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Math Geek, Word Nerd, PhD Candidate, Computer Scientist, Researcher, Baker, Animal Lover, Doting Wife, Expectant Mom, Bargain Hunter, Home Maker, Photographer, Crafter, and
May 18, 2012
Remarkable Progress
My parents visit this week has kicked my butt into high gear because I was embarrassed by the state of our house, and because they were coming explicitly to help. Extra hands make for light work.
In the past three days we:
Called a Haller. We needed to get rid of all the old, broken down furniture, including the stuff that had piled up in order to make more space for the baby. I’ve been dreading it, especially once I hit seven months pregnant and my mobility and energy were greatly reduced. Domingo and my dad were able to gather up everything that needed to go, so all I had to do was call around and find a good company and schedule a time for them to come out.
Purchased a Car Seat. I kept going back and forth on which one I wanted. I was pretty settled on a brand since Baby Bargains
Purchased a Breast Pump. Despite the Medela Pump in Style
Picked out a crib. Kind of. The crib has become more of a necisity now that I’m starting to question the safety of sleeping in the rock n’ play
So what’s left? In terms of expensive items, there’s the crib (obviously), stroller
But that’s it. We’ll need diapers, wipes and clothes. We have no diapers! We do have seven newborn onsies, but I’d like to get a couple sleepers. Everything else is optional, or not needed right away. Boy does it feel good to have some major things crossed off our list!
Posted in Family Life | Tags: Baby Gear, Planning for the Future, Pregnancy - Zippy
May 13, 2012
My First Mother’s Day
Happy Mothers day to all the moms out there – whether you’re babies be in your arms, in your bellies, or in your dreams!
We are still knee deep in an insane to-do list, but I wanted at least one good outdoor family photo. It was my only request for my first mother’s day!
Posted in Family Life | Tags: Maternity Photography, Pregnancy - Zippy, Self Portraits
May 11, 2012
Here’s To Baby’s Health
The conventional wisdom on the internet seems to be that those baby health and grooming kits are not really worth the cost. They usually only have a few items you’ll actually use and te quality of some of the items, especially in the low end cheaper kits, is suspect. Many of my friends told me they replaced everything in the kit in a matter of months. As for that nice organizer? The new stuff didn’t always fit! Still, I wanted to stay organized, so I decided to create my own health and grooming ‘kit’.
The basket comes from JoAnns. It was on sale, 50% off through this weekend, but I have a feeling it’s a pretty common sale. We picked up a comb and brush set
We’re still missing too things: something for Zippy’s nails and nose. I found out our hospital will give us the bulb syringe that they use to clear her nose and mouth when she’s born. If the bulb syringe doesn’t work for us, we’ll get a nasal aspirator. I also haven’t been able to find a set of baby nail clippers that I like yet. I didn’t intend for the hair brush and comb to match the thermometer, but now that I notice they match I kind of want a white and blue nail clipper! The bulb syringe the hospital uses is also a nice blue. Isn’t it nice when everything comes together?
Votive Candle Holder: $1.49
Basket: $3.99 (on sale from $7.99)
Sugar Holder: $2.97
Hair Brush and Comb Set: $4.19
Thermometer: $10.94
Total cost: $23.58
Not too shabby, given that most kits with the organizational bag start at $20 and go up from there, and we got the brands/items we were interested in.
I do wish the sugar holder was a thick acrylic plastic, rather than glass. (I’d prefer the votive candle holder to be plastic as well, but than it wouldn’t be a very good candle holder!) The baby room is carpeted, but I don’t want to run the risk of accidently dropping something and having it shatter. I’m clumsy and already dropped the sugar bowl lid once! The other potential problem that I see is the q-tips may collect lint since they’re not covered. If it becomes a problem I can switch the votive candle out for something else.
I didn’t include the cotton balls, Vaseline or q-tips in the total cost, since they’re not normally included in the health and grooming kits. We also had cotton balls and q-tips already, so the only thing that needed to be purchased was the Vaseline, and we bought a generic brand. If I include the Vaseline, our total costs come to $25.90. Still not too bad.
Posted in Family Life | Tags: Baby Gear, Staying Organized
May 8, 2012
Newborn Care Tips
We had one of our last pregnancy classes today: Newborn Care. I had previously watched a lot of video’s on youtube and been reading my baby care books, but it’s nice to practice in front of an instructor whom you can ask questions as well. She also had some good tips she shared which I hadn’t heard before.
Good Advice We Learned:
Our health care provider (and others) feels rectal temperatures are more precise for infants. I’ve read that before, but I’m still very nervous about the idea of using a rectal thermometer on a squirmy baby. I don’t want to risk hurting her! The instructor suggested using a regular thermometer for under the arm. If it appears like baby has a fever (or is close to having a fever), you can follow up with a rectal temperature for a more accurate temperature reading. That way you’re only taking it when it’s necessary.
She also suggested always assuming you’re baby has mastered more milestones than you are aware of. Just because baby has yet to roll over, doesn’t mean today won’t be the day. After all, he or she will eventually reach the milestone, and there’s a first time for everything. You wouldn’t want to learn baby can roll over when he/she falls off the changing table!
Our Current Thinking:
We’ve been thinking of employing a zone-defense strategy when zippy comes. Since Domingo doesn’t have the necessary equipment to nurse, and zippy will need to eat every 2 to 3 hours initially, I’ll have to be the one to be up with her. I jokingly told Domingo if it’s my responsibility to feed Zippy, it’s his responsibility to feed me. I’m going to do my best to ensure Domingo gets some sleep when there’s no reason for us both to be up, and he’ll take over most of the chores and errands while I’m a feeding/napping zombie.
Of course, once zippy is here, our strategy may go completely out the window. I know it’s worked for some of my friends and not others. One thing the newborn care class stressed – it’s on the job learning. Every baby is different, so we need to be flexible and adapt to whatever Zippy throws at is.
Posted in Family Life | Tags: Planning for the Future
May 6, 2012
New Game Plan
It’s time for a new game plan to get ready for zippy. Now that I’m in my 8th month of pregnancy, my energy and mobility are both greatly diminished. So the new game plan is to focus on the nursery first. We set a goal to have it finished before we get to 37 weeks/full term. I also want to have purchased all the new born essentials we need (including a car seat, we can’t leave the hospital without one!) by then as well. Everything else will move to the nice to have done list. The office is set up well enough for Domingo to work in there, but we will need to organize it a bit better. It would be great to have freezer meals done, but there’s always take out if we need it.
Yesterday we had the nursing chair delivered, which meant moving the old queen sized mattress out of the way to make room. Domingo did most of the heavy lifting, but I did help! I still like the chair, but I’m not loving it as much as last week. It’s not broken in, so to speak, so it’s a little stiffer than the one in the store. I’m sure it’ll soften up over time! I would put the odds at 3-to-1 that Domingo will find me asleep in it when he comes home from work tomorrow.
We followed that up with another trip to the store, where I used coupons to get an Avent Soothie Pacifier
While out shopping also picked out a convertible car seat
Saturday was super productive. As a result, I’m just dead on my feet today. I was only up for a couple hours, before declaring it nap time. The most productive thing I’ve done today is this blog post.
Posted in Family Life | Tags: Baby Gear, Planning for the Future
May 5, 2012
Walled Off
We’ve been thinking about baby gates lately. Yes, Zippy is still in utero, and likely won’t be mobile until 2013 in all likelihood, but there’s someone else in our household who needs to be corralled.
Both Domingo and I have close family members with cat allergies. I want to keep baby’s things relatively free of dander, just in case. Lily came first, and I’m a firm believer that every effort should be made to accommodate both baby and pets. My goal is not to forbid the cat from going into certain rooms (after all, nothing is more appealing to a cat than a place she isn’t allowed to go!) but limit her access. She can investigate, but no sleeping on the baby blankets. Luckily, the allergies in our families are mild so if we keep our house clean, and the cat fur down to a minimum, I’m not anticipating a problem. Lily has been showing less signs of stress, which should also help.
We wanted a pressure gate, rather than a hardware installed gate that would have be much more permanent. Pressure gates are held in place by applying pressure to both side walls. With the latch up, the gate is slightly smaller than the doorway opening. When the latch is pushed down and locked into place, the gate expands slightly to be bigger than the opening. Since the doorway is immutable, the gate can’t extend, creating pressure. Pressure gates can be removed and put up as many times as you want.
A few weeks ago I picked up the cheapest baby gate we could find – First Year’s brand gate at target for $10. (Why pay for more when the simple one will do?) The pressure causes the latch bar on this baby gate to bow slightly when in the process of securing or removing the gate. The latch is not the easiest to operate in general, and this added pressure/bowing it makes it even worse. The gate is fine once secured, but putting the gate up and taking it down can be a bit of a pain – which is exactly why we wanted a pressure gate in the first place! The manufactures seem to realize this, making the gate low enough that you can step over it without much hassle, even when you’re short like me.
Since the latch style seemed to be the problem, we needed to look at the next category of gates. The cheapest one in the next category up was the Munchkin Quick Install Gate
For our needs, the munchkin gate is definitely worth the price increase. Since it’s still on sale and we need at least two gates, we’ll pick up another one.
Posted in Family Life | Tags: Baby Gear, Lily Monster
May 3, 2012
Mr. (and Mrs.!) Fix-It
I consider myself pretty handy, but we’re not always the fastest when it comes to home repairs. I have a list of things I’d like to tweak around the house, but finding the time to get around to them is always hard. We had two leaks (that we know about) that we’ve been avoiding for over a year: the master bathroom sink, and the master bathroom toilet. I know what you’re thinking, that’s so bad for the environment. Actually, the leaks were both very slow. Our water bill shows our usage compared to households of similar size and we use significantly less water, leaks and all. So I never sweated it.
A few days ago I noticed the small leak in the toilet had turned into a constant flow. Not good! It was time to finally fix the problem. Trouble was we couldn’t figure out the location of the leak. Everything seemed fine. The tank filled, the water in the bowl looked undisturbed, there were no puddles. The most likely suspect was the flapper, but there were none of the typical signs of flapper leaks. No air bubbles rising up from the flapper, or water dripping down into the bowl. If I couldn’t hear the water running, I wouldn’t believe the leak existed. Since we couldn’t figure out what the problem was, we were left with no other choice but to turn shut the water off and call a plumber. Or so we thought.
That’s when my dad suggested food coloring. A couple drops in the tank and we could see where the water was flowing. It certainly looked like the dye was pooling around the flapper. That’s when I noticed the green dye wasn’t running down the sides of the bowel, but coming out the siphon jet! Yes, the toilet was leaking at the bottom of the bowl! No air was being displaced, hence no air bubbles. No water was running down the sides of the bowl, so no water displacement in the bowl. What a sneaky flapper leak.
Domingo went to the hardware store and picked up a $5 flapper. He installed it, but now we had a new problem – the chain was too long for the toilet to flush. No problem, I got out my jewelry tools and shortened about 8 links.
So there you have it, jeweler’s pliers, food coloring and a $5 flapper saved us a call to a plumber.
Posted in Family Life | Tags: Creative Solutions, Do It Yourself, Home Repairs
April 30, 2012
List Overload
I love lists. Really I do. But my Pre-Baby To Do list is giving me heart palpitations. How is it we still have this much left to do?! Despite my panic, this was actually a pretty good weekend baby wise.
I scheduled the last of our pregnancy classes and our hospital tour of Labor and Delivery unit for next week. I’ve been holding off organizing my hospital bag until the tour, since I don’t know what they provide, and what they recommend I bring for myself and for zippy. In the gold old days hospitals use to get free samples from baby manufactures that they gave out to new moms. I’ve heard stories of free Halo SleepSack
We will have to skip the birthing class, since it doesn’t fit our schedule. The class is being offered only twice more before I’m due. The first is this Friday/Saturday, with Saturday being a full seven hours! It’s so last minute, that even if I put off all the things we need to do next weekend (and we were hoping to cross of quite a bit from our to-do list), I’m not sure we can be squeezed in. The class will be offered again a few days before Zippy’s due. Even if Zippy comes late, I’m not sure I’ll be up to sitting through 9 hours of pregnancy classes at 9 months pregnant! The good news is, of the classes that we were planning to take, I was most inclined to skip this one. At the hospital we’ll be surrounded by Doctors and nurses who know what they are doing and can tell us what to do. I also don’t feel totally unprepared. There’s also a lot of information online about breathing techniques, and what to expect. Our hospital also has a labor video that I’ve already watched. The other classes, breastfeeding and new born care, will help us learn what to do when we’re on our own. The birth is also one day, where we will be carrying for a nursing a newborn a lot longer!
We purchased a rocker for the nursery. We went with a rocker/recliner from JCPenney because it was so amazingly comfortable. I could spend hours a day in that chair (and I’m sure I will once zippy comes!). It seemed superior to the comparably priced ones at BabiesRUs and BuyBuyBaby, and JCPenney included free shipping. I was also able to get 20% off by opening a new charge card, so it was a great deal. I know – opening a new line of credit isn’t completely without cost, as it comes with a credit hit – but the temporary hit is worth it.
We also got the Motorola Video Baby Monitor
Next we got a Dishwasher Basket
So now we can clean baby’s (non existent) pacifiers, have a spot to clean her bottom (we still need diapers, wipes, etc), a spot for her to sleep and the technology to watch her as she does. It’s progress!
While we haven’t bought it yet, we did make a decision regarding strollers. We settled on the City Mini Stroller
Lastly – and I’m so proud of myself for this – I sent out thank you cards. A couple close friends and family members surprised us with gifts last weekend at my sister’s wedding, including some very nice handmade blankets. I was so bad with thank you cards after our wedding (they went out almost six months after!) so this time I thought I would send them out right away. It’s much easier to write four than forty.
Posted in Family Life, Shopping | Tags: Baby Gear, Bargain Hunting, Pregnancy - Zippy
April 29, 2012
DIY Maternity Photography – Some Photo Setups
Now that we’re at thirty one weeks (7 months) along I thought I would try some more interesting DIY maternity photography. My bump is pretty pronounced at this point, and while it will get bigger, I don’t (yet) have stretch marks or a popped belly button, so I thought I would take advantage of it! Don’t worry, there’s nothing risqué.
The most important thing I’ve learned so far is to remember where you’re light source is! Light is your friend! If you think of the camera, light source and you forming a triangle, I found it works best if the angle in the corner represented by you is not obtuse. Otherwise I’m usually cast in too much shadow. My preferred light source is a window.
I also strongly maintain that this is a time to experiment with your camera. You don’t have to share the photos you don’t like, so why not snap away and get as many as possible! I’m much more of a classic bump kind of gal, but it was fun to experiment.
Head On
This is a pretty standard maternity photo for a reason. It’s also super easy! I did this in front our living room window in early morning when the sun was streaming through, illuminating the curtain. If you have a tripod, set the camera height to be at your navel. I’ve got a three quarters turn to the window (so the light is on the bump) and the camera is facing me.
One of the things that makes this shot so easy is you can easily lean over and see how the photos are turning out, and adjust the camera settings as need be. The sun kept going behind clouds, so I had to keep readjusting my exposure. I really like the overexposure in this setup.
If you don’t know how to do an over exposure, and easy way is to have your camera on ‘auto’. The camera will then select an appropriate f-stop and shutter speed. Next, switch over to manual and reduce shutter speed to have a longer exposure. You can always do several iterations of trial and error until you get the exposure you want.
I also did the overly cliché hands-in-the-shape-of-a-heart shot. You’re taking these shots for you, so who cares if you indulge in some clichés? Do whatever makes you happy!
Tips:
* If you’re going to do this with a bare belly, change out of any full or partial panel maternity pants in advance. That way you won’t get any clothing lines in your photos. I’ve found I often have to change for about a half hour first, just to be on the safe side.
* I sometimes forget I’m holding the camera remote and end up with a clenched fist. I find it works much better if I set the remote down, or hide it in my pocket during the 2 second shutter delay.
Setup
The layout for this picture. The yellow triangle shows the angle the camera sees.
Inverted Perspective
Not going to lie, this one was much harder than I expected. For this shot I’m lying on the bed and the camera is on a tripod. The problem is I’m not as spry as I was thirty weeks ago. It takes a great deal of effort to get up off of the bed, and change the camera settings. I also don’t particularly love this shot, since my bump is much less pronounced.
In order to reduce the number of “bad shots” and thus trips to the camera I recommend using a piece of masking tape to mark the spot for your head. Domingo also helped me by letting me know where the image was being cropped so I could readjust without needing to get up all.the.time.
Tips:
* Try not to tilt your head too far back when looking at the camera. At least for me, tilting my head too far back and an ear to ear grin caused my forehead to wrinkle.
Setup:
The layout for this picture. Again, the yellow triangle shows the angle the camera sees. For the photo where I’m wearing the pink shirt, the camera is about 8 inches to a foot higher than I am, pointing down. It’s about 2 feet higher for the second image. The camera and the window are on the same side of me, so the light from the window will illuminate the bump.
Posted in Photography | Tags: Do It Yourself, Maternity Photography, Pregnancy - Zippy, Self Portraits
April 28, 2012
2012 Hallmark Plan
The dream book is now out, and we’re looking at the 2012 collection of ornaments. There are at least two I think we’ll get right away.
The first is the gumdrop ornament, Deer-ly Loved Cookie. I was able to get the 2010 Beary Cool Treat at an after Christmas sale, and it’s still available on ebay for under $10, but the other two (Goody Goody Gumdrops and Sweet Li’l Snowman) go for $20 and $30 respectively. Like the later two, I suspect Deer-ly Loved Cookie will sell out before Christmas, unless Halmark has a large supply of them. Since it’s only $8 retail, and I’d really like to have a collection of different colored gumdrops, I think it’s not worth the potential savings to wait.
We’ll also be getting the Cookie Cutter Christmas. In a lot of ways it reminds me of the first Season’s Treatings. It’s adorable, appeals to my inner baker, and feels very Christmas-y. IT also doesn’t have a date printed on the ornament itself, which I really like! I doubt it will be as popular at the 2009 Season’s Treatings, but I would wager a guess it will sell out before the holiday.
Speaking of Season’s Treatings, I am totally disappointed in this year’s ornament. It’s a shame because I so loved the 2009 ornament. The others in the series just haven’t been living up to the series potential. Each year I’ve liked them less and less, and I’m pretty sure this is the year I’ll pass. The internet seems to agree with me. If you search ebay, you’ll see each successive year Season’s Treating is selling for less than the previous year’s. The 2009 is still very popular and will likely cost you at least $80, and the asking price for the 2010 ornament is higher than the original list price, but the 2011 one is at a breakeven point. If you factor in shipping you’ll spend as much for the 2011 ornament on ebay as you would have had you bought it in the store. Domingo does like the 2012 ornament better than the 2011 one (but really doesn’t have much of a preference), and it’s always possible the picture doesn’t do the ornament justice, so maybe I’ll change my mind between now and Christmas. But I doubt it. At this point, I wish I had saved my money and not purchased the 2011 Season Treatings.
There is also a handful of ornaments I’m considering for after-Christmas sales. Some of those include ornaments I would consider paying full price for, but suspect there is a good chance they will still be around post holiday. Others are ornaments I am luke warm on, and would only pay a marked down price. All of the ones I’ll be waiting for are ornaments I wouldn’t be disappointed if they never make it to the tree with the exception on one: Baby’s First Christmas.
Yes, as adorable as the rocking horse is, $20 is a lot for one ornament. Especially for one that doesn’t really match our tree. The porcelain is almost too nice. I feel like a horrible mom for not wanting to spend that much on Zippy’s first Christmas tree ornament. We’ll find her a first Christmas ornament. Our grocery store tends to have American Greeting ornaments. Our just married ornament is an American Greeting. The past two years the “Baby’s first Christmas” ornaments have been cute, so I will get one of those most likely.