Tired Out After a Puppy Playdate

Clara and her beau, Beau ;)

The Ear Infection Raises its Ugly Head Again

So the saga of Ben's ears continues, because our family is apparently cursed. To recap, Ben had an ear infection a few weeks ago, was treated with amoxycillan, the ear infection came back, he was treated with omnicef, which he finished on Thursday and by Saturday the ear infection came back AGAIN. In fact he and Joel were up watching Transformers from midnight to 3am last night.

In an effort to avoid a second sleepless night in a row we took Ben to the pediatric urgent care clinic after Rebecca's soccer game this afternoon. Ben was very apprehensive about going, asking me if he was going to need a shot. Of course I am an idiot so I said, "No of course not!" I did not know that after omnicef doesn't work, the next thing to do is a shot of rocefin (sp?). Or rather, a shot in each thigh, for 3 days. Boy was Ben pissed!!! His legs are sore, and he is resting sulkily now. He will be even more pissed when I have to take him back to the doctor tomorrow and Tuesday for a repeat.

I think we need to put together some sort of offering to the gods to lift the hex that has fallen upon our household.

Rented!

We found a renter for our house! No, not the weird dude from the post below.(Although for those of you who weighed in on the side of scam, if it were a scam shouldn't he have asked for my bank account number to wire the money to, instead of an address to send a cashier's check to?)

Anyway, the renters we found are a couple who are relocating from Virginia. The husband just started a job down here, and his wife will be joining him after the birth of their second child, due in the middle of May. They also have a four year old daughter, a perfect playmate for Rebecca :) The husband came over to sign the lease and give the security deposit this morning, making it OFFICIAL and bringing us one step closer to getting everything in place for our own move. After he signed we immediately scanned the rental agreement and emailed it over to our mortgage broker, who needed it for underwriting our new loan, and texted our real estate agent to tell her to please unlist our house!!

I am very exciting that we have our house rented, especially since this means I won't have to keep the house so neat and clean anymore!! ;)

4 months old today!

Here in the States we call this Jumping the Gun

"Thanks for the details on the Property, i am satisfied and will
like to proceed with the renting process,
i would like you to go ahead and reserve the property for me.
I would also be needing the following information so that the cashier's check
for payment of the deposit of $4400 can be processed and posted to you
soon.

Name to issue the Deposit check on:...............
Address where you want the deposit mailed to:........
Phone number(cell and land):............

I want the 12 months lease to start on the 1st May 2012, i also
want to notify you that i have in the mean time arrange with an
interior decorator who will be handling the purchase of furniture,
entertainment system and other appliances that i will need in the
property,they will as well be in-charge of moving down my luggage down
to the States.So the cashier's check of $9000 will be sent over to you
which is a relocation grant by my employer, and all you need to do is
deduct the deposit $4400 and you will forward the rest to the Decorators
so i can have the place all prepared for my arrival. All applications and
lease will be signed on arrival.

Also for familiarization I Am [...], 35 yrs old,a British
citizen, I work with [.....],
I am a Christian, reserved in Nature and i do not keep pets.
I look forward to meeting you and hope to have a good relationship as
a tenant with you.
I await the details."

[.....]

Unable to Procrastinate Any More

I am talking about taxes. Unfortunately we had to do our taxes last night, after realizing that we are meeting with the mortgage lender this afternoon to sign the documents/provide all the documentation needed for the loan on our new house. Of course one of the documents required was our 2011 tax return, meaning Joel and I were up until 11 pm getting it done (11 pm, when you have a < 4 month old baby, is VERY LATE).

When we do our taxes several things always happen. First we put in Joel's W-2, and since Joel pays the EXACT CORRECT AMOUNT of federal taxes, it tells us at that point that we have a refund of, say, $100. Then we enter my W-2, and when we put in the amount of federal taxes withheld, a little warning comes up which says basically, "Dude is this a typo?" And I say, no, it's not a typo, and then the $100 refund changes to saying that we owe something like fourteen thousand dollars. Because for some reason I pay like no federal income tax during the year. But I am too lazy to change my withholding. Then we spend the next hour and a half putting in every deduction known to mankind, only to be informed time after time, "sorry, you make too much money to qualify for this deduction." But eventually we manage to whittle it down to a more manageable-ish number, something like, five thousand dollars. And somewhere in there Joel starts claiming he's going to vote Republican next time. But he never does. And then we file it, put it all behind us, and repeat again at the very last possible minute next year...

False Alarm

Because it seems to be entirely impossible for Caroline to get through 2 days in a row of day care with out SOME kind of drama, they called me yesterday to tell me that there was what they thought was blood in her poop, in the last diaper they had changed.

I immediately said, "The doctor told me the omnicef she is on for her ear infections can turn her poop red. Are you sure it's not just that?"

No they said, it really looked like blood, and rather a lot of it, and the day care director had taken a look too, and seconded that opinion. And on top of this they said, she was acting fussy today and not her usual self.

So I told them to save the diaper, and called the doctor's office, stressing to them that I had not witnessed the diaper contents myself, but that they swore it was blood and not omnicef-poop. The doctor's office wanted me to bring her in.

So as if I have not missed more than enough work lately, I headed out to pick Caroline up and take her to the doctor's office. Where I was charged the $30 copay for the 5th time in 3 weeks (But who's counting?) and where the offending diaper was lab-tested and immediately determined to be omnicef-poop, not blood. And by the way, Caroline was not fussy at all when I picked her up.

Yet another strike in my book against day care...