Nesting

I mentioned previously that Hubby G and I had purchased and put together the crib, but I didn’t have a whole lot else to say about the nursery.  I think it was one of those things where once we had the crib put together things finally clicked in our heads and we got into the mode of really getting the whole room put together.

Here’s the thing about the nursery: from the day we bought our house, we knew that room would be the nursery.  We didn’t know when we would decide to start a family, but whenever that time happened to be, we would have a room.  When we re-painted the whole interior of the house, we purposefully chose a gender-neutral color for that room for that very reason (and this was still months before we even knew we’d be expecting).  Our house has 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, 2 living-room type areas, a spacious kitchen, and a basement, so with just the two of us and Colby we already had more space than we needed.  We never used that nursery room for anything- it was literally, completely empty.  It was just waiting for a little baby to come along!

Since we didn’t have to do any painting or clearing out of furniture to even start to get the room ready, it just continued to sit empty- for the most part.  Whenever we were given baby items or purchased anything baby-related we stashed it in that room, but everything was just sort of randomly placed in the room or in the large closet that the room has.  Up until the last month or so, if you opened the door to that room you’d just see a car seat handing out on the floor in the corner, and a couple of bags of books also sitting on the floor.  That’s it.  We just didn’t really know what we wanted to do in there exactly.  I was against picking a “theme”- I just wanted to pick a color palate and use that for a low-key, non-busy, modern feel.  It didn’t even help when we found out we were having a boy because we’re super practical and we’d been planning all along to keep most things gender-neutral so that we would be able to re-use things for future children.

But getting that crib bought and put together seemed to give us a jump start, and now the nursery actually looks like the beginnings of a real room!  A couple weeks ago we purchased a cube organizer for the room along with some fabric bins- we love the way it looks in there, and we knew we needed something for basic book/toy storage since our little Peanut already has quite the library building up!  The only other piece of furniture we plan on purchasing is a chair.  The crib has a changing table attached and the closet is really spacious, so we don’t think we’ll need a dresser.

And I swear, we are going to  put some fun things up on the walls if it’s the last thing I do.  Quite awhile back I mentioned that we have exactly 3 things hung up on the walls of our ENTIRE HOUSE.  THREE. I had even made it one of my goals for 2010 to put things up on the walls, and we still never did it.  I think that some of it is that we’re gun shy about putting holes in the walls, another part of it is that we just keep forgetting about it, and some of it is that I think there’s a part of us that actually kinda likes the clean, simplistic, empty expanses of wall space. Whatever it is, I think that our little Peanut's room definitely needs a little pizazz, so I'm determined to find at least a couple of things to put up in there!


I promise, photos will be coming very soon!

Just Dance- Uncoordinated Pregnant Lady Style.

Looking for a laugh? How about watching a pregnant lady huff and puff her way through a good 'ole MJ hit on Just Dance 2 for the Wii? Yes ladies and gentleman, I'm putting all dignity aside here and sharing with you this gem of a video clip.

Behold, Sister W and I busting a move:

**It must be said that Sister W begrudgingly gave me permission to post this video and stated that it would only be right to mention that she is a super awesome sister for allowing me to post such ridiculousness. That being said- she's the one who bought me the game and I think she only agreed to the posting of the video because she knows just as well as I do that out of the two of us, I look much, much, more ridiculous than she does.

Apple Wireless Keyboard

Hubby G got me a fancy schmancy, super-sleek Apple wireless keyboard for my birthday! I can't believe how thin a little it is! Definitely a great accessory for the iPad :) He's such a great guy!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad (with my fancy new keyboard!)

A Quarter Century

Today marks my 25th birthday.  A quarter century- it’s hard to believe! It doesn't seem like that long ago when I was reflecting on my 24th birthday.  

My 25th year of life is going to be quite the mile-stone year.  Our lives are going to be changed completely in just a few months with the addition of our son, and we couldn’t be more excited!

It’s a little overwhelming to think of all that’s going to change within the next year.  We’ll be parents- trying to balance full-time jobs with a new family member and our crazy little fur baby Colby.  We’ll be figuring out a whole new routine and way of life.  

This is going to sound like I’m starting to go off-topic here, but I promise it has relevance in looking forward to what my 25th year is going to be like.  For about the first 4 months of my pregnancy I didn’t gain any weight at all, even though my belly was growing.  Then, suddenly in early December the scale jumped up dramatically.  I blame my parents.  During the week that we were visiting them I ate a ton (it was the holidays!) and at my doctor’s appointment following that trip my eyes bugged out at the number on the scale.  I went from gaining hardly gaining any weight at all to being on the high end of my pregnancy weight gain.  Now, I’m not freaking out about it or anything- I just want to make sure that both the Peanut and I are healthy.  Whatever weight that happens to be is fine with me, as long as it’s healthy.  In all reality my jump in weight probably had more to do with a growth spurt for the Peanut than me eating a few extra holiday snacks!

How does this play into my plans for my 25th year?  Well, as I mentioned in my 2011 Goals, I want to lose the baby weight.  I just know that I’m not going to be as happy or feel good about myself if I don’t do my best to achieve that goal.  When I found out that I was pregnant I was in the middle of training for my first marathon, so I’d love to get back on that track.  I don’t want to set unrealistic expectations for myself, so I don’t have my sights set on a marathon for 2011 (maybe not even 2012 for that matter), but I do want to get back to running.  It’s something I really enjoy and I just feel better when I’m in good running shape.  I’m doing my best- especially lately- to exercise more so that after the Peanut is born I don’t end up feeling like I’m completely starting from scratch.  Within the last week Colby and I have walked 12 miles together!  Plus, when it comes to deciding between exercising more or cutting out some extra calories, I’ve always chosen the exercise route- I like to eat whatever I want!

But thinking about trying to balance a new baby with a full-time job AND squeezing in time for myself for running- it’s definitely going to take some creative thinking to make it all work together!  I feel blessed to have a case of eternal optimism though, so I don’t feel like it will be impossible.  I’m sure some days it might feel like it, but we’ll work through it!  

I have a feeling that my 25th year will be one of the best ever :)

Welcome To Our Crib

On Sunday Hubby G and I tackled two big projects: registering for our little Peanut and assembling the crib.

Both turned out to be bigger projects than I had anticipated, but it's done now and we've got smiles on our faces!

We decided to registered at the brand-spankin' new Buy Buy Baby in our area.  We had stopped by the store a couple of times already and I was already obsessed with it.  Hubby G and I can both be very meticulous with things, so registering took us quite a while.  We got it all sorted out though and checked out a lot of things that we hadn't seen in-person before, so that was great.

When we got home, we headed up to the nursery to begin crib assembly.   I'll point out here that Hubby G is a big football fan and he gave up watching the games on Sunday to throw himself into crib assembly whole-heartedly.  Even when it started to drive us both crazy.  I was very appreciative!

The actual crib itself wasn't the challenge- it was the attached changing table that gave us all kinds of trouble.  We probably spent 90% of our time assembling that part and only 10% putting together the whole rest of the crib.  I'm going to make a crib skirt to go around the bottom- hopefully I'll make it over to the fabric store in the next few weeks to pick out fabric we like and get it on there!

In case anyone is curious: Our crib is the Delta Cambridge in Espresso and we bought it from Target.  After much research, we chose this crib because it's made of solid wood with non-toxic finish, it converts to both a toddler bed and a full size bed, and it was very reasonably priced.  We had a different one (the BabyMod ParkLane from WalMart) all picked out, but when we saw that the price of the matching changing table was almost as much as the crib itself, we started looking elsewhere.  With the Delta Cambridge we got the crib plus the attached changer for $50 less than what the ParkLane would have cost us for the crib all by itself!

26 Weeks

I kept thinking about blogging all this past week, but I never actually wrote anything because

1. I haven't been sleeping well at all and I was tired

2. Work was busy

3. I couldn't think of anything really that interesting to write about.  And I don't think anyone's really interested in reading something I write if I don't even feel like writing it.

BUT I do have a few things to write about today!

Saturday marked the 26 week mark for our little Peanut.  Things are going really well, except for the aforementioned sleeping problems.  The experts say that you're basically only supposed to lay on your left side when you go to sleep, but that becomes a problem if sleeping on your left side isn't comfortable.  Where are you supposed to go??  Sleeping on your back is a no-no, and not comfortable anyway, and sleeping on my right side is comfortable, however, I find that I often wake up and my hand is numb if I've fallen asleep on my right side.  So I lumber back over to my left and hope to fall back asleep.  I've never felt so restless in my sleep in my life!  Saturday I slept in late and never once got out of my pajamas and that seemed to help immensely, so hopefully for the rest of this week my sleeping schedule will be a little bit better.

On Friday we had our first appointment with our new doctor.  As you know, making this switch was something I was very upset about, but I was trying to stay positive and hope for the best.  

I have to say, I was very impressed with our new doctor's office and our first visit definitely made me feel a whole lot better about the transition.  I'm still not happy with the way the whole thing happened, but it can't be undone and I'm awfully glad that the situation is better instead of worse.

First of all, we were at this appointment for nearly an hour and a half- I don't think any of my appointments have ever been anywhere near that long!  We started out meeting with the OB nurse.  She was really friendly and personable- much friendlier than the nurse we had met with at our old OB office.  She apologized for having to ask questions that we'd probably already been asked before, but she moved through everything as quickly as possible and gave us a good amount of information that we hadn't gotten before.  Before wrapping up, she asked if we had any questions and since I've been plagued with a not-terrible-but-extremely-annoying stuffy nose for the last few weeks, I asked if there was anything I could do or take for it.  She pulled out a really handy list of all the different types of medications that are safe for me to take (no one had ever provided me with a list like this before- I just have avoided everything).  That seems like a pretty obvious thing to provide a first-time pregnant lady with- I'm glad I finally have one!

Next up we met with the doctor.  The OB practice where we are going now has 3 doctors and it's a shot in the dark as far as which one will actually deliver your baby- it just depends on who's on call at the time.  That being said, they recommend that you meet with any of the three doctors during your prenatal visits so that you can be comfortable with any of them.  All three are also family physicians, so the really nice thing is that there's a good chance that which ever doctor delivers our little Peanut will also be his pediatrician, and will also be the doctor for Hubby G and I.  Even though our appointment was just with one of the doctors, another one of the doctors happened to be in the office at the time and he stopped in to meet us as well.  We got good vibes from both, so that made us feel pretty good.  We asked about their c-section rate (something we want to avoid if at all possible) and they explained that their philosophy as family doctors is that pregnancy isn't something that needs a treatment- it's a natural process and they don't feel it's necessary to have a lot of different interventions.  That was great to hear!

We had one more visit while we were there- the office has a dietitian on staff who stopped by to introduce herself.  She explained that we probably won't be meeting with her again as long as everything keeps going well, but she's definitely available for questions if any come up.  The fact that this office has a dedicated dietitian on staff was pretty impressive to me.  I heard more about nutrition at this appointment than I think I have at all of my other prenatal appointments combined!  I really liked that- it makes sense to put a lot of emphasis on nutrition since that's a big factor in helping our little Peanut to grow strong and healthy!  

And last but certainly not least- the most important part of the visit- an update on our Peanut! Everything is going great and I'm measuring exactly 26 weeks, so we're right on track.  His heartbeat sounded beautiful and he's kicking regularly (even up toward my ribs lately- I can definitely tell he's stretching those growing limbs further and further!)  We'll be having appointments every 2 weeks from here on out, so that will mean lots of opportunities to see how things are going!

Hooray for a crappy situation turning out better than expected :)

Insurance Upsets

Hubby G and I had a meeting with a member of our new health insurance plan yesterday.  It ended in tears.

Here’s the background information: Hubby G has 2 different options to choose from for health insurance plans.  After much research and many phone calls to make sure we had a good understanding of the alternate health plan, we decided to switch from the one we currently were on to the other plan.  A big factor in making this decision was the fact that with the new plan, all of our pre-natal and post-natal care would be covered 100% with no co-pays.  With the insurance plan that we had been on, we would have to pay a co-pay for every single doctor’s visit AND the care was only covered 80%.  The biggest drawback of switching to the new plan was that it was an HMO- not a PPO like the plan we had been on.  Being on an HMO meant that we would only be able to see doctor’s who are in that specific HMO plan.  

It would mean changing to a different OB doctor.

This was a huge factor for us.  We’ve been seeing our OB regularly for 24 weeks now and we both liked her and were comfortable with her.  Being more than half-way through this pregnancy, I was not at all thrilled with the possibility of having to switch to a new doctor that I had never seen before.

Hubby G made multiple calls (before we officially switched) to get more information about our specific situation and the person he spoke with from our new health plan had told him that it would not be unlikely that our new health plan would let us stay with our current OB because of the point I had progressed to in this pregnancy.  She couldn’t guarantee us anything, but she had made it sound like we had a pretty good chance of being able to stay with the OB we had been seeing.

We explained the situation to our OB and she agreed that it would be the best care for us to stay with her.  She offered to write a letter to our new health plan to convey this, and we happily took her up on this.

It didn’t make a difference.

We met with the new insurance plan yesterday (the wouldn’t even let us meet with them until after the first of the year when the new plan officially kicked in and we couldn’t change anything) and the doctor told us that basically there was no way they would let us stay with the OB we had been seeing.  He told us that they don’t usually let patients stay with their OB unless they are in the last month or so of their pregnancy or if they have a complicated pregnancy.  

I did my best to keep it together until we left the office.  Only a few steps out the door I couldn’t hold it in any longer and I started sobbing.  I’m so glad Hubby G was there with me.  I feel so frustrated and deceived.  I honestly don’t know that our decision to change insurance plans would have been different if we knew there was no chance we could stay with our OB, but the fact that they had made it seem like we had a good chance of doing that had weighed in heavily on our decision, and it would have made us think further about making that switch.  It’s really just a terrible way to begin our coverage with this new plan- right off the bat now I feel like they don’t really care about us- they just want to push us through their system and make money.  The fact that they deceived us makes me feel like they were just trying to sweet talk us into switching to their plan, and now we’re stuck with it.

Our new OB might be fantastic.  We might like the new doctor even better than the one we had been seeing.  We have an appointment scheduled for next week to meet them and find out.  But for now, I’m just really upset about the whole situation.  And I hate that I have all of these negative feelings about it when we’re just getting started with this new plan.

Hubby G knew exactly what would help to cheer me up.  We stopped by the store just across the street and did just a little bit of baby shopping.  I told Hubby G that at least now we won’t have to pay as much for doctor’s visits and that means we can spend more on our little boy.  I was being sort of sarcastic, but it did make me feel a little better.  And I know it really has nothing to do with anything, but we also made fun of the doctor we saw who delivered all this crummy news to us today and I’ll admit that made me feel better too.

I don’t expect to really feel better about this whole situation for a little while, but I’m going to try my best to stay positive about it.  I’m happy that my pregnancy has been completely complication free and I hope it stays that way from this point forward- regardless of the ridiculous politics that come with insurance policies.

The Diapering Decision

Hubby G and I have decided that we're going to go the cloth diaper route for our little peanut.

Because he hadn't ever heard of anything different, Hubby G had pretty antiquated ideas of what it meant to cloth diaper- bulky, poor fitting, rectangles of fabric pinned together at the hips.  That was what I had in mind too until I had run across this post from John & Sherry over on Young House Love.  I read this post about a month and a half before I actually got pregnant, but I had found it really interesting, so I had starred it in my Google Reader.

So when Hubby G and I found out that we would be expecting a little one in April, I pulled up John & Sherry's post to show Hubby G how modern and easy cloth diapering has become.  He was as easily swayed as I was- this made cloth diapering look easy!

After a little more research, I found that the specific cloth diapers that John & Sherry are using- the Organic, One Size, All-In-Ones by bumGenius were my favorite.  Why?

(Image from cottonbabies.com - this is where we're ordering from!)

• One size is adjustable to fit baby all the way from birth to potty training
• They're all-in-one, which means you don't have to worry about inserts or plastic coverings.  It's all together in one piece- very similar to a disposable diaper

Really, the only difference between these cloth diapers and disposables is that when a diaper is soiled, you wash the cloth diapers and you throw the disposables away.  It's really not any more complicated than that!

But of course my analytical mind wanted some solid data to back up this decision.  We knew that the decision to cloth diaper would be very earth-friendly, but just how financially-friendly would the decision be?

Enter my Diapering Notes:

Disposable diapers:
Approximately $0.30 each

Cloth diapers:
$22.08 each (for the specific ones we are looking at)

1 cloth diaper = about 74 disposable diapers (cost-wise)

Average age of potty training for boys = 38 months = about 1,159 days

Average number of diapers used in a day (from birth to potty training) = 10

30 days of disposables = 300 diapers = $90
60 days of disposables = 600 diapers = $180
90 days of disposables = 900 diapers = $270
120 days of disposables = 1,200 diapers = $360
150 days of disposables = 1,500 diapers = $450
180 days of disposables = 1,800 diapers = $540

We decided that if we went with cloth diapers, we'd get 24 in order to have a good amount to rotate between.  We could probably get away with 18, but that would mean we'd have to wash them more often, which would cause them to wear out more quickly.

24 cloth diapers = $529.92 = 1,766 disposables = 177 days = about 6 months

Disposables from birth to potty training:
1,159 days   x   10 diapers per day  =  11,590 diapers
11,590 diapers  x  $0.30 each  =  $3,477

Cloth diapers from birth to potty training:
24 diapers  =  $529.92

So taking all of the above information into account, it means that we'll have to pay more up front for the 24 cloth diapers, but after 6 months the cloth diapers will start paying for themselves.  By choosing cloth diapers we'll save ourselves about $2,947.  And cloth diapers are known for lasting through multiple children, so our potential cost savings could be even greater if we use them for another baby in the future!

Now, there are a few other costs to consider in the whole diapering scheme:

• Cost of wipes- our plan for right now is to use disposable wipes, so this cost isn't really a factor in deciding between cloth or disposable diapers since it will be the same either way.  I know that cloth wipes are an option, but Hubby G isn't crazy about that idea and I'm on the fence for now.
• Diaper sprayer- this is necessary (in my opinion) when going the cloth diaper route.  Basically you use the sprayer to spray the solid waste into the toilet before putting the soiled diaper in your laundry bag.  The sprayers are around $50 and are a simple DIY installation onto your toilet.
• Diaper receptacle- This one is a non-factor too when it comes to deciding (cost-wise) between cloth or disposable diapers.  If you use disposables you need some kind of diaper pail and if you use cloth you need some type of laundry bag or bin.  Either way, you just need something that will contain the smells.

So that's how we arrived at our decision to cloth diaper.  Even with the additional cost of the diaper sprayer (about $50), the cloth diapers still come out way ahead in financial savings.  We'll probably keep a small stash of disposables on hand for when we're traveling and cloth diapers just aren't going to cut it logistically, but other than that, Hubby G and I are committed to cloth diapering full-time.  We'll let you know how it goes!

Anyone have any thoughts, advice, successes, or horrors related to cloth diapering?

An Interesting Start To The New Year

I already made some head way on my goal to cook/bake at least 10 things I've never made before! This morning I baked a strawberry cream cheese braid- my mom makes this with apricot around the holidays and special occasions so I thought I'd try my hand at it.

I didn't take any pictures because I was a little crabby this morning. I've never worked with phyllo dough before and I messed some of it up before I even got started. Luckily it all turned out just fine and tasted delicious, but the process still made me feel a bit crabby (plus I had been up way later than usual last night since it was New Year's Eve, so I'm sure that was a bigger factor in my crabbiness).

Hubby G and I spent some time cleaning up around the house which felt really good and I was feeling pretty motivated, but then I got our laundry going and when I went to move clothes from the washer to the dryer I had the lovely surprise of finding that our washer is malfunctioning and not draining all of the water out.

You better believe that upped my crabbiness level.

I gave up on the washer- despite some googling and YouTube searching, I can't figure out a way to check the drain tube to see if it's blocked and since it's New Year's Day there's no chance we can get someone to come fix it for us right now.

I was already feeling pretty darn crabby, so then it seemed like every tiny, little, thing was amplified by my crabbiness. Like I decided to just chill out and watch an episode or two of Glee on DVD but then realized that the Playstation wasn't hooked up so I had to do that first. Then after I got it all set up, I accidentally hit the button on the power strip behind the tv so everything turned off- but I didn't realize this until AFTER I had sat down and got comfortable.

I hate feeling crabby. That's no way to start the new year! So, in hopes that it will relieve some crabbiness AND help me work toward my goals, I'm now headed out to take Colby for a walk.

Let's hope this does the trick!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Goals for 2011

Since I expect that our lives will be changing quite dramatically in 2011 with the addition of our son, I feel like it's ok to have some goals that aren't necessarily too specific.  Here are my ten goals for 2011:

1. Be better at showing my appreciation for Hubby G
2. Walk Colby at least 3 times per week on our 1.5 mile route
3. Keep writing in this blog
4. Run in a race
5. Be the best mom I can be to our son
6. Cook or bake at least 10 things that I've never made before
7. Read at least 5 books
8. Put together our wedding photo album
9. Be smart when purchasing things for our son- he doesn't need every single thing that all the mommy bloggers write about or everything on Amazon's top 100 baby items list. 
10. Lose the baby weight after our son is born

I'm pretty happy with that list.  We'll see how I do!  Happy New Year!!

What are your New Year's resolutions/goals?