Maya is Five Months Old!

Maya is 5 months old. She is able to do so many things now. When she’s on her belly, she holds herself up with her arms. Maya also holds her head up nice and steady now without wobbling. She’s got to in order to keep track of all of her brother’s silly antics. She chatters and squeals quite a bit. She can roll over on her own, usually when no one is looking. She just recently started to make those cute razz sounds and turns to look or follow mommy and Jayden. She can sit while being supported but doesn’t bear very much weight on her legs.

She still enjoys spending time in her swing, but now tries to sit up in it. (The seat is in a recline position.) She also loves floor time on her play mat and reaches out for the toys on the bar, pulling the whole thing towards her. And recently, we’ve started to use her excersaucer. She likes this too and she gets quite a bit of play time with her brother since he enjoys all the attachments as well. Yesterday, I managed to find a way to get the car seat to fit into the red wagon and took both of the kids and the dog for a walk. She was just singing and chattering the whole time and Jayden was talking right along with her.

Here she is sucking her thumb. She does this at night when she goes to sleep. I think it's so cute. You can see how chubby her cheeks are. She loves it when I pretend to chew on them. She always laughs.

Here she is sitting up on her boppy. She can't stay in this position for very long, but that's ok. I'm always nearby and watching. She looks so comfy here. She was actually watching Jayden. I think that might be one of her favorite things to do.

Here she is in her excersaucer. She loves all the attachments, as you can tell. But then again, so does Jayden. In fact, Esteban said the other day he caught Jayden trapped in the excersaucer. He must have been trying to get into it and got stuck. Silly guy!

Jayden Helps!

Jayden loves to help with anything at all. He’s a whiz in the kitchen. In the morning, I make coffee and he always helps. He gets the coffee grounds for me and tries to get the filter, but I don’t let him because I could just see hundreds of filters flying all over the floor. He races to the microwave so he can open the door for me and close it too. He waits desperately because he wants to press start. He does the same thing for the dishwasher. He wants to open and close the detergent compartment and the door too. He has even figured out which button is the childproof lock. He just can’t manage to hold it for 3 seconds. Ha-ha.

When I get water from the fridge, he wants to press the lever to dispense it himself. Sometimes I don’t realize that he’s heard me at the fridge and he comes at full speed, ricochets off of the dishwasher and crashes into me and my glass in order to get there in time to dispense first! Every time I get ice from the freezer, Rio comes running as if it was a biscuit so I’ve always given him a piece. Now, Rio and Jayden almost kill themselves trying to get to me first. Of course, Jayden wants to get the piece of ice so that he can give it to Rio. Jayden even wants to get his own milk and his own juice. I let him pass me the juice bottle when I’m fixing him a sippy cup, but sometimes he passes me all the juice bottles he can find in the fridge. Ok, enough is enough.

He’s handy around the house too! Jayden is a huge fan of the vacuum and the broom. He will literally hold the vacuum or the broom while you are trying to use it, which of course makes it impossible. If you try to engage him with something else, he will leave for a minute or two and then come back and at least try to hold the cord, often unplugging the vacuum and causing further distress. Any time I enter a room, he wants to close the door for me and of course he’s a huge fan of helping turn on the lights and ceiling fans. This is very useful especially when I’m nursing and can’t move right away. He always comes through for me.

Jayden loves to help with Maya whenever possible. He wants to be available to pass me the wipes, her diaper and the powder (he must think I’m crazy). Then he waits to throw out the soiled diaper. When Maya cries, he helps by getting her pacifier, her blanket and every single teether and rattle she owns. He helps mommy too. When I come home from work, he tries to help me take my socks off and my shoes too. He follows me to the potty where he waits desperately to flush the toilet. If I let him, he’d help me wipe too! When I do laundry, he helps by putting daddy’s socks in his sock drawer. He also helps take the used dryer sheets to the trash. But since he sees mommy cleaning the floor around the high chair after Jayden’s meal, he has started to use the dryer sheets to wipe the entire floor and while he’s at it he cleans the sliding glass doors too.

Jayden wants to help open and close car doors. I’m always worried that he’s going to catch his finger in the door, but I guess he won’t learn until he actually does it. Ouch! I don’t even want to think about that. And don’t try to remove a recyclable item from the house because he wants to carry it to the recycle bin himself and toss it in. I don’t let him carry the glass. Well, not anymore since he shattered one all over the place and daddy was super upset. Oops.

He’s even helpful with Rio. Jayden will call out for Rio to come home when he’s outside doing his business. He also helps me when it’s time to feed Rio by holding Rio’s food bowl steady. And sometimes he even helps to spill Rio’s water all over the place. He also reprimands Rio and chases him around the house with his ride on toys. I even catch him “riding” Rio. I don’t think Rio considers this useful, but he never complains.

I especially love it when he helps me on Sunday mornings by walking to the end of the drive way to get the paper for me. Very cute. I’m telling you, I’ve never seen a more helpful child. Can he possibly help me anymore? Please God, no.

A Date

Recently, I reached my 15 year anniversary at work. I can’t believe I’ve been there so long. I wonder now if I’ll make it to my 20th anniversary. Anyway, my company hosts a large party for employees reaching this milestone. So I made arrangements with the baby sitter and Esteban and I actually went out alone, on a date, to the party. It was so nice to be able to just talk without being interrupted 20 times. We enjoyed a great dinner, but I felt like Cinderella. We had to leave before we could really enjoy the entertainment or get a dance in. The time went by so quickly and before you knew it, it was time to go and fetch the kids. Oh well, atleast I can look forward to doing this again at Christmas.

The Proof is in the Pudding

After two months of couponing, I was starting to wonder if I was spending more by making more frequent trips to the store instead of saving on all these “hot” deals I was finding. I pulled out all my receipts and started to tally them. I’m excited to say that although it was a slow start and I’m still on a learning curve, my couponing efforts have been worth it. Proof, you ask?

1. August’s grocery list was about 1/3 the size of July’s. I was excited by this, but still not certain.

2. I spent $138.71 less in groceries and yet my cabinets are all overflowing. Thank you God! And I don’t mean just my kitchen cabinets, but both bathroom vanities are full as well. And my fridge and freezer are also well stocked. Here's my bathroom vanity.

Here's the spare bathroom vanity with my overflow.

Here's the other side of the vanity with all of the kid's stuff.

3. I am seeing a 27% reduction in my monthly grocery expenses and I am very happy about this.

It’s encouraging because I know I made so many mistakes this month, but little by little I am learning and I am looking forward to next month’s savings. Things were tight for so long after having the baby and staying home for 12 weeks. We were looking very sad. Now we can focus on paying off hospital bills and catching up again. God is so good. Thank you Lord!

Co-Sleeping?

According to Wikipedia, co-sleeping, also called the family bed, is a practice in which babies and young children sleep with one or both parents.

I’ve never been a huge advocate of co-sleeping. I’ve always felt that children should learn to feel safe and comfortable in their own beds. I believe that it can interfere with a couple’s relationship. And I really feel that at the end of a long day of bouncing back and forth between the kids, I need a break. I need me-time. I need to retreat and have a few minutes all to myself to unwind and relax. I never allowed Jayden to sleep with us and trust me, Esteban has always suggested it. Especially if Jayden’s not feeling well or if there’s a bad storm or if Jayden wakes in the middle of the night, he will want his little boy in bed with us. I have always put my foot down. It was a non-negotiable.

So WHY am I doing this with Maya? WHY am I letting her sleep in bed with us? I have no idea. I’m breaking my own cardinal rule. Maya still wakes one to two times at night to nurse. One night, she woke up crying and Esteban got up and brought her to bed with me so I could feed her. I normally sit in my rocker to nurse her, but I was so exhausted that night, I just lay there and fell asleep and I’ve been doing it ever since. Worse of all, I find that letting her sleep so closely to me has been most helpful thing I could do as far as her nipple confusion goes. In fact, I spoke with a nutritionist who suggested that prior to feeding time, I spend time with Maya encouraging as much skin to skin contact as possible. In essence what I was trying to do was to get her to fall in love with me all over again. And it seems that she has! Since I’ve started to co-sleep, she’s latching on incredibly well and our nursing sessions are getting shorter, and more productive. In fact, she’s stopped wanting the bottle from the sitter. She will still take the bottle from Daddy, but twice this week Maya has only taken one bottle in a ten hour stretch at the sitters. Of course, that concerns me, but then she gets home and makes up for it.

I don’t know what to make of it. All I can say is that our bed is no way near big enough. I’m super tired. Subconsciously, I am worried that Esteban will roll right on to her or that she’ll roll off the bed onto the floor when I’m nursing her on my left side. I don’t think I ever fall into a deep sleep and I spend quite a bit of time guarding Maya from Daddy when he's having a restless night. My body aches from holding my position and from sleeping on the edge of the bed to make room for her. And I’m worried that I am creating a monster.

My New Hobby

I used to think of myself as a couponer. I would snip a coupon here and there and if I remembered to use it, hallelujah! I saved .40 cents. Little did I know of this secret sisterhood of women, who are truly couponers. They work at it, often clocking tons of man hours scouring their neighborhood stores for the hottest deals and bringing home bags of items at nearly no cost out of pocket to them. How do they do it and more importantly, how can I do the same? This is my new hobby. It consumes every bit of time that I have left to myself these days. I am a long away from becoming a couponing goddess, but I am learning every week from all the mistakes I make.

It started about 6 weeks ago. I got a newspaper subscription and started clipping away. Then I joined a coupon train, where I can get the coupons I need like for diapers or grocery items in exchange for coupons I don’t need like make-up or junk food items. Then I got a magazine subscription to the All You magazine for almost nothing and now I have access to even more coupons. And lastly, I stay very close to the internet and websites such as Hot Coupon World and Mommy Savers. There, I hear of all the best deals first hand. And for a newbie, I haven’t done too bad for myself.

The biggest strike against me is time. I never have enough time to get from store to store to get my deals. And when I do, I am rushing either because I’m with the kids and they are cranky or because I need to get home so that I can feed Maya or so that Esteban can get to work. And so every week, I throw together my spending scenario for the week. Careful planning is very important, but rarely do I have time to devote to this step. Then, I try to find or trade for the coupons I will need to make my deals even sweeter. I get to the store and instead of being prepared, I’ve forgotten my list, I’m fumbling through sales circulars, trying to find coupons, and finally shocked at the register because the I’m not paying what I had calculated spending. But every time I go, I learn something new and it takes time to become good at something so I don’t give up.

Today’s shopping excursion was yet another learning experience. I took Jayden with me and he was carrying on, yelling hello to anyone who passed by and flinging my circular all over the place. Yet I was still careful to remain focused. I was very careful to find all the advertised items I had planned on getting and sticking to the plan. I was careful to use all my coupons without forgetting any and I was careful to use my extra care bucks (ECBs), which are part of the store’s incentive program. And when I get to the register, surprise! I owe way more than I thought I would. How could that happen?

I ended up using up more ECBs than I wanted to. That was not the goal. The goals are to spend the least amount out of pocket as possible as well as to roll/grow the ECBs (basically free money given back to me by the store for my purchases). When I got home, I quickly tried to figure out how I went wrong and realized that my spreadsheet formulas (yes, you read this right) were incomplete. Even though I was unhappy with my trip, it wasn’t a total loss. I brought home a package of Zantac, two containers of Purex, four body washes, a toddler’s Dimetapp and two bottles of Robitussin. My subtotal before tax was $46.46. I used $12 worth of coupons and $4 worth of store coupons. My balance was $28.46. I used $25.49 in ECBs and my total cost out of pocket was $2.98. My out of pocket was great, but I spent $25.49 in ECBs and only earned back 16.99 in ECBs. So I’ve learned yet another lesson this week.

It is easy to become addicted to saving money and getting free items so I try hard to keep things fun, celebrate successes and not go overboard getting things I don’t need. I do have quite a stockpile, but they are all things I normally use and would normally pay full price for. It’s hard to know when you’re crossing the line when the line is different for everyone. I just ask that God bless me while I dabble in couponing. I don’t want to become that lady who just bought 37 razors or 98 bottles of shampoo. Ha-ha!

The Prince and Princess

Here's my little prince enjoying a beautiful Florida day. He wasn't a big fan of his kiddie pool when he first got it, but he loves it now. He got the water table for his birthday from his padrino and as you can see, he thinks it's another pool. He plays with it with water or without. Daddy is giving him a good hosing down and he was enjoying every minute of it!
Here's my little princess. As you can see, she's really growing and everyday she gets stronger and learns something new. She loves Jayden and is always delighted by his silly antics. It's almost impossible not to get a smile from her. My girlfriend, Limary, sent her this outfit from PR and she was just too cute in it.

God has been too kind to bless us with these two little rascals. I am so thankful to have them and am desperately trying to enjoy every little moment.