How's this for irony?

I would not have had to look at the calendar to know that yesterday was Monday.

First, I called my dentist to try and schedule an appointment to repair the filling I broke over the weekend. Receptionist looks in my chart and insists I don't have a filling in that tooth. Hmm....okay, whatever. Receptionist wants me to pay $55 and come in for an exam, then they will schedule an appointment to actually fix the tooth (to the tune of several hundred dollars). Um, yeah, no thanks. The dentist had already told me this particular tooth would need to be fixed at some point, don't feel like paying $55 (not to mention my time) just to hear the same thing again. No, we don't have dental insurance. What is available to us would cost us $90/month and only pay for exams about about 50% of dental work....we don't spend enough in a year to make the expense worth it.

Sedona decided she didn't need a morning nap yesterday, which woke Max up as well (with more kids around, I'm quickly recognizing I'm one of those "naptime is sacred" people). Oh, and they both had poopy diapers. I gave up on ever eating breakfast at that point.

Load both kids up in the car because I want to get to Sierra's school a little early. And, the car won't start. I should insert here that the car is paid for and that's important to me...I'm happy to take a few quirks in return for not having a car payment. One of the car's quirks is that when it's really cold outside, you periodically have to spray WD-40 into the ignition. The can I keep in the car was so close to empty that it barely dribbled any out. I did finally get the car started though and was still running a little early.

Sierra's school is only about 2 miles away from the house. Of course, there had to be a wreck in THAT stretch of road at THAT time, completely blocking the turn lane.

The high point of the day was actually picking Sierra up. We've been planning to talk to her teacher, but I was nervous to bring it up. Turns out I didn't have to--her teacher asked about our schooling plans and thinks Sierra is ready for Kindergarten in the fall and it's "perfect" for her to do Kindergarten next year, then homeschool after that. We also talked about when Sedona would start school and we had initially planned on next January, but I'm leaning more and more towards putting her in in the fall (so she has more time with sister there).

The afternoon was the usual insanity of feeding three kids and grabbing a bite for myself when I could. I must say Max was an absolute ANGEL yesterday, which made things a bit better.

THEN, around 4pm, I was petting the dog and found a hard lump on her side. Felt like a sebaceous cyst to me (used to work as a vet tech), but I wanted to take her in to make sure. Here's the irony to my day.....as I sit here with a tooth that's missing a filling....the DOG has comprehensive health insurance. $16/month covers just about everything she needs done (all exams, all preventative care and steep discounts on acute care) without even a co-pay or deductible. So while I try to get someone to fix my tooth, the DOG gets an appointment FOR "FREE" for first thing the next morning. Okay, we did pay some money because we asked them to cut her nails while we were there and we got another month of flea and tick preventative (which we were out of), but just to get the lump checked out.........no charge, no wait. She goes back in a month to recheck it...again, no charge. I won't even tell you what we pay for human health insurance, because it's sickening--it's 30% of our gross income, AND we still have co-pays and deductibles to meet.

So, my Monday was very Monday-y. A friend wished me a "Thursdayish Tuesday" and I don't think I'm quite there, but Tuesday has been better so far! The dog's not dying of cancer and doesn't appear to have staph (though she does have two bumps, not just the one I found). Sedona's skipping nap again (she's really ready for just one now, I fear), but she's quiet. I got to sleep in later than normal. It's warming up and hopefully the last cold snap will be the end of winter this year. Oh, and I called a different dentist who was SUPER nice of the phone and charges significantly less for the same work.