Has it really been 24 months since you reset your TiVo?
2: The simple solution is just to dip the cellphone in iodine, so it will have a yucky taste.
2: hot mustard works well, and is less likely to ruin the electronics.
Telling this story should be very good for ogged's Tivo, seems to me. Staying close friends with exes is most admirable and difficult.
Aw. But exbeforelast is going to lose her phone that way -- small children like to stow things in places. I say 2 out of five it's in the toilet within a month, and another one out of five it simply disappears never to be found again.
She should watch out; my friend's baby's drool corroded her cell phone to the point of nonworkingness.
never to be found again.
not until the MRI.
Cell phone is new, but we certainly lost the use of remotes by this process. And there are often features on the proprietary remote that the universals will not operate. I resuscitated one by washing the circuit board, blotting it and letting it dry.
Soaking the circuit board in rubbing alcohol also helps - it can get rid of little bits of water stuck in hard-to-evaporate-from places.
My son is fascinated by the toilet.
We had to put a lock on the lid.
He also drooled on my blackberry to the point of malfunction. Our IT department was able to restore it to life by opening it up and drying it out. He mostly just likes to press buttons though. On the blackberry or the phone or anything else --he'll just sit and press buttons forever. We gave him a 10-year old broken computer keyboard for his birthday, and he loves to just sit and "type" on it.
Is this just a random baby thread? Because I have pictures.
16: That's your Halloween ladybug? She's so big! And cute!
17: That's a baby that's going to try and sell you a car as soon as they figure out how to talk.
wow, those are all some cute kids. you better hope apostropher doesn't come in here and start dropping photos of his kids, though, or my head will explode.
I think this is a pretty good picture.
And even though it's a few months old now, I think that if you don't think this is a cute video, you are probably a bad person.
Serious question: is there a durable toddler computer? I don't mean the gawdy infotainment type, but one that looks like a real computer, except that it's unbreakable? I'd like to be able to download little videos and songs and pictures so that he could view them by punching things in on a keypad.
Did Emerson somehow acquire a toddler?
I'm not sure if any of my pictures even count anymore, though. They're starting to creep dangerously away from "baby" and into "little kid" territory. And no one wants that.
But I don't really know where the line it. He has a smallish head, so I figure that buys us a little extra time.
You should all load these up to Deggofnu.
Underwear Head totally needs to meet Diaper Head.
Chopper: do you have two sets of twins?
21: I don't think so, but there are toddler keyboards that can be attached to a regular computer. I can't recommend anything specific, but this sort of thing.
And Brock, ooo, grinning baby! Cute.
Grandnephew. Cutest toddler ever.
That's funny, John--you posted a link to that picture a few days ago and I'd assumed it was an old picture of your son.
You know, so did I, but the beer hat should have been a tipoff. Not so common thirty years ago.
Corona's been around since 1926.
30: Cute toddler, but his taste in beer is atrocious.
Babies prefer the less hoppy beer. What's important is that he is drinking beer at all, so that when he gets to be 10 or 11 he can refine his palate.
33: Well, not that I'm encouraging you to jump the gun, but you're now officially in the Danger Zone Of Birth Control Impulsiveness.
Cala you should definitely have a baby.
Cala, double up on birth control! Now is the time to be vigilant!
Oh dear, now I want a baby.
Good work, people. Thanks.
My grandnephew is the rare Mexican / Portuguese / honky / other mix, so people shouldn't count on equally cute results. The "other" may be French or Polynesian.
Wait, is this the cute baby thread? Cos I gotta contender as well.
I have lots and lots of cute nieces and nephews (and cousins' kids--what is that, first cousin once removed?) pictures. All very very blond.
42: At 11 weeks, that's a very focussed looking baby. Should be blogging in no time.
43: No threats please, magic-underwear-lady.
If I weren't so lazy, I'd spam the shit out of all y'all with links to pictures of blond wholesome Mormon children.
And that kid with the biggest cranium on record in Colorado.
We could do an online poll for cutest unfogged baby. I'm sure no one would cheat.
In my experience the Mormons are the most cheerful and genial of the insane, muerderous cults. However, their little honky kids are too predictable to be interesting.
their little honky kids
Dude, I'm working on it.
Yeah, Chopper, do you? If so, I stand in extravagant awe.
46: Don't start something you can't finish. Your white bread, corn-fed Mormonlets don't even come close to the mixed-race ones running around any Hawaii ward.
How is it that nobody's pointed out that Ogged's uterus totally wrote this post? I bet nattarGcM ttaM can hear that clock a-ticking from across the pond.
Is this the brag about your kids thread?
My daughter and I went for a long walk into Carytown. Then, she sat down in a restaurant with me and had dinner without screaming once. (And didnt stick her hands down her pants once!)
Then, we went to the $1.99 movie theater next door where she sat still for almost an hour of Shriek III.
After the movie, we walk home and I didnt have to carry her once.
You cannot understand how proud of her I am.
thanks heebie. She was an absolute sweetheart.
That's great, Will.
Becks, I'll deal with you later.
Thanks guys. I forgot to mention that she held my hand the entire walk to dinner and the entire walk back. I have the weirdest autistic kid.
Tomorrow, she'll probably beat the hell out me all day.
You know what's dumb? Being unable to get insurance when pregnant because it's a pre-existing condition.
Haha, it's not me, it's a friend who declined pregnancy coverage and now his wife is pregnant.
What's weird is the option to decline pregnancy coverage, that's what's weird.
It's a part of life, folks. It's like denying coverage because someone was discovered to be bipedal.
It's just that it's a very major medical expense that can occur relatively unexpectedly to almost anyone. Can you also choose to decline, say, cancer coverage? What's the difference?
Because getting pregnant is your own fault. If you weren't doing dirty, dirty things, it wouldn't happen.
Or so I understand the insurance companies' rationale to be.
I am pissed. Whose ass do I kick about a policy that will cover an abortion but not a pre-natal checkup? (I mean, I'm glad the policy covers abortions but culture of life my ASS.)
But it's not like they're just denying coverage--"nope, pregnancy expenses aren't covered under our policies". I don't think there's any insurance company that does that. They're offering the option. Which, again, is completely bizarre.
Right, for an extra $100 per month, he could have had pregnancy coverage. He declined it last September since they weren't trying. Probably dumb on his part, but stupid that he's getting the line that even at the annual policy renewal he's not allowed to add that coverage.
Paging wingnut economiwannabes!
You see, insurance is about covering risk. Once you already have a condition, it's no longer a risk, and of course no self-respecting insurance company would agree to provide a coverage that they already know is going to cost them more than the premiums they'll earn.
Of course, some of us operate under the delusion that there are important differences between health insurance and fire insurance. But that just shows we're not serious. For serious people, the Market God is never wrong.
It doesn't seem strange that it's an option. It's a big expense that some people know they'll never incur, so it makes sense to let them opt out. That they won't let him opt in now is, obviously, problematic.
There are, at least, regulations covering a lot of these things. What state are they in?
that some people know they'll never incur
How would they know this? With any more certainty than I know I'm very unlikely to incur lung cancer, I mean.
It's a big expense that some people know they'll never incur, so it makes sense to let them opt out.
Them's fightin' words. If the rationale is that people who don't get pregnant shouldn't have to pay for others' pregnancies, why cover pregnancy at all?
There are, at least, regulations covering a lot of these things. What state are they in?
The civilized ones.
Gay, hysterectomy, post menopausal are the things that come to mind. The silly thing is that it's not all that expensive as medical events go -- I went cheap and low rent, but I think I went nine months each with my two for around 4K each.
The civilized ones.
I meant, what state are Cala's friends in?
I understand how the insurance works. I just want someone's head. Or ass. They're in Kansas.
72: I can understand why it isn't covered for this fiscal year, but under HIPAA pregnancy can't count as a pre-existing condition (though there's lots of loopholes), so I don't know why they're giving him the run around on the renewal for next year.
77: Unless it gets expensive due to some sort of condition or pre-term birth and then it gets expensive fast.
80: True fact, but I'm thinking that even if you weren't covered for pregnancy, you'd be covered for, e.g., having your kidneys shut down as a result of pregnancy. But maybe not.
Maybe. The question is whether they cover the baby's stay in the NICU or similar. On my plan, the baby's coverage is retroactive to birth, so maybe.
Being born is a "qualifying event," much like getting married.
Right. But it depends on how they define 'birth' for coverage purposes.
I have dark suspicions about whether they would cover anything considered secondary to the pregnancy, however.
Yeah, they have to provide the option to cover the baby. But I'm not sure there's any federal-law problem with denying the pregnancy coverage (not sure there's not, either; just can't think through what it would be).
You're all being weird. I understand that a gay, post-menopausal woman who's had a hysterectomy is not very likely to get pregnant. Shouldn't her premium, or her "class" premium or whatever, just adjust to reflect that? Why instead is this offered as an "option" that can be turned down? Are there any other medical conditions that are like that? I'd think it was less weird if pregnancy were one among many such coverage options, but I don't think it is. I know many plans offer vision and dental options, and I guess you could call those roughly analogous, but just barely. Again, I'm at damn near zero risk of developing diabetes in the near-term--certainly at a lower risk than a women my age who isn't planning to get pregnant getting pregnant. Can I opt-out of diabetes coverage? It's just bizarre.
Welcome to the dilemma of "insurance" vs. "pre-paid coverage".
87: One suspects that they're required to offer pregnancy coverage but not to include it in all policies. Making it an optional coverage presumably means that people mostly buy it when they're planning kids and the additional premium pencils out to something pretty close to (average time from last open enrollment period to birth)/(average cost of pregnancy), which isn't too far from just not covering pregnancy in the first place, but who ever said that the health care regulatory process produces sensible outcomes? Especially in places like Kansas.
87: I was kidding in the way I said it, but 'you did it on purpose' is, I think, the real rationale. Pregnancy wasn't covered at all under most medical plans for a long time, AFAIK, certainly when I and my sister were born, and the rationale back then was that it was purposeful. Getting sick was covered, but for pregnancy you had to write a check.
Well, pregnancy coverage will not be optional in my universal health care plan.
Chopper: do you have two sets of twins?
Nope. Some good friends of ours had a daughter six weeks before Audrey was born, and another daughter 8 days before Cecelia was born. They're a cute little bunch of rascals, ain't they?
87: For what I can find in my state the options seem to be full coverage, no pregnancy, or High Deductible. I haven't been able to figure out if this is a regulatory outcome or not though. I know some states are pretty strict on what type of health insurance you can sell.
They're a cute little bunch of rascals, ain't they?
I bet they'd be great after you put 'em through the smoker.
if kills me to say anything that even looks like a defence of the American healthcare system, but given that your wonderful nation has chosen to have an insurance-based system, this is the only possible outcome. You can't buy insurance against a certain outcome, so you can't buy "pregnancy insurance" for someone who is pregnant. It would be equivalent to asking "can I buy pregnancy cover, but only pay like 10% of the cost" and saying "yes" to that sort of deal is bad for the long term actuarial solvency of the insurer.
Well, it's not the 'only possible outcome' -- in fact it's not AFAIK, a legal outcome (that is, Cala's friends are getting a runaround, but they shouldn't be; they're entitled to buy pregnancy coverage even if she's already knocked up): pregnancy can't be treated as a pre-existing condition.
That means the pricing, both on insurance without pregnancy and pregnancy insurance, is going to reflect that, and probably come pretty close to the cost of the average pregnancy (as DaveL said in 89), but that can still function as insurance, given the huge gap between the cost of a healthy pregnancy and one where things go wrong.
I am reading the fine print of my own BUPA policy now which is almost certainly the wrong thing to do, but aren't childbirth complications covered under the normal medical one? the "pregnancy" option on my private health is for routine checkups and ultrasounds and such. Although this probably is very different as there is no way on earth I'd have let my missus go near a private hospital for childbirth - they're all nicey and comfortable, but if anything goes wrong they are deathtraps compared to the good old NHS.
(and just to clear up slight ambiguity in the post above, I am very definitely in a position to make important decisions about my wife's healthcare and tell her what to do, and anyone who says otherwise is lying).
79: Is the policy a group policy or an individual policy. HIPAA only covers group policies. If the policy is for an individual pregnancies can be counted as a preexisting condition.
99: Honestly, I'm not sure. He was a little too distraught to give a lot of details, but I think unfortunately it's an individual policy. Work doesn't have health care benefits.
The video in 20 didn't get any love at all? You are all monsters.
Are you pregnant yet Cala?
I somehow missed it the first time through, Brock. Agreed: adorable. This one is still my favorite, though. Did the little fellow just have a birthday?
If you recall, the esteemed Jackie Parker Posey Paisley gave the libertarian defense for not insuring maternity costs a while back.
103: Looks like she got married in a red dress.
Wikipedia: Prior to the Victorian era a bride was married in any color except black (the color of mourning) or red (which was connected with prostitutes).
104 - Smasher and I were talking about that the other day. For one's third marriage, I guess that's only appropriate. (We decided it went white, ivory, red, bikini.)
I don't get the attraction of bridalwear in general, but pairing the veil with a red dress makes it seem even sillier.
