Ember is almost one! I can't believe it. She's such a sweet, peaceful little thing that the time has just flown by. I'm kinda sad 'cause I'm not sure if we'll be having any more. I may have only 2 days left in my life to enjoy having an infant. Not that I expect her to instantly transform on her birthday, but the birthday is symbolic of her growing up & it makes me sad. Anyway, she's a happy, healthy, helmet-free, little girl (and quite beautiful if I may say so). She still has a sizable hole on the right side of her forehead. I expect she'll need another surgery in a few years, but only time will tell. Yesterday I tackled what I believe is the beginning of the end of the medical bill mess. The billing office basically wasn't doing their job. Both insurance companies were willing to pay but the clinic just wasn't following through with the filing. I guess the girl thought her job would be easier if I just payed the $3400. But I spoke with both insurances & they gave me a detailed description of what the clinic billing office needed to do, and then I called the clinic & relayed the information. She still wanted me to pay, with the promise that the money would be refunded to me when the insurance payments came in. Yeah right! If you can't file a straightforward claim I'm certainly not loaning you $3400 & trusting you to give it back. But anyway, I think that's the last of the bills from the surgery itself. Medical costs are amazing. The value of Ember's medical care is almost equal to the value of our home.

I'm not sure if anyone reads this anymore since Ember is all well & healthy again, but I'm updating it anyway. All of my previous posts have been about Ember's medical schtuff. This one's just about how awesome she is. Ember is awesome. She is the easiest baby I've ever been around. She's happy, easy-going, and hardly ever cries. She's already 7 months old, I'm not really sure when that happened. Her current tricks are sitting up with no help, standing with help, babbling and shrieking. Oh, and eating. I gave her green beans & spinach today & expected her to spit it all out but she ate it like a champ. Poor kid, I would never touch that stuff. She kind of has her own language. "Dadadadada..." means she's happy & all's well with the world (if you ask Ryan it also means Daddy, but that's hard to believe when she says it to the wall all day). And "Nananana..." means she's bored, tired, hungry, or something like that. Anyway, it's not too hard to figure out what she needs. She's super fun and has gorgeous red hair which the world will get to see on March 16th when she gets the helmet off (ok, I snuck in some medical stuff. oh well). I thought 3 kids was going to be really hard but it's not. I mean, packing them up and going anywhere is a huge pain but other than that this is a breeze. I love my kiddos.