Insurance Freeze

When you apply for insurance, you must disclose any "conditions" and up until Sept 23rd (supposedly) EVERY insurance carrier would deny you covereage.

The new law addresses those outrageous practices first. It was supposed to take effect on Sept 23rd, but it turns out, the insurance industry has decided that they don't like these rules so they are going to sidestep them by refusing to write any policies for children. In other words RIGHT NOW YOU CANNOT BUY INSURANCE FOR A CHILD. All the carriers have stopped writing policies except BLUE SHIELD.

I had the rare priviledge of speaking to a senior account specialist at Blue Shield today in a conference call with an agent. We were trying to see if we could switch to blue Shield and thus be able to get Nico's operation.

First thing to know is that they are all guided by the electronic "bible" that they can search within their network only. This document is the absolute final word on how they write business and what their policy is on all things.

It is a document that is issued by the teams of Harvard MBA's that are tasked with the job of squeezing every last cent out of this business and signed off by the senior bean counters.

The current rhetoric from this document is that because dedcutables are calcualted each year, they are "not able" to issue new policies to children with "pre-existing" conditions until Jan 1st 2011. I guess it would make their accounting difficult.

So even though there is black letter law to the contrary, you cannot get an IFP (Individual Family Plan) until Jan 1st with Blue Shield, the only carrier writing new business.

Meanwhile, insurance rates went up as much as 48% this month. After Jan 1st, rates may go up again. Well now, there is a shocker.

Currently, they rate you from Tier 1 to Tier 5. Tier 5 is about double the cost of Tier 1. If one member of the family has a pre-existing condition, then they will be at Tier 5 while the rest of the family may be at Tier 1, putting the plan somewhere around Tier 3 (50% more expensive).

If you need a procedure and are thinking of doing it on your own dime, dont bother. It takes two years before that rate decreases after a surgery because of the risk of complications. So even if you pay for your own surgery, your insurance will be the same rate as if you had not.

Apparently, Blue Shield is swamped with new business right now and MANY MANY parents are demanding to know why they still cannot get coverage. I am more interested in why the politicians are not all over the insurance industry for flouting the new law?

Kaiser Denial

From BambiniPt2

Video:
Mirror mirror on the wall

Well after all that work, Kaiser has denied our request for an outside referal to a specialist surgeon. A month has been wasted (not to mention the insurance plan premium) and despite a letter from the specialist and a letter from the Senators office, they have the gall to refuse us a simple outpatient operation. Incredible.

Both the boys are crawling well now, and Barbara has decided to conduct bath time in the bath tub. They are like slippery snakes in there. You have to hang onto a limb otherwise they dive in.

Barbara had a tough adjustment from the jet lag and lack of sleep during her trip and return. There have been some rough nights with the babies as we try to desperatly find a combination of feeding and sleeping schedule that will get them to 6am. Barbara still gets up at 5am and does a full days work and it is taking a toll.

barbaras joints, knees in particular are causing her pain. We think this is "normal" after giving birth, but the Kaiser doctor says its nothing to worry about. Standing up with babies is not helping, but there is little to be done about that.

We have had to put our search for a new place to live on hold while we try to put out all these other fires. Our landlord has been very acomodating and allowed us to stay a little longer and pay a little more. How thoughtful.

Ciao Zia's

From BambiniPt2

Videos:
Prison Bed

A big CIAO to the Zia's, Anna maria and Letitcia in France with Barbara. Below are all the video links for you to enjoy

Both babies are mobile now and they are very adventurous. Nico is faster than a bullet train when you take you eyes off him and he wants to open drawers and pull things off shelves. We need to do some more baby proofing soon.

As a result, I put the cribs back together today. The one thing they offer is a high prison wall of wooden bars. This is not so important duing the day, but at night, Nico has been waking up with more energy than the morning.

We have beentalking about sleep training and bougth several books on the subject, but so far they just seem to make big claims like "12hours spleep by 12 weeks" which may sell books. but bears no relation to reality.

From talking to a ouple of nurses, we may try a technique that involves comforting them for a few minutes and then leaving the room. Without a bed that can restrain them, this is impossible. Now the cribs are no longer beds, but Prisons.

Previous Videos:
Nico first Crawling Video
Nico mist facial
Tickling Chairs
Nico Chair Assault
Valerio tastes a lemon
Visiting friends
Sunday park lunch band
Nico demonstrating his dexterity with the vertical blinds
Working in the office with two little helpers
Taking a little video break
Jumperoo
Swing
Weekly Farmers Market Band
5amForFiveMo
FirstImpressions
CameraConscious
Road Trip Excitement
FloorTickle
CribMobile
Bath Time Terror
StreetDancing

Survivor - One man, two babies, one week.

From BambiniPt2

Barbara has gone to France for business. I have begun a one week looking after two babies by myself. My first lesson came first thing Monday morning (don't they always)

Last night I put the two babies to bed... alone. We have done this together since they were born. This is a challenge as it usually takes two of us the better part of 30 minutes to calm them down and get them to sleep.

Nico can be tough. He is heavy, strong and wants to keep going. Luca with a little gentle rocking can go to sleep quit easily.

So we began with idea #1. put them both in bed and rock both beds. That lasted about ten seconds. So to idea #2. Hold Luca and rock him in my arms while rocking Nico in his crib with my feet. Nico was out of the crib and bolting across the floor in no time.

So to idea #3. Get Luca to sleep and then work on Nico. Luca was going nicely until Nico started making a ton of noise and that woke him up. A little more persistence and I got Luca nearly asleep before I had to drop him in the bed to wrangle Nico. This woke him up

and so to Idea #4. Sit on the floor with head in hands praying they would fall asleep on their own


and so to Idea #5. Exercise extreme patience and wait for an hour until Nico has tired himself out. Mean while, rock Luca and just wait to see what happens. This did eventually work. I had to wrangle Nico with my feet a few times, but he stayed in the nursery and stood up to engage the humidifier, his new alter.

He is obsessed with the remote controls, so I give him an old one to keep him amused. His new puzzle is trying to figure out how to hit the humidifier with it so that the two fit together like other puzzles. The noise is not conducive to sleeping!

I decided to practice patience (not that I had a choice) and by some baby miracle, Luca went to sleep amid the clattering. As soon as he was well enough gone, I scooped up Nico and Viola, two sleeping babies.

Unfortunately that was not the end of it. At 2am Nico woke up for a feed, and when I put the helmet on him, he became completely awake. There is no easy way out of this. It requires at least 45mins persistent effort, usually walking a round the living room, until he calms down enough to rock him to sleep.

His former record was 90 minutes.

I rocked him for 30 mins, he was more awake than ever. I put him in bed he crawled out. I rocked him some more, nothing. So I put him back in the chair we feed him in and he just rolled over and over like an alligator with prey locked in its jaws. I tried the other chair and clambered all over it like a climbing frame. I put him the master bed. He screamed.

Yes two hours of this, 2am to 4am. Every combination and permutation you can think of I tried. We watched TV, we played, I rocked and rocked. We made a sandwich, we laughed and joked. NOTHING would get the baby back to sleep. Finally at 4am he started to show a little weakness in the struggling, so I rocked with more determination and he slooooooooooooowly went to sleep. I collapsed on the sofa covered in sweat, exhausted.



Last week my server died, on Saturday, my desktop died. Both Motherboards. This machine is my daily workhorse that has run perfectly for almost ten years. They don't sell these in stores anymore.

If I buy a new motherboard, I have to buy a new processor and memory - basically a new computer. So I fired up my old laptop and began searching for a solution. After 6hrs I was no closer. I did not want to buy a new machine but it makes little sense to put more money into this old one. So I went to bed. I woke up this morning with a great idea. I could just turn the crash course in baby wrangling into a dual project: Baby wrangling + sleep deprivation.

The babies are acting up cos mom is gone, the phone is ringing, I have a dead computer and I finally got a letter from the Doc in Dallas that has to be faxed.

It has to be faxed because Senators office deletes all attachments and will not download anything without some complex screening process that no one that works their can seem to understand or be bothered with. As a result, we have to use stone age technology. Luckily, amidst Barbara's collection of old business technology, she has a fax machine that works. The problem this morning was printing.

HP make printers that seems to require the installation of more software than is needed to run a NASA space mission. It takes about an hour of clicking and patiently watching progress bars crawl across the screen just to get the printer to print. Since my desktop is dead, I decided to use Barbara's.

It was at the exact moment that I had two babies perched on my knees, and Barbara on Skype waving to the babies (who were wondering why she became a 'flat' person where the Rhino marches around) that the printer died... bright flashing exclamation point and dead as a light pole silence.

It was a long couple of hours after that, but I did get the letter faxed to the senators office. Hopefully now they will apply a little pressure.