciate beyond what we would have otherwise seen — and gave Will a huge hug.
But it didn’t end there. As if I, the woman who cried at the end of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (they were so patriotic at the end) and, more recently, over Herbie: Fully Loaded (Dad, seriously, let her race!) and don’t even get me started on how weepy I get over Oreo commericals!.. as if I need more reason to cry over such a simple and sweet sentiment. Emmy then whips out a certificate for me — me?! — to thank me for ‘having shared and captured so many ordinary and extraordinary moments through your photographs’. Totally caught me off guard.

Paul and I are still at odds with all the changes this summer. Our family at school has been the source of so much strength and goodness through these difficult few years. It feels like something very special is ending and will never be the same again; the whole world changing with the growth of our children and shifting of our lives.

M: “So, Will, tomorrow is Father’s Day. Should we do something special for Daddy?”

W: “YEAH.”

M: “Do you have any ideas on what we could do?”

W: “I KNOW. We could build a T-Rex and all the dinosaurs that aren’t alive anymore out of wood and then give Daddy a button that he could push and allllll the dinosaurs would open up their mouths and go ‘ROOOOOAAAAAARRRRR.'”

M: “Wow. Well, what about for PapPap?”

W: “What kind of stuff does he like?”

M: “I don’t know, what do you think he likes?”

W: (thoughtfully) “Ummmm… probably he’d like something small. Like a Pterodactyl.”

I learned of these gems through a few of the feminist websites I troll. Clever and way funny, all of them…

…on how yogurt ads are targeted to women (it’s the only food acceptable for us disgusting females to eat)

…on wedding shows and the promotion of women as selfish children (even by, or maybe especially by, We!)

…on the political wooing of women’s votes (we’re all free now, considering we were all in for Hillary, since she is a woman, too)

I’m surfing around while waiting for pictures to load on Smugmug. More trip pictures really are coming soon…

1 wedding.
0 honeymoons.
9 addresses.
2 Master degrees.
2 bouts of unemployment.
50, then
20, then
10, now
5 (?) pinball machines.
4 Michigan winters.
2 kids.
3 houses.
5 countries.
3 continents.
(almost) 1 PhD.
4 promotions.
1 cat on a farm,
1 cat in the back, and
1 cat at our feet.
1 Natural Disaster, followed by
1 Big Flood, followed by
2 months of wandering.
Thousands of really bad jokes that always make me laugh.
1 really good Anniversary gift, followed by
7 years of none.
Hundreds of diapers.
Countless nights with no sleep.
A ton of family dramas.
Many celebrations.
A million happy memories, with
A billion more to come.

Happy Anniversary, Pancho!