Death and Taxes

The only certainty in life? Ahhh! The Today show even quoted Big Ben this morning as apart of their series on how to save money filing your taxes or something like that. I was having a hard time hearing over Rt pleading with me to watch his signing video. “Baby, Baby, Baby?”. “Not now, sweetheart. Quiet now.” “Baby, Baby, Baby??????”. Anywho, both seem to be the going subjects out there lately.

Just yesterday, I was at my MOPS meeting (Mother’s of Preschoolers)(aren’t I kickass?) where an Estate Planning and Asset Protection lawyer spoke. Usually at our meetings, the mood is fluffy, the crafts are quaint, but useful, and the food takes the shape of a supposed egg casserole, but yesterday, it was MAJOR HEAVY. I even teared up during the presentation. No one wants to think about what will happen to your child if you AND your hubby dies. It literally makes my heart hurt. The whole point to the lawyer being there was to inform us, if we weren’t “ready” for the worst to happen, then it could mean a lot of trouble for our offspring and family.

Here is what I thought you should know:

1) Make sure you have a list of FIRST RESPONDERS and their phone numbers given to ANYONE who watches your children when you/hubs are not there. These people are to be called in case you do not come home or something has happened to you. These people do not need to be the permanent guardians of your children. They should be people you trust who are local and can get to your kids quickly.

2) Give these First Responders Legal authority to take custody of your children. It must be giving in writing. (A lawyer should look over the document.)

3) Carry a CARD with you in your wallet under your driver’s license to tell police how to reach your First Responders.

4) Name a PERMANENT guardian. If you don’t, a COURT will do so for you and you will have no say in who raises your children.

5) Is there anyone in your family you do NOT want to raise your kids? If so, you should have an estate planning attorney prepare and ANTI-NOMINATION.

6) If you own a house or have more than $100,000 in assets, you need to make sure your property goes to your child in a LIVING trust. Without one, your loved ones will go to probate court which costs 5% of your gross estate and take 16 MONTHS to resolve. (IN CA)

7) Make sure your child never inherits anything from you OUTRIGHT. The best way is to us an ASSET-PROTECTED trust that last their entire lifetime. This trust will help protect your inheritance from being lost due to divorce, estate taxes, lawsuits, etc.

So, after reading all this, are you scared shitless? I know I was. The only MAJOR ASS kicker to getting a LIVING TRUST is, they are expensive. Now, not as expensive as how much it will cost in legal fees and taxes after the fact, but for anyone’s regular budget, it can be pricey. I’d say somewhere around $1500 as a minimum would be about right. Ouch.

Now that I have made myself sick thinking of “what could be”, I have to get back to filing our taxes online. Woo hoo! Let’s just hope we get a whopper back from Uncle Sam, so we can actually consider getting us one of those live trust thingys.

e

Britney, Can it be, P.P.D?

It wasn’t too long ago that I was wondering whether or not I was suffering from P.P.D, Postpartum Depression. I am still, to this day, unsure if in fact it really was ppd, but I have a pretty good idea I was dealing with something very overwhelming. What got me thinking about this again was the latest “happenings” with Britney Spears. Dooce posted about it today and it brought up a good point, why isn’t anyone talking about ppd? Everything that is going on in her life right now screams something is really “off”. Actually, it’s her responses and actions to everything going on that are truly “off”. I have started to really feel sorry for her, wondering how hard it would be to be in the spotlight, enduring what she is enduring, while suffering from something so massive.

Then, I thought about my journey again. I first questioned how “I” felt when Rt was 5 weeks old. I had gone down to San Diego with hubs to attend a work baby shower for Rt. We lived in LA at the time and hubs worked remotely. To celebrate the new arrival, we were asked to come down for a couple of days so his team could meet Rt. Hubs would be working most of the time, but it was to be a nice getaway for us. About that time, Brooke Shields came out with her book, “Down Came the Rain”. I, of course, was so intrigued by her story on Oprah, I bought her book that day on Amazon. I had begun to read a little bit of it, but didn’t really take a huge bite out of the book until I had some time to burn in my hotel room while Rt napped. I think back to that time and wonder, what the hell were we doing traveling with a 5 WEEK old in the first place? Talk about thinking I could do it all. What, you mean having a baby changes things? You mean, I actually should take some time to get accustomed to the biggest change in my life, before signing up for every opportunity presented to me? Much easier to see that now, but back then, no way, no how.

I recall moving Rt up to Size 2 nipples on his bottles and freaking out wondering why he was choking so much while feeding. I even called LVGurl in a panic asking the “been there done that already mommy” what the hell was wrong with my exorcist baby. Seems so silly now. 0 + 2 = 2, but in those days of no sleep and no recollection of who I was, I wasn’t trusting anything coming from my brain. Which also included diving into the PPD depression book when I had a 5 week old. Let me just paint the picture. I was in a La Jolla hotel room, 10 stories up. This hotel is very narrow. Our room had a wide view of the ocean, but go out the door and there is a wide view of the parking lot way down below. I have never been too afraid of heights, but I was feeling some major anxiety and the height factor wasn’t helping. I don’t think I was ever in a depressive state of such magnitude as Brooke Shields, but I did ask myself, hypothetically, “Do I want to throw my baby off the balcony?” Once that fear set in on me, I turned on Felicity as quickly as I could and promised myself to really focus on how hot Ben was until the show was over and I could get back in the car and go pick up the hubs. If it hadn’t kept my mind clear, I would have loaded Rt into the car, and sat in hub’s office parking lot all afternoon until 5:30p.m.

Of course when something like this happens, you don’t get on the phone and call all of your friends and tell them how f’ed up you are feeling. This secret, shameful disease doesn’t scream acceptance. I think it’s a good start that it’s becoming more talked about and studied, but the hardest part about it is the internal failure that a new mother feels while battling something she has no chance of winning alone.

So, after many nights of getting more and more minutes of sleep, the days were more joyful and the nights were less feared. So, I really don’t know if it was just a combination of lack of sleep, natural anxiety and starting a new job that I had no experience in or I did battle my own case of P.P.D. I think the true test will be when we have another baby. Will I now have enough mommy wisdom to recognize when it’s time to take care of myself and when it’s time to be Supermom? I am not sure, but I do know it’s not going to stop me from doing it again.

e