MOMA Here She Comes

Perhaps it is being housebound with the bad weather, but Eliza is branching out from her painting to wood block sculptures

I give you Super Kitty, cape and all:

Super Turtle:

The Tree house:

Super Turtle going through the Tree house (think Trojan Horse):

And here is the artist herself in action:

Sneaky? I Think So!

I finally caved and bought the Sneaky Chef Cookbook.

Interesting read if you want to get some vegetables, beans and such into a picky eater. Not the greatest help for a kid like Eliza, but I did not despair since, yes, there is a dessert section.

I decided upon the brownie recipe since Eliza has been known to eat cake.

First you need to make the spinach and blueberry puree. Let me tell you that this stuff looks (and tastes) not-so-good:

You can go two ways after this (well three, if you count running for the hills).

You can channel your inner Martha Stewart and follow the Sneaky Chef recipe for brownies from scratch.

Or you can channel your inner Anne Richter and use the modified recipe which involves a box of this:

And a jar of this:

That's wheat germ to the uninitiated.

After some substitutions and 33 minutes in the oven, you get this:

And this:

Which gets you this:

Kind of liking the Sneaky Chef! Tomorrow, some chocolate chip cookies with chickpea puree!

The Rectangle

Thanks to the kindness and generosity of a good friend, I am the proud owner of one of these:

To you, it may be an iPAD, but in our house it is called "The Rectangle." As in, "Mama, can I have The Rectangle." Or, "Mama, that's not how you use The Rectangle." Or "Mama, let's ask The Rectangle." Clearly The Rectangle has god-like powers, more so than even the old Magic 8 Ball that those of you born before 1980 might be familiar with.

The Rectangle lets Eliza:

look up what dinosaurs we are going to see in the museum and find out more about them while we are standing right in front of them

practice her spelling

improve her fine motor function (she has blown through all 25 levels of Angry Birds and is on the second box of Cut the Rope)

color by numbers

play a piano

practice her Spanish (thank you Adriana)

watch her favorite shows when we travel

have her Mama read her a favorite book

What does The Rectangle do for Mama? Well just once in a while, in between all of the above, I can check my email :)

Bunnies!

Today's snow day was filled with bunnies:

The Fairy Bunny:

And Snow Bunny:

Snow Bunny learned that what goes down:

Must be dragged back up:

The Surreal World of Medical Billing

I never thought I would be on the same side as United Health Care/Oxford on a medical billing issue. But that day has come!

The series of events that has led to this united interest is as follows:

1. In September Eliza saw Dr. A for a routine office exam of 20 minutes or so. No tests, no bloodwork, not even a pin prick!

2. The bill as usual was $450.00. I paid my $50.00 co-pay and UHC/Oxford reimbursed Dr. A $350.00. So a not-so-bad write down to him of $50.00.

3. In October I get a bill from NYU Medical Center, the hospital with which Dr. A is affiliated. His office is not in the Medical Center, but at a building owned by NYU Medical Center.

4. The bill is for $530.85. UHC/Oxford paid $530.35 and NYU Medical Center was seeking payment from me of $50.00 for my co-pay. Huh? Eliza never went to NYU Medical Center that day, just the routine exam at Dr. A's office.

5. During my first call to NYU Medical Center Billing I was told that they could not tell me what service was rendered by NYU, but that UHC/Oxford could tell me that. Huh? My insurance company would know this but not the entity rendering the bill. UHC/Oxford was quite at a loss. Not only could they not tell me what services were rendered by NYU Medical Center, but now they were curious and wondering why they had paid $530.35 of the $580.35 bill.

6. In my attempts to clarify this with NYU Medical Center Billing, I am repeatedly told that this bill is for either blood work (nope!), pre-op testing (nope!) or some type of scan or x-ray (nope!). One clerk even told me that perhaps I had forgotten what was done to Eliza during the visit. Uh. No.

7. I make 6 more calls to NYU Medical Center Billing, each more useless than the next. I am now told that only Dr. A can tell me why NYU Medical Center generated this bill.

8. So I leave 6 (lucky number) messages for Dr. A's billing clerk and finally speak with her today.

Here is the answer:

NYU Medical Center has changed Dr. A's designation from "outpatient office" to "outpatient facility." Because it is now a "facility" I will get two bills for each office visit: $450.00 from Dr. A and $580.35 from NYU Medical Center for the mere use of the facility (since any testing would generate yet a third bill). There is no extra service being rendered by NYU Medical Center, yet they will bill UHC/Oxford $580.35 and I will now have two co-pays, $50.00 for Dr. A and $50.00 for NYU Medical Center for their facility fee. So now a visit to Dr. A will cost me and UHC.Oxford a total of $1030.35.

Now if that doesn't sound like fraudulent double billing, I don't know what does (the billing clerk was clearly in disagreement with my assessment).

So now for our 6 visits a year I will gave to shell out $600.00 instead of the usual $300.00. Eliza has four other doctors at NYU and I am waiting to see if NYU Medical Center adds the same bogus charges for each of those visits. If so, the co-pays for this set of doctors will be about $3,000.00 per year.

Anyone else out there see anyone at NYU Medical Center?

Anyone with a similar experience?

Oh, and for $1030.85 I am making sure that Eliza gets at least an hour's face time with Dr. A. Maybe two hours.

Plain and Super

Eliza loves a good Super Hero. Just not your typical Marvel Comic Super Heros.

I give you Plain Kitty:

Yes, we do call her "Plain Kitty."

Plain Kitty has the power to become Super Kitty:


Plain Kitty is often accompanied by Plain Pongo:



Plain Pongo seems to have more style sense than Super Kitty when he becomes Girl Pongo:


But erhaps we should be honest and just call him Transvestite Pongo?

But the real Super Hero is Super Kitty Girl:



(Note the fist pump in the air. A true sign of a Super Hero).