Salvation Army Angel Tree
Filed Under Danny, Family, Maddi, friends, money | 2 Comments
Okay. So, Dan and I are pretty freaking broke this year. So, I signed up for the Salvation Army Angel Tree program, and got approved for it, which was awesome. They sent us a letter confirming our appointment time to come in and pick out gifts for our kids, and the letter said it had to be presented in order to be allowed to “shop.” So, I put the letter in the drawer so I wouldn’t lose it.
Anyways, night before the appointment, I decided to set everything out since I’d have to get up early and didn’t want to forget anything. And then I check the drawer for the letter and it’s not anywhere to be found. I ramsacked the house. And our house isn’t that big! I even grabebd some gloves and went through five or six bags of nasty ucky trash! And I still couldn’t find it. I ended up crying. I was pretty upset.
I called them at 1 in the morning, hoping they had a voicemail and I could leave a message explaining my problem, but they didn’t have an answering machine. So, I got up around 6:30-7am (after going to bed at 3:30am) and picked up Chelsea, hung out at my grandparents for a little bit, and then sat outside the Salvation army family services office for half an hour until they opened.
While we waited, there were some Nikiski firemen there picking up boxes, so Chelsea and I helped them carry all their boxes to their truck. Might as well help someone, right? We were just sitting in the car doing nothing…
So they open at 10, and don’t get out there for anyone until around 10:30. I talk to a guy and he goes and talks to the lady in charge, comes back and tells me that if I have my photo ID, then they can do it. I was so relieved. I just about cried.
So Chelsea and I got to go through and pick two toys and a couple outfits out for each kiddo. Maddi got a hat and scarf set, and Danny got a hat. And Maddi got some bracelets, and Danny got a little wooden truck. Maddi got a doll and some foam bath letters that stick to the sides of the tub, and Danny got a wooden cube that you push little wooden shapes into, and a wooden emergency crew set with a wooden ambulance, fire truck and police car. And Maddi got a pair of shoes, and an outfit and Danny got two outfits. 
It’s not much, but it’s sooo much more than we would have had! And I really appreciate that the people in our community do this kind of thing. I felt bad accepting it at first, but you know… I can make it up later. When I have money, I can give some to the bellringers at the holidays or something, so they can help some other family who is in the position I am now in the future.
But…
I still can’t believe I dug through six bags of trash! UGH!
Waiting to Try… But pouting while I wait.
Filed Under Contemplative, Danny, Family, Health, School, house, money | 2 Comments
I really want to have another baby. I don’t know why, but for the last two months or so, I’ve just had this BURNING baby fever. It sucks.
I know I can’t have another baby right now. The first reason, is because my little guy is only seven months old and he was born via a cesarean, so obviously, I need to wait and allow my body to heal more, that way I can attempt another VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean).
The second reason, is money. We’re kind of broke right now, and debt is pretty consuming at this point. It’s not very easy to deal with and it just kind of sucks all around, you know? We need to get out of debt.
Third… I need to get my associate’s degree finished. And get better grades next semester. I did pretty crappy this last semester, which sucks… But what else can I do, you know? Between all the medical problems I had last semester (my son was hospitalized with RSV, I got the swine flu and I had my appendix out) I just didn’t do so hot.
Fourth… Space. We don’t have ROOM for another baby. We live in a one bedroom house. It’ll have two bedrooms soon… but the second bedroom is INCREDIBLY small, and long. So… We need more space before we can actually think of having more kids… Especially since we have a boy and a girl… They can’t share a room forever!
Fifth… I’m still working on certifying as a birth doula… I need to finish that training! So, it’s kind of important that I get it all done so I can start making a little money.
So, I’m coming up with goals for everything.
1. Time:
Danny needs to be 12 months before I even consider trying for another baby, and only if other goals are met!
2. Grades:
My last completed semester of school needs to have grades of all C’s and above. Hopefully chancellor’s list… But at the very least, C’s and above.
3. Money:
I need to have at least $5,000 saved up.
4. Training:
I need to finish my birth doula certification and start making money. I can’t make money to save if I don’t finish the training!
I think, if I can meet these goals then everything will go alright and we’ll be ready to try.
It sounds silly, but just typing all of this out really helped me feel better about my decision to try. And it also made it feel not quite as far away in the future as it had before I wrote it out! At least now, I have some concrete goals and a written plan that will determine when I have the go-ahead to try!
Holy WIC Insanity…
Filed Under Danny | 2 Comments
Okay. So, I went WIC shopping for the baby food vouchers for the FIRST TIME EVER, and it was freaking crazy.
Since Danny was breastfed the first six months, he gets 77.5 ounces of baby meats (YUCK!) and so that’s 31 jars… The first ones I got them all picked out, and realized they were stage one, and they had to be stage 2 or 3. URGH. So, had to take all of them back out of the cart and put them back on the very bottom shelf. Got the right ones next.
Then, we get 256 ounces of fruits or veggies. Now, I won’t make my kids eat the nasty baby food veggies. I make my own veggie baby food for them myself, and it tastes a heck of a lot better than that bland mushy nastyness they call veggies.
So, I get 256 ounces of fruit. I know it can’t be mixed with baby cereal and it can’t have added sugar. So I get 64 freaking jars of baby fruit, right?
We get to the check out line, and we ended up going through the express line because it was the only person I knew working register and I forgot my ID. She looks right at me and says she dosen’t know me. GRR. Thankfully Myrna was working and told her who I was.
Anyways, she starts ringing everything up. And apparently, over half of the baby food I got was on the “not allowed” list. Apparently you can’t get baby fruit that’s mixed with other fruit? Makes entirely no sense to me. But whatever. Oh, and you can’t get mango baby food either. And that’s like the BEST one! So, I have to go back and get 188 ounces to replace the ones I got the wrong kind of.
It was freaking crazy. It took me like an hour just to do all of that. It was insane! As crazy as it was though, I’m thankful for it. It really helps out a lot, especially with money being so tight right now…
Although, I do admit, I felt like a crazy lady checking out 100 jars of baby food….
What being a teenage mother has taught me.
Filed Under Breastfeeding, Contemplative, Danny, Family, Health, Love, Maddi, pregnancy | 6 Comments
What amazes me, is how often I see girls, only fifteen, sixteen or seventeen years old who want to have babies. I’m not talking want, in a one-day-in-the-future-tense, but want as in now, and soon. And just as often, I see girls the same age, who are already pregnant and they may think they know enough about babies through babysitting, or helping with siblings, but really, they have no idea what its like.
Everyone says that pregnancy is the easy part, having the baby is the tough part, but it’s not. Pregnancy is just as difficult. I see pregnant girls, even ones in their 20′s and 30′s, slamming red bull like it’s water, and eating tuna and deli meat like it’s going out of style! Not to mention poping ibuprofin everytime they get an ache or pain. All of which can be detrimental towards the baby’s health.
These girls don’t know that having an epidural can affect your baby’s ability to breathe, or even to breastfeed after birth. They don’t know that having an epidural increases your chance of a cesarean section. They don’t know that getting induced nearly doubles your chances of a cesarean section. They think that its “safe” for the baby to be born at 37 weeks, and by golly, they want that baby out ASAP! They don’t know that even at 37 weeks, that poor little baby could be born with premature lungs and suffer immensely because they didn’t get those last few weeks in utero to help their brain and lung development. They don’t know that, in the majority of cases, it’s best to let the baby decide when it’s ready to meet the world.
I then see these same women and girls, a few months after having had their babies, popping a bottle of formula into the poor baby’s mouth, claiming they “couldn’t” breastfeed. When in reality, only 2% of women cannot physically breastfeed. So, why are almost all of these girls bottlefeeding? My only attempt at a guess is that they were misinformed. Uneducated about the subject. Sure, you see breastfeeding PSA’s on television, and the WIC office tries to encourage breastfeeding, but we need to provide more in depth education on breastfeeding. So many babies end up suffering because of this. Babies were meant to drink human milk! So, why are mothers so surprised when their babies have reactions to formula? I’ve had women look at me shocked when I tell them my son hardly ever spits up. I can count on one hand how many times he’s spit up on me in his six months of life. And it’s no wonder, because breastfed babies spit up less.
I see these girls, who before or during the pregnancy had a boyfriend or fiancee around, but as soon as that baby entered the picture, the father of that child flew the coop. Or even worse, they ditched the girl as soon as she found out she was pregnant. Often times, these same guys refuse to pay child suport, and in most of the cases I’ve seen, don’t even spend time with their child. Let alone, help care for its daily needs. The girl thought she was in love. She thought it was forever, but sadly, in most cases of teenage pregnancy, forever really means “until I get tired of it.”
I got lucky. I really did. And the funny part is, I wasn’t expecting to get lucky. I thought I’d be raising my baby alone. The pregnancy was unintended, as 80% of teenage pregnancies are. I never for a second thought he would actually marry me. After all, 8 out of 10 fathers of teenage girl’s babies DON’T marry them. When he proposed, I was hesitant. And even though we got married, it wasn’t easy. We almost didn’t make it through our first year of marriage. But, he loved our baby and was incredibly devoted to her. Again, something that isn’t very common among the men involved in teenage pregnancies. I graduated high school a few months after she was born. That’s something only 1 in 4 teenage mothers actually do. I’m in college, and by the end of summer, I should have an associate’s degree. That’s something that only 1.5% of teenage mothers accomplish by age 30. And, like 80% of teenage mothers, I had a second baby within two years of the birth of my first baby. But, unlike 80% of teen mothers, I have never been on welfare.
Hows that for statistics?
I got lucky in a lot of areas. I have a lot more support than most teenage mothers do. My husband works and provides for us, so I don’t have to. I can spend my time with my children instead of paying a daycare to raise them. I might not be a good story to scare girls away from getting pregnant, but even with all of my “lucky” things, it’s still hard. There are days I don’t want to do anything, but I have to.
When I’m sick, and puking, I still have to manage to comfort my kids who, most likely, are sick and puking too.
When I’m tired, and have been operating on only 3 or 4 hours of sleep, I still have to do my homework. And anytime I consider just saying “forget it all.” and taking an F, I get these intense pangs of guilt. What kind of mother am I if I don’t do everything possible to take care of my kids and give them the best? That includes educating myself, so that by the time they’re old enough to remember, they’ll never know we struggled.
When I have money, I can’t spend it on myself. Especially when there’s food to buy, clothes to buy, bills to pay.
I have to watch my diet, and avoid any and all dairy or my son will stay up all night with horrible gas, and I won’t get any sleep at all.
I can’t let the laundry go a day, because we use cloth diapers. If you would have asked me two years ago, I would have never even considered using cloth diapers, but when you’re forking out $250 dollars a month (that you need for food) just on diapers and wipes, it starts to be worth it…Regardless of how gross it is. Not to mention, my son dosen’t get hardly any rashes when we use cloth vs. disposable diapers.
I have to care for my children, even when I’m in pain. I had my apendix out, and the day after I got home from the hospital, I had to forego the pain meds I really needed, in order to take care of my children and make sure they were well cared for.
I had to have two medically necessary cesarean sections. The first one, because it would have killed both of us if I went into labor with her, the second because my son’s heartrate was erratic. Because of that cesarean, my ability to have many more kids in the future, is limited, unless I can successfully have a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) with my next child.
And these are just the physical tolls having children takes on you. The emotional tolls are even greater… but usually only on mothers who care.
It’s hard not being able to give your child everything. When you have your baby, you feel this overwhelming sense of love. Sure, before you have them, you know you love them, you know they’re important, but I don’t think it really hits you until they take their first breath and you realize this perfect little person is completely reliant on you. You are everything to them. It breaks my heart when I know there’s things I can’t give my kids, or things I wish I could.
I may not be perfect, but I do my best. And for now, that’s all that counts.
School & The Bottomless Pit Called Danny.
Filed Under Breastfeeding, Danny, Family, School | Leave a Comment
So, because of how crazy everything got after I had swine flu and after my appendectomy, I got kind of behind in my classes. I’m taking an incomplete in my biology class. But, the rest of them, I’m going to try like hell to make them up before the deadline (the end of this week, aka the 7th of December.) It would be soooo much easier if I had some help watching kids while I did homework, but no such luck. 
I guess I just have to try to get it all done somehow.
Danny is a complete little piggy! He went through an entire jar of baby food, and about half a can of applesauce, both mixed with baby cereal. He’s seriously a little pig! He had some peas with us at dinner too. He really seemed to enjoy those too. He’s growing so fast. He loves his boobs still, so that’s a good thing. As long as he still likes his boobs, we’re good! I’ve been pumping when he eats solids though!
Amanda had her baby. So, I guess I have a new neice now.
Anyways, I’m off to go unwind for the evening and go to bed.
My life as of late..
Filed Under BebeBreeze, Breastfeeding, Danny, sewing | 1 Comment
I know. I haven’t updated in quite a while… Sorry about that guys. I guess I’ve just been really busy. This will be short though…
I had my first birth as a doula. It was the most amazing experience ever. I started getting teary eyed when the little guy was born! And Mama S did AMAZING. She was a real champ through the entire thing, and she just did amazing. I’m so proud of her! She seriously did amazing. She really inspired me. I hope that one day, if I get a VBAC, then I’m able to do as incredibly as she did with her labor and birth.
I finally made some of my nice waterproof all in one cloth diapers for Danny. So far, I’ve got 3 made. They take me about an hour each to make. They look hella good too! And they’re sooooo soft! 
I love the bamboo velour.
I finally started pumping again. Between the craziness of moving, and then getting sick and then getting my appendix out, things got pretty crazy. I need to refill all of the bottles we emptied when I was sick, and then I’ll start pumping more milk to donate.
Danny started on baby food two days ago. I wanted to delay it until he was closer to a year, but he’s ready for it, so I can’t hold him back. He’s only getting 1-2 jars of baby food mixed with rice a day and the rest is still boobs. I’m making sure to pump when he eats food though, to keep my supply up. He was just getting SOOO cranky at night. Really bad. He’d drain me flat and then cry and cry and cry. And even if we gave him bottles of the frozen milk, he still wasn’t happy. So, he’s liking having something solid in his tummy. I’m still breastfeeding him the majority of the time and will continue to do so until he’s at least one, and then he’ll be allowed to self-wean whenever he chooses.
I have baby fever lately. All my friends are pregnant, and it’s depressing me. I really, really, really want another baby. But at the same time, I also know that I don’t want another baby right now. I really don’t want one right now. Danny’s still small and I’m enjoying him, but I can’t help but get jealous of all my pregnant friends, and Dan sure dosen’t help it when he rents these pregnancy and birth related movies and makes me watch them with him! Ahh! Oh well. I want to wait until Danny’s at least two.
Other than that, I’m really not doing much of anything lately. Just spending time with my two three favorite kids. What? Dan counts as a kid!!!