Here She Goes - All Political Again

Here I sit with my heart literally pounding away in my chest, getting all riled up about Supreme Court decisions. I'd joke and say that it's too early on a Monday morning to be up in arms about such things - but the truth is that is isn't. It's never too early to feel passionately about issues that really matter, and you're never too young (or old!) to start caring.

The Supreme Court started handing out decisions like free candy today, and I was reading my twitter feed watching them come in while rocking El to sleep this morning. Then I saw something along the lines of an announcement that they will announce their ruling on the Affordable Care Act on Thursday at 10am. I thought for a moment that I read it will happen today at 10am, and started shaking with nerves and literally feeling ill at the prospect of what could happen if this gets overturned. Then I realized that we have several more days to wait, and instead of the nerves settling down, I realized it's possible I might be feeling this way for several days. 

I refuse to call this act Obamacare, which I believe is a phrase intended to be derogatory. This is one of President Obama's signature achievements since taking office, and I can remember quite literally crying (and blogging) about the possibility of it not coming to fruition in the wake of Teddy Kennedy's passing, and then quite literally cheering and celebrating at it's passage. Millions of additional Americans' access to health insurance is on the line. Vital preventative care coverage for women and children. Allowance of adult children to be covered by their parents for just a bit longer. No longer allowing insurance companies to deny people with preexisting conditions. Almost every single person I know would benefit from the ACA (not to mention the 50+ million Americans living without coverage, or the millions living with coverage but experiencing rapidly rising costs and diminishing coverage). 

This is personal. I challenge any person who thinks that this doesn't or won't affect them or their families to do some research and think again. Last week I found myself on the phone with my insurance company, and after hanging up the phone and thinking to myself about how we are on a budget, and is it really worth spending another hundred or so dollars to get my baby's lungs checked out just to find that most likely we'd be diagnosed with another virus, and told to wait it out, I wished out loud for health care reform. And then I realized that we are lucky. We have coverage - good coverage - and our health, and some financial means. So while the ACA is not a fix-all (in my mind, doesn't go far enough...), it is a step. When we proudly assert that we are the best country in the world, we cannot, with good conscience, allow our citizens to become tragedies of a seriously broken health care system. 

Now we wait with baited breath. 

(And PS - looks like I'm not the only one in my family right now concerned with health care economics... Apparently, this is her favorite textbook. Can't blame her!)

EDITED TO ADD: Upheld. :) HUGE sigh of relief in our home yesterday, along with millions of other homes around the country. Emotional day, for sure, but I'm so proud and practically giddy with excitement at this step in the right direction.

Best Friends.

These two

are gonna be

best friends.

I just know it.

And I love her

More than I did yesterday, more than the day before that, and more than I thought humanly possible.

sick. whine. cough.

One of my many character flaws (yes, shocking I know! hahaha) is that I very much like to have things scheduled, agendas planned, the flow of the day pre-arranged in my head, etc. I've been known to fall asleep thinking out the next day, "If El wakes up at 6:30, then she can nap around 8-9:45, I'll do the dishes, jump in the shower, sweep and mop the floors and be ready to go when she wakes up, we'll head to the store for 45 minutes and when we come back, we'll...". I usually run down several scenarios in my head, and when the day doesn't go as planned, it stresses me out. When there are appointments or big things to do on the day that doesn't go as planned, it really takes me a while to settle myself down and realize that, most of the time, it just isn't that big a deal.

This whole week was like that for me. It's Saturday and I've left the house exactly three times since Tuesday.  Nothing has been accomplished. I've basically worn the same thing all week, and consider it a major victory that I have washed my face and brushed my teeth each day. Plus, it's been really shitty weather. Sorry for the cursing, but it's true. I got a text from Peter yesterday saying that a major hailstorm had just passed his office downtown, and letting me know it should be overhead shortly. Two minutes later, the sky opened. Hail, ya'll. In June. I'm ready for next week to start, and hoping it starts tomorrow and brings some sunshine with it. Whine, whine, whine.

Monday morning El woke up with a runny nose, so we scrapped plans for that day. Spent the day hanging around the house together, which was just fine. 

Tuesday things seemed to unravel with a routine trip to the dentist for a filling for me. I tend to get uncomfortable and antsy with the idea of dental work, but honestly - after having an unmedicated childbirth - getting injections anywhere just doesn't really make me nervous at all anymore. This was different though - the moment the dentist injected me with the local anesthesia, it felt as though he had injected epinephrine directly into my heart. Heart palpitations, dizzy, nauseous, room spinning - major panic attack like symptoms. It was horrible. The filling was quick and painless and I went home deep breathing and trying to make sense of the reaction I'd just felt. By that night though, it was obvious that this reaction was really going to take some time to get out of my system. My whole body felt drugged; like I was fighting staying awake after taking a sleeping pill. My heart pounded for hours. To make matters way worse, El's cold had intensified (and I was starting to come down with it, too) and she woke up 6 times that night. Twice, I literally could NOT move my body to go rescue my crying girl. It was like I was pinned down by the medication.

Wednesday was spent recovering from Tuesday's disaster (took all day to feel normal again) and taking care of both of us, who now had full fledged head colds. Thursday the colds were worse, and Friday they were worse still. Today I can hear that for both Ellie and myself, the colds have settled in our chests and we are both wheezing and coughing and generally just cranky and unhappy. And, bored. Slightly stir crazy, and because I tend to fill the boredom with baking, I've paid for it with a couple of extra pounds (just water weight, right?!)

So - that's that. I know usually I try to end blog posts on a cheerful, upbeat note, and while there are definitely things to be cheerful and joyous about today, I'm not really feeling it. 

Although, the perk in all that, has been spending some serious quality, pj time with this girl:

Okay - pictures of my El is a little upbeat, right? Can't not add a little sweetness, right? 

ah, vacation!

Peter took last week off work, and we were so glad he did. We realized that in the four years we've been together, there have only been two times where we were both off work for a full week at the same time - once was our honeymoon, once was last week. And, it turns out that the more time we spend together as a family, the more we like each other (previously thought this would have been impossible, as I think we've always liked each other an awful lot!) :)

We spent the week just enjoying the time off with no agenda. Unfortunately Ellie got sick so we were around the house quite a bit waiting on her to feel better, but that's life! We spent the morning leisurely hanging around the house, took a lot of naps, ate really well, explored some new and old favorite parks, read books, etc. A perfect week (minus the fever), really.

The house definitely seems a bit bigger this morning, and we definitely miss "dad-dad." When I got Ellie up this morning, she immediately called out "daddy!" and ran off to our bedroom to find him, looking in the bathroom and up on the bed. She soon settled for Eeyore though (not a good substitution, but a decent distraction!).

Some pics from our week: