It's long...but worth the ending...

My day started early...around 5:30am, when this crazy bird started it's song, as it does every morning. It is the strangest bird, making the sound of a chisel being hammered into stone...at the BREAK OF DAWN!!!

So I got up and closed all of the windows so the offending creature would be shut out. Only to have Max wake up when I closed his. I guess he was being kept asleep by that crazy bird. I got in his bed with him and tried to persuade him to go back to sleep, but he was hungry, so I fed got him a bottle, and started to feed him, but of course he went back to sleep once I was nice and awake.

It was about 6:30 at this point and I got Max in his bed, and got back in my bed. I went back to sleep for another couple of hours, and got back up to Mr. Max being talkative. I went straight into the kitchen to make his medicine and turn on his Sesame Street before I went and got him from his room. As I walked in he started saying Elmo...and I realized I had it on the wrong channel, and that Curious George was on instead of Sesame Street. (We have something like 3 different PBS channels here!) I told him he could watch Elmo, and then he started making another 2 syllable sound that wasn't one of his normals, so I asked if he wanted to wear his glasses, and he gave me a big cheesy grin with a hearty YEAH!

I could not get him to eat his bottle while Sesame Street was on. He was happy to watch it instead. So I had to turn it off to get him to eat afterwards. Silly boy! They are really thick glasses, so I am so curious as to how differently he sees now! He wore them all day, and I think if he could, he would wear them to sleep in. In fact he's still awake in his room occasionally asking for them. He's not being fussy about it, just calling out from time to time.

We spent part of our day at the Social Services Office, applying for Medicaid...excuse me...Medi-Cal...as they don't call it Medicaid here, and if YOU call it Medicaid, you are promptly told it isn't Medicaid, but Medi-CAL...whatever...just give me the stupid forms! We were there almost 3 hours...filled out the forms, but filled them out wrong. In Colorado you fill everything out as if it were Max filling it out, as it is based on his disability. But here I have to fill it out and say only he needs the coverage. So we had to fill them out again, and wait until we were given a copy of our paper and told we would be mailed a date for a meeting to see if he was eligible. Which he won't be because of our income...which means we will have to apply for a waiver program...but we went through the first hoops today. If there was one thing to gripe about since our move out here it would be getting into the system here! It's such a pain...and so frustrating that just because we're not below poverty, or immigrants, or refugees that we can't just get the same assistance because WE need it. Max will run out of his diapers by the end of this week, and his formula too. So we get to start paying for all of that, because we have to fill out forms, and let them sit in someone's inbox until the time comes to deny us, in order to fill out more forms. Just so stupid to me.

Oh well...enough of that. One last bit of funny and warm fuzzies to end this post. After we left the Social Security office, we headed to REI to look for a bike helmet for Steve, and check out their sale. While Steve was looking at some bike gadgets, or bags, or something, I wandered off with Max and started looking down other aisles. Where I came across something I can't resist in bike sections. The BELLS!!! I always ring bike bells and honk the honker horns in the bike section. I don't know why...I guess because they are there and I can. I saw this one bell that was way cool, and gave it a twirl and thought, goodness me...that is an easy bell to get going. Then DING...I had an idea. (Get it...ding? like the bike bell?) It was so easy, I wondered if Max could activate it. I put it in his stroller and put his hand on it to give it a twirl. That's all it took. We had that bell tucked into his stroller strap the rest of the time in the store. And we would here this little rrrrrrrrrrrring! Every couple of minutes. He was doing it all by himself, and having fun. So we bought that sucker!

He has played with his bell, and worn his glasses all night! We went for a walk after dinner, and he had his bell ringing the whole time. And had his glasses on, taking in all of the sites. Once we got home, he ate another bottle while his bell was nearby, ready to be rung if he wanted. Steve has been using it as a switch of sorts. He'll say, ring your bell if yes, or ring your bell for this or that. And Max does it!

In fact, he is just now settling into sleep. Not because I put his glasses on him, or played him Elmo, or even Opera music. No...the child is snuggled into his bed, with his shiny green jellibell just within reach. And as soon as he realized that, he closed his eyes, gave it a twirl, and went to sleep!

I told you...warm fuzzies!