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Sick Kids are No Fun
Boy, Robbie sure had a rough day yesterday. After a promising start, he spent most of the day as a ragdoll on the couch. He didn’t even have the energy to sit up by himself. The worst came around dinner time when his fever peaked at 104.5. Fortunately, it dropped after that, and by 10:30 it was down to 99.5. This morning Robbie seems to be fever-free. He still doesn’t have the energy to walk very far (or even the ability to stand still without wobbling), and he’s only about 50% of his normal self. But he’s doing better.
Now the countdown is on for either The Missus or me to end up just as sick. The Missus already has a cold, so I think I’ll be the lucky recipient of the full shebang. If you enjoy your health, you may want to stay away from me for a few days.
You Know There’s a Bug Going Around When…
...the entire family is still in bed at 7:30 a.m. I ended up getting up and not feeling half bad. The Missus just has a bad cold. Robbie—who spent almost all of yesterday afternoon and evening in a semi-conscious daze—finally woke up relatively chipper, though his fever is still around 101.
The Wilsons have had a pretty healthy winter, so we can’t really complain. I just hope we’re all in tip-top shape for this weekend’s good weather.
The Latest Lincoln Soccer News
A couple quick soccer-related notes:
First, tonight is a mandatory soccer rules meeting for anybody who wants to officiate varsity high school soccer matches this spring. The meeting is at 7:00pm at East High School. We are always looking for new referees, so if you’ve ever thought about reffing soccer, now’s a good time to get started. If you can’t attend tonight’s meeting, there’s another one tomorrow night at Omaha Westside. If you want to ref at the sub-varsity level, the meeting is not required but I recommend it anyway. As always, if you’re interested in reffing soccer at any level in Lincoln, drop me a note and I’ll help you get started.
Second, all you adult soccer players out there will want to know that a new adult league is on its way to Lincoln. The details aren’t yet set in stone, but the Midwest Amateur Soccer League (MASL) could be up and running as soon as April 1. The first season may have as many as 32 teams, and should feature Division 1 and Division 2 competition. (Lincoln hasn’t had a D1 league in many years.) Where is Lincoln going to get that many teams and that level of competition? League organizers have cast a wide net, and they’ve made some pretty interesting catches. If you’re a soccer player, keep a lookout for more information.
Sunday Conversations with Robbie
I haven’t posted a video of Robbie lately, so here’s an “interview” with Robbie from earlier today:
The interview covers a wide range of topics, including animals, Robbie’s favorite people, and words you really shouldn’t say in a video that grandmas and grandpas will be watching.
An Adoption Mess
Here’s a nasty little adoption-related scenario playing out in Nebraska:
An adoption agency [Nebraska Children’s Home] and birth mother want to take back a 3-month-old baby boy from a couple who wanted to give him a home, after learning that the adoptive mother was pregnant.
The 22-year-old biological mother says in court documents that she wanted the parents who adopted her son to not have their own biological children. She wanted them to either raise her son alone or adopt more kids if they wanted to expand their family.
But Jason and Angela Vesely say they didn’t purposely hide Angela’s pregnancy when they applied to adopt a child. They say they were never asked if she was pregnant by the private agency and didn’t know it had rules against applying mothers being pregnant.
Yikes, talk about a situation with no winners. It isn’t unusual for Nebraska Children’s Home to have a policy regarding an adoptive mother’s pregnancy status or the adoptive family’s number and age of current children. That’s all par for the course. What would be unusual is if NCH didn’t make its policies crystal clear.
There was no mistaking our agency’s policy: if The Missus were to get pregnant before the placement, we would be dropped from the waiting list. It’s not intended to be a punitive policy, nor is it to prevent families with biological children from adopting. It’s simply about ensuring that a newly adopted child receives the attention he deserves; it’s very difficult to give that attention if two new children are battling for the parents’ focus.
Unfortunately, the LJS article creates more questions than it answers. Was it an open adoption? (The fact that the mother’s name appears in the article leads me to believe that it was.) Has the adoption been finalized? (If so, that was very speedy.) I could go on and on.
Child custody cases are rarely pretty, but they are often fascinating. I, for one, hope to keep an eye on this case because the end decision could potentially have interesting implications for all adoptive parents. Any case that is perceived to hurt adoptive parents has a chilling effect on adoptions. The biggest losers are usually domestic and open adoptions, two areas that most adoption proponents are trying to strengthen.
Yakkity Yak
I don’t think I’m ready for Robbie to speak.
In some ways it’s great. I ask, “Robbie, what would you like for lunch?” And he responds, “Pea buh” (peanut butter). How handy is that?
But in other ways, it’s not such a good thing. I can’t even think words like “damn” or “stupid”, much less the fouler nouns, adjectives, and verbs, without Robbie picking up on them. Sure, it’s hilarious for a few moments to see your son walking around the house saying “damn damn damn damn”. But then you realize you’re leaving for your parents’ house in five minutes…
It really is amazing how quickly his vocabulary is expanding. For a long time his only recognizable words were “uh oh” and “Daisy”, not to mention the dreaded “No”. Now he uses new words every day. Like “skiving” (Thanksgiving), which he uses to refer to a certain photograph on the wall. And today for the first time he referred to the hand mixer as “beats”. Every time my mom watches him for us, she asks, “When did Robbie learn [some new word]?”, and more often than not, we didn’t even know he knew that word. It’s incredible.
It’s also amusing to watch Robbie begin to test his boundaries. He might try to put his feet on the table while he’s eating, for example. We’ll say, “No no, Robbie. No feet on the table”. So then he tests us. He’ll hover his foot over the table, or he’ll graaaadually lower the foot off the table until he gets the sense that he’s in the safe zone. The little turkey loves to find the boundary between allowed and forbidden.
Robbie is beginning to sing as well. So far “EIEIO” (Old MacDonald), “round round bus” (The Wheels on the Bus) and “ba ba BEANS” (Beans! by The String Beans) are his favorites. I especially love it when he tries to sing the Beans song. Unfortunately, it has not spurred an interest in eating beans.
Physically, Robbie has been near the head of the class. He keeps up with older kids at the playground, at the YMCA, and elsewhere, and they seem to really enjoy playing with him. As a result, it’s easy to compare Robert to older (2 and 3 year-old) kids. It’s difficult to believe how much Robbie is going to change in the next few months. We’re going down to Albuquerque in May for my sister-in-law’s un-wedding (long story). Robbie will have just turned two. Even though it’s only 3 months away, I can tell by watching other kids that Robbie will be much different by then. Grandma and grandpa will be shocked.
Worth Every Penny
I’m getting a jump start on my taxes this year, since The Wilsons had a few odd changes in 2007 that will make our tax calculations trickier than usual. One of those changes: we finalized our adoption of Robbie. Fortunately, the feds offer some nice tax breaks to folks who adopt, and we’re more than happy to take advantage of those. In fact, my early calculations show that we’ll get a very nice return this year—big enough to pay off almost all of our last two remaining debts (other than the house). If the Senate comes through, we’ll wipe out our small debts completely. That’s not what the feds wish we would spend the money on, but hey, I’ll sleep much better with those debts off my shoulders than I will with a new 40” television in the living room.
Adventures in Customer Service
I’ve written in the past about some poor customer service experiences. Here is a recent good experience.
For various reasons, The Missus and I are re-evaluating our insurance coverage. One thing we swapped was our car insurance. Formerly we were with Geico. We didn’t have any problems with Geico, but we found a better (read: cheaper) deal elsewhere. When The Missus called, the telephone rep was courteous and she came across as genuinely disappointed to have us leave. But here’s the kicker—she didn’t grovel or mope or kick into high-pressure gotta-get-them-back mode. She said, basically, “we’re very sorry to see you leave, and we wish you the best with your new company”. A couple days later we received a letter confirming the cancellation of our service. The letter, too, was written in a “sorry to see you go, we wish you the best” sort of tone.
I really appreciate that Geico didn’t launch an all-out assault to try to beg us back, and they didn’t try to make us feel like we had made a poor decision. Quite the opposite: they made us feel like we had made a good decision. Now, that might seem backwards to you, but I think it’s great. Rather than leaving Geico with feelings of doubt, uncertainty, confusion, and even anger, I’m leaving ... pleased. That’s exactly what they want. Because when it comes time to review my insurance options in the future, one of my first thoughts will be “Those Geico folks sure were nice...”.
Have you had a good customer service experience lately?
What is Fit?
The Missus and I are going through some insurance stuff right now. According to the insurance company’s charts, I am the perfect man. I know, most of you are saying, “But we already knew that, Mr. Wilson!”. Well, now there’s even more proof.
Actually, my supposed perfection is just based on my height and weight, combined with my medical history over the past five years. Based on that, I probably do seem pretty healthy. (Had they gone back much farther than five years they might have come to a different conclusion.) But wait, what’s this? The feds say I’m overweight! How can my insurance company call me “super-preferred” if, according to the feds, I’m unhealthy?
The BMI is crap, that’s how.
I trust my insurance company’s assessment of my health infinitely more than I trust the government’s take on it. After all, my insurance company’s existence is on the line. The feds? No matter how wrong they are or what harm they cause, they’ll still be around. In fact, the more wrong they are, the more easily they can claim they need a bigger budget so they can get things right “next time”. Bah.
Problem is, now I feel like I’m under all sorts of pressure. What if I gain 10 pounds? What if I lose 10 pounds? What if I stub my toe? Oh, the stress! Well, no, not really. Actually, I feel quite unstressed. Finding out the insurance company likes me was a nice confidence booster. I know that my body fat percentage is a little high. Before, I just worried about it. Now, I’m actively trying to convert that fat into lean muscle. I have begun a strength-training regimen. I even ran a six-minute mile on Sunday. I haven’t done that in years.
Now that I have to take care of all of my insurance on my own, this is becoming obvious to me: American obesity is, in part, driven by employer health plans. Since the costs of health care are “hidden” to most consumers, the financial incentives to stay healthy are all but lost. Many companies are catching on to that and are starting to change, but the damage has been done. If Americans had to pay more out-of-pocket for their chubbiness, there would be far fewer chubby Americans. Financial incentives wouldn’t make everybody cut back on the donuts, and that’s fine. But millions would step up their weight-loss (or anti-weight-gain) efforts, and the effect on health care costs for everyone would be dramatic.
Robbie Blogging
I haven’t posted any photos of Robbie lately. Here are a few from the past several weeks.
Happy Boxing Day
Christmas festivities went well for the Wilsons. Robbie had a good couple of days, everybody liked their gifts, and all the toys are assembled and working. Of course, getting everything put together required staying up until midnight on Christmas Eve. When Santa’s elves say “assembly required”, they mean it.
Yesterday we went out to Grand Island to visit family. Robbie was a little clingy at times, but he didn’t take long to warm up to everyone. He also discovered that he really likes Tostitos. Robbie got to play with his cousin Ben, who is just a few weeks Robbie’s senior. Unfortunately, Ben wasn’t crazy about sharing his house with so many people, and he took that out on Robbie with a couple whacks to the head. Why do little kids always go for the noggin? Why can’t they slug each other in the arm or something?
Now to get back to the regular routine. That may take me a while.
The Gift of Life (I Hope)
After years of saying “I should”, today I can finally say “I did”. I joined the National Marrow Donor Program Registry. Well, almost, anyway. I still have to complete the tissue typing process. The testing kit should arrive in a couple weeks. It’s as simple as a couple cheek swabs.
So why marrow donation? The idea stems from two events, both of which occurred about ten years ago. The first was the loss of a childhood friend to leukemia, which can sometimes be treated with a bone marrow transplant. The second involved a bizarre series of tests that led doctors to believe that I might have had leukemia. (I didn’t. My test results were just waaaaay on one side of the bell curve. Today, fortunately, those test results come back much closer to average so doctors don’t look at me like I’m quite as much of a freak.)
Included among the barrage of tests was a bone marrow test. It consisted of laying on a table while a surprisingly-large straw was jammed into my pelvis. It didn’t hurt at all, nor was there much discomfort. There was just a little “grinding” that was kind of weird. Afterwards I could walk just fine, and I don’t recall any significant residual pain. Bone marrow donation isn’t much different, so I figured, what the heck.
Now, I’m not telling you this so that you think I’m some sort of hero. I haven’t even done anything yet! Rather, I hope that by posting it I might spur somebody to pursue a donation of their own that they’ve been pondering for a long time. Maybe marrow, or blood, or even cash. It’s always easier to do something when you know others are doing it, too. It’s how we humans work. So if you have been sitting on a donation for far too long, like I was, consider this the “sign” you were waiting for. It’s worth it.
Customer Service Update
Remember how I told you about The Wilsons’ Adventures in Customer Service last week? Here’s a quick update from the JCPenney situation.
We didn’t end up returning our photos because The Missus wanted to be able to send out photos with our holiday [sic] cards. She asked for peoples’ opinions of the photos. Some people said “Oh, those are great!”, while others went with the somewhat more truthful “Those aren’t so bad”. I think they were just being polite.
To add to the situation, The Missus had ordered more prints before we had seen the first batch. We didn’t cancel the additional order because we figured maybe the new batch would be better. The new batch was ready on Friday, but The Missus delayed in picking them up.
On Saturday we finally (!!!) got a call from the manager in regard to our phone calls from the previous weekend. The manager’s excuse for the lengthy delay? He had just seen the note. That’s some nice organization they’ve got going on over there. Anyway, The Missus told him about our problems with the previous batch and asked him to look at the new batch to see if they were any better. He told her, “No, these aren’t very good at all. You can have them for free if you want to come get them. Otherwise I’ll just throw them away.” She is always looking for an excuse to take Robbie on the carousel at Gateway, so she went and got them. They’re just as bad as the first batch.
So there you have it, the conclusion to The Wilsons’ adventures at the JCPenney photography studio. We won’t be going back.
Check Those Outdoor Faucets
Late yesterday afternoon I stepped outside to take out the trash. On my way back in, I noticed something troubling. There was a large icicle hanging from the faucet near the front door. Crap.
I went over to inspect it, and sure enough, it didn’t look good. I’ve never seen an exploded water pipe and I really don’t care to. The Missus called up Biggerstaffs and got an appointment for this morning between 9 and 11. Around 9:20 the truck pulled up. It took the guy some time, but he eventually got it fixed. Hopefully our basement ceiling is safe now. Knock on wood.
So consider this a friendly reminder: go check your outdoor pipes to make sure they aren’t leaking.
Living in My Parents’ Basement
Thanks to Time Warner, I’m temporarily housed in my parents’ basement. On Saturday, The Missus called to cancel basic cable. We had a six-month deal going and the six month mark was only days away. We probably would have extended our subscription had they offered to continue the deal, but they didn’t. No complaints here; it’s their lost revenue.
Unfortunately, the young man who answered the phone at 8:01 a.m. on Saturday apparently was still hungover. As I found out during my 20-minute support call last night, he canceled our Road Runner service in addition to our television service. Grr. That wouldn’t be a huge deal except for the fact that I work from home and I rely on that internet connection for my livelihood. At least the tech support guy and customer service lady I spoke with last night were helpful.
So here I am, setting up office in the spot I used to sit and play Nintendo for hours on end. Funny, the basement used to seem so much bigger.
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