Halloween was a blast!! As you can see, Gracie went as a monkey (although technically it was a Curious George costume), which was quite appropriate because she has a tendency to hoot like a monkey while she's playing. Hence the monkey theme for most of her toys.

Our first trick-or-treater was our friends' 18-month-old son, and we decided to invite ourselves along on their trick-or-treating fun. Grace wasn't too keen on waiting for her little friend; he's not the experienced walker she is, so he couldn't keep up. She just kept going and going and going. Whenever we'd slow down a bit, she'd start yanking our hands to make us go faster. Amazingly enough, Grace was good about holding one of our hands all night. Usually she's wanting free rein; I think she was nervous about both the darkness and some of the more decorated homes.

We didn't go far, just up the street and back, but Grace managed to fill her pumpkin basket about half full. Everyone was charmed by her version of "thank you" in baby talk; it sort of comes out like "dah dooo!" Even Kurt and I scored on the candy. A few parents thought we deserved some sugar to keep the blood flowing. It was darn cold out last night! I think it was just about 32� at 5:30pm when we left the house. Brrrrr!!!

The dermatologist's appointment went fairly well yesterday. I have to say, though, this dermatologist sort of weirds me out. He's one of those really goofy doctors, the ones who are probably incredibly booksmart but have no clue on how to deal with their patients. He's very gentle with Grace, which is the important bit, but he's just clueless on how to interact with people in general.

The dermatologist was pleased to see that the two small black dots within her large birthmark had faded. I haven't been as good about looking closely at the birthmark as I should be, so it was a bit of a surprise to me. It's still very large. I think he measured it out to 8.5cm by 3.5cm, and he thinks it should keep pace with her growth. It may continue to span her entire hip as she gets bigger. I hope it stops growing at some point, for her sake.

I mentioned to the dermatologist also that Grace has a mild case of eczema on her legs, and I've noticed that she's starting to get so-called "chicken skin" (aka keratosis pilaris) on her upper arms. Kurt has it as well. The dermatologist prescribed me a medicine that is a lotion containing lactic acid to put on both her legs and her arms. I thanked him for the prescription, and we headed down to the naval hospital to get it filled.

I wanted to go to the hospital because if we fill our prescriptions there, we don't pay for them (one of the benefits of being military). If I go somewhere else, I have a co-pay. And since I'm cheap, we went to the hospital.

The hospital always has a wait time of at least 30-45 minutes to fill a prescription because it's the only facility in the area. They've managed to streamline the prescriptions a bit by building a refill pharmacy off base, but it still takes a while to have a new prescription filled. So we waited, and waited, and finally our number was called.

I knew as soon as I approached the woman at the window that if there was an issue, she wasn't going to do anything to resolve it. She definitely gave off a huge vibe of "I do not want to be here today; do not make me do my job." I was hoping we'd get the other lady on duty; she was the woman who refilled my prenatal vitamins for me when I got my antibiotic prescription filled, and I'm not sure she was technically supposed to do that since all refills should be handled through the refill pharmacy.

I handed the woman Grace's prescription, and after typing some information into the computer she told me that the hospital doesn't carry the name-brand version in their formulary, so I would have to take it to a retail pharmacy and pay for it. The dermatologist had signed the prescription on the line stating "dispense as written; no substitutions." I asked the woman if she could call the dermatologist and ask if I could get the generic, and she said no and dismissed me.

I wasn't pleased, but what are you going to do? We went to Target and attempted to have the prescription filled there. They don't carry it in their formulary either, but they told me they could order it and it would be in the very next day. That was quite satisfactory to me, so I went on my way.

Today I went to Target and asked for Grace's lotion. The lady told me that my insurance would not have paid for the name-brand lotion, which would have cost me $9, since there was a generic available, so they called the dermatologist to have him change the prescription to "substitutions allowed." I gave her my $3 co-pay and left Target steaming mad.

Why could Target have called the dermatologist and had the prescription modified, and the hospital staff couldn't??? The woman at the hospital didn't want to try to provide any kind of customer service, that's why!

I guess I'm pretty hard on customer service people, and I'll tell you why. I used to work customer service at a computer store. There were days where I was verbally abused by customers (those who think the "customer is always right," no matter how ridiculous their demands), but most of the time I had customers who were kind and gentle. To repay them, I went out of my way to provide them the best service I could. It's just old-fashioned courtesy in my eyes.