You know that magic moment when your children start doing things on their own and start leaving you alone for long enough for you to take a shower, eat some lunch, blog? Yeah, not there yet. And that could not have been more clear this long, loooonnnng weekend.
Loo, despite her 3.5 + years, is incredibly needy. She demands constant entertainment, constant attention. She’s high energy, and higher demand. But slowly, we’re seeing signs that she’s willing to be engaged by things (other than the television) for more than a split second.
We went to the park Saturday morning – really the first time that we’ve spent any extended time outdoors for the last two months. It was chilly, but the sun was out and you could just feel the tinge of green in the air. Loo must have felt it too, because instead of insisting that we play with her on the swing set, she actually spent several minutes running around on the open grass.
I had never really seen her (1) run without my inducement or (2) run for such an extended amount of time, so I was positively flummoxed by her exuberance. I leaned towards J, who was pushing Kali on the swings and asked him, “What’s Loo doing?”
“Frolicking. You know, like Snoopy.”
And indeed she was.
Kali will probably be much better with the self-reliance. Even now, she’s more likely than Loo to retreat to a corner with a book or a toy and spend 10 to 15 minutes amusing herself. I wonder sometimes how much of this is due to the fact that she’s a second child and has had to be satisfied with whatever dregs of parental attention that hasn’t been siphoned off by the first-born.
Kal is also one gigantic ham. I’ve never seen anything like it. And this was discovered sort of entirely by accident. At some point this weekend, Loo fell off a chair when she was too engrossed in the computer to notice that she had pushed her chair too far away from the screen. She wasn’t really hurt, but landed on a sharp edge with one of her knees. As she wailed bloody murder, Kali toddled over to investigate. As I was consoling Loo, “aaawww…. don’t cry, don’t cry, it’s ok,” Kali squinted her eyes shut, wrinkled her nose and started making wailing noises as well. “Waaa… waa….. waaaaaaa”
Then she reached out her arms for a hug.
And for the rest of the weekend, J and I realized that if we said to Kal, “cry for mommy, Kali… cry for daddy,” Kali would squint her eyes shut, wrinkle her nose and start wailing while toddling to the nearest parent for a pick up.
Then we tried other commands, like “say hooray” and “Kali has a boo boo,” and Kali would either throw her hands up in the air and cheer, or rub her head with a distraught look on her face. Wow.
Anyone know a good child-actor agent?
*******
We had a bit of a financial set-back this weekend. J ran our numbers through TurboTax and it looks like we will owe AMT and have a tax bill of about $20,000. (And, no, this is only slightly due to capital gains and dividend income: most of this is income tax.) I have no friggin’ idea how this happened. And this is not only a travesty because of the amount of withholding that we are already subject to, but because I’m a friggin’ lawyer (theoretically) and I should friggin’ know why this is happening.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your POV, I suppose) we don’t own our home, so we have no interest payment deductions. It also looks like we might not qualify for too much deduction on the child care front, because J had taken care of a dependent care flex spending account at work.
We’re going to talk to an accountant next week, after we get back from TX, just to make sure that we’re doing this correctly. Because, seriously, we don’t friggin’ have $20,000 dollars. And I don’t really know what to do about that. When the numbers first popped up, I felt ill. I felt so ill, I had to go lie down. I thought I would burst into tears.
It was so painful to remember all that we have been through this past year, all the turmoil and strife, and all the sacrifice that we’ve asked of our children. Yet, just when it was looking like we would be able to finally get a handle on our financial situation, when we finally started on our goal to getting out of debt and getting out of this situation of constantly clawing and scratching our way to the surface to get some air, we could get knocked back down with one tax bill.
If it turns out that this tax bill is correct, J and I have to seriously reconsider everything, and sooner rather than later, because this definitely tips the scale towards having one parent stay at home with the girls, at least for the next two to three years. And you know J and I are not ready to have that conversation.
We're also not so sure where we're suppose to come up with the money to pay the taxman. Our (nonexistent) cash and J might be able to get a loan from his dad?
Seriously, it's like being punched in the balls.
WHAT. A. HAM. That is so cute.
Um.. your tax bill is higher than someone's W2 reporting... (of course, that someone doesn't report ALL his tips... but still.)
Hope the tax person can find other sources for deductables... any donations? Mileage used to drop the said donations count...
Posted by: Mama Nabi | March 25, 2008 at 11:49 AM
I live in fear of the day we qualify for AMT. Hopefully congress will do something about it soon because I don't know about you - but I don't feel that we qualify as "wealthy". It certainly doesn't feel that way right before payday.
Posted by: Kate C. | April 03, 2008 at 04:43 PM