Daycare and Asthma

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Daycare certainly hasn't helped David ward off allergies!

Consignment Sale Madness

This weekend I went to a consignment sale in Perry, and it was great. I got so many good things for so CHEAP!! It was like tons of garage sales all in one location with all kids stuff- nice! Mostly I just got clothes. I did get a bob the builder pop up tent for David for $2.50. He loves it. It's kind of flimsy and falls over when he crawls in or out (we hold it up), but man he played with that thing all day yesterday. I am vowing never again to buy new kids clothes or baby items. I found out about this consignment sale from a lady at church. Apparently there is another huge one put on by Macon MOPS that I missed. I will be hitting it up in the spring to get hot weather clothes. This one only had cold weather clothes. Apparently they are held every fall and spring. Now that I am 'in the know' I'm going to utilize these sales. Some of the clothes they had were very worn out and not worth it, but some were not. I even when on the last day- half priced day. The already cheap prices were cut in half. I'm sure all of the expensive brands, and really cute stuff was gone, but I just needed play clothes for day care.

I've never been a huge shopper, but I liked this!! I hate the mall and their exuberant prices. I wish I could find an aldult consignment sale. My purse is broken right now, the zipper broke, and its just plain worn out. I need another one, but I can't find one I liked. I went to Target and all their purses were so 'trendy'. They were cute, but the type that you buy to go with a specific oufit. And, well, I use the same purse everyday, so these were not the purses for me. I'm not sure where I will look next. Kohls? We'll see.

Bail-Out Plan

Mike Huckabee said this and I agree:

Frankly, I’m disappointed and disgusted with my own Republican party as I watch them attempt to strong-arm a bailout of some of America’s biggest corporations by asking the taxpayers to suck up the staggering results of the hubris, greed, and arrogance of those who sought to make a quick buck by throwing the dice. They lost, but want the rest of us to cover their bets so they won’t be effected in their lavish lifestyles as they figure out how to spend their tens of millions and in some cases, hundreds of millions in bonuses and compensation which was their reward for not only sinking their companies, but basically doing the same to the entire American economy.

I know what he is talking about. Excecutives making poor decisions trying to make the most that they can. I see it at my company, on a much smaller scale though. I don't come in contact with executives and decisions made aren't that risky. However, I see that attitude in my boss's boss and his boss. They do whatever they can and skimp in every way possible and take any chance just to save a buck here and there, when they really shouldn't, to make themselves look good.

More Videos

David's excema is flairing up right now. I'm thinking its a reaction to something he ate, but I'm not sure what. My little allergic baby.

This is a longer one for the Grandma's who like the videos. (about 1min 36sec)
David and the cat and his new favorite thing to do (that he usually does all the time when not distracted by the cats)

In other notes, I'm considering going to cloth diapers. For many reasons, but the main two are 1- cost savings 2- they might be better for his skin. If I do go cloth I will use the bumgenius one-size diapers. They are very pricey, however, you only need one size for newborn up to 35 pounds. If we have another kid, I could use them again. I read lots of good reviews for these diapers- including from moms with 2 kids who said they were convenient because you didn't have to fuss with 2 different sized diapers. Alhough, D will be out of diapers before baby #2 comes along. Anyhow, we haven't decided if we are going to make the investment or not. I've tried out 1 diaper (they are $17 a piece) and liked it a lot. So, we'll see

Warning- Girl Stuff

If you are a guys, stop here. For your own good.

Ok, so I use this blog to type about what is on my mind. Although probably no one wants to hear about this, I've been spending a LOT of time thinking about it, so I'm going to type it anyway. I haven't gotten my period in over 2 months. I'm not pregnant. I take Birth Control- Progesterine only pills- every day. I'm very precise at taking them every day at the same time and never miss a pill. I've talked to my doctor, and they said that on the progesterone only pill (I can't take the combo estrogen/progesterin pill because it gives me migraines) it is very common to skip periods entirely. He also said, actually its a she, that the reason I haven't been getting could be do to the fact that I've recently lost weight and have added some stress to my life (my class on top of managing a home and doing a full-time job). She said to stop losing weight and it would come back. Well, done. And, no period.

I just tend to think something isn't right. I mean, why would I stop getting a period, why now? I've taken this pill for nearly a year now and never before had this problem. Also, I've had other stressors in life in the past and those never stopped my cycle. In fact, I got it back 4 weeks after having David while exclusively breastfeeding. I always get a period. I continually take pregnancy tests and they come back negative. Well, Tuesday I had these extremely sharp pains in my abdomen that were very intense, but then they went away. I though 'yeah, it's coming!', but still nothing. I made another doctor's appointment for next Wednesday because I just think something is not right. Maybe I'm just overreacting! We'll see.

David likes...

...to feed himself with a spoon. He learned this skill at school, and he is actually, surprisingly, pretty good at it- if you don't mind a huge mess.
...to copy daddy. This was so funny, I should have taken a video. David was swinging the brush around in his mouth just like Zach. He looks up to his dad.

... to play phone. Warning: this is a long video (54 seconds), but most of the 'chattering' is at the end.

Ants in the Crib

Earlier this week we noticed a few ants in David's crib. I washed the sheet and put another one on. Well, we still found some ants. We proceeded to wash the sheet, mattress pad, bumper, dust ruffle, quilt, and everything else associated with the crib. We then moved all of the furniture our of the room and vaccumed the whole room- including the mattress. This was 2 days ago. Today when I got home from work I looked in his crib and there were, literally, about 50 ants in his crib. I've scheduled an exterminator. $124. Wow, home ownership is expensive! (and $124 is a discount because we already get termite service through the same company). I just hope the ants go away!! Anyone have any suggestions? Also, David never brings any type of drink or food in his bed. Or even in his room for that matter. The carpet, I'm sure, does have remnants of many throw ups and spit ups.

Say a quick pray for Zach

Zach has out-patient surgery today on his back to remove a pre-cancerous mole. Please say a quick prayer that the dermatologist removes all the abnormal tissue! It's a fairly straight-forward procedure, however, I don't have much faith in our dermatologist. She said all of Z's moles were normal and didn't think they should be tested. We ended up getting 4 tested- 1 was normal, 2 were abnormal in a range where they didn't have to be removed, and 1 was in the range where it definitly needs removing. All kind of scary.

Induced Labors

Ok, so I like to read stuff online. I have been reading a lot of induced labor bashing lately. Particularily by lactation consultants and 'all natural' birthing people. So, here is my dish in response.

I had an induced labor- 6 days earlier than my due date and it was WONDERFUL. I BEGGED my doctor to induce me. She ended up agreeing to induce me on my due date if I hadn't gone into labor, but than I complications (baby heart rate decreasing as i had Braxton Hiks contractions) and I had the opportunity to be induced and I jumped on it. Mainly because, I didn't want to be pregnant and I didn't want to work anymore. I was so miserable and especially miserable at work. Sometimes there are other factors built into wanting to go into labor. A lot of companies now, including mine, make you work right up until delivery. Also, my labor went so quickly (2.5 hours) had I not been induced, I think Zach might have missed the whole thing.

That being said, I'm not a basher of natural labor. In fact, mine was, not by choice, more 'natural' than I would have liked. I think labor is different for everyone and there is nothing wrong with induction. For that matter, there is nothing wrong with ceasarians, though I agree not ideall. If you think about it, if we women today all had natual labors like they did back in the day many many more babies would die and mothers too. Modern medicine is a good thing! There's my 2 cents.

David Updates

David is officially no longer crawling. He has made that transition to using walking as his primary mode of locomation. He can even stand up on his own without grabbing onto everything. One of his favorite things to do at home is to just walk in circles. He often disappears and we have to go chasing after him.

David still does not listen to the word 'no'. He doesn't really respond. We are going to have to work on that.

David loves music. He has a play table that plays music and he will make the music play and then make squats to the rythm. (bouncing up and down while smiling and shreeking). He does this with any toy that plays music. If he gets really excited he will bounce up and down, smile, shreek, and stomp his legs with glee. Now that is fun to watch!

I don't know if I ever posted about this, but we are making weekly visits to the speech pathologist to assist in David's eating. (since he was losing weight). She says he has two things going on: 1- He simply doesn't like certain textures (that's why he spits out so many foods) 2- He has weak mouth muscles (she could tell by how he drank- when he pulls the cup away from his mouth instead of closing his mouth he leaves it open and milk spills out- I just thought this was normal). In fact, when they were evaluating him she asked me 'by any chance did he take a long time to nurse?' YES! He took forever! 1 hour- 30 minutes on each side- every time. 1 hour eating- 2 hours break- 24 hours a day. This was because he didn't have powerful enough suckling muscles. There are excersices that you can do for this. Ones that I could have done and didn't even know it. I was convinced that with baby #2 I would not breastfeed, but in light of this new information I think I might try breast feeding again. Maybe the next baby will be more efficient at sucking. Anyhow, we are now doing these mouth excersizes with David and grinding his food in a baby food mill. He has already improved leaps and bounds with his feeding.

Dave Ramsey Followers

I have read two bloggers post about Dave Ramsey just today, so I am going to hop on the band wagon and post about our experience. For those of you who don't know, Dave Ramsey is a financial guru. He has lots of followers (that sounds like a cult- but its not). All of his followers have something in common- debt. Dave is all about being responsible with your money and wiping out debt a step at a time. I first heard of him years back from a book my dad gave me. He gives this step by step process of what you should do with your money. For example, 1- save $1000 emergency fund 2- pay down credit cards 3-pay down car loans, student loans, other loans 3- not sure what is next- haven't gotten there. It's taught that your biggest tool in paying down debt and eventually investing is your income and how you use it(of course). Debt is paid down in a process called the 'debt snowball'. For example, you pay all the minimums on your debts except for 1 debt you pay all you can toward that in a month. When that debt goes away you take what you were paying for that and apply it to the next debt (plus the minimum on that debt). Anyhow, what makes this all work is BUDGETING.

Ok, so we have come up with our family 'budget'. What I have trouble with is tracking spending within the budget. Maybe I am trying to go into to much detail here (I have budgets for detailed categories such as 'paper products' referring to toilet paper and paper towells). What do you other DR people do to track your budget? Do you collect receipts? Do you use programs- pearbudget.com, quicken, etc?? And, I have an admission. I haven't been so good with couponing and lowering our grocery budget. I've been doing WW and cooking WW recipes, and people let me tell you- those are not budget friendly! I seriously need to do a better job at saving money in the food store. Anyone have any CHEAP yet HEALTHY meals? Why are healthy meals always more money?

I'm going to tell you people out there reading our blog our goals. Short term- lower the grocery budget Longer term- Pay down $15,000 in car debt by May 2009, Pay down $19,000 in student loan debt by April 2010. These are VERY lofty goals on our part, but you have to set your standards high. Thankfully, we have only have car debt for one car. Our plan is though, once we get rid of the 15k of car debt we will put some of that money that we were paying towards that to save for a new car (Z's car is a 2000, so at some point it will need a replacement). Of course, all of this is only possible with me still working. So, right now I am sucking it up, toughing it out, and working to improve our financial future by getting rid of debt.

Where were you?

I think 9/11 is one of those days we will all remember where we were and what we were doing. I was a freshman at Georgia Tech. I was in the dining hall on east campus- Brittian- with some fellow Phi Mu's chowing down on some so-so food when we heard a guy on a cell phone freaking out. We didn't know what it was. Afterwards, we went to one of our dorms (not mine but I can't remember who) and we watched the TV- we watched with shock and appall at what was going on. I called my dad. I knew he was traveling that day. In fact, he was in a plane when I called him that had been grounded and he didn't even know why. Surprisingly, after all this I went to class. Yes, GT was still holding class. Later I found out most campuses shut down- but not GT- they are all about their academics. After class I came back and somehow word had gotten out that it would be best to leave the city. (at this point I think GT had stopped classes) So, me and some of my friends packed up some stuff, and since I didn't have a car on campus as a freshman, one of my other friends who did drove us up to Gwinnett (I can't remember who drove- was it my roomate? a sorority sister?). Some of the details are vague, but I can remember what I was wearing.

Seasons in Warner Robins

After living in WR for over a year now, I have come to realize that we do have four seasons and they are: summer-summer-summer-winter. There is no fall and no spring. So sad. You know that time when you don't need AC or heat? We don't have that. Surprisingly, it is substantially hotter here than in ATL. We'll probably go to the pool this weekend in 100 degree heat and lather on sunscreen in the middle of September.

We have a big night Friday! Zach and I are going on a date! Yes, an actually date! My lab partner for my class also babysits. Unfortunately she doesn't have a car and lives in Macon- about a 40 minute jog from our house, so we are going to drop David off at her apartment and then go out to dinner in Macon. She charges a pretty penny- $10/ hour- which is the going rate (I used to get that years ago babysitting in college). It's funny when I was the sitter it didn't seem like much but now that I'm paying it seems like a lot. I figure the night out will cost us upwards of $50 bucks. Which, definitly doesn't fit into our tight budget. So, we are going to take it out of our debt snowball (the money we pay to debt every month- you fellow Dave Ramsey followers know exactly what I'm talking about!). So, shame on us but we're doing it anyway. Another post about Dave Ramsey to come- I need some advice.

Pictures of the Weekend

GT game at a restaurant and David's 1st haircut (only the back was long enough to cut).

David has a new favorite word- 'more'. It sounds more like 'moe' with sort of an 'r' sound at the end. He picked it up the other weekend and now uses it not only for its real meaning, but also for whenever he wants anything. He goes around pointing at things that he wants (and can't have) and says 'moer'. He also says it when he wants more drink (like when his cup is empty), so that helps.

Quick update on David

Yesterday after the throw up episodes and doctor we only fed David pedialite and crackers all day- and there wasn't any more throwing up. Zach considered taking a vacation day today because I just couldn't stomach sending a sick kid like that to day care, but David seemed fine today. We gave him his morning milk and he didn't throw it up. So far, we haven't gotten any calls from the day care. I'm beginning to wonder if it wasn't a stomach virus and was an allergy. I hope we didn't accidentally feed him any egg (that's what happens when he gets egg, violent throw ups all day long). Maybe he's allergic to something else, but I don't remember giving him any new food. Hmm.. I'm just glad he is doing better!

Weekend Re-cap

We had a good weekend. Zach and I have realized that life is just so much easier when we stay home on the weekends. Because I am not a homemaker by profession, we use weekend time to do 'homemaking' tasks. For example, Saturday is cleaning day and laundry day. Sunday is whatever laundry didn't get done plus grocery shopping day. So, when we are home on the weekend the weekdays run so much smoother because these tasks have been taken care of.

This weekend we went to watch a Tech game at a restaurant in Macon and we gave David his first hair cut. I'll post pics when I go to work tomorrow. (I can only upload them to my work computer). The weekend ended not so well. David has just recovered from his ear infection (ended the antibiotics Friday), and this morning he puked up all of his milk. We didn't think much of it (because he used to have reflux) and took him to nursery at church. They pulled us out of the church service because David had puked up all of breakfast (chunks of peaches, juice, and more milk). Not to mention, he was fussy and not himself. We swung by the doctor on the way home, I love our doctors office after hours- you don't even need an appointment!, and they said he has a stomach bug. Poor little guy. He is sleeping right now. I hope it goes away very quickly and he gets back to normal. We are going to send him to day care tomorrow because Z is almost out of sick hours, and although I have plenty, I can't take any or mine right now (that's a long story). I'm hoping he doesn't throw up there because then he'll get sent home and I'm not sure what we will do. We are those terrible parents that send the baby to day care sick, oh well, you do what you've got to do.

10 Minute Meals

I'm starting a series on 10-minute meals (including prep and cook time). If you are like us, you are rolling in around 6 pm and you want to eat now and don't have time to cook. Or, you just don't feel like cooking. Well, here is the meal we did last night. Not the greatest, but, less than 10 minutes and cheaper than eating out.

1 box stoufers stuffing- cook on stove
1 bag steam corn- steam corn and mix in stuffing
1 can black beans- eat microaved black beans on the side for protein

Easy!

In Atlanta on a Tuesday night

Here I am in Atlanta on a Tuesday night almost 12 am on the computer studying. My friend from college, Amy, graciously lets me stay at her condo when need be. Today I had to be in the ATL and tomorrow I have a meeting in Mcdonough at 9 am, so it was pointless to go back to WR. I have a quiz tomorrow after work. I'm kind of regretting taking a class. The reason I am taking the class is to eventually have a job more condusive to spending more time with David. So the goal is to spend more time with David, however, by taking this class I am spending less time with him! It seems counterproductive. But, I guess I'm trying to see it as pay now so I can reap the benefits later. I need to go to bed now.

New Allergy- Amoxicillin

Add another one to the allergy list, this time its a medicine- not food, Amoxillin. He was prescribed this for the ear infection, and immediately started getting red, raised bumps, within 1-2 days they turned into pus filled mesquito bite looking things. The doctor said they are hives, and so on Sunday they called in and switched his presciption to arithromyacin.