Ups and Downs

1. Today was Ian's last day of speech therapy. WOOHOO! His therapist said we couldn't discontinue the services until his next quarterly review, but I called our EI office and found that we could end it now. The speech therapist said that Ian is now at a two-year-old level, and he won't be two for three more months. YAY!

2. Ian's struggles with diaper rash have gotten worse again. He goes from no diaper rash to diaper rash so awful that he's bleeding in a very short amount of time. I am changing his diaper very often, and sometimes I still don't change it soon enough. He is pooping SO SO SO many times a day. Does anyone have a recommendation of a food to feed him that would help "bind him up?" It's not bananas for him.

3. We took the kids to Sears this morning for photos. I felt guilty to leave without paying anything, so I bought one sheet of photos for $10 in addition to the free photos I was given. Nadia had some "okay" pictures, but I learned in June not to "settle." I love this picture of Ian (above). It was tough to get Ian to stand or sit where he was supposed to be. He's a boy on the go! I didn't buy any of the pictures of Nadia by herself.

4. Ian is gaining weight again! I weighed him on Tuesday, and he gained 8 ounces in 7 days. That's a big relief! I emailed Dr. Williams a couple of days ago asking if it was time to set up an appointment to work on teaching Ian to chew, but he hasn't responded yet, which is unusual for him. I'm hoping to have an appointment with him in October to work on that.

5. I got a statement from the PSU health insurance yesterday saying that our balance for one of the bills from Ian's first endoscopy is over $8K. This has me a bit stressed out to put it mildly! I keep trying to remind myself that worrying doesn't help anything. "Cast your cares" I keep repeating to myself. I'm hoping that CHOP won't pass this on to us as evidently they exceeded the "usual and customary." We stayed in network to avoid such bills! I could have gone 30 minutes away rather than 3 hours away if I was going to pay a bill like that. I'm praying that between the insurance or CHOP we won't actually have to pay this bill. What made my anxiety much greater is knowing that there were two other surgeries since then, and one of those surgeries was MUCH more expensive. Seeing this statement caused me to be really nervous about what other bills they might not agree to pay. Up until this point, we had only paid our $75 deductible (per person), and other than that we hadn't been paying anything for doctor appointments or surgeries because we had been staying "in-network." The upside is that we're now back on Blue Shield insurance although I still don't know what the effective date was for that. I emailed HR about that early this morning, and they haven't written me back yet. I'm hoping to hear back from HR tomorrow.

6. We've had a nice visit with my mom this week. Grandma will be returning to MD tomorrow. We'll miss her! The good news is that Daddy is traveling back to the US tomorrow. He's due to arrive home very early on Saturday (as in around 1:30am). He knew he was going to tour a castle on Wednesday, but he didn't know he'd also get to tour a WWI museum. That was one of the highlights of his trip! He wasn't keen on how long dinner took every night because he didn't get back to his room until around midnight every night. Ian, Nadia, and I can't wait to give Daddy a big hug! I am curious to see what he got the kids. It's going to be hard to top the pillow he got Nadia in Poland last year. I'm always intrigued by what Nadia says thanks for in her prayers. Her pillow is mentioned in almost every single prayer. The one that cracks me up the most is that she often thanks God for her curtains. I don't know that I've ever mentioned the word "curtain" in any of my prayers.