Solutions and Smiles

I am grinning ear to ear tonight.  We have solutions!  As you all know, I am a PLANNER!  Sometimes TOO much of a planner.  I am the one who stays awake at night and plans and make lists and thinks WAY too far in advance.  Well the one thing I couldn't figure out was working.  I wanted to work for the money and my sanity, but yet all the childcare solutions were at the least $100 a day for three kids, which meant I was working for the childcare.

As you all know my Grandma has always been my Thursday help, BUT my Mom is also off work on Thursdays.  So it has always been sort of a bum deal for me working, but a super fun day for the kiddos, they get both Grammy and Great Grammy.  Well... I talked to my Grandma and she has agreed to take on two Wednesdays a month with all three kiddos and two Thursdays a month.  My Mom has also committed to the other two Thursdays a month.  So today I asked my employer about that and they were all for it!!!  Which means I will soon be a working Mom of three with NO childcare fees.  I will work 6 days a month / 50+ hours which will give us the income we need and the grown up, using my brain, keeping my foot in the door time.

We are approaching 8 weeks off with baby boy, which to many means time to go back to work, but here in California we have a family leave act which will allow me another 6 weeks.  So my plan is to get my foot back in the door December/January.  I am so thankful to yet again have the best of both worlds.  I love my job, and I love being home, but neither do I really want to do exclusively.  We are so very blessed to be able to make this work.

In other news I do very much so have PPD.  I scored very high on the charts and was quickly put on meds.  Those meds in turn turned me into a complete zombie.  No emotion at all and very tired.  I have stopped taking them and have realized I would rather my other feelings vs. the zombie.  On the up side I think I am taking a turn for the best.  I am doing pretty good and feel that most of it is just normal being a Mom to three kids two and under and not really anxiety/PPD.  The best thing for us is getting out, so we have been walking or going to the park every day.  The rain is when things get gloomy, but thankfully we turned our garage into a mini back yard.  Trampoline, teeter totter, etc so that has seemed to help, but right now the weather here is absolutely amazing so we are still soaking it up in the backyard, park and on walks.

In major smiles tonight I think I may have solved MANY problems.  See... I had been wanting to put the boys into Pre-School, but being the cost and also the new cut off date for Kindergarten it would mean they would be in pre-school for three years at $140 a week for only two days.  I didn't really need two day care, but that was the minimum.  I was really wanting them to socialize, but at that price with me not working made no sense at all.  But tonight something clicked... THE GYM!!!!  I am joining a local gym.  We will walk to the gym, they will socialize with other kids for a max time of two hours, I will get my some what old body back, AND I will get a little break and Mommy time.  It's a WIN WIN WIN WIN situation all for under $100 a month.  I am so excited I can hardly stand it.

Now the question is.. when to start?  Hudson can go as early as six weeks, but I am thinking it maybe best to wait until after his shots.  Speaking of shots and Hudson as of this moment my son has no health insurance... GASP.. HISS!  I know right?  How does this happen?  We are HUGE on making sure we are covered.  In fact my office sells health insurance.  Well... my plan is a family plan so whether I have one child or five the cost is the same.  So I knew the cost and had been mailing a check to my employer. I saw info come from my insurance provider with Hudson's name on it and just carried on and figured he got added.  No new card, as all the kids just use the card with my name on it anyways, they never got one with their own.  Well.. yesterday I took Hudson to his anxiously awaited cardiologist appointment and was informed he had no coverage and my plan only showed two dependents.  What?  No way.. how could this be?  Sure enough Hudson never got added to my plan, the things I got with his name were from when he was covered under me for his first 30 days of life.  It completely slipped my mind to even mention it to my office managed since I saw info come in the mail from the insurance company with his name and she too never thought about it.  Well it turns out now that he is not eligible until November one because he was not added in his first 30 days of life.  So a little scary, but beings we in fact sell insurance in my office we should be able to bypass this and he should have coverage in a few days.  Right now his 8 week shots and cardiologist appointment are on hold, but hopefully we can get them both taken care of next week.

Now here are some shots of my special little guys.  So happy to be able to type a post with smiles and solutions.