i never should have said it outloud

A few days ago, I was hanging by the baby pool, talking to someone about Little One's orthotics and I was saying that I think she may be outgrowing her need for them. In the summer, she doesn't use them much because she wears sandals or Crocs. She used to fall down A LOT if she didn't have the orthotics, but I told my friend, "I can't remember the last time she fell down. I used to tell her not to run because she ALWAYS fell down (yes, I am That Mom telling her kid not to run), but she's been running up and down the sidewalk with no problems lately."

So you know what happened right after I dared to speak those words aloud, right?

In the last 3 days, Little One has fallen down probably 20 times. Her knees are skinned, she has road rash on her hip bones and elbows, bruises on her shins and forehead. Just like the old days.

So evidently, we have not outgrown our need for the Foot Whisperer.

Something is also going on with her and her learning issues. I freak out about this every 6 months or so, so it must be time.

Call it mommy intuition, but something is not right. I don't know exactly what it is. She is a smart girl. She can repeat a story you read her almost word for word. She is very socially perceptive. She uses big words and tells complicated stories. And yet, despite the fact that I have sung the song 80,000 times, she cannot get past C in the alphabet. Nor can she count past 3.

She's almost 4. Isn't that strange?

We've been working on this for MONTHS. She doesn't spell her name. She can't write any letters. She can't actually write anything. She is just starting to draw circles. Stick figures are a long way off. I know my other kids were way beyond this when they were her age.

We have an appointment in August with her wonderful geneticist. Hopefully he will have some ideas. None of which will be inexpensive, I'm sure.

Speaking of the cost of health care, the other day, I was trying to take care of some health insurance issues. Something I spend a LOT of time on. I noticed that our dental claims were not getting paid because the dentist's office was not using the correct ID number. I assumed they would fix this. We've been going to the same dentist FOREVER and we've had this insurance for awhile.

But after getting another notice about an unpaid claim, I called the dentist's office to tell them they have to file claims with either Rocket Man's social security number, or our insurance subscriber number, but whichever one they were using, was incorrect.

So the woman I spoke with said, "Oh. Ok. I'll re-submit these."

And I said, "Well, do you want to tell me which number you're using so I can make sure it's correct?"

So she said, "We're using your husband's social. It's still 123-45-6778, right?"

Huh? 123456778? Are you kidding me?

I asked her to repeat it because SURELY I heard wrong. But nope, she read me back the same number. Which is, I'm pretty sure, NO ONE'S social security number.