Being Sara

As I mentioned in my first “second baby” post, I suspect that I will frequently compare my first pregnancy with this one. So, with Xander, my morning sickness was pretty much textbook. I was nauseous from 9am to 11am every morning, recovered by lunch, and was fine for the rest of the day. I wasn’t overly tired, and there were times that I could forget that I was actually pregnant. This time around is of course completely different. My “morning sickness” hits me sometime in the morning and then lasts all day. From about 5 weeks until 9 weeks, I could plan on this almost every day. It was pretty miserable. By week 10, I could go 1 or 2 or sometimes 3 days without feeling nauseous, but then just as I was thinking that perhaps the morning sickness was going away, I’d be hit with a particularly bad day. By the time 12 weeks was up with Xander, the morning sickness slowed down, and was nearly gone by 13 weeks.

I’m at 13 weeks now, and still having “morning sickness” 3-4 times a week. I’ve found a few ways to at combat the worst of it - I’m often ill around dinner time, which means I eat very little if anything. That of course means by the time I’m ready for bed, I’m starving. If I ignore my hunger and go to sleep (exhaustion has also been a much bigger problem this time around, so I’m always looking to get into bed early), I know that the next day I will be punished by feeling incredibly ill all day. So, I’ve taken to snacking at night. I once heard that eating cheese as a snack in the evenings is good because cheese takes longer to digest, so you won’t feel hungry in the morning. This works for me sometimes. Sometimes I eat some raw veggies, and if I’m particularly hungry, I make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and wash it down with a glass of milk. This usually helps the following day. Unfortunately, it’s not a guarantee. I’m worried that I’m into my second trimester and still having “morning sickness” and maybe I will be one of those horribly unlucky women who has this awful nausea for the whole 9 months. Another 7 months of this feels like an awfully long time…

The most popular question I’ve gotten so far is if we plan to find out the sex. The answer is most definitely yes! We wanted to know with Xander, but he was less than cooperative. In retrospect, this was ok - we got lots of gender neutral stuff for the baby shower, which was great. This time around I don’t have to worry about being inundated with all pink or all blue, so I’d like to know as soon as I can. I don’t really care either way, and the old cliche remains true, as long as the baby is healthy, I really don’t care either way.

If I had to take a guess today, I would tell you that I must be carrying a girl, because she is already giving me so much trouble But other than the extreme differences between the two pregnancies, I really don’t have much of a feeling about what gender I’ve got growing inside.

I have been obsessing over food lately - not cravings, just recipes. Our family has a pretty good weekday schedule laid out. On Monday nights after we all get home, Zach goes grocery shopping. I’ve already prepared a list that includes meals for dinners for the coming week. It takes him about an hour, so he’s usually home around 6:30pm. Then we have to unpack the groceries and cook dinner. Understandably, dinner on Monday nights is usually later than I’d prefer, which sets the rest of the evening later for Xander and for us. Lately I’ve been on a quest for good 30-minute or less meals. For quite some time now I’ve been using Betty Crocker’s website. They have lots of features that I find useful - a virtual recipe box for me to store my favorite recipes, a one-click system to add items to a grocery list, and their site is simple and easy to navigate. They have however phased out some features that I really enjoyed in the past - there used to be a button to click if you wanted to double the recipe - it would automatically double all the numbers for you, and add them correctly to your shopping list. They also used to have this cool feature where you could select all of the food items you currently had in your kitchen, and Betty Crocker would show you the recipes you could make with what you already had. I really miss that feature… Unfortunately, I haven’t found many great 30-minute meals at Betty Crocker, and I find that the ones they estimate should take 30 minutes or less often take me an hour or more (chopping, slicing, measuring, etc.)

I began to get tired of the recipes I found on Betty Crocker and started to branch out. I found some interesting meal ideas from a Martha Stewart Blog. I can’t remember how I got there originally, but I found similar recipes under the “Quick & Easy” section. We tried a few, but didn’t find anything overly spectacular.

Then I remembered that Campbell’s Soup used to have some good recipes, so I tried their website. This week we’ve eaten a few meals from their 30-minutes or less menu. The claim that the meal prep is 30 minutes or less is actually accurate, which is nice. However, the food was less than exciting. Although, the pork chop recipe we cooked last night was a hit, so I think we’ll keep that one.

Yesterday I stumbled on a recipe catalog within parents.com.  This has some good options, though some of the spices and sauces they suggest don’t always sound that “kid friendly”.  They do have some good sorting tools - and some good links “your kid will eat these veggies“, “10 slow-cooker faves“, “kitchen to table in 30 minutes“, etc.  There is a recipe box, and the saving feature works better than the one on Betty Crocker’s site - with Betty Crocker, you click the “save recipe” link, and it automatically takes you to your recipe box, with the newest entry.  Then you have to back up to get back to where you were searching in the first place.  the Parents.com site leaves you where you are, and just changes the text from “save it” to “saved”.  It’s much easier for browsing and saving recipes.  I have not yet had a chance to try out any of the recipes from this site, though I did find several interesting ones, so we’ll see how they stand up to the family’s taste approval…

For a little while I tried using Connoisseur - a Mac based piece of software that manages recipes iTunes style. You can add your own recipes, browse recipes online, scale recipes, etc. The software worked ok, but I didn’t find lots of recipes within Connoisseur that I found interesting, and I never found the time to type in recipes that I already have. However, I think if I could someday find some time to invest in customizing Connoisseur, I could be quite happy using that exclusively.

So, on continues my search for good tasting 30-minute meals. If anyone out there has a suggestion for other sites that have good, quick and easy meals, I’d love to hear about them!

So, I’m pregnant again. I’ve been ready for this for quite a while now. Zach took a little longer to come around - but that’s ok - he’s usually the one who has a more level head about these sorts of decisions. After Xander’s first birthday I started getting the questions about when we were going to have another one. After about 6 months of these questions, I resorted to responding “ask Zach”. When someone asked us this in March, Zach didn’t say no. I of course immediately jumped on that as a “yes”.

When we were trying to get pregnant with Xander, it took us 7 months. My OB/Gyn suggested that I calculate about 2 weeks after my period as my most fertile time. That method didn’t work very well for us (it seven months to finally work!) This time around, I was already a frequent user of BabyCenter, so I used their Ovulation Calculator, and the first month we tried that, it worked!

When I was a few days late for my period, I knew. I waited the required 10 days before taking the test, and Zach didn’t want to get his (or my) hopes up until after the test, so we didn’t talk much about it for a few weeks. Every day that my period didn’t come, I got more and more excited of course.

After I was a week late, I ordered Xander a t-shirt that said “I’m Going To Be A Big Brother!” I had decided that it would be fun to let Xander tell our families. Conveniently, the 11th day of my late period was Mother’s Day, so I decided to take the test then. As with Xander, I was too excited to tell Zach in some sort of creative way, so I showed him the digital read-out. Unfortunately, he was still asleep, and even after waking him up, he wasn’t really awake enough to read the little stick, so I just told him. He was very sweet of course.

That morning I dressed Xander in his new t-shirt. We had spent the night at Zach’s parent’s house, and Zach’s Aunt and Uncle were there as well. Zach’s Uncle David saw Xander’s t-shirt, and sort of read the words out loud, but they clearly didn’t click. Zach’s dad zipped up Xander’s sweatshirt, but didn’t read the t-shirt at all. I was starting to wonder if this was really the best plan. Finally, as everyone was getting ready to leave (David and Debbie to go back home, and us to head to my parent’s house) I took Xander’s sweatshirt off, and about 10 minutes later they read the shirt and it clicked! They were of course thrilled. I warned them this would be the last one, so they should enjoy the baby while he or she was still a baby

Then off to my parent’s house. By now it was too warm for the sweatshirt, so as soon as Xander marched into their house, they read the shirt. I think at first they were a little surprised because they hadn’t realized that we were even talking about having another baby yet. After the shock wore off, they were just as thrilled. My grandmother also arrived to visit for Mother’s Day, but she didn’t quite understand the t-shirt, though she was very happy to hear about the upcoming baby.

I have learned a few things since my first pregnancy (and anytime I think I’ve forgotten, I can just go back and read my blog!) So I’ve started to take note of significant things more quickly this time, and I’m constantly comparing the two pregnancies. It’s true when they tell you that no two pregnancies are alike! I went in for my first prenatal visit at 9 weeks - fully expecting to hear the baby’s heartbeat, because I did with Xander. We couldn’t find the heartbeat, which apparently is pretty common (but not in my experience!) that, along with some light spotting had me a little worried, so my very wonderful doctor’s office scheduled me for an ultrasound 2 days later. We went, we saw the heartbeat, the little limb bumps - it was great, and such a huge relief!

So, a few things to note about this second pregnancy. Morning sickness very rarely hits me in the morning. Instead, it hits me anytime it feels like. For a while, thinking about or talking about food would make me nauseous, so it was pretty tricky to not think about what I was doing while I was doing it. Also, I found that I would feel terrible all day or for a few days in a row, and then have a break (where I would proceed to pig out because I felt great…) The good days seem to be more regular than the bad days as I head into the second trimester, but I’m not out of the woods yet.

My cravings have been crazy. Very early on it was peanuts in the shell (I didn’t eat the shell, I just wanted to shuck them myself). Then it was mini dill pickles and french fries. Lately it’s been raw vegetables. Nothing too terrible (though the fries weren’t great…) and it seems like once I’ve eaten whatever I’m craving a few times, then I don’t feel the need for it anymore - very strange…

The maternity clothes came out much earlier this time. I think part of that was the fact that I already had a whole maternity wardrobe sitting in my attic, so it was a lot easier than trying to buy everything again.

Finally, the exhaustion has set in big time. Part of that is trying to keep up with Xander while growing this other little peanut at the same time. I find myself falling asleep at 7 or 8pm some nights, and some days I feel like I’m walking through a cloud all day. Some days I don’t eat my lunch, I just find a quiet comfy chair in the library and sleep for an hour. I’m really looking forward to some more energy in my second trimester. So, I’m going to try to blog twice a week now - once for Xander and once for baby 2.0. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with both!

Once the snow started to melt this year (which didn’t really happen until May…) Xander started to realize that he LOVES to be outside. It doesn’t matter where we are or what we are doing, outside is always better than being inside. We don’t have a lot of outside toys though. Often, Xander will “help” Zach in the garden. This spring he had a great time helping us add grass seed to the lawn - he’d take handfuls and sprinkle (or dump) them all over the lawn, and since the whole thing needs more seed, it didn’t really matter to us where Xander dropped seed (except in things like the grill, the lawnmower or on the paved driveway…) After that, we planted some flowers, and Xander had a great time playing in the dirt. He loves to water the flowers (he’s only allowed to use the mist sprayer) but he usually ends up watering himself more than the plants.

Aside from watering though, we’re running out of things to with Xander in the yard. For a few months we’ve been talking about how he needs a ride on toy. At Zach’s parent’s house, there are two - both yard sale finds that all the grandkids have played with at one point or another. Xander loves them. The smaller one (shown in the picture) he is allowed to bring inside. We have a great time watching him try to balance a sippy cup on the bar between his legs - it never works, and it makes him so frustrated. Eventually his Nana gave him a foam cup cozy, which is less slippery than the sippy cup, and almost works, but as soon as he starts moving, the cup tips to one side or the other. It doesn’t matter how many times we explain to Xander why this plan won’t work. He doesn’t care to listen - he just wants his sippy cup to stay in place while he’s motoring around the kitchen!

So, Zach and I have been looking at ride on toys for our house. We discovered that there are two choices: outrageously expensive good quality toys like Radio Flyer or the incredibly cheap, probably laden with lead from China plastic toys. Even those are usually $25-$40. So, we haven’t bought anything. We’re having a hard time justifying $80 for a tricycle, but we don’t really want to buy a cheap toy that is just going to be recalled in a month or two. So now we’ve resorted to scouring yard sales (not that we’ve had any free weekends to go yard sale-ing of course) but I’m not holding my breath for anything spectacular. If anyone out there has any reasonable alternatives, I’d love to hear about them!

I recently decided that it would be fun to start teaching Xander to tell us how old he is. For some background context, we had been reading a counting book quite a bit, and Xander surprised us when he could tell us what the next number would be (we’d say one… he’d say two…, three… four… five) only up to five, but it was pretty funny. This only lasted a little while before Xander became fixated on the numbers four and five. Now when he “counts” it’s “four… five… four… five… etc.”

This turned out to be stumbling block when trying to teach Xander his age. We started by teaching him “two” since in a few months he will be two, and we figured why confuse the kid with more numbers? Unfortunately, since he’s fixated on four and five, when you ask him how old he is, he immediately responds “four” - every time. And if you correct him and say he’s two, he responds, “I’m four!” We could do this for hours… Once in a while he adds a “ty” on the end, so he says “I’m forty!” It’s all very entertaining, and since it’s really not that big of a deal, we always get a chuckle when Xander tells us he’s four. Sometimes I respond by telling him if he’s four then he needs to start using the big boy potty!

Xander could not be less interested in stuffed animals. We don’t have a ton, but we’ve got a respectable amount - we’ve got bears and elephants and dogs, and giraffes, and frogs, and turtles, and ducks, etc. Anytime we tried to play with stuffed animals with Xander, he just tosses them over his shoulder, and goes in search of a more interesting toy. After a while, we stopped trying. Last Sunday Xander noticed the Curious George stuffed animal in his pack n’ play. My mother purchased this for Xander a while ago, when we discovered that he loves Curious George (or in Xander-speak, George George). So, when he saw George, he said “Mon Key!” Two distinct words, but a pretty good imitation of “monkey”. He picked up “Mon Key”, gave him a big hug, and carried him around the house for the rest of the day.

Zach and I were baffled - Xander had never expressed any interested in anything plush before. Mon Key is cute, and soft, but he doesn’t seem any different from any other stuffed animal in the house to us. To Xander, he is Mon Key - the monkey that needs hugs from everyone (Zach and I must also hug Mon Key on a regular basis) and pats on the back, and juice, etc. He has eyes and ears, and makes Xander giggle, so I can’t complain. It’s fascinating to me that Xander seemed to wake up one day, and find a best friend in a stuffed animal that he couldn’t care less about the day before. I’m still trying to figure out what makes that kid tick!

Lately I have started to become interested in who else is lurking out in cyberspace with blogs similar to mine.  And where does anyone start when searching for things in cyberspace?  Google of course.  Today I stumbled across MommyBlog.  I read around on this site for a while - the author writes quite well.  From what I can gather, she is the mother of a 2(ish) year old boy, and very soon expecting another baby.  She is a stay at home mom, and they have a dog.  It didn’t take me too long reading this blog, to feel completely inadequate.  The amount of content here is amazing.  She keeps up with their adventures as a family, her son’s progress, and she gets all kinds of free stuff to review - from maternity clothes to kids books.  I have no idea how she does it, but I’m impressed!  On top of that, she manages to find time to run every day, has activities set up for her son 4 days a week to make sure that he gets social interaction with others, and she is of course beautiful.  When I look at my make-up less face, and think about my over-flowing laundry hamper at home, and how when we get home from work/day care, I won’t have the energy to take Xander to the park or do much more than hide inside with the air conditioner in the 94 degree humid heat.  Then we’ll try to get laundry, dinner a bath and into bed before 8pm.

I found one interesting response to a post about people calling day care “school” and from what I can tell, this mom didn’t think that was a very accurate description.  I couldn’t find the original post, so I’m not quite sure what she actually said, but I know that we often refer to day care as “school” when talking to Xander.  Not school in the sense of a place of learning, but school in the sense that it’s an easier word to to say than day care, and it provides a similar social interaction.  I got a bit of a vibe from this blog that this mom felt that staying home with your kids is better than subjecting them to the potential horrors of day care - missing out on a big chunk of their lives, them missing out on that one-on-one interaction.  As I thought about it, I realized two very important facts about my particular situation.  First, those women at day care know a hell of a lot more than I do about raising kids - they all have a few of their own.  So if Xander spends his days with them, and comes home knowing the “I’m a little tea pot song” I’m all for it - I don’t know that I would have thought to teach him that one.  I could go on and on about the things that they teach Xander that I think “huh, I never would have thought to do that”.  Secondly, although I thought I wanted to be one of those relaxed and organized stay at home moms - the ones who have play dates and lunch dates and book clubs, it turns out I’m way more stressed when I stay home - my house is messier (of course it is with Xander trashing it 12 hours out of the day), I get less stuff done, I have less adult interaction, and I run out of energy much more quickly.  It turns out that I suck as a stay-at-home mom.  In our situation, it’s much better for both Xander and for me that I work outside of the home - we have a great time when we’re together, and we enjoy our weekends, but I think that we both do well with the time apart.

I went off on a bit of a tangent there, but the point of the post was to say that this is a pretty interesting blog, and the reviews on here are good - they’ve got some great suggestions for new and interesting products.  However, if you’re at all like me, and worry some days that you aren’t exactly a perfect mom, then this site is apt to give you a big helping of mommy guilt when you read about this woman, and try to fathom how this very pretty size 2 pregnant mommy manages to get everything done, and still has time to blog.

For about a week now Xander has been strangely attached to his pajama bottoms. In the summer time he usually wears cotton pants or shorts and a t-shirt for pajamas. We just bought him a few sets at Carter’s a few weeks ago. When I get him dressed in the morning he flips out when I try to take his bottoms off. I have to at least pull them down to change his diaper, and even that seems to be the end of the world. Then I pull the pajama bottoms back up, and he goes to day care in half pajamas. I’ve learned to pick my battles with Xander, and arguing over pajama bottoms isn’t worth the melt down in the morning when we’re trying to get out the door. I pack his pants or shorts, and when it was super warm last week they would change him (over his protests) into shorts before they went out to play. But, if it’s cool, he just runs around in pajama bottoms all day. I’m not sure what started this recent trend, and it’s not overly bothersome, but it’s a little strange, and his clothes definitely don’t match anymore

Update: I turned down the job offer from the high school. After a lot of thought, discussion, and even some helpful comments from some faithful readers, I decided that I didn’t really want to work there. Ultimately it came down to money, and the degree to which our lifestyle would have to change if I took that job. On top of that, I really do enjoy the job that I have, so the incentive to move wasn’t really there. I’m comfortable with my decision, and thank you to those who helped me decide!

First, I apologize for neglecting the blog for the past few weeks. Mostly it’s because we haven’t uploaded any new pictures of Xander since Christmas, and I’m tired of reusing old ones. I’m hoping by this weekend we’ll have a huge batch up, and I’ve got a few posts ready and waiting once we do.

Right now though, I’m having a career dilemma. Currently I work in a University library. I supervise about 30 student employees, do tech support and library support and I love my job. Unfortunately, it’s an un-benefited position. This means that I get paid when I’m here, and I don’t get paid when I’m not here. I work 7.5 hours a day, 5 days a week. 8am-4:30pm. I like my students and I like my colleagues. Zach and I have one car. I drop him off at work, drop Xander off at day care, and then drive myself to work. We also both work at the same university for the same department, so I interact with him professionally on a regular basis, which I enjoy. In 5 years or so when Xander is in school, I could likely shift my hours to 7am-3pm, and then be home with Xander after school. We would have to figure out some sort of day camp or something, because I don’t have summers off.

Today I got offered a job at the local high school. Working in their library and doing some technical support for students. The pay is a little less, and it’s only for 186 days out of the year. This means I would likely have to find some sort of seasonal employment for the summer. But, it’s a benefited position. Medical, dental, retirement, life insurance, 2 paid weeks off during the school year, and summers off. So when Xander is in school, I could have summers off with him. The hours are from 10am-6pm, so I wouldn’t be able to pick Xander up from day care anymore. We would need to find another car.

So now I’m stuck. Do I take the job with less pay and benefits with slightly more challenging hours that will eventually coincide with my kid’s schedule? Or, do I stay in the job that I have and continue on without benefits? I’m on Zach’s medical plan, so that isn’t a huge concern. But, I can’t take sick days with Xander. We can’t take any family vacations, I’m almost 30 and I don’t have any retirement money invested, and I certainly can’t rely on social security to help me out in 50 years.

I have to let the high school know by Friday what I’m going to do, and I don’t know how to decide. So, if anyone out there has any thoughts or suggestions that might help me make my decision, I’d love to hear them!

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that while I have reviewed several aspects of diapering - diapers, bags, etc., I never got around to reviewing diaper cream - and there are a lot of options out there. I don’t think that Xander is a particularly rashey kid, but he does get a diaper rash from time to time. Sometimes it gets bad - cracked skin, etc. We’ve tried a few different remedies, and found that the original works best for us.

At my baby shower, I got a wide variety of diaper creams - Aveno, Huggies, Desitin Creamy and Budreau’s Butt Paste. I tried them all, and found some interesting results.

Aveno, Huggies and Desitin Creamy all work about the same. The consistency is that of a hand lotion. It goes on easily, wipes off your hands easily, but also wipes off of baby’s bottom pretty easily too.

Boudreaux’s Butt Paste is much thicker, sticks better (on your hands too of course), but it’s brown, which can be kind of confusing when you’re trying to determine if there is a “little present” in the diaper…

I fell victim to the advertising of Desitin and purchased some Desitin Clear. It was a similar consistency as the creamy, but clear. They advertised that you could use Desitin Clear on other body parts - chapped skin, etc. Xander never really had that trouble, so we didn’t try that.

Eventually we settled on the Desitin Original. It’s a thicker consistency, and a pain to get off your hands, but it sticks on bottoms much better, and I find that it clears up diaper rashes faster as well.

I know some people mix up their own concoctions - a blend of a few different brands. I’ve never gotten that creative. Xander has has some painful rashes, but we’ve managed to survive ok with the Desitin Original.