The Confused Neuron

Tonight Brae, Finn and Christy gave me an early birthday present and it was something I mentioned that I wanted and that I’m going to use very very often.  It’s the iHome ip41 portable alarm clock/speaker system for my iPhone.  Christy’s been noticing that I have my iPhone on full blast when I’m in the shower, and I’m also listening to it when I cook in the kitchen, but I only had the little speaker in the phone.  I mean, it gets loud but not nearly loud enough to hear well over the shower and fan running.  PROBLEM SOLVED!  =o)

So as I was about to start cleaning up dinner Christy asks me if I want one of my birthday presents early.  See, two ’suspicious’ boxes were delivered by UPS today and I asked her what was in them and she declined to answer.  So then the 20 questions started.  She finally caved in after dinner and offered one gift now if I wanted to open it.  So she goes up stairs and comes down with a box (not one of the ones that arrived today) and hands it to me.  I opened it up on floor with Finn trying to help me, and out comes the ip41.  So I run downstairs to get my iPhone that was syncing and come back up to hook it up and try it out and the sound that came out of this thing was very surprising.  I wasn’t expecting it to be as nice as it is.  So I put on a miscellany of songs and we all enjoyed it and ended up dancing around the living room for a bit.

I was pleasantly surprised tonight and I’m most looking forward to playing music while I’m in the kitchen cooking and not having it sound all tinny like when I only had the iPhone speaker.  WOOHOO.

Thanks for the early birthday gift guys!

As I’m getting in bed to go to sleep tonight laying next to me is our 8 month old who, bless his heart, has another cold and next to him is the amazing woman I married two years ago.

Sometimes in our busy days we seem to forget the most wonderful things that we have in our lives. We take them for granted because we have grown accustomed to having them there day after day. I’m guilty of such transgressions In multiple areas. Two of the three most amazing things in my life are laying right next to me. The third is down the hall snoozing away in what would be a most awkward sleeping position for me.

My wife is the most incredible woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. She was that way well before she became my wife and she became doubly so after she became a mama. If I ever needed proof that superheros existed I’d just have to look at her. She does so much for this family it makes my head spin. She goes above and beyond every day, goes until she’s got no more energy left to give and then goes some more. She sacrifices herself for our boys. Loses good sleep to keep our sick ones propped up so they can breathe easier when they’re so congested. She is the boys’ alarm clock during the week, she shuttles them around, packs their lunch, works a full day of work, gets them to doctor’s appointments when needed, gets Brae to karate on time after school at the expense of ripping her hair out because of traffic. Then she’ll bring them home and work some more being the awesome mom she is. She does all this and more and puts up with a incredibly irritating at times husband who, at 28 with two kids and a mortgage, decided to go back to school to become a doctor and she really asks nothing for herself except for a glass of wine at the end of the day.

How does she do it and retain even a shred of sanity? I haven’t a clue. I couldn’t do it, I’m no match for her. But she does it every day and I never want her to feel like she’s taken for granted. She’s gotta be the strongest force I’ve ever dared to reckon with and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

She’s given me this incredible family to spend the rest of my life with and I want her to know how special she is and how thankful I am for all that she does every day. She’s the absolute best and I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if tomorrow I found out she could fly and bend steel with her bare hands. I married the most incredible woman on the earth and she’s my hero. Thank you for everything you do.

I love you forever and forever again!

A couple days after a wonderful Christmas and our Finnegan is still not feeling well. He’s very congested and not happy at all. He’s got so many awesome toys to play with that he’s just not interested in at the moment. He’ll most definitely be going back to the doctor tomorrow at some point. We can’t really tell if it’s his teething, his ears still or his belly. Or a mixture of all three. He’s spiked a fever this afternoon of 101.2 and right now he’s resting as comfortably as he can on mommy’s lap. He’s just not himself. I feel so bad because there’s not really much you can do for an infant when they’re sick except try to soothe them as best you can. We gave him Motrin to try and break the fever but when your belly is upset, putting Motrin or Tylenol in it sometimes isn’t the best thing.

Well, as I type this he’s stirring and fussing. We’re going to keep an eye on him obviously and hopefully he’ll be able to see the doctor earlier rather than later tomorrow. It’s the first day after a long holiday weekend so it’ll be very difficult to get him seen.

Brae’s still a little snotty and under the weather but he’s been enjoying all the cool toys he got for Christmas. Last night we built the Lego “Echo Base” set from Star Wars and this afternoon we built a two-wheeled motorized robot out of an Erector set he got. It motors around pretty well on the carpet. You can build a bunch of different things out of that one set.

Brae’s also built his T-Rex Mountain playset that is currently sitting on our end table.  It’s pretty cool, it’s got a bunch of traps and cages you can trigger to capture the caveman dude.  The only thing we couldn’t do with it is make the dinosaur skeleton roar because I didn’t have AAA batteries.  D’s, AA, C’s, but no AAA.

Christy and I are REALLY looking forward to playing the new Mario Brothers game for Wii.  (So I can kick her butt, of course!)  My mother-in-law gave it to use for Christmas.  I’m really excited to play, it looks so cool in the commercials.

Anyway, gonna get back to football now.  I’m pulling big for the Eagles to knock off Denver so it gets Pittsburgh closer to the playoffs!

Finnegan’s first Thanksgiving has come and gone.  We made the rounds to both Christy’s family and my family and Finn and Brae handled it very well.  Finn got a half hour cat nap in there while we were at Christy’s grandparents so he got a little recharge.  He was his usual charming self for everyone who wanted to talk to him and hold him.  He’s just an amazing baby!

Braeden was his usual energetic self.  He had his cousins Jack, Tristan and Isabella to keep him busy at the Willey’s.  Running around like little crazy people.  We were also treated to performances on the organ from all of them.  Later, Brae got a piano lesson from Kevin where he learned how to play part of the Peanuts theme.  Hehe.

Finn also tried to crawl for everyone at the Irish’s.  He managed to flop forward a couple of times but it definitely won’t be long until he’s motoring all around trying to keep up with his big brother.  Both boys managed to down two dinners!  Finnegan loves his sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing and turkey.  And today we found out he also likes pumpkin pie.  THAT’S MY BOY.  =o)

Yesterday we decorated the house for Christmas.  The tree is up and there are lights and snowmen, snowflakes, and all sorts of other decorations about.  During the decorating process we continued the tradition of watching Christmas Vacation a few times.  That movie is such a classic.  I’m sure that Finnegan will be well acquainted with that movie by the time he’s Braeden’s age.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to a very exciting Christmas season for the boys.  Especially Finnegan’s first!

Pictures from our Thanksgiving adventures can be found on Christy’s Flickr page.

It’s probably the biggest thing happening right now in our country.  In short, yes our health care system needs major reform.  We’ve known that for many years now but have really failed to address the biggest problem it has, cost.  Prices for care continue to rise as accessibility to care continues to drop.  People use Emergency Departments for their family care.  Procedures and medications are forgone because of how expensive they are.  Medical bills drive go unpaid and drive people into bankruptcy.   I don’t understand why there’s an argument against reforming our current system.  It’s dated, dysfunctional and way too damned expensive for not covering more people than it does already.  I’ve heard excuses for why we shouldn’t have a public option and none of them were good.

For instance, this week while riding the shuttle bus to class I overheard a girl saying she wanted “poor people” to have health care but didn’t want everyone to be have to take a government run health plan.   The first thought in my mind was that reforming the health care system isn’t just about getting “poor people” health care.  It’s about getting health care to people who work three part time jobs or put in 12 hour days or 80 hour weeks to keep the bills paid.  They aren’t “poor” per se but working part time at most jobs doesn’t get you health care benefits.  At jobs that do offer a health plan to their employees it’s usually at a pretty sizable monthly premium.

I also don’t think anyone is going to be forced to take a public health plan, it’s one option among many.  For  you, if the public option makes more sense, is more affordable and offers good care, take it.  If not, stick to your current plan.   If you don’t have a health plan, well guess what?  Now you do.  Where’s the problem?

Health care reform is for those who work one full time job at a company that does not provide benefits to their employees because the cost of an employer health plan is too much for the company to take on.

Health care reform is for people still enrolled full time in college but have passed the age where their parents can keep them on their plan.

Health care reform is for people who pay an arm and a leg for their benefits now to have a choice for a equally comprehensive but less expensive health plan through the government.

Health care reform is not “just for poor people to get health insurance”.   And it’s that the kind of uninformed, ignorant opinion that causes problems in getting things done.

It’s about bridging the gap between those who are Medicaid eligible and those who can afford to buy their own insurance because there are millions of people who make too much money to qualify for state health insurance but can’t afford to buy their own plan because they’re absurdly priced.

“I don’t want to have to pay the cost of insurance for an irresponsible person who is unemployed with 6 kids”.  Don’t give me that argument.  We already DO pay for insurance for those in a situation like that but Medicaid does much, much more than that and to stereotype a government funded health plan like that, again, is uninformed and ignorant.

I also heard this one:  “Places in Europe like, London, have socialized health care and they have to wait 6 months to even get to see a doctor”.  Aside from the geographical stupidity of that statement, you’re going to have wait times to see certain types of doctors no matter what kind of health system you have.  Socialized or commercial.  There are specialists in this country who have average wait times of 3-6 months.  Dermatology practices are ones that come to my mind right now.  To insinuate that a new public health option is going to immediately make everyone wait months to see a doctor is far-fetched at best.  Yes, there will probably be longer waits on average but that really isn’t a solid argument against public health care.  There is already a shortage of health-care providers and that’s another issue that will have to be addressed more than it is right now.  And by the way, those places in Europe, like London, and even closer to us, like Toronto, that do have public health care do pretty well for themselves.

I’ll blab about one more:  “The government couldn’t even handle the cash for klunkers program, dealerships still haven’t gotten their money for it, how could they possibly manage a national health plan?”  Spoken like someone who has never filed a tax return and been entitled to a refund.  It’s not like an ATM where you request money and get it right there.  Your tax refund check sometimes shows up in a few weeks, or a month or two.  Or in the case of my family, we got a refund for our 2007 income tax last year, found out a month ago we owed more than we paid on our 2007 income taxes and had to cut a check back to the IRS and then a week ago found out that the amount the IRS said we owed was $1.30 more than it should have been.  That was for our 2007 income taxes.  See?  It depends.  It’s not a payment-on-demand system and health plans aren’t either.  Even now, health care providers are not immediately reimbursed for their services.  There’s a pretty substantial lag time between time of service and time of payment from insurance companies.  It’s like that for all insurance plans, Medicaid, Medicare and all private commercial insurers.  It takes time to get the check, but it does show up.

I could write more about this but I’ve run out of recent examples.  There will probably be more that come up in the future but the point I’m driving at is there is no real, valid, solid reason why we shouldn’t change the way our health care system in this country operates.  There just isn’t a reason for not having a public health option to choose.