Being Sara

In our town there are many, many opportunities for Halloween trick-or-treating, parties, etc.  It all starts the Friday night before Halloween, this year, it was the week before.  The local business host trick-or-treating in their shops.  There is music and activities on the town common, candy in the stores, and often hot cider and cookies around for hungry parents.  We brought Xander with some friends last year, and although he was too young to really appreciate the event, he had fun people watching, and we enjoyed the near mob scene.  This year, we took Xander again, thinking that even though he is still small, he would probably enjoy seeing the other kids, and all the people.

Apparently we were wrong…  Since then, Xander has been afraid that pumpkins, goblins or “bad guys” are going to get him.  Pretty much every night this week we’ve had to make some sort of accomodation for “bad guy protection”.  Most often, he needs socks and his feet tucked in super tight so that the “bad guys” won’t get his feet.  One night he actually managed to get out of bed and locate his foam sword (part of his pirate costume) before we got upstairs to comfort him.  That night he was convinced that the goblins were going to get him.  It was sad, but incredibly cute that he had managed to arm himself to ward off the goblins – as you would expect, he fell asleep holding the sword  that night.

I know this is just a phase, and eventually he’ll get through it.  We’ve been careful to validate his fears (yes, goblins can be scary, but look – there aren’t any in here, and we can check under the bed, in the closet, etc.) and try to reassure him that he’s safe, ok, and nothing is going to hurt him, etc.  We’ve tried special socks, night lights, explaining that his stuffed animal (the only one he’s ever shown any interest in – curious george) protects him from “bad guys”.  I’ve considered resorting to special “monster spray” (water with food coloring in a spray botttle), but he loves to spray those so much, our entire house would be soaked in a matter of minutes…  So, we’re trying to ride it out, and I’m hoping that when Halloween is over, perhaps the fears will slowly start to fade as well.

Since Halloween has turned into such a scary experience, we’ve decided not to take Xander trick-or-treating this year.  He’s still got plenty of candy from last weekend, and he doesn’t enjoy wearing his costume all that much, and the last thing we need is to walk up to an enthuastiac Halloween house (which I think is great, just not so great for my scared kid…) and give Xander nightmares for another few weeks.  Instead, we’ll all stay home and hand out candy this year, and hopefully next year our little man will have more excitement for this holiday…

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I have finally reached my 3rd trimester.  Though when I look back at the previous two, it feels like it flew by.  With Xander, it felt like every day and every week took forever to arrive.  I was so excited to find out what the next development or the next milestone would be.  This time around I know what to expect.  I’m not reading “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” every week, and while I’m still reading a few weekly newsletters in my email, it’s mostly to make sure I’m feeling and expecting what I should be.  While some things like the first trimester “morning” sickness and exhaustion were much more intense this time, and I appreciated the comfort level in my second trimester a great deal more (especially knowing what was coming in the 3rd trimester), the length of time it’s taken to get here feels so much shorter.  I also feel like there are still a ton of things to do before we’re ready for the newest addition to the family.

Xander’s room needs to be painted and set up.  The nursery needs to be put back into nursery form.  I need to wash all of the old infant clothes and put them back in their appropriate drawers.  We need to put the new car seat into the car and get Xander accostumed to his new location behind the passenger seat.  I need to finalize a few more things at work, etc.  Each day I think of something else to add to the list.  I also feel like time is flying by faster than I can keep track of it this time around.  It’s not agonizingly slow like the last pregnancy, but there is that same sense of excitment at finally getting to meet the little guy – how much hair (if any) will he have?  What will his features look like?  Eventually, what color eyes will he have?  And most importantly, will he be healthy?  It won’t be too much longer before I have answers to all of those questions – and for that, I really can’t wait!

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Look At Me!

Two weekends ago Zach and I took Xander apple picking.  I had been thinking about this for a while, and thought it would be something fun for us to do as a family.  I haven’t been apple picking since I was a child, but I have lots of fond memories of my mother coming on class field trips with me to pick apples, and all of the yummy treats we created from said apples.

Finally near the middle of October Zach and I had a free weekend and decided to visit an orchard about an hour North of us – Windy Ridge Orchard.  Everyone told me this was “the” place to pick apples.  Their website listed some fun kid activities, and I heard rave reviews about the apple cider doughnuts.  So, we drove up.  It was just past “peak” here in NH, but the leaves were still beautiful, and the drive was fun.  We got there, and realized that this was definitely not the best kept secret in NH, as every leaf peeper in the state seemed to be there.  We soon discovered that we would not be picking any apples that day – there were no apples left to pick!  Luckily, they were still selling apples in the gift shop, so we were able to pick up some apples, apple cider and of course the famous apple cider doughnuts.

The highlight for Xander was the animals.  This particualr orchard has a few goats, pigs, sheep, and a donkey hanging out for kids to visit with.  Xander had a great time watching the animals, and of course checking out the tractors.  Although we didn’t get to pick any actual apples, it was a great family day.  Xander passed out in the car on the way home, and slept for another 3 hours after we got home, so apparently we wore him out with our little adventure!

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Apparently today is a blog action day for Poverty.  I’ve seen my fair share of it, so I figured why not devote a blog post to it?  Whether we notice it or not, poverty is all around us.  For those of us lucky enough not to be overly affected by poverty, it is easy to turn a blind eye to those around us who are suffering.

In my past life as a Child Protection Worker, I saw poverty all the time.  I worked out of the Laconia office in NH, and at that time (I left in 2006), a single mother with 2 children in Laconia had to make $14/hour just to pay rent on a 2 bedroom apartment – that would just cover the rent, not utilities, groceries or transportation.  Needless to say, there were far more struggling families than there were resources to go around.

One of the biggest struggles I saw was transportation.  Even in a relatively populated area such as Laconia, families often found it nearly impossible to get to work, school or doctor appointments without their own car.  Cars are such a huge expense, this frequently became an insurmountable struggle.  And, when parents failed to get their children to school or doctor appointments, Child Protection Workers would swoop in – hopefully to assist in providing resources, but depending on the willings of the family to cooperate, it sometimes ended in a less than desirable situation.

Two years ago when I worked for the State, there were programs available to assist families with everything from food and rent to buying a used car.  I’m sure some of those programs have changed or gone away, but the state does keep a list, for NH, the Department of Health and Human services maintains that information.  A call to your local office can help anyone find an appropriate program.

On the flip side, I discovered that although these programs exist, and many families in need are not aware of them, the more fortunate out there who are willing to donate time, money or goods are also not aware of where their help is needed.  I think every community is different, but I’d be willing to be that most of my frequent readers know of a local school.  Not only are public schools often in need (amazing what budget cuts and do to a paper or pencil supply!) but they are often quite aware of the more needy famililes in the community.  I also find that schools are usually aware of many frequently used resources in the area, and depending on the size of the community, they may even know which agencies need what.

The “Season of Giving” is coming up pretty quickly, and in my experience, it’s the easiest time of year to start giving things.  Food drives tend to pop up all over the place around Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I used the food drives as an opportunity to clear out my pantry and donate any of that stuff (keep in mind most food bands can’t accept things that have expired dates – including canned good) that I haven’t used in the past year.  Last year I donated a large stack of baby food that Xander would no longer eat – it’s one of those items that I think gets overlooked pretty frequently, but it’s always needed.  I also like to clean out my clothes this time of year.  As adults, we often get lots and lots of clothes for Christmas.  I know my drawers and closets are over-stuff with things – and lots of things I don’t wear.  While I’d love to sell these to a local thrift store and pocket the cash, instead I leave them for the local community closet – they’ll still get sold, but at a cheaper price, and as a non-profit organization, the community closet also donates clothes to families in need.  There are also tons of Salvation Army stores around and other organizations that will take clothing and other items to either sell or donate to families in need.

At Christmas time there are always organizations looking to collect toys for children.  Often by checking your local paper, you can find the organizations in your area, and how to donate to them.  Every year I try to select at least one family to purchase Christmas presents for.  Also keep in mind that sometimes the only gifts a child receives are the ones you provide, so picking up a toy or two as well as a few articles of clothing is usually a good idea.  We can’t afford to go overboard, but we are fortunate enough to be able to provide for our family, and have enough left over to help out another family as well.

As budgets tighten this year, sometimes donating goods or money isn’t an option for families.  Donating your time can be just as valuable.  Interestingly, our local soup kitchen often finds itself with more help than it knows what to do with.  However there are other agencies in the area who are in desperate need of volunteers.  Local domestic violence crisis centers are often looking for volunteers.  Churches frequently know of area agencies in need.  Local literacy programs, hospitals and elderly care centers are all great places to look for volunteer opportunities.  Some places are happy to have volunteers even if it’s just an hour or two a week.  Others are looking for a more long-term commitment, someone who is willing to go through a training program and commit to a certain amount of hours.  I think volunteering is wonderful, but it’s got to be something that you are willing to donate time to, and something that you are excited or passionate about.

I just read a great article on Frugal Zeitgeist yesterday – asking people to list 10 things they feel good about.  The majority of responses related to family, friends, good health and pets.  I have to agree that my family has a lot to feel good about – I could easily list more than 10 things.  I feel like giving back to my community is important, and I like role modeling this behavior for my son (even if he is too young to understand it at the moment, someday he’ll get it)

So here’s a shout out to Blog Action Poverty Day and hopefully anyone who stumbles across this post will maybe feel inspired to do something to help someone less fortunate…

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Although I’ve been sworn to secrecy, Zach and I did finally settle on a name for this new baby.  And, someday if he reads this post, he’ll likely groan and moan, but it’s part of his story…

Several months ago I began pestering Zach with names.  Since we both spend a large majority of our days in front of computers, I would frequently gtalk him a name.  Sometimes he would respond, and sometimes he wouldn’t see it (or he was just completely ignoring me)

I didn’t get any positive responses until I faceciously suggested Marmaduke.  Zach jumped on this name immediately (of course…).  To give you some back story, last year we watched a tv show called Carpoolers.  It only lasted 1 season, and we didn’t watch it regularly, but it was funny and we enjoyed what we saw.  One of the characters was named Marmaduke.  He was the adult son of one of the main characters.  To say that he marched to the beat of a different drummer would be putting it mildly.  His character was entirely entertaining, but no one would ever want to name their child after him.

So, while the name debate continued, we referred to the newest edition as Marmaduke, or ‘Duke for short.  If people asked us about names, I would attempt to tell them “Marmaduke” with a straight face, but that never lasted long.  Some people come up with cute names for their growing bellies like “Bun” or “Bump” and we called ours ‘Duke…

While I permit the boy’s in-utero name to be Marmaduke, I insisted that this name could not be used one he exits the womb.  So, I continued to search through baby name sites.  I read through thousands and thousands of names.  I don’t really have a favorite baby name site – a simple google search will turn up more than you could imagine.  I ended up using BabyZone quite a bit, but that site frustrates me continually.  There are waaaay too many adds, the browsing feature doesn’t work all that great, and the interrupt advertisements nearly drove me to an entirely separate angry blog post.  What kept me going back was the “baby name basket” – I could add names to the basket, and then I had a running list.  Of course, when I went to print the list, I couldn’t find a “printer-friendly” version. so I ended up putting all the names into a word document – all that frustration for naught

I printed the list because that evening we happened to be driving to my in-law’s house, so I knew I would have Zach captive in the car for an hour and a half.  He tried in vain to thwart my plans, but I eventually convinced him to look at the lists I brought.  He narrowed down the list of 26 down to 4.  I spent a few miles trying out the names with various middle names.  I told him that 3 of the names were very similar, and I was having a hard time deciding which one I like the best out of the 3.  Then after a few more miles, I told him my order preference 1-4.  It turns out his order preference was the same.  “So that’s it” I said “We’re done”.  He replied “But, what if there’s a better name out there?”  To which I responded, “Feel free to keep searching, but unless you convince me otherwise, this is going to be the name on the birth certificate.”

The best part is that I’m really happy with the name.  I think it’s perfect, and I don’t think that Zach will manage to find any other name that we’re as excited about.  I would love to tell you what it is, but in learning from others experiences, Zach prefers to keep the name quiet until it’s already written in stone.  The plus to his plan is that no one gives us “the look” or the “oh…” response when we tell them.  Even if they have to fake it, they all pretend that they like the name   And, since everyone already knows we are having a boy, and knows the birth date, I guess it’s nice to keep at least one thing a surprise.

If you’re really curious about the name, check back on December 30th – I’ll already have the blog post written and ready to introduce our newest son to the world.

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