When Things Get Old

I'm not talking about this. Nor this (although I really like that one)..

I'm talking about the Same Dang Things from the Same Frelling People over and over again. Abby had an E.R visit in June of 2010. You've all heard about that story, or if not, you can read about it here. So the hospital charged her primary insurance (her dad's) but reported they were unable to find her listed on her secondary insurance (her stepdad's). Then the primary insurance and I played phone tag for months until they finally told me that what they really needed was the divorce decree to show that they were in fact responsible for the payment (and they were wrong; they needed the child support agreement) and by then the hospital had sent us to collections in spite of my protests that we were working on it. I can't blame them - not the hospital, anyway; the insurance company should have known better since they'd been approving claims for ages - they probably have rules that don't take into account those of us who are actually trying to pay. Certainly the people on the phone have no power.

So after months of phone tag and paying the collection agency in dribs and drabs and trying to get the secondary insurance company to do their bit (turns out Abby's birth date was incorrect in the insurance company's records; Laston added her (and Lizzy) the day Lizzy was born and transposed numbers. I was - you know - in surgical recovery and did not notice, plus the dates aren't printed on the cards, so who knew?), after all that, when I called the secondary insurance company today to check on the reimbursement status (because we've paid the collections people, so now any money from that claim comes to me)... they could not find Abby in their records because that particular computer program was down.

Oh, for crying out loud.

I'm assuming last week's Stress and Time Management workshop is working because really? I can't seem to work up anything more than exasperation over the whole thing. It's urgent; we need the money. But one can only maintain urgency for so long before it's just One More Thing piled on top of the rest of life.

Abby, "Street" Lizzy, and "Kayla"

And besides, some things never get old. Like fashion shows put on by two 8-year-olds and an almost-4-year-old. They're all covered in sparkly lip gloss and they have nail polish alternating in sparkly shades of pink and blue. They're gorgeous.