Yesterday it was my turn to stay home with Penny. Well, I stayed home in the morning, and Matt came home around noon to take over. We'd just have dropped her off with my parents for the day, except Dad was taking a class somewhere, and Mom was sick.

So I got to haul Penny around town with me while I ran errands - most notably, I had to go and get my knee x-rayed (the doctor thinks that I did in fact fracture my kneecap back in January) and add another chapter to the Saga Of The Sixty-Dollar Eyedrops.

See, we usually get our prescriptions filled at CVS. They have all our insurance information in their computers, and they're fairly quick and relatively inexpensive.

But Monday night, when I took the prescription for Penny's eyedrops over to CVS, they were out of them. They said they could have them on Tuesday, but Penny can't go back to daycare until she's been on the drops for at least 24 hours, and I really wanted to get her started.

So I took the prescription over to the Farm Fresh. (There's an Eckerd that's even to us, but it's a filthy little store, and I don't like going in there unless I really have to.) The Farm Fresh people had me fill out a new-patient card for Penny, and verified that they did have her drops in stock. And I went to get her insurance card, which I keep in my wallet.

Except that it wasn't there. I emptied the wallet. Looked in the credit card pocket. The other credit card pocket. The driver's license section. The place where I keep cash and gift cards. The coin purse, even. No insurance card. (Well, there was my insurance card. And my dental card, and my car insurance card. But not the card for Matt's and Penny's insurance.)

I finally realized - I'd left the damn thing in the diaper bag, from last Monday when I took her to the doctor for the rotavirus.

Well, shit. And the eyedrops cost nearly sixty dollars. But the Farm Fresh people said that if I brought the card and the receipt back to them within a week, they'd refund what the insurance covered. Okay-fine. I paid for the drops and went home.

So yesterday, I got the card and the receipt (and Penny) and went back to the Farm Fresh. One of the pharmacists googled at Penny over the counter while the other took the card and went to enter it in the computer. After a bit, she came back. "This card is expired."

Blink. Blinkblink.

I called Matt. He had no idea what I was talking about, but promised to go talk to the admin folks in his office.

By the time I got Penny home, he'd got the answer - new cards had been issued back in December. Apparently, I never got one.

So last night, after I got home from work, Matt took his new, good card back over to the Farm Fresh.

And got a refund of about $15. Whaddafu? Matt's eyedrops only cost four bucks. But Penny's cost forty-five? Ten times as much? He's going to call the insurance company today to find out what the heck is up with that.

(Though I must admit, they seem to work about ten times better than Matt's. Penny's eye is already nearly back to normal. Matt's is still red and gummy. Despite the fact that she's only been taking her eyedrops twice a day for two days, and Matt's been on his three times a day for five days.)

In other baby news, Matt and I both poked at Penny's gums this morning and felt teeth. And I pried her lip down and pushed her tongue out of the way (which is harder than it sounds like) and saw them. Not much teeth, yet - just the tops are peeking through the gum so far; I figure it'll be at least another week before they actually look like teeth and not weird pale bumps on her gums.

But it's breaking through the gums that hurts the most. I'm hoping that, now that they seem to be through, she can start sleeping a little better at night. (Please, gods...)

--Liz