I Heart our Health Insurance

While Andrew is sleeping his nap away on my chest (refusing to sleep on his own bed) and I am refusing to try to work in said condition, I thought I would post ... about health insurance.

I love our health insurance. As kooky as it sounds, one of the reasons I really loved the U of M was the fact that funded graduate students (i.e. research assistants, teaching assistants, and those on fellowship) get free health insurance for them and their dependents. Major reason I wanted to come here - besides the fact that they had really good programs for both of us and we both got accepted with funding. Anyways, our health insurance is not only free but it also rocks.

For example, my entire pregnancy and delivery with Andrew = FREE (plus a $15 copay to inquire my ob-gyn why my episiotomy wouldn't heal).

Andrew's helmet and associated doctor visits = FREE

Well child visits, visits to doctors at the student health center, and routine obstetrical visits = FREE

I appreciate this insurance even on those days or months where the copays start adding up like this month.

Andrew got a cold again this week. Tuesday, standard sneezing runny nose - no big deal right? Wednesday afternoon - a little cough. Thursday morning - a little wheezy, no big deal. By noon, we have a coughing, vomiting, fevering, wheezing, screaming child who is having a horrible time breathing and who is not responding to breathing treatments again. So, again we go to the dr. office and after a nice 3 hour visit, two sets of breathing treatments, steroids, four vomiting episodes, and a nice prescription, we have a somewhat healthy child. So much for going out to celebrate Valentine's day last night.

We almost made it a whole week without Andrew going to the doctor. Almost. So, yeah, the copays for the doctor and medicine are starting to add up, but everytime (which is not often) that I actually see the bill, I thank my lucky stars that we are not footing it. Thank you U of M!!!

So, between Andrew and all my pregnancy visits (oh, right - I am having another boy in July and am trying to adjust to the news .... maybe in another 20 weeks, I will feel exited / ready / etc. for this pregnancy), we average 2 appts at the doctor a week! So, we really love our health insurance.

Swagbucks

I found a great new freebie. Basically Swagbucks is a search engine (I think it uses results from google and yahoo maybe?) that randomly awards you bucks when you search. I have been getting 3 or so a day for the last week. Then you can use the bucks to buy gift cards - 45 swagbucks (I'm halfway there in one week) for a $5 Amazon gift card. I just switched from using google to using swagbucks. Very cool.

Click here to sign up (it uses my referral code - you get extra bucks for referring friends, too).

Andrew is 21 months old!

Well, I guess I didn't take any pictures in the last month (whoops), but here's the monthly update.

Andrew is talking a lot more, although I swear, I understand less and less of what he says because he is adding so many new words and I'm not all caught up. He doesn't say any Japanese words yet, but is saying at least one Bulgarian word and what seems like a Spanish word (I can only guess he learned it from watching Dora at his babysitters ?). He loves to jabber away. He has finally learned some more verbs, like "want" and "play". He loves to say, "Uh oh, no no" from his favorite book, "Baby Says". He also is constantly saying "hand" and grabbing me by the hand and leading me somewhere.

Andrew seems to be much more opinionated now that he is talking more. He is always trying to tell me exactly what he wants, but a lot gets lost in translation and he gets really frustrated and throws these little tantrums. Andrew has become a bit of a drama queen this last week. Whenever you say no or he doesn't get what he wants, he flops on the ground and rolls around a bit. Overall, though he is mostly pretty good.

Andrew finally seems to be getting a little more body-aware. He hates his hands being dirty and wants them washed (a new thing for him). Or maybe he just becoming a clean-freak, to counteract his mom's messy ways. He loves to "wash" the walls and is constantly stealing wipes or toilet papers to wipe them down. He is also a fan of dusting, but this usually deteriorates into playing with the cat and the duster. He still loves throwing away trash. He sometimes even starts putting his books and toys away on his own. He even helps load the dish washer.

He LOVES his fisher price farm more than ever. He also found a play house that Katsu made a long time ago out of popsicle sticks and he loves that too. He gets pretty upset when he loses one of his farm pieces and kept asking me for days where the goat was - thankfully, we finally found it. He also loves to do all his puzzles several times a day. He is a huge fan of bubbles - mainly trying to get the cat to chase the bubbles. He also loves running now and mostly running away from me whenever I need him for something. He loves to run all over the house. He also likes to pretend - especially that he is eating something from a picture in a book or likes to pretend that he is sleeping.

Eating and sleeping are about the same as before. He did finally gain weight though. We had to take him to the doctor after another asthma episode (this one was really frustrating because after breathing treatments, he still wasn't breathing well at all and wasn't eating at all because he couldn't breathe). The bad - they had to put him on steroids for the weekend to help him breathe. But the good - we saw that Andrew definitely weighs 26 pounds. Andrew also LOVES getting stickers at the doctor's office. We still took Andrew to the Super Bowl party, steroids and all. He definitely enjoyed all the snacks, but I think his poor sleep (stimulant breathing treatment + stimulant steroids + not being able to breathe DO NOT EQUAL good sleep) finally caught up with him and he feel asleep on my lap for the last quarter and didn't even wake up with people screaming right next to him. Definitely a first.

Andrew really loves going sledding outside and tromping around in the snow in his boots, but unfortunately it was pretty cold this month and we didn't get out a lot (I just think when the wind chill is below 0, it is too cold). But it warmed up a lot this weekend (definitely not permanent) and Andrew got to go sledding.

Andrew loves going to his class with Daddy on Saturday mornings and started a new one this year - Exploration Zone. They don't do as fun of singing, but Andrew loves all the toys. Funny kid spends half of each class playing with the fisher price little people - I guess he is hooked. He even got to spend all Saturday with Daddy last week when I went to my cousin's baby shower in Columbus.

Andrew still loves nursery. He cheers when it's time to go. He gets very excited every time he sees the church and yells "Church! Yeah!". I am glad he is so enthusiastic, though he is less than enthusiastic about sacrament meeting.

I have been trying to make more of an effort to take Andrew to story-time and the like at the library and book stores and stuff. He is still a little young for preschool story times and Andrew gets bored. Andrew still really really loves books, though, and is starting to enjoy older, non-board books more. His new favorite is "Frog and Toad", which he loves. We read the three books of those we have ALL the time.

It's been a fun month with Andrew. I can't believe he's so old already, but I think the older, the funner.

Andrew is 20 months old

Since I skipped 19 months, it really seems like Andrew has grown up a lot since the last time I wrote.

Andrew is talking so much more than before. He probably knows at least 100 words and seems to be adding and using new ones all the time. I guess you really do hit a language explosion about 18 months. He is starting to say 2 and 3 word phrases (I wouldn't call them sentences without a subject) like "good job", "more rice please", and "play cars". Of course, about half of his words still seem to do with cars and trucks, even when he's asleep! He is also learning polite words. He picked up "bless" for bless you when someone sneezes on his own. After much teaching, he learned please and half the time when he wants something he will just say "please" instead of telling us what he wants.

His new favorite thing is to pretend to talk on the phone: his play one, our old phone, or our actual phone. He pretends to talk to Daddy and Pa and mostly talks about eating rice and playing cars and says, "What?" all the time. He figured out how to make our actual phone ring and then answers it and talks on the phone. He actually answered the phone once this week without me knowing it and said, "What?" My friend thought it was very funny.

For awhile there, his tantrums were very bad. One day, he had two tantrums that were over 30 minutes each! And he could still remember what he was fussing about. Mostly it was because he was tired/hungry, but still. Thankfully, the tantrums have really calmed down and are down to the normal 30 second things. I'm sure it's just a taste of what's in store for the next couple years.

Andrew is finally finally starting to sleep better. He is finally very settled on one afternoon nap that lasts anywhere from 1-3.5 hours. He usually wakes up still tired and cranky and then ends up falling asleep in my arms for another little while. Fine by me - reading time because it's too hard to do real work on the laptop like that. He is still hard to get to sleep (wants us there / takes awhile), but he sleeps by himself in the toddler bed all night and only wakes up once (usually) around 4:30 and needs comforting back to sleep. I don't blame him for waking up because we live like 20 feet from a railroad and the train comes by then (well, twice actually) and blows its whistle SOOO loud. Half the time, people's car alarms go off, too. Anyways ... this is quite an achievement for Andrew and I am so glad he is in a toddler bed instead of the crib.

Andrew LOVES to play, of course. He is starting to get quite imaginative. He got a Little People farm set for Christmas and loves to play with the animals - they dance and walk around, go for trips in his plane, kiss each other, ride on his cars. He also loves to play with his cars, lining them all up or throwing them off the table. He loves to build towers with his blocks and then put cars or people under them or run his railroad tracks under them. He loves to build railroad tracks and run his train on them or send his Little People down the railroad track as a slide. He also loves to read, for as much as 30-45 minutes at a time.

It's been so cold and snows almost every day so I've been very negligent about taking us outside. But this week, I decided that has to change. So each afternoon, we got out for a little 15 minute walk in the snow. Andrew loves to wear his boots (which are really rain boots because I have never bought him snow boots), hat and mittens. (The snowsuit, as you can see, wasn't such a great idea). He hates when the snow gets on his boots but eventually gets used to it (he has to when there's a foot of snow). We even went sledding today! I'm not sure how much he liked that - he said "Whee", but twice was more than enough.

Andrew really loves to eat. He still loves to eat rice, but meatballs have actually surpassed that love. He also can eat more than 6 clementines a day! That's a lot for a little boy. He loves to get canned food from the pantry and tell me he wants to eat it - his favorite is corn, but he likes canned fruit, too. He even has drunk milk a few times! And I think he is growing. He is definitely getting taller and has finally outgrown all of his 12 month clothes. 24 month clothes are still much too tall for pants, but fine otherwise.

He really loved visiting his grandparents for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. He talks about Pa all the time and also loves to look at the collage of family portraits we have above his bed. He likes playing with kids as well, but is still not too keen on sharing. But he loves nursery and the classes that Katsu and he attend together.

It's been a fun few months with Andrew.

Our Trip to Texas: On the Way Back

3 more days of adventures leaving Dec 30th and getting home Jan 1:

Stop One: Hot Springs National Park
We only stayed for an hour, but seeing the steaming hot water come up from the ground was pretty cool - well, actually hot at about 134 degrees. The grounds were pretty, the weather was excellent and touring the historic bathhouse was fun, too.







Stop Two: Bill Clinton Presidential Library and Museum
These sort of museums always seem to be very well done. So, we stopped in and really enjoyed it. Andrew was a little less than impressed, but even with the speed-tour he necessitated, I feel like I learned something and was more appreciative for a lot of the bills that were passed during his era. The coverage (or scanty coverage) of the whole Monica Lewinsky affair was interesting. The museum itself was beautiful.




Stop Three: Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site
After visiting the Civil Rights Museum, we were really interested in seeing the school where rioting over integration was really crazy. Even though the site was officially closed, we took a few pictures.



We stayed the night near Memphis (I think ...) but in Arkansaw. The next day we drove and drove and drove. We stopped at an Old Country Buffet for lunch and then drove and drove and drove through Tennessee and into Kentucky until we finally reached:

Stop Four: Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace and Boyhood Home
We hit the birthplace about half an hour before it closes because you switch time zones back to Eastern right before getting there. We watched a video, same the nice memorial (with a typical, but not the Lincoln's, cabin, looked at the well where they got there water, and then hurried back to the car (it was cold). We drove another 10 miles to the boyhood home (which was closed) and saw the original, but not open boyhood home. A nice stop to commemorate a nice president. Glad I don't have to live in such tiny cold log cabins!





We drove and drove some more to the border right before Cincinnati and found a hotel room, then Katsu drove to Kroger and loaded up on cheese, fruit, and sparkling cider to celebrate the New Years and we cuddled on the bed all 3 of us and watched New Years specials. Katsu had to wake me up at midnight for the countdown (whoops!).

Stop Five: Cincinnati Museum Complex

This old train station includes a Natural History Museum, Cincinnati History Museum and a Children's Museum, so we went and saw all three. The Natural History Museum had some really cool parts - a cave to climb through with water and formations and everything. Andrew LOVED the trains in the History Museum. Andrew loved the Children's Museum with all their fun play centers and especially the water area. We took a little break for lunch and then saw the History museum which had some really really cool train exhibits showing Cincinnati at all different times in history.










Then, we drove and drove and drove until we got home to Ann Arbor!

How to Survive 36+ hours of Driving with a 1 1/2 year old

A portable DVD player.

(also lots of snacks and stopping every 2-3 hours and many many impromptu sing-a-longs)

Between that and lots of TV / movies at Grandma and Grandpa's ...

The following conversation took place between me and Andrew about 30 minutes away from Ann Arbor on the way home:

Amanda: Now that we are home, we will go back to the old rules - no more movies and no TV.

Andrew: (bursts into tears)

In Texas

I am not a big picture taker, especially when I'm at family's being lazy, but we did get some pictures when we went to see ICE - a huge display where EVERYTHING is made of ice. After donning parkas and going into the just above 0 degree room (which Andrew did NOT like), we explored. Katsu even slid down an ice slide. It was way too expensive, but was still fun. Plus, the adjoining hotel had lots of stuff to look at too - a huge tree, a full-size real gingerbread house, and more!

Our Trip to Texas: On the Way

We decided (sort of spur of the moment, sort of not) to take a road trip to Texas for Christmas. Gas is cheap, for awhile anyways. We wanted to get out of the cold. We had time off. Why not? And a surprise visit!!! I have ALWAYS wanted to just "pop" up on my parents doorstep.

We planned on leaving Saturday, but hearing Friday's forecast for another foot or two of snow, I called up Katsu Thursday afternoon and 3 hours later, we were on the road.

Knowing me, we can't just drive straight through - especially with a kid. So, we did the 18-hr trip in 3 days and stopped to see things on the way. Here is the trip down.

Stop One: Mammoth Cave
On a tour with other Michiganders escaping the storm, we climbed through the cave with Katsu carrying Andrew. The 300 or so steps were very narrow, steep, and slippery ... a little harder than the 10-step tour we missed by 5 minutes. But we had a fun time. Andrew even fell asleep at the end.





Stop Two: Grand Ole Opry and Gaylord Opryland
We stopped by later in Nashville. We first stopped at the mall before realizing that was not Opryland (confusing signage) and then saw the site of the Grand Ole Opry and toured Opryland - a huge beautiful resort with lots of beautiful plants and walkways indoors. A fun diversion.



Stop Three: The Parthenon?
Who knew there is a full-size replica of the Parthenon in Nashville?


Stop Four: Civil Rights Museum (Memphis)
This museum is at the site of Martin Luther King, Jr's Assassination. Andrew slept in the stroller through the entire museum, but Katsu and I just LOVED it. I have a totally different perception of race and civil rights now. It really was beautifully done and definitely paradigm-changing for someone like me who wasn't born until after all these things happened.


Stop Five: Graceland
Can you visit Memphis without visiting the King? Definitely expensive and crowded, but I actually enjoyed learning more about Elvis and seeing his interestingly decorated house. Andrew mostly loved watching his horses. Still - the people who come here for a 3 week vacation every year -- crazy!




Finally, we arrived in Texas with my family no where to be seen. So much for some surprise caroling! After a couple hour stop at my friend Crystal's house, my family finally showed up and we surprised them. So you never know who those 11pm visitors on your doorstep may be!

Books ...

So, I've been a bit lazy, but here's somethings that I have read recently ...

First daughter by Eric Lustbader. Interesting with an ending that I really didn't anticipate, but then, on the other hand, it was kind of weird. Basically, the president's daughter gets kidnapped and her friend's father is put in charge of finding her. A thriller, for sure.

Heirloom : notes from an accidental tomato farmer by Tim Stark. I tried to like this one, but it was SOOO boring. But I still love heirloom tomatoes - I can't wait for next summer.

The condition by Jennifer Haigh. I enjoyed this book about a very dysfunctional family. Although it seems that the daughter is the one with the "condition", by the end of the book you wonder if it isn't in fact the entire family who has a condition, diagnosed or not. Some mature content. But interesting to think about the family and how their actions affected those around them.

Sundays at Tiffany's by James Patterson. Umm ... this book was odd. Basically, a little girl has only an imaginary friend for a friend but he has to leave her at her 8th birthday. But then he appears later and they fall in love. Definitely imaginative, but definitely weird.

Everyday blessings : the inner work of mindful parenting by Myla Kabat-Zinn - I more skim-read this book, but I thought it was a little too hippy for me. I like the idea of being totally there when you are parenting, but really isn't it VERY hard to be totally in the moment when you are parenting a toddler. I did like the idea of viewing a lot of monotonous parenting tasks as a chance for meditation.

Where the heart is by Billie Letts. It's been a while since I saw the movie and I saw this on the shelf, so I had to read it. To recap, a young pregnant girl is dumped by her boyfriend while she's at Walmart in Oklahoma and ends up living there and having her baby there. And that's just the beginning. A little odd at times, but I enjoyed the interweaving of all the townspeople and their big hearts.

A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini. I really enjoyed this book a lot! The book is of course very sad and tragic at times. But the writing style was beautiful and the characters were so well developed. Great.

Come on shore and we will kill and eat you all : a New Zealand story by Christina Thompson. I really enjoyed this look at New Zealand, their culture and people, by following the life story of a women who falls in love and marries a Maori. I love reading stories of people like this - who travel to a strange place, end up staying for awhile and marrying someone, and just seemingly bopping back and forth all over the globe. Wouldn't that be SO fun.

Well, that's all the books I seem on my list for now ...

Andrew is 18 months old! (Monday)

Andrew is now 18 months old. Andrew is an intense little kid. This month he seems full of energy. He often will just start laughing for no reason - just throw his head back and laugh and laugh and laugh. He laughs more than any adult or child I have ever seen. He also loves to just run around the house. Of course, this also translates into intensity of other emotions, too. He has started throwing tons and tons of tantrums. Welcome to the crazy 18 month angst. Thankfully, most of the time, his tantrums aren't too long.

Andrew is getting more independent. He got his first chore this month - feeding the cat Joe. He enjoys doing it, but we have to watch him so he doesn't put the dry food in the water bowl and make a grand mess. He also has figured out how to throw away trash. He even does it of his own volition if he finds a piece of trash. Yeah!!! He also is starting to sit on his potty a few times a day. For a while, he actually peed in it almost every day which we thought it was exciting. He at least seems to be more cognizant of that part of his body anyways. Andrew is great at following directions, too.

He is talking even more. He has finally learned some new words for trucks - car, bus, and "bull" which means bulldozer which he correctly identifies and then expects us to sing the "bulldozer" song from YouTube. Of course, he knows all kinds of other words and seems to do his own little make-up talking too. He even hums, too. He is learning all the sounds animals make - "roar" for lion, "ruff ruff" for dog, some "oh oh oh" for monkey. I beat my chest when he sees a gorilla, but he pats his mouth instead, making an indian type of noise.

Andrew still loves to read. I got a Gymboree Toddler play book at the library and he will find the activity in the book he wants me to do. The lady who babysits him is always giving us new (to us) books that her grandchildren have outgrown, so I swear Andrew has at least 50 (or 80, according to Katsu) board books. His favorites are "A Hug Goes Around", "mimichan no dobutsu", "Pete's a Pizza", "Trucks", a Book of Mormon flap book, and all the musical Thomas the Tank Engine books he has.

Andrew really loves Church stuff. He always points out pictures of Jesus ("heezz" is kind of how it sounds). His favorite movie that he is always begging to watch (I would prefer if he only watched TV like 1-2x a week) is Finding Faith in Christ. He LOVES to look at the Friend magazine, almost every day if it is out. And he is obsessed with the new Nursery manual. We look through all the pictures almost every day. He also loves looking through the Gospel Art Kit. The funny thing is that it is all of his own volition - I hardly ever initiate anything.

Andrew went to nursery for the first time on Sunday and did good, I think. He didn't seem to miss us. Of course, he was exhausted because he keeps waking up at like 5:30 am since daylight savings (WIDE WIDE WIDE awake and yelling out "Truck truck truck") and fell asleep at the very end of Nursery class (like last 5 minutes) and then took a 3.5 hour nap at home! Maybe nursery was exhausting. That's probably his longest nap EVER.

Andrew is still pretty social. He loved talking to people when we were trick or treating. He is also pretty cuddly with us and LOVES to hug. One of his books has a picture of a girl hugging her little brother and he will open up that book page and then hug us over and over. Our poor cat probably gets like 50 hugs a day.

Andrew is still obsessed with cars and spends the majority of his day playing with them or reading about them or talking about them or begging to watch YouTube videos of them. He also loves playing outside and walking around, running up and down ramps, and playing on the large rocks around the apartment complex. He has playground-radar and can spot everyone we pass in the car. He also likes putting coins into a piggy bank (really a London double decker bus bank), help cook, and dance (even to hymns at church).

Andrew seems to have gone through a growth spurt last week. He started eating A LOT more than usual. He ate an entire box of raspberries while we were doing a quick shopping trip at Kroger's last week and he had just eaten a large snack, too. Hopefully, that means he will have finally gained weight at this doctor's appt. We'll see. His sleeping is still atrocious. Oh, well - I guess he need some faults.

It's been a fun (and exasperating) month. Way to grow.