Medical Decisions Made Easy (-ier)

A couple pointers about having a newborn. We have three sets of friends who are currently expecting. May God bless each of them with a healthy and happy child. One of the most important things a young parent must do is choose insurance.

There are several things in life you don’t go cheap on. Household items like toilet paper and garbage bags. Go cheap on either and you’ll learn that lesson quickly. Food items like hamburger meat and off brand hot dogs. You end up with burgers that need to be cooked within 48 seconds of getting home from the grocery and hot dogs that actually taste like what hot dogs are made of.

Well health insurance for your baby is one of those things. You have to know going in that you’re going to be going to the doctor for a lot. You’ll be going for well visits more than ill visits. If you’re paying a high copay amount those visits add up. Not to mention you’ve got shots, ill visits, and perhaps even medicines.

So shop around before your child is born. Find a good insurance with good copay rates that is affordable. I’ll even go so far as to endorse Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. That’s what our son uses and it’s been just great with only one small exception. All in all, we’ve been very pleased.

The other thing worth shopping around for is a good pediatrician. Ask around and ask a lot. After you’ve assembled a list of “candidates” then go and visit them. They’ll be glad to talk to you and you’ll be able to tell pretty soon if they’re the right doctor for you and your child. But take the time to interview them.

A good friend of ours highly recommended her son’s pediatrician and we scheduled an interview (oh, and have some questions written down. You can Google to find the right questions to ask as all new parents are clueless.) Upon interviewing the guy my wife and I looked at each other with that “NO WAY” look in our eyes. For whatever reason, we just didn’t hit it off with him. It’s almost like dating. Sometimes there’s a spark, sometimes not.

Another recommended pediatrician ended up being our guy. We’re thrilled with him (although with his Indian accent and speedy vocal delivery, we do have to ask him to repeat himself nearly every visit.)

Two important decisions that its worth taking your time with. Do your homework here, don’t be cheap, and your mind will be at ease. Well, as at ease as new parent’s minds ever get anyway.

SuperDad

Last night my wife fought through my red tape and managed to leave the house for an evening out. My household bureaucracy needs work. That was way too easy.

Alright, actually I was glad she was able to get out and enjoy herself away from the stress of a young parent's household. But that left just me and baby. What a terrifying prospect. But I was able to rise and meet the challenge like a man conquering Everest. I proved myself when it counted. I had my one shining moment (patent pending per CBS.)

In reality the challenge wasn't that daunting. My son was especially good. I got to eat without him fussing, which is more rare than a good Bill Paxton movie. We went for a nice walk. Visited with some friends in the adjacent neighborhood. I dare say it was easy.

The point of this however is to hammer home a point I make nearly every week on this blog. Nothing can take the place of spending a lot of time with your baby. Nothing. Quality time over quantity time is a myth. You need both simultaneously.

We found out yesterday some good friends of ours are now expecting their first child. I may actually be more giddy than they are. Why? Because I know how much joy and fun awaits them. Just a bit over seven months (and two teeth) into the process I don't care to remember what life was like before my son was born. I've always enjoyed life. After I married my wife life got even better. Now it's clearing the stratosphere and gets better nearly every day. It's not a daily walk through a rose garden, but the highs outweigh the lows like Jaba the Hut outweighed Leia.

So if my friends are reading this, congratulations from my family to yours. We're happy and excited for you and we'll pray for everything to go well. I trust in God that it will.

Hey! I finally got that picture of my son and his cousin loaded. It's going to be a swell day!

Teeth! We've got Teeth!

Since it's been twelve days since my last entry, this will be a potpourri type post.

My son went from tooth to teeth over the weekend. That's two and counting. So the Mrs. and I are now very accustomed to the agony of a whiny, teething baby. Agony is a harsh term, but it's not fun by any means.

Some things that we have learned to be stored in the Daddy Memory Banks for future offspring:
1. Motrin is better than Tylenol for teething.
2. 99.8% of teething toys are too big.
3. Cool, wet cloths are better than too big teething toys.

We had another funny poop story this weekend. Poop stories just come with being a parent I suppose. I knew something was up Friday as we actually went to dinner at a sit down restaurant with our son and he behaved. After a while you almost become suspiscious, but the joy of chewing your food before swallowing and entertaining the thought of staying for dessert clouds one's judgment.

So as my wife was finishing her meal I was holding my son. Then the grunting began. At this point I've learned that solid foods usually equal solid poop, so I'm not stressing. I simply get a diaper and the wipes and head to the bathroom.

Problem #1: no diaper deck in the men's bathroom. I return to the table and complete the handoff to my wife.
Problem #2: no diaper deck in the women's bathroom. She returns the favor and I head toward the car after requesting that we order dessert to go.
Problem #3: Neverending poop.
Problem #4: Pee on the face and seat.
Problem #5: Upset baby.
Problem #6: I've only got one diaper in hand and I'm running out of wipes.
Problem #7: my son is soothing himself by eating what would later be discovered to be important documents for my wife's work. Oooops.
Problem #8: No plastic bags or anything else to dispose of a VERY dirty diaper and some VERY, VERY dirty wipes.
Problem #9: One stinky Ford Taurus.
Problem #10: There was no tenth problem, I just don't like stopping on nine.

Father's Day has come and gone. My wife is terribly disappointed that I don't care much about it. I'm just not a holiday/birthday kind of guy. One of my biggest reasons for this is it becomes entirely too materialistic with people always comparing what they got with what someone else got. Who cares? What I've got is a terriffic wife and a wonderfully funny 7 month old baby boy. And if that was all I got I'd be happier than a pig in the slop. But I also got a nice backrub (which proves it was a holiday or some sort of important occassion as backrubs are rare in my household.)

One last thing. No picture. I can't get the doggone thing to work. Oh well, maybe next time.

6-6-06 Truly was an Evil Day

On Tuesday, 6-6-06, I woke up at 1 AM and noticed my wife not in bed. I thought little of it and figured she was making a late bathroom visit. At 4 AM I woke again and noticed her still not in bed. So I got up to investigate. It turned out she had been sick. At this point, I was pretty much awake and so I just stayed up.

It wasn't long before I started to feel bad too. We both called in sick and then endured what was a very difficult day. I seemed to take it a bit harder than she did. Frequent visits to the facilities and a general feeling of weakness makes a lousy parent. So how do you handle having both parents sick and the child seemingly doing fine?

Well in my case, I pretty much watched my wife handle everything. She was great and it's a good thing because I was laid up. I lost over 7 pounds yesterday. Now that is a powerful virus. I'm still not 100% today. My breakfast of Jell-O, saltines and Sprite has me feeling a little bit nauseous.

Now comes the truly scary part in waiting to see if our son gets it. I sincerely hope not. As rough as it was for me, his 28 year old father, I can't imagine how hard it would be for a 6 1/2 month old.