Scouts and Doubts
We had the Den meeting at our house last night, which did NOT turn out very well. At least on our part.
I spent most of the last week cleaning up our wretched mess of a house (seriously, how does it get looking like this?), and in the end I was throwing crap into boxes and pushing them into the master bedroom. A lot of it is LLL stuff; a large box of nursing clothes for a now-defunct fundraising effort. A "sales box" filled with a few slings and a couple of books. A huge library of books which only a few people check out and which nevertheless weighs a ton and I end up dragging from meeting to meeting. A rolling file folder filled with "information sheets" which you need to have on hand for the moms who come to the meetings. I wish we had a central office where all the groups could meet on any day of the week where all this crap could be kept. But of course the rent for such a facility would be astronomical. Sigh.
So anyway, I actually got MOST of the stuff picked up and at least moved to another room, the table(s) in the kitchen cleared off and Windex'd, and the carpet (at least up to the kids' room) vacuumed.
I didn't have much time by the time all that was done; I had most of the materials for the catapults put into a baggie, but other than that, I had no fasteners. I ran downstairs and dug up a box of nails and few little screws and a tube of silicone caulk which we had gotten for the laminate floor. The would have to make due with it; I had planned to have it all pre-drilled and such so that they could just follow from A to B, but I never got the chance. I found something obscene like five hammers (why so many hammers?), three screwdrivers and a jigsaw.
In all, only three other Scouts came to the meeting. I know one kid had basketball lessons that night, another was hyper-allergic to cats, and someone else was coming down with a cold. The rest just never showed.
I did have two other dads and a mom there, and two other little sisters came so Lauren had someone to play with. The other two girls spotted Lauren's play kitchen and descended on it like pink locusts. JOY!
I caught myself going into "teacher mode" with the catapults. I kept asking what they thought about one thing or another, what do you need to HOLD whatever you're going to throw, how would you extend the handle, which of these things has stored energy in it to be able to launch something, how would you raise the catapult, etc. The dads helped the kids build the stuff, and most everyone opted for the caulk. You'd think that was a good idea, but in reality, all the catapults fell apart with it. We experimented with rubber bands, but the nails and the screws ended up splitting the wood, since we didn't have pilot holes drilled. So they ended up with catapults which fell apart, which they were dismayed at. I tried to turn that around by saying, "OK, that didn't work. Now take it home and improve the design. Change things, do it a different way, try new things." Thankfully the Den Leader came completely prepared with his own project, which were really, really cool stands for their Pinewood Derby cars. HE also had them pre-drilled AND color-coded, and the boys put them together in nothing flat. So everyone had one failed project, and one successful project. They're supposed to make their Derby cars next, so all in all, that's probably a good balance...not every little thing they try is going to work right off the bat, but that doesn't mean that you put your tools away and never touch the again.
Speaking of the pinewood derby, David is still wanting a Triceratops derby car. We're going to have to build it this weekend, so I should probably spend tonight charging up my cordless drill. AND going to get the paints and such. I saw a wonderful tip in a book about those cars...get TWO of them. Then while you work on one, your kid works on the other. That way YOU aren't building HIS car, but he gets to watch what you're doing and follow suit. I thought that was very clever.
We did one of the Den activities after that, and David managed to lure the rest of the kids over while the adults were packing up and pretty soon every last one of them were on the floor playing Crossbows and Catapults, which he got for Christmas. (This was a Doug idea. "My problem is that I've never been a six year old little boy," I told him, "So I don't know what the penultimate in cool would be." This is how David ended up with not only the catapult game, but also a Nerf Target Shooting set and his own set of bows and arrows. I have more missiles at my house than you can shake a stick at.
David is currently earning his Swimming belt loop for Scouts. Which means that we're all sitting here watching him (and most of Dens 4 and 2) swarm around in the pool and kick their way through 25 feet of water and learn the basics of water safety. As unofficial, volunteer sorta-secretary, this means I get to bring the laptop and record who comes. After this I need to drop off something at Doug's work for him, and then we're going to tour the renovated JCC, which I haven't been a member of since...oh, since David was about two years old. But I'd like to see the place and they're trying to lure people back, so...maybe now is a good time to be more healthy. Maybe.
Speaking of health...our health insurance went up again. Now we're paying $775/mo for all of us to have insurance, and all of it comes out pre-tax AND at the first of the month...which is when all of our bills come due, so Doug's paycheck comes in extra-small and can't cover our expenses, so we end up bouncing checks and/or paying late on everything, which gets various services (like trash pickup) shut off periodically, and certainly incurs late fees on a regular basis.
When Doug started the job two years ago, insurance was only $550/mo....so while he's not getting a cost of living increase or raise of any kind, our expenses keep rising.
Apparently this is hardly news for most anybody. I've seen a couple of studies that say company-sponsored health-care costs went up about 11% in 2004, another 10% the next year and 8% in 2006. Companies have to pay about $8.500 per year for family coverage. Looking at our medical + dental, we're looking at a cost of $9,263. For us, that's about $6,500 out of pocket per year. And the thing that really galls me is that we tend to pay even more out of pocket for the privilege of staying out of the health-care system. Like say....$1.500 for a midwife, so I don't have to go through another $5,000 insurance-paid hospital stay. We tend to really not even utilize the doctor's office. The most obvious exception to that is the gallstone surgery, for which I remain deeply grateful.
I'm about to look into individual health care plans, to see what's out there. I don't know what I can get, but it should be interesting to find out. I know we can pick higher deductibles and such, but I don't know what the savings look like pre-tax versus post-tax, and especially versus covered and non-covered. Because we're younger, it will probably tend to be less, but I know that won't always be so. We'll have to be sure to find out when/if we can re-enroll if we drop. We would both love to ax the health insurance for a couple of years and put that money into our debts to get rid of them all, and then go back to being insured like a normal person. But that isn't very prudent, and we know it.
Can I quit being a grownup now? This part is no fun.
I spent most of the last week cleaning up our wretched mess of a house (seriously, how does it get looking like this?), and in the end I was throwing crap into boxes and pushing them into the master bedroom. A lot of it is LLL stuff; a large box of nursing clothes for a now-defunct fundraising effort. A "sales box" filled with a few slings and a couple of books. A huge library of books which only a few people check out and which nevertheless weighs a ton and I end up dragging from meeting to meeting. A rolling file folder filled with "information sheets" which you need to have on hand for the moms who come to the meetings. I wish we had a central office where all the groups could meet on any day of the week where all this crap could be kept. But of course the rent for such a facility would be astronomical. Sigh.
So anyway, I actually got MOST of the stuff picked up and at least moved to another room, the table(s) in the kitchen cleared off and Windex'd, and the carpet (at least up to the kids' room) vacuumed.
I didn't have much time by the time all that was done; I had most of the materials for the catapults put into a baggie, but other than that, I had no fasteners. I ran downstairs and dug up a box of nails and few little screws and a tube of silicone caulk which we had gotten for the laminate floor. The would have to make due with it; I had planned to have it all pre-drilled and such so that they could just follow from A to B, but I never got the chance. I found something obscene like five hammers (why so many hammers?), three screwdrivers and a jigsaw.
In all, only three other Scouts came to the meeting. I know one kid had basketball lessons that night, another was hyper-allergic to cats, and someone else was coming down with a cold. The rest just never showed.
I did have two other dads and a mom there, and two other little sisters came so Lauren had someone to play with. The other two girls spotted Lauren's play kitchen and descended on it like pink locusts. JOY!
I caught myself going into "teacher mode" with the catapults. I kept asking what they thought about one thing or another, what do you need to HOLD whatever you're going to throw, how would you extend the handle, which of these things has stored energy in it to be able to launch something, how would you raise the catapult, etc. The dads helped the kids build the stuff, and most everyone opted for the caulk. You'd think that was a good idea, but in reality, all the catapults fell apart with it. We experimented with rubber bands, but the nails and the screws ended up splitting the wood, since we didn't have pilot holes drilled. So they ended up with catapults which fell apart, which they were dismayed at. I tried to turn that around by saying, "OK, that didn't work. Now take it home and improve the design. Change things, do it a different way, try new things." Thankfully the Den Leader came completely prepared with his own project, which were really, really cool stands for their Pinewood Derby cars. HE also had them pre-drilled AND color-coded, and the boys put them together in nothing flat. So everyone had one failed project, and one successful project. They're supposed to make their Derby cars next, so all in all, that's probably a good balance...not every little thing they try is going to work right off the bat, but that doesn't mean that you put your tools away and never touch the again.
Speaking of the pinewood derby, David is still wanting a Triceratops derby car. We're going to have to build it this weekend, so I should probably spend tonight charging up my cordless drill. AND going to get the paints and such. I saw a wonderful tip in a book about those cars...get TWO of them. Then while you work on one, your kid works on the other. That way YOU aren't building HIS car, but he gets to watch what you're doing and follow suit. I thought that was very clever.
We did one of the Den activities after that, and David managed to lure the rest of the kids over while the adults were packing up and pretty soon every last one of them were on the floor playing Crossbows and Catapults, which he got for Christmas. (This was a Doug idea. "My problem is that I've never been a six year old little boy," I told him, "So I don't know what the penultimate in cool would be." This is how David ended up with not only the catapult game, but also a Nerf Target Shooting set and his own set of bows and arrows. I have more missiles at my house than you can shake a stick at.
David is currently earning his Swimming belt loop for Scouts. Which means that we're all sitting here watching him (and most of Dens 4 and 2) swarm around in the pool and kick their way through 25 feet of water and learn the basics of water safety. As unofficial, volunteer sorta-secretary, this means I get to bring the laptop and record who comes. After this I need to drop off something at Doug's work for him, and then we're going to tour the renovated JCC, which I haven't been a member of since...oh, since David was about two years old. But I'd like to see the place and they're trying to lure people back, so...maybe now is a good time to be more healthy. Maybe.
Speaking of health...our health insurance went up again. Now we're paying $775/mo for all of us to have insurance, and all of it comes out pre-tax AND at the first of the month...which is when all of our bills come due, so Doug's paycheck comes in extra-small and can't cover our expenses, so we end up bouncing checks and/or paying late on everything, which gets various services (like trash pickup) shut off periodically, and certainly incurs late fees on a regular basis.
When Doug started the job two years ago, insurance was only $550/mo....so while he's not getting a cost of living increase or raise of any kind, our expenses keep rising.
Apparently this is hardly news for most anybody. I've seen a couple of studies that say company-sponsored health-care costs went up about 11% in 2004, another 10% the next year and 8% in 2006. Companies have to pay about $8.500 per year for family coverage. Looking at our medical + dental, we're looking at a cost of $9,263. For us, that's about $6,500 out of pocket per year. And the thing that really galls me is that we tend to pay even more out of pocket for the privilege of staying out of the health-care system. Like say....$1.500 for a midwife, so I don't have to go through another $5,000 insurance-paid hospital stay. We tend to really not even utilize the doctor's office. The most obvious exception to that is the gallstone surgery, for which I remain deeply grateful.
I'm about to look into individual health care plans, to see what's out there. I don't know what I can get, but it should be interesting to find out. I know we can pick higher deductibles and such, but I don't know what the savings look like pre-tax versus post-tax, and especially versus covered and non-covered. Because we're younger, it will probably tend to be less, but I know that won't always be so. We'll have to be sure to find out when/if we can re-enroll if we drop. We would both love to ax the health insurance for a couple of years and put that money into our debts to get rid of them all, and then go back to being insured like a normal person. But that isn't very prudent, and we know it.
Can I quit being a grownup now? This part is no fun.
posted by Kelly at
2:18 PM
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