I Come Bringing News!

I am finally back!!  It has been a month since I’ve had internet and I can honestly tell you I hardly knew what to do with myself.  I have lived with internet almost all of my life and it has, over the years, become a primary source of infotainment for me.  Don’t know the phone number to that store?  Need directions?  Wonder what will the weather be like on Tuesday?  What’s happening with the Jellybean in this stage of development?   Ask the internet.  Need to write Aunt Debbie?  Send Dad a picture?  You can do it online!   Practically everything can be looked up or done online-so that’s how I do it.  You can see how being without internet is somwhat of a tragedy for me.  It’s okay though-our internet is now up and running!!

Now that I’m back, I come bringing news.  As you may have read in one of the latest blogs we had our first doctor’s appointment, and we scheduled our first ultrasound.  We did our first ultrasound in July [picture below].  Jellybean looked so cute [to us] but the baby’s size made them change my due date to March 7th, 2008-making me 11 weeks today rather than almost 13.  Oh well, we can roll with it.  We are very excited about our appointment at the end of this month where we will probably get to hear Jellybean’s heartbeat for the first time and about our appointment on October 5th, when we will get to find out if we are having a boy or a girl.  [We're both keeping our fingers crossed for another boy!]

Morning sickness got a lot worse for a minute there but now it’s starting to get a little better-if still unpredictable.  I’m hoping to be completely rid of it soon~we’ll see how that goes~because other pregnancy symptoms are starting to kick in and I’d prefer to do them one at a time or as close to that as possible.  My most lovable pregnancy issue at the moment is severe exhaustion accompanied by insomnia.  It’s almost as wonderful as the morning sickness I have yet to get rid of completely.  At least I have the opportunity to judge them side-by-side.

Besides being generally hormonal and uncomfortable, we really are genuinely excited about our new baby and are all doing well here.  I will try to be back around for To Do About Tuesday later on this week.  Until then, enjoy the baby picture!

I Must Let You Know

We are switching our internet provider. We have had nothing but problems with the phone/internet service with this company and we are finally changing. The phone won’t be a problem-we’ll be switched in a matter of days.

I have to warn you about the internet though because I may be gone a while again and I want you to know there IS a reason. The old company said it will take 2-3 days to turn off the internet. The new company said it would take 5-14 days to put in the new internet. So the gap could be as little as 2 days or as much as 12….sorry I can’t be more specific!

I’ll let you know when I’m back around!

Strategy for Dressing a New Baby *Frugal Friday*

The most frugal way to dress a new baby is, of course, making them wear hand-me-downs that are still in good repair.  It is not that I wouldn’t do that-because I would-it’s just that we don’t have any.  Aside from my son’s special clothes that I wouldn’t let any other baby wear out [his coming home outfit, etc] we have already gotten rid of ALL of his baby clothes.

So what do you do when you are facing a new baby with no clothes? 

There’s good news about baby clothes-parents, siblings, other assorted family memebers, and friends often LOVE buying baby clothes.  It’s right up there with toys as a favorite for people to gift you with-possibly because they know you need it?  This will save you some money right off the bat, even one outfit given as a gift is one less you have to buy!

The other good news is that you are pregnant for 9 months.  At some time in those 9 months there will most likely be a holiday/pre-holiday/post-holiday/post-season sale of some kind somewhere.  This will save you a lot of money buying for future seasons.  Just remember-buy them for the size that they will be by the time that season rolls around next.  [I know you probably already know this, but it's worth mentioning just in case!]

My final frugal tip really helped a lot when we were pregnant with our son.  Once a month [or once a payday, depending on your budget] go to the store and buy the basics: diapers, wipes, and a basic clothing item [socks, onesies, sleepers, etc].  You can usually get that for around $20-$30 depending on where you shop, but it will work wonders when your baby is born.  By the time my son was born we realized how fabulous this idea [which I did not come up with, but loved using] was.  We didn’t have to buy diapers for my son until he was almost 8 months old, and it saved us so much laundry by having a mountain of onesies!  Also that way we could throw away the ones that were just destroyed without guilt or inconvinience. [You know the ones!]

Keeping these tips in mind you should be able to clothe that new baby without emptying your pockets-the best of both worlds.

For more frugal tips visit Biblical Womanhood.

Life on the Sun

Do you know what it’s like to live on the surface of the sun?  I think I might!  It has been in the 90s all week here, and by Friday we are expecting a high of 103+.  I have had to once again cancel my first doctors appointment in order to prevent passing out before I even get to the office.  I am so glad I didn’t disrupt my MIL’s plans for Friday by having them watch our son, only to later cancel because I am a big fat wuss who will not venture outside for even a moment in 103* heat!  Even today, when it was a mere 90-something, I refused to go outside.  I huddled in my house next to the air conditioning and thanked God once again that we have one.

I love the fact that my home is climate controlled!  This is mostly because I HATE WEATHER, I hate seasons, and I hate the outdoors in general.  I don’t “do” outside and I never have.  Even as a kid I used to sit on the porch and cry if/when my parents tried to force me to go out and play. 

My main complaints about the outdoors are that I may become too hot or too cold, there may be wind which forces me to eat my my own hair and/or bugs [ew], that the outdoors tends to be the kind of dirty that gets in your skin and won’t go away, and that I really dislike the idea of encountering non-domesticated animals such as bears, cougars, and wild boars.  I also do not enjoy places that do not have creature comforts such as phones, bathtubs with hot water, beds [complete with pillows, sheets, and blankets],  electricity, and-most importantly-CLIMATE CONTROL.  I perfer to enjoy the 67* and partly cloudy whether in the middle of a parking lot with no mounds of dirt or wild animals in sight. 

If I had to live before climate control and indoor plumbing/electricity I don’t think I would have survived.  Especially not in weather like this.  I am however greatful not only for air conditioning, but for the fact that I am only 7 weeks pregnant instead of 7 months pregnant.  If I were any more pregnant than I am I would have to buy my family ear plugs to block out my incessant whining. 

I am not built to live in a place that has “seasons” and “weather”.

Small Frustrations

As of late, all of my “small frustrations” are being hormonally charged and becoming ”things I cry about“.  Obviously, cry in more of the loose definition-I might not actually physically cry [though I have-and probably will continue to throughout my pregnancy for no particular reason at all] but I will perpetually whine about it until my husband looks at me and says “honey, are you okay?  what are you really upset about?”  At which point I really DO cry because nothing is really wrong per se-besides the fact that I am becoming insane because of these hormones and I feel bad for making him worry over nothing.  Bad enough to cry.  Good thing my husband really really really loves me.  A lot. 

I am annoying myself with my crazy hormones.  It’s very difficult to annoy yourself.  It’s like tickling yourself-you have to actually put in some effort to get any results.  But I have leaped over the bar and gone straight to making myself annoyed with myself.  Good going me-I can only imagine how everyone else in my family feels.

I can see me through the eyes of my three year old.  He walks up to me and I say (in my most cheerful voice) “Hi pooh bear! Come sit on mommy’s lap” and he does [because he is a very innocent bystander, completely unware of the hormone effects of pregnancy].  Then he says “Mama?  Butter and jelly please?”

Then I burst into tears.

My three year old thinks that this is either A.) His fault or B.) A sign that his normally even-keeled mother has, infact, been bodysnatched.  Maybe both.  I’d think both if I were looking at myself objectively.  He doesn’t know that I started crying because when he sat in my lap all of a sudden I got very VERY very VERY hot, which made me extremely nauseous, which made me think how sad it will be when my belly gets too big and pregnant to hold my oldest baby on my lap, which made me think how tragic it will be if my son thinks I don’t love him anymore because I can’t have him in my lap all the time-especially when the Jellybean will be there instead.  I don’t want him to think that I don’t love him anymore!

Hence the crying.  Well, it doesn’t really make any sense to adults either-let alone a three year old! It’s official-I am crazy!

I guess that’s why my blog is bothering me.  I really REALLY want to get a new style sheet, but they want me to pay $15 per year to do it and I am the cheapest. person. ever. when it comes to things like that.  But all of the backgrounds they have as defaults are horrible!  See?  Whine whine whine.

Hormones.

“Morning” Sickness! *WFMW*

There is a wonderful feeling you get knowing that you’re pregnant.  You get to think about what’s going on in there…you know, in there where you’re growing a baby!  It’s all very exciting.

This week I am in Week Seven.

and so much is already happening.  Our baby already has little fingers and toes, and their eyes are already getting a little color in them-they’re even starting to grow their baby teeth under their gums, with which to bite me later-got to love breastfeeding!  When you see a model/cartoon of what they look like when they’re at this part of baby life you think HOW CUTE! [Knowing that your child does NOT look like that crazy alien looking picture, but in fact a very tiny raspberry-sized non-alien baby.] 

While you may not have gained that much weight [unless you're me, in which case you are a HOUSE already] you probably already feel pregnant.  There’s a very special wonderful pregnant feeling….

That feeling is NOT peeing all the time.  You will do that, but that’s not a part of your special pregnant feeling that’s just the side effects of gestating a human.  The reason you [I] pee so much is actually because of dramatically increasing blood volume, used to help support your baby and you at the same time, which causes a lot of extra fluid to be processed through your kidneys and then end up in your bladder.  Lucky for us as the blood volume [and so...um..."fluid"] increases, so do our babies!  That means about 30 weeks from now I won’t be able to laugh without worrying that I will pee my pants.  Just part of that wonderful mommy feeling.

The big-bad this week [and often for a long time afterward] is “morning” sickness.  Whoever came up with the title for this plague had either never had a baby or was trying to be ironic.  I don’t appreciate this title, because many people believe it.  My own sister [who is 20 years old by the way] was confused when I told her I had morning sickness.  She thought for a second and then said “But it’s nighttime!”  Oh I am very aware.  I vote we change it’s name from “morning sickness” to “all-day plague”.  This is DEFINATELY not apart of the special-wonderful feeling of being pregnant.  It’s hard to feel special, wonderful, or anything else but extreme exhaustion and frustration when you find youself with your head in the toilet thinking about how you would have cleaned it SO much better if you had known your face was going to be there.  This is not the glowing part of pregnancy [unless you count sweat as a "glow", then boy are you!]

So how do you combat the feeling that you’re suddenly residing on a fishing boat in perpetual gale-force winds?  There are a lot of theories, most of them just based on personal experiences because the medical community has very little comfort to offer the green mommy to be.   Here are the nausea remedies that have worked for me:

*Never let your stomach get completely empty or overly full.   When your stomach is too empty you get that acid-like taste in your mouth which only makes you more sick and leads to eventual vomit.  However, if your stomach is super full you end up all bloated and feeling like your food is crawling back up your neck….and leads to eventual vomit.  The strategy here is to keep your stomach appeased without making it burst.

*Ginger (the real thing, not artificial).  Drink ginger ale or ginger tea, try ginger snaps or ginger root capsules.  I perfer ginger ale because the bubbles also help to settle my stomach.  However, bubbles only make things worse for some women.  Hopefully you know which you are.  If you are the non-bubble type, try the snaps.  They say they are cookies on the box-try to believe that if you can. They might be 2% cookie, but they are 98% cardboard.   Appearantly cardboard is good for morning sickness.

*Lemons. lemonade or sucking on raw lemons or even just something sour.  Many people will swear by this.  I perfer something slightly less sour, so I ate lemon heads.  Those seem to have worked nicely [so far].

*Seabands. These are a form of acupressure that are designed to battle sea sickness.  They gave me a small break away from “morning” sickness during my 1st pregnancy-which was a miracle because NOTHING could stop it back then.

*Mint gum.  Mint gum [and other minty products] help get that nasty vomit taste out of your mouth.  This will make sure that your husband is still willing to kiss you, AND help with all that yuckiness.  I like both results.

For more Works For Me Wednesday Tips visit Rocks In My Dryer.

All Things Jellybean

You may notice that the name Jellybean is floating around the blog alot lately. That is because we are PREGNANT with our second little one! I’ve decided to put all of vital Jellybean related information on one post, that way it is all handily accessable-I will keep it updated all the time with all the late breaking news. Unless something terribly exciting happens which is worthy of it’s own post-then I’ll do BOTH!

Our due date is February 25, 2008. We are now in our 7th Week!

We don’t know yet if we’re having a boy or a girl-we will find out late September to mid-October. Hence, we are calling the baby Jellybean =)

Our First Appointment is July 13th.

What’s In A Name? *To Do About Tuesday*

When you first hear that you are pregnant what’s the first thing you think?  Okay, so maybe not the first thing you think, but probably the most fun thought-what are we going to name the baby?!

I think it is quite possible the most purely entertaining part of having children [at least so far with my 3 year old].  You get to name a person whatever you’d like.  All those names that you wish you could have been named come out of the drawer and tried on your little one-and it is SO MUCH FUN! 

Everyone has their own method for coming up with names, and their own way of finding names that both they and their husband can live with.  My husband and I compromised-he chose the first name for a boy and I chose the middle and then vice versa with a girl [since we're only 7 weeks and we don't know which we're having yet].  Of course, we gave eachother the right to veto names we couldn’t stand or considered borderline child abuse [leading to the shoot-down of both Winnifred and Lane-sad].  You also have to consider what horrible nicknames could be associated with the name you pick.  We steer away from things that obviously rhyme with unpleasant things, or that sound extremely odd….that could only end mercilessly in the hand of first graders.

But when you think about names that you DO like, what kind of criteria do you set?  My husband just kind of likes “the ones [he] likes because they sound good” and I suspect there are a lot of people that are like that.  However, being uber-neurotic about all things baby-I have a system.  I like to pick names with meaning.  They can either have a beautiful meaning in and of themselves [our 3 year olds name means "fire of God from deep waters of the island"] or they can have meaning because they are family names which may not always have great meanings of themselves, but have personal meaning because of the person/people who bear that name. [Our 3 year old's middle name is the same as my husband's middle and his dad's first].

There are so many factors that go into deciding your children’s names-how did you decide yours?

Fair Weather Blogger Gets Exciting

I’ll admit it.  I was on a great roll with my blog there for a minute and then it just….kind…of…sputtered….out.  I have the deepest respect for those who can blog on a regular basis, especially those who can blog every single day.  I am a blogger of convenience at best-let’s not think of what that makes me at worst.

There have been a lot of significant life changes in the last couple of months that, while only partially to blame for my slacking, have been interesting and fun.  I’ll go in chronological order. 

Since I last blogged my husband left his travel job, but not for the reasons you’d think.  It turns out they have a problem paying him on time-or at all.  I think it’s rude-to say the least-that a bajillion dollar business can’t manage to pay people and on a regular schedule.  You’d think they’d have people for that.  While we couldn’t afford for my husband to work for free, we also couldn’t afford to have no income [I'm sure you understand how that goes] so I went back to work for a while.  I got a job that I was very happy with-that had nice pay and nice [eventual] benefits.  Unfortunately for me, my boss didn’t like young people very much and so after she told me everyday for two weeks how I “didn’t know any better because [I am] too young” and how people “my age” should not be married or have children because I will “end up divorced and unhappy in two years anyway” she eventually fired me for interestingly vague reasons.  I don’t miss that job-but we did kind of miss the money.  Alot.  Thankfully, my wonderful husband was able to get a new job at [Grocery Store] right under the manager because of his past experience, so things are going great now and he’s making MORE than he was when he was running the bakery in [Other Grocery Store].  We have a lot of confidence in [Grocery Store] because between three members of my family they have almost 40 years of experience in that company and my step mom works in the corporate office.  If they weren’t a good company I’m sure they all would have quit a long time ago.

Now to the exciting part.  We are especially excited because we just found out a week ago we are pregnant with our second baby!  We really like the timing/spacing of this baby because our Monkey will be about two weeks away from his FOURTH birthday by the time this little one is born.  We were very NOT interested in having babies close together, and we think a four year gap is just perfect!  Of course, we just want a healthy baby and would love either a boy or a girl.  However our not-so-secret personal preferance would be for another boy, unlike practically everyone in my family who has mentioned at least a dozen times in a very short time span how much they would LOVE to have a little girl in the family.  My dad just wants to make a life-size doll/play house….which we don’t have room for.  Yet another reason to have a boy! Ha ha ha.

Our estimated due date is February 25, 2008 [I'll be 7 weeks this Monday].  We’re so happy and excited! Of course, we’ve already picked out the hosepital and ob/gyn, made a birth plan, created a list of and budget for baby items, created a hospital “emergancy plan”, and picked out names.  You have not seen obsessive compulsive until you see me pregnant-you’re looking at the woman who compiled a hand written inventory of every onesie, sleeper, and sock according to color, size, and outfits and then took five carefully planned baby bags to the hospital to have her first born!  It’s an illness-but it’s efficient!

So, I respectfully submit that while I have not been a terribly regular blogger that I am at least an interesting blogger.  And I also suggest-hopefully-that I may be on here more often now that I am not working and have something exciting to give updates about [our little Jellybean!].

I have my first prenatal appointment next Friday~I’m sure I’ll be blogging about that!  It’s a good start. =)

Ron Paul For Peace

I didn’t write a Frugal Friday for this week, but I have a very good reason.  If you want to see Frugal Friday tips from the past you can see them here.

The reason that I couldn’t write a Frugal Fridays post is because I have been expremely preoccupied with Ron Paul.  It is hard for me to write about anything or anyone else lately.  For those of you who did not happen to see my last post on Ron Paul he is a Congressman from Texas, and is currently running for the GOP presidential nomination.  He is running on a traditional Constitutional platform, believing in small government and large freedoms, and is the only presidential candidate on either side of the isle who will unequivically bring our troops home within his first month or so in office.  No deadlines, no expensive and long process, just bring them home.  For more on Ron Paul’s policies, visit his website here

.The reason that I have been thinking of him lately is because of the recent debate hosted on Fox News. In that debate, Ron Paul said that the federal government’s foriegn policies are partly to blame for 9-11, something the CIA and reports on Iraq have all recognized and labeled as “blowback”.  Of course, Rudy Guiliani got “flustered” [to say the least] and said that was the “most absurd” explaination for 9-11 that he had ever heard [presumably not having read CIA and other investigative reports of 9-11 and the "War on Terror"] and also saying that Dr.Paul blamed 9-11 on the American people, not the American Federal government’s policies as Ron Paul stated.  Of course, slanderers on all sides have been trying to shoot holes in the Ron Paul campaign by saying that he blamed 9-11 on the American people-a blatantly false interpretation of what was said-and yet, despite what others are saying/implying about Ron Paul his approval rating continues to soar over the competition, leading in some polls by double-digit margins over the next competitor, and having more YouTube subscribers than any other candidate Republican or Democrat.  His support can truely be recognized in the fact that directly after the debate involving the “showdown” between Guiliani and Ron Paul Congressman Paul recieved a flood of campaign donations, proving that there truely are people out there listening and loving what he says [besides my husband and I!].

However, I was still concerned that he would not be able to get in a main stream media rebuttal to the slander that was being laid against him.  [It's no secret that Ron Paul has been "having trouble" getting air time.]  I was very worried-until yesterday.  Yesterday Ron Paul went on Bill Maher, and it gave him the opportunity.  I was concerned, Maher is notoriously liberal, but I was still hoping for the best.

What I got was better than the best.  Not only did Bill Maher blatantly endorse Ron Paul [Calling him "his hero, and saying that if more Americans were smarter they would be voting for Ron Paul], but he criticized Guiliani’s blantant ignorance of the facts regarding what lead up to 9-11.  Ron Paul came out shining and was not only able to set the record straight, but was met with wild applause from the largely liberal Maher crowd-who even chanted “Vote Ron Paul” as he exited the stage.

I have to tell you honestly-it brought tears to my eyes to see that much support for such a great and honorable man.  It was not only nice to see that he had proved his point, but that he was being supported for it.  It is not often that Americans get behind someone that I can align with ideologically, but to know that Ron Paul has that much support is truely awesome.

Don’t forget: If you support Ron Paul, register Republican and vote for him in the primaries!! To see footage from Ron Paul on Bill Maher [broadcast last night] you can go to YouTube, where you can also visit Ron Paul’s channel which now has more than 9,000 subscribers!