Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The anal retentive unprepared?

Sadly, after a long discussion the other night the answer to that is yes. We are moving forward planning, arranging and doing what we need to for the upcoming deployment. We've always, always had plans A-D and maybe one or two more. Its totally anal of us and Cole loves to rib me on it but that's how we get things done.

So for the previous deployment we set up wills, living wills, insurance, IRAs all that to go where it should. Everything else was set up and ready to go and I went about my business Patiently Waiting. We updated the wills now that Oz is here and asked my brother to become his guardian should we both not be here and he needs a parent. We truly thought we were prepared. But what we didn't think about is what happens if he's deployed and something happens to me - that was a rude awakening.

Without a few power of attorneys Oz would end up in foster care. Yeah in foster care. There's a POA called a Springing POA that would all Oz to stay with a trusted neighbor of our choice until his guardian can come and get him if I become incapacitated. Without it, the boy goes into foster care. Who knows how in the hell that will work with trying to get him out of it and into the care of my brother. I truly think that if Oz was at Barb's she'd call my neighbor who's on my list as a local emergency anyways first and not just hand him off to social services - but still I don't want him in foster care.

The second thing we need is a Guardian POA. Again we had that covered should be both be gone but not during a deployment. Without it Oz can't go with anyone else short of his father and again would be placed in foster care until my or his family could petition the court.

Lastly we need the Medical POA. This will allow Crazy Uncle to seek out medical care and have Tricare pay for it instead of him shelling it out himself.

We also realized that we needed to move all of the insurance documents into the fire proof box and get a bigger one. The fire proof box key needs to go to Crazy Uncle as well as its location so he can find it. We also put in the box the card to our current Financial Advisor so they can call him in the event that they need to clear things up for the estate. I would hate for crap to sit in probate or limbo because Crazy Uncle doesn't know where our stuff is that is supposed to be going to Oz.

So we weren't totally prepared and the thought of foster care made me nearly pee my pants. We have a small list of things that we need to fix to include those POAs before the hubby goes. I don't want to leave Oz in a bad place meaning stuck somewhere because we didn't think of filling out paperwork.

1 comment:

Terri said...

Hey, Lady! seems like a good place to chat with you:)

the pics are toooo CUTE! he knows it, too:)

glad you mentioned the POA. gotta look into texas law about lily watching sibs until bill's mom can come down. will also look into the medical poa for such an emergency. last time i was in the hospital, the staff Youth Care person called Adair (who dropped me off and went home) but she refused to grab the kids (also at the hospital with me). bill was in the field. they finally got him; dave brought him up to landstuhl. i know lily can babysit (no latchkey law) and she can call Gramma. just gotta get the poa's so that Gramma can take care of kid emergencies.

ok, gotta finish homework and errands...and maybe check on the running of the Universe:) teehee!

thanks for the review, lady! you're terrific!

"coffee date"? email me...:)