The Saturday 7

1. Back to reality. After a glorious week of vacation, I woke up Sunday with a cough that got progressively worse all week. 🤦It wasn't too bad at the beginning of the week, so I went to work as usual. It was Spirit Week at school and I was excited to be working on Crazy Hair Day so I could resurrect this gem:

My library kids loved it and were so amazed by it. Haha. The kindergarteners asked if it was my real hair and if they could touch it. Lol.

Lena came up with this idea to have spider hair:

Levi used hair chalk and made himself this colorful crown:

2. I worked at Once Upon Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday was fine, but Wednesday was rough. My cough had really started getting bad and I was feeling so miserable. That night, I couldn't sleep at all. I finally got a couple hours on the couch around 2:00 a.m., but I knew I wouldn't make it through a day at school, so I called in sick. Then I went to the doctor so they could write me a prescription for cough medicine with codeine. It's the only thing that ever touches my cough, and I hate asking for it like a druggie (since it's a narcotic), but I am a druggie in the sense that I'm desperate for it if it'll make me stop coughing. It has helped marginally, but even when I stagger it with Delsym, I'm still coughing a lot. Boo. I get this pretty much every February. It was early this year. I'm just thankful I made it through vacation before it set in!

3. Since we failed our two week digital detox before vacation, I decided to start anew for the month of February - with a few tweaks. This time we're doing no screens on weekdays. But the kids have an opportunity to earn an hour of screen time by doing a very specific list of things I made for them. The lists are personalized, so while all three say "eat three bites of what Mom makes for dinner," Levi's says "brush your teeth," while Lucy's says, "spend 20 minutes in the living room with your family without earbuds in your ears." 😂 They also have to do homework, shower, and read. I figured if screen time is worth it to them, maybe they'll willingly do the things I usually have to force them to do. We've only had two days of it so far, and yesterday we were busy all day, but I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. We'll see . . .

4. Right before we left for vacation, I got a letter in the mail warning me that it's time to renew my Medicaid eligibility. I finally sat down on Friday to do it, and spent two hours jumping through hoops and spinning in circles before I finally ended up in tears and gave up. 🤦 The whole process is maddening. The physical paperwork they mailed me to fill out was super confusing. But then I noticed there was an option to do it online. I typed in the url exactly as it was printed on the paper for MIBridges. That brought me to a different website called MILogin and prompted me to create an account. I did that, but then I couldn't get back to the Bridges page no matter what I tried. So I stayed on the MILogin page and tried searching for "medicaid" or "healthcare" or "insurance," and just kept getting "no results." Eventually I found a phone number for the help line. The lady who answered was very unhelpful. She essentially told me that I had set up my account through the wrong website (the one that was PRINTED ON MY PAPER), and to try a different website. So I started all over with the website she gave me . . . and ended up in the exact same spot. Finally, I decided to just call my case worker and admit that I couldn't figure it out on my own. After dialing the number and pushing all the numbers to speak to a representative, I was told, "There are 39 calls ahead of you." 🤦🤦🤦 The government in action, my friends. This was the day that I hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, and I was so overwhelmed and frustrated. I couldn't even think of where else to go for help. You know it's bad when I'm taking 200 mg of Zoloft a day and still end up in tears! Anyway, I brought the paperwork to book club that night and some of the ladies there advised me to stop trying to find a "renew" button and just apply for benefits as if I never had them. That's what I did, and now we wait. Although I'm not feeling optimistic at all that I'll qualify. We haven't had to re-up in a few years thanks to Covid, and Justin's making a lot more now, plus I'm working a little bit. I feel like the government should really re-evaluate their "poverty line" numbers though. While we're making more money, we're also spending more thanks to inflation. Despite that extravagant vacation we just took, we're totally not rolling in the dough. (And I got so many deals on that vacation! It wasn't as expensive as it looked!) It's a really bad spot to be in when you make too much to qualify for medicaid, but paying for private insurance defeats the purpose of me working at all. 😤😭

5. Yesterday was the homecoming game at school. We've gone the past couple of years because Lucy's getting to the age that her friends are playing, plus Justin knows a lot of the boys from soccer. Lena ran around with a gaggle of girls all night and completely shocked me after the game when she nonchalantly asked if she could go to her friend's house to spend the night. Lena has only ever spent the night at one friend's house in her life - the friend that she's known since birth - and even that was a big deal. I think it helped that the whole group of girls was planning on spending the night, but I was still amazed she even wanted to go! I was anxious all night that she would regret her decision, but she had a great time and bounced happily right out the door when I went to pick her up this morning. Maybe she's finally outgrowing some of her anxiety!!

6. Today was a big day for Levi: his first ever basketball game! I was very nervous for him because he missed the first practice while we were in Florida, so he's only been to one practice and has never played basketball before! But he did better than I expected . . . at least once we got to the court. At home, when he put on his jersey he declared it too big and uncomfortable and refused to wear it. Sigh. This kid and his sensory issues. After much cajoling and demanding and a little bit of yelling, I finally got smart and moved on to bribery. I told him that he could have anything he wanted from the concession stand if he would just put on his jersey and go play with a good attitude. Boom. Problem solved. He is seriously food-motivated. Lol. By the time we got to the church where they play he'd forgotten all about his jersey and was excited to start. It was hilarious to watch a bunch of second graders attempt to play basketball. I think the final score was 6-2 if that tells you anything. 😂 But I was proud of Levi for hustling (he was diligent about guarding his guy the whole game!), and trying to get the ball, and even going for a couple of shots. Maybe by the end of the season he'll be able to score a point or two! 😁