Oh, another pet peeve!

Just when I thought I had encountered them all, I walked down the hall and a colleague from downstairs said, "Hi, Mommy."

Never mind the fact that three billion things can go wrong between now and November, even now, but I think it boils down to the same thing that causes me to cross my eyes when Dean greets total strangers with "Thanks, sis." I'm not this woman's mother, I'm not of a mind to be "Mommy" when my son sat me down, what, 8 years ago now and said, "I can't call you Mommy anymore. From now on, I'll call you Mom." I know Bunky will likely call me Mommy at some point, but not for some time yet probably almost two years away. I don't know why I find it so patronizing--everything gets on my nerves these days--but I'm not exactly glowing over this pregnancy and I wish people would grok that without me having to sit them down and say, Look, starting over is hard enough without you treating me like (a) I'm about to break and (b) I've never done this before.

As I was walking up to church last week, I ran into the parish's director of programs--kind of like the senior admin person. We were having a nice little chat when she asked if I knew the sex yet, and whether I'd be finding out. "I'll probably find out at my next ultrasound," I said. "But I'm thinking about holding off on telling anyone until we get to shower season just for the laughs." She touched my arm and said, "Oh, I didn't even think--you probably get asked that all the time, and I forget how insensitive those of us can be when we ask these questions not realizing how much you hear it. Those become really dumb questions after a while." And I laughed, realizing she had just caught herself doing something that she herself had been annoyed by at one point.

You know, I appreciated that so much I gave her a hug. Granted, she and I are facebook friends so she might have gotten a whiff of my sensitivity, but she doesn't use the platform much so I doubt it. I'm just trying to be more mindful of why people ask the questions--I think everyone honestly cares even though I feel like I need a bubble over my head that automatically updates my answers to those questions.

Anyhow, so I got the bill from the perinatologist and sure enough, the $150 that my insurance excluded is in the bill, so I am going to go by there on Tuesday and demand that they resubmit the claim with the proper code or at least an explanation that the consultation was for genetic counseling. Right now, I have about $500 in unpaid medical expenses to foot the bill for, a final T-mobile bill in collections and one last oil invoice to pay, but my car payment is caught up and the mortgage is doing much better. So I'm starting to feel more confident that by autumn, we'll be in better shape for Bunky to get here. Of course, Dean gets a whiff of a promotion just as we're trying to get him out to the valley full time...