MeMe

Totally copied from Swistle, because she said I could. Feel free to copy it your own self too!


Eggnog or hot chocolate? I've never had eggnog, so I'm going with hot chocolate.

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree? Of course Santa doesn't wrap presents! That would be MADNESS! ;)

Colored lights on a tree or white? White, though SuperDad protests.

Do you hang mistletoe? No, but I should.

When do you put your decorations up? We try to do it on SuperDad's birthday, which is December 8th.

What is your favorite holiday dish? Turkey

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes, all the family gifts to each other are opened Christmas Eve, and tend to be more of the boring socks, underwear, PJs variety, while Santa brings the good stuff. Because he's nicer than I am.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? This year we have a lovely "band" of ornaments around the tree, just high enough for E to reach, but out of reach for M. ;)

Snow: love it or hate it? Uh. It is.

Can you ice skate? No. I can barely walk some days.

What is your favorite holiday dessert? Turkey!

What is your favorite holiday tradition? Eating candy for breakfast on Christmas Day!

Candy canes: yum or yuck? Not my fave, not exactly yuck.

Favorite Christmas show? A Christmas Story.

And you know how much I like to sneak big news right here at the bottom to reward anyone who actually reads: The baby is a GIRL!!! Woo! :) Visions of matching outfits for my two baby girls are already dancing in my head. SuperDad forbids rhyming twin-like names, though. Party pooper.

Life with Three, Take... 4? Ish?

I struggle to find purpose on this blog. Is it a list of recipes? Is it about paying down debt? Or is it about me, and whatever happens to be on my mind in a given moment? Hm.

We've been a family of five now for eight months. I don't know how my baby got to be eight months old. Like everything in my life, it happened when I was busy doing other things. Because with three kids, five and under, I'm ALWAYS busy doing other things. And yet, somehow, nothing ever gets done.

But... every day is really, really good. Our house is never quiet, but our house is never lonely. Our house is never clean, but it is never empty. Our house is full of chaos, but also joy. At our house there are tears, every day, but just as much laughter. And this? Is everything I had hoped.

A Gluten-Free Baby

Miss Baby M:

Thinks grass is kind of icky.



Isn't a huge fan of bottles, so much.



And solids? Forget about it.

Well Hi There

So work was weird for awhile, but it's okay now. And my mom had some strokes, and she's okay now. And the stress was a bit too much for awhile, but, now, it's okay.

So, tentatively, I'm back. I've missed you!

And who else is thrilled with Chex and their gluten free varieties? Go Chex!

Tides of Change

I love buying thrifted clothes. Especially baby clothes, clothes that barely get worn before they're outgrown.

But.

Tide, people. WHY always the Tide? Tide detergent makes my kiddos' skin break out in hives and rash and itchiness. And I can wash something three or four times and the Tide still doesn't come out.

Anyone have good ideas for a soak I can use to get all the detergent out of something? Vinegar maybe? (Our kids have no problems with pickle-scented clothes, only detergent.)

:)

Life With Three

Well, since you asked... (okay, no one asked, who am I kidding?). Life with three kiddos under five is going swimmingly. And by that I mean, I'm swimming in noise and messes and love and smoochable cheeks. Awww.

BUT... It's kind of like sticker shock, really. Our life, it's expensive these days. I bought groceries (from the local grocery store thankyouverymuchenoughwiththeguiltalready) for the week for $87. Okay, not TOO bad. But then. Then I "had" to go to Wal-Mart. And when the cashier said, "That will be $98 please," I almost swallowed my tongue. $98! But! I didn't even buy anything!

My shopping list was:
Frozen chicken breast
Taquitos (ahem)
Kid toothpaste (which I didn't buy and have to go to the natural foods store for, ca-ching)
Diapers ($30! When will we switch back to cloth? WHEN?)
Dishwasher detergent
39 gallon garbage bags
Shampoo (we recently tried the baking soda/vinegar thing, and NO. Just, NO.)
Pop (yeah, yeah, I know)
Canola oil
Treats for school (bananas and chocolate milk)
Cat food

Okay, so I maybe could have skipped the taquitos ($6ish) and the diapers ($30) and the pop ($9). Which brings us down to a respectable $62. Oh yeah, and the stuff I bought that wasn't even on the list: clearance tights for E ($3.50 for two pairs), three candy bars ($1.92) and a Mountain Dew (enough with pop already!), and we're down to about $55.

Okay, add the candy bars back in. I'm not made of stone, people. ;)

Guess Who is 5 Months Old

Already???


Hint: It's not SuperDad.

Although, this IS SuperDad:



Awww.

Miss Baby M

So, Miss Baby M is 2 1/2 months old now. And laughing (she thinks it's hee-hee-hee funny when I ask her, "Who has stinky toes? Who? Is it YOU? Who has stinky toes?" Parenting is somewhat humiliating, you know? Also, I should maybe squeeze in more frequent baths for her. Hm.). And she smiles a lot. And she is really a sweetie. (Okay, so SuperDad may occasionally disagree since she is NOT a fan of bottles and therefore occasionally not a fan of the people who try to give her bottles, a list that includes SuperDad and both grandmas. But she really likes me, and maybe there's something to this stay-at-home-MOM thing, after all.) And the other kids love her too, she's by far the most popular person at our house.

Anyway, I'm very much enjoying my gorgeous little fatty girl, even if I'm missing normal pizza A LOT. Just felt like sharing.

Baby Stuff Worth the Money

The Natural Mommy has a great post up today about how to save money on babies. The funny thing is that, in the area of babies especially, making the most frugal choice is often the best choice for other reasons too (for example, breastfeeding is free but also the best and healthiest choice for your baby).

I've been working on a similar list, of those things that, on baby #3 have proven to be well worth the money that I (or, you know, grandma) spent on them.

1. The Evenflo BabyGo Playard - Maybe any pack n play style of bed would have done just as well, and it doesn't appear they even make the "BabyGo" version anymore, but all three of our kids spent most of their first year spending at least part of the night in ours. I love that it fits nicely in our bedroom and that we can bring it when we travel so that baby always has a familiar place to sleep.
2. Our king-sized bed, for more room when baby does join me in bed. Okay, so we didn't have this one until Baby #3, but it has been NICE. Really nice.
3. Chinese prefolds. When we did (do?) cloth diapering, these are great. The rest of the time, they make awesome burp rags, spill-catchers, face-wipers, changing pads, and whatever else you can think of.
4. The Medela Pump-in-Style. Worth every penny.
5. This. Ha ha, it's hilarious, I know. But on days that I forget it, I never pump as much milk because I can't stand just sitting there. With it, I can read or work or at least change the darn channel on the TV.
6. The Avent Isis manual pump, as a backup. It fits in my purse for airport travel, girl's night out, or any just-in-case time. Okay, so I have a big purse. But still.
7. As for toys, this (or an older version, actually) is the only one that I can say has been pretty universally loved and long-lived (well past the "recommended" ages), both for our first two kids and anyone that comes over.
8. The bedrail. When baby is in our bed, she sleeps between me and the bedrail. It's safer for the baby, but it does make changing the sheets a pain. ;)

In light of a story like this, I think it's worth mentioning that 90% of what we spend on babies unnecessary. But that they have enough of eat? Kind of matters. Duh? And that free hospital formula we have sitting in the cupboard will be making it's way to the food pantry tomorrow.

Financial Update

Final Stats:

I found out I was pregnant in February 2008.

Between February and M's birth in October, we saved $3,779, or roughly 19% of our take-home pay during the period we were saving. My plan was to estimate our lost income and medical expenses and save double that amount.

We spent:

• $900.15 in medical expenses (these include all of the West Nile hospitalization expenses, because I'm not sure how to separate them, plus I think the birth cost less because we'd reached our deductible by that time)
• $1131.95 in lost income for my maternity leave
• $251 in "stuff" to prepare for the baby (okay, obviously we spent more than that, but this is what wasn't cash-flowed out of our normal income)
• $507 just by not being on a budget during my maternity leave - lots of eating out, fancy coffee, etc.

We still have $988 left from what we originally saved. Wa-hoo! The plan? We'll sit on it until after Christmas, to make sure we have enough in case we're surprised with any medical bills or other expenses (plus to cover readjusting back to our normal budget), then use it to pay down debt!

Blindsided

1) Going gluten free. I've discovered, for me, that it takes about a month completely off gluten before rice flour-based products start tasting good to me. :) Again, I haven't noticed any improvements to my health or well-being by being off gluten, but Baby M is sleeping 5-7 hours straight every night and is crying much less. One weird thing that has happened, though, is that my former almost constant cravings for hamburgers and pizza have disappeared. I guess I was kind of addicted to them! The roughest patch I hit so far, as far as tempation goes, was the pumpkin pie waiting for us at work yesterday. If I know what food is going to be at a place, I can make my own to bring, but I wasn't prepared for ambush pie. ;) Anyway, I resisted! But, I do find comfort in knowing that even the best of us fall down sometimes.

2) West Nile. My headache lasted about a month, total. It went away after I left the hospital, about a week before I went into labor. My eye was still not working correctly at that point. It got better every day and I made myself stop wearing the patch to force it into service again. On the night I went into labor, I was still unable to read or drive. Two hours later, I woke up in labor and the eye was fine, perfect, back to it's normal half-blind self. Yay! They say people experience extreme exhaustion after recoving from West Nile. I guess I did, but I also had a baby, so who knows where one ends and the other begins. All in all, I feel great now. I'm thrilled to have my health back and doubly thrilled to have been blessed with a strong healthy baby.

Anyone Up for A Birth Story?

If this isn't your thing, go ahead and skip it!

The day before I had baby M, Friday, I was still at work, but very uncomfortable. I'd been having Braxton Hicks every day for at least a month. Every night I'd spend two or three hours having uncomfortable contractions, about 10 minutes apart. Experience told me to ignore them as much as I could for as long as I could, though SuperDad got his hopes up more than once!

I was just so uncomfortable that Friday night. I went to bed at 10:30 p.m. And I was uncomfortable. Did I mention uncomfortable? Yeah. At 12:30 a.m. (Saturday), I woke up and was definitely in labor. Each time I've wondered if I'd know the difference between pre-labor and real labor, and I definitely knew. I could hear SuperDad snoring on the couch, so I "hopped" into the shower, finished packing my hospital bag (actually, re-packing since I'd just been in the hospital the whole week before), "ran" downstairs and woke him up at 2:30 a.m. He called his mom, the doula, and the hospital. The whole time, my contractions were about 2 minutes apart.

When my MIL got to our house, we headed to the hospital. Blah blah blah. It was about 3:30 a.m. when we checked in, and I was at 7-8 cm. They put in a Hep-lock, but nothing ever went into it. I got into the tub. Whew. Thank god for the tub. My doula came. Later, she told me I really needed to let my "next doula" (ha ha ha) know that labor didn't really get difficult for me until the very end, because she'd never seen someone talk and laugh and just chill out in the tub at 8 cm before.

My water broke. I went back down to 4 cm. (This has happened to me with two labors now.) The baby was really high still at that point (-3 station), and I freaked out a little bit. Or, you know, a whole lot. I didn't really keep my cool so much. The doula had me try squatting to see if we could move the baby down. I hated that. At that point, I hated everyone. Somewhere in here, I bit SuperDad. Yeah, sorry about that. That was a little something I call "transition."

My heavenly saint of a doctor encouraged me to get back in the tub, and he and the nurse left. Whew. The contractions slowed down to about 10 minutes apart and the doula got me back on track and I got a focal point going on and really pulled it together. I'm guessing this was that break between 10 cm and pushing that happens for some people.

Then I was pushing. In the tub. Hee. It took a lot of cajoling, but the doula got me to the bed (the hospital doesn't "allow" waterbirths. How much did I care? Not at all, really.) while SuperDad ran for the doc. We forgot all about that cord thingy we could have pulled to call a nurse.

I pushed. Really hard. I gave myself a bloody nose, actually. I kind of thought that only happened in Firestarter. Who knew?

Baby M was born at 6:30 a.m., after six hours of labor. She was put directly on my chest and I unwrapped the cord from around her. I asked to cut the cord myself, so I held her in the crook of my arm and cut the cord with SuperDad's hand over mine for leverage. The doctor showed me the placenta, as I had requested. It was gross. I held Baby M for about an hour, until after her first feeding, then asked that they clean her up so I could go to the bathroom. They weighed and measured her, 8 pounds 10 ounces, 21 inches long.

I was super super weak after this birth, probably both because I was still recovering from West Nile and because I'd only had 2 hours of sleep. Because of this, and because SuperDad had a wedding to photograph that day, I did stay that whole day, overnight, and came home the next night. I'd planned to leave the same day, but. I was tired. :)

Baby M is now 7 weeks old and a true force of nature. I'm not sure how much she weighs, (she was up to 11 pounds at 3 weeks), but she's already in 6-9 month clothes and rolling over. When she cries, it's one of the loudest sounds I've ever heard in my life. And she's gorgeous. So gorgeous.

We do good work here. ;)

Life with 3, Take 2

Ring! (Who would be calling right at nap time? Who is that INSANE?)

Me: Hello?
Her: Hi! This is ____ from the _____ calling. I have E and D signed up for a class?
Me: Yeah?
Her: That's today.
Me: Uh... oh! Um, what time does it start?
Her: About 20 minutes ago.
Me: Uh oh. But... I thought that was on a Saturday?
Her: [Silence. Showing much restraint by not saying, "It IS Saturday, genius."]
Me: Yeah. I don't think we're going to make it.
Her: Uh, okay. Should I just drop you from the class?
Me: Yeah, that might be best. I'm sorry.

Not to mention the Inter-Library Loan of "Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way" that sat at the library until well after I'd already given birth, naturally, apparently NOT the Bradley Way. Sigh.

Life with Three

This is pretty much off topic, but in case you're wondering...

We're a month into life with three kiddos under 5. I'd been warned, believe me, that the third kid was the straw that broke the mama's back, but I have to say it's gone, overall, pretty well here. Of course, we're living in fuzzy floaty maternity leave land where we have TWO full-time, at-home parents. It's a blur of laundry and dishes and "No you can't have Halloween candy for breakfast!" and "If you wake up that baby, you are SO going into time out!"

All three, are, as I type, asleep. Simultaneously. That happens only occasionally, but when it does, I don't really know what to do with myself, because all I really want to do is hold that baby. Because, she is SO CUTE. I mean, not to toot my own baby's horn, but, seriously.

I dread the return to work, both because I don't know how to leave her and because I'm afraid of what SuperDad faces managing three kids alone (though I have to admit, it's the housework that's the struggle more than the kids, I think). And it's coming up all too quickly.

Mishaps aside, I've been mostly gluten free for three weeks or so. It's going just fine. I miss 100 calorie packs, unfrugal things that they are, but otherwise it hasn't been too bad. I made a pot roast. $10 in meat for one single meal??? It was crazy.

That's about it. In case you were wondering. And the baby's awake now. ;)

Was Raining; Now Pouring

The hospital bills have started coming. Yikes. But thanks to insurance, an almost $10,000 hospital stay (for the West Nile) came in at a measly $600. Wow. But they're still coming. That's what kills us every time we have a baby, just when we think we've got everyone paid off, another bill shows up.

For no reason other than wanting to get an Amazon gift certificate, we used our credit card for the trip we took out of town before M's arrival and paid it off right away. All except for $17 in charges that came in the next month. Which we paid. However, the credit card company "didn't receive" our payment until 10 days after we mailed it. So, $25 gift certificate = $25 in late charges. Sigh. So much for playing with snakes, right?

Also, we've got a slow leak in a tire in our car and the check engine light is on in our van. And we'll deal with that... sometime.

Finally, last night I couldn't find my wallet. Anywhere. And then I remembered. I'd been at Wal-Mart, just ready to take my wallet out of the seat of the shopping cart, when I noticed an infant car seat in the car across from mine. And then I worried that someone had left their baby in the car. And then I thought about how I'd feel if something happened to a baby left in a car if I'd done nothing. So I peeked in the car. The car seat was empty. Then I noticed my own son had climbed into the driver's seat of my car while I'd been worrying about someone else's kid. And by the time I'd dealt with that, well, I'd left my wallet in the cart. Thankfully, some good Samaratin had found my wallet and returned it to customer service. And I THANK YOU!

It's amazing how once things get off track financially, they kind of attract more things. But I guess this will all work out!

Below: me and Miss Baby M, who won't be put down. Like, ever.

Mandarin Chicken and Rice

1 c cooked rice
1 lb. chicken, cooked
1 (11 ounce) can of mandarin orange segments, drained, reserve 3 T of "juice" (actually syrup, let's not linger on that too much)

Mix rice, chicken, and oranges. Stir in the "juice." Serve. (The original recipe called for green onions, garlic, and spinach. I, uh, skipped those parts.)

This was really pretty good and the kids enjoyed it a lot. So. There. Also, I'm sorry my photography stinks stanks stunks.


This is the lovely Miss M, who turned 3 weeks old today. I'm very much enjoying my "babymoon" with her, during which we've falling irrevocably in love. :)

For lots of reasons, SuperDad and I are giving a go at going gluten free. Not that this is news to anyone that reads this, but it's, uh, hard. LOL. And anyone who saw SuperDad sneaking Burger King pie into the house late last night? Well, let's just pretend that never happened.

Welcome Baby M!

Born, healthy and beautiful, Saturday, October 4, 2008.
6:29 a.m.
8 lbs. 10 ozs.
21 inches long

:)

The Financial Effect of Illness

Just to update quickly, I'm feeling better. Every day I'm healthier and stronger and regain more of my eye function. So... yay! (We're also having some signs that labor may be coming soon, so double yay!)



And now that we're beyond the "urgent" part of my healthcare, the financial worries come in. I went in to the hospital with a $1,000 emergency fund and just under $2,000 saved for the baby (which was to cover my maternity leave and medical expenses for the birth). I had counted on having another month of work to save more before the baby's arrival.



But. Now we have another entire hospital bill to deal with. And I used up all of my sick leave. And all of my vacation. And am on to unpaid leave (though I am back to work, but not full time). And I've had to take leave of my two part-time jobs. Because I just can't do them.



I have health insurance. I have GREAT health insurance. But 20% of really expensive is still pretty darn expensive, if you know what I mean. Sigh.

What Happened

About a month ago, I started having severe headaches. Progressively severe. Two weeks ago, I started missing work because the headache pain was so overwhelming. I have never felt pain like that in my life, and every day would be worse than the day before.

I tried ice. And heat. And chiropractors. And doctors. And medications. And herbs. And massages. We did bloodwork and uninalysis and a CT scan and an MRI. We didn't find anything conclusive to explain what was happening to me.

Last Saturday, after narcotics had failed to alleviate the pain and I had developed double-vision, I was admitted to the hospital. Specialists were called in on my case, but no one really knew what was going on. I lost the ability to move my right eye. We decided to try inducing, hoping that it was a hormonal headache that might be cured by delivery. We tried inducing on Sunday, and again on Monday, with no progress. (Just to say, the pain of Pitocin-induced contractions didn't even compare to my headache pain. At all.) I remained in the hospital until Tuesday, when we decided there wasn't much more to be done.

My birth plan, the high priority I had placed on a natural birth was stripped away, one line-item at a time, as things like "brain tumor" and "anyurism" became more and more a part of my world. I was unable to see beyond the pain I'd be enduring for the next five minutes, let alone contemplate the long-term affects of what was happening.

On Friday (Sept. 26), we received a phone call at home that I had tested positive for West Nile virus. For which there is no treatment. For which there is not enough evidence during pregnancy to provide any indication of what to do there. I'd never had a fever, or a rash, or any other West Nile symptom other than headache (encephalitis) and vision abnormalities.

On Saturday (Sept. 27), I woke up and my headache was gone. It was the first time I'd been without pain in weeks. The damage to my eye did not automatically repair. It may take up to months to regain the full capacity of that eye. It is patched over most of the time, as I can't process the two distinct images I'm receiving from each eye. But each day it seems to regain more of its mobility. Reading is difficult, I don't know when I'll be able to drive again.

The baby. The baby seems fine and healthy, and we've decided to let her stay put as long as she needs. Our case is being tracked by the State Dept. of Health, and I hope that it helps someone else in this situation know what whether it's best to stay pregnant or not. We just don't know at this point. That said, I've sure had a lot of contractions these last couple of days, so she's welcome to join us anytime now!

Sorry if this post is totally disjointed, I'm not my best these days, but I thought I'd let everyone know what was going on.

Pregnancy Update

It's been brought to my attention that it has come to the point in my pregnancy where if I'm quiet too long, people may assume I'm off having a baby. Not so much, unfortunately. :)

I'm 36 1/2 weeks along right now. The pregnancy is going very well, and everything looks fine for a (big) healthy baby to arrive sometime in October.

However, I've been battling a very seriously painful headache for a few *weeks* now. In the last 5 days, I've experienced some of the most excruciating pain of my entire life. I have a knot at the base of my skull that refuses to go away, and is causing pain across my entire head and all the way down my back. I've tried everything. Everything. Everything. So, I'm going to get really selfish right here and ask that, if it's your thing, you could send up some prayers on my behalf? Or good vibes or whatever it is you might have, I'll take it!

Hope all is well with you!

P.S. - My blood pressure is fine, I have no swelling, no signs of pre-eclampsia at all. Other than being out of whack from the weight of the baby, the doctor doesn't think this headache is pregnancy-related. :)