Good morning.

It is not often that I sit down on a Sunday morning to update the blog, but Clark apparently wanted me to suffer some cruel and unusual punishment this morning by waking up at at some ungodly hour. The sun was barely up if that gives you a better idea of what time it was. I haven't greeted this hour in a long time and I want to cry. I watched him on the video monitor for a good fifteen minutes hoping and praying that this was just a fluke and he would realize his folly and fall back asleep, but this didn't happen. I went in there to make sure he didn't wake up with a fever, and within 1.5 seconds of seeing me he started laughing and screaming choo-choo (which is his favorite thing to say now), which was really cute and I couldn't be mad anymore for waking up with the roosters. So after he ate his blueberry waffle, two scrambled eggs, five strawberries, half a piece of my toast, and a bowl of oatmeal, I plopped on the couch, turned on the Cat and the Hat, and pulled out the computer to attempt to form sentences while Clark pulls out all the contents of Aaron's wallet and hides them like Easter eggs around the house. Don't let me forget to tell Aaron his driver's license is in a bowl in the pantry. The only good news in this scenario is that he will most likely go down for a morning nap about an hour earlier than usual and down I will go too for a nice little snooze before church.

There has been a lot of exciting stuff happening in our neck of the woods in the past couple of months. I'm going to write about these exciting happenings soon. Not now because its 6:17 a.m. and I try not to be too productive before 10 a.m. This morning I just felt the need to tell a story about me at the doctors office Friday afternoon.

Last Monday, for a reason completely unknown to myself, my left knee started throbbing as if somebody took a sledgehammer and pummeled it into a million pieces. It was ridiculously painful and got horribly worse throughout the week. Besides going on a short uneventful jog that morning, there was absolutely no explanation for the pain. With every day that passed, I stubbornly convinced myself that the next day would be better and never took so much as a Tylenol to relieve the pain. I just hobbled around complained a lot to my husband and almost 16 month old. By Friday, I suppose I had had enough pain for the week so I called and made an appointment with a doctor. Fortunately they had a spot open that afternoon and I could see the light beaming at the end of the tunnel. I was looking forward to a dream drug that would zap my pain away and I could skip out of the doctors office and frolic in a field of daisies.

Well, after checking in and then waiting for TWO HOURS in a very small room that seemed to get smaller and smaller with each passing minute, I finally talked to the doctor about what was going on. After I nonverbally cursed him for making me wait two hours, he ordered the nurse to do an x-ray to see what was going on in this crazy knee of mine. Not surprisingly, I waited another 30 minutes after the x-ray was taken for him to come back into the tiny and growing tinier room to look at the dadgum images. He looked at it for less than 10 seconds and declared I have a torn medial meniscus and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it. He prescribed rest, stretching, and no more jogging. Genius. And then he bid me farewell by handing me a blue piece of paper saying I owed him $719.00. Let the nonverbal cursing resume.

I took the blue piece of paper to the check out counter and prayed silently that I did not have to write this lady a check for $719.00 and that my insurance would pull through. She asked me if I normally had to pay anything after a doctors appointment, and I said no. Unethical? Maybe. I just didn't know. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I'm sure I'll get a bill first thing Monday morning for $719.00 and I will appropriately hobble down to the floor and cry at that time. The lady asked me if I wanted a copy of the receipt and even though I considered making a political statement by saying yes and then shredding it into a million pieces right in front of her face, I politely declined by saying I didn't think it was necessary.

This is what got me:

After declining, she handed me a copy of the receipt anyway, and this is what she said. I think I can remember it verbatim.

"Are you sure, honey? I think your parents are going to want an explanation when they get a bill like this in the mail."

I looked at her, and with my wedding ring finger leading the way, I grabbed the paper and said, "Thank you, but my parents won't have anything to do with this."

"Oh, honey, you look like you're 15 years old. I just assumed...." she tried redeem herself. I robotically thanked her for the copy and hobbled out of the office.

This will not seem like a big deal to anyone else in the world, but I was livid for one main reason. The reason is because this lady continually called me honey, which happens to fall into one of my biggest pet peeve categories. I HATE being called sweetie, honey, darling, etc., by anybody who is not related to me by blood or marriage. It grates on me like a dripping faucet and I get uncharacteristically irritable. Especially in a retail situation. Women in retail love to call me sweetie and I respond by storming out of the premises immediately. It bothers me. Another reason I became quickly frustrated in front of the check out lady is because she said I look like a 15 year old. Is this true? I wasn't wearing a Justin Bieber tshirt. I was clearly wearing a wedding ring. What's the deal? I realize I don't have wrinkles around my eyes yet, but seriously, 15 years old? Maybe I'm insecure because even though I have almost been married seven years and have a child, I still don't feel like an adult. But being physically compared to a 15 year old girl is hardly complimentary.

Well, there's my Sunday morning rant. You're welcome for that. It is now 8:01, I have spent the last hour and half trying to write this nonsense post while convincing Clark that Jake's food is icky and he shouldn't eat it. His breath and Jake's breath have a remarkable resemblance now. But it is finally time for our nap.

Before I sign off, it is SO IMPORTANT that every single person who reads this goes to my roommate Megan's blog and purchase one or more of her adoption tshirts, which are unbelievably cute, by the way.

Megan and Russ are going to bring a baby home in the near future and guess what? WE CAN HELP THEM. They have a tshirt fund to help them with the costs of the adoption and would appreciate every dime they can get. I honestly cannot think of two people more deserving of a sweet little baby, and if I can buy two tshirts to support them, you can bet your bottom dollar I'm going to. You don't have to know them personally to buy their shirt. Just know they are an amazing, Christ centered couple and will be perfect parents to the child that God has picked for them. So please, please, please pray for my friends, Megan and Russ, and support them by wearing this cute shirt. You can read about their journey and order the shirts directly from her blog. Love you, Megan! I can't wait to meet Baby Johnson!