Spending money cash withdrawal: $240 (actually $200 because NT paid in for some credit card purchases)
Groceries (I actually used my own spending money because it was such a small amount): $5.85

So, actual money out of the budget was $240.

Yesterday a couple of money & other things happened:

- Got our tax documents in the mail. The guy misspoke on the phone; we actually owe $292 in state taxes and are getting $1656 federal refund, and we owe $325 for tax prep. So $1039 to the positive, and if you add in the $600 I was planning to pay, $1639 to the positive in our planning. Not quite as exciting as the $1900 positive I thought based on my phone conversation, but still good news.

- Our paychecks hit and I noticed that AS's was over $300 less than usual. She looked into it, and it turns out that adding SL to her health insurance will be $350 per month, and for some reason they took the whole amount out of one paycheck instead of spreading it over two. Or, maybe they're charging us for half of March since she was born March 29. Either way, we're out $320 net, and probably about $160 per paycheck from now on, or until we get SL switched to a more affordable coverage. NT and I are going to check with our jobs to see how much it would cost to add SL to one of ours. I don't think I'd be able to until the adoption is official, but I wonder if NT could do it immediately since he is the birth father. AlTHOUGH:

- Our lawyer told us to be sure and have NT & AS complete the Recognition of Parentage form to make sure NT's info would appear on the birth certificate, since AS is technically unmarried. We got a letter from the county confirming the birth certificate info so we could order birth certificates, but NT was not listed. AS was the only parent listed. AS has calls in everywhere, and it appears that the hospital did send the form to the county, but they are not finding record of SL's birth in the county's records yet, which is weird since they DID send us the letter about ordering a birth certificate. So it's a big old mess with a couple of unwieldy organizations, and we need to get it sorted out before the adoption can take place. Before, there wasn't a huge amount of urgency to the adoption, but now with the health insurance issue, it's more critical.

So, probably the "surplus" I got from the tax returns (which still might not be enough to keep from withdrawing EF money) will be steadily eaten away by health insurance costs unless we get this fixed. And we probably will still have some bills coming in from the doctors and hospital, since are still pending insurance claims to the tune of $6000 from just one of our providers (the doctor; as I recall from my delivery, the hospital, anesthesiologist and possibly some other groups all bill separately).

In other news, my mom is still in the hospital, and one of the two big issues is still undiagnosed. A colonoscopy on Monday should tell us more. Until then my emotions are sort of in a holding pattern; I know they could be telling us that she's very, very bad off, or that it's something fixable, although I don't think internal bleeding is ever going to be a simple painless fix, whatever it ends up being.

AA was even more feverish on Friday, so she stayed home again. She's got a rash and a cough today, but seems much happier and more energetic. I would love to have one day home with the new baby without a sickly toddler, so I'm really hoping she's better by Monday morning. I know I'm being selfish, but I'm so disappointed that I didn't enjoy my week home with AS and SL.

On the bright side, had a really fun night last night. I made Asian lettuce wraps with vegetarian beef crumbles, fried Cantonese noodles with bean sprouts and soy sauce, and we broke open a vino verde, a slightly fizzy white wine that I love. We had an impromptu silly game where we were trying to draw Rachel Maddow's face on AA's easel, and posted the results on Facebook for our friends to vote on. We watched the movie "Big" and had fajita-spiced popcorn.