additions and deductions

I once heard you can get up to a $6,000 tax return for having a baby.

Having completed a very dispirited jaunt through TurboTax's online filing system, I'm here to tell you that's crap and whoever said that is a bleepity-bleeping (it's Lent) liar.

Or maybe we've made grave errors in accounting or charitable giving. Meaning we didn't do either.

I was anticipating a return and now that doesn't look likely. But as I said to my mom yesterday, I'm ok with the consequences of our choice to have a child and for me to stay home because of all we got out of it. This was before I hung up and went spelunking in our freezer for some curious, ice-covered lunch options. Ahhh, money.

But seriously, I wouldn't have it any other way, and she's been unexpectedly cheap... thanks to our families. My parents and in-laws have been incredibly generous outfitting her in clothes, gear and diapers. *Incredibly* generous.

Sure there were the medical bills, but I was pleasantly surprised at the tally from our hospital stay. Hell, I would have paid that expense out of pocket for the catheter alone. Sweet, sweet catheter.

(I promised Greg I wouldn't blog about anything involving bodily functions today and there I go talking about a catheter. Sorry, Greg.)

So after a morning filled with mild-to-moderate panic, renewed hatred of numbers, and the fleeting entertainment of what a half-breed dog with an unhealthy fixation on sniffing peoples' eyes might fetch on the black market, I took June to Hanover for a walk.

Hanover is best known as the town of Dartmouth College. It's a beautiful place -- a quaint little commercial strip surrounded by the Georgian architecture, fir-topped hills and eggheads rife at ivies. But most importantly there are sidewalks in Hanover so it's a nice place to walk with a stroller. Where we live you've got to keep your head on a swivel, lest you get sideswiped by a Busch Light-fueled snowmobile transporting a field dressed eight-point buck. In Hanover one needs to simply avoid Uggs. And lots of white people. Wait, we're in New Hampshire...

Anyway, Greg's odd work hours afforded him a midday break so he met us there for a stroll around campus. As we were navigating the snowbanks in front of one of the libraries, I thought about what Greg said right after June was born: "Maybe she'll go to Dartmouth. That would be a cool turn of events, right?" I remember agreeing.

Today I thought about what a sure-thing June's college essay would be: her circular path from a beginning at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, to her years with her parents on the lam from the IRS, to her unexpected predilection for eastern languages and wind instruments, to the cluster of asterisks highlighting her distant Choctaw ancestry (on her dad's side) on her application, to an inevitable scholarship to Dartmouth. It's a beautiful story. It could happen.

We turned onto an icy sidewalk and clowned on some professor-types arguing in German. June, fighting her afternoon nap, gave us a gummy smile under heavy lids. I leaned in to fiddle with her hat, now too small and barely covering her pink ears.

Worth every penny.