20 Minutes

I have 20 minutes (probably) until E wakes up from his nap.

And I'm excited!

Why?

Because for one, rescuing a sweet baby from a crib is adorable!

And two - I actually think I have the tiniest clue about E's routine!!

New moms, I think you can relate.  For weeks I've felt completely clueless about the baby-side of having a baby.  (Hang with me for a minute.  I know that sounded bonkers.)  I've watched friends and family members do so well at holding him or calming him.  I have one friend who seems to have the "magic touch."  More than once I watched somebody and thought, "I should have known that.  Why didn't I know that??"

That's a lot of pressure, especially when you want to be the best mom ever.

So, I'm happy to say that I'm feeling more confident.  I feel like I know a bit more about why he's crying or when he's sleepy or hungry.

Or both.  Gosh, it can be scary when it's both...

Now, some things I've learned about taking care of my sweet little man:

1)  Always have the burp cloth ready.  Spit up does not believe in an early warning system.  That's for tornadoes, people.

That onesie on my shoulder?  Yeah.  That's standing in as a burp cloth since there were none within reach.

2) My baby boy practices sleep fake-outs.  He's sneaky like that.  You think he's asleep and has been for 20 minutes.  So you go to bed relieved to have successfully swaddled the boy into bliss.  Then he screams or cries or just generally lets you know that he's decided bedtime is for grown-ups.

He can be so determined, can't he?

3)  Following #2 -  At night, I know now that he will sleep eventually.  I don't despair because I know that even if it's in two hours or in two minutes, E will fall asleep.

*No sleep is promised during the day. True that.

4)  Any bad day or fussy moment is made better by his cute little face.

"Are you really taking my picture again?" Yes.  So look happy about it.

Peace out.  I still have ten minutes.

Maybe.

Signed,
Stephanie 

Things That Go Bump in the Night

E is 11 weeks old today!!  I can't believe how quickly time flies.  Or that I will be going back to work in three weeks.  (Quickly changing the subject before I cry...)

At this point, E has discovered his tongue, his voice, and that he can cross his eyes. (And every time he crosses them, I hear my great grandma saying they'll get stuck that way.)  His personality is also starting to emerge.  For example, he loves to smile in the mornings...

...unless he's hungry.  There are lot of things that he doesn't like if he's hungry.

I also feel like I'm starting to pick up on some things as a mom, like E's cues for wanting a nap.  This has been the first week when I feel we have normal or possibly even "scheduled" nap times.  All of this translates to a much less fussy E and a more confident momma.

So, on to the reason for this post:  Things that go bump in the night.

Two nights ago, I heard a noise after being asleep for only 15 minutes or so.  My first groggy thought was that E must have knocked something over in his room... Then I realized that E doesn't knock things over.

That's when I woke up Tim.

"Did you shut the garage door when you took out the trash?" I asked.  Maybe it was just the neighborhood car.  (A horrible idea by the way.  When you move in, I don't want to meet your cat in my backyard.  A wandering cat does not endear you to dog people or people with gardens.  I like your cats at your house well enough.  Just not at mine.)

Tim was still waking up when he answered, "Yeah.  I'm pretty sure."  I guess the look on my face said that I was worried, so he got up to double check.

Then it got creepier.

As Tim was leaving the room, I thought he was using his cell phone as a flashlight.  I saw a glow of light on our bedroom wall.  The light was there for a moment, was gone, then came back again.  Something about the light being from Tim's phone felt wrong to my groggy brain.  It took less than a second for me to realize that the light was coming from outside our windows - Tim didn't have his cell phone with him at all!

I hurried out of bed and followed him to the garage door.  After confirming that the light wasn't possibly from his phone, I decided to call 911.  I had heard a very distinct thumping or knocking noise and then someone was shining a light in our bedroom windows.  These windows are in the backyard, too.  There's no reason for headlights or other sources of light to shine in them.

I've never called 911 before except for a grass fire on the highway.  I will say in my nervous state I was slightly frustrated that the dispatcher couldn't find my address.  (The house has been here for 8 years, people!)  And it did take 10 minutes for someone to arrive (but that could be because no one was actively breaking in at that point.)  For those 10 minutes, we turned on lights and peaked out the blinds.  Tim would have gone outside to check the house, but I refused to let him possibly cross paths with a bad guy.  "Grab your keys and get ready to load up the little guy if we need to get out," is what I demanded.  (My exit strategy was to get out through the garage.  Might not have been the best plan, but it was a plan.)

While we were waiting for the police, Tim tried to figure out why I called the them so quickly when I've never done it before and with such little prompting.  "If it was just the sound," I explained, "I wouldn't have.  If it was just a weird light, I wouldn't have.  It was the two together.  Plus, how many times do I have to hear a weird noise in the house or see a weird light before I decide to call the cops?  When the robbers break in a window?"

Well, we didn't see anything and neither did the police officer who came to check things out.  Not surprising.  If I had been about to rob the place I would have left when all the lights turned on also.  Tim went back to sleep convinced it was nothing and I checked on E no less than 87 times that night.  It left me feeling spooked and paranoid.  (Ironically, I've been praying about fear and paranoia in my life, then I hear sounds and see things in the dark.  Sheesh!)

Yesterday afternoon, though, I unraveled the mystery.  I believe Wilson was trying to break into our house.  This is Wilson:

   
Here's my theory: There are kids who live in the house behind us.  I think their volleyball hit our house, causing the noise.  Then I think they grabbed a flashlight and tried to find it in our yard.  So, that means there was no bad guy.  Does that also mean I am embarrassed that I called the cops? No.  Something hit my house and someone shined a light through my window.  No one ever has the first thought of, "Oh, it's just a volleyball."

Although, that might be my first thought next time.

So, to wrap up the post, here's a picture from my Girls Night last night.  We went to Paint Your Art Out in Edmond.  It was worth the $35 and oh so much fun!

I would show you the picture of the finished product, but my eyes looked weird.

Have a great weekend!

Signed,

Rookie Mom


(See, I told you!)

Life-Sucks Cake

Question 1:  What is wrong with this picture?

And no, it wasn't stolen.

Question 2: Why is the freezer not located inside the garage?

I know you are interested, so read on.  And please be sure to finish the story.  It ends with smiles. And cake!

A week and a half ago Tim and I sat down and recrunched our budget.  We've done this about once a year since we actually started a budget two years ago.  If you're curious, we use what we know about Dave Ramsey's baby steps and the envelope system.  You can find more info here.  We haven't taken a class, but we've used the website and listened to a lot of podcasts.

Now, why did we recrunch the budget?  Well, we've had a little change to our family.  Mr. E's arrival meant that we needed to see where we were sitting before daycare starts next month.

And yes, I am going back to work.  And yes, I would love to stay home but...

A)  I really do love my job.  The paycheck isn't the greatest, but whose is?

...and...

B) I have student loans to pay for.  My standard response to why I'm working is, "Student loans keep you employed."  Or they at least keep you looking for employment.

Any who.  Back to the budget.

So, Tim and I updated our budget.  We weren't easy on ourselves.  For example we - brace yourself - cut cable television.

I know.  Scary, right?

A few days ago we actually had the service cancelled.  I was nervous about it.  I've only known having cable TV.  We have always watched a lot of shows, but I knew I had a problem when I started wanting to record The Real Housewives of New Jersey.  Tim stopped trying to convince me of the merits of cable at that point and agreed to cancel the service in order to save a few dollars each month.

So, Thursday we cut cable.  My life was in a totally new place (all because of TV, I know...) and I wasn't sure what to do with myself.  I normally watch TV while nursing, so it threw me through a loop.  Then E got cranky.  Really cranky.  From 3 pm until 10pm he was not a happy camper.  Then he spit up into and down the front of my dress.  (Yes, into and down.) So I changed and cuddled my cranky boy again until he pooped on me.  Because nothing makes a cranky day better than poo.

If you're keeping track, here's what I've got so far:
cable TV detox + cranky baby + spit-up + poop  = convince myself to stay happy

I was doing my best to stay positive.  My solution at this point was to start working on dinner so I could distract myself.  I hauled my choosing-to-be-joyful self out to the garage freezer to pull out the homemade shredded chicken that I keep stocked.  That was when I realized that the freezer wasn't cold.  Everything I had stocked outside was defrosted and warmer than I am willing to consider as acceptable for food safety.  The freezer was toast (is that irony or a pun?) and so was everything in it.  Which meant nothing on this menu board here...

...could be made for dinner since they each had at least one ingredient in the freezer.  And we were trying not to eat out because we tightened our budget.  Plus, one of us had stuck the last $30 of grocery money in our pocket and forgotten where it was.  So we technically didn't have allocated funds to shop.

So if you're keeping track with this story, we now have:
cable TV detox + cranky baby + spit-up + poop + broken freezer + missing cash = forget trying to be happy this not okay with me!

Well, I made it through the night.  We had money for food that we scrounged from other envelopes.  Tim got the antenna installed on the TV so I could watch basic channels, so that helped my morale.

Until Saturday...

Ah, Saturday.  This was the morning that started bright and sunny.  I was up at 7 with a smiling baby boy.  Daddy was out on a bike ride.  Life was cheery, albeit frustrating if I dwelt too long on the broken freezer and lost food.

Then the TV went out.

Seriously?!

Yes.  We just updated our budget, tightened it in preparation for daycare, and now we have had two major appliances go haywire on us. 

So now the equation looks like this:
life sucks = Stephanie, future reality TV diva

I threw a fit.  An adult fit about why life is hard, why it's not fair, how I can't believe all these set backs happen as we are trying so hard to pay off all our debt.  I sent my mom a text asking if we had angered somebody in the appliance department at Sears.  I asked for prayers for my attitude since Satan seemed to be swinging a bat with my name on it.

Then I held E again.

Tim couldn't get through to me because I was not yet to the point that I wanted to stop and listen.  And I was still very upset even after holding E.  However, E was the tangible reminder that I still have what is very important to me - my husband and son.  (I confess I then freaked out hoping they weren't next on the list of crappy things to go wrong.  Faith is hard sometimes.  That's what it means to have real faith.)

So, reminded that life sucks but we can continue on, I did what any sensible person would do.

Or, at least Marie Antoinette.

When horrible things are happening and you can't afford bread, make cake.  So I did.  Coke Cake to be exact. Although, we called it Life-Sucks Cake.

And it was delicious.

And, as is only appropriate in these situations, we shared it with friends.

The End.