Penny For a Spool of Thread

Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do or Do Without

2012-01-26T19:36:00.000-05:00

The title for today's post is an important one. I've tried for the past couple of years to make this saying my motto, hewing closer to it when money gets really tight, and maybe veering away a little in the interest of convenience when times are better. This week has definitely been a "make it do or do without" week. I spent the grocery money this month on birthday supplies and stocking up on meat, and while both of those were good things to do, it left us short in this last week of the month. We've been out of bread all week, and the fresh produce and milk were gone on Tuesday or so. It's just for a few days, tomorrow we're going shopping to get staples and February is coming soon. Since we're all still getting calcium, protein and fiber, I count it as less a crisis and more an exercise in innovation.

You learn things when you're cooking without the stuff you used to have. This week I learned that it's possible to sub in things like cream cheese or sour cream for milk in recipes and boxed dinners. Tuesday for lunch we had macaroni and cheese (and cheese) with diced hot dogs and frozen corn that was actually pretty good. Monday night I put the last few spoonfuls of sour cream in the microwave and used them to make an enchilada topping that was actually much better than if I'd used milk. Tortillas are easy to make with ingredients around the house, and you can use them instead of bread in lots of ways. I've been able to use quite a few of my stockpiled cans now that the pantry is organized and I can see everything I've got. Tonight I used a cheddar broccoli soup mix and added potatoes and ham to make it a full (and delicious) meal. Not too bad for the end of the month!

My motto serves me well in weeks like this, and things that I've done recently, like making a rag bag of one of M's destroyed pairs of pants and filling it with old clothes scraps, have worked out very well. Being able to repurpose and reuse things makes me feel good and thrifty. At the same time, though, I find that the motto can be my enemy when it comes to getting organized. Like many chronically disorganized (that's what they call it when you're not a hoarder quite yet) people, I like to hold on to things that are just a little bit broken or torn or expired, hoping that I can fix them or find a new use for them. Sometimes it's true. Robert had a good time using my old pans for drums, and I have replaced plenty of buttons and even repaired some small tears or ripped hems in our clothes. But much of the time, I find that I am unrealistic in my thinking, wanting to keep a broken lamp I have no skill in repairing, or thinking of a great use for some weird empty container that is so time and labor intensive I'm never going to get around to it.

At some point, you just have to say enough is enough and get out the trash bag, even if you're not 100% sure that you can't use a thing anymore. I have to be realistic about my own time and capability and even enthusiasm for reusing or repairing an item. Using Freecycle to get rid of these things is a good idea, but I have to be realistic about that, too. Is someone going to drive all the way to my house to collect this item from me? Am I going to find the time and make the effort to put it online? Or will I and my family be better off if I just put it in the trash and get on with my cleaning? It's the antithesis of using up and wearing out, but it's keeping house.

As with many housekeeping-related tasks, I use my Grandma J as the gold standard. She was both an excellent housekeeper and a frugal person, so I know it can be done. When I get up to my neck in items I can't decide whether to keep or toss, I ask myself what Grandma would do. Most of the time my imaginary Grandma-guide tells me to throw things out, and as a result, things are starting to get a little cleaner. We're still far from "a place for everything and everything in its place" the way she advocated, but it's a worthy goal.

I guess it's a matter of striking a balance between getting the most possible out of our things and not letting our things overwhelm us. For now, I'm trying to cultivate an attitude that lets me feel good when I find a new purpose for something that would've been waste, but at the same time lets me not feel guilt when I don't. Sometimes you just have to let go, and let that be okay.

UnFunChicken

2012-01-12T01:27:00.000-05:00

Back a way long time ago when I was just a little girl, there was a grocery store across from the Lincoln Mall in Freeport. Is it where the Eagles Club is now? I can't remember, I was very small. I think it was a Logli's, maybe. Lee's? BRB, Googling.
...
Google is not helping! Gah. My mom reads this blog, she'll know. Anyway, there are only two things I remember about that store. They had a big ol' Brach's candy display with the honor-system box where you could put in a nickel and take a piece. When I went shopping with my grandma, she'd give me a quarter and I would get five little pieces of candy and that was awesome. The other thing I remember was the Fun Chicken.

Now the Fun Chicken was a vending machine at the front of the store, right by the exit doors. It was a big box with clear walls, and inside was a plastic hen in a nest of plastic eggs. If you put your money in, the hen would move around and cluck, and one of the plastic eggs would pop out of the machine with a toy inside. Good times. Waiting in the endless checkout lines was not so bad if you had the promise of Fun Chicken waiting. I'm sure the 2010s version of the Fun Chicken awaits us soon, whenever Robert catches on to the fact that the machines whose levers and doors he loves to manipulate actually produce something if money is put in.

Anyway, I'm only thinking of that tonight because I had to deal with whatever the opposite of a Fun Chicken is tonight. It was too bad, too, because I was really excited about the recipe I had. I've been experimenting with my new cast-iron Dutch Oven, and tonight I tried roasting a whole chicken in it, French Style. I put it on the stove and put a little olive oil in, salted and peppered my chicken, and set it in the pot to brown. I added onions, celery, garlic and bay leaf, flipped the chicken to get a little brown on the other side, then put foil over the pot, put the lid on over that, and put it in the oven on 250 to let the magic happen. Since it was a small chicken, only about 3.5 pounds, it wasn't supposed to take more than an hour or so, so I gave it 70 minutes.

When I went to take it out, it leaked red juices everywhere! Gross! I put it back in, twice, and finally had to put it on the cast iron skillet and just let it sit in the oven for ages till it would come to temp. 250 is stupidly low for cooking a chicken. The jus that was supposed to happen was nasty and oily, lacking in flavor. And when the chicken was finally done, the skin was gross and flabby and undelicious. The chicken meat was okay, but I've done far better with a simple beer can. Bummer! Anyway, my lovely chicken meal was ruined, since Robert was in bed by then (he got an alternative supper) and we'd already eaten the side dish, which was fried corn and quite tasty.

What do you do with an entire mediocre cooked chicken? In our house, that's easy. Buffalo chicken wraps are one of M's favorites, and we have lots of whole wheat tortilla shells in the house lately. The problem I've always had is that it's a pain in the butt to shred all that chicken into the proper consistency, and after wrestling with the chicken for two hours already, I was in no mood. Then genius struck! I mentioned the other day that in my organizing, I found all the parts to the food processor and put them in one place, right? Now was the perfect time to break it out. I put on the basic blade and stripped the chicken, tossing white and dark meat in there alike, leaving out the nasty skin. When it was all in there, I buzzed it in the processor for about five seconds, and voila! Shredded chicken! It was almost chicken salad consistency, actually, but that's fine with me.

I dumped the chicken into a bowl and mixed in Frank's Red Hot Sauce and ranch dressing. (If I wasn't cooking for M, I'd have added celery or lettuce, but he's not a fan.) I spread the mix onto tortillas, rolled them up, and cut them into pieces about an inch thick. Delicious and fun, and a nice way to save a disappointing dinner. I guess nobody always has good luck with new recipes, and I've done really well lately, so I was due for a stinker. But I really do want to find a nice Dutch Oven chicken recipe. I'm sure there's one out there!

Since I'm already talking about kitchens, I should mention that Robert's birthday present of a wonderful play kitchen and accessories has arrived! We assembled it yesterday and stocked it today, and man is it a hit. He loves all the things he can do, and he'll love it even more when we get all the batteries, I'm sure. 12 batteries, sheesh. It's so entertaining to watch his little brain working, and to see him do things like put a piece of lettuce and an orange in a skillet on the burner, or shove all the utensils in the microwave at once. He's a funny guy!

It's Gonna Be A Happy New Year

2012-01-09T02:28:00.000-05:00

We're back from our winter trip and getting back into the swing of things, after spending half of November, half of November and the first little chunk of January away from home. This is probably the only year we'll ever have the freedom of schedule to make such long trips, so I figured, why not take advantage of it? M scheduled research mini-trips both times, so it's not like we didn't get anything done. And Robert had such a good time spending big chunks of quality time with all the people who love him. He came down with Strep on New Year's Eve, which was a terrible bummer, and ended up in the emergency room for an antibiotic shot on New Year's Day when he couldn't swallow the oral ammoxicillin. I suspect that is a billing battle we are going to be tussling over in the future, but for now I'm just happy that it worked and he is so much better. He got a haircut today, but I haven't pinned him down for a picture yet.

One thing about the traveling is that I got totally spoiled over our Christmas time away. My mother in law, Melissa, is a wonderful person and keeps a beautiful house. I really enjoyed the time we spent there, for a lot of reasons, but partly because it's just so nice. It's neat and it's organized, tastefully decorated, always smells pretty. Even with Robert around (not to mention M and I!), nothing ever got too crazy messed-up, and she did it all while still seeming pretty relaxed about it. I aspire to that, seriously! Anyway, when we got home, after all that time away, things were pretty much how we left them, and that was a real letdown for me. I am a shabby housekeeper and our apartment is too small for all our stuff. That is the way it has always been.

But I can change! I've decided to start with small steps. The kitchen was already my project, so I did more in there. I finished more of the cleaning I hadn't yet gotten to, including the really icky places like that spot between the stove and the desk-counter where things fall down and are lost forever, and I swept and mopped and scrubbed the counters and the stove until everything looks great. (Melissa and I did our usual pre-homecoming shopping trip, but instead of the usual grocery staples, this time I got new cleaning supplies. They really help!)

Buoyed by my success in the kitchen, I moved on to a persistent filth-trap in the apartment, the master bathroom. Since the master bathroom, in this case, is a closet off the walk-in closet with a cloth curtain strung from a tension rod as a door, it has historically not gotten a lot of use, especially since the walk-in closet itself is overfull and often littered with dirty clothes waiting for laundry day. It was not only dirty and dusty, it was cluttered with stuff that didn't belong in a bathroom, and really the reason I never used it, even at night, was that it was unpleasant. Simply going in and getting all the trash out, all the empty containers and expired things, the books, the laundry, and everything that didn't belong, right there made a huge difference. The bathroom is so small there's hardly room to turn around, but when it's empty it seems considerably larger. I took my Glass Plus and my 409 and gave all the surfaces a scrub, then did the same to the toilet and swept the floor. Finally, I rearranged the plants I keep in there (the one redeeming virtue of that bathroom has been a counter with a sink underneath four powerful light bulbs, making it ideal for plants), and made sure the handwashing essentials were all in place for a homey look. Just a couple of hours of work, really, and it looks amazing, like new. I like going in there now!

As luck would have it, barely had I finished one bathroom than the other one caught my attention. Robert rubbed a surprising amount of jelly in his hair at breakfast, so M gave him a bath while I did my cleaning and other chores. Robert had been in the bath just a minute or two when I went down the hall to the neighbor to thank her for taking in our papers and to chat for a few minutes. I was surprised when M showed up at the door with a wet, pajamaed Robert and a harried expression. Robert, who had been constipated for several days after being sick, had solved that problem in a big way in the bathtub. Yuck!

Once the worst of the mess was dealt with, I realized that as long as I was scrubbing and disinfecting the bathtub, I might as well take care of the whole bathroom. This bathroom is the one we use, so it has all kinds of stuff in it, and though it gets a lot more of my fickle cleaning attention, it's hard to keep clean. The next morning, while supervising Robert in another bath in the newly cleaned tub, I wiped and scrubbed and tossed trash and put things away. Again, a couple hours of work got me a very nice bathroom. Riding the wave, I cleaned half the living room and vacuumed as well, getting up birdseed and remnants of Robert's past meals before breaking my momentum upon the shoal of a mountain of toys. That's okay, there are more days coming. I will get this place looking better!

The nicest thing about having a clean kitchen is how easy it is to cook. Yesterday I made a giant pot of chili that used three cans of tomatoes, two cans of beans, and a can of tomato sauce. You've seen my pantry in pictures, so you know this is a good thing. Served over potatoes, it was supper last night and tonight, with another full meal's worth in the freezer. Since dinner was taken care of tonight, I looked ahead and defrosted a (rather sad looking, honestly) pot roast from the deep freeze. It was freezer burned, but not so much that it couldn't be saved. I cut off a chunk and chopped it into little pieces, then put it into a marinade of rice wine vinegar and soy sauce. Beef stir fry this week! The rest of it I put into the crock pot for Grandma J's famous pot roast, along with plenty of carrots and potatoes. The resulting deliciousness wasn't done till midnight, but filled two big containers. With the liquid leftover in the pot, I rehydrated two cups of TVP for M's meatloaf sandwiches this week. I shouldn't have to make another serious cooking effort for days, and that's a really nice feeling. I like to give my family good things, whether it's good food or just a nice place to sit on the potty. I just need to keep reminding myself that the pleasure of the results is worth the hard work.

Less is More

2011-12-15T22:19:00.000-05:00

It's a new day today, and I'm on a one-day blogging roll, so why not say more about cleaning my kitchen? (Not to mention posting this super-cute shot of Robert from our latest trip to the portrait studio!) Tomorrow we're heading to Asheville for the holidays, so now's a good time to discuss what I like about my kitchen, before I find myself consumed with envy for my mother-in-law's awesome kitchen.

The first step to organizing my kitchen was making sure I had plenty of trash bags. M was vital to this project, because whenever I finished filling a bag, he'd take it right out for me. No fuss, no chance to reconsider too heavily. Some stuff was easy, mostly things I knew I could throw away as soon as I took the time to consider them. A half-melted spatula, a bunch of old plastic bags, some mostly-empty spice containers where I already had new bottles. It took the first layer off, and is usually as far as I go when I clean the kitchen. But it's not enough.

Some things were harder, and I had to start reminding myself of the sort of lessons they teach people on Hoarders. Sure, I don't have the lid for all my plastic containers, but they might still be useful! Yeah, but you have way too many and they're overwhelming the cupboard. Throw away everything disposable, and everything that doesn't have a lid. Throw away the teas you got several years ago and haven't used because you have other tea you like more. Throw away that leaky jar of honey instead of putting it in a baggie, you've got lots more. You have a whole shaker of pepper, you don't need those peppercorns you put in a Ziploc when your grinder broke. Yes, you love the idea of having an espresso machine, yes you love coffee, but you haven't used that espresso machine since you moved here, and you bought it used at a garage sale. You have a Starbucks gift card if you ever need an espresso so very badly.

That was the layer where scraping off my excess stuff started to be like scraping off a layer of skin. We don't have a lot of money, so for most of these things, I knew I couldn't replace it if I made a mistake. What if I was wrong and I needed those plastic containers? What if I wanted an espresso and can't get one? What if I run out of spices because I threw away what I thought was excess? My toaster is broken, but we need a toaster. (This one actually kept that stupid toaster out of the trash for close to six months, which is totally ridiculous.)

All those thoughts were real to me, but I know that they come from a deeper source. The fact that I have more things than I can handle is a sign of sufficiency, even of affluence. We don't have money or insurance or security, but I have more honey than a bear could eat in a year, so something is going all right. I don't need these old vitamins, but vitamins keep you healthy. If I have so much food I can't fit it on the shelves, my son will never go hungry. It's wrong thinking, but it's very seductive.

During this process, it helped to remind myself what I was gaining. The number one thing was work space. I have all these neat kitchen gadgets, but I rarely use them because I don't have the counter space. I don't have the counter space because I had a stupid broken toaster that I couldn't throw away, and many other things in that same vein. Every time I tossed away what wasn't necessary, I won that much space for myself. Counter space, cupboard space, refrigerator space. Eventually the kitchen began to take shape as an area where things have places to be, not just places where I've shoved them. Things like fresh produce and bread, which were previously tossed wherever there was room, now have shelves of their own. The top of the freezer is clear, so I can get into it and rummage around whenever I want. I even found all the parts to the food processor and stuck them together in a bin for easy access! It's pretty cool.

Now ask me if the kitchen is done. It's not, admittedly. I've got more work to do, and it still needs deep cleaning and a thorough scrub everywhere when I get some better cleaning supplies together. There are more things I can get rid of. But it's progress, and it's kind of thrilling to me. It's a sign that I am capable of doing it at all. If I can take the same ethos and carry it (and the trash bags) into the rest of the house, I might be able to get something good going on. And someday, when I move into a bigger place with a nicer kitchen, if I start with only the stuff I need here, think of all the wonderful room I will have!

Home Improvement

2011-12-15T00:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't been blogging much lately, I know. This blog was a lifeline back in Robert's first year, when I was totally cut off and needed any form of grownup contact, no matter how tenuous. Now that he's almost two years old, there's no time to sit down and write! Ah well, time marches on. I do want to pick up again, but I make no guarantees as to my reliability. I'll just have to make the entries I do post extra-good.

So lately I've been watching Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive on Netflix. It's not for the schaenfreude, which is the reason I watch most reality shows, but because the problems these people have resonate with me. I don't have a houseful of cats or garbage piled to table level, but I am chronically disorganized and I recognize thought and behavior patterns in the people they profile that I see in myself. If you watch enough episodes, you start to realize how many normal people, people who like keepsakes and collectibles, may be just one tragedy, one dollop of despair away from hoarding. It often seems like there are one or two events that precipitate hoarding, and I know that feeling too. When I found I was pregnant with Robert, there was a period of time when I couldn't gather things fast enough. More food, more baby clothes, more blankets, more whatever, even though it was a time in our lives when we were trying to clear out our storage spaces and needed less, not more. I got over it, but I think it reveals a tendency.

That's not as depressing as it sounds, though. Watching these shows helps me, because I can take the coping skills, the decision-making skills that the folks on the show learn and apply it to my own stuff. And it's helping! Recognizing the problem and wanting to change is the biggest step to actually changing. These past couple weeks, I've been downing an episode or two, then attacking my kitchen. My kitchen is small, it's cramped, and it is full of stuff I love, which makes it a huge target for clutter and jumble and mess. I love cooking, and I especially love kitchen gadgets. Even if I haven't used it yet, the idea that I could use something to make a cool recipe or to make some task easier is just awesome to me. That makes collecting easy, and letting go hard.

In the kitchen, I started with my pantry. Since before Robert was born, we've had a cinderblock pantry against the living room wall, because I coupon and we have such limited cupboard and closet space. Our kitchen also has two doors, a normal size door to the hallway and a giant opening to the living room. Robert is not allowed in the kitchen (nothing in the world could make that space babyproof), since he became mobile we've blocked it off, first with the Pack 'n Play, more recently with random boxes and baskets and whatever is handy. It was messy and non-utilitarian and it blocked me from access to my pantry, so it kept things from getting put away. I decided to make a major change, and embarked on our biggest home improvement project in ages.

M and Robert and I went to the hardware store, which is always exciting. We got a 48x16 board to replace the top pantry shelf, where my Cansolidators sit. On the old shelf, the cansolidators didn't sit nicely, they hung off a bit at the front and the back, and I worried about loading them fully. The new board was wider, longer, and substantially stronger, so the Cansolidators could be fully assembled and loaded the way I'd always wanted them. At home, we totally emptied the pantry shelves, threw away anything that wasn't good anymore, and wiped down the shelves, then disassmbled it and reassembled it in the opening between the living room and the kitchen, to make a permanent barrier between the two rooms. The shelves open right onto the kitchen, so I have easy access, and Robert can't get into the kitchen.

The back of the unit was a problem, though. It used to be against the wall, and a block and board shelf typically doesn't have a back. Leaving the pantry shelves wide open and next to the toybox is asking for trouble, though. After talking with my mom, I had a brainstorm for Robert's birthday present. I went back to the hardware store, and this time got a sheet of plywood cut to order, some blackboard paint, a brush, and some nails. I painted the plywood with blackboard paint and nailed it to the back of the pantry. Voila! A back for the shelves, a giant chalkboard for Robert, who loves chalk drawing. With everything organized back into the pantry, I have never been happier with that part of our apartment.

I've done a lot more work as well, a lot of organizing and a lot of sometimes painful throwing away, but this entry is long enough. Anyway, here's a picture of the front and back of the new pantry.

Keeping Things Safe

2011-09-04T15:08:00.000-04:00

Alone At Home

2011-04-02T09:01:00.000-04:00

Today we say M off for his conference in Buffalo, which is very exciting! It's his first presentation at an academic conference for a school he does not attend. He's going to deliver a paper on "something about Antimasons," or at least that was about as far as I got in my understanding of it. ;-) I am a bad historian, but I will say that I do know a whole lot more about Anti-Masons now than I did five years ago. (Do I know how to spell it? No, I do not.) The conference is free, and a very gracious graduate student there is letting him sleep over, but there are still definite costs associate with a three day round trip of 900 miles.

We decided that since Robert and I can't really be without a car for three days and we don't want to take the nearly 200k mile Civic on a third 700+ mile trip in thirty days, we would rent a car for M's trip. I found a coupon in my new Entertainment Book that took a very nice chunk off the price to rent from Hertz, so that's what we did. The economy car we rented doesn't get quite the same excellent gas mileage as the Honda, but it's done all right so far, and gotten him safely there. To further trim expenses, I went grocery shopping and found some sales on snack food and deli meat, so he embarked with twelve sandwiches, a box of Poptarts, a box of day-old apple pastries, three big bags of chips, and thirty cans of pop. No trip snacks needed, and he should only have to buy maybe one meal the whole weekend. A little preparation can help save lots of money, and he's hardly suffering from not buying overpriced convenience store snacks.

Anyway, he's gone till Sunday, and Robert and I are on our own. I came to the strange realization today that this is the first time I have ever been on my own with Robert for days at a time. M and I rarely travel alone, and when I have, I've gone up to see my parents, where there is plenty of willing help to watch him. Taking care of the Minature Annihilation Machine from dawn till dusk by myself is quite a daunting endeavor! He was good today, mostly, and things weren't too crazy, but we'll see how it goes tomorrow. I am developing more and more respect for single parents. I do not know where I would find the strength and stamina. It really makes me appreciate M and his willing assumption of an equal partnership in parenting even more than I already did.

Staying Safe When Shopping Online

2011-04-01T10:13:00.000-04:00

From time to time on my blog, I will do reviews of websites I've been asked to look at, sort of like a survey where I share the results with people. I receive compensation for doing these reviews, but they don't tell me what I have to say, or even that I have to say nice things. All the opinions contained herein are entirely my own.

If you've been following my blog for awhile, or talked to me about couponing and finding bargains, you probably already know that I do a lot of shopping online. There are so many sales you can get by shopping online, not only on things like books and music, but on all sorts of stuff. I went online to book our rental car reservation for M's trip this weekend, and saved quite a bit of money. I buy almost all of Robert's baby snacks online, not to mention his diapers! Social bargain sites like Groupon and DealPulp are a good way to get big deals on local stores and restaurants.

The problem, of course, is how do you keep your information secure when you're shopping? Identity theft is a major problem all over the world these days, and you see it all the time on the news. I know some people who won't shop online at all because of it. I can understand the concern, but I think they're missing the point. Plenty of identity theft is decidedly low tech, from a waitress copying your info when she takes your credit card in a restaurant, to someone digging through your trash to find a credit card statement. Not shopping online isn't going to keep you safe. In fact, if you're careful, shopping online is every bit as safe as going to the store, and maybe even safer!

The first thing you need to keep in mind when shopping online is to make sure you're shopping in the right place. Be especially careful if you get a link by email. You wouldn't accept a ride from someone to take you shopping at Tarjet, and you should make sure that the links you follow are going where you expect. When you are shopping, always check the address bar on your browser to make sure you're at the site you want to be at. Just as importantly, when it comes time to check out, make sure that the page you'll be submitting your credit card on is an "HTTPS" site, rather than simply "HTTP." You can tell by looking for those letters at the front of the address, plus your browser will almost certainly have a padlock icon somewhere to indicate that the site you're on is secure. Never enter personal information on an unsecured web page!

If you are very worried about shopping online, you can get started by shopping only at the very biggest of online retailers. My favorite online retailer right now is Amazon.com, partially because they've had ridiculously fabulous coupons for mommies lately, but mostly because they are extremely reliable. Typically, the bigger the company is, the more reliance you can place on them when shopping online. That doesn't mean you won't find awesome deals at smaller stores, but you can easily get your feet wet at bigger stores, just to get used to online shopping. Many smaller stores also accept Paypal, where you can enter credit card information with Paypal and then have them pay the vendor without ever giving the vendor your card information. When you shop online, use a credit card and never a debit card. Credit cards offer far more protection against fraud, and if you pay it off in full each month, you won't be dinged by extra interest charges.

Despite taking every precaution, online and off, identity theft sometimes happens. Thieves are just very determined. You can act preemptively by signing up for an identity theft protection service, if that will give you more peace of mind. These services monitor your credit for you to report on any changes that may occur, and some also offer insurance in case of identity theft, to cover any costs associated with recovering your personal information. Services such as IdentityHawk offer this protection for a monthly fee after a short free trial period. They can be valuable, especially if you've lost an especially vital piece of data like a social security card, just to make sure you know as soon as possible if anything happens. They can also advise you in case anything does happen, and guide you through the steps you need to take in order to recover your credit.

For most people, though, you should check first with your credit card to see what protection they offer. Most credit cards do not hold customers liable for any fraudulent charges made anyway. As long as you're sure of that, and you're monitoring your credit reports three times a year anyway, you probably don't need a lot of extra protection. Use your common sense and good credit habits, and be careful of your personal information online and off, and you can bargain shop with peace of mind.

That's the Way the Money Goes

2011-03-04T00:28:00.000-05:00

It's been a little while since I updated, but we've been keeping very busy. I really need to take a new batch of photos. Robert has a cute new haircut that makes him look much less baby and more little boy. It's super cute and I will try to get something up here. The weather's been pretty nice here, so we've been getting outside more, just walking around for the most part. Robert is getting good at walking! He can make it across the living room on his own, and outside he does well when holding onto a hand. Soon he'll be running, I know, and then climbing, and then I just don't know what I'm going to do.

The financial front lately has been a mix of good and bad news. We got our tax return and did many responsible things with it, adding to our IRAs, adding to Robert's school fund, paying down some debt, and refilling the emergency fund. That was good. M got a grant for next year so he can work on his dissertation without having to teach. That is good! The grant is for fifteen thousand dollars before taxes, so it's a pay cut. That's bad! He is prohibited by the terms of the grant from doing anything else for money for that entire year. That's also bad! But I've crunched the numbers till they started cracking around the edges, and if we have no unexpected expenses and make no frivolous purchases all next year, and gas doesn't climb too high, and all our costs remain about the same, we should be able to live on that. That's... well, it's hopeful, I guess. It's better to be inevitably sunk by the unexpected than to start out in the hole.

My problem is what do I do right now to prepare for the financial burden I know is coming? Look for a job, obviously, but that's not without plenty of problems. Robert is still young enough to be on the high end of daycare costs, for one thing, so a job has to be pretty good to even be worth my while. And those aren't easy to come by around here. They're _really_ not easy to come by for someone who has been out of law school as long as she was in, and has never had a real paying law job. I'm going to be taking training this spring that will hopefully let me become a Court Appointed Special Advocate, which is both really important volunteer work and legal work that will hopefully help polish me up for jobs, but that's down the road a little ways. I can't count on finding a job that's going to bring in more than it would cost in terms of daycare, gas, and loss of couponing time.

I have money set aside, for things that I wanted to do. I wanted to do sessions with a professional organizer to help me get the house in order. I think it's really important, and I'm not making progress on my own. I got a great deal on two months of Jazzercise classes, and I've been doing that and was sort of hoping to continue. I have plans to put some money in our Roth IRAs, now that we're going to be looking down the barrel of 30. I could scrap all those plans and sock all that money into the emergency fund. That's what my squirrel-brain wants me to do. I know a financial winter is coming, and I must save all I possibly can. On the other hand, all these plans are good things to do, things that will improve our quality of life for a long time, and hopefully our health as well. It's not like a new TV set or something. I just don't know what to do.

I tell myself that at least we know now. It's not like a sudden layoff where the decrease comes with no warning. Sure, this summer was already going to be tight, but at least we know that things aren't going to get better when we hit the school year like usual. We can plan! And in the spring, M will still be getting paid like usual, so I can do things with that money. I'm going to toss everything we can spare into paying down the one remaining credit card debt, that's for sure. The more I pay of that before September, the fewer months that it will be a line-item in the budget. Man, will I be happy to see the end of that! And we have an emergency fund that's in decent shape, given our income. Dipping into it just to get through the year is not a sustainable plan, obviously, but it's good to know that when the inevitable small disasters happen, we aren't totally sunk. So it's not all misery and woe. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. We've got a lot of things going for us, even now! Things are going to be okay.

Guest Post: DIY Cubby Wall for My Craft Room

2011-03-03T16:05:00.001-05:00

Guest post written by Shannon Woods

One of my favorite hobbies is crafting and I've actually converted our guest bedroom into our craft room. But that basically meant that I had a desk with a sewing machine on top of it, along with some plastic containers that have all my stuff in it. That really isn't a great organizational thing though. I was at first afraid of doing anything because once we start our own family, we're going to change that room into a nursery.

I went online to try and find some ideas for organizational stuff that would also work in a nursery too. When I went online to get some ideas, I came across some information about Sacramento Clear internet packages and after I looked through it some, I came across some information about and decided to change over our home internet service by ordering one of the packages.

The best idea that I found was a DIY cubby wall that my husband told me he could put together. So we're going to start working on putting that together for the guest bedroom.

Beds, Baths, and Blustery Days

2011-02-20T20:34:00.002-05:00

From time to time on my blog, I will do reviews of websites I've been asked to look at, sort of like a survey where I share the results with people. I receive compensation for doing these reviews, but they don't tell me what I have to say, or even that I have to say nice things. All the opinions contained herein are entirely my own.

I just can't believe that a mere two days ago it was sixty degrees here in Kentucky! Today it's back in the thirties, and we woke up to freezing rain. Ugh. It's a perfect day to stay inside, work on a few projects, and of course, shop on the internet! One of my favorite pastimes! In a happy coincidence, I was just asked to review a website called BedBathStore, which is exactly my cup of tea. I love beds, and baths, and I really love the clever little gizmos and space-savers and thing-holders that stores like this sell. The site itself has a nice clean layout and is easy to navigate, which always makes me want to poke around more. The free shipping ceiling is pretty high, $89, but the president's day sale going on now make it a bit better. I dove right in!

My first stop was at the party food and beverage machines section of the site. Now these are way too big and expensive for me to have, at least while we're still in our little bitty apartment, but I love these things. They have a cotton candy cart for sale, for pity's sake! Too awesome. Popcorn carts, hot dog carts, plus countertop versions of those as well. The selection was great. Unfortunately, although there was space for product reviews on each product, every one I looked at in this section was empty. These are luxury items, though, so maybe not as many people have bought them yet. The other big issue was definitely the price There were no deals to be had here. I looked a couple of the products, namely the popcorn cart and the tabletop nostalgia popper, up on Google, and found substantially better prices both on Amazon and at Kohl's. That was a bit disappointing for me, since I'm always out for a bargain.

For my next foray into the site, I decided I'd look at something I've already shopped for and bought, to see how it stacks up. I found the Premium Solid Insulated Thermal Blackout Curtain Panel Pair, a set of insulated blackout curtains that are quite similar to the ones we bought for Robert's room this summer. (Take it from this mommy, blackout curtains in the nursery are worth their substantial weight in gold.) The price here was a lot more in line with what I paid for my curtains at the department store, and they come in a wider variety of colors as well. Still no reviews in the reviews section, but it was an overall more appealing offering. I've been thinking about getting blackout curtains for the other bedroom too, so I'll keep that one in mind.

It occurred to me that by now I have not looked at any products that are technically for either bed or bath, so for my last dip in the pool, I decided to look at bedrest pillows, those big firm pillows with the arms that you use to prop yourself up for study or TV. BedBathStore did not have spectacular prices, though they didn't seem outrageous, but their main strength was in the wide variety of styles! They have eleven different kinds of pillows (all basically the same shape) but in different fabrics, colors, and patterns. Every single one had its own picture, which I really liked. Sometimes you can be browsing a store and look at different colors on an item, and you can tell that the second color was simply photoshopped on. These were genuine pictures showing the variety, and I appreciated that. Someone looking to match their bedroom would have an easy time if they looked here.

Overall, I think BedBathStore is a decent shopping site, with things to recommend it despite the fact that it's not a mecca for bargain hunters. Sometimes finding just the right style or color for something in your house is more important than saving a couple bucks, and the selection here was always good. Just make sure you always remember to shop around!

Oh, and because I never got around to actually doing anything bath-related, here is an oldie, but a goodie:

Mailbox Fun

2011-02-08T12:28:00.000-05:00

One great thing about all the shopping and couponing I do online these days is that it's fun to get mail again. When I was a little kid, I used to always be excited whenever I got mail, even if it was just my bank statement, because it was addressed to me! Then there were magazines, birthday cards, the occasional present, all that fun stuff! As I got older, though, and got my own mailboxes, the novelty sort of wore off. Most of what I got in the mail was bills or spam, and collecting the mail was just one more chore. But lately, what with so many companies trying to integrate the internet and Facebook with their more traditional techniques, I've been getting all sorts of cool stuff in the mail.

Today we got an especially fun package in the mail. Snuggle Fabric Softener did a contest on Facebook a little while back where you could upload a picture of snuggling and win a Snuggle Bear. I uploaded a picture from when Robert was a newborn, of him zipped into my bathrobe and cuddled right up to my chest. We won one of the bears, and it arrived yesterday! Robert was watching me open the box, and you should've seen his face when he realized there was a toy in there. Snuggle Bear was an immediate hit, and even M was a bit envious, remarking how he'd always wanted one when he was a kid, but hadn't gotten one. The new bear is in the crib now, where he is not as loved as the lovey, but a nice soft second choice.

I've also gotten lots of coupons for free things in the mail, which is awesome. In my coupon pocket now, I've got coupons for two bottles of Excedrin, three half gallons of soymilk, and a yogurt cup, all of which came in the mail. I also get some magazines where the subscriptions were free or very cheap. The best ones come with coupons of their own! It's amazing what you can find online. It certainly makes checking the mail a lot more fun!

Oh, and here's the picture I entered in the contest. Very snuggly! It's amazing how much he's grown.

The Baby Contest

2011-02-06T02:49:00.000-05:00

This morning Robert and M and I went out to take part in a competition! Robert raced in the Huggies Diaper Dash at Babies R Us. He was on the high end of qualification age, but still legal, as long as he didn't stand up during the race. Babies who walk in a crawling race get disqualified! Since Robert still doesn't stand up without pulling up, this wasn't much of a problem. The races started at 11, and technically all the competitors were supposed to show up then, but because of a quick freak snowstorm, it was just us and one other family (twin girls!) Robert raced against the bigger one in the first heat and won handily because the competition was content to sit at the starting line and grin about how much attention everyone was paying her. It was very cute! Robert raced for the love of his lovey and the pretzel stick I was holding down at the finish line.

After that, we had to spend an hour and a half or so sitting around and waiting for the championship race. A few other competitors trickled in, which the store allowed and even strongly encouraged so they could get enough competition for the championship race. In the meantime, we wrangled our contender baby and tried to keep him from burning all his energy or getting so frustrated by waiting that he wasn't having fun anymore. In the last preliminary heat, the winner was a baby about Robert's age, who was a pretty good crawler. His dad cheated by putting his hands down in the field of play during the race, but it wasn't our race and the other competitors didn't complain. All the winners of the heats got gift cards, and that was very cool!

The championship ended up being between Robert, this other kid almost his age, and funnily enough, the tiny twin of the baby Robert beat in the first round. She raced in the second round, and because her much larger competitor couldn't figure out the "Now it's time to crawl" thing, she managed to army crawl her way across the mat to victory. She was not really a contender in this one, but she was just as cute as could be. The race began, and Robert made it halfway down very quickly before hesitating. I think he was a little scared by the mom next to me who was clapping and yelling pretty loudly. The other baby crawled entirely off the mat, but ended up making it to the end of the line first. They called it a victory, but the fact of the matter was that it was a disqualification. The rules of the competition were absolutely clear that the babies must stay on the mat that marked the field of play. (Again, these were the people who entered the field of play illegally in the earlier race.) This time, since I had a stake in things, I pointed out the rules.

The other baby's parents and grandparent were not very happy about not getting their victory, but as a compromise, instead of the disqualification, we ran the race over again. This time, for whatever reason, Robert was like a ball out of a cannon, and just barreled across the mat when I waved his sippy cup at him. The other family were very sore losers about it, which tarnished it a little bit, despite the fact that their baby hadn't been in the store for 90 minutes sitting around already, and they'd gotten away with several rules violations before being called on one. Anyway! We were still happy to win, and Robert had a great time, which was the main thing. He enjoyed socializing with the other babies, and getting to crawl around Babies R Us with no pants on for a couple of hours. And for the grand prize, we got three coupons for big boxes of diapers, which is great! Right now I've got a thousand Size 4 diapers stockpiled, but there is always Size 5 coming sooner than we think.

Dreams of Vacation

2011-02-01T13:06:00.000-05:00

Man, it's cold and gross out. We're lucky here, because we didn't get the Snowpocalypse descending upon our heads, but February 1 is still not a pretty day in our corner of the world. I remember how it was last year, this first week of being alone with Robert after all the grandparents had gone home, when the world was covered with snow and M was gone all day at school. It's an easy time of year to get depressed! This year is a little better. Instead of snow we have rain, and instead of a wailing bundle of newborn, I've got my guy throwing lettuce and peapods off his high chair and demanding more pretzels instead (we are working on the food thing). Still it's hard not to imagine heading off someplace warm for awhile, maybe a visit to Santa Cruz or a vacation in Jamaica. Warm weather and beaches, shopping and tourism. Yes please!

Of course, that's not too likely to happen for awhile yet. I got our taxes filed, and we're getting a pretty decent return, but it's pretty much all allocated already. Since we're getting even less income this summer than last, I need to put more money into our summer emergency fund, and I'm going to get all crazy and put some money into our teeny-tiny IRAs as well. With anything left, we're going to get super-indulgent and hit the dentist! Woo! This doesn't leave a lot of money for other things, especially not trips. But I've been looking into other ways to beat the winter blues. The sun may not shine, and it's too wet to play outside, but I can still take care of myself. Today I'm having a big salad for lunch, and this afternoon, Robert and I are going to try and get some exercise, even if it's just perambulating up and down the halls. Eating well and exercising are two good ways to perk yourself up in winter, and heck, they're good for any time of year. I figure I can't really go wrong.

Another option I've been thinking about is maybe getting a sun lamp. I have a friend whose seasonal affective disorder was improved by simulated sunlight, so it might be worth a shot. Plus, I have extreme amounts of hate for our only lamp, which is old and has two non-working sockets and doesn't have a secure fitting shade anymore. Really, replacing that old thing with anything that doesn't drop its shade when I bump it would be a lift to my mood! And of course, I've got my guys, who are usually good for a mood lift (when they aren't the ones driving me crazy!) One of these years we'll take a winter vacation somewhere warm, but for now, I think we're all right.

Where Does the Time Go?

2011-01-21T02:38:00.000-05:00

This will probably be a quick one tonight, because it's late and I'm tired, but I know I've said that before and been wrong. This day just disappeared out from under my feet, it seems. We all spent the day at home, because there was a lot of snow today, though little of it accumulated, and classes were cancelled. I spent time catching up on phone calls and doing a marginal amount of organizing, playing some with the baby and... I don't know what else. It's bad when you look back on your day and don't really know where it all went.

A lot of my time has been like that lately, feeling wasted, feeling lost. I haven't done projects I wanted because of it, some of them which I regret a lot. Way back in November, I wanted to do a book for my folks' anniversary because I knew we couldn't throw them a party for their 35th this year and I wanted to do something. I put up a big message on Facebook and tagged everyone I could think of to ask them for pictures and memories and stuff. I needed to do personal followups with people, because it was a busy season and people forget or get busy and stuff like that, but all my time disappeared and I didn't get to it, so I didn't get the feedback I was hoping for, and the project didn't get done. My little sister made them a wonderful photo collection, something she is very talented at, and it was beautiful, but I didn't do anything but wish them a happy day. Ugh.

This site has been another project that disappears into my lost days. I have photos and videos that I want to upload and edit to show you, but it's complicated and takes a long time to edit videos, and my patience is short. I can read one book to the baby twenty times without much problem, but don't ask me to watch the same five seconds of video ten times to figure out where it's supposed to go in my fifteen minutes of footage. And when I don't have new pictures, I'm less likely to post, and when I get out of the posting groove, I'm less likely to post, and you see how it goes.

Okay, I don't think this is helping. I have focused enough on my unmedicated ADD brain for a little while, maybe it's time to accentuate the positive. Like I just said, if I get into a good groove, it's easier to stay in it. One thing I did today was spend a lot of time moving money around. M got paid for his study term, so that's a lot of money all at once that needs to be budgeted and saved carefully. Yesterday, Robert and I went to the bank and talked with a personal banker about my bank account and what we're going to do with it. We don't like Chase Bank anymore because they slapped their "free" account holders with literally a booklet full of new fees this year. Switching banks is a big hassle though, so a lot of today was putting money into savings, into new checking, activating new cards, switching autopay options, things like that. I went through months worth of bank statements and made sure that every autopay I saw was accounted for and changed. It took awhile, but I did that! I also called the doctor and got a question answered about Robert's physical, (yes, we have to buy vitamin drops over the counter because Medicaid won't pay, no there are no other options), and cleaned up the living room again, including scrubbing honey off the carpet. I did do some things today!

Another thing I've actually managed to accomplish lately is some menu planning. Our meals have been awful lately, repetitive, boring, and not very healthy. Robert's the only one who's been getting his fruits and veggies every day, which is a bad example for Mommy and Daddy to set. So the other day I sat down with six months of All You Magazine and planned meals out of the recipe sections there. I like it because they always include a projected cost per serving, and that helps a lot. I got thirty days of dinners planned out, and a shopping list. I've started looking for sales where I can pick up items on that shopping list for cheap, things that I haven't got in the pantry already, anyway. It's a really ambitious plan that involves a lot of cooking, so we'll see how it goes. Starting February 1, watch this station!

Well, I think I feel a little better now, or at least a little bit more capable. I need to spend more time planning my days like I plan my menus, even if they often get thrown off course. There's so much that I want to do, and so little time to do it!

In Inches, In Miles, In Laughter and Strife

2011-01-17T00:42:00.000-05:00

One year ago at this very minute, Robert was giving me a big bellyache. That's what my maternal grandma always told her kids on their birthdays, with the years appropriately altered, and my mom told it to me and my sisters. It's a little different for me tonight, I think, since it's still rather vivid in my mind. One year ago tonight, right at this time, I was in this very room, getting up every five minutes to go lean against the dining room table and swivel my hips until the contraction passed, because it was the only thing that helped. In a few more hours, I would be going to the hospital and finally meeting this new tiny person for the first time.

My life was so different then, it's hard to believe. This past year has gone by with such a fractured sense of time. Some of the days were so very long. I remember last winter when Robert was just a teeny, and he was fussy and didn't want to nap, and he was too little to do anything else except cry. It was cold and snowy out, and M was gone all day at school. Every day seemed like an eternity. That's when I started this blog again, actually, to give myself a voice in the long, quiet days. There are other moments that pass very slowly. The predawn hours when Robert wakes hours early and wants to play, or the car trips when he is too uncomfortable and cranky to be soothed by anything. Minutes pass like hours, days pass like years. And yet when I look back, the year has gone past in the space between two heartbeats, and I don't know how it got away from me so fast. The tiny bundle I tucked between my breasts and zipped into my bathrobe to keep warm is now a toddler, 30 inches tall, 21 pounds, and too big for the rear-facing carseat that was laughably large when we brought him home from the hospital in it. How did that happen?

I don't keep close track of Robert's development, though I keep one eye on the "every child should do this by this age" part of the charts. What does it matter if he crawls a month early or babbles a month late, or hits everything exactly on time? I mean, I can already tell he's a genius, no matter what the charts say. =) I am trying hard not to be a pushy, paranoid mommy who worries if her child isn't ahead of the curve. He walks, he babbles and repeats sounds, he flirts like a madman, and he can pick up blocks and cereal with equal facility. What more does a kid his age need to be able to do? He has a great time tormenting the cat already (he doesn't see it that way, but she does), and his increasing skill with walking has Victoria very nervous. Today he ate an entire banana, just scarfed it right down with his supper. He has six teeth! I don't think we have a lot to worry about, though we do have that big 1-year checkup on Tuesday.

Today we celebrated Robert's birthday with our friends at church. I got him a Backyardigans cake from the Meijer bakery, and a little smash cake to go with it. Those and all the drinks and utensils and stuff, and was a little over 40 dollars, and this time I paid with the debit card. It wasn't a monthly grocery expense, after all, and if I'd paid cash, I wouldn't have a cent left for the rest of the month. Otherwise, the cash budget's been working well, and that's great, because M's a week late getting paid for some reason, which is really starting to stress me out. But that's another topic! Anyway, we took the cake and stuff to church and had cake with everybody, and they sang Happy Birthday. The choir director started us off so we sang on key. ;-) I'm not sure Robert knew quite what to make of the singing, but he ate all the attention right up.

Once all the adults had cake in the sanctuary, we went to the fellowship hall (where the tile floors are!) so Robert could have his cake. He had so much fun! It was hilarious to watch him. I have video footage that needs editing before I can upload it, but you can look at the pictures here! In retrospect, I might have been better off asking for white frosting instead of having them tint it green to match the big cake, but it was so cute, and he looked so funny! A day or two of green fingers won't hurt him. We let him play with it till he got bored, then cleaned him up (mostly), cleaned up the fellowship hall, and went home. It was a good first birthday party.

And hey, it's 12:40 now. This is about the time I was calling the midwife and waking her up, and she was telling me to wait till three minutes apart, because the roads were clear and the hospital was close. A good call on her part! Man, it's so funny to think back. My mom was here then, visiting. My house was so much cleaner, with so many fewer toys! What's next year going to bring? If nothing else, it'll be an exciting trip!

Living in the Room

2011-01-11T01:13:00.000-05:00

Today was a busy day, for all I didn't even leave the house. I spent part of the gift card M gave me for Christmas on a Sterilite 3-Drawer Cart to keep my yarn in, and it arrived today! I was excited, except for the fact that my yarn was buried in the worst part of the living room, the throwing-things-behind-the-chair corner. I couldn't even get at it, so how could I organize it? Honestly, the whole living room had gotten embarrassingly bad this past few months. We spend almost all of our time in the living room, so it accumulates a lot of the detritus of living, plus it's the biggest space in the apartment, so it's the default holding area for anything that's not put away. Since Robert started pulling up and walking around, I hadn't even been able to let him out of the playpen in the living room, because there was no safe place for him to walk. It was really terrible.

So today, spurred on by my new yarn cart, I did something about it! M took Robert to the bookstore for awhile, and then they played in the nursery while I worked all afternoon on the living room. I picked up trash, I sorted piles, I dug into all the places where I tossed things to get them out of sight in previous cleaning endeavors. I even tackled long-term problem areas, like the space between the chairs and the tangle of cords next to the television that was such a baby attractant. I took a fine toothed cat comb and went over the entire cat tree, removing a quantity of hair about equal in size to another cat. I got my coupons into the book, I got my knitting and my needles and accouterments sorted out, I got Robert's toys into the box. I vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed! It was really hard, really discouraging work for the most part, especially when I was about two hours in and the room actually looked worse than when I'd started.

It was all worth it at the end of the day, though. I didn't get the whole room done. Tomorrow I need to keep up the drive and get the dining room half of the space, which I started on but could not finish tonight. I got enough done, though, that I was able to bring Robert out into the living room this evening and let him crawl around, get into his toys, pull up on the cat tree, and all the other things that my terrible cleaning skills have not allowed him to do. He was really excited! Watching him crawl around and laugh made it all worthwhile. I know I have a lot of work to do still, but I feel good tonight. And hey, during the cleaning, I found my camera, too! Woo-hoo!

Grocery Stock-Up

2011-01-07T00:43:00.000-05:00

Last night, Robert and I went to the grocery store. This was an exceedingly necessary trip. We hadn't gone to get groceries since before our Christmas trip to see my folks and only the fact that they sent us home with bags of frozen food kept us going even this long! A fun little sort-of tradition we've developed is that my folks, who have a tendency to stuff both their large fridge-freezer and the downstairs deep freeze with way too much food, will go through their collection at the end of our visit and give us all sorts of stuff. This give them room in the freezer, and gives us all sorts of wonderful stuff to eat. We've had mini corndogs and French Toast Sticks, an excellent beef stew that I made into shepherd's pie with the addition of some frozen mashed potatoes, and all kinds of lovely things to eat. Waste not, want not, right? But we needed milk and margarine and formula, and there was a good sale going that I wanted to hit up, so it was grocery time!

Grocery time was originally going to be Sunday, but Sunday morning I woke up feeling weird and icky. I made it to church because I was worship leader that day, but by the time I got home, I was just feeling rotten, and starting to run a fever to boot. I sort of stayed away from everyone at church, so I hope I didn't pass it to anyone. M watched Robert all Sunday and let me rest, which was helpful as I was almost totally nonfunctional. But by Monday morning, he had it too, which was even worse. We were both running at about 25% capacity, while Robert was still at 100, which made things hard. Working in shifts, we cared for him and slept, and eventually by Tuesday, we were starting to feel better. Robert never got sick, thank god. He was the only one of us who had a flu shot this year, which probably had something to do with it.

Anyway, with that happening, groceries got pushed forward to last night, which meant that I had to do all this month's WIC shopping and Meijer's big 11-for-$10 sale and use the other coupons I wanted to use all in the same visit! Eee! With Robert as my trusty navigator, we set out. This month I did something smart! Even though Meijer keeps the frozen food in front, I skipped it for once, and went straight for the baby aisle! I did all the WIC shopping first, stacked it all into a shopping basket, and put the basket under the cart. Not only did that keep it out of the way, it made it so much easier to get out and keep together at checkout time! I will always do that from now on. It took us almost an hour and a half for me to gather the sixty-odd items on my list (I did the 11-for-10 deal four times over, and got other stuff as well) and by the time we were getting towards the end, Robert was more than done with shopping. It was getting late, and he was tired and hungry! The nice lady in the deli saved our day by giving him a whole potato wedge, which was by far the largest french fry Robert had ever seen. And you know how he feels about french fries. Eating his way through that kept him busy all the way to the checkout counter, and most of the way through the line. Phew.

I'm trying a new experiment this month, one that is very popular with a lot of the frugal bloggers I like to read. You get your grocery budget for the month, and you take it out of the bank in cash. Before you go shopping, you figure out about how much your groceries will cost, and you take that much with you in cash, and you use it to pay for your groceries. You look at the money as you give it to the cashier, and you physically take your change. Not only does it make you think harder about how much you're spending, but when the money you've taken out of the bank for the month is gone, you're done shopping till next month. This was my first time trying it, so I carefully figured out all the prices and coupons and stuff before leaving home, estimating on what I didn't know for sure. I thought it would be around 55 dollars, but because it was my first time, I took 70 with me. It turned out that my sixty-odd items, a bulging cartful, cost me 53 dollars, a savings of 61 dollars total. Not bad for a rookie! That's still a third of my budget for the month gone, though, and it's only the sixth of the month now. I have lots of creative plans to make sure that the money and food stretches. After all, I have new silverware, new storage containers, and new pots and pans. I have no excuses not to get awesome in the kitchen!

End of the Season

2011-01-05T12:40:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is, January 5, and Christmas is over. Well, technically Christmas is over tomorrow, on January 6, which is Epiphany and Robert's original due date, one year ago. Funny how much I was looking forward to that date, and how little happened that day. =) But as far as Christmas presents and parties and especially spending goes, the season has wrapped. I have avoided the After-Christmas clearance sales, and we already have Robert's birthday presents (not that the poor kid needs more toys!), so we're pretty much done. Thank God. It was a bit of a spendy Christmas.

Because of our frequent lengthy traveling and the mail service being slow, I've done a lot of shopping with my Amazon Visa card this season. It's been great for giving me points, and I like that, but it's not the sort of card you want to carry a balance on. I also find that when I'm using a credit card, I'm not always quite as thoughtful with my purchases. Knowing myself, I did my very best to curb my impulses and turned down some fun bargains, but I still wound up buying quite a bit. It was hardest, I found, to resist buying things for Robert. When toys and baby stuff were on sale, that was my catnip. Maybe Kryptonite is more accurate. I don't know that I ever really understood before now how strong the impulse is to provide your child with every good thing. The biggest thing we bought him was this Bi-Plane Airplane Rocker for his birthday (shhh, don't tell, he hasn't gotten it yet!) I scored it for 55 dollars, shipped, which was awesome considering its current price of 120 dollars.

He also got a half-dozen other presents from us, Christmas and birthday, not to mention all the gifts he got from others. Now we need to get him a toybox, badly! But he's having tons of fun, and the new bigger-boy toys are letting him showcase his creativity, which is lots of fun. Today Mimi and Papoo's birthday present is his current favorite, the Fisher-Price Little People Animal Sounds Farm. He was so envious of cousin Rachee's dollhouse at Christmas that we had to get him a playset of his own. Papoo wasn't wild about the idea of getting Robert a dollhouse, so we got him the farm instead, which is entirely satisfactory. Robert's favorite trick is putting the figures in the top of the silo, then watching them slide out the bottom. Big fun! He also likes the giant cardboard blocks from Aunt Allie, and the wooden alphabet blocks from Nana and Papa (mostly as a musical instrument right now.) We've held back a few of the toys to start giving him when he gets bored with the current offerings. He can only play with so many toys each day without getting overwhelmed, after all!

Besides the presents we bought for other people and for each other, I took advantage of Christmas sales to do some home refreshing as well. We've been married six and a half years now, and a lot of our basic home accessories were wedding presents. We have many generous friends who gave us wonderful wedding gifts, but some of the things we use every day have started to get worn out. So in addition to presents, I bought things like a new stainless steel silverware service for eight (knowing we are doomed to lose at least half the forks under mysterious circumstances), a new set of pots and pans, new towels and bath sheets, new Rubbermaid containers so I can toss away all the accumulated ones that have melted edges or have lost their lids, and another year's worth of bathroom and kitchen hand soap, antibacterial gel and wipes for keychain and diaper bag. All of the things I got were at least forty and sometimes as much as seventy percent off, and they're things that will be useful for a long time, so I feel pretty good about them. It's just that those purchases made for a big outlay of money all in one month!

Now that the season is over, my focus returns to financial care and savings. I should be able to finish paying down the Amazon card this month, and after that, it's back to chipping away at the old debt, and trying to scrape together enough to rebuild the emergency fund. Last year, our tax return funded the bulk of our emergency fund, and I hope that can happen again. It was a major source of peace for me this year to know that we had something to fall back on when the money ran low, and when it did, we didn't incur new credit card debt because of it. I did find it a little vexatious that if we didn't have any savings, we could've applied for food stamps, but the emergency fund is more important to me. This year M's summer work is looking more tenuous than in previous years, so my resolution is to get as much into the emergency fund as I possibly can, against the day. The financial planning gurus suggest that you should have enough money to live on for three months in your emergency fund, so that's my starting point. Lucky(ish) for us, we don't have a very big monthly budget, so that amount isn't really out of reach. It's a good resolution, anyway!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-30T01:51:00.000-05:00

We just got home from our trip to Illinois for Christmas. Nine hours in the car, and man, I'm exhausted. Bed for me as soon as I finish writing this! The trip was great, Robert got a million toys, and everyone loved him. They were fairly happy to see us, too. ;) He got his first haircut and his first birthday smash cake. Fun, fun, fun! Tomorrow is going to be a busy day of unpacking and trying to find places to put all the new goodies, but that will keep. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are getting decompressed by now!

Shopping Online

2010-12-07T12:08:00.001-05:00

Motherhood

2010-11-21T02:59:00.000-05:00

Motherhood is when every once in awhile you're laying in bed and about to fall asleep, when suddenly a thought pops into your head about a TV show you watched a long time ago, when a snake crawled into a baby's crib and ate him, and you suddenly have to get up and go check on the baby. Not because you actually think he's been eaten by a snake, or is being menaced by anything worse than giant dust bunnies, because if that were the case, telling yourself that the room has no vents except the one into your own room and giant snakes can't crawl in closed windows would put an end to the worry. You get up and go check on the baby because the world is a big scary place, and the baby is so small, and it's such a worrisome job to try and keep him safe and let him grow, all at the same time.

And when you've gotten out of bed and left your room and turned on the bathroom light for indirect illumination, you open the nursery door as quietly as you can, using the rhythm and technique you have perfected to minimize the squeak you keep telling yourself you should address with WD-40. You go in and look in the crib and there he is, all curled up sleeping, and you wonder how you could have ever made something so perfect. And there are no giant snakes around, just a few industrial sized dust bunnies, so it's time to sleep.

Weekender

2010-11-14T00:50:00.000-05:00

Today I forgot an appointment, because I suck! Or rather, I mislaid an appointment. We were supposed to go to membership class at church, but I spazzed and thought it was next Saturday, and so instead I slept in and then gave M a chance to get a nap and didn't even think about it till I got an email from my pastor about it. Crud! Well, we'll just have to figure out another time for meeting, I guess. I need to pay more attention, seriously.

Anyway, the last couple days have been pantry filling days. Kroger had a super-duper sale this week, and an open house for the holidays as well! We decided to try one of the big fancy Marketplace Krogers in the town next door, and it was pretty cool. They had all kinds of sample tables set up, and it was fun to taste things and let Robert taste them as well. He actually managed to sip a little apple cider from a cup, which was neat and bodes well for the future. He also met Santa Claus for the first time ever and did not cry! He looked very concerned, but that's okay. We did really well for shopping, too. I bought a ton of canned and boxed goods and used about 35 coupons, and got ninety dollars worth of groceries for twenty bucks. Hard to beat!

Today, after the scheduling snafu and all the napping, Robert and I went out shopping again, this time to Walmart for baby food. Giving him frozen and thawed baby food veggies is fine (though more difficult now that I've blown out the motor on my blender and have to get down the food processor), but he's showing a definite preference for the entree-style baby foods. Turkey and veggies, Chicken noodle, spaghetti with itty-bitty noodles, stuff like that. It actually smells appetizing, which surprises me. Baby food has come a long way. And he eats it even though it is a little lumpy, and that's good. We got a ton of baby food, I decided I might as well get him a fruit and oatmeal combo for each morning, a veggie for each lunch, and a dinner entree for each dinner. Twelve days worth of food, plus bagel thins for his solid food lunch and a loaf of day-old bread was 27 dollars, more than we spent on adult food!

It's totally worth it though. Not just because we do like taking care of our baby, but because he's started sleeping a lot better since we started giving him bigger meals. Lately he'd been waking up very early, uncomfortable and demanding a bottle, and taking four bottles a day and wanting more! Now we've got him on the eight-ounce jars of food at breakfast and supper, and with a four-ounce jar and a selection of solid finger foods at lunch. He also gets the sippy cup at some meals, and all this new food has him feeling good! He's back to sleeping eleven hours again, thank God, and he really seems to enjoy the new variety. He's a very good eater. I just have to try and be careful to make sure he's eating healthy! We have a meeting next week with the WIC nutritionist again, I'm sure she'll have lots of ideas.

The Days Are Just Packed!

2010-11-12T15:45:00.000-05:00

Wow, I can't believe it's Friday already. This week has gone by in a blur! I don't know why, but every day has passed in a rush, and then melted together, and I haven't even gotten my shopping done yet! That's okay, because it's not like we're exactly flush right now, but Kroger is having an awesome canned-food sale that I don't want to miss. We're going to go this evening, I have all thirty-seven (thirty-seven!) of my coupons ready. Here's hoping it all goes smoothly!

Yesterday, Robert and Jami and I went out to the mall to get Robert's Halloween pictures taken. We had been planning to do it on Tuesday, I had a ride from Jami arranged and the appointments made and everything, but then I let M drive off with the carseat! Argh! I couldn't even think about using the big-boy front-facing carseat because that's up in the storage area and M has the only key. Double Argh! We ended up going on a walk instead, which was nice, but it was still a very frustrating afternoon. So today I scheduled again, for Sears and JC Penney both, since I had coupons for both and they're in the same mall. Might as well, right? It's tons cheaper to get one package from two places than to get two poses from one place. Studios are weird that way.

Anyhow, I got a call from Penneys, our usual place, to say that their server was down, so that while they could take the pictures, they couldn't show them to us that day, and we'd have to come back another day. That didn't sound very good. We went over to Sears for the appointment, and did okay. I don't like them as well as Penney's, honestly. It was obviously the same franchise of photo studio as the one at Walmart, the website setup and even the signs were the same, and Walmart was just awful. The photographers tried hard, but none of them really had what it takes to work with babies. One thing I've learned is that you have to make a fool of yourself to get a good picture of a baby, and none of these women would even talk in a loud high voice. I had to do it myself to get any smiles from him. They also decided to take more pictures (or the manager did, she made them do it and tossed some of the earlier photos because apparently the seat he'd been on wasn't safe, and getting rid of the evidence was crucial or something. That was weird.

So at the end of the shoot, they had six decent pictures of him, minus all the ones the manager deleted. That's a lot less than our Penney's shoots have been, and it took longer. Part of that is because Robert is crawling now, granted. He doesn't want to stay! After five minutes that turned to fifteen waiting for proofs, they showed us a whole bunch of collages and enhancements and all that, then persisted in trying to sell me a four hundred dollar photo package. Bwa-ha-ha! I bought my one little photo package and confirmed that things would be online, because the grandparents usually like to buy pictures too. As I found out, they put the natural photos on, but none of those fancy enhancements they made. Another reason I like them less than Penneys, who put all the enhanced pictures up to buy as well. Ah well, it was an okay session and we got some cute pictures that will be here next week! (And yeah, they put giant watermarks on as well. This is the photo we bought, pretty cute, huh?)

Guest Post: Country Fairs

2010-11-12T15:21:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the post from Darrick Moreno

Going to the Country Fair in town is great fun for the entire family. It's a time for us to join together and have some real good old-fashion fun. Going to the Country Fair with my family reminds me of when I was growing up in a smaller town. The entire town looked forward to the Country Fair. It was the major event of the entire year.

I just love the cotton candy at the fairs and introduced my kids to cotton candy. I also enjoy the fresh popcorn. I was surprised to see at the last Country Fair that popcorn is now in several very delightful and spicy flavors. One treat that can't be beat is the hot fried pork rinds. The family that makes the product were recently featured on national television!

We also like to go on a few of the rides. I personally stick to the safer, more sane rides. You will not see me on the roller coaster or other wild rides! After a long day at the Country Fair I am glad to return home because I plan to watch the satellite TV we got after looking at this Direct TV comparison.

Sticky Situation

2010-11-12T15:14:00.000-05:00

Busy Day

2010-11-05T01:47:00.000-04:00

Just a quick one tonight, to keep up my streak. We had a busy day today! First thing in the morning was baby music class, which is always great fun. There is a new boy in our class who is just a couple of weeks younger than Robert, and who has just as much hair. They sat next to each other today, and were very interested in each other. That can be a dangerous thing at this age, especially with boys! Nash, the new boy, is very inquisitive, and he liked trying to go for Robert's face and hair. While I was on the phone after class, I had to hang up abruptly when an unexpected lunge from Nash made Robert fall over backwards and start crying. It was okay though, no harm done and they had a good time trying to pull up on the wall together. Babies are so funny. I've locked in a class for Robert for next semester, we've got a partial scholarship and I'm going to watch the teacher's son during one of her other classes, and we'll call it even. Sweet!

After baby music class, we met up with Jami for shopping. Woo-hoo! The rent is paid, so we don't have much money, but the bills are also all paid for the moment, so what money there is can go for things like new Robert clothes! The thrift store was chock-full of goodies today, very exciting. I got Robert the most adorable, practically new, insulated winter coat with a hood. It's green, and I swear, if anyone wore it already, it doesn't show. Only four dollars! I also got him some new corduroy pants and overalls, a pair of khakis just like Daddy's, a new bodysuit for pajamas, a workout suit that is just as cute as can be, and a lighter jacket for less-cold days. The total for everything was about 8.50. That's the price of one baby outfit new, if you can even get it that cheap! I love the thrift store!

After that, Jami showed us the Gap Outlet Store, which was very cool. It's a big place, and the stuff is very cheap, though you have to be careful because quite a bit is actually damaged and not just overstock. I got Robert about ten pairs of identical white socks for a quarter a pair, then got myself some new socks as well, for fifty cents per pair. I also got him two identical pairs of mittens, figuring that might at least help me keep track of one right and one left. I need to get him some mitten clips. I need to go back to that store sometime with lots of time to look around and sort through things, because it was pretty cool.

When we were done there, we went over to Sams and had lunch at their little cafe thing. We had hot dogs, drinks, and soft pretzels with cheese, all for a total of 6.60, which is a doggone good price for two adults to have a filling lunch out. Robert ate some soft pretzel too, after I brushed all the salt off. He seemed to like it, though he didn't actually consume very much. It's a start. We walked around the store, and I think we'll have to go back so Jami can pick up the pickles and olives she was eyeing so avariciously. ;) I got chimichangas and mini egg-rolls, lunch and dinner staples at our house, as well as a rotisserie chicken for supper. By then, we were all exhausted and it was starting to rain, so we went home. But it was a good day!

Fingers

2010-11-03T16:27:00.000-04:00

Today I cooked up some rigatone for Robert. It was the biggest pasta noodle I could find that wasn't a lasagna sheet, and the nice round tube shape was appealing. I made several cups of it, cooked it till it was nice and mushy for gumming, then put it in the fridge. When lunchtime rolled around, I put three nice-looking noodles in a plastic bowl with just a little butter, and gave it to him in his high chair. Within ten seconds, he'd dumped the pasta out onto the tray and was chewing on the bowl. Eventually the rigatone ended up on the floor, unwept, unhonored, and untasted.

We are not having good luck with finger foods. The only finger food Robert will eat is french fries and arrowroot cookies. Oh, and he also ate a Kit-Kat stick I gave him on Halloween, and subsequently refused to sleep for most of the night. That one was definitely an error. I've ordered a case of what are called "Baby Mum-Mums, rice rusks that are supposed to be really easy for babies to eat. He doesn't like the baby puffs much yet, but he does like things that he can hold in his fist while he chews them. The rusks are much bigger than the puffs, and they got rave reviews, so I'm going to try them out. I'm also going to try cooled steamed carrots. So far cheese and kidney beans have not worked at all, and even cotton candy would not pass his lips. I have thought about buying some edible rice paper since paper is Robert's favorite thing to eat, but I feel that would just lead to confusion down the road. We'll keep working on it.

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-01T02:45:00.000-04:00

Hi all, long time no see! I have been very busy and crazy and all sorts of things, but I really do need to start getting back into this! I come to you today bearing gifts of adorable Halloween baby pictures, and the promise of lots more on the Flickr photostream! Go there, you will not regret it! I have videos to upload too, but they need editing and that takes forever.

Robert is 41 weeks old today! He has been out of the womb for as long as he was in it, crazy thought! I can't believe how big and clever he's gotten, so quickly. Already he's pulling up and cruising like a champ, and if he's not walking by Christmas, I'll be surprised. Things like pointing and talking are coming more slowly, but he's always watching and interacting. He and I play the back-and-forth syllables game where I mimic the noises he makes, which he thinks is hilarious. He can clap his hands and shake his rattle and bang his sticks in baby music class, he is getting to be a pro at that. Things look good for getting another semester of that, and I'm really excited about it! His nine month checkup was great, the doctor says he looks perfect and is right on track. Just what we like to hear!

Our budget, as always, has been a little more shaky in its progress than Robert's growth and development. It takes a month or two to recover from the long payless drought. I think we're getting there, and we still have a fairly comfortable cushion in savings, but I don't want to tap it. The bills are up to date, so if we can pay the rent and not spend any more money for, oh, ten days, we'll be fine! Yeah, that's likely for us... Robert and I did go out shopping today and did well for ourselves. We got about 200 dollars worth of stuff at CVS and Walgreens for 17 dollars out of pocket, and I got 15 dollars in ECBs and register rewards to spend next time. That's not bad at all, considering all the stuff I got. The big thing was yet another glucose monitor, this one a fancy one that can plug into a Nintendo DS. I don't need it myself, but I donate them to the church, because other people do need them. They go on sale for free-with-coupon all the time, so I have about four of them now. I also got a couple things of Dawn, some kleenex, a new nice razor, NyQuil and Dayquil, a couple bottles of nasal spray, four bags of cough drops, about 70 freezer pops, four things of deodorant, four bottles of Olay lotion, Halloween treats to give out, a can of iced tea, and the newspaper. Good sales!

I've still been doing Weight Watchers, though this week I've suffered a little bit from Halloweenfooditis, if you know what I mean. But I've also done lots of walking and lots of water-drinking, so maybe it will balance out. So far I've lost 18.5 pounds and I'm feeling good about it. Cross your fingers for me, we've got Robert's candy stash in the house!

Count Your Blessings

2010-10-08T12:30:00.000-04:00

It's been quite a few days since I blogged (again), but now I've got my camera cord and batteries issues sorted out, so hopefully I'll be able to do a little more. Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy now that Robert is mobile, I'm always having to try and keep one eye on him. He's teething for real now, too! He has one teeny little tooth bud that we can see in his gum when he consents to opening his mouth wide enough. It's been waking him up at night, which means less sleep for everyone. I just need to get some new time management strategies set up, I guess. That's the problem with having a baby, just when you get a routine down, they're in a new phase and everything's up in the air again! Of course, that's what keeps it interesting too, so I probably shouldn't complain too much.

Sometimes I end up feeling overwhelmed, and I just don't know how everybody else seems to manage. Sometimes I wish I had insurance just so I could maybe get onto Adderall and manage my ADD the way my mom does. Maybe then I wouldn't have such a hard time being organized. It's surprisingly easy to let myself get bogged down and depressed if I'm not careful, but I know that's silly. When that happens, it's time to count my blessings, because there are tons of them. I'm very lucky!

First and most importantly is my family! I've got my wonderful husband and beautiful baby. We're all together, we're all healthy. I'm the lucky woman who doesn't need to ask her husband to help around the house or with the baby, and Robert is the lucky baby whose father is present and affectionate and fun. M and I are the very lucky parents whose baby is healthy and on track and uncommonly adorable, to boot! He just gets cuter every day. Beyond that, we have extraordinarily supportive extended families to help us through the rough times and celebrate with us in the good times.

Just after we came back from our travels, I made an incautious move in the kitchen and broke the ceramic insert to my crockpot. Even though I was lucky that the shrapnel, which was very close to Robert and I, didn't hurt anyone, I was devastated because we cook so much of our food in the crockpot, especially in the winter. And at this time of year, we have no extra money to spare, as I've mentioned before. I posted about it on Facebook, mostly to vent, and my family came to the rescue! Not only do I have a new crock pot, I have the warm blanket of remembering that my family and M's family that's my family too now, all of them care about us and are thinking of us when things aren't going smoothly. And the new crockpot is a blessing in itself, I found it on sale at Kitchen Collection in the mall, and it's great! It's got a carry handle that a spoon buckles right into, so on Soup Sundays at church, I can just pick up the whole thing and go. With an eight month old baby, anything that increases our portability is awesome. :D

More blessings! Even though we do not have a lot of money, we still have fabulous opportunities to enrich Robert's life! There's a lot of stuff going on in this area that is great for babies. The other week, Robert and I went to Baby Loves Disco at the mall, a disco party for babies and little kids with a lot of stuff sponsored by various mall stores. We got to dance to the music, and Robert got a little plastic egg-shaped shaker, and a cute orange sock puppet. It was fun, and great exercise! The library has baby reading programs, though we can't go this semester because M needs the car on Tuesday mornings, and it's cool enough to go to the zoo now. Robert loves his baby music class, and it looks like his scholarship may be extended so he can do it in the new year as well! That would be wonderful. It's such a nice time for him to be able to socialize with other babies, and we just couldn't afford it without the scholarship help.

Robert's health is a huge blessing. Even though it bothers me to not be insured, that's nothing compared to how glad I am that Robert's health will at least be taken care of. He's a very healthy little boy, and because we have state aid, we don't have to worry about how we're going to get him his checkups and vaccinations, or about how we can take him to the doctor if he gets sick. The pediatrician practice we go to is really great, and we like all the doctors there. He has his nine month appointment coming up next week, so we will see what the doctor thinks of his crawling and his tooth and his wriggly twenty-pound self! Having WIC has been a major blessing too, and I breathe a little prayer of thanksgiving every time I look at the cost of formula. He's getting three solid meals a day, one fruit, one veggie, and one protein, but he still gets four six-ounce bottles as well. That adds up fast! WIC doesn't cover all the formula costs, but it's a big help.

I am getting healthy too! Weight Watchers is working for me, and for the moment it's even faster than last time. I think the fact is that with all Robert and I do, I get quite a bit of exercise. Now that I'm not eating so aggressively badly, my body has time to burn some of the calories. I worry about our grocery bill, but I'm still trying to combine frugality with eating right, and hopefully I can balance it somewhere in the middle. I want Robert to have a good relationship with food, and that means fixing my own relationship with it first. But I've lost 11 pounds now, and my pants are feeling noticeably looser. I'm looking forward to "shopping in my closet," and getting out all the clothes I haven't been able to wear since before the baby.

Ah, clothes, another blessing! We have a thrift store right around the corner from our house, thank God. They sell baby clothes for fifty cents an item, and now they've got their winter stuff out. I've been putting Robert into pants, and realizing that what was pants on him this spring is shorts now, when it fits at all! He's growing so fast! So yesterday we went out and bought six pairs of pants, a set of overalls, and two shirts for my little guy. They're 12 month sized, so he should be able to wear them all winter, I hope. Sure they're big now, but he's a baby, so it's cute. Looking at the price of new baby clothes, I'm doubly grateful for the thrift store. Sure it's nice to get a brand new outfit for him once in awhile, especially for special occasions, but there's just no reason to shell out that kind of money for clothes he's going to wear for three or four months.

I have lots more blessings to count, but this post is getting long, and I'm already feeling much better. It really is a good exercise to do when you're feeling a little low. Another good trick is actual exercise, so I think I may take Robert and go out and get some exercise endorphins!

Giving Til It Hurts

2010-09-25T02:16:00.000-04:00

Today Robert got two breakfasts, sneaky boy! He woke up at 6:30 and M gave him fruit and cereal, but Robert was obviously still quite tired, so M was more than happy to lay him down again and go have some more sleep himself. Robert woke again at 9, and this time I got up with him, (this being M's day to sleep in, since his classes are M-Th this term). I didn't know Robert had already gotten breakfast, since M usually just gives him a bottle, so I gave him fruit and rice as well, and also a bottle, when he still seemed hungry. He ate it all! I can't believe this kid is still in the 35th percentile for weight, except that when he is not sleeping, he is in constant motion!

Once we were all up and fed and dressed, we headed out to the blood donation center in the next town over (which is about three minutes away). I had gotten a call earlier this week because they're critically short on my blood type, so I said I would try to drop in. This is the first time either of us has donated since Robert was born, I was breastfeeding and then just too darn busy. We took turns, I gave first while M was on baby duty, then vice versa. I was very impressed with my phlebotomist, she got me on the first stick, which not too many can do! It was a fast and easy donation, and I felt fine afterwards, just a bit wobbly for a few minutes. M donated and did fine as well, and Robert charmed the pants off everybody at the center. Afterwards, we informed Robert than Mommy and Daddy are superheroes, saving ten lives with a single hour's work!

This afternoon M had a meeting, so Robert and I stuck around the house. We watched a little Caillou, which I don't think is as bad as some people say, and went outside to blow bubbles. It was very windy, and all Robert really wanted to do was chew on the wand, but it was fun anyway. The neighbor kids came over, they are very fond of Robert and like to play with him. It rained then, which cut at least a little of the horrible oppressive heat. I am so ready for some fall! I stayed on points today, though barely with the horrible choice of snacks they had available at the blood center. I helped myself liberally to salsa sandwiches throughout the day, which is whole wheat bread, butter spray, and salsa. Only two points, tasty and filling. It's also a serving of veggies!

Back Home and Busy!

2010-09-22T21:15:00.000-04:00

Okay, now we're back home and back into our routine, and I need to start blogging again! It's hard for me to pick up my good habits again after falling out of them, but now that we are far away from family once more, everyone needs their daily dose of Robert! You can find lots of new Robert pics on the Flickr photostream, to help make up for my long absence.

I've decided it's time to get started with Weight Watchers again. I never lost that baby weight, and added a few more pounds besides, which is just ridiculous. Coming up with the money is going to be interesting, but I think I can do it if I cut back on some other things I've been doing with our money. It means cutting back on the recreational couponing, the things I get super-cheap and end up donating. I donated a ton of stuff this past year and I feel good about it, but now I need to repurpose the money for awhile into the membership dues and paying for more produce and healthy foods.

Today has been my third day on Weight Watchers, and so far, so good. I have been to my first meeting, and stayed on plan every day so far, even though yesterday we went to a biergarten for M's orientation mixer and there were fried sauerkraut balls. Holy cow. But I displayed some moderation, and also saved my points all day for it, so I was okay. Not drinking beer definitely helps! I also went to the mall and walked around for an hour on Monday, earning some activity points, and today I actually went down to the exercise room and hopped back on the eliptical. I totally wore myself out in fifteen minutes, but it is a start! Fifteen today, sixteen tomorrow, and on and on... Eventually I will be able to keep up with Robert as he learns to crawl and walk!

Today I had a really hungry day for some reason. I ate all my points throughout the day, then went and exercised and ate those points in the form of a turkey and pickle sandwich! (A piece of provolone cheese costs three points, but pickles are free, free, free!) It was surprisingly tasty. Robert had a hungry day as well, including an entire extra bottle even though he had his daily fruit breakfast, veggie lunch and bean dinner. Maybe it's the weather. I can't believe it's still ninety degrees out! When it cools down, we will walk again, and earn points from it! Woo-hoo!

Oh, and today after Robert had eaten his fill of the steamed pureed peas I made for him, I let him have the bowl and spoon for a little self-feeding practice. Not a lot was accomplished, but it was very funny. And then he got a thorough bath!

Baby Music

2010-09-10T01:25:00.000-04:00

Today was an exciting day because it was the start of Robert's baby music class! He slept so well last night, very happy to be back in his own bed, and didn't wake until 7am. M got up with him and let me sleep till 8, which was awesome. At nine, we went to the music class, where Robert and five other babies near his age got to hit sticks together, shake bells, and rattle rattles, as well as dancing with the mommies and playing clapping games. Robert is too little to clap or sing, but he really liked the instruments, and he was totally interested in all the other babies. I think he had a really good time. We are very lucky because we got a scholarship to the Kindermusik program for this semester, because otherwise we just couldn't afford it at all. I think we are really going to have a fun time with it.

After class, we stopped by the thrift store on our block because they are having their summer clearance sale! Woo-hoo! I pretty much cleared them out of their 18 month old summer stuff for boys. At ten cents per item, why not? I also got him a backup Halloween costume for a dollar, and some twenty-five cent sleepers. All in all, I got two bulging grocery bags of clothes for five bucks. Not bad at all! Robert was very tired and hungry by the time we got home. He didn't want solid foods much today, he took a bottle and a nice long nap. It was great, and allowed me to get a little nap as well. M even cooked lunch, making sloppy joe spaghetti. That was kind of odd, but pretty good! We're eating a lot out of the stuff we brought back from my folks, they let me do a freezer raid before we left. I left them the prepared meals but took some snacks and a bunch of raw ingredients out of their two stuffed-full freezers. The ground turkey went into the spaghetti, and then for supper, we had cheesy potatoes. My mom makes them and freezes them just because they are M's very favorite. It is her way of bribing him to want to come visit more often. ;)

I found a way to get half my continuing legal education credits for this year for free, by going to a guardian ad litem seminar a few towns away. That would be great, because CLE credits can be very expensive. I just need to do some paperwork and send it in tomorrow so I can get a space. It's a little weird to be getting CLE when I haven't worked in two years now, but it's important to keep my license current. If I can do it without paying an arm and a leg, so much the better!

Oh, and regarding yesterday's picture, my dad turned down the temp on the hot tub so that it was like bathwater, and then we took Robert in. He thought it was just awesome, like a giant warm bathtub. He splashed everyone and did his faux-swimming moves and played in the little waterfall. Even when we turned on the jets, he wasn't a bit scared. I gave him a real bath right afterwards, just to be on the safe side with chemicals and all that, but he was fine and had a great time.

Home Again!

2010-09-09T02:24:00.000-04:00

I haven't blogged in a whole week, because we have been sooo busy! We spent the past week with my folks and my extended family up in Illinois, and it was great. I'll probably try to drop in a few stories in the next few days, but trying to tell the whole trip in one entry would just be too long! It was a really fun time, though. We drove home this morning, early early so that M could get his grades done. It was sad to leave, but I'm so happy to have had the time with them. Robert really got to know them more, now that he's so much more alert to the differences between people. It was kind of interesting to watch him not only as he got to know Mimi and Papoo, but to see how he recognizes M and I as different from any other people. He definitely knows who we are and wants us around. That's pretty cool.

While we were up north, I did tons of grocery shopping and cooking. The cupboards were pretty bare when we got there, with my mom being laid up and my dad trying to take on all the stuff she couldn't take care of, so I went on a rare solo shopping expedition and bought almost three hundred dollars worth of groceries. I saved more than 50 dollars from coupons and sales, but that's still definitely the most money I've ever spent on groceries. But hey, it was food for five adults and a baby, a big box of diapers, extra food for a party, so it wasn't anything like my normal shopping expeditions. I used that stuff to do a whooooole mess of cooking.

This week was fun because I got to show off some of my best recipes. I made Philly cheesesteaks, pulled pork, baked fish, chicken-bacon-artichoke pizza, and barbecue, among other stuff. We froze a bunch of leftovers, so when my sister has her surgery next week, there will be meals in the freezer for them to warm up. Hurrah! There is more to tell, but M wants to go to bed, so I will post this and go with him. Later for more posts!

Good Night and Good Luck

2010-09-01T00:22:00.002-04:00

Happy September, everybody! We're too busy for a post tonight, so here is a picture instead!

Baby, Sitting

2010-08-31T00:48:00.000-04:00

Today was a big day for spending piles of money. That's rarely fun, but it's especially unfun at this time of year, when the amount coming in is so small as to be practically nonexistent. With our trip coming up, though, it's important to make sure everything is in order. Today that meant groceries, rent, and a vet visit. It also meant getting up really early, because M had to go to school and deliver his final exam. I hauled Robert's sleepy little body out of crib at quarter to seven and we rolled out at seven-fifteen. The only good thing about that hour is that the traffic is much lighter than an hour later in the morning. We dropped M off and came back for a breakfast of peaches and rice and leftover pizza, then packed up the birds.

Our budgies are senior citizens now. Jeremy is eight years old, and probably coming up on nine around the end of the year. (Budgie birthdays are an inexact science.) Aegis is about the same age, then Dana's just a little younger. Isaac and Boris are tougher because I didn't get them as bappies, but they're at least five and probably considerably more. A well-tended pet store budgie has a lifespan of about ten years, maybe a little more. Some of my budgies haven't made it this far, but the ones that have are starting to show their age. One symptom of that is beak problems. When they were younger, they could chew their cuttlebone to keep their beaks trim, but now kidney function and other bird health stuff makes their beaks grow faster than they can whittle them down. Aegis and Boris, especially, have bad problems with this, but Dana's starting to as well. I can't trim beaks at home, it's much harder than trimming nails, and the consequences for screwing up badly are grim. So I have to take them in periodically to the vet.

Bird vets are not cheap. Seriously not cheap. Especially since they insisted that Dana would need a physical too, because they haven't trimmed her before. But that's what the emergency summer savings account was there for, and you have to take care of your pets. At this point, if one of them gets very sick, it would probably not be a kindness to do much more than palliative care, but beak and claw maintenance is a quality of life issue, and we owe them that. I've taken care of most of them their entire lives, after all. And being responsible teaches Robert good lessons, even if he's too young to remember them now.

While we waited for the birds to get done at the vet, Robert and I went shopping. There is only so much soup you can eat in a week without going insane, so I picked up some of the sandwich meat and cheese on sale at the deli. I'm liking the deli sales at Meijer lately, if you can get the meat at four dollars a pound and have them slice it thin, two dollars can get you quite a few sandwiches! We got salami, mesquite turkey, and provolone cheese, plus the sale bread. I found some half-price milk that hits its sell-by tomorrow, some clearance caffeine drink to put into water bottles, and picked up some frozen peas. I had two two-dollar-off coupons for Ball Park franks, which was great, cause they're on sale for two-fifty. Fifty cent hotdogs, yay! I also used my coupon for a free Sobe, and bought a raspberry lemonade that ended up tasting very banana-y. That was all easy, and then I did the WIC stuff, which was a nightmare.

This is only my second month buying baby food, and last month was simple because I only bought peas, carrots, apricots, and peaches. I wanted to mix it up a little more this month, but that was a big mistake. It turns out it's really difficult to get 32 jars of baby food where not a one of them has any extra starch, sugar, salt, or dairy. I had to run back once because I didn't realize that I got three boxes of rice this month instead of two like last month, then canceled the transaction entirely because one set of jars had yogurt in. I didn't want to make the people behind me insane, so I had him just set all the jars aside and did the rest of my checkout. Robert, who was overdue for a nap by now, was wailing like a tiny banshee as I tied up my bags and went back to the baby section to replace the ones with yogurt. I got new jars and came back, only to find out after waiting in line and checking out again that some of my other jars had added starch! Robert was frantic, and I was so stressed out I could've cried, but a nice manager went back for me and got me some jars that would work while the cashier finished my checkout. They were both very nice to me, and even though the experience was upsetting, they washed the bad taste out of my mouth I had after the last time I did WIC at Meijer.

All told, after coupons and the WIC vouchers, I only spent 15 dollars at Meijer, which is not too bad. Robert and I then had to go pay the rent, because YOU MUST PAY THE RENT, she declares, twirling her moustache evilly. Robert and I always have a nice time talking to the ladies down in the office, even if we got the sad news that the pool closes at the end of this week. No more swimming for us, and we hardly used the pool. It was too hot to swim! Oh well, we can swim at Mimi and Papoo's house! I ended up moving three hundred fifty dollars from our emergency fund into the bank to make sure we'll cover the rent and all the bills. Really, it could be worse. This time last year we were into our credit cards, even though we had food stamps then. Now I am still on track for paying down the credit cards, and though money is a worry, we at least _have_ money to worry about.

Also, check out my big strong baby boy! He's gotten to a breakthrough point with this sitting thing. He can't pull up to a sit, but if we sit him up, he can balance and even catch himself sometimes when he starts listing. And he really enjoys sitting up, too! My squishy little chicken nugget is becoming a little boy faster every day.

Scaring the Baby

2010-08-29T02:44:00.000-04:00

Today was a nice and mostly lazy Saturday, which I always appreciate. We're getting ready for our trip next week, so I haven't gotten groceries lately and we've been eating our way through the stockpile in more or less creative ways. It's funny because a year ago, I was just ramping up the stockpiling, going into squirrel pregnancy mode as I worried about the baby and money and how we were ever going to make ends meet. It's been just about a year since I started looking into couponing, actually. We had soup for lunch today, since I've gotten a bunch of it very cheap this past few months. For supper, I defrosted one of the steaks I got from my folks. It was a very nice steak! I have another, but I wanted to save it, so I took the steak and pounded it just as flat as I could, till it was more than twice its original size. I cooked it up in a little olive oil then cut it into chunks, and we had delicious steak sandwiches. Creative and tasty!

Robert got three meals of solid foods today, a fact of which I am quite proud. He had banana and rice for breakfast and ate nearly a whole banana. Wow! Lunch was garden veggies and pasta from Gerber, and then for supper he had more pureed kidney beans. He ate about half the beans and got bored of it, so I put a few spoonfuls on his tray and let him fingerpaint with them. He liked that quite a bit, and make a huuuuge mess. Bathtime tomorrow morning before church, definitely! But I think he's going to be very artistic.

After dinner, we both switched off playing with Robert to tire him out for bed. For awhile, we were all playing together on the floor. M laid down on his back and his shirt rode up. I scooted over there with Robert in my arm and went "I see... belly!" like I often do with Robert, then started tickling M's stomach. Those of you who know him know that M's reaction to tickling is loud giggling and yelping, punctuated with squirming and the occasional flail. He did all of that as I continued tickling him, till suddenly Robert burst into loud and hysterical tears! He has a special sort of cry he does when he's scared, short little frantic sobs designed to make parents feel terrible about whatever they did. I stopped tickling M immediately, and we both set about trying to comfort the baby and assure him that Daddy was okay and everything was all right. It took several minutes before Robert calmed down and stopped crying. Guess we won't be playing the "Tickle Daddy" game till he's a little older.

A Model Child

2010-08-27T01:17:00.000-04:00

So, remember the other day when I posted five million pics of Robert outside and said it was for a project? Today that project came to fruition, more or less. Robert and I went downtown and got him signed up with a modeling agency, how exciting! I sent his picture to them more than a month ago, and they eventually got back saying they were interested and liked the pictures and wanted to see him. So I took him in, and we learned about baby modeling and filled out some forms, and learned what kind of "headshot" type pics he needs. Babies don't have headshots so much as they have whole-body shots, being as how they are quite small. They need to be on white or not-busy backdrops.

So in the afternoon Robert and I went to a new photo studio to get some pictures. This place was neat because they don't send away for your pictures, they have the big picture-printing machine right there. How convenient! The photographer, Levi, was awesome at getting Robert to smile and laugh. It was hard picking out one pose for the package I had a coupon for and then two for the modeling sheets. In the end, the whole thing cost about forty dollars, which is pricey, but I got a 10x17, two 8x10s, two 5x7s, four 3x5s and 32 wallets of the one pose, and then 2 5x7s each of the two model shots. So I did get quite a few photos, plus the sitting, all for that 40 dollars. It's a pretty nice place, I might go back if I get another coupon.

Another exciting milestone in Robert development is protein! I talked with the nutritionist at WIC about Robert's eating. She says he's completely on track and ready to start both proteins and yogurt! Exciting! Jarred meats are nasty, nasty, nasty, so she recommended starting with pureed beans instead. I have a policy with the pets that I think I'll extend to Robert of not feeding them anything I wouldn't be willing to eat a bite of, so beans are the far superior option. And he really liked them! I went very simple, took a can of precooked and seasoned kidney beans, rinsed them well in warm water to get most of the seasoning off of them and warm them up a bit, then pureed them with warm water and rice into a smooth mix. He needed one bite to think about it, then ate the rest of it right down very happily. What a good eater!

Wear and Tear

2010-08-26T00:05:00.000-04:00

I need to get some sleep, really. I did better last night than the night before at getting to sleep, but that was partly because I went to bed really late. We also got up very early, so I only got four and a half hours sleep. I did okay during the day on that much sleep, oddly enough. Robert and I went to the health department and got our new WIC vouchers, we picked up the portraits from Penneys, which are fuzzy and will need to be reordered, I made an actual dinner of turkey mignons and steamed carrots, and did three loads of laundry. I got a lot of stuff done, when you think about it!

Trouble is, exhaustion usually reveals itself in my emotions first, and tonight I am in such a bad mood. Cranky, jealous, irritable, and depressed over stupid and meaningless things! It's not a good way to feel, and even though I know I should be shaking it off, the physical weariness makes it impossible. I need to remember that when I write, it is to please myself first, and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about it or if anyone even reads it. This blog is great because I do get feedback sometimes, but even if I didn't, it would still be worthwhile to write. I need to focus on that and not on wishing I were a better writer, or that I had heaping piles of praise being dropped on my head. I know I will feel better once I finally catch up on my sleep, but I don't know if that's going to be tonight. I get into these self-defeating cycles where I get tired and become anxious and then can't sleep due to anxiety. Maybe I will do some of the meditation I learned in Hypnobirthing and see if it helps. Tomorrow is a big day, after all, and I can't afford to be so underslept.

Anyway, there's another batch of new pictures on the Flickr stream. They are very cute ones of Robert smiling and laughing, so you won't want to miss them.

Tired!

2010-08-25T01:59:00.000-04:00

I gotta go to bed! This insomnia is not good for me at all. Robert and I have our WIC appointment tomorrow and we need to be bright and chipper, but last night I lay in bed for two hours. Yuck. Anyway, here are a bunch more pictures of Robert on the Flickr photostream to make up for not posting much tonight. It was a quiet day anyhow!

Robert Goes Outside

2010-08-24T00:48:00.000-04:00

I forgot to post yesterday! I got so busy answering ChaCha questions and reading my new book, suddenly it was 2am and I was falling asleep in my chair. D'oh. Here are extra pictures to make up for my shameful lack of diligence! We took Robert outside this afternoon to get pictures of him in natural light. I took thirty-six pictures of him and he smiled for exactly one of them. I think I will try again tomorrow in the morning, when he generally feels more smiley.

Today was a cleaning day. My friend Jamie came over in the afternoon, so in the morning M and I straightened up the joint, washing dishes, gathering laundry and cleaning the living room. I put the plastic floor pad from the desk that we NEVER EVER EVER use under the baby feeding station so I don't have to set a towel down anymore. It looks much nicer and is more effective to boot. (The desk is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, it takes up a huge chunk of our bedroom real estate and is used only as a repository for junk. I would like to get rid of it, but have been consistently outvoted by M and M's muscles, without which the desk cannot be moved.) Anyway, the place is looking a lot better and Robert has more room to almost-crawl. He crawled nearly a baby-handspan today before falling on his face!

Jamie's visit was fun, we talked about baby stuff and cravings. She is pregnant now, and is inheriting a lot of Robert's baby gear, since they're pretty sure it's a boy. This is awesome because we have no room for Robert's old stuff, and I don't want to actually get rid of big things like the swing. Today I gave her a box of Robert's newborn clothes, so there's the added benefit that I'll be able to see another teeny baby wearing Robert's adorable outfits and remember how he looked wearing them. D'awwww. As an added plus, Jamie and her husband come to town often, so they will look after our pets while we are traveling! Awesome! That's always the hardest part of traveling, finding someone to care for the animals. I am very happy about that.

Not too much else of interest today, so I'll backtrack to yesterday. We went to church and had some fun there with Robert's little buddies. The microphone system at church is new and very, very sensitive, so we also got a little of the sermon from the Unitarian church across the way, much to the pastor and sound guy's chagrin. It made Robert's friend CeeCee cry, very sad. After church, we dropped M off at school to do an afternoon of intense, baby-and-wife-free schoolwork, and went shopping.

Well, napping, and then shopping. Priorities! I had thirteen dollars in CVS reward money that was expiring yesterday, so that was the big priority. Luckily, CVS was running some great sales. Robert and I went in and got three things of John Frieda shampoo, two Glade scented oil warmers and two refills, a bottle of eyedrops, and three big cans of iced tea, all for under five dollars, which I paid with a gift card. I spent the 13 reward bucks and got 11 back, so that's not shabby at all. I saved fifty dollars off retail.

I just want to take a moment here to shill for John Frieda's Frizz-Ease line. I don't normally do that in my regular blog posts, but I am feeling in very good charity with them because I love their stuff and they release great coupons for it. I have frizzy flyaway hair, especially in the summer. This is hands-down the best shampoo I have ever used for making my hair actually look neat and orderly after it's been brushed and dried. It's awesome, and if you have frizz, you should try it out. Kind of expensive at five bucks a pop, but like I said, they have great coupons that combine well with CVS sales. I got my three bottles for two dollars after coupons and reward bucks. It's definitely worth more!

Anyway, after CVS we hit up Office Depot for their back-to-school loss leaders. It was right on the way, so it was an easy stop. I picked up ten pocket folders, three rulers, and three pencil cases, all for a total of 17 cents, which I was luckily able to find in my wallet. I wasn't about to do a debit transaction for 17 cents, that's just dumb. Hooray, stray nickels and dimes.! Most of the stuff at those office stores is ridiculously expensive, but if you go regularly and only buy the best sales, you get great deals. More stuff for the food pantry! I'm sure there are kids who use it who still need supplies.

Our last stop was at Sam's Club, where I spent a lot of money. I don't shop at Sam's as often as I used to, but every so often I go and stock up. I had armed myself for this trip in advance by cashing out the rewards for our two credit cards. Discover's cashback rewards scored us a free year's renewal and a ten dollar gift card, very nice, and Chase gave us 50 dollars right into our bank account, also excellent. Not, you know, excellent enough that I'm not still working to pay down as fast as I can, but still. All of that went right into this trip. The biggest expense by far was new printer ink. I won't buy the off-brand stuff anymore, but three color and two black cartridges set us back sixty-plus dollars. Yeow! Good thing we don't print too many pictures. This set will also last a lot longer than the last set. I ruined those cartridges by trying to get the off-brand cartridges to work. The first set we had lasted a long time.

Besides ink, I got a case of bottled water that'll last us a few months, a box of tortilla chips and two jugs of salsa, five pounds of carrots, three pounds of grapes, six pounds of bananas, and five pounds of mozzarella cheese. I also got new trash bags and paper towels (Yes Dad, we actually needed new paper towels, finally!) After much consultation with Robert, who was very encouraging, I also caved and bought the new Nora Roberts hardcover, The Search. It was ten dollars less than the cover price, and I have wanted it since before it came out. I'm so weak! But I stayed up half the night reading it, and it was amazing, and I'm not really very sorry. The whole trip, after gift card, came to 145 dollars, ouch! But I got pretty good deals on things, and passed up a lot that I would've thought were good deals before I educated myself.

When we got home, I embarked on one of my favorite activities, putting things in the freezer! I broke the big bag of shredded mozzarella into two-cup portions in individual baggies, put them in a freezer bag, and froze most of them to save for when we need them. We use tons of mozza, but in the fridge, some always goes to waste. I washed and froze the grapes, which are delicious that way, and pureed and froze almost fifty carrot cubes for Robert's future meals. The bananas are still green, but when they are ripe, a lot of them will hit the freezer too. I love it! I spent most of the evening, after baby was sleeping, reading my book and answering questions. As of tonight, my total ChaCha earnings are about 38 dollars, and I'm having a good time. After my last job, having a good time is extra-nice.

Sleepy Saturday

2010-08-22T02:03:00.000-04:00

Contrary to my expectations, Robert slept until nearly nine this morning, partially because the lousy weather meant it was surprisingly dark all morning. This spoiled my plans to take him outside and get some pictures of him, so that will have to wait for tomorrow. I need ten or fourteen good pictures of him taken outside for a project whose details I will disclose later if things work out. But it has to be sunny! Today was just hot. But at least we got to sleep in.

We did the typical two-meals, four bottles, and a snack for baby food today, with another frozen banana as the snack. Robert was fussy in the evening, even after Orajel and Children's Tylenol for the teething, so we gave him a diluted bottle to chew and suck on. He doesn't like water much yet, but even a little formula taste makes him happier. He went to bed really early, poor munchkin. Tooth soon, please! During the day he was better, near-crawling all over the place, and actually making some progress walking in the aroundy-go. He's smiley and happy and pleasant for most of the day and very fun to be around, it's just when he gets tired in the evening that it gets hard.

When Robert was occupied or sleeping today, I answered more questions on ChaCha. It's kinda fun, and I ended up making fifteen more dollars today. I won't get rich on it, but it's a lot more than I usually make sitting on my butt at the computer! And hey, if I'm careful and keep up my 66% savings average, 25 dollars is like 75 dollars worth of buying power! Every little bit helps, and if I can keep from dipping into our savings, I will be really proud.

Questions and Answers

2010-08-21T00:30:00.000-04:00

So things are going pretty good so far on the earning money online thing. I got approved as a ChaCha.com guide, answering text message-sized questions with text-sized answers for 10-15 cents a pop. It's like Yahoo Answers, but faster and you get paid, so I rather like it. I made almost 7.50 today just doing it for a couple hours, mostly after the baby went to bed. There's a referral program, so if this works out, I will happily pass it along to anyone else who is interesting in trying their hand. I also got my first article approved on another site. So cross your fingers and hope that lots of people need the information I have to share!

Robert had a very busy day. He is so, so, so close to crawling. Not only can he get up on his hands and knees and rock, he can get up on his hands and toes and arch his whole body! He is sort of crawling already, but he can only move backwards. His arms are just so much stronger than his chubby little legs! He played with his balloon and had lots of solid food, and it was very nice. He also got a lot of sitting up practice. He's getting a lot better at that, he's learned he needs to lean forward a little to stay upright, and he even caught himself once with his hand. Victoria provided a strong incentive for him to stay upright, because he is extremely interested in her right now. We had to rescue her from baby hands more than once! M and I traded off naps and chores, and it was all in all a pretty good Friday.

Streams of Revenue

2010-08-19T01:02:00.000-04:00

Today was a very nice morning. M got up with Robert and actually took Robert to school with him so I could have a rest and really sleep in. I took full advantage, catching up on several days of restless nights. It was great! When they got home, we Skyped with my folks. My mom just had her surgery and she is doing pretty well, with any luck, she will come home tomorrow! Hooray! And I'm so happy that she's got the laptop now, it will make her convalescence so much nicer. When Skyping was done, I gave Robert garden veggie baby food out of a jar, while M got a much-deserved nap.

For supper, Robert had carrots and blueberry-banana out of my freezer stash. I really like this homemade food thing! I think when I have my WIC appointment next week, I will ask for less baby food coupons and more fresh produce vouchers. I would like to try more of different produce. Fresh avocado is a reliable hit (plus I'm really starting to like it myself), and carrots are great. I would also like to try some squashes, green beans, freeze some more bananas. We definitely need more bananas. Baby loves his frozen nanners! M and I had macaroni and peas for supper, to which I added the rest of the barbecue chicken from the crockpot last week. Man, that turns out really well, and is so easy! I don't worry about making barbecue chicken anymore, because after we are tired of sandwiches, we can do this!

Okay, what you do is you make barbecue chicken in the crockpot. Take enough thighs and legs to reasonably fill your pot, and peel as much of the skin off as you can. Pour in most of a bottle of barbecue sauce. I use whatever I've gotten free at the store recently. Let it cook for six hours. After about four, take the bones out and start picking apart the big lumps of chicken. After six, mash it all up like you would pulled port, and get out any of the gristly bits from the ends of the bones that might be left. Voila, barbecue chicken! It's great on sandwiches, with just a little extra barbecue sauce for more flavor.

After you're bored of sandwiches, it's time for macaroni. Take two boxes of macaroni and cheese, and a big pot half full of water. Boil the water, then cook the noodles three minutes. Toss in half a bag of frozen peas, and cook until the noodles are tender. Meanwhile, take a cup and a half or two cups of barbecue chicken leftovers, or whatever you've got, and microwave them till warm. When the noodles and peas are done, drain them and return them to the pot. Dump in the chicken, the cheese packets, and a lot of garlic salt. At least a teaspoon, maybe more to taste. This is a lot of macaroni to season. Add whatever butter and milk you normally add to mac and cheese. I use half a stick of margarine and about a quarter cup of milk, because I don't like it runny. Stir everything up really well, and eat it! It's great, trust me. It's also a good way to use up pulled pork.

Anyway, the other thing I did today was look for paying work online. I got a newsletter from All You about it, and thought it would be worth exploring. So I signed up with a couple of content-for-pay websites, and one answer questions for pay website. I did up a little writing sample that was 900 words about bird care, and submitted it, and was accepted to both sites. I'm sort of in limbo with all three places at the moment while they review me, but I'm optimistic. I've done all right with a couple of online endeavors so far, and while this isn't going to be a job-equivalent for me, if I can even make 150 dollars a month, well that's my entire grocery budget right there!

If there's one time of year that reminds me of how precarious our finances are, it's August and September. We still have all the money I put in savings for the summer, but doggone it, I want to keep it there! I'm pretty sure I'll have to dip in at least once when September's rent comes due along with the other bills, but if I could eventually replace that money, it would be great. And in this economy, there is security in multiple streams of revenue, even if most of those streams are closer to trickles. I spend a lot of time online anyway, might as well make that and my research skills pay. Wish me luck, and I will update on that as things develop.

A Roll of a Seven, A Lucky Surprise

2010-08-17T23:53:00.000-04:00

Happy seven month birthday, Robert! He celebrated his birthday by being cranky most of the day. That tooth has just got to come in soon! He wouldn't take an afternoon nap, and was exhausted but sleepless by six. We eventually got him down around seven, which probably means he'll be up again at six. Which means I've got to get to bed pretty soon here. He's been getting lots of fruit in his teether lately, and making a huge mess, but he likes it. I took a whole bunch of pictures, which you can see on the Flickr photostream, as well as one for the page here. He's getting baths a lot more frequently these days, that's for sure. Between sweat and fruit, he can be a sticky, stinky baby. But he also likes the bath a lot, now that he has a bath book and a boat to play with. I think he will have even more fun once he's reliably sitting up without my help in there.

I know I was talking yesterday about how things were when we first realized Robert was coming into our lives. I wrote a letter to the baby, or to the idea of the baby, on the night of August 16. I went to look at it today, and realized that both the file and the backup had been corrupted! I was really sad, but when I opened the file in Wordpad I was able to find a raw-text, barely readable version still left. It's sad how ephemeral things like that can be, isn't it? The only way to preserve anything digitally, I guess, is to have enough backups that they can't all be lost. In the spirit of that, and of sharing with you all, here's the retyped version of the letter I wrote:

Dear Baby:

Hello, for the very first time. I won't know for sure until tomorrow if this hello is premature, but at this point the evidence is suggestive that you and I have been hanging out for awhile, with me all unawares. You're very sneaky! If I'm wrong, and you have decided not to show up yet, then that's okay. We will meet another time. But I feel flutters inside me and I know they can't all be the butterflies of waiting for the doctor tomorrow. I've already taken two pregnancy tests, and you're certainly indicating your existence there! Way to not be shy. That's important, especially in a family with two very distractible parents. I am sure you will never have much of a problem getting our attention.

I feel a lot of different ways right now, knowing you're here. It explains all the moodiness and funny feelings I've had this summer. It explains the time at the Honda dealership where I nearly passed out and threw up in the poor dealer's trash can! But you never made me sick for very long, and that's why I never noticed, I guess. I owe you for that one. I hate puking. Your dad and I didn't see this coming, but it wasn't because we didn't want you. When I was in college, my doctor told me I wouldn't have children without medical assistance. That can get really expensive, and be so heartbreaking. I didn't know if I would ever be ready to walk that road, even though I wanted kids. We thought that maybe when we were older, when he was finished with school, when the economy turned around and I had a job with insurance. I didn't see the signs, because I just never thought to look.

Maybe the timing isn't so good for us right now, but if you're here, it's a miracle, and that's not something to be disregarded or wasted or ever, ever regretted. You were created in love, and will be born in love, and raised in an extended family full of love and support and laughter and prayers. I don't know where the money's going to come from, but we will figure it out. Everyone is going to be thrilled to have you. Allie and Kirsten have been bugging me to introduce you to them for nearly five years now, and they will be very excited. We haven't said anything to anyone yet, because I just took the test this morning, after you squirmed all night and kept me up. Then I took the other one this afternoon, because it was so hard to believe. If we're lucky, maybe we'll see your picture tomorrow at the clinic, and we can share you with everyone.

Right now, the whole thing feels huge inside my head, and it's hard for me to wrap my mind around. I look at the baby development websites, and it's like my thought process just flips off, and I can only stare and wonder. I feel bad that I didn't see earlier, that I didn't start taking the vitamins weeks ago, and that I ate all that ramen. Sorry about that, baby, it was delicious, and my will is weak! At least I don't smoke or drink, and my iced tea habit is apparently much better than coffee or soda. I promise I will do better by you from now on. I'm sure that later on we will place many expectations on your likely-oversized head (hey, it runs in the family!), but for now, all I want is for you to be healthy and whole and okay.

Maybe we only just found out about you, but we love you already, and we're going to do our very best for you. I hope you can ignore or forgive the lapses and mistakes along the way, and that we can give you the sort of life that you deserve. I'm so sorry that we aren't bringing you into a better world, and that the place and time we live in is so messed up in so many ways. I'm sure your dad will teach you that every time and place is messed up in its own way, but if I could make you a perfect world, I would in a heartbeat. But it'll be okay, I promise. Let's both get some sleep now, and hopefully I will see you in the morning.

Love, for the very first time,

Mom

An Anniversary of Sorts

2010-08-16T23:45:00.073-04:00

Tomorrow is Robert's seven month birthday! That is a milestone in and of itself, of course. Seven months, what a big boy! But today is also special because one year ago today, I woke up very early on a Sunday morning and left M sleeping to drive out to Walgreens. I had been having such strange feelings in my stomach for the past couple of days, I was no longer able to sleep for worrying. I had to prove to myself, I thought, that it was gas bubbles I was feeling, or indigestion, or whatever. I left a note on M's computer that I'd run out to get a new hairbrush (which was something I happened to need at the time anyway), and would be back soon, just in case he woke while I was gone. I thought I would go out to Walgreens, get a test, come back, reassure myself that I was imagining things, and have the evidence disposed of by the time M woke. Not that I was worried about him seeing it, really, but I would've felt so silly. We both knew I was infertile, and on birth control pills besides! I felt like a little bit of an idiot even entertaining the notion, but the persistent strange feelings in my stomach would not be denied.

Buying a pregnancy test is a little embarrassing no matter what the circumstances, I think. Luckily, the store was pretty empty before seven in the morning on a Sunday. I decided against the Walgreens brand and sprang for a two-pack on one of the more inexpensive name-brands. I also bought the hairbrush, and some headbands, and a can of iced tea, and some candy, just to show that I was totally not out first thing on a Sunday morning for the sole purpose of buying a pregnancy test, no sir. I'm pretty sure the cashier didn't care even a little bit one way the other. When I went home, M was still sleeping, no note necessary. Ah, those days of lazy weekend slumber! I left him sleeping and went into the bathroom. I had barely gotten the post-test plastic cap onto the wretched thing before the big bold PLUS sign was becoming visible. I just sat there for a few minutes and looked at it. I was stunned, but somehow I was not surprised. The kicky feet inside me were not gas and not indigestion, and deep down I think I had known they were not, but I was in such deep denial that I had made myself disbelieve.

Telling M was the next thing on the agenda. If I had it to do over again, I probably would've just waited till he woke up, but I was not thinking entirely straight at the moment. Basically I woke him up and waved the test at him and told him it was positive, and he had no idea what I was showing him or what I was talking about. It took several minutes for us to get onto the same page and wasn't exactly the sort of storybook reveal I sort of thought it would be if we ever did have a kid, but the circumstances were also not exactly what we had envisioned. We had no idea how pregnant I was, or even if the test was accurate, or what on earth we were going to do now. At that point, we did not even know the month we conceived, much less have an idea on things like last menstrual cycle or due date. It was entirely overwhelming. In the days to come, we would go to New Hope for the first time, take three more pregnancy tests (all positive, of course) and get an ultrasound to show us the face of our unexpected addition. But when I think back on that day, it's sort of funny, how absolutely shocked we were.

We didn't actually do anything that day, because it was a Sunday and no one was open. We didn't call anyone, I'm not even sure we really said the word "pregnant" beyond the initial conversation. It wasn't until the next day that we got the other tests done, and I felt comfortable enough with the reality of it all that we started telling people. My dad was in the hospital for tests on his heart, and I almost waited to call them, but decided not to. If he was going to have a heart attack, might as well do it in the hospital, I figured! I was a little worried what the reaction from our folks might be. I didn't have a job or any insurance, we were barely scraping by as it was. The last time I'd talked with my dad about my prospects for the future, I'd wound up crying (which makes a lot more sense in retrospect, with the whole hormones thing.) But of course my parents were just thrilled, and M's parents were thrilled, and they were 100% behind us all the way. My mom was just beside herself with excitement, and it was actually pretty funny.

I didn't have this blog active back then, but I did have another online journal I was keeping, a more private one that is not quite as open for the world to see. I posted a message there on August 17, 2009 for my friends that I will replicate here for posterity:

This has been such a weird summer. Sure we've been in a new place and I still haven't gotten a job, but there have been other weird things as well. Like the dizzy spells. Sometimes when I was walking around or in the shower, I would start feeling really funny and need to sit down or lie down. Then there was the great grandpappy dizzy spell back in May, when I all but fainted on the floor at the Honda dealership, then threw up in the poor manager's trash can. Then there was the moodiness, to the point where I was fighting tears if I didn't win initiative in a game or saw an especially sentimental commercial. I thought it was because I was depressed about not working. I gained some weight, too, but I did get off Weight Watchers, and it wasn't like I grew out of all my clothes or anything...

You know, when you put it all together, it seems far more suggestive than it did at the time. But when a doctor has assured you that something won't happen without significant medical intervention, it's just not the first thing on your mind, and when you haven't had a regular menstrual cycle since high school, missing a couple periods isn't something you think much about. But when something starts butting its head against your pelvis and demanding attention should be paid, well, attention generally gets paid.

All that said, guess what, everyone! We're spawning! It's not an ideal time for it, but considering I didn't know if it would happen at all, I'll take a miracle as it comes. After four pregnancy tests to confirm it, anyway. It's hard to doubt at that point, especially when you started taking them to figure out what was wiggling and jiggling and tickling inside you. We're getting an ultrasound ASAP to figure out how far along we are, but we could have a new Davisling come January. Wow! It seems like so little time with so much to do, but at least we noticed now, and aren't one of those couples who show up at the hospital in labor, all unawares. We'll be very busy, but there's time for a little shock and awe yet.

What a difference a year makes, huh? It's hard to believe how quickly it's gone, or what a beautiful baby came from such slapdash and makeshift origins. But I think it's reassuring too, Robert has always been a baby who has his own. We're there to give him everything we can, but he's an independent little cuss, and he's going to make it just fine.

Guest Post: Bobby LaBonte

2010-08-16T20:42:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Roman May

My son Spencer was three at the time, while we were watching the Michigan race in I think 1995. Vroom vroom, he use to say while we tuned our satalite tv. to the now weekend ritual. "Bobby BaBonte", he would say, as the Winston cup champions would glide around the oval. I think "Bobby Babonte" was one of his first words, either way; this is why I've become a Bobby fan. The green number 18, at the time, was pretty much the only car my son could pull out of the crowd. Bobby won that day, and the excitement of race day with dad just gets me every time.

His uncle Alex pulled down a number 18 car from his collection at the bar and handed it to my son. His eyes lit up, and set him of on his "Bobby Babonte" Chant. To this day I get a chuckle from knowing that the name on the matchbox car was Dale Jared, not Bobby. Bobby is just a year older than I, and I hope to see him come out of his racing career strong. I thank him for those Michigan racesmy son and I shared. Now 15 years later it's still a memory we cherish.

Going Bananas

2010-08-16T01:22:00.000-04:00

Today at church there were so many babies! We sat in the back on the blanket, and there was M and I and Robert, and another little baby and his big sister and their mom, and another little boy and girl and their mom, and the twins and their moms, and it was just a huge baby convention. Robert thought it was awesome. He loves other babies, he thinks they are fascinating. In another few months he will probably express this by trying to poke and smack them, but for right now he mostly just watches. Some of the long-time members were obviously tickled to see such a baby boom. Which is good, because Robert was a pistol through the whole service, so it's just as well that people like him! This teething thing is rough business.

I've started using the Munchkin Fresh Food Feeder with Robert, after a friend recommended it to me. She said it was the only thing that made her teething baby happy. I sliced up a banana and froze the slices in an ice cube tray, then shoved enough of them in to fill the little mesh bag. I thought it might take a little while for Robert to figure it out, but within thirty seconds, he had the mesh part in his mouth and was sucking and mashing like a champ. He loved it, and the bananas are good for him, and it probably feels pretty good on his gums. Unfortunately, it's far from a clean proposition, and he ended up with banana in places I didn't even know it was possible for a baby to get banana. He looked like he'd put on hair gel, but it was banana. We gave him a bath this morning before church, and he could probably use another one. But it makes him happy!

I was very annoyed with the newspaper today. I started getting home delivery of the newspaper to avoid having to go out and pick it up every Sunday, and because it is cheaper. Today, my newspapers didn't come at all! I waited till after church to make sure they weren't just late, but apparently the office closes at noon on Sunday, so I was out of luck. Someone did respond to my email this afternoon, but they said they wouldn't redeliver the papers, they would just credit my account. And a fat lot of good that does me, when I've already paid for a year, and after that year the price goes up! What I paid for the papers I didn't get today isn't going to buy me a paper a year from now! I emailed them back and told them that since it was their fault I had to go out and buy two newspapers today, they should credit me the newsstand price instead. We'll see what they say about that.

Robert and I did a little shopping today, not groceries, but we went to Michael's. I had a coupon for 25% off my entire purchase including sale stuff, and I was hope-hope-hoping the paper stacks would be on sale. They were last week when I went to get some pipe cleaners, but no luck. Robert, who'd been super-fussy, did fall asleep in the store though, so that was nice. I did get some good deals, I got some plastic dishes and some picture frames that were very cheap. It was pouring down rain by the time we were done, so we made an unscheduled detour to Babies R Us, where I just happened to have a coupon in my coupon pouch. We picked up refills for the Diaper Genie. Not cute, but useful. Then I went to both CVS stores and neither of them had this weeks sale items and neither of them had the newspaper. Very disappointing. I ended up having to stop by a gas station on the way home to get them. Sigh.

Anyway, everybody give prayers and good thoughts to my mom, who gets her hip replaced tomorrow! She got one done a couple years ago, and now she needs the other one. It's a big surgery, but she's going to feel so much better when it's done!

Sleepy Boy

2010-08-14T00:32:00.000-04:00

Robert has been sleeping very fitfully lately, which is sad for all of us. I don't know exactly why, but he wakes fussing several times in the night, cries for a few moments, and then subsides. When we go in, he's sleeping, but he does it again a little bit later. Then he wakes up much earlier than usual, which is also quite unfortunate. During the day he's tired and naps a lot, and is fussy in the evening. I wonder if this is a teething thing, and hope he's not sick or something. He's not running a fever or anything, and is active, so maybe it's just the dreaded teeth.

M went out to class today, but other than that we all stayed home all day. I cleaned up the living room and vacuumed again, because Robert was having a rolly day. He wants to crawl so much, he just can't quite get those legs under him! Soon, very soon. We watched Fraggles, ate soup, and fed the baby bananas and rice. It was pretty much a quiet and more importantly, very inexpensive day. The baby was obviously exhausted by about six, and against my better judgment, I put him to bed at six-thirty. I am afraid of how early he will be up in the morning.

A Little Night Robert

2010-08-13T00:36:00.000-04:00

It's late, once again, and here I am dashing off a post just before I go to bed. I am a bad mommyblogger, I totally forgot to even take a picture today! I had to sneak into Robert's room just now, aim the camera by guessing (the LCD screen is useless in a dark room) and snap a single picture.Surprisingly it turned out okay, though you can't see much of his face.

Robert made it an early morning this morning. He fussed a little at 3:30, then wanted a diaper change at half past four. He was up for the day at six, which made M and I both very sad and tired. We watched him and took turns napping to catch up on sleep. At least the baby was in a good mood, even though he got up so early. He ate pears and garden veggies and pasta, and lots of bottles. He still will have little to do with bottles of regular water, and nothing at all to do with the sippy cup. I think I may need to try another kind. Out of curiosity, I tried to drink from the sippy, and found it very difficult. Maybe he can't get the idea because it's too hard.

We went to Kroger in the evening and took advantage of the mega sale again. I made a rookie mistake in my counting that makes me mad and cost me a few dollars of savings, but it turned out that some of my coupons rang up better than I thought they would, so in aggregate, I spent exactly what I expected and got a few dollars-off coupons for next time. Unfortunately, I am already over budget for groceries this month because there have been so many good stock up sales! Oh no! Well, it's not like we need a lot more food this month, and the things I would still like to get are just that, things I'd like rather than things I need. Still, there's a heck of a lot of month left. Boo. August is the cruelest month in this household, definitely. But I still have a couple of CVS and Walgreens gift cards, and a small gift card to Sams, so I'm not totally cut off, just curtailed. It'll give me time to (sigh) organize. And I don't regret all the money I spent on school supplies, either. Some kids will have a better start to their school year because I'm getting creative with the groceries for a couple weeks, and that's nice.

Dog Days of Summer

2010-08-12T01:47:00.000-04:00

Man, is it hot out. I don't care to think what our electricity bill is going to be this month, but it's just too doggone hot not to run the air most of the day and into the night. It's not even leaving the 80s till midnight these days, and hitting ninety well before noon. I need some autumn action, but it's August. Not even mid-August yet, either. We have miles of hot to go before we see any relief. I'm just grateful that we have air conditioning in our apartment! Driving anywhere is a misery these days, and results in sweaty, fussy baby if we stay out even a few minutes too long.

Today we didn't leave the house much. M went to his class and came back, reporting on the extreme hotness. Robert and I went out for lunch with my friend from church, who is having a baby in February. We went out to a place that I had a Restaurant.com gift certificate for. I've never actually used one before, and I wanted to test it out. Typically, at Restaurant.com, you buy a 25 dollar gift certificate for 10 dollars and you can use it, say, on an order of 35 dollars or more. I bought mine on sale for two dollars, good deal there. My friend and I had to get 35 dollars worth of lunch to make it work, though, so we both got soft drinks, appetizers, entrees, and pie. Big lunch, but it was great, and I had leftovers to bring home. All of that, including the tip, ended up costing us ten dollars apiece, and we got to spend a long time chatting and talking. I won't say it was the most economical thing I've done lately, but it sure was a bargain for what we got. Robert was very good too, especially once he got his bottle.

After lunch, we went to Kroger, where they are doing a mega-event this week. If you buy eight of their sale items, you get four dollars off at the register. I went and stocked up on tuna and more Helpers, picked up a couple of avocados for Robert, and got some soup and Chex Mix. I have more shopping to do there, but it was a pretty good haul. I was excited to find a hanging Topsy Turvy pepper planter on the 50% off clearance rack. All summer I have been eying the various Topsy Turvy hangers avariciously, but they were just too expensive. This one was only 3.50 after all the various discounts! It has no perishable parts, so I'll just pop it in the closet and next summer get an early start growing myself some peppers!

After that we came home, and were home for the rest of the day. I made barbecue chicken in the crockpot, enough for sandwiches and pizza for the rest of the week, and it's quite nice. Robert played and played and played and then fell asleep on the floor, then played some more. He was a busy boy today. I gave him the blueberries and bananas for the first time, but I think it was a little bit tart and strong for him. Next time I will mix it with more rice and a little formula to take the edge off. He has about twice as many taste buds as I do, after all! Tomorrow we're going to try and head to the library, but for now, it is bedtime.

Having and Giving

2010-08-11T01:35:00.000-04:00

You know, I think there are three real pleasures inherent in couponing. The first and probably the most superficial is the fun of the game. Couponing make me feel quite clever, and if I get a really good deal, I feel like I've won something. This is nice because I am a competitive person, but M doesn't like to play board games with me. Competing in a battle of wits against the store, to abide by all the rules and yet come away with a better deal than anticipated, that's quite a rush, and I have been known to brag about it all day. That's part of what this blog is about, of course, telling everyone who'll listen about all the cool stuff I got for so little money.

The second pleasure of couponing is the having. I love having things. This is not necessarily an ideal love in an 850 square foot apartment, but I do anyways. I come from a reasonably affluent background, as does M, and we are both used to having things that we want. These days, having what we want must compete with having what we need and paying for what we can't afford to lose. If you have read the very earliest articles in my blog, before the reboot, I'm sure you can probably see my gritty desperation about how on earth we would ever get by on the money M made. It was a deprivation lifestyle, and it was very difficult! Couponing doesn't let me have everything I want, of course, but it lets me have things. Oftentimes the things I can get for free are brand new items on the market, and they are cool, and I love that! Having new cool things helps make up for not always being able to afford things I would like. And I can afford more things that I like because I'm not spending as much money on the things that we need.

Today Robert and I went out in the morning. We went to the library first for baby readalong, but found that it is done for the summer. So sad! We can go back in September, though. So we went off to Staples instead, where I had crazy coupons. I got a 2GB flash drive, two big reams of multicolored printer paper, 100 sheets of 8x10 photo paper, two boxes of pens, five bottles of glue, six notebooks, four scrubbie sponges, and a bottle of glass cleaner, all for 20 dollars. We are always looking for new flash drives around here, and getting one for a dollar after rebate is irresistible. And while right now I cannot afford to buy origami paper, I now have a ton of colored printer paper that will work almost as well, and is making my fingers itch to play with it.

The third great pleasure of couponing, one I've been exploring a lot lately, is the giving. Once you have, I've found, you start wanting to share more. Especially if you live in a place where space is restricted. =) In my first few months of couponing, I found it hard to part with things like toothbrushes and deodorant, things I use and need. Now I've realized that those things always go on sale, and there's no reason for me to stockpile in our limited space. Now when I get them for free, I make sure I have a couple months' worth socked away for my own family, and I can give the rest away. I've totally lost count of how much I have given to the food bank and other places since I started, but it makes me feel good when I can fill one of the baskets at church with the fruits of my shopping labors. More than that, when I give, it makes me feel less poor. Concentrating on others' needs lets me remember my own blessings. When I give away a stick of deodorant or a bottle of body wash, I remember that I am blessed to always have enough of those things, even if I don't have the latest gadget or book or whatever. Filling a bag of school supplies reminds me of how I always went to school with new things, and how I want someone else to have that experience too.

After Staples, Robert and I went over to the New Hope Center, where M and I did our prenatal classes and where I went to clinic. I know I've spoken about them before here. They hold a special place in my heart for all they did for us. Our counselor, Joan, was not in today, but we saw Denise instead, who remembered us right away and was happy to see us. Robert is having some stranger anxiety this week, but he let her hold him for a minute or two, while I brought in the diapers from the car. I decided that the best thing to do with the Size 2 diapers I couldn't return to the store would be to give them to someone who can distribute them where they are needed. There were quite a few diapers, too! Five full jumbo packs of Huggies, one partial jumbo pack of Huggies, and one partial store brand pack. I hope they will help someone out who needs diapers. I still remember that article about women who can't afford to change their babies when they are wet, and it makes me so sad. I have always had enough diapers for Robert, thanks to couponing and to the kindness of people like the ones at New Hope. That's a big blessing!

When we got home, Robert took a two hour nap, and spent the rest of the afternoon on a hyperactive baby tear. I'm not sure what got into him, but he was in quite a mood. Luckily, M was around to help deal with him as well! I spent some time in the kitchen, freezing more blueberries and baby food. Today the green bananas were yellow, so I took two of those and pureed them with blueberries into a lovely mush that I froze in an ice cube tray. When Robert is ready for blueberries, he'll have such a treat! I couldn't resist eating one myself, after they were frozen. This freezer is definitely a blessing. I love it so much! It is going to help me save so much money!

Stocking the Freezer

2010-08-10T01:58:00.000-04:00

Today was a lovely day! Robert woke up at 5:30 and needed a diaper change (he's been doing that recently, maybe something to do with solid foods), but he let himself be sung back to bed and slept till the blissful hour of eight thirty. We played around and snuggled on the bed and watched Fraggles, and he ate some peas very nicely. When M came home from class, I even got a chance to take a nap, which is always wonderful. After my nap and Robert's nap, we went shopping and left M to have a nap and a few hours of peace and quiet as well.

And there was plenty of shopping to be done! I had to skip the stores that I would've had to take the interstate to get to because of an unexplained traffic jam, but we still hit up four different stores. At Office Depot, we got five cent pencil sharpeners and folders and 25 cent scissors, plus a fifty cent composition book for M, and new paper clips for my coupon binder. At CVS I got a new Schick Hydro 3 razor, a very nice razor that is normally ten dollars. I had to pay 1.50 because the other items I was going to buy were not in stock, but since I got 4 dollars back in extra care bucks, I feel pretty good about it. Now that M is shaving with a blade, we need twice as many good razors! At Walgreens, I got some free low-dose aspirin for the food bank, a couple of free pens, and clued in a nice lady with a lovely English accent about the sale on glue sticks, before picking some up myself. All of that stuff from all those stores cost me about five dollars total, not counting the ECBs I got back.

We finished up at Meijer, with some serious grocery shopping. There were some great sales in the deli, so I got ham, turkey and cheese, plus a half-loaf of day-old italian bread for sandwiches. I got four pints of blueberries and some peaches and some bananas, all of which will be pureed (except for what M and I eat) into baby food. There was also another sale on chicken legs and thighs, and this time I could stock up, because I have a freezer! Between that, the deli, and two pounds of ground turkey, I bought fifteen pounds of meat today. Meat is what we needed though, because we still have tons of stuff in the pantry that could be used with meat. I got bread too, for more sandwiches, and almost got some giant marshmallows, but they were too expensive, Oh well.

Robert was super good through the trip, getting compliments from the checker at CVS and the man stocking the frozen meat section at Meijer. He's in a bit of a solemn phase now, and that just makes people all the more eager to get him to smile. The cashier at CVS said I could just leave him right there with her, but I said my husband would probably have some hard questions if I came home without the baby. He was getting tired by the end of the fourth store though, and fussed a bit in line, but that was the worst of it. He's such a good shopper. We came home and he had a bottle and some banana mango food, and I made big fancy sandwiches on the italian bread for supper. I also bagged up the chicken pieces into crock-pot sized batches and put them in the freezer, and froze a tray of blueberries to eat later. I took a whole pint of blueberries and put them in the blender with a little rice cereal, then poured the puree into an ice cube tray and froze that too. When all the blueberries were frozen, I put the berries in a bag and the berry cubes in a bag, and, you guessed it, put them back in the freezer! I love the freezer!

Oh, and my niece advised me to try the Nuk sippy cup with Robert, since that's what worked with her kids. I actually happened to have one around that I picked up on clearance months ago, so I pulled it out to give it a try. Not a lot of progress today, but I have hope. We'll keep working on it. =)

Day of Rest...of the Laundry

2010-08-09T00:40:00.000-04:00

Church this morning was really fun. The past few weeks have mostly been quiet, with Robert as the only baby in the back of the sanctuary. (Our church is small, so there is no nursery in the summer, parents sit with their babies in the back of the sanctuary on this big colorful blanket so the babies can play.) Today, though, there were three other, bigger babies there as well. What fun! Robert was not quite up to joining in on the shenaniganry, but he is fascinated by the antics of older babies who can crawl and run and play with far more facility than he can. It was a little noisy sometimes, but fun, and we all had a good time. Our pastor was back after two weeks away too, so that was nice.

There was salad and a movie after church, but Robert was getting kind of fractious and we didn't stay. Also, M is not nearly as fond of salad as he is of soup. We start Soup Sundays again soon, and he'll be very happy about that. I need to get some new recipes! Oh, and I dropped off all the school supplies I got free or almost free this week, plus all the stuff I found when I was cleaning our room that I meant to donate and forgot about. A lot of body wash and deodorant, which I'm sure will not go amiss with the weather this hot! Being clean and not stinky is not as important as having enough to eat, but it goes a long way to making you feel better about yourself, I think.

I finally did all the laundry this afternoon, after some unsubtle nudging from M about it. I wasn't very happy with him, as the division of laundry is a bit of a sore subject in our household. He sort of got out of it by default with his habit of not pocket checking and ruining things, which is not the best way to get out of something. But while I did the laundry he did do the dishes, so that helped. Also, Robert pooped all over him, and that was funny, and I felt better. I am a terrible person. Hey, lucky I was already doing the laundry, right? For supper I made pork fried rice as promised, and it turned out very nice. Hurrah for one meal doing a week's worth of work!

Picture Day!

2010-08-08T01:14:00.000-04:00

Today was picture day! The morning was mostly devoted to getting ready for picture day, even though part of that consisted of M and I trying to banish some circles under our eyes by taking turns for extra napping. Robert and I got a bath, M showered and shaved, and I even put on makeup for the first time in forever. Robert had outgrown the pants I was hoping he could wear, so we had to make a last-minute substitution, but in the end, we all looked good. Luckily, Robert doesn't need a lot of primping to look adorable! The car even cooperated, today wasn't quite as hot as other days this week have been, and the air conditioning stayed on long enough for us to take the interstate to the mall with the windows rolled up, rather than driving with them down on the surface streets, in deference to my hair.

The photo session itself was very funny. We thought ahead of time to bring along Robert's monkey, because it's his current favorite awake-time toy (it's much too big for the crib, so his brown and white puppy accompanies him there). We figured that if the photographer had a hard time getting him to smile, she could use the monkey. It turned out to be a really good idea. Robert had just woken from a nap when we went to the studio, and he was feeling very somber apparently. Not crying, just giving his studious look to everyone and everything. The photographer got no smiles from him at all until she started using the monkey, and even then she had to be so outrageous that M and I spoiled a few shots by laughing ourselves! We even ended up taking a few pictures of Robert with the monkey, to commemorate his love. Once again I had a package coupon for a single pose, and once again I spent an extra ten dollars on an extra 8x10 of a different pose, but at least it was only one. It was still just 20 dollars total for our family picture sitting, three 8x10s, two 5x7s, four 3.5x5s, and sixteen wallet size. I think that's an excellent deal. With all these 8x10s though, I'm going to need to get a gigantic photo album, as I do not have near enough picture frames.

While we were out and about, we decided to celebrate August and M's paycheck and a successful photography expedition by using a few more coupons. We got BOGOF pretzels at Auntie Anne's and 50% off a small cup of Dippin' Dots that we shared. I had never had Dippin' Dots, and had always been quite curious. Now I know I never need to have them again. For dinner, we went to Cici's Buffet and had two dinners and soft drinks for 10 dollars with my coupon. Robert was so worn out by all this that he slept through most of the meal. He was feeling good at home though, and giggled and rolled all over the place, drank two bottles, and played his electric piano with great verve before succumbing to sleep.

Today's pictures, by the way, are the low-res versions of the poses we decided on. If you want to see all of them, follow this link and give my first and last name with no capital letters in the customer's name field. For some reason the site won't work with Chrome, so if that's your browser, you'll have to work around it.

Quiet Friday

2010-08-07T01:18:00.000-04:00

It was a quiet day today, and that is a good thing! Robert is feeling better and ate normally again, so I think the bug is wearing off. He didn't want to nap and was very energetic almost all day, so maybe he's making up for some lost time. He's still drinking a lot of bottles every day, and eating four ounces of food at a sitting now. I wish I had better guidance on how much he should be eating a day. He seems happy with what he's getting, but I don't know if it might be too much or too little. There is so much conflicting advice online that I've almost given u looking there. One site I read said that by now he should be starting to use a cup and a spoon, but I think that's kind of ridiculous. I might try introducing a sippy to him soon, but he's got nowhere near the coordination to get a spoon of food into his mouth yet. He's not even seven months old! I think I need to solicit the advice of more experienced moms on this issue.

Not too much else happened, I didn't go to the store like I wanted and I didn't get the laundry done. The hot weather makes me feel so draggy, even in the air conditioning, and I was tired all day. Which means, I suppose, that I should go to bed now and hope tomorrow is more productive. I know I need to get my life more organized and start setting a better example for the baby. I should be preparing meals for the table and feeding him solid food meals three times a day, with sippy cup, instead of twice a day and letting him have his morning bottle first thing. I should stop letting him watch television. When I think about everything I need to change, it usually feels so overwhelming that I back off from everything. It's hard to know where to begin. M and I haven't eaten regular table meals every day since... well, probably since we were in high school, or on summer break from college. It's never been important to us, and trying to start it up now seems so weird. But if it's good for the baby, I guess we have to try.

Inspection Day!

2010-08-06T01:41:00.000-04:00

I forgot to take a picture today! I am a bad blogger! I will make up for it this weekend though, we are going Saturday to get formal pictures taken. Well, not formal formal, dressy casual pictures, really, but at a studio. I have a coupon! When I get them, I will show everybody how they turned out. I was more than pleased with how JCPenney's did Robert's baptism shoot, so we're going back there. Anyway, here's one that's a few days old, but still relatively fresh.

Today was annual inspection day, which was relatively painless. This place was cluttered, as always, but not a health hazard, and all they really wanted to do was inventory our cabinets and bathrooms and stuff, apparently. I think they've been renovating apartments as people move out of them, but because we have been here more than two years now, we have not gotten renovated. That is okay with me, because they have also not raised our rent in two years, so it seems pretty fair. They came during Robert's naptime and did not go into his room, which was quite civil of them. I still need to do lots of laundry, eee!

Robert was mostly better today, and very hungry. He got his bottles, but he also got peaches and rice cereal for lunch, and a whole four ounce jar of butternut squash for supper. He is such a good eater. I gave him some Babv Puffs, which are like really dissoluble Cheerios, but he only wants to play with them for now. Other moms I've talked to swear by baby puffs, so I bought a case of these on sale at Amazon. M and I both tasted some (we got the apple kind,) and decided that though the flavor is quite understated, they're not bad. A good step towards Cheerios, which I already have a million boxes of. Tonight's been a little rough with Robert, he went through twice after going to sleep, enough the first time that we had to strip and change the bed. Now he is sleeping though, poor tired little guy, and I hope he stays that way.

Today M and Robert went on an adventure to school and left me alone in the house for awhile. I don't really worry when they are gone, per se, M has the phone and a full diaper bag and he is a great and watchful daddy, but it always seems a little strange to be alone in the house. Restful though, and kind of nice for a change, just for a few hours at a time. I got some more work done on my scarf, and tonight we watched documentaries and I made cookies from the freezer. It's amazing what you find when you clean out the freezer!

Freezers and Tummies

2010-08-05T01:33:00.000-04:00

The freezer came this morning! Woo-hoo! They called me at 8:30 to say it would be there between 10:30 and noon, and then came at 9:30. I can totally live with that. I immediately had to unpack it and plug it in. It is great, and it fits perfectly into the size for it. As soon as it had cooled for the recommended four hours, I rearranged the fridgetop freezer and started loading already-frozen food into the chest freezer. It was so cool. Now my freezer is ready for ice cubes and baby food!

Speaking of baby food, today was not such a good day on the baby tummy front. Robert woke at quarter til five, crying. He went back to sleep after a diaper change and song, then slept late, til eight or so. I gave him his first bottle of the day but he threw up halfway through. Not like baby spitup, but like stomach-spasming vomiting. He was running a little fever too, so I called the doctor. We took him in this afternoon and got Dr. R to look at him. We like her, she saw him for his six month checkup and has seen him several times before, so we know her better than some of the other doctors. She says that a stomach bug has been going around, and indeed I have been feeling a bit punky in the stomach for the past couple days. We didn't give him any solids today and monitored his intake and output, but by the end of the day he seemed to be getting better. If he's good tomorrow, we'll go back to solids on Friday. Poor baby was lethargic all day but didn't want to nap, he is sleeping well now, though. Hopefully he'll sleep late.

This evening has kept us busy, yearly apartment inspections start tomorrow. We hit our room very hard, it's the room in by far the worst shape. It's looking substantially better now, if still in need of work. The place doesn't have to look perfect, it just needs to be inspectable. At least most of the house is already in decent shape!

Oh, and the picture? Robert was fussy and hot, so I took off all his clothes and put him on the floor on a couple of towels. He had fun rolling and scooting around for a little while. It's interesting to watch all his muscles move as he learns how to move his body. Looks very different from the amorphous little baby-blob he used to be!

Changeup Day

2010-08-04T01:13:00.000-04:00

The only time I left the house at all today was to walk down to the office and pay the rent, but it still managed to be a very busy day! Robert slept till seven, good baby, then I got up with him and fed him, then worked on cleaning the kitchen for a little while. When people come over to the house, I do like to try and make sure it doesn't look too much of a mess. Our floor is as clean as it's ever been, but the counters and shelves are a work in progress. I also made a huge batch of pulled pork in the crockpot, which was just a matter of getting it ready in the morning, then letting it cook all day long.

When M got up, we disassembled the swing, which was a little bittersweet. We hardly use it anymore, Robert's just too big and active to really like it at this point, but I remember putting him into it and watching him sleep when he was still a tiny curled-up newborn. I would listen to the music it played for hours and hours and not care as long as he slept. Now he is big, and it is time for new things, and we have no room for it. Besides, I have a friend at church who is having a baby in February, and she is happy to be able to borrow the swing! So that really worked out well. I had to get into my toolbag to find an allen wrench, which amazingly I was able to find after emptying the entire thing out on the floor. I also found four hammers, five tape measures, two levels, and more than a dozen screwdrivers in different shapes and sizes. Why do I have five tape measures? It is a mystery. The hilarious thing about that is that when we measured for the freezer, I didn't even bother to get out a measuring tape and just used the dressmaker's tape that comes with my Knit Kit.

Anyway, after lunch our friends came over and picked up the swing. We also lent them the diaper-changing attachment for our pack 'n play, which we rarely use but is very handy with new little babies, and my Snoogle. Now the Snoogle and I were very close friends for the last three and a half months of my pregnancy or so. It's basically a long pillow shaped like an elongated C, where your head goes on the top curve, and the bottom curve goes between your legs. You can use the length of it for back support or tummy support, depending on what hurts when. I swear I do not know how pregnant women sleep without one. But alas, the Snoogle fell from grace after Robert was born and I was fine with a regular pillow again, and has been mostly taking up space. Might as well let it go where someone else can enjoy it! (By the way, for anyone else who uses Blogger, the Amazon widget is very handy when you want to link to something so people can see a picture of it!)

So the swing was out of the house just in time for the new toy to arrive! I wrote last week about the Bright Starts Around We Go Activity Station, and how I wanted to get it for Robert when we had the money. Papoo and Mimi read that, and decided that they would buy it for Robert, so hooray! Thanks, Mom and Dad! =D The UPS guy brought it right to the sliding glass door for us, mostly because I was watching so hard that I ran into the yard when he arrived instead of waiting for him to come to our door. It came in a zillion pieces, of course, but luckily I already had my toolkit out, and was able to assemble it in a little more than an hour. While I was putting it together and positioning it, M took Robert out and bought batteries for it, and then when they came home, it was time to try it out! I was probably more excited than Robert was. His little legs are a bit too short to reach the ground meaningfully yet, but that'll change! He really, really like all the toys on the activity table, especially the electric piano. What fun! He tired himself out quite thoroughly.

The only thing that didn't happen the way I wanted was that the freezer didn't come today! We went out yesterday and bought it, and I was so excited. I called before we went and asked when it could be delivered if I bought it that day, and they told me Tuesday. So we went and we used our gift cards from SmartyPig and we bought the freezer. The lady who sold it to us asked when we wanted it delivered, and I said Tuesday, and she said we could get it delivered Tuesday afternoon. I said that was good, and watched her put it in the computer. So today I waited around all afternoon, and at quarter after four, I called them, and they told me it was going to be delivered on Thursday! I was pretty upset, but I did my best to be very reasonable, and the manager was able to arrange it so it will be delivered Wednesday morning. He said he was sorry and that I should make sure to call when it's delivered so we know everything's all right, and he'll make it right with a discount. I'm not sure how that's going to work, but really, as long as I get my freezer, it's pretty okay. Heck, if that's the worst thing that happens to me all week, I'll consider it a banner week.

A Baby Story, Part 4

2010-08-03T01:18:00.000-04:00

(This is Part Four of Robert's birth story. The first three parts can be found here, here, and here. Tomorrow, back to the chronicling of our daily lives! Also, notice how clean my carpet is in today's picture!)

Sister Kay kept the lights dim and the room cool for me, and things were very timeless, in that it seemed like an eternity, though things were going very quickly. I got to a point where I was sure that I couldn’t handle anymore, and I wanted to ask for an epidural, if only I could sit still long enough. (At this point, I hadn’t sat down for more than a minute or two since being released from the bed hours earlier.) Sister Kay checked me in a standing up position, which I hadn’t even known was possible, and told me that I was fully dilated and could start in on some pushing if I wanted to. That sounded a lot better than an epidural, frankly. I wanted that baby OUT! I climbed back into the bed, with the head raised up and the bottom totally folded down, and the nurses brought in all the giving-birth stuff they keep tucked away to make the labor room seem cozier. It all seemed kind of surreal, and yet I was aware of every little thing, every sensation. It was time for the baby to be born, and I knew it. I think it was at that point I stopped complaining that I couldn’t do it and started concentrating on actually doing it.

Two nurses came in for the bearing-down phase, each one holding one of my legs and pushing back towards my body while I grabbed the backs of my thighs and curled my body. I didn’t want counting, so Sister Kay told me to go with my feelings, to push when the feeling was there, and release when it wasn’t. I had a lot of pushing feelings at that point, and somewhere in there I found the sweet spot, the good-pushing-feeling spot, where I knew things were happening. One of the ways Hypnobirthing encourages moms to practice bearing down is to concentrate on bowel movements, how it feels when you don’t have to push, it just happens naturally while you are bearing down, and it really did seem to work. I got to the point in pushing where it felt that way, where I was breathing and bearing down and it felt good even though it hurt. I concentrated hard on a yellow spot on the wardrobe across the room, with no idea what it was, just that it was something that could catch and keep my eye. I realized later it was actually a reflection of one of the lights that had been turned on so Sister Kay could see what she was doing.

The final moments were very intense, as Sister Kay directed me when to hold off so that I could stretch around the head and avoid excessive tearing. That was difficult, since I’d been listening so hard to my body up till that point, but it was important, and really did help protect me from tearing. I had asked not to have a mirror, but she let me reach down and feel the fuzzy head full of hair before most of him was born. That was the first thing we heard about him, “Look at all that hair!” Once I could feel that he was really coming out, I got one last surge of energy and push-push-pushed until he was born in one quick rush that I felt every moment of. I think that was the best part of no epidural, I felt every instant of him leaving my body and it was an immense and overwhelming sensation. Robert was born at 9:17am on January 17, 2010. I had been in the hospital for just over four and a half hours.

He was placed on my chest immediately, just as we had wanted, and he came out crying. His tiny lungs were very healthy, as was everything about him. I didn’t do toe or finger counting or anything right away, or even confirm he was a boy (though Sister Kay did that for us), I just stared at his tiny face and his huge eyes and listened to him cry, and marveled. They wiped him off a little, but we asked for an hour before shots and eyedrops and any of that, so we really weren’t interrupted at all in those first few minutes. Sister Kay cut the cord after it finished pulsing to let all the blood flow out of the placenta and into Robert where it belonged. M wanted nothing to do with the cord and I wanted nothing to do with the placenta, so we had very little awareness of any of that even happening.

After fifteen minutes of being totally blown away, I remembered my mom in the waiting room and let her come in too. She came in and cried, and it was nice, and called everyone who’d been waiting for so long to hear the news. After that first hour, I let them take Robert to get weighed and measured, and got up myself for some tentative walking and bathroom use. I actually felt amazingly good. Tired, and somewhat sore, but all the pain of labor was behind me, and I had no major tearing. There was no medication to walk off or sleep off, so I walked around the room and watched as Robert got all his baby chores taken care of, and spent a little time hugging my amazing husband.

Robert weighed in at six pounds, eleven ounces, and twenty inches long, and he was entirely perfect in every way. His head was amazingly cone-shaped, but it began rounding out almost right away, and was nearly normal by the time we left the hospital. We stayed in the hospital two days, though I’d been hoping to only stay one, because Robert was not getting the hang of nursing. He couldn’t seem to suck at all, even on a bottle, and we weren’t allowed to leave the hospital until he could demonstrate that he was eating. I wound up pumping for him for a month before he learned to nurse, but he turned out to be a good eater, and very healthy. We count ourselves extraordinarily lucky to have had a birth experience that, while it wasn’t quite what we expected, was exactly what we’d hoped and dreamed.

A Baby Story, Part 3

2010-08-02T07:34:00.000-04:00

(This is Part Three of Robert's birth story. Parts One and Two can be found here and here. And yes, this is a day-old action shot of Robert, I forgot to take one!)

I had several more contractions along the way, but eventually we reached the labor and delivery area of the hospital and were put into the triage room. I was wearing the purple sweatsuit I’d chosen to labor in, but they had me put on a gown for a few minutes while they did an examination. The pelvic exam really hurt, much more than the ones at the clinic, but she told me I was a strong four centimeters and that they would admit me. I admit I was a little aghast that after three days of contractions, I had only opened one centimeter. But there was no going back now; at three minutes apart, I most certainly wasn’t going back home. We were shown into a room and I was put back onto the external fetal monitor, so they could get a test strip, I was told. They said I couldn’t get the labor tub I’d hoped for, all those rooms were full. It was disappointing, but I didn’t have much energy to think about it. Being in bed and on the EFM was awful, and the nurse wouldn’t let me off, even after 20 minutes, She said the strip wasn’t clear enough yet, and they had to be sure the baby was doing well.

My savior, Sister Kay, showed up at that point, thank God. I’m not sure when the last time was I’ve been so glad to see anyone. She asked me how I was doing, and I said I was having a hard time coping with the pain. When she asked what I needed, I said I needed to be off the EFM, and she took me right off and let me stand up. It helped. She suggested the shower, which seemed like a good idea. I was filled with restless urgency, but exhausted at the same time, and it was hard to think. I stayed in the shower for nearly an hour, clinging to the grab bar and letting the water pound down on me. M was right there the whole time, sitting just outside and reassuring me, sometimes putting his hand into the shower to rub my back. I couldn’t hear what he was saying most of the time, and I wasn’t really paying attention, but I knew he was there. He admitted later that he was so exhausted, sometimes he didn’t even know what he was saying.

After an hour, I was starting to feel dizzy from the heat, so I got out, and Sister Kay and M wrapped me up in a huge bath sheet, maybe a blanket. I got to put my clothes back on, and I had M find my labor beads, and fill the water bottle. I had the okay from Sister Kay to eat if I wanted, and we had easily-digested snacks in the bag, but I didn’t want to eat. I was very thirsty, though. I don’t know how women could get through labor with nothing to drink. It must be torture. I did throw up once, into the room’s big trash can, but it wasn’t much and it was just another sign of the progression of labor. I’d done my homework beforehand and knew that throwing up is actually good, because it’s a vagal reflex and actually helps dilate the cervix. Still wasn’t pleasant, but I certainly wouldn’t have given up being able to drink water to avoid it. She checked me, and the news that I had dilated to eight centimeters while in the shower was enough to give me new courage. Things were moving along!

The next part of labor is blurry in my memory; I spent what felt like a great deal of time leaning against the room’s broad windowsill, staring down at my labor beads and remembering to breathe as I swiveled my hips relentlessly to try and move the baby down. When it became obvious that I was too exhausted to remember and use my Hypnobirthing techniques, Sister Kay got me started on purse-lipped breathing instead, which is basically just blowing raspberries on every exhale. I would’ve thought it sounded insane, but I’d actually read about it just a couple of days before in Ina May Gaskin’s book about natural childbirth, so I knew it was actually something people do for pain management. I tried it, and it was oddly effective. Not in that the pain stopped, but it became more manageable because I was thinking about how weird my lips felt, and because it gave me some noise to make besides moaning. I did quite a bit of that too, the low guttural moaning that is supposed to be more effective in labor than screaming or squealing. I’m sure I must’ve sounded quite strange to anyone passing by, but they probably hear it all on the maternity ward.

A Baby Story, Part 2

2010-08-01T01:25:00.000-04:00

(This is part two of Robert's birth story. You can read part one from yesterday here.)

On Saturday night, January 16, we decided to have dinner at the hotel with Mom, watch some television and try to relax. We ordered Chinese food, and M and Mom watched a movie while I played Civilization II on Mike's old computer. Mike and I were also playing Mutants and Masterminds in an online play-by-post game, and I was rolling very poorly in the scene we were doing. I started getting frustrated and very edgy, a feeling that was compounded by the stronger but still erratic contractions I was having. It got to the point where I could no longer sit down while having them, I had to get up and walk around. Even so, after three days, I was unwilling to believe that these actually meant anything. M noticed my agitation and discomfort and suggested we go home. I told my mom we would call her if anything happened.

Around 10pm on Saturday night, the contractions settled back into a regular rhythm, about ten minutes apart. These were different from the contractions I'd been having on Thursday, much longer and harder. Some of them were up to two and a half minutes long. I would get up whenever I had one, go over to the dining room table, and lean on it while I swiveled my hips and breathed through the contractions. The hypnobirthing techniques I'd learned were helpful, to a point. Without them, each contraction would've seemed like an eternity. One strange thing I remember is trying to go to the bathroom during or after about half my contractions. The pain was similar enough that I thought for some reason it would go away if I could empty my bladder and bowels. Sitting on the toilet probably helped with labor a bit, but it didn't do much for the pain. I waited for my water to break, or for there to be bloody show, but nothing like that ever happened. Through the entire pregnancy, I was very resistant to bleeding, any time the midwife told me to expect to spot a little bit, I never did. In any case, I really had very few of the typical signs I was told to look for.

Even so, the contractions slowly got closer together as the night went on, and continued to be long and strong. M put on a hypnobirthing track for me and rubbed my feet as I tried to get a little rest. I was unable to lay down, because that triggered an immediate contraction every time, but I was getting very tired. I hadn't slept much for days. I napped in between contractions, sitting in the chair while M rubbed my feet, but they were getting closet and closer together. We knew that this time was for real, and it was just a matter of time. Around four in the morning, I called Sister Kay and told her my contractions were averaging three minutes apart, and were too intense to talk through. She told us to go to the hospital, and they would call her if I was going to be admitted.

I thought that when it was time to go to the hospital, I would have it all together and be thinking very rationally about what I wanted and what needed to be done, but it turned out that I was not much help in that area. I tucked a few things in my pockets while M went and put the labor bag in the car. It took him a couple trips because I wanted the bag and my Snoogle pillow and the iPod player, and he wanted to be able to help me to the car. There was no traffic on 275 at that hour on a Sunday morning, so the trip was fast, but it seemed to take forever. Sitting through the contractions was terrible, and I had several along the way. We made it to the hospital, but for whatever reason, tiredness, or because it was hard to believe things were really progressing, we parked in the regular lot and hiked to the emergency entrance. There was someone in line in front of us at the desk, and no one seemed to be in any great hurry. I considered doing the sitcom “Oh my god, I’m in labor!” screaming, but didn’t really feel like it. I was more interested in trying to focus through the contractions, and that would’ve just been a distraction. Eventually someone noticed us, and directed that we could just walk (all the way across the hospital) to the Family Birth Place.

A Baby Story, Part 1

2010-07-31T02:15:00.000-04:00

Robert is six months old now, and I have already spilled the story of how M and I met for all you lovely people. There is another story that I wrote, a little while back now, that I think I will share. And not just because it gets me out of coming up with things to write about when I'm asleep on my feet, either! Here is the first part of Robert's birth story. You can read it if you're interested, otherwise, just look at the picture of Robert and the chimey-wimey ball!

Robert was due on January 6, 2010, but we were not exactly surprised when he didn't arrive that day. After all, the due date was just a guess based on the 20 week ultrasound, given that M and I had no idea whatsoever when we had conceived him. The weather was very snowy that week, and by the sixth, bad snowstorms were predicted for the whole Midwest, but especially Illinois. My mom was frantic at the idea that Robert would come and she wouldn't be able to get down here, so we told her to go ahead and come down, but we didn't know when Robert would be arriving. She flew down on the seventh and checked into a hotel where she would end up staying for the next three weeks. It was a very nice hotel, and one of the clerks there was also in the New Hope program and wound up giving birth the same week that I did.

A week passed, with very little action on the Robert front. I would have very occasional contractions, and we did all sorts of things to try and encourage them. Ham and pineapple pizza, spicy Thai food from Sweet Basil, walking around and shopping for hours. I got to do a lot of couponing with my mom, which was fun, even if nothing came of it. I started to get more worried as the days passed, knowing that if we went past Martin Luther King weekend on the 15^th, my dad probably wouldn't be able to come and see the baby. We were very lucky, though, because what was supposed to be a two week trial for him unexpectedly folded into a one-day stipulated trial, leaving him with entire days of his docket clear. It took the pressure off, both for me and for my mom.

M was already back at school, which had gone back into session on the fourth. It was nice having someone at home with me, especially someone with a car so I wasn't always stuck at home. M always kept his phone with him and checked in frequently. I think he was more nervous than I was during these days. Sometimes I would get up and sleep in the recliner because every time I would shift position at night, (frequently, between pelvic discomfort and bathroom needs!) he would wake up and wonder if I was in labor. Poor guy needed some sleep! We bought a few last baby items, cleaned and organized some more things around the house, and waited. And waited.

On Wednesday, January 13, I caught a case of food poisoning, possibly from some really terrible oatmeal cookies I'd made that morning. I was sick as a dog with abdominal cramps and vomiting by that night. I was really worried for awhile, thinking that this was labor, and that labor felt like wanting to throw up all the time. I was both relieved and disappointed when I felt fine a few hours later. M was great, even though he felt poorly as well, he rubbed my feet and played a relaxation track on the iPod, and even sat in the bedroom in the dark with his computer while I slept off the worst of it, just keeping an eye on things.

By Thursday morning I was better from the food poisoning, and starting to have contractions. This was very exciting, of course. My appointment with Sister Kay, the midwife, on that Monday had me at 3cm dilated and mostly effaced, so I knew it could be anytime now. I was sure that just a little more encouragement would have labor going in earnest. My mom and I went for a little walk up and down the block, and I did some chores and did some dancing and bounced on my labor ball all afternoon. By evening, my contractions were short but at a steady six minutes apart for several hours. I was excited enough to call Sister Kay in the middle of the night and ask what I should do. She quizzed me on how I was feeling, then told me that I should call her again at three minutes apart, because it was too early for me to go to the hospital yet. Sister Kay was an enthusiastic supporter of our plans for a natural birth, and part of ensuring that would happen was making sure we didn't go to the hospital too early.

It turns out she was right to have us wait, too. The contractions began slowing down in the small hours of Friday morning, and I got a few hours of sleep, thinking that labor was just in a resting phase and would start up again fresh when I'd slept. Friday morning, the contractions were ten minutes apart, and continued slowing down until I stopped timing them. Through Friday afternoon and much of Saturday as well, I still had contractions, but frustrating ones. They would happen when I needed to use the bathroom, when I changed activities, when I laid down, but they wouldn't settle into a pattern. I couldn't sleep well without them waking me up, but it wasn't as though we were making progress, either. I was frustrated and cranky, and it was all Mike and Mom could do to deal with me. Mike and I started talking seriously about what we would do if we needed an induction. My 42 week appointment would be on Monday, and we both knew it would be more and more difficult to wait him out if he didn’t come on his own.

Scooter

2010-07-29T01:52:00.000-04:00

Today I had to spend time cleaning up and vacuuming the living room. It was a very scooty day! Robert's been getting more rolly with each day that passes, but today he got into it big time. I cleared everything out of the middle of the room, vacuumed the carpet, and let him go at it. He managed to make it about halfway across the room! He really seemed to enjoy it, too. I could see his little mind working as he scootched and rolled and lifted his head to study everything. He's still not crawling, not even army crawling, but he's covering ground. Crawling is not far away, my friends. When that happens, I just don't know what we're gonna do! I took some pictures of him while he was adventuring, notice how far he is from the blanket where he started.

Yesterday I made some barbecue chicken in the crockpot, just tossed in the legs and thighs I got for 99 cents a pound into the crockpot with the skins peeled off, tossed in a bottle of barbecue sauce I got for free a while back, and let it cook six hours. Pulled out the bones, mushed it all up, and it was very good! I was much happier with the way it turned out this time than when I tossed in breasts as well. Too many little bones! Today I took some of the leftovers and a pizza crust mix and made barbecue chicken pizza. Made up the crust, subbed in Sweet Baby Rays for pizza sauce, added chicken liberally, then covered it with mozzarella cheese. Yum-yummy! I'm really going to miss getting cheese from WIC, but I can always still look for sales. The pizza turned out great.

In the evening, we went over to Lowes for a sale on Brita pitchers. Lowes put out some store coupons, which just happened to stack very nicely with a manufacturer's coupon for a very good deal. Now, everybody and their brother at grocery stores and discount stores knows that you can always stack a store coupon with a manufacturer's coupon, because nobody gets dinged twice for it. The manufacturer pays for one and the store pays for one. It's very simple. But the cashiers at Lowes don't deal with coupons very often, and we had to be politely persistent about it. The head cashier eventually let the cashier put the transaction through, so we were happy and we got a new Brita pitcher and filter for only 2.27! Hurrah! The even better news from this trip, though, is that when we went back and looked at the appliances, we found that their smallest chest freezer is just 159 dollars, a much lower price than at the Sears outlet. And they have free delivery as well! Immediately upon arriving home, I went to my SmartyPig account that held the money we were saving for the chest freezer and closed it out in the form of Lowe's gift cards .That's another thing that's cool about SmartyPig, when you redeem a goal in the form of gift cards to the store you're shopping at, you sometimes get an extra percentage. Lowe's gave us an extra 3%, which is not too much on that sum, but certainly nothing to sneeze at! As soon as our gift cards arrive, we're getting ourselves a new freezer!

Tuesday Musings

2010-07-28T01:11:00.000-04:00

Robert went to bed at six-thirty tonight, craziness! He never goes to sleep so early, but he was tired and fussy, so we laid him down and off he went. He was up at six-thirty this morning, which might explain it, and I have a sad suspicion he might repeat the performance tomorrow. "Well then," you may ask, "What on earth are you doing up so late?" The answer is, of course, that I am entirely insane. The other answer is "writing a blog post!" I didn't yesterday because I didn't have a picture, and because I was sleepy and went to bed early. I really do try to update this thing every day, but I've been slacking off. Shame on me!

Today I did not do all the things I wanted to do, but I did some of them. Morning plans were scrapped when I woke at six-thirty with the baby and an awful headache. I stayed up with him till 8:30, when I passed him off to M and went to lay down. Getting a nap spoiled my plan to go to baby readalong at the library this week, but it did help the headache, so that's something. Robert had bananas for the first time today, mashed up with rice cereal. He liked it! The first bite made him shudder a little, possibly acquiring the new taste, but after that, he was happy to eat it. He would've been happier to smear it all over himself, but we also gave him a bath this morning and I didn't want to have to repeat it so soon!

In the afternoon, Robert and I left M to do the dishes and went out to do some shopping. Staples and Office Depot are having some pretty good school supply deals this week, so I bought some for the supply drive and for our own use. At Office Depot, I got three rulers, 20 pencil-top erasers and 12 notebooks for 1.78, which was most excellent. At Staples, I got a Cars backpack with matching lunchbox and wallet, two reams of printer paper, a binder two packs of pens and two packs of highlighters. It was 27 dollars, but Staples has online rebates, and I have already sent off for the 25 dollars in rebates I get for the paper and the backpack. Hurrah for 100% back rebates you can do without postage! I like Staples. We also hit up Big Lots for some energy drinks. I will probably need one tomorrow, and they had the big cans for 70 cents. Since they're the sort you probably shouldn't have more than one of per day anyway, it's not too bad. Good for emergencies, certainly.

Oh, and I didn't post yesterday, but last night we got Papa John's pizza, and that was fun. I did some Viewpoints reviews online and got a 10 dollar gift card to assign to one of a number of websites. I figured Papa Johns would make 10 dollars go the furthest. I combined that with a promo code I got for signing up for their email list, and wound up getting two medium pizzas, one sausage and pepperoni and one plain cheese, for 2.75. We had one pizza for supper and one pizza for brunch today, which means we spent .75 per person per meal. Very hard to beat that! Sometimes it's just so nice not to have to cook.

Robert spent a lot of time today in the jumparoo. He really likes it, but I think he might be getting a bit bored with the motion and the three toys. I really want to get him the Bright Start's Doodle Bug Activity Station, which looks like a dozen kinds of fun. I know it's summer, though, and I know we're pretty doggone pressed right now. Not nearly so much as we were, now that the paycheck came in, but rent is coming due, and I just got my bill for bar association dues (which is a heck of a lot of money, I might add!), and I don't even want to think about the electricity bill that's going to come any day now. I did just get ten dollars today from internet odd jobs, and the sixty dollar refund from my ill-fated ink cartridge purchase finally posted, so it makes me feel like there's money. I'm going to wait, though, I've decided. Once August's rent is paid, and July's power bill, and the bar association dues, and the credit card bill (only three more payments to make on the Chase card, woo-hoo!), then I will take another look at our finances. I know Robert doesn't need another toy to be happy, but I want to give him this one if I can. Until then, though, he's fine just playing with Mommy and Daddy, bouncing in the jumparoo, and sitting in his high chair, banging on his piano. (The monkey, I think, may still be a little much for him.)

Shopping!

2010-07-26T01:29:00.000-04:00

We went to church this morning, which was nice as usual. I met up with my friend who is having a baby in February and lent her all my pregnancy books and my Hypnobirthing CD with the very relaxing tracks. Honestly, trying to relax was one of the hardest parts of being pregnant for me, and the relaxation hypnosis tracks coupled with some pregnancy massage was like magic. I hope it will help her out too. She found out she was pregnant a whole lot earlier than I did with mine, and that just means a lot more weeks of stress and worry. Twenty was quite enough for me, even if it did pack a lot of baby-prep into only half the time. I also dropped off a big bag of the school supplies and personal care items I've been collecting, including a deodorant stash I forgot I had in the closet. And good timing as well, because it has been hot, hot, hot here!

After church we came home and gave Robert a nap. He's settling into a nap routine now, sort of, of a nap at noon and maybe a nap around four if we're lucky. While he napped, I organized coupons for the week. I love getting home delivery of the newspaper! It's awesome! It was also an awesome day for couponing, with a great sale lingering at Kroger and new good sales starting everywhere else. We did really well for ourselves. At Kroger, we got five bricks of Philly Cream Cheese, three bottles of Gatorade, two tubes of Colgate toothpaste, and a box of margarine for 8.37, plus we got a 5.00 off your next order coupon. If I counted that way (which I don't on my spreadsheet because it is too hard) that would be like getting all that for 3.37. I also went to Kmart, which is not a store I like at all, because they're doing Not-So-Super-Doubles this week. They used to have an awesome Super Double Coupon promotion, but they've watered it down to almost nothing. Even so, I got five big boxes of Cheerios for 2.50, or 50 cents per box. Can't beat it, especially with Robert about to start solid foods.

Our big complex shopping of the day was at Meijer, and for that I needed M's help. Doing more than two transactions at once in a grocery store by myself is just too hard. We did three transactions and wound up with 12 boxes of Hamburger Helper, 4 boxes of pasta salad, 4 boxes of pizza rolls, 8 frozen dinners, and 5 bags of Chex mix for 14 dollars. Given that a normal box of Hamburger Helper is 1.50 just about anywhere you go, I'm pretty happy. I'm also glad the month is almost over, because I'm close to the line on budget, and I'm glad to know M gets another paycheck next week. There aren't too many weeks of regular pay in summer, so it's nice when they come. I'll appreciate it even more, I'm sure, when I see how awful our electric bill is going to be. It comes next week too. Gulp!

Going Out

2010-07-25T02:47:00.000-04:00

It was a lovely anniversary, and I've stayed up much too late celebrating it. I wanted to talk about some of the deals I got this weekend, like the twenty tubs of baby food for five dollars at Babies 'R Us today, but M is giving me the "It is time to SLEEP" look, so I have to be quick. More talk about coupons tomorrow, after a trip to Meijer that I am sure is going to be exciting!

For our anniversary, I got M two issues of a really cool comic book. They are signed, and come with a piece of original artwork as well, but unfortunately one was a preorder, so neither of them are here yet. I told him what I was getting him though, and he is happy. As soon as they ship, which should be any day now, he will have his present! He bought me ice cream from Graeters, which is an awesome present any day of the week. Neither of us spent much on the presents, which is good. Thoughtful is always better than expensive. We took turns napping today and dealing with an increasingly crazed and toothy baby. Robert was really in a mood today, I don't know if it was teething or what, but he was laughing or screaming almost the whole day.

Given the bipolar baby day, it was extremely optimistic of us to take him out at 8pm, bedtime, to Red Lobster for our traditional anniversary dinner. We ate at Red Lobster the first post-wedding night of our married life, and since then it's been a place we've returned to every anniversary but one. (The year we lived in Chicago, we went to Benihana instead. Exciting!) Red Lobster was startlingly busy, given the hour, but we got really lucky, and Robert stayed calm the entire time. We put the carrier on the table and took turns rocking it for about half the meal, till he fell asleep. Even before he slept though, he mostly looked around and chewed on his bottle and played with his octopus. He really is a very good baby. We had a great meal and a very nice time. A happy anniversary indeed!

Happy Anniversary!

2010-07-24T01:55:00.000-04:00

It is after midnight Central Time, so today is officially M and my sixth wedding anniversary! Hurrah, six years! They've gone by so fast, even though it feels like we've been together forever. We sort of have, M was the first and only guy I've ever dated, and I met him when we were both 15. In two more years, I'll have known him half my life! Of course, we've only lived in the same state for six years, and before we got married we'd only spent maybe two or three months together, aggregate. Long distance relationships, go figure.

It's sort of a funny story. We met in a roleplaying game chatroom on AOL in 1998. Way long time ago in internet prehistory. I was a sophomore in high school, and just getting into gaming for the very first time. I had no books, no dice, no real conception of RPGs beyond "You make a character and tell a story with other people." M was my age too, but he was pretty insecure about being a teenager in a forum with a lot of adults, so he'd been pretending for awhile (he joined the game long before I did) that he was an adult. This is the opposite of the way things usually go on the internet, but roll with it. We met and hit it off as friends and writing buddies, and met online a few nights a week to play games. Whenever we were both online, we'd usually be instant messaging, just as friends. We wrote a lot of stories together, and because I was extraordinarily naive, it never crossed my mind that he might not be exactly who he said he was.

Well, this went on for about a year and a half, playing and being friends. I had other friends in the game as well, and one in particular was a lot more skeptical than I was. She confronted M on some inconsistencies in his story, and he finally came clean with all of us. I was kind of mad for awhile, and felt pretty stupid, but I didn't want to lose the friendship over it, so I forgave him after a short period of groveling. We became better friends when he could actually be honest with me about everything, and it didn't take long before a mutual milestone in our lives began coming up in conversation. We were both seniors in high school by now, and prom was approaching. Seeing as how both of us were introverted computer nerds who didn't date, we both had the same problem, no date for prom, and no painless way to find one. In high school, I was the sort of girl who got asked to homecoming on a dare (no, I did not accept), so it wasn't something I looked forward to. Slowly, we began to realize that we could be the solution to each other's problems, and actually have fun with it.

Convincing my parents to let me go to prom in Pennsylvania was probably the hardest part of the entire business. My parents weren't always comfortable with the amount of time and effort I put into my online life, and my mom referred to the people I knew online as my "imaginary friends." Letters, pictures, and phone calls were exchanged between our parents, until everyone was convinced that there were no axe-wielding serial killers on either side, and my mom insisted on coming with me. Not, you know, to prom, but on flying out with me. The plane tickets and the dress were my eighteenth birthday present, as well as the monetary culmination of four years of school dances that I hadn't gone to or spent any money on. It was a gorgeous dress, with matching necklace and headband and shoes. Oh yes, I had lovely sandals that matched the dress perfectly and were amazing. Something had to go wrong.

Just a couple of weeks before the trip, I fell in a little hole at my aunt and uncle's house and broke my ankle. It wasn't a horrible compound fracture or anything, but it caused a lot of problems. I was in a big ol' boot cast for six weeks, which meant I could only wear one of my beautiful sandals (thank god my dress was long!), and dancing was a little more difficult. I got to ride in a wheelchair and on a golf cart around the airport, which was actually kind of fun. The biggest problem was that it was my right ankle, and at that point M did not have a driver's license. He actually had to go out and get his driver's license before prom so we didn't have to get chauffeured around by one of our parents the whole weekend. That was a big challenge, but he managed it!

We actually met for the first time in the lobby of the hotel my mom and I were booked at. I gave him a teddy bear, he gave me a book, and we hugged. It was strange meeting in person, when we'd known each other so long already! I was a little worried we wouldn't be able to talk to each other face to face, but we did all right. Prom was really fun. We danced and drank punch and made subversive cheese sculptures from the rather unappetizing dinner they served. Afterwards, we came back to his house and looked up kissing on the internet, then tried it out. Also very fun! There was a lot of trial and error, but I can't say it wasn't exceedingly entertaining. The day after prom, we went out on another date, this time to Hershey for the chocolate factory tour. We got stuck in traffic on the highway for three hours. That is a good time to get to know what someone is really like. We played cards. By the end of the weekend, I was really sad to go home, not knowing if I'd ever see him again, but really wanting to.

Well, long story short, we made sure we saw each other again. It involved a lot of very long bus rides, some plane travel, and using up almost all of our school breaks on each other for four more years. And there was always the computer, every day, or the phone when we didn't have that. When we would go on trips, we bought phone cards so we could call each other wherever we were, just because it was so much a part of our days to talk to each other. We got engaged in 2002, when I was on campus for the summer. M got down on one knee in the parking lot after driving ten hours to see me. I said yes, we hugged and kissed, and the parakeet on my shoulder bit his nose. There was really never any question of if, but when was more of a problem. We wound up being engaged for two years and getting married in the summer of 2004, just a few weeks after I graduated. It was a heck of a party!

Wow, that really was a long story, wasn't it! I don't know that I've ever written it all out that way before. I've already written a paean to my wonderful husband once this year already, so I won't belabor the obvious. But I am very, very happy to have had these past six years with the person I love best, and I'm very happy that our family has expanded, and I look forward to many, many more years.

Back Home Again

2010-07-22T01:20:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posting these past few days, we got home late last night and I was soooo tired. Eight hours in the car is exhausting at the best of times, and these weren't the best of times. It started raining on our way home in the Civic, which of course has no air conditioning. The weather was hot and humid despite the rain, so it quickly began to fog up the windshield. The only way to defog a windshield without AC is to blast the heater, so we did that. In order not to suffocate, we opened the windows, which meant we got wet. Robert also got wet, which he responded to by screaming. So the last portion of our trip was in the dark, in the pounding rain, with the heat blasting, with the windows open and the rain coming in, with the baby screaming in the backseat. I am VERY glad to be home.

Besides that, though, it was a good trip and a fun weekend. It was great to see everyone, and Robert liked all the attention, for all that he mostly wanted only Mommy to hold him. It's just a phase, and he still smiled at everyone and was his charming flirty self. And it was so cute to see him when we finally met up with M again and his little face just lit up. He knows Daddy, and Daddy is very popular. It's neat to see Robert starting to really develop these associations and preferences. His little brain is working very hard.

Speaking of which, we went to the pediatrician today for Robert's six month checkup. The news is all good! Robert has a slightly bigger than average head, is slightly shorter than average (I was surprised too!) and is in the 40th percentile for weight, which is about perfect. He's hitting all his milestones, and the doctor is very pleased with how strong he is and how good he looks. This month he is 16.5 pounds and 25 inches long, a big boy! We're supposed to start giving him even more solid foods and gradually easing back on the bottles as long as he's eating well, but that'll be a slow process that goes at baby speed. He also got three shots today, poor bobbin. He was stripped to his diaper and drinking a bottle, but the minute the first needle went in, he stopped sucking and his entire upper body went beet red a moment before he started screaming. The frantic tears only lasted a few minutes though, and then he went to sleep for awhile in the car. He was a little fussy this evening and needed some baby Tylenol, but he's better now. Poor kiddo, but no more vaccinations for six more months! That's a lifetime for him!

I put up a whole bunch more pictures on Flickr, by the way. Go and look at them!

Reuniting and it Feels So Good

2010-07-18T00:39:00.000-04:00

Today was the big family reunion for my mom's side of the family, out at the big park in my hometown. It was tiring and hot, but a lot of fun. It's been a really long time since I last made it to one of these things, and I saw a lot of people I haven't seen for ages and barely recognized, plus seeing a bunch of my first cousins and their kids. There were several other babies there, which was fun. It was ninety degrees out though, and Robert was shy of so very many strange people. We stayed three and a half hours or so, then Robert and I came home for a bottle and a nap. He had a bottle and we both had a nap. It was nice! Robert also had his first carousel ride today, and seemed to enjoy it. I had to hold onto him to balance him on the horse, but it will not be many years before he can do it himself. Weird!

Robert is six months old today! What a big boy! What a fast half a year! He's going to crawl any day now, and nothing's going to be the same after that. But he's so funny, at least we'll get entertainment in exchange for our constant exhaustion. Speaking of which, it's definitely bedtime. Check out lots of new pictures on the Flickr photostream!

Away!

2010-07-17T00:42:00.000-04:00

Robert and I are visiting my family! I have pictures, but Robert has decided on never sleeping, so when he is sleeping, like now, I'm not about to risk digging around for the camera cord in the suitcase! So I will make a big post tomorrow with a couple of pictures. Sorry for the impromptu break!

Bad Habits

2010-07-14T01:06:00.000-04:00

I have been staying up too late recently, and it is very bad! It makes me too tired to do anything, and I don't want to do housework and I don't want to be creative, I just want to sit in my chair and sulk because I am tired. That's gotta change. When we get back from our trip up to see my family, I will get onto a better schedule. Tonight I will make a quick blog post and get to bed a little earlier than I have been, at least.

Robert's six month birthday is coming up, so I made a video photomontage to celebrate! I think it turned out cute. This morning we went to the baby readalong at the library, which was fun even though he's just a little young still for most of the activities. I rolled my MaxPerks bucks at OfficeMax that were about to expire, I took the 60 rewards bucks I had and bought two ink cartridges, three three-ring binders and six packs of notebook filler paper for the school supply drive. I paid six dollars, mostly tax, and got back 40 reward bucks for next quarter. Not too bad, considering my printer ink disasters this past month. No more reconditioned for me!

Anyway, here's the video. Goodnight!

Robert's Half-Birthday from Cori D on Vimeo.

Online Outlet Store

2010-07-13T18:13:00.002-04:00

From time to time on my blog, I will do reviews of websites I've been asked to look at, sort of like a survey where I share the results with people. I receive compensation for doing these reviews, but they don't tell me what I have to say, or even that I have to say nice things. All the opinions contained herein are entirely my own.

Today I took a look at a website called http://www.bedbathstore.com. This is an online outlet store that concentrates, as you might have guessed from the name, mostly on items for the bedroom and bathroom. This works for me, as I have many needs regarding beds and bathrooms. A certain member of the household who shall remain nameless peed through four outfits today (and on the changing table!), so the first and most important place to look was crib bedding. A waterproof sheet just ain't gonna cut it sometimes! ;)

Bedbathstore.com seems to specialize in crib bedding sets, and some of the sets are very cute indeed! I liked that there were unit prices for the sets and individual prices for the items as well. I was always frustrated when I was working on my layette because I didn't want things like a comforter or a crib bumper, which are dangerous for babies, but every set seemed to have both, and charge for them! I would much rather be able to pick and choose my pieces. They have things divided up into girl sets and boy sets, which I don't think is optimal since sometimes people want gender neutral sets they can use from child to child, but the pictures were clear and the menu easy to follow.

The site also had plenty of mattress pads, including waterproof pads, though I couldn't find anything I wanted because I couldn't find a way to sort by bed size, and there was no separate listing for waterproof crib pads. The selection was good, and most items seemed to come in common adult bed prices. While I was on my quest for mattress pads, I ventured over into kids' bedding, but didn't find any there either. There were lots of kids' bedding sets, and even some clearance items, mostly fleece blankets. The sets were neat looking, and there were more categories for kids' bedding than for babies, which was nice.

I did a little research on prices, which I always do when I'm thinking about buying something. The prices at bedbathstore.com are similar to those at Amazon, and I didn't find anything that really screamed "super-good bargain." I was intrigued by the personalized coupons the site offered me when I signed on. At first it offered me 10% off, but when I clicked to get the offer, it took me to a broken page, so that was no good. Then it offered me a discount for being an Indiana shopper, but I'm not in Indiana, so I don't know that that would apply to me either. Finally, it offered me free shipping for a $49.00 purchase instead of the typical 89, and asked me to put in my email address. I did, but when I went to look at my shopping cart, it told me that the coupon code was expired. For those of you playing along at home, that was three offers in a row that didn't work, and none that did.

Overall, I think Bedbathstore.com is a site with potential that needs to work out its interface problems. The coupons are what have the potential to push it into the category of a site I'd like to shop at, but none of them work on my common browser. Having a better interface that makes it easier to find things would be really nice too. I may check back some other time with Internet Explorer to see if it makes any of the coupon problems go away, but I'm just not a real fan of sites that make it so hard for me to shop.

School Supply Shop

2010-07-13T02:20:00.000-04:00

Can you believe back to school sales are starting up already? It's the second week of July, for pity's sake! If I were a kid, I would avoid stores at all costs for at least another month. But I am not, so Robert and I went shopping at CVS and Walgreens today! At church yesterday our pastor mentioned that one of our sister churches has kids who are in need of snacks, hygeine supplies and school supplies, so I've been keeping my eyes open in this week's sale hunting. And what a good week at Walgreens to start! They had a whole bunch of good stuff on sale. I had eight dollars in rewards bucks that were about to expire anyway, so I figured this was a good thing to use them on. I ended up getting four good Reach toothbrushes, sixteen pocket folders, six ten-packs of mechanical pencils, three pencil/crayon sharpeners, three rulers, and a can of iced tea and a bottle of dish soap for myself, all for 1.12 in cash out of my pocket.

At CVS, we did quite well also. I didn't find all the items I wanted, but I went in with five reward bucks, got myself three rulers, a 10 pack of pens, two packs of pantiliners, shampoo, conditioner, a pair of scissors, and one of those toothbrushes with a battery, all for a dollar out of pocket plus I walked out with five reward bucks to spend next time. Can't do much better than that!

I also found the charger for my camera, as you might have noticed. Robert was in a good mood most of the day today. He had a really horrible poopy diaper while he was in the jumparoo that actually started dripping on the floor, and that was kind of awful, but luckily we were both around and the carpet cleaner was handy, so no harm done. Today I gave him some of the hand-me-down toys I got from a friend at church, and they were a big hit. There's an apple that chimes when you tip it, and a ball that does the same thing, except the ball has little rocking animals inside it. I had one like it when I was a baby, actually. Robert thinks it's great. I gave it to him when he started having a tantrum during lunch, and he happily pushed it around on his high chair tray until he forgot about being upset. He had rice cereal for lunch and a whole jar of butternut squash for supper. Hungry baby! He's really got this eating thing down, now. I just have to remember he's still a novice, if a talented one, and to keep taking things slow and easy.

Hop To It

2010-07-11T02:01:00.000-04:00

Still can't find the camera charger, I think it must be in an overlooked vacation bag somewhere. But fear not, loyal readers, for you shall not be deprived of your daily dose of Robert goodness! I have taken another video, and it is very funny! You may want to turn your speakers down, lest you be assailed by the pterodactyl-like shrieks of my overstimulated offspring!

Jumping Baby from Cori D on Vimeo.

Not much to report about today, we did not go out, we did not get the paycheck, we did not eat interesting foods. Oh, well, Robert did! Today was Day 2 of avocado, and since yesterday's went over like a lead balloon, I tried something different. I took the second avocado, seeded it, and scooped all the green stuff into the blender. I added just a teeny bit of olive oil, then some water and just a little rice cereal, and pureed the heck out of it. It developed a light, bright green color and a very smooth consistency, like storebought baby food. I tried it out on Robert at his evening feeding, and it was much more acceptable. He ate almost a whole serving, which is just a couple tablespoons, but still! I think yesterday was just a texture problem, the fork-mashed unadulterated avocado was too dry and lumpy. One more day of avocado, then on to butternut squash! I'm going to need to start making a list of what foods we've tried, just so I can keep all these orange and green foods straight.

End of the Week

2010-07-10T02:41:00.000-04:00

I couldn't post a Daily Robert yesterday because my camera is out of batteries! Oh no! I need to find the charger! I haven't charged the camera since we got back from vacation, because it has excellent battery life, so now I need to find where I put it. I was clever today, though, and took a video of Robert playing with his new piano. He really likes it, because it involves smashing things with his hands as hard as possible. This is his favorite way to play, and I've gotten him several toys that suit him quite well.

Robert Rocks Out from Cori D on Vimeo.

Let's see, yesterday was busy. Robert and I went back to the Optimist Club after several months away. That was fun, they are always very happy to see him, and the program was interesting. The local sheriff, who is a member of the club, showed off his collection of WWII and earlier guns that he'd been collecting since childhood. Robert was good during the whole talk, and made his mommy proud. We would've gone to the knitting shop, but I forgot my knitting, so we grabbed M and went to the farmer's market instead. It was the most we went out any day this week so far. We have not been doing much shopping, since the paycheck has still not arrived. I am starting to get just a little nervous.

Today marked three days after carrots, so we started Robert on a second new food, avocado! It was... not exactly a rousing success. He spit them out, made faces, and cried. We'll try again tomorrow, maybe with a few changes to technique. I might not have mashed the up well enough. Avocados are so healthy, and now is the time to get them! They were only 88 cents apiece at Walmart today, which is about as cheap as they ever get. Here is hoping he'll learn to like them. In other fresh food news, we hit up the farmer's market yesterday, the one just down the street from us. We paid too much money for some mediocre sweet corn, paid about as much as I'd be willing to pay for some very nice blueberry jam, and got what I consider a good deal on some amazing blackberries. Giant, sweet, perfect blackberries, a whole pint of them for five dollars. They were great to eat just as they were, but I wanted to do more with them!

Today Robert and I went on a coupon expedition to Walmart, with a gift card from M's folks. Most of the stuff I bought was free with coupon stuff, but I picked up a couple of other necessities because we had the card. Most important of these was a wipe-off-able bib for Robert with a crumb-catcher pocket. We didn't have any! I had no idea how short we were on bibs and how all our bibs were laundry bibs until I started trying to feed the baby twice a day. Gack! The dishtowels from Ikea work pretty well, but Robert has been expressing his displeasure strenuously to that option. I also got one of those foil windshield covers that's supposed to keep your car from getting so hot while it's parked. With the air conditioning gone, it's just been so punishing to drive anywhere, especially in the afternoon when I like to shop. I'm hoping that if the car isn't so hot when we start, it won't be quite as bad. The bib was five dollars, and the windshield cover was eight, so that was 13 dollars right there.

I also got a bottle of windshield deicer and a scraper (on super sale!) since I was in the department, a bottle of fuel injector cleaner, six packets of cat food, five things (boxes? sachets?) of dental floss, three pieces of frozen key lime pie, a frozen personal deep dish pizza, two containers of Cool Whip, four bakery-reduced mini bundt cakes, three pounds of ground turkey, and two avocados for Robert. The total for everything was 16.77 before tax, so all this stuff was 3.77. Not bad! I used the Cool Whip and the mini bundts to make blackberry shortcake for us for dessert tonight. It was amazingly delicious. I love summertime, except for the heat!

My Son Loves to Watch Nickelodeon Junior

2010-07-10T00:15:00.001-04:00

This was written by guest blogger Ericka Clarey

Ever since the day I brought my son home from the hospital, I have tried to make sure he gets to watch or listen to educational information. He listened to the TV when he was too young to watch and now that he has gotten older, he loves to watch Nickelodeon Junior. With Nick Junior being a channel designed just for young children, it has taught him a lot. He now knows all of his colors, shapes, numbers, and even some of his alphabet. There are a few other channels he loves to watch but overall he watches Nick Junior the most.

He loves to watch and sing along with the Backyardigans and Diego. I am really glad we are able to watch educational television on satalite TV. By being able to watch these shows, I feel like he will be better prepared for school when he gets old enough. Since he is not in preschool, i know he is at least learning something. The most amazing moments as a parent are when your precious angel is growing and learning. He gets so excited when he gets to watch TV and he does not realize that he is learning so much.

Brought to you by your friends at http://www.bestchoicetv.com

Cleaning the Pantry

2010-07-08T01:34:00.000-04:00

I have once again let this post go very late, and I've got to skedaddle to bed. Today's chore was cleaning the pantry and the area around the pantry, which is always full of clutter. I organized, tossed a few things out, and rearranged the shelves so the cans and jars were up high. Now when Robert gets going, the only thing he'll be able to pull down on himself is cardboard boxes, and that's pretty okay. It looks better now, but it's very full. Gotta get to work on eating it down before I do much more grocery shopping. And that's good, because M's first summer paycheck has still not arrived, and I am getting a teensy tad nervous. We have money in the savings account, but the check should be getting here any day!

More carrots and rice cereal today, and good success with that. In the evening, I hit Robert up when he was especially hungry, and he ate all of half a tiny jar of carrots, and some rice cereal as well! He's really caught on now, he knows what's going on and that the high chair and the spoon mean food. I think after tomorrow (we are going on the one new food every three days allergy check plan), I will try putting some vanilla or cinnamon in his rice cereal to liven it up. It is not nearly as popular with him as the carrots.

Oh, and new Flickr pics!

Carrots

2010-07-07T00:52:00.000-04:00

I'm tired, so hopefully I can make this a quickie. I kept my promise to myself and did two hours of housework today. I did four loads of laundry including all Robert's clothes, I organized the diapers so that all the new size 3 diapers are put away as well, and I did some cleaning in Robert's room. His room needs a very thorough babyproofing, which means getting everything off low shelves, too. I have no idea where I'm going to put things! I wish we had a garage so I could have a garage sale. I'd love to get rid of some stuff and we could surely use the money. But anyway, his room looks better and all his clothes are clean. I finally addressed the dangerous cord tangle in the living room and got it away from scooty baby-hands, and also sorted through the printer table. That still needs more work, but it's a lot better. The kitchen is still clean! Even though today I baked Hawaiian Sweet Bread and made brownies and whipped up a spaghetti sauce from scratch, it's still clean and the dishes are washed and it's wonderful. Bathroom looks good, too!

Robert got two solid-food sessions today, one in the morning and one before bed. I think that's what we're going to do for awhile, two high chair "practice sessions," and the regular contingent of bottles every day. He's still lightweight for his age, so I'm not worried about overfeeding him, and when he starts really getting the hang of the feeding thing, we can start transitioning him more. That's the whole point of this exercise, anyway, get him ready so that when he must eat solid foods, he'll be ready, willing and able. Today was even more exciting because we introduced a food with color and taste: carrots! Robert was interested and tried them without much protest, though as with the rice, a lot of it ended up smeared everywhere during both feeding sessions. We gave him a bath after supper to wash the carrot out of his hair. Right now one teeny-weeny jar lasts for both daily feedings, I just put the morning's portion in a dish so I don't contaminate the jar. We'll try carrots for a few days, then maybe squash, or even avocado. I have heard many good things about fresh avocado mashed up and served to baby. It's expensive, but he doesn't eat much.

Today's other big thing was Victoria's yearly vet visit. She got her kitty checkup, as well as her round of vaccines. All is well, though apparently at six years old, Victoria is already entering senior cat territory. That seems hilarious, knowing cats like Wil, but not all cats are mutant freak kitties (with all due respect), so it's important to keep an eye on her health as she gets a little older and slows down a bit. She's still in great health though, and she was very good at the vet, so I was happy. The bill was, as always, a bit of a bite, but at least it's just once a year for the checkup and vaccinations. I also bought her a catnip pillow, the vet version of a sucker for good behavior. She was very glad to get home and immediately threw up on the carpet, but that was just stress and vaccination. She's fine now. We repeat the whole thing in two more weeks with Robert, who I suspect will cry even more than the cat about getting his shots, poor bobbin. Well, if it must be done, is better it were quickly done!

Cleaning and Solid Foods!

2010-07-06T00:41:00.000-04:00

What a productive day we had today! As promised, M and I spent several hours this morning working on the house. I started in the bathroom, which hasn't had a really good cleaning in months and needed it badly. I mucked it out and scrubbed it down, right down to going after the grout with an old toothbrush, cleaning the mirror and mopping the floor. It looks and smells like a new bathroom! M did even better than that though, he worked on the kitchen and got it looking amazing. Most of the time when we clean the kitchen, we wash the dishes and give the counter a quick wipe and call it good, but oh no. He got all the stuff off the counters and put it away, he scrubbed off the stove, he swept the floor. I came along and mopped it, and now it looks super. It looked so good that I was motivated to go in tonight and wash the new dishes that had accumulated, just to keep it looking that way. I love when things are clean, almost as much as I hate cleaning!

My ambition is to devote several hours a day to doing nothing (except babytending) besides cleaning the house. We've got a great start, and I need to build on it. Robert is gaining more mobility every day, and having a dirty house is moving from slovenly to actually dangerous. We have to change. I have to change. I am a lazy, dirty person, and I have to change, for the sake of my baby, and my family, and for my own sake. It's just so doggone hard.

The big news today, though, was the advent of solid food! We cleared off the dining table and got the high chair down from the attic. Our high chair is not exactly a proper high chair, it's a booster high chair that straps to a regular chair but takes up less room. Less room is good! We stuck Robert in there with a big bib on, and gave him rice cereal mixed with a lot of formula. He did really well! We videotaped almost the entire experiment, you can watch the videos here and here on Vimeo. Even though he did pretty well with his first exposure to spoon-feeding, he's not ready for that to be even a major source of nutrition quite yet. I think of it as practice runs, getting him ready for the next phase of his eating career. When he'd gotten tired and cranky from us poking the spoon at him, we wiped him down (yay, 30 boxes of babywipes!) and gave him his bottle. It was a very good first effort, and we'll do it again tomorrow!

Go Fourth and Shop!

2010-07-05T01:44:00.000-04:00

Church today was fun, we had the service out on the front lawn, and the weather was really good for July. The crowd was pretty small, because lots of people are elsewhere on holiday weekends, but it was still very nice. One of the women at the church has a baby just a little smaller than Robert, and a toddler girl, too. She brought a sleeping bag, unfolded it, and spread it out as a mat on the grass. It was so clever! It was big enough to do stuff on, and heavy enough to stay put, where our blanket was shifting and bunching and generally being useless. I'm definitely going to dig out my sleeping bag next time we have an event on grass. M is definitely not acclimatized properly to this area. Even though we were in the shade and there was a nice breeze, he got really hot during the service. We need to spend more time outside!

The warm weather (and two bottles in very close proximity) served to knock Robert out nicely and he had a good nap in his crib when we got home. Later in the afternoon, he and I went to Walmart to spend the last of the Pampers coupons, and some other coupons as well. We got two things of chocolate syrup, three pouches of tuna, three pouches of potatoes, two packets of taco seasoning, the Sunday paper (just one copy, coupons are light on holidays), five 12-packs of disposable razors, one 4-pack of better disposable razors, and our final 12 boxes of baby wipes. They were well-stocked, so I felt okay about taking that many this time, just to make sure I didn't let any go to waste. Before coupons, the subtotal was just over 47 dollars. After all my coupons, it was not quite $7.00, and came out to $9.13 after tax. Not bad at all, I think! It would've been even less, but my coupon for the chocolate syrup had expired. As it was already on sale though, I decided to buy it anyway, and the two bottles accounted for a third of my cash expenditure right there. But two bottles of chocolate syrup will last us a long time, especially since they were big "free bonus ounces!" bottles.

I made macaroni and peas with hot dogs for supper, and experimented a little. I tossed in garlic salt and some parmesan cheese as well, and it turned out great! I think I will always do that from now on. Macaroni and cheese is good, but sometimes a little bland. The garlic salt did a lot for it. In the evening, we watched some Fraggles and I tried to get Robert to do some tummy time. He was having none of it, though, and after rolling him over five times in two minutes, I let him stay on his back! I think I'm going to ask the pediatrician how we're supposed to do tummy time now that he's a champion roller. =) At least he was so worn out, between that and an extended jumparoo session, that when eight o'clock rolled around, he was already half-asleep and making his "I'm a tired baby" groans. He went down with hardly a peep. I love my good sleeper baby! Tomorrow I'm going to devote several hours to cleaning the house, and M is too. Wish us luck!

Diaper Vending

2010-07-04T01:05:00.000-04:00

Today we went to the library, for the first time in ages. We didn't stay too long, but Robert was good and I borrowed some books. They have a baby reading group Tuesdays at 10 and 11, which I think I will take him to sometime. Gotta teach him early that the library is a fun place! And if I take him, I will remember to take back my library books. On the way home, we stopped at a garage sale and got some cloth books. I need to figure out if I can just toss them in the wash. Robert loves to eat cloth books. He eats his cloth Bible at church on Sundays!

Today I also sold some of my spare Size 2 diapers. It was pointed out to me that stores take size exchanges on diapers, and this is true. When Robert grew out of Size 1, I took his last two packs and traded them in for Size 2, no problem. Unfortunately, I had the clever idea of clipping the Box Tops for Education labels off about 20 packs of diapers for my mom, then not making sure that those got used first. Stores are not real interested in exchanging user-damaged product, even if the damage is negligible. So instead, I posted some of them on Craigslist. Within an hour, I had someone willing to buy four packs of Huggies for 20 dollars, which is a good deal for her, since it's half price off what she'd pay in the store, and a good deal for me, since my average pay price for Huggies is 4.50. Everyone was happy! I have more closet space for Size 3 diapers, and 20 dollars. Yay, Craigslist!

The World Comes to You

2010-07-03T01:43:00.000-04:00

We didn't go far today, fairly typical for a Friday. Money in the bank is low after rent and sales are average at best, so M went to school and came home, and Robert and I hung around all day. It wasn't a bad thing. I took him down and we dropped off the rent check and talked with the manager for a few minutes, like we usually do. She's nice and has twins who are a few months older than Robert, so we swap stories sometimes. And today was a gorgeous day. I don't think we ran the AC more than a half hour all day long. In the afternoon, I took Robert and his tunnel outside and let him play in it for an hour or so while I read a book. The tunnel keeps the sun from being too bright in his little eyes, and he liked it very much. We were only driven inside by the eventual and inevitable massive poopy diaper.

Today was a day for receiving packages! The other day I went to Amazon during one of their diaper sales. I got 408 Size 3 Pampers for 60 dollars after tax and with free shipping, so just under 15 cents a diaper. Not bad at all, for Pampers. They arrived today. Wow, that's a large quantity of diapers! I am still deciding where I'm going to put all those diapers while I am using up what I can of the Size 2 diapers, but I am glad to have them. We are going to be set for diapers and wipes for awhile. I think any more wipes that I get will probably be donated, since I have something like fifteen boxes and seven refill packs of wipes now. Robert is a boy who makes messes, but at a certain point, even the most stockpilingest mommy has to say "okay, that's enough." But I don't want to let these coupons go to waste. Our pregnancy center is sure to find a use for any extras we want to give them. In other package news, I got 250 really pretty address labels with our name and address, all for 99 cents shipped. That came today, and they're great! And now it's the weekend, and I'm tired, so I will bit you all a lovely weekend.

New Printer Cartridge

2010-07-02T00:46:00.000-04:00

Today Robert and I went to Walmart and got a new printer cartridge. The remaunfactured ones were just no good. They didn't work, the replacements didn't work. I'm shipping them back for a refund. A single high density new black ink cartridge was 20 dollars at Walmart. Ouchies! But if it works, then it'll pay for itself with coupons in not much time at all. We also got another 10 boxes of baby wipes, a new helium balloon, some hot dogs, some of the cheapest sliced ham and turkey the deli sells, and nearly the last of our WIC food for mommies. In total, we spent just under 35 dollars, which is not bad, given the cartridge. Note that I have put a reference to the cartridge in my post title for the day, so in X number of months, I will be able to come back and see how long the cartridge lasted. Clever, huh?

I was thinking about it today (in the context of the printer cartridge) and I've realized this blog serves a lot of purposes all at once. The most obvious purpose is the Daily Robert, the vector by which I transmit an image of the beeb to all his adoring fans. Then there's the update, often in ridiculously minute detail, of what we've been up to, for anyone who is interested in our lives. There's the moneymaking aspect, whereby I earn a little bit of money by writing reviews and including links and such, and while that is small, every little bit helps. The blog is also for me, an open record of my days. As I was warned many times, the days rush by when you have a baby this size, and with me at home with him, they often blend together. Having this blog lets me contextualize my life. I can go back and see what I was doing a week ago, a month ago, when Robert was only two months old, etc. It gives me a record of his milestones, and of how it felt when he began smiling at me, and when he slept well, and when he rolled. It's a record of my accomplishments as well, how much money I've saved and the good deals I've gotten, and the things we've been able to share.

This season of unemployment has lasted far longer than I ever expected it would. In some ways, it's been a blessing. Now that the first couple of breakneck months are over, I don't even have to remind myself anymore that it's a privilege to stay home and care for my baby. I would have missed so much if I had gone back to work full time after six weeks. At the same time, though, it's true what they say about keeping house, even as poorly as I do it: it's like threading beads on a string with no knot in the end. You look back on your work for the week and it all looks the same, unless it looks worse. The food's been eaten, the dishes and clothes re-dirtied, the floor relittered with items. I like to be able to remember what I've done and what I'm doing It's very reassuring! And most importantly, the blog is a tool of two-way communication. When people read and respond, it makes me feel less alone, even though we are very isolated here. It's become more important to me than I ever realized it would be when I started it. Let's see where we go from here.

Playful Day

2010-06-30T00:21:00.000-04:00

Robert and I had fun times today! He was in an energetic mood, and we spent all day around the house, so we worked on some skills acquisition. He is so close to sitting up by himself! He can't get himself into a sitting position or anything, but if I sit him up, he'll sometimes stay there for several seconds before he starts to tip. I set him in the Boppy to sit, and he really liked it! Sitting up means he can see, and have the use of both his hands, and it's great. It's just a matter of time before he doesn't need any support. He's getting so big, so fast!

We also spent a substantial portion of the day away from the computer and the TV and the tunnel and the jumparoo, just playing. I took him outside for tummy time on our bamboo picnic mat. He liked watching the cars go by, so much that he hardly cried about being on his tummy. We also played on the bed, Mommy read a book while Robert chewed on one, and played tickle games, and I showed him Pat-a-Cake. When M got home, he played with Robert as well. It was a big playing day for the baby. We also weighed him again, for the first time in a few weeks. Fifteen pounds! He's still a little on the small side for his age, around the 25th percentile, but that's okay. He gets a lot to eat, he just burns a lot of calories! His next checkup is the 18th, but so far he's very healthy, and meeting his milestones too. Such a clever boy.

Monday Laundry

2010-06-29T00:00:00.000-04:00

Today I did laundry! Lots and lots of laundry. Robert had almost no clean clothes, and I had totally no clean seasonable clothes, so it was definitely time. I have a walk-in closet half full of my clothes and only five pairs of shorts. How did that happen? Time to reevaluate my closet a little. I really wish I could have a garage sale, but I don't have a garage, and we're not allowed to do yard sales. I wonder if someone at church or in my knitting group is going to have a yard sale this summer that I could get in on. We have plenty of too-much-stuff that could stand culling. Anyway, I did five loads of laundry and a Dryel bag, so we are looking good for clothes again. Yay! I am still loving the Purex sheets, I'm using the ones I couponed for last week, which are tropical breeze scented. With the sale and the coupons, it costs about 15 cents a load, and I am happy with that. If only making the washing machine run didn't take 1.25 each time and no way around it!

Robert slept in late today, till nearly eight, which made me quite happy. I actually went in and checked on him, after the early hours he's been keeping lately. But he was just having a nice lie-in, one that let me get a little picking up done. Still messy around here, but if I pick up a little more than I mess up each day, this place will theoretically get clean eventually. I also did some couponing, and we made a trip to Target for Luvs and Crystal Light. Crystal Light has "energy" juice tubes with more caffeine than a cup of coffee, they are very popular around here, and this week with a coupon, they are 97 cents for 10, which is unbeatable even with a stick. The other very excellent coupon we got today came in the mail, and was a Buy One Get One Free burrito coupon from Chipotle. We went and got takeout with no drinks, and got two massive burritos for a total of 6.75. I love Chipotle, but we hardly ever go, so it was great.

And we had reason to celebrate, too, or at least tentatively. It is Monday after drop week, and M still has both his classes. Hurrah! The one class is still very, very small, but unless there is some kind of mass defection, it will be taught this summer. It means we still won't be seeing quite as much income as in the school year, but substantially closer than last year's paychecks. That would be great! Imagine if I could take some of the money we've saved up for summer and keep it for an emergency fund, or put it towards some of our other savings goals. It would be really nice. It seems like we're always getting derailed by some emergency or other, and having something set aside for that would ease my mind, especially for something like if I were to get a little sick. A lot sick, we still couldn't handle, but an emergency fund is better than nothing.

My main money task for this week is going to be reapplying for Medicaid for Robert, which is a huge hassle. Reapplying in June/July means the pay stubs are all messed up, so we need to actually get letters from M's schools to explain how much he makes and when. This is inconvenient for everyone, and kind of embarrassing. I mean, it's not like the universities don't know that they don't pay a living wage or offer family health insurance to us, but having to ask them to certify us for public aid, I dunno. It makes me feel a little bad, but it means getting Robert the health care he needs to be safe and well, and I would do much worse for that. It's also stupid, though, because the difference in income is so negligible in the grand scheme of things. I looked up the eligibility requirements for Medicaid for children and babies, and last year we literally made half of what the ceiling is for our family size. A few hundred dollars plus or minus is going to make absolutely zero difference! It only gets more absurd because I also have to detail the small amounts of money I've made with my blog and with taking online surveys, never anything higher than 75 dollars in a month. I could see it if we were close to the line in regular income, but we can't even see the ceiling from where we are. But anyway, that'll keep me busy.

One more nice thing tonight, Amazon was having a one-day sale on baby stuff, including Pampers, which are my favorite diapers. I bought 408 Size 3 diapers for 60 dollars, which is right on the upper edge of my acceptable price point at 14.7 cents per diaper. Considering that normally they run closer to 30 cents per diaper (Pampers are the most expensive brand), it's really a good deal. Robert's little tummy is getting fat these days, and unless he gains a couple more inches in length, he's going to be going up a size in diapers soon. And I still have half a closet full of Size 2! Ulp. Well, at least I have an excellent start on stocking up on Size 3.

The Short Second Life of Iron Man

2010-06-27T23:06:00.000-04:00

Today after church, Robert and I dropped M at school and went to Wal-Mart. Our WIC vouchers turned over today, so I decided to stock up on formula, get my daily papers, and see if they'd restocked the wipes. Sucess! I got ten packs of Pampers wipes, all free after coupon. Since I bought most of the coupons on eBay, each one was basically 50 cents, but that's still a very good price for name brand baby wipes that are normally at least 2.00 each. We also got the eleven cans of WIC formula (this is his last full formula month before solids start), and I bought a box of rice cereal to get him used to it. As soon as solid foods start, the formula ration decreases, so I want to make sure he's ready to eat it when he has to. I bought four more pounds of ground turkey, two copies of the daily paper, and a loaf of bread, then succumbed to temptation and bought two cases of Diet Dr Pepper. 4.50 for a 24-pack! I nobly resisted last week at 5.00, but I don't even remember when I last saw 4.50 a case. Oh well, we'll enjoy it, at least.

I also got Robert a new Iron Man 2 mylar balloon, as the balloon from the video has expired and stopped floating. It's not as fun when it doesn't float anymore! The total for all that, (excepting the formula), wipes and all, was 25 dollars, not too bad at all. Unfortunately, I had hooked the balloon onto Robert's carseat while we shopped, and the second we stepped outside, the 95 degree breeze grabbed hold of it and jerked it away! It was on a plastic weight, but not one heavy enough to overcome the breeze that sent it racing across the parking lot. I chased it, but with my cart full of Robert, all the groceries, and two cases of pop, I had no chance. Luckily for me, a very nice Wal-Mart employee on her break saw the tableau and went chasing after it as well. She caught it and brought it back, to my profuse thanks. Robert was thankful as well. Those balloons are not cheap!

Unfortunately, something in the chase or the catching weakened the valve on the balloon, and I think poor Iron Man is not long for this world, new as he is. Typically, the mylar balloons I buy last between 2 and 4 weeks, depending on how hard Robert is on them. But between the valve (which I taped up) and an especially vicious drubbing from the baby this evening, it's looking really sad and rather squishy. Not sure what it was about this balloon, but he was especially excited about grabbing and savaging it whenever possible, even eschewing the last of his evening bottle for a final round. I hate to have wasted the 2.75, but at least we got a good story from it. Maybe this will be a turning point, and Robert will grow up to be a supervillain due to this early success. ;)

Slow Going

2010-06-27T02:30:00.000-04:00

Something was wrong with my stomach today, I felt like crap for most of the afternoon and a lot of the evening. Yuck! M was wonderful, he sent me to bed and took care of Robert almost all day. I feel mostly better now, but I'm not going to make a long post of this. Instead, I will seduce you with pictures and videos! Go see the Flickr photostream for a new collection of pictures, each more adorable than the last! Some days it's too hard to pick just one Daily Robert, so I toss all the also-rans onto the Flickr page as well. And here is a video of Robert wrestling a balloon!:

Balloon Wrestling from Cori D on Vimeo.

It's late now, though, and we have church tomorrow, so I'm not going to say much more. Hope you enjoy the triple-dose of Robert goodness!

Tis the Season

2010-06-26T01:36:00.000-04:00

It's Garage Sailing Season again! (And no, that does not mean sailing in or off of a garage, as I had to explain to a confused friend.) Today was wicked hot, but Robert and I went out for a little while anyway, because there were a lot of nearby garage sales advertising baby stuff! We did well for ourselves, too. The very first place we went to had tons of baby toys in good condition, and very flexible pricing policies. My favorite kind! After a little negotiation, I got Robert a set of very noisy toys. I got him a xylophone piano, a little plastic drum with attached sticks, a tambourine, and a set of maracas, plus I also picked up some cool plastic blocks and an adorable plush octopus puppet. All of that for 5.50, and in great condition. I almost bought him a little kid laptop, but I'm skittish about buying electronic toys at garage sales when they have no batteries. You just never know. Besides, despite my hopes and dreams, he's still way too young. =)

When we got home, I washed some of Robert's new toys, the ones he doesn't have to be able to sit up to enjoy, anyway, and let him play for awhile. He's getting really good at rolling over now; though he sometimes gets stuck, it is rare for him to go an entire tummy time session without ending it himself by a flip to his back. Today he managed to reverse the process, much to his own chagrin. There were many tears when he realized he'd put himself onto his tummy for once. Once he masters what to do with that trailing arm during the roll, nothing will stop him! And after that... the world! Scary thought!

No Coupons Today

2010-06-25T02:07:00.001-04:00

Where has the night gone, anyway? I need to start getting to bed at a more reasonable hour, but I always want to end the night by making one of these posts, and I never seem to start it early enough. What, poor time management, me? Surely not!

I have been severely bummed out for the past couple of days in the coupons department. I bought some remanufactured black ink cartridges from a company online, and they did not work. Not only did they not work, but trying to make them work ruined my new color cartridges as well! Sometimes I guess it is not worth it to save a little money. The guy I worked with over the phone was pretty nice about it, he is sending replacement black cartridges and a return envelope so if I do have to return it all for a refund, I will not have to pay the shipping. But for now, I have no way to print any coupons at all! And there have been some good ones I have been itching to print, too. I just remind myself that deals will come around again, and we are adequately supplied on most things for now.

On that subject, I read an article the other day about how something like 1 in 4 report worrying that they won't be able to pay for diapers, and that many of those women have to sacrifice money from vital needs (food, utilities, etc) just to keep their kids in diapers. And that children in poverty often have diaper rash because they aren't changed as often as they need to be, to make the diapers go further. I totally understand how that could happen. Diapers are super expensive, and not everyone has the time (or the printer) that I do that would let them coupon down to something reasonable. Cloth diapers are, maybe ironically given history, a luxury of the middle class and higher these days. We are lucky to have a washer and dryer in our building, but we would not be allowed to wash diapers in it, even more so for people whose only access to washing machines is a laundromat. You need either a good home washer/dryer or money for a diaper service to use cloth, and even then, the initial outlay for cloth diapers is quite steep. You really have to look at it as an investment that will amortize over the diaper years of your baby, and not many people in poverty have the luxury to make that big initial outlay. The article made me sad, but it made me grateful as well, and suddenly diapering isn't quite such a chore anymore. Taking Robert into his own bedroom and setting him on his nice changing table, wiping him with wipes and putting a new diaper on him every time he needs it? We're very lucky.

This afternoon after M came home from school, we took Robert down to the pool in his new swim trunks. He is starting to get used to the pool, and I think he really enjoyed himself. He's learning how to splash and thinks it's very funny, especially when he can splash Mommy in the face. Some of our neighbors with little kids were also down there, and there was much interest on both sides. I have noticed that when we go swimming it takes at least an hour for setting up and getting cleaned up afterwards, when we normally spend less than half an hour in the pool. But hey, he's having fun, we're having fun, and the water feels great. It's worth it. The weather here has been very hot, and I dread seeing our electric bill this month. When it comes, it will either be some validation of the hotter hours I spend here, or a kick in the pants to spend more of them a little uncomfy. We shall see!

First Movie!

2010-06-24T01:48:00.000-04:00

I think I may have mentioned a couple of months back about the awesome deal I got on Toy Story 1 and 2 with coupons, how I got the pair for less than 10 dollars, and two vouchers for tickets for the third one when it came out. Well it's out now, and tonight M and I decided to go for broke and see it. We also decided to take Robert. Fortune favors the bold, you know! Since he wouldn't have gotten anything from actually seeing it, we decided on the 10:15 late showing of the movie. We put the baby to bed at 8, got him up and put him in the carseat at 9:40, and went, bottle in tow. It was us, Robert, and a couple dozen college kids. Robert was an angel, he slept the entire time, previews to end credits. Woo-hoo! And what a great movie! If you haven't seen it, go see it. We loved it.

I'm still working on closing the CD with Sallie Mae after the shoddy way they've handled our account. We got part of the money back today, and I'm hoping to have the rest by the end of the week. In the meantime, we took the money that would've been the CD and put it into a SmartyPig savings account instead, like our other goals over there in the right menu bar. The interest rate is not quite as good, but it's not bad, and I trust them more. Plus, we've set up an automatic deposit. For the next sixty months, we will deposit ten dollars a month into Robert's account. It's small, but with that and with interest, in five years, Robert will have over a thousand dollars for his bank account. Cool, huh? And with the SmartyPig account, if people want to give him any money for birthday, Christmas, etc, they can just use that little pink box over there and know it'll go straight to his account. I think it's very nice.

So far so good on M's small class, one more session and we will know whether or not he'll be teaching it for the rest of the term. Fingers are still crossed! In the meantime, money saving is the order of the day. I bought one of those giant rotisserie chickens yesterday for 5 dollars at Sams. It seems like an indulgence, except last night we had rotisserie chicken pieces, for dinner, and then I picked enough off the carcass for a generous Chicken Helper for lunch today and had enough leftover even then for chicken sandwiches for my supper. That's a lot of chicken for five dollars. It's still not as cheap as hot dogs or ground turkey, but it's not bad. And very, very tasty. I don't remember if I told you about the macaroni and cheese taco bake I made the other day, but it was really good too, and very cheap. Oh, and I've been working on loan consolidation too, but it's nearly 2am and Robert is finally actually asleep, so that can wait for another day.

The Daily Robert, June 22

2010-06-23T00:42:00.000-04:00

I'm wiped out, and there's not much to say about today. Sams no longer carries my preferred brand of toilet paper, oh no! There are not many things I'm brand-picky about, but I like my Charmin Ultra Strong and not much else. But we were totally out, and it was terrible! That was about the most exciting part of the day today. So instead of a lot of talk, here is a picture you will not be able to look away from. And there are more on the Flickr photostream!

Family Ties

2010-06-22T00:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's mega-post was long enough for three updates, so I don't feel guilty about giving a short one here. M and Robert fooled around and were silly for the camera today, this is the only one that turned out, but it makes me laugh to look at it. They are obviously cosplaying the chestburster from Alien. ;-) Today was the first day of the semester for M, so he was up early and off to school. He has two classes right now, which means more money for us this summer, yay! The caveat, and it's a big one, is that if even a single student decides to drop from his smaller class by the end of this week, that class folds, and we are back down to half as much money for the summer. Last year we qualified for food stamps during the summer, but this year we will not, even with our expanded family size. Ironically enough, it is the fact that I learned from last year and started saving money that is tripping us up, as having just about any money saved, even if it is earmarked for things like paying rent, is grounds for being disqualified from food benefits. And my WIC vouchers are ending too, so things are going to be getting a lot tighter around here if M loses that class. But like I said, I've been putting money away, and we still get formula vouchers, so we'll be okay, whatever happens. Still, cross your fingers for interested students!

My folks and my little sister stopped by today on their way home from the beach, that was fun! We ate lunch together at the Greek restaurant (it was open today!) and got to see each other one more time. Robert loves his Mimi and Papoo and auntie! They dropped off the stuff we forgot at the beach, and gave us some seashells. Hurrah! Unfortunately, the presents I ordered for Mom's birthday and Father's Day hadn't arrived yet, so I will have to mail them. For supper tonight, I made Macaroni and Cheese Taco Bake, where I made two boxes of mac and cheese and a pound of ground turkey with taco seasoning, put them in a baking pan with some sour cream, put cheese and salsa on the top, and baked it. Super good, and tons of leftovers.

To cap the night, I spent half an hour on the phone with stupid, stupid, stupid Sallie Mae bank, which culminated in me deciding to close the CD I just opened there. If they can't keep track of my money for two weeks, I'm not going to trust them with it for five years. We will do something else with Robert's future bank account money, something with someone who is more reliable. More on that later, because now it is bedtime!