Me Again

We have been having many ups and downs over the last many weeks, and I am glad to report that this week has been a good one. After much deliberation, I decided to withdraw all four of my kids from the second session of their summer program. This was a hard decision as it is a 3 week session all morning. Good "mommy alone time" as I like to call it. I was tired of having to wake them up in the morning, and very tired of the battle with Akila each morning to get her to go. Worse than the school year.







So, we have had a good week because we have been keeping really busy; and even better, I have worked out twice. Monday morning we went to the health club (the kids love the child care center, thankfully) and on the way home, stopped at Hezekiah's lake (Lake Calhoun) and were at the beach for over 3 hours. My kids middle names are all after Minneapolis lakes, Hezekiah Calhoun. Fun. On Saturday, I took the kids to Zeke's beach (Cedar Lake) and we stayed for 5 hours, it was amazing. They were all really good. Two minor incidents with Akila as she was convinced that Zeke had stolen some of the rocks she had collected. I think the folks at the beach were bored and enjoyed the little entertainment show that she put on for them as she raged over a rock. But it was short lived, and I can deal with that.







Now today, it is stormy outside and Akila has been pretty good so far, and it is 10 am. I'm hoping it doesn't get too stormy, as she will lose it then. I signed the kids up for 3 field trips each last night, Akila for 4. That is a total of 13 field trips, and the average cost was $6.70/field trip. Not bad. They're going to a Twins baseball game, Lake Elmo Lake Reserve, a pool and Akila will be going to Wild Mountain water park as well. Imani told me she didn't want to go on all of them so she and the boys could have some non-Akila time. Mature little 8 year old.







All winter I look forward to spring when the kids can get outside and play. Today, I'm almost relieved it is raining so the kids can't play outside with neighbor kids. That by far has been the most challenging thing with Akila this summer. Within our own household, I am constantly having to deal with conflict between Akila and the other 3 kids. Now I get to deal with it between her and about 6-8 neighbor kids and my other 3 kids.







And she rages over the goofiest things. Last week one day, she wanted me to talk to a neighbor kid who was saying "I don't care" to Akila when Akila was bragging that her cousins were coming over. I try to tell my kids not to say "I don't care" and the dreaded "whatever" to other people. I have explained that this is a rude comment and that you just say something like "oh" when someone is telling you something you're not interested in. So Akila thought I should be telling this little girl that it wasn't OK to say that. I explained to Akila that it is something I teach my own kids not to say, but it is not the type of thing I can be reprimanding neighbor kids for. Understand, I probably come off as the neighborhood witchy mom, as I am about the only one who checks on the kids or does any kind of policing. In North Mpls, you don't see much parenting going on, or good parenting I should say.







Anyway, Akila couldn't stand it and went nuts because I wouldn't talk to this little girl. Situations like this happen several times a day, when we are home and playing outside. When it gets to the point where Akila has to come inside to take a break from playing outside, she can't handle it. She wants to sit in the front of the house and yell out the windows at the other kids. And the kids all play in our yard or on the sidewalk in front of our house. On Sunday evening, Akila had been so mean and out of control, that I told this one group of 3 sisters who live at the other end of our block, to go down and play by their house and if they started coming toward our end of the block, I "shooed" them away. I explained several times that I was not doing it because of anything they did, but because Akila was being so mean and I wanted to protect them. I'm pretty sure they thought I was nuts. I was waiting for their folks to come down and ask me who I thought I was to say where their kids could ride on the sidewalk. Thankfully they didn't.







I have partially not had time to blog the last few weeks as I was working on the fall brochure for the dance studio(where I work part-time) and that went out in the mail this week. Now I'm busy fielding calls and taking registrations. Not much fun, but a little extra cash. I have also been enjoying my spare time by spending it on the phone with insurance and pharmaceutical companies. I mentioned that we are probably going to start Akila on growth hormones due to her Turner Syndrome.



These injections are pretty spendy and our insurance told Pfizer Pharmaceutical that we don't have prescription coverage. I wondered if this was why I had paid about $115 for Akila's new Rx for acid reflux med a few weeks before, and on the very day Pfizer called, I had been to CVS to pick up a Rx for cold sores that I get from time to time, and it was $207 so I said no thanks. I called Blue Cross up and they told me they weren't being covered as we had not met our deductible. This about sent me in a rage. As you may remember, I celebrated when we met our $3,000 deductible. I calmly explained this to the lady, who put me on and off of hold several times. Then told me that for some reason, the company they subcontract to do the Rx junk, had a system problem that wasn't recognizing that we had met our deductible. They would investigate it over the next 3-5 days and get back to me.

I looked up or benefits and found that after we meet our deductible, they cover between 45-65% of the Rx with a max of $75/Rx. I realized we had been charged too much on probably 4 or 5 Rx's over the last few months. Two weeks later, I finally called these turkeys on Monday as I had not heard back on their "investigation". After being on and off hold forever, they told me it was resolved and I would be getting a refund check. Can't wait.

The best is that on late Monday night, I felt the tingle of a cold sore (again) and I didn't have this stupid Rx as I was waiting for this junk to be resolved. So yesterday I called CVS and had them run it again and it was coming at over $120 now. What!!!!! So I called the company (Medco) that BC contracts, after dinging around on one of those annoying voice activated systems and getting hung up on, they told me it was BC's problem. I dialed BC and then had to break up an Akila fight. Got back to the phone, made the call, entered a thousand ID numbers and waited around, to be told that they were closed. I'm trying to get the strength up right now to call them. Annoying.