self-worth and potty training .... not necessarily linked

So, last night we had a mtg with the State Farm guy to talk about life insurance. Before any of you freak out and go directly to "OMG, who's dying?!" let me reassure you that we are just preparing, not anticipating. As Kev puts it, he's recently decided he'd better start taking care of his health situations instead of just enduring them as they come up so we made an appt to go over all the various life insurances he has and what, if anything, needed to be added. Our agent came to the house . . . I know, who does THAT anymore? great guy, that agent . . . so that we didn't have to try to corral the kids in his office and we talked for almost 2 hours. He filled out the application on Kev and wow, the health questionnaire, so now we just have to wait and see if the underwriters will approve it. Easy peasy.

We had asked him to prep a quote for some insurance on me, too, since I don't have anything in place yet. This is where it got funny . . . not funny "Ha Ha" but funny ironic. He put down that I'm a homemaker . . . a term which I used to dispise because it sounded like people (not just moms) who stay home don't actually produce anything that could be considered adding to the Gross National Product so "let's give it some credibility by saying they "make the home", but now I don't mind because let's face it: I haven't actually stayed home all day in months so the term "Stay-at-home Mom" doesn't really fit. Later in the application it asked for my monthly income and had a little chart showing that by State Farm standards what I do is equal to $46,000 or so a year. He gave all kinds of qualifying excuses for that and tried to dismiss it away as a gross underestimation of how much moms are really worth. Really, I wasn't offended. That stuff doesn't bother me because I know a housekeeper/babysitter/chauffer/cook would cost a bunch more than the occasional "trip to the scrapbook store."

But what really made me chuckle to myself was that we were discussing a life insurance policy of $100 grand on me . . . meaning dead I'm worth just more than twice what I am worth alive. Fantastic! I do understand that that's kind of how it works with insurance and most people who have it are worth more dead than alive in terms of actual money in hand. But that $100 grand would not go very far in the event I did kick it and Kev had to immediately find a housekeeper/cook/babysitter.

And Kev says that I have no real choice but to stick around because with all his health issues and keeping all the drs and info straight it would take altogether too long to train a "new one." (Before any of you call to demand he appologizes for such a comment, I made sure he was just kidding. Trust me.)

Anyway, all of this just kind of made me laugh. Nothing like having someone put a price on you.

Oh, and we're gonna try potty training very soon. The potty seat has been bought, the Pull-Ups are in his room -- now we just have to do it!