The World According to Mommy

I haven’t had much to write about these last few days. Nothing really exciting or interesting has been going on. And, as you all know, I’m terribly uncreative, so I can’t think of anything else to write about. The only thing that’s been more than mildly interesting was that I saw gas today for $1.86 per gallon. I paid $1.93 a gallon this weekend, and I was doing a little happy dance in my car while pulling in to the gas station over that. So $1.86 is pretty cool.

Let’s see, what else… Well, Nate turned 10 months old on Monday. That’s pretty cool, too. This means I have to start thinking about his first birthday party. A traveling circus, petting zoo, and five tier cake isn’t too much for a one year old, is it?

Hmmm, well…that’s all I’ve got. Sorry to be so incredibly lame. The problem with having a mommy blog is that you don’t really have a niche, like frugality or personal finance. I just sort of write about what’s going on in my life, and when nothing’s really going on, I’ve got nothing to write about. But because I want this blog to be super cool and I want a lot of people to read it, I’m going to have to step it up and start churning out some better content. This stuff right here’s just not going to cut it.

I'm borrowing this idea from a few of the great blogs I read. They do a round-up once a week of all the great articles they've read from around the blogosphere. So here are the links that I've loved this week. Hope you enjoy them!

Guy Named Dave has a 100 Thing Challenge in which he will live one year with only 100 things. I think this is a really interesting idea (although I know I could never pull it off), but reading about his challenge has added inspiration to my decluttering mission.

Domestic Cents had a great little piece about how her life has changed since having a baby. She also has some very sweet words about her husband.

Get Rich Slowly had an article on how to have a frugal Christmas by making gifts yourself. I am terribly uncreative and not at all crafty, but this list inspired me to try my hand at making our Christmas cards for this year. (Which could end up being a terrible idea that I quickly abandon once I see how crazy some of my cards might look.)

One of my favorite mommy blogs, EJ and Henry, had a posting about how allergies, teething, and milk don't mix.

Frugal Babe made me realize that I'm not nearly as frugal as I'd like to think I am. This woman is seriously good at frugality. Check out her frugal plans for Christmas.

This Young House is a super cool little design, decorating blog. They had a great article about their trip to the flea market. They have so many great ideas, but I'm really digging the old stamps they found.

Simple Mom had a great article about how to manage the I-Want-It-Now, particularly when it comes to buying a house. We've lived in our home for over five years, so it doesn't specifically apply to us, but I thought a lot of her ideas could be applied to all sorts of other things I'd like to do.

Yesterday Matt and I had a real, honest to goodness, dinner and a movie, date night. Before this we had gone out twice before without Nate, and both times Matt’s parents (and the first time it was just his dad) watched him for us. So this was the first time we went out and left him with non-family.

The wonder that is the YMCA
The week before last I joined the YMCA so that I could get back into exercising at the gym. I had joined a fancy-pants gym when Nate was three months old, mainly just so I could have a little break from him during the day while I exercised and he was in the gym nursery, but also to lose all that baby weight I was still holding onto. The cost of the gym, for just me, plus the use of their nursery (which was an extra charge) was $77 per month. I think I only stayed a member for two or three months. I thought it was just too expensive, plus around that time I was trying to get Nate on a regular nap schedule, and the gym nursery required that I make reservations for him two days in advance. This did not work well for us, so I cancelled.

But I’ve really missed exercising at the gym, plus Nate’s regular daily routine is now pretty much set in stone, so I know, mostly, what to expect each day. So after researching a little bit, I discovered the YMCA. The YMCA is terrific, and I’m so bummed I didn’t think of them sooner. I signed up for a family membership, so Matt can use it, too, for $65 per month. Now, this isn’t a whole lot cheaper than the fancy-pants gym, but this membership includes both me and Matt, plus we get to the use the nursery for free. Plus, they have so many other perks that make this $65 an incredibly great value. Here are two features that I’m most excited about:

1. One Friday a month they have Free Family Friday. On this Friday night, from 4-8 pm, you can bring your child to the nursery, drop them off, then go out and have an early date night.

2. You get 12 hours of free off-site childcare a year. You can drop your child off at the nursery, then leave to run errands, or do whatever you need to do. After you use your 12 free hours, you can pay $3 per hour after that. (You are able to use the nursery for free while you are at the YMCA exercising or doing other activities, but with this you can actually leave the building while your child is being cared for. I plan on using a few of these hours next week so I can go get my hair cut.)

A movie and a cheap burger
So last night was the Friday night we had chosen to go out and take advantage of the Free Family Friday. We knew that we wanted to do dinner and a movie, so I tried to find us some coupons to bring down the cost of our date night. I couldn’t find any coupons for the movies, but we decided to see the movie first so that we could get matinee pricing. For our dinner I looked on Restaurant.com to see if there were any good deals at restaurants near the movie theater. With Restuarant.com you search among listed restaurants and then buy gift certificates for that restaurant which are below face value. I found a burger place and bought a $10 gift certificate for only $3. But before I purchased this I went to my favorite website for online coupon codes, RetailMeNot.com, and found a coupon for 70% off. So that $10 gift certificate ended up costing me $0.90!

We went to the movies, then to the burger place that was just next door, bought two burgers, two drinks, shared a large fry, used our $10 gift certificate, and we only paid $3.64 (plus the $0.90 that I paid for the gift certificate, so the true cost for our dinner was $4.54). I was so excited! I was nervous that they weren’t going to accept the gift certificate for some reason, but they happily accepted it, and we got a great deal on our burgers.

It was a good night
We picked up Nate from the YMCA around 7:30, and I was nervous what kind of mood he was going to be in, because his normal bedtime is 6:30, but he was in good spirits, and the woman who was taking care of him said he only cried once. I was very relieved to hear that, and so glad it worked out, because hopefully now we’ll get to do this every month. Now if only I could harness my magical coupon-finding powers to score us some kind of discount to the movies... But coupons or no coupons, it was a good night.

Yesterday Oprah’s show was about decluttering your home, and her guest was organizational expert Peter Walsh. Peter went to a few homes and helped people tackle majorly messy areas in their homes. He helped them figure out what to keep and what to donate, he gave rules about only keeping things that are useful (and you must have a specific use in mind) or that you love, and he instructed us to get rid of any article of clothing that we haven’t worn in six months.

I have heard all of these tips before. Nothing he said was new to me. So if I know all of this, why can’t I put it into practice, and why isn’t my house perfectly clean and organized?

I don’t know. Maybe I’m lazy. Maybe I’m not focused enough to take the 30 minutes, or one hour, or five weeks it would take to declutter all the various areas in my home. There are too many distractions. Plus, I really have a very busy schedule which includes serious time devoted to catching up on all the shows I’ve recorded on my DVR. Priorities, people.

Whatever the reason is, I blame my husband. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a messy, chaotic world to get back to.

One thing Peter Walsh did say that rang true for me was that the state of our homes reflects the state of our lives and our inner selves. I am totally feeling that right now. For a little while now I’ve been feeling like my life is sometimes out of control (which certainly can’t have anything to do with this almost ten month old little human I’m raising) and unbalanced. I have felt unfocused, unmotivated, and scatterbrained. I really do believe all of this is related to my surroundings. (There’s sort of a chicken or the egg thing going on here: Does my cluttered, disorganized house make me feel like I have no control, or is the fact that I feel like my life is out of control causing me to neglect my house and create clutter?)

I want to change this. I want more for myself and my little family. I have grand visions and dreams for all that we might one day do, but I really do feel like none of those new, great things can come into our lives if we are cluttering up the entryway with all our old junk.

However, not everything is junk, and some of the stuff around here I’d really like to keep, like Nate’s outgrown clothes and cloth diapers. I want to hold onto all this stuff for the next baby, but it’s quickly turning into The Land Where Large Plastic Rubbermaid Containers Go to Fulfill Their Destiny around here. We have these suckers everywhere, and they are all full. Even if our next kid is a girl her favorite color will be blue and she’s going to love trucks and puppies.

Well, you might say, just put all those storage containers in the guest bedroom closet. My response to that would be that you obviously haven’t been paying attention or you would know by now that that guest bedroom closet is absolutely, positively filled to the brim with all the other things I really must keep.

So, OK, I’m going to get this decluttering underway. I’m going to start with the small catch-all little cart, table thing in our kitchen (you know, the place where things go when we don’t know what else to do with them). OK, decluttering, decluttering, decluttering…now, what do I do with this world map sent to us by Doctors Without Borders? Not sure. Nate might like it when he’s a little older. Oh, and what about this list of all the gifts given to me at my baby shower? I know I sent thank you cards long ago, but I might need this list for something, so I better hold onto it. Hmmm, and what about these brochures for tourist attractions in San Jose, CA? Well, you never know, we might go to San Jose one day, and these brochures are going to come in really handy then.

Do you see?!! Three is my limit. After not knowing what to do with three things, I give up. It’s all too hard. Until one day I will realize that my desire for a better, more organized life will be greater than my inability to throw away all the junk cluttering up my kitchen (and by “kitchen” I mean “whole house”). I will realize that they will probably still be making maps by the time Nate is old enough to actually give a flip about maps, at which time I can buy him a new one; that I do not need a piece of paper that lists items I’ve been happily using for months; and, if we do ever go to San Jose I’m pretty sure I’ve heard about this gadget all the kids are using called Google, and apparently this Google can tell me everything I ever wanted to know about San Jose and all the cool places there.

Until then, I blame my husband. And my DVR. And maybe Nate, too, just for good measure. It’s gotta be somebody’s fault, right?

I enjoy cooking. I’m not particularly good at it, but I enjoy it. I like the whole process of putting a meal together, and I also think I enjoy creating something which my family will enjoy. This makes me happy.

What does not make me happy is the fact that the vast majority of the meals I prepare aren’t any good.

You see, I’m not the kind of cook who can just throw things together, who knows which flavors go with other flavors, and who can tell exactly which spice is needed to really make the dish perfect. I cannot do any of those things, thus, I must follow recipes. I’m fine with this. It can be challenging, however, to find recipes that I know Matt will enjoy, because he knows what he likes, and what he likes usually involves some sort of meat product, a starch, and absolutely no weird sauces or condiments. I am fine with this, too. I know my parameters, so I always set out to find recipes that I think he might like.

However, as I’ve said, almost all the recipes I’ve made have hovered around the “fine” and “edible” side of things to the “truly awful”. It’s not easy to realize you’re a failure practically every time you sit down to dinner, but I keep trying new things, because 1. I only have a few good meals in my arsenal that I can rely on, and 2. It feels really good when I finally hit on something that’s a keeper.

Last night was definitely one of the failure nights. I tried a new recipe in my Crockpot which was touted as “Your whole meal in the Crockpot!” You start with steaks at the bottom of the Crockpot, then add potatoes wrapped in foil (which would become baked potatoes), then corn on the cob wrapped in foil on top of that. I hadn’t planned this meal out, but around lunchtime today I realized that I didn’t know what I was going to make for dinner, so I broke out all the recipes that I print and save for later. This one looked good, and I knew that we had steaks in the freezer, so I decided to give it a try.

Oh, did I mention the steaks I used where T-bones? Whatever one notch below horrified is, that’s what Matt was when he came home and discovered this.

I don’t know, I just didn’t think about what high quality T-bone steaks are and that putting $10 steaks in the Crockpot was probably not the best idea. All I know is that the recipe called for steaks, and these were the steaks we had.

So dinner was terrible, and expensive, but boy did Merchant eat like a king. And I can't really say why most of the recipes I try end up being fed to the dog. Maybe I should just eliminate our grocery budget entirely and add all that money to the eating-out column.

Now this is definitely not the most frugal way to raise a baby, but there are a few things I've discovered over these past nine months that have proven to be very useful. Here is my list of baby gear that is definitely not needed but makes life a whole lot easier:

1. Baby furniture – If you have the space definitely get a crib, changing table, and glider (or rocking chair). We knew ahead of time that we would not be co-sleeping with Nate, so we knew we would need a crib. I found ours on Craigslist, and it was in perfect condition. After we purchased it we found the exact same crib being sold at Babies ‘R Us for twice what we paid for our used one. It’s a gorgeous crib that will later be able to convert into a toddler bed then into a full-size bed for when he’s older. The changing table we bought has little side rails on top to make it a changing table, but these can be removed, making it into a dresser later on. He’s going to have a whole bedroom set! And the glider…for me, maybe one of our best purchases. We didn’t spend a lot of money on it (I think it was actually the least expensive one at Babies ‘R Us), but it is so great. I have spent a lot of time in that glider, especially for the first four months when Nate had to be rocked for about an hour before he was completely asleep and could then be placed in his crib. I did this multiple times a night. The glider became my best friend. Get a glider.

2. Three changing pad covers – You will need a cover for the changing pad which will be on top of the changing table. You would think having two covers would be sufficient, but you would be wrong. Invariably your sweet little angel will pee just as you are pulling the dirty diaper off and putting the new diaper one, resulting in a wet changing pad cover which now needs to be changed. Then, during the very next diaper change, you will somehow get Sweet Angel’s poop on the changing pad cover while trying to clean up a disastrous diaper blowout. You will not have done laundry since the first diaper change, so you now have two dirty changing pad covers and nothing with which to cover the changing pad. Your child rather likes the warm, soft cover and will vehemently object if you try to lay him down directly on the cold, plastic changing pad. Get three covers just to be safe.

3. Sling – Before Nate was born we bought a Baby Bjorn, because I didn’t really know there were other options for wearing your baby. After now having tried other babywearing alternatives, I can say with confidence that the Baby Bjorn is awfully, terribly uncomfortable. Look into the Moby Wrap, and then buy it.

It is the greatest thing ever. It looks really complicated as it’s just one very long piece of fabric that you wrap around your body several times, but when I got mine I just looked up “moby wrap” on YouTube and found very helpful videos on how to put it on. Nate loves this thing. Sometimes in the evenings when he’s really fussy, I’ll put him in it and he is instantly happy. If you don’t get the Moby, then get something along the lines of the Hotsling. Not as comfortable as the Moby, but still comfortable, and it’s much quicker to get on and off when you are out and about.

4. Boppy pillow – This was really great when I was nursing, but even after I stopped, I still used it when I gave Nate his bottles. It was also great when I had to rock him to sleep every night, because I could put this on my lap, then put Nate on the pillow, then it would free up my arms so I could read while Nate was falling into that deep sleep. I got a lot of reading done during those four months.

5. Pack ‘n play –

We have this set up in our living room at all times. It’s great for when I’m coming back from the grocery store, because I can put Nate in it and know that he’s safe while I run back and forth from the car bringing in groceries. It’s also great for other short periods throughout the day, like when I’m vacuuming, when I can put him in there and not have to worry that he’s going to get hurt or get in the way while I’m doing some quick chore. You can also take this with you when you visit family and friends, as it’s the perfect portable crib. We actually have a second one that we just keep permanently at Matt’s parent’s house for when we visit.

6. Nursing cover – OK, yes, you could use a blanket to cover yourself while you nurse, but the great thing about this is that you slip it over your head and then you don’t have to worry about it falling off. I wasn’t able to nurse for very long, but I used my nursing cover a lot while I did. I obviously used it while we were out of the house, but I also used it at home when we had lots of company visiting those first few weeks after Nate’s birth. This thing was great.

7. Jogging stroller –

Forget the whole travel system where you buy the car seat and the stroller all together. We did that, and I wish, instead, we had just bought the car seat and then a jogging stroller. The jogging stroller I have (and I think most are like this) allows you to safely clip on just about any infant car seat. I prefer the jogging stroller over the regular stroller that came as a set with our car seat, because, obviously, I can use it for jogging, but it was also really great when we went to a local carnival that had lots of uneven terrain. I’m not sure if our regular stroller could have stood up to all that, and I think we will probably go to more things like this in the future. Also, I have read other lists talking about how to frugally raise a baby and they have mentioned skipping the infant car seat all together and going straight for the convertible car seats that they can use all the way until they are toddlers. I disagree with this. The infant car seat is critical. First, young babies sleep a lot, and usually in the car. With the infant car seat you can take the whole thing in the house, hopefully without disturbing the baby, and then leave the baby in the car seat to finish his nap. With the convertible car seat, you have to take the baby out of the seat (which stays hooked in the car), and this means you might wake him from a much needed nap. Also, you can take the infant car seat into stores and set it in the shopping basket, again, without disturbing the baby. With the convertible car seat, I’m not sure what you do. Put the baby in the Moby while you shop, I guess.

8. Umbrella stroller – Jogging strollers are huge, and are not easily transported (with ours you have to actually take the front wheel off to fit it into the trunk). So once your baby is about three or four months, you can put him in the umbrella stroller, which you will leave in your car at all times and use on trips to the mall and other stores. We have a Maclaren, and I’ve been very happy with it.

9. BabyLegs –

I bought these when I was pregnant thinking they were ridiculous, but also ridiculously cute. I wasn’t sure when (or if) I was ever going to use them, but now that I’ve used them for the past month or so, I’m completely sold. It’s sometimes kind of chilly in the house, so instead of pants, I will put on Nate’s BabyLegs. When Nate has on pants and starts crawling, he usually ends up pulling the pants down as he crawls, then when he goes to stand up, he ends up standing on the now pulled down pants, and trips himself. This doesn’t happen with the BabyLegs because they stay in place. (Yes, your child may end up looking kind of ragamuffin like mine does in this picture, but hey, his legs stayed warm and he didn’t trip over his pant legs!). I also found a blog called Little Birdie Secrets which gives a super simple tutorial on how to make your own BabyLegs. So be frugal in this one area and make your own!

Happy baby-raising!

Thankfully I have most of my Christmas shopping done, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about babies after having Nate around for the past nine months, it’s that they are not very good shopping companions.

They’re not really awake all that long between naps. This makes getting out of the house, getting to the store, getting some shopping done, then getting back home before baby gets tired very difficult.

They won’t sleep anywhere except in their crib (or at least the one I have won’t), so no long shopping excursions hoping they’ll sleep in the stroller or the car seat. This will not work and will only enrage the baby, making him scream and cry at you the whole way home.

There’s all the stuff you have to bring with you if you even step one foot out of the door with a baby. It is a requirement that you bring a large bag stuffed with everything and anything that you might possibly need for any real or imagined catastrophe that could possibly take place. This bag is your lifeline, and if you lose it, you are screwed.

The babies like to be fed often, and it doesn’t matter one little bit to them that you are just going to run into this one last store real quick, or that you really, really need to try on these 18 bras so that you can finally get one that fits. If they are hungry, they let you know it, usually quite loudly and impatiently. You must respond to this demand for food promptly, whether rushing to get out of a store or standing half-naked in a dressing room.

All of this makes for a sometimes chaotic and unappealing shopping experience. But the shopping must be done, and the only reward you will get will be a “thank you” here and there from the recipients of all that stuff you bought, plus the chorus of “He’s so cute!”, “Look at those beautiful blue eyes!”, “What a happy little boy!” that you hear from just about everyone who stops to admire your cute, although reluctant, shopping companion.

It's not that cold yet, but soon it's going to start getting pretty chilly at night. I worry about those nights when it's not quite cold enough to turn on the heat, but when you definitely need a little more warmth.

Nate is still too young to have a blanket, so I was trying to figure out a solution to keep him warm at night. When he was a little baby he wore a HALO Sleep Sack, but now that he's crawling and pulling up in his crib, he needed something with feet in it so that he didn't trip.

I came across the big kid version of the HALO Sleep Sack on their website, which is really just a wearable blanket with feet. This was exactly what I needed, but the smallest size they had was 2/3 T, way too big for Nate.

So I thought maybe I could use my sweet sewing skills and make him something similar. I definitely made him something, but I'm not sure how similar it is:

(The whole time Matt was holding Nate up for the picture he was singing M.C. Hammer's "Can't Touch This".)

This is officially my second sewing project, after the inserts I made for my cloth diapers, and my second attempt at some frugal baby-warming gear. I probably should have been deterred by the fact that this project called for a zipper AND elastic, but I decided it was really just a blanket with some arm and leg holes, along with a little elastic and a zipper, so how hard could it be?

Oh, I also failed to mention that I did absolutely no measuring. Nate was asleep the night I decided I had to cut and pin the fabric NOW, so I just eyeballed it. I used two flannel blankets that I had leftover from making my diaper inserts, and I pretty much used all of the two blankets. Waiting one day and actually taking some measurements probably would have been a good idea, because after getting Nate in it I realized that the arm holes are WAY too big. We really could have just bypassed the zipper all together and put him in through those gaping holes. Luckily, that's an easy fix

I think from far away my creation kinda, sorta resembles the HALO wearable blanket, just don't come in too close for an inspection. And for goodness sakes, do NOT turn it inside out and look at the seams. It really is a crazy mess on the inside. But maybe, just maybe, it will keep my baby warm at night.

While sitting here trying to recover from the fact that my guy lost, I got to thinking about lost time, wasted time, and all the things I could have done but never did (sorry for the lame segway...it's the best I could do!).

Last week after Nate had only been awake a short time after one of his naps, he was really fussy and seemed tired. I said to Matt something along the lines of, “I can’t believe he’s tired already. He might need another nap soon.” Matt responded with, “Well, he does come from a long line of nappers.” And by “long line” he means me. It’s true, I like my naps.

Just over a year before Nate was born I got laid off from my job. We had actually just started trying to get pregnant, and it has always been the plan that I was going to stay home with our kids, so Matt suggested that I just start the staying home a little early. He said it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to find a new job only to quit it a few months later to stay home once the baby arrived. I happily agreed.

I saw this work-free, baby-free time that I had as a great gift from my husband. I had such freedom! I could do whatever I wanted! Each day was all mine!

And how did I spend this year of freedom? I napped.

I took lots of naps. Most mornings I also slept in. And this is before I was even pregnant and had a real excuse for being a little bit tired. The real truth is that I was just lazy and unmotivated.

But I sure had big ideas of all thing thinks I would have liked to have done. I wanted to (re)learn French, I wanted to learn about photography, I wanted to learn tennis, there were about 53 movies I finally wanted to get around to watching, there were lots of books I wanted to read, flowers I wanted to plant, a home office I wanted to organize…so many things. And none of them done. But man, I sure made time for those naps.

Looking back on this time is incredibly embarrassing, but also eye-opening. I can do nothing to change the fact that I wasted all those days, weeks, and months, but I think it has helped me to see that all the small (and big) things I secretly (or openly) dream of doing, or even the not-so-fun stuff that just needs to (finally!) get done, I need to just do them.

No more regrets. I don’t want two more years to pass where I find myself with an almost three year old or find that another baby has joined the mix (making things I-can’t-even-imagine-how-much crazier) and be cursing myself that I didn’t do all those things now. Right now.