On Friday, late Friday night, I wrote an 800 word post. But even as I was writing it, it felt forced. I couldn't really get my arms around the topic, and I knew it was poor writing. But I posted it anyway. Maybe you saw it; it was up for about nine hours. This morning, Stephanie read what I wrote and said what I was thinking: "Hmm. You sound pretty grumpy." Which wasn't my intention. So I deleted it. 

 And that's the thing about this NaBloPoMo obligation. Sure, it's a good goal, intended to give us all some accountability and motivation to post more. But sometimes, when you are out of ideas, the only thing to do is write a real dog of a post. And my greater goal is to be proud of what I post here. So anyway. I whiffed on Friday. No gold star for me. Boo hoo. But I'm okay with it. And I'll keep posting. I have a few more topics earmarked for the remainder of the month, and some of them are real doozies, so hang in there. In the meantime...

* * *

Today, Stephanie and I were talking about the current cold spell. It reminded her of the time the water in the house froze last winter. 

Stephanie: "I know global warming is supposed to be a big deal..." 

(sheepish pause) 

"but I really love living in Alaska..." 

(rhetorical pause)

"and I just wish it was warmer." 

(thoughtful pause) 

"It may work out for us."

* * *

Earlier this week, Stephanie was on our local army base visiting a friend. The guard at the checkpoint saw the kids in the car and gave the boys a stack of papers with instructions to fold them into many, many different kinds of paper airplanes. The next day, she spent several hours folding them all into a full armada. And later, they had an airplane throwing party with upwards of thirty paper planes. For a few moments it rained down enough planes to blot out the sun. 

Tobias: "How exciting! It's magical." 

* * *

Stephanie and I were having a conversation in the living room when Toby walked into the room, stood to the side, and pulled his pants down to his knees. I watched him in paralyzed disbelief, and honestly thought he was about to pee on the carpet. Instead he started to scratch himself under his scrotum. 

Stephanie, horrified: "What are you doing?"

Tobias, matter-of-factly: "I was scratchin' myself." 

* * *

Tonight, when putting him to bed, Tobias asks me, "Will you sleep with me in my bed, Day-ad?"

"No," I said, "you're on your own." 

"But I'm worried about you." 

Where does he get this stuff? 

On the outskirts of Fairbanks is the development community of North Pole, so named by a couple of opportunists who thought their might be attention and money to be gained by having a place officially called “North Pole, Alaska” albeit 800 miles south of the geographic North Pole. And it has got some.

There is a store there called Santa Clause House, open year-round, where Santa and his staff hang out, where there are reindeer (and reindeer sausage, too!), and where you can get your picture taken with Santa in July if you like. That’s a pretty big draw.

This is also where letters from children that are addressed to “Santa Claus, North Pole” have traditionally been delivered, even without proper postage. The staff at the Santa Claus house and other volunteers open and read these letters. If there is a return address, they will send a letter to the child from Santa himself, postmarked from the North Pole.

When we were there at Santaland, we read about how, in some cases, when the letters from children revealed particularly dire situations, the good people at Santaland would forward the letter to churches, charities, or even social services in that child’s area. In all it seemed like a really great thing.

According to this story, the post office has recently announced that it will no longer be sending children’s letters to Santa anywhere but the recycling bin. And this just seems wrong. They claim it is for security, but earlier this week, the post office announced a $3.8 billion loss. I’m sure they are trying cut back where they can, but this just doesn’t seem like the place to do it. Our national debt keeps rising, and we gotta make cuts somewhere, but couldn’t we spare something like one bomber in the arsenal? I think one of those should about cover postage for our kids’ Santa letters. And who could hold up a child’s letter to Santa and just throw it away?   

Stephanie and I will celebrate nine years of domestic partnership in mid-December. Nine years. Can you believe that? Today I was thinking that we needed to get away, stay at a hotel, and go out to a nice dinner to celebrate. But that kind of outing will be a little beyond our resources just before Christmas. So on to other thoughts.

Unrelated, yesterday and today I was at work thinking about life and our lives here in Alaska. Sometimes, as the regular routine of work, school, commuting, dinner, kids, chores, etc. come to dominate, the fact that we are in Alaska seems less relevant because we don’t do any Alaska things. I mean, if we aren’t camping or wildlife viewing, or river riding, or hiking, or anything, then why are we here? Of course I know the answer. We’re here for proximity: when the weather breaks, when the day off comes, all of that is right outside our door. At the same time, though, we need to purpose to take advantage of the opportunities that are here.   

And so it occurred to me tonight: For our anniversary, we can stay at one of the Alaska State Parks cabins. There are a number of really cozy cabins tucked away here and there and available for Alaska residents for a nominal fee. We have stayed in several of those at different times during the summer. Each time we’ve stayed in one I’ve thought about how nice it would be to stay there in the winter. It would be difficult with kids, but how nice it would be for just the two of us. I think we’ll get an overnight sitter for the kids so that Stephanie and I can sneak away for a quiet weekend in the cold and dark of the woods, in a cozy little cabin warmed by the glow of a woodstove. And if we stay at one on the Chena Hot Springs road, we can even go out to the hot springs for a soak. So that’s what I’m plannin’. 

Our daughter Sarah, our third child, was born in July of last year. She was delivered via planned cesarean, without any complications. After a couple of days in the hospital, we were released to go home to our boys and the resumption of our daily life. Sarah was precious. Very quiet, and very easy. She slept thought the night, which we loved. She woke to feed for just a few minutes and then went back to sleep for hours. We told everyone who asked how easy she was.  

But she wasn’t gaining any weight. And Stephanie was more sensitive to this than I was, but she recognized that Sarah wasn’t eating as much as she expected. A dip in weight is normal in the days after birth, but that weight should be gained back after a week or so. After a month of little weight gain, Stephanie embarked on a journey of medical intervention in order to find out what was going on. There were all kinds of scans, tests, and exams that turned up nothing.

Eventually, she was admitted to the Fairbanks hospital in order to track her intake and output very closely over 24 hours. It was then that a heart murmur was detected, and her heart defect was first diagnosed: Supracardiac Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return (TAPVR). Today, I know that mouthful of words like I know her own name.

Over the year and a half since that time, Stephanie and I have been managing the almost continuous stream of doctor bills, hospital bills, insurance statements, payments, insurance reimbursements, formal letters of appeal, negotiations, letters to the state department of insurance, phone calls, letters of decision, further letters of appeal, some hand wringing, more letters, more payments.

Stephanie agreed to be responsible for all of the insurance and medical related billing and paperwork. We knew it would be easier if one or the other of us took full responsibility for it, and Stephanie was willing to do so. Many, many thanks to her for keeping meticulous records of all of this and for going to bat on our behalf with our insurance company, my employer, and Sarah’s doctors. She did an incredibly thorough job.

Ultimately, it’s been kind of fascinating, in a train wreck sort of way, to see how much this whole experience cost, at least in monetary terms. The true cost can never be known.

The initial admission to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital was $9,925 for one overnight. Once the diagnosis came, we were immediately rushed to Anchorage. The medivac via a turbo prop and two ambulances was $17,500. Sarah and I were at Providence Hospital in Anchorage for about fourteen hours: $26,260. During that time, Sarah had her first procedure, a catheterization that entered her body in her femoral artery, right at the top of her thigh, and threaded its way into her heart: $20,260.

The next morning, Sarah and I flew on to Seattle on a Learjet. It probably would have been a pretty cool experience if my peripheral vision and my senses of wonder and adventure were working that day. They weren’t. Total cost: $38,540.

The actual heart surgery was a modest $19,978. A relatively small price for such a stunning act of medical and surgical skill. I’m still in awe of what they accomplished that day, and for which Sarah’s surgeon only charged $9,400.

The rest of our hospital stay at Children’s was more lengthy, and more costly. It makes sense, in such a world-class facility. $98,955.

Whenever I discuss money I feel like I have to clarify that I am neither bragging nor ashamed about all of these dollar amounts. They are what they are, and I find it interesting, even fascinating, but I cannot quite decide if I think this is a large dollar amount (it certainly is), or a relatively small dollar amount, considering what all was done (if the price of this surgery was in the millions, and the course and purpose of my entire life was suddenly redirected toward paying for it and nothing more, I would still consider it a worthy bargain).

All told, we were billed $231,500 for Sarah’s medical misadventure. She cost more than our house, more than our net worth, more than a few years’ salary, and more than a Lamborghini Gallardo (and I was this close to buying one of those, too).  

We are so blessed to have had excellent medical coverage through my employer. Because we do have insurance, that dollar amount above is not what we actually paid, but a percentage of a lot of money is still a lot of money. We are blessed to have the world of advanced medical technology available, and to have the support and prayers of our family. And more than anything, we are blessed to have Sarah with us as we struggle through this stack of paperwork. As I mentioned to Stephanie recently, there was no money back guarantee. If she hadn’t lived, we still would have been charged this amount and working through this paperwork, except that each statement, bill, and payment would be another poisoned reminder. She waved both me and the thought away as tears filled her eyes. 

Sarah is doing incredibly well, and shows no signs of any illness or limitation. Her scars are very faint, but they will be a lifelong reminder of this experience. She runs around after the boys all day. She is frighteningly smart and uses this intelligence to torture Toby (she is her mother’s daughter). And she hasn’t had the attention to discipline that I think the boys have had, and so she’s fairly terrible about throwing herself down on the floor and having a fit of tantrum from time to time. But she’s also very sweet, cuddling warmly with mom or dad, patting us on the back when we hold her to mirror the way we are patting her. I am looking forward to watching her grow, to see her became a strong and beautiful adult. Who will be counting pennies then? 

Everyone loves the weekend; I know we’re not alone in this. Weekend mornings in particular. This is a universal truth, but it must be especially so for those who work Monday through Friday, for students, and for families. The weekend provides the needed break and rest from the workday world. 

Saturday and Sunday are the best days of the week. We get so much joy and have so much fun being together as a family. On these mornings, the stressors of life fall away. We are home, which for us is the place we most desire to be. We are relaxed, watching our kids be kids, watching the snow fall outside, enjoying the familiar voices of Weekend Edition on the radio, enjoying that comforting cup of creamy coffee, often making special breakfasts of waffles or pancakes, and enjoying each others’ company.

On Sunday mornings, we enjoy this kind of morning. We bask in it until one or the other of us looks at the clock and the spell is broken. We’ve got an hour to leave for church, and we must dive in to getting ready if we are to have any hope of being at church on time. Ratchet up the stress. 

One of us jumps in the shower while the other one picks out three sets of kid’s clothes. Someone wakes up Jamiee and gets her started toward readiness. There are shoes to put on. Matching pairs of socks to find. We trade shifts in the shower and the other one starts getting Sarah and the boys into their clothes. I can’t find my belt. Stephanie decides against an outfit once it’s on and changes into another, and another. It’s about time for Sarah’s morning nap so she’s crying, but we still have to go. They boys are being crazy. I’m taking too long and not thinking ahead. Stephanie is blow-drying her hair, applying makeup.

I’ve learned from past mornings. Or I like to think I have. In the past, once I’m ready and the kids are ready and Stephanie is still blow drying, I have just gone out to the car, got the kids buckled in, started it, and idled in frustration. Stephanie has this childhood memory of being late to get ready on Sunday morning and of being left behind as the family went to church without her. This was not a good memory for her, and I’ve just caused her to relive it. That makes for a good morning.

On subsequent Sunday mornings I’ve changed tactics and waited upstairs, totally relaxed and acquiesced to the idea of being late, applying no pressure to hurry whatsoever, only to frustrate her further and be accused of lollygagging. I haven’t learned anything.

We’ve been moments away from being ready, only to realize that I can’t find my belt. Can’t find my wallet. Can’t find my keys. And then Stephanie helps me look, because I never seem to be able to find anything. We turn the house upside down. We get stressed. The house becomes more of a disaster. We’re late. Later still.

There have been mornings like these where Stephanie and I are both snapping at the kids with voices raised louder than we intend. We push too hard, trying to motivate the kids to hurry when they seem to have no concept of the idea. We almost immediately feel terrible about this, because this is completely against our parenting philosophy. We get bugged at each other, and this is not how we’ve agreed to relate to each other. By the time we’re all buckled into the car and backing out of the driveway, all I want is peace. No kids talking. No radio playing. I want everyone to shut up for a minute.

And I realize that the hour before we leave for church has become my least favorite hour of the week. And that thought startles me. My favorite morning of the week. My favorite day of the week. My least favorite hour of the week.

We value going to church together as a family. We don’t look at it as a chore, a burden, or an obligation. For us being involved in church is family time as well, it’s just our larger family of faith, and we don’t want to miss it. It just seems to be that transition from weekend morning to dressed for church that kills us.

We’ve tried laying out clothes the night before. We’ve tried waking up earlier. Starting to get ready earlier. Going to bed earlier on the night before. Nothing works, and I suppose the real reason for this is that ultimately we’re treating the morning like a weekend morning. We’re not sure what the solution is other than to recognize it’s an issue and keep a sense of humor about it.

And sometimes, when we’re twenty minutes late for Sunday school and everyone is bugged at everyone, the only thing to do is stop at the local donut shop, sit together, enjoy some doughnuts, and some peace, and love on each other for a while.