it’s a christmas miracle

…even though it’s after Christmas and it sure didn’t start out that way.

I had a little melt down this morning when husband Scott informed me that he’d looked over the revised medical bills from the birth and after insurance we still owe $8,000+.

Yes, scary.

It is the weekend though, so if there is going to be anything we can do about it, we can’t do it today. Call centers closed. Without a path to action, I cried. Isn’t that always the best solution? Learn of problem, blame self (oh I should have switched to an HMO ten months ago), fill with loathing, lather rinse repeat.

Given the title of this post, you’d think the miracle I’m working towards revealing is that somehow I made that bill go away by the end of the day.

Sorry, no. Tune in Monday. Maybe.

What did happen was that after the tears, after only an hour of nursing (instead of the two hour nursathons we enjoyed repeatedly yesterday), I got to clean the house.

Not scour, not spic and span, but the kind of cleaning where I got to go into my office and open all the mail, organize the medical bills (dammit), clear off my desk, straighten up the laundry room, wipe down the dining room table, make the bed, while Scott folded laundry and put it away.

Partly because the boy was napping, partly because I’d hit some limit where I didn’t care what else went down but if I had to live in this much disorder one more minute, I was going to blow a gasket, because I blew that gasket…

and because one set of in-laws are in town, and Grandma A has experience as a nanny and can that woman calm a baby, or what?

I was a little worried they wouldn’t come by today. Yesterday, when they arrived, I was in the midst of the nurseathon, and catching up with my Berlin-dwelling in-town-briefly BFF Lilan. I wasn’t terribly social then, spent most of the visit in my bedroom; and this morning, when they called from the hotel to tell us they were running late, I said something to the effect of:

“Oh, that’s good. Because we’re cranky. Not the boy, but us. I’m really glad you guys are here, and I really wanted you to come, but I just can’t promise anything. I apologize in advance for however this weekend is going to go.”

Grandpa A laughed. I laughed too, albeit with a hint of hysteria.

They showed up about 1-1/2 hours later, just in time for Judy to take the baby and Roger to keep Scott company as he did dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. And then they went off to do manly errands including buying glue to fix our broken ceramic nursery decorations (story within a story: We were given an angel on a very pointy tipped moon sculpture, and a rocking horse figure which my mother carefully carried home to us in bubble wrap, from her trip to Italy, and one bad day, Scott knocked the table, and the angel fell over onto the horse and they killed each other — at least there’s a certain symmetry to it).

And I GOT TO TAKE A NAP!

Husband and FIL fixed the ceramic things, put the new mattress in the crib, and went off again to hunt/forage for dinner for us all at Whole Foods (we might as well live there!).

House is clean, baby is sleeping in MIL’s lap, and men just arrived with steak frites, and I got a few minutes to write this post.

christmas. miracle.

* * *

My mother will kill me if I don’t also mention that she was an excellent, class one, top notch baby calmer too, as was my dad, when they were both here before Christmas.

My mom knows more lullaby-appropriate songs than anyone could possibly imagine and I am completely indebted to her for teaching me the delightful and infinitely repeatable French ditty: Savez-vous planter les choux? which, along with the Cal Drinking Song, has enabled me to successfully calm my baby to sleep at least twice already.