The Clark Family: April 2011

Friday, April 15, 2011

A Few Pictures from this Week

We are still working on getting good smiling pictures of Hadleigh...

Here is Camille yesterday after we went to the park.

She rarely lets me even touch her hair, so I had to take a picture of her ponytail. Exciting, I know.

Tummy Time

Hadleigh is getting pretty good at holding her head up. Check it out.

Camille wanted to do tummy time too. This is her showing Hadleigh how to roll over.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

I really like math. Given the recent talk about raising taxes, I wanted to play with some numbers. The funny thing is, I often hear arguments about raising vs lowering taxes but never see actual numbers.

Let's say I have $1,000,000 and two possibilities for investing. One should earn a modest 5% over the year, with very little risk. The other should earn a nice 12%. Clearly the 12% investment will have a much greater risk, but let's ignore that for now.

Now, assume that the 5% investment has a fairly low tax rate (15%). My investment should gross $50,000. The government gets $7,500 and I get $42,500.

For the second investment opportunity, let's say the government is trying to decide between a 50% tax rate and a 30% tax rate. Either way, I gross $120,000 on the investment. At a 50% tax rate, the government gets $60,000 and I get $60,000. At a 30% tax rate the split is $36,000 for Uncle Sam and $84,000 for me.

Now we bring in the risk factor. A 12% return on a one year investment is going to have a fairly high risk. At a tax rate of 50%, would it really be worth the risk for an increase of $17,500 ($60,000 - $42,500)? I doubt it. Therefore, I'd put my money in the 5% investment, and Uncle Sam only gets $7,500. If the tax rate were 30%, my potential payoff is $84,000 (an increase of $41,500 over the less risky investment), much more worth the risk. And, Uncle Sam still gets $36,000.

So, at a lower tax rate, Uncle Sam gets more money, I get more money, we are both happy. What about everyone else? Well, if I'm smart with my money, an increase of $84,000 in my pocket could potentially give 4 to 6 people part time jobs (compare that with the 2 to 3 part time jobs I could create with the first investment).

Now, it might be said that this argument is too simplistic. Well, if you thought that, I'd encourage you to read this.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Sick, sick, sick of being sick, sick, sick

Well, the title about sums it up. We are sick of being sick at our house. Every last one of us has been feeling junky this week, with our poor tiny little Hadleigh being the worst.

Camille has had a cold for about two weeks now. She is to the point that she only coughs a little bit here and there.

Poor Mike is congested and coughing and developed pink eye on Monday. He has been having terrible sinus headaches too.

I am constantly blowing my nose and have sinus headaches too. Luckily I am not coughing. I did catch the pink eye yesterday, however. Lucky me!

And poor little Hadleigh has a bad cough and stuffy nose. She has been to the pediatrician three times this week! (The first time was a well visit....but still.) And she will go a fourth time today. She hadn't been nursing very well on Tuesday and especially Wednesday. By Wednesday night she had a fever. A nurse at the pediatrician's office advised us to take her to the ER. Luckily there is a children's hospital here. Unfortunately, I wasn't very impressed with the staff. They didn't give Hadleigh anything for her fever until it got up to 102.8, and we had been there for three hours already. They also never did a pulse-ox on her. I'm no expert, but I would have done one on her considering her cough and congestion. Anyway, all her labs and x-rays came back normal. They basically told us to give her Tylenol and sent us home. Oh, and the doctor didn't think she looked dehydrated. I was so mad that he seemed to blow off that concern because Hadleigh was nursing so little that I became engorged and was able to pump nine ounces in one sitting.

Anyway, the pediatrician's office called the next morning. Considering how high Hadleigh's temperature was, they wanted to see her that day (Thursday...instead of Friday like we were advised in the ER). Our pediatrician is great. He is so much more concerned than the doctors in the ER were. He had us redo some of the lab work because one numbers was borderline. (We were told in the ER it was fine after they did it twice.) Then Hadleigh got some shots of antibiotics.

We went back on Friday to see if Hadleigh was improving and to see if she needed chest x-rays again because her lungs were sounding a little rattley on Thursday. Anyway, her lungs sounded about the same on Friday, but it was clear that Hadleigh was improving. She was prescribed antibiotics for bacterial pneumonia.

Saturday she finally started nursing better again. For a couple days I would try to nurse her then have Mike try to get her to drink from a bottle right after while I pumped just because she was drinking so little. It was pretty scary.

Anyway, Hadleigh is still coughing and congested, but she is about one hundred times better than she was on, say, Thursday. We love our sweet little Hadleigh Jane and are so glad that she is getting better. Hopefully we will all be back to normal soon.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Masters Week and Camille is Ready!

Since I've been sick and home all week, Camille has had plenty of time with me. Today I ~~conned~~ talked her into watching the Masters with me. She realized none of the players were doing things right and decided to show them how it's done.