| mega huge update time |
[Apr. 4th, 2009|12:14 pm] |
I have been so tired lately that I haven't felt much like sitting down and writing out blog posts. A lot is going on right now, my plate is a bit overflowing. :)
Strangely, the least stressful is baby. :) I feel little kicks and weird movements now and then. My morning sickness ended at sixteen weeks ugggh...but now I don't feel sick at all (just hungry). I haven't had any super weird cravings; when I was sick I craved pickles, probably because they were so juicy and salty (the whole time I have wanted salt, salt, salt) and now I am eating all kinds of fruit everyday. I feel like the Very Hungry Caterpillar, lol. I'm having trouble sleeping, but my sister says that's part of pregnancy. I'm really forgetful, which sucks.
Joe and I have discussed some things and so far we have agreed to a jungle animal theme for the nursery (and by agree I mean me waving tiger crib sheets at him in Babies'R'Us and squealing "THESE ARE SOOOOO CUTE OMG PLEASE!!!" The color scheme is going to be green, blue and yellows (blue sky, green jungle and lions, giraffes, you get the idea).
We have decided to use cloth diapers. My mom is aghast at this and is telling us how gross it will be at every minute, but here's how we see it: First, disposables are crazy expensive. Second, it is said by the time a baby is one years old you have changed over 2,000 diapers. Disposables all end up in landfills. Yes, cloth diapers use energy to wash and water and in some cases soap runoff, but the landfill is going nowhere. Cleaner and more efficient energy sources are being worked on, water is becoming more renewable, and we found an excellent source that says you can pre-wash with vinegar and baking soda, so the soap used is minimal.
We have also decided that for at least the first couple years, we won't be buying any franchised character items. I see too many kids plopped in front of a TV as a babysitter or to calm them down when personal interaction would go a lot further. Yes, I know that by the time baby is one I will probably wish I hadn't said this, but people had to do something before there was TV. Listen to music, play with toys, but so many studies have shown even Baby Einstein to have adverse affects on vocabulary and learning skills. I don't watch television usually, so why should my kid? Yes, by age six he will be plopped in front of whatever runs as Saturday Morning cartoons with cereal, but not at six months.
So, it wouldn't make sense to buy Spongebob/Elmo/Backyardigans etc if he's not going to know those shows. I want him to be able to point at a goldfish and say, "fish" before he says, "Dorothy" (Elmo's fish). Book characters are okay, as I added a couple Eric Carle toys to our registry, but TV is not big in our house and I won't make it big just for a little one who might be fussy.
Registering has been very overwhelming, mainly because we are registered at three different places. Joe's family always just orders everything online, so we first registered at Amazon. Then my mom and sister complained that they didn't want to shop online, so we registered at Babies'R'Us. Then I realized that all the everyday things like towels and bibs were either dumb (who the hell wants their one year old to say "Stud" or "Chicks dig me" on their chest? I think these people need to read the essay from Stop Dressing Your Six Year Old like a Skank) or expensive, so I went to Target and registered all the cheap stuff like washcloths and towels and such. Not to mention every store had stuff each other store didn't carry (Amazon has all the cloth diapering stuff, Target had a whole display of home safety and travel saefty stuff, and Babies'R'Us had a ton of stuff). Whew. I'm SURE I am missing something. It's crazy how much is needed for a baby. I think this kid's gonna have more stuff than I do.
OK! Enough of baby! On to the next BIG NEWS: Joe and I won a bid on a house! We have loved this house since the first time we saw it, but even then we bid on another house (and lost) before realizing we should just go for the one that won our hearts out of the hundred or so we looked at. The only stressful thing now is it needs some repairs and some major work. We have to redo the deck completely and there is a shoddily made workshop that is awesome but we have to demolish for now, and then yesterday we found out the roof needs a lot of work. :/ But, any house in our price range is going to need work, not to mention most homes are foreclosures so who knows what condition they are in. When Charlie and Francis hurricanes hit years ago, a lot of people didn't bother to fix their roof afterwards. So probably any house we look at will have roof problems. I told Joe I will learn any skill possible to keep this house. If I have to learn to bang a deck together with a papoose on my back so be it. This is a big house for the money, four bedrooms and two of the bedrooms are huge. One of them is being split in half (by a curtain) to make kid play area on one side and my own art studio on the other. Am I going to give up this chance to have my own studio area, to not worry if we have another kid in the future to have to give up space for them somewhere else? No. This house is big enough to grow in, and we are both happy thinking we might be living there for ten years at least.
Finally, I am trying to apply to the local state college to re-start my bachelor's degree. It has been very stressful (only because I originally wanted to go back to FGCU and dealing with them makes me violent and want to napalm the entire campus.) but hopefully next week I will make it down there to apply and see about taking a distance learning course this fall. I figure, hey, I'm going to be 24 hours a day for three months from September to November anyway, and if it is an online class or distance learning I can type while breastfeeding or watching a lecture. It will give me something to do for myself while not taking time from baby, and one class isn't going to kill me (I love school anyway). So, we'll see how it all works out. I am scrapping my art major (because classes at both colleges were "painting 101" or "ceramics 101" and a ton of art history) and going for Elementary Education. I don't want to teach really, though I love kids, but I figure it will make a good backdrop for when I get my Masters in Library Science, eventually.
WHEW! So that's just what's been happening in the past few weeks. No wonder I'm so exhausted! Imagine when I have to start packing, haha. |
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busy
accomplished
bouncy
artistic
frustrated
shocked
complacent
amused
cheerful
thankful
sad