Miscellaneous Updates

So this is like a hodgepodge post since it’s been almost a week since I last posted. I didn’t get any of the jobs that I interviewed for, but I do have applications in right now with Alvord and also with Colton School district. In the meantime, I’m going to be doing a long term sub position in Kindergarten at Adams. It should be very eventful with me having to do report cards and parent conferences within the first month of being there. It will last until at least Christmas break, though many of the teachers there have said the lady I will be subbing for has no plans to return. So, it could turn into a full time position for me–however, they may keep the job secured for her until the end of the school year which means I would have to do the whole year on sub pay. Or it could open up earlier and I would be first pick for it unless there are some district teachers who are already on contract that don’t have positions. In that case, it would go to them which would suck. Either way, I’ll get good experience and I may get a letter of recommendation from a principal which would make my resume look way better.

This is baby shower season. I have been to three baby showers this summer; Between these 3 showers, a donation, and my soon-to-be new niece, I’ve finally gotten down to getting rid of most of my surplus stuff. I’m glad I was able to do that because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to give it back because of no reciepts and Target’s stupid return policy. JJ was given a Bumbo chair yesterday and he loves hanging out in it.

Bible study has also started back up again. It’s a good thing because John and I needed to get back to fellowshipping. We’re meeting in a new place this year, but not much else has changed. The food is still great, the company is wonderful and everyone loves the baby.

Exersaucer and Jumperoo Pictures

He loves them!

Well it’s been two days now since we’ve got the jumperoo and exersaucer and he loves them! He jumps all around in the jumperoo. He can sit there for an hour or so and just bouce up and down. He’s not so interested in the toys that are part of the jumperoo. When he gets tired, he just hangs there looking cute as can be. Sometimes his arm falls down the leg hole, but he’s been doing better keeping them both up and out of the sitting area. He likes to chew on the cushion. Good thing I washed it! He also likes his exersaucer, but not nearly as much. He can move the seat in a complete circle to play with all the toys, but he doesn’t play much with the toys on it yet. Guess he’ll start to like it more when he can manipulate the toys a little better. He’s growing up so fast. We have his 4 month check up in 1 week. I know he’s close to 14 lbs. I’ll post some pictures of him enjoying them when I get them uploaded.

What a deal!

So I’ve been wanting to get JJ an exersaucer ever since we went to Alicia’s house and he got to play in Mateo’s. He loved it! However, it cost between $50 at the low end and $100 at the high end. Right now, that is definitely not in our budget. I’ve been looking on Craigslist and have seen them for $15 to $20 which is a really good deal but I never got around to emailing someone about them. Today we were driving and we passed this yard sale, and what do they have? An Exersaucer. I was prepared to pay up to $20 for it (I actually had cash on me, which is pretty rare.) I asked the guy how much he was asking and he said, $7. Wow! $7 and it was in pretty good condition. It was clean, but I do think it was missing one or two of the toys, but it had most of them which makes it a great deal!

Then as we were taking it to my dad’s (because we were going grocery shopping and had no room for it in the car), we passed by a yard sale and they had a jumperoo. It was in good condition too and the lady said her daughter only used it for about a month before she got tired of it. She sold it to us for $5. These normally run between $50 and $100 as well. Lucky us! I can’t wait to set them up for JJ. I feel so bad keeping him on his tummy or his back all day. Now he can sit up and play and I can get things done while he’s awake. Yay for me!

Another Baby Shower and Other Random Thoughts

Wow, this is baby season. I’ve had 6 friends have babies already this year and I have two more friends who are expecting in September. The funny thing is that all of them, including myself, have had boys. I wonder what that means.

On a completely other unrelated note, going out to my friend’s house yesterday made me realize that I need to get some stuff for the baby that allows him to not be on his back all day. He loved the Exersaucer, which from what I hear is about $60-$80 in the store. I think I’ll look for one on Craigslist or at a yard sale. He also loved sitting in the Bumbo chair; however, I don’t think I could justify paying $40 for a piece of hard styrofoam even though he liked it. I think the exersaucer is a much better investment as there are so many things on it for him to play with, listen to, and look at. I think we’ll be getting a jumper from one of our friends, so I’m looking forward to having him play in it.

I can’t believe how fast this summer is coming to a close. I’ve been at home with the baby for 3 1/2 months and I’ll be going back to work in about 3 weeks or so. I can’t believe how fast it is approaching. He’ll have to be with a babysitter and I’m sure I’ll be a paranoid mom with all these instructions. Well, it’s time to watch the Olympics. More coming later.

Making my own baby food

So my little guy is 11 weeks old today. He’s still over three months away from eating solids, but I’ve been doing lots of research on making my own baby food. There’s a lot of reasons to do it. Number one, it’s cheaper. Pureeing a piece of fruit or some vegetables can make 10 or 12 meals for baby. That’s less than 10 cents or so per meal. Compare that to the 69 cents or so each jar of baby food costs. Number two, it doesn’t take up much time. It takes about 10 minutes or so to make a weeks worth of meals. Number three, it’s easily stored. It can be frozen in ice cube trays and then you can take out only what you need. Number four, it’s healthier. When you make it, you know exactly what’s in it. You can never tell what sort of preservatives or additives are in each of those jars.

Now, I’m all for making his fruits and veggies. Now his meats and proteins, I’m sorry but I just don’t think that I could puree meat. Just the thought of it makes me want to gag. I’ll splurge the 69 cents a jar for those. I can’t wait for my little guy to start being able to taste other things. However, I know he’s not ready yet. That tongue reflex of his is still going strong and I don’t want to clean everything up. Ha!

Pumps, Pads, and Other Stuff Men Don’t Want to Know About

Leaking. It’s become a fact of life for me. At least I know my little guy will never go hungry because I make more than enough for him. I leak so much that sometimes I go through three breast pads a night per side because they’re so filled. And it definitely is not a positive feeling to wake up with your bra, sheet, and blanket soaked. In fact, it’s quite an icky feeling.

Pump, you say? Sure, in theory I would love to. If I had a decent enough pump. The pump I have is not very good quality. If I had done some consumer research before registering, I would not have registered for it. It worked well a few times, but for the most part it sucks (not literally, since if it did, I wouldn’t have this leakage problem.) By the way, it’s an Evenflo pump and I DO NOT recommend it, even though I had some other friends use it with great success. However, I am fortunate enough to be able to borrow a Medela pump from a friend of mine who decided not to breastfeed. I look forward to being able to store away some milk for my little guy. It will definitely come it handy when I go back to work. I want to be able to keep my little guy on exclusively mommy milk until 6 months and without a good pump, this would be almost impossible.

Diapers, Velcro, and Vaccinations

So, tomorrow is the day that all mommies dread. Tomorrow is the day that my little guy is going to get his first set of vaccinations. I feel so bad for him. I know it will be as hard for me as it is for him. When they drew his blood in the hospital for the newborn tests, he cried so much. I can’t imagine what tomorrow is going to be like.

We’ll also be seeing what this rash is that he has (I suspect heat rash) and also we’ll see why his eyes have been tearing (I’m thinking viral pinkeye or allergy eyes.) Of course, we’ll also be seeing how big our little guy has gotten. Hubby and I are suspecting he’s around 12 lbs or so.

I did diaper inventory today and realized that we have about 600 size one diapers left. That’s about 9 regular size packages and 1 pack of 152 diapers. I think we’ll be trading most of those in for size two’s as size one’s only go to 14 lbs and our little guy’s been gaining two lbs a month since birth. It won’t be long before we’re into the next size.

We bought some extra Velcro today to stick to the baby’s sleep positioner. Our doctor advised us to have him sleep on his left side so that his head does not get mishapen, but the one strip of Velcro that keeps the sides intact doesn’t work very well and JJ also rolls off the positioner. We’ll see how that works tonight. Hopefully, it’ll help him stay put.

Baby Clothes

It’s amazing how quickly babies go through clothing. My little guy was out of newborns at about one month. Just a little note: If you have Gerber onesies, they run really small. I had quite a few that were size 0-3 months and so kept them separated until my little guy outgrew the newborns. Turns out, they were darn near the same size or smaller as the newborn size onesies. He never got a chance to wear them. On the other end, Carter’s seem to run a little big so your baby will probably get more use out of them.

As far as ease of changing diapers during all those middle of the night feedings, you can’t beat baby gowns. Just lift them up and, “Voila.”: No snapping or unsnapping, buttoning or unbuttoning. When you’re tired and working on zero sleep, the easiest most uncomplicated thing should be what you do and what can be easier than just lifting something up.

Now my little guy is almost two months and I have a feeling it won’t be long before he’s in size 3-6 months. After all at 6 weeks, my baby was 11 lbs and had gained 3 lbs since his birth. They grow so fast!

Diapers–Which brand do you use?

So my husband decided somewhere around the 2nd month of my pregnancy that he was going to buy one pack of diapers each time he got paid. This continued until probably about the 7th or 8th month when I insisted that he stop because we had accumulated a closet full and I knew that I would get a bunch at my shower because there were going to be 30+ people there and we were having a diaper raffle. Sure enough, by the time the little guy got here, we had about 30 packages of diapers ranging in sizes from Newborn to size 4 with most of them being size 1. That included 3 boxes of diapers that have 104 diapers each and 2 mega packs with 88 diapers each. We got some of every brand–Luv’s, Huggies, Pampers, White Cloud, Parent’s Choice. You name it, we got it.

Anyhow, we’ve used at least one pack of each of those. Pampers are by far my favorite. They are soft, smell like baby powder, and hold in everything. We’ve never had a leak in them ever. Coming in a close second are Huggies–not as good smelling and not as soft, but pretty darn good on leakage control. Parent’s Choice is a disaster–leaked almost every time we put one on him. White Cloud is kind of rough feeling and Luv’s are okay.