So, LawDaddy calls to get the damn serial number for GoLive.

Remember, I’m at the home office with the actual product.  LawDaddy is not.

And what does Adobe tell LawDaddy?  That I should have called since I’m installing the product (insert swearing under breath here).  And if I’m not mistaken, it was a woman who said this.  It’s confusing because we’ve spoken to about five Adobe folks at this point.

So 27 minutes on the phone later, and some yelling from Chris, we have re-installed GoLive.

Jeez, it better be worth it.

It’s Lawdaddy’s birthday.  It’s been a rough week (yeah, it’s only Monday – your point?) and things have not been so great at home.

In the midst of all of the craziness, his gift from me was… a bag of Reeses Peanut Butter Cup miniatures.  Unwrapped.  And a Bert balloon on a stick, which Katie broke.

And Katie switched the candles in the store so his “4x” birthday cake (double icing, courtesy of Katie) became “5x”.

So iffen you’re so inclined to wish him a happy birthday, it would make me very happy.

So, I convinced husband to parlay his sporadic beer blog into a regular blog for a network. Check him out, show him some love… Well, not that kind of love. He is my husband!

So, I convinced husband to parlay his sporadic beer blog into a regular blog for a network. Check him out, show him some love… Well, not that kind of love. He is my husband!

I have a couple of Innocent Spouse claims on my desk right now. IS claims are filed when there are tax obligations on joint tax returns and one spouse claims that, for whatever reason, he or she should not be liable for the total tax due. In the majority of cases, these claims boil down to which spouse can tell a better version of their story – the he said, she said dilemma. They can be kind of tricky to prove because, let’s face it, most people don’t spend a lot of time documenting the ins and outs of their relationships.

Over the course of a number of months now, I’ve been requesting information to prove allegations and asking the same kinds of questions over and over. One of my clients mentioned to me that she had never really asked her spouse hard questions about any of the finances because in their marriage, there was a division of labor that they more or less followed. In the division, her husband managed the finances including filing the tax returns and she never had real cause to question it – or the guts to ask him to prove anything to her because she both trusted and feared him.

So, this has been on my mind a lot these days. It’s easy to be smug when these cases walk through the door, and wonder how a marriage could crumble to the point that there was no communication, but it has dawned on me that this is how most marriages that I know work: household chores and obligations are divided. And in this busy life that we lead, we rarely stop to ask questions. In my house, for example, while I manage the finances at the office (remember, Chris and I manage a law firm together), Chris takes care of money at the house. I take for granted that the bills will be paid, that the proper paperwork is filed, that he has not secretly transferred ownership of the house. That takes a lot of trust. Or is it willful avoidance? You see, IRS would argue the latter. And on paper, it kind of sounds that way. I’ve thought about the argument that I would make if something catastrophic happened with respect to our finances – and it’s a bad one. How can I, educated woman that I am, argue that I just didn’t know? And there I go sounding smug again.

I know, at the end of the day, that a good relationship is built on trust. We trust each other to do the right things – to not cheat, to not lie, to not lead us down the wrong road. But where is our personal responsibility in these matters? I don’t purport to know. I know where IRS thinks it is. And yet, I can tell you, that no matter how many of these cases wander through my door, I doubt very much it will force me to change the way that I live my life. That’s the craziness of it all.

It’s awfully gray outside.  We just returned from a playdate and picnic with Sam and Rebecca (okay, mostly Sam, Rebecca just hung out in her stroller) – raindrops were just starting to fall so we all darted to the car.

At home, we prepared for quiet time.  One would think that there’s not much preparation that would need to go into quiet time, but there’s quite a bit.  Katie had to go to the potty (“I had a long poop!” she announced proudly).  Amy had to go to the potty, which she always insists on doing but at just under the age of two, she mostly just sits on the potty, throws a Kandoo in and flushes.  But today, she looked at me and said, “Ready, Get set…” and peed.  Wahoo!  Two days in a row.  In normal Amy fashion, she thereafter insisted on multiple wipes, washing her hands herself (“Mommy, I try”) and brushing her teeth.  Yes, that Amy has dedication to dental hygiene.

We also had to change Amy since the frozen limeade from the ice cream truck (darn that Satan in a steel box who just happened to drive his truck in front of the park after lunch) had run down the front of her clothes.  Finally, we managed to get Amy changed into a new outfit and into her bed for a nap.  Katie went into the family room to read (and yes, the coolest kid on the planet was, in fact, reading Dilbert).  I then changed the baby and started to feed him.  Chris went upstairs for a nap.

Katie says, “Where’s Daddy?”
I reply, “He went upstairs to take a nap.”
Katie says, “Oh.”
She paused and then asked, “Girls make him tired?”
I laugh and say, “Yes, girls make him tired.”

Specifically, our girls.

Ok, at the risk of completely ruining any image of me lawmummy’s readers might have had, I’m adding my first (and perhaps only) post right now.

As those of you who commented correctly surmised, lawmummy is in fact a superb if occasionally overextended mother, and both of her kids are well aware of that. Kate’s just testing the waters – with both of us – and finding them a little more hospitable on lawmummy’s end of the pool. Not much, but a little.

Maybe not so sappy after all, that’s pretty much as good as it gets. On a separate note: strangely, lawdaddy was taken, sorry for the e-mail notice of your password, whoever you are.

Ok, at the risk of completely ruining any image of me lawmummy’s readers might have had, I’m adding my first (and perhaps only) post right now.

As those of you who commented correctly surmised, lawmummy is in fact a superb if occasionally overextended mother, and both of her kids are well aware of that. Kate’s just testing the waters – with both of us – and finding them a little more hospitable on lawmummy’s end of the pool. Not much, but a little.

Maybe not so sappy after all, that’s pretty much as good as it gets. On a separate note: strangely, lawdaddy was taken, sorry for the e-mail notice of your password, whoever you are.

So, we finalized our insurance policies today. We decided that some increased insurance was in order, what with the increased number of kids and all…

Our physicals were last month and went really well. They took blood and urine, plus measured our blood pressure along with our resting and active heart rates.

The good news? I received a Preferred Elite rating, the highest that you can get, which means, in simple terms, I got a decent amount of insurance for little money. The annoying news? Chris received a mere Preferred rating. After teasing him about this for awhile, I decided to ask our agent why the big difference. And get this – it’s because Chris smoked a cigar last year. Yes, you read that correctly. A cigar. Last year.

We are not smokers. I used to be a social smoker, which means I had an occasional cigarette when out for a drink or two. I was (thankfully) never addicted and I gave it up altogether when the girls came along. It is a nasty habit and I didn’t want the girls to ever see me doing it.

Chris has never smoked a cigarette, I don’t think. He has, however, been known to enjoy an occasional cigar. And by occasional, I mean maybe four a year in our pre-kid years. And one last year.

I was the one who encouraged the full disclosure. As an estates lawyer, I have witnessed many an insurance company who managed to wiggle out of payment based on a discrepancy characterized later as a willful lie. As I told Chris, there is probably a picture of him smoking a cigar floating around somewhere (perhaps taken by my crazy neighbor in a fit of her trying to prove that we’re giving her cancer – more on her some other day) and that’s the last thing we need, to lose a claim based on some goofy interpretation of the question “Do you smoke tobacco products?” So, we told the nurse who gave us our physicals about our respective histories. And I came back as “no problem” but Chris is on par, practically, with a smoker – which cost us some money. All because of one lousy cigar.

There’s a Clinton joke in there somewhere but I’m just too tired to think of it… Insert your own political humour here.

So, we get points for honesty. But we lose some dollars. As Chris is fond of saying, it’s getting more and more difficult to tell our children that honesty is the best policy. In today’s society, lying seems to get you everywhere – including the White House – whereas honesty costs you.

Sigh.

But it’s still the right thing to do… isn’t it?

So, we finalized our insurance policies today. We decided that some increased insurance was in order, what with the increased number of kids and all…

Our physicals were last month and went really well. They took blood and urine, plus measured our blood pressure along with our resting and active heart rates.

The good news? I received a Preferred Elite rating, the highest that you can get, which means, in simple terms, I got a decent amount of insurance for little money. The annoying news? Chris received a mere Preferred rating. After teasing him about this for awhile, I decided to ask our agent why the big difference. And get this – it’s because Chris smoked a cigar last year. Yes, you read that correctly. A cigar. Last year.

We are not smokers. I used to be a social smoker, which means I had an occasional cigarette when out for a drink or two. I was (thankfully) never addicted and I gave it up altogether when the girls came along. It is a nasty habit and I didn’t want the girls to ever see me doing it.

Chris has never smoked a cigarette, I don’t think. He has, however, been known to enjoy an occasional cigar. And by occasional, I mean maybe four a year in our pre-kid years. And one last year.

I was the one who encouraged the full disclosure. As an estates lawyer, I have witnessed many an insurance company who managed to wiggle out of payment based on a discrepancy characterized later as a willful lie. As I told Chris, there is probably a picture of him smoking a cigar floating around somewhere (perhaps taken by my crazy neighbor in a fit of her trying to prove that we’re giving her cancer – more on her some other day) and that’s the last thing we need, to lose a claim based on some goofy interpretation of the question “Do you smoke tobacco products?” So, we told the nurse who gave us our physicals about our respective histories. And I came back as “no problem” but Chris is on par, practically, with a smoker – which cost us some money. All because of one lousy cigar.

There’s a Clinton joke in there somewhere but I’m just too tired to think of it… Insert your own political humour here.

So, we get points for honesty. But we lose some dollars. As Chris is fond of saying, it’s getting more and more difficult to tell our children that honesty is the best policy. In today’s society, lying seems to get you everywhere – including the White House – whereas honesty costs you.

Sigh.

But it’s still the right thing to do… isn’t it?