In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

Here's how our Friday went down this week:

After a fitful night of sleep, Roscoe woke me up for the day by projectile spitting up all over me at 5:something am.  As I cleaned myself off (this required a change of clothes) Ray took him and was trying to suck the sneaky mucus out of his nose (it disappears all day and reappears with a vengeance between 1am and 6am, causing him to choke and vomit).  After a fussy success, he moved Roscoe to reveal a large wet spot on Ray's side of the bed.  Guess he literally scared the piss right out of him (and his diaper).  Ray gets up anyway by 6am so he gave up on sleep while I tried to squeeze out another half hour or something (anything!).  Roscoe wasn't having it and just yodeled at me with mucusy coos as I tried to convince him that sleep would be more fun.

The night before hadn't felt particularly more stressful or rushed than other nights (Ray got off work, picked up Roscoe from Lisa's in Berkeley (half hour away), picked me up on the way home, fed and changed Roscoe just in time to get him down for his 7:30 "nap," fed everyone, walk the dogs, etc.  Well, we must have both been out of it because we forgot to feed the dogs.  At all.  Ray remembered the next morning (poor things didn't even act unusual, they must already be so used to being ignored by us...makes me wonder if we haven't forgotten to feed them on other occasions too in the last few months!)  Then Ray called me at 9am from work because he remembered that he had also forgotten he was supposed to go down to his parent's the night before and sign drawings (his parents are in Egypt).  And the drawings were being picked up at noon (with signatures, presumably).  Oops.  After weighing our options, I went and picked Ray up, we drove down, he signed the drawings, we drove back, dropped him back off at work and drove home.  Just in time for Roscoe and I to catch a bus to meet a nanny at noon.  Whew!  Oh, and in there my sunglasses broke and I came home to find pee and poo all over the kitchen (Ikaika).  ROWRRR (the lion).

Then the big, nasty lion turned into a cuddly, little lamb sometime around noon.  We met with a potential nanny for Roscoe and really loved her.  She is a pastry chef (YUMMY!) and has been nannying also, but now her nanny family is moving back to Mexico.  She also just had her first child, born 2 weeks exactly before Roscoe, and is now looking to stay home with her and take on another child to watch.  It would be at her house (check one), we love her (check two), she is open to part-time (check three), Roscoe seemed very comfortable with her (check four), they are native Spanish speakers and she could speak to Roscoe in Spanish (bonus one), she is a pastry chef (bonus two) and her husband is a chef at this French restaurant in our old neighborhood (bonus three).  At least we know she won't be feeding Roscoe Happy Meals everyday once he is on solids.  Overall I think this is an ideal situation and we are moving ahead with the next steps to see if this will work for all involved.  (Cue inner turmoil and nausea at the thought of being away from Roscoe three days a week... but that is fodder for another post).

THEN, I actually spoke to someone from the disability office that knows what has been going on!  What a turn of events!  Apparently what has been happening is that they are repeatedly submitting a request to The State (Sacramento) to confirm my income.  Um... I am self-employed.  California does not have an official record of my 2009 income yet (taxes not filed, yet).  Plus it is an odd period of time (July '08-June '09), so taxes wouldn't even tell them that.  Yet they keep submitted requests for Sacramento to confirm my income and Sacramento keeps not confirming.  Over and over again.  For 4 months.  And no one thought to try something else.  It is so good to see my tax dollars hard at work employeeing these brilliant minds.  Hurdle number one down (figuring out what is taking so long).  Hurdle number two is now figuring out how to confirm my income for a period of time where the only official record of income is the actual paychecks I have received.  And they already have copies of all of those.  The next step is for me to fax in copies of my 1099s for 2008 and 2009 and hope that they accept that as some additional proof of that income.  One would think, seeing that I am enrolled in an elective disability program for the SELF-EMPLOYED, that this issue would have come up before in other cases and they would have a standard protocol for resolving it.  For real, though, how do other self-employed people confirm their income for non-calendar periods of time?!  Am I missing something here?  But I still count this as a huge, excellent step in the right direction because now I know that the proof of income is causing the hold up and I am assured that at least one intelligent person works in the disability office. 

As if the day could get any better, I also found out that we are getting a partial insurance reimbursement for the birth expenses.  WA-bleeping-HOO!  What a way to start the weekend.

AND our loud annoying neighbors are moving out this weekend!

Maybe the luck will continue and Roscoe will sleep through the night tonight!  (I know it is a stretch considering he still wakes up every 2 hours ALL NIGHT LONG, but a girl can hope). 

Saturday so far has been sunny and beautiful.  We took a long walk to meet friends for brunch and Ray took Roscoe with him to a BBQ across that bridge that is actually happening tomorrow (but I am sure it was a lovely ride).

Happy Birthday shout-out to Traci and hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!