I'm a sucker for sales.

I have been hanging on to a Gymboree gift card for about 2 months now, but none of their summer collections have appealed to me. (Ryleigh is blessed with so many hand-me-downs that I really can't justify buying her any more clothes unless I absolutely love them) However, today I got an email about a 30% off sale on their fall collections, and definitely found things worth spending money on.


So, we picked up a couple of cute items.

We also picked up some cute hair accessories. I pretty much loved everything they had for fall, so it was tough to limit myself to my 40$ gift card limit!

I am thankful we got to get out of the house, get in some retail therapy, and not spend anything out of pocket!

P.S. I love fall and am so ready to be done with this hot weather!

Prayer Warrior?

Ryleigh absolutely loves to pray.

Yesterday, in the middle of the zoo, Ryleigh asked me if we could pray for the cheetahs. So, we found a bench, folded our hands, and thanked God for making the cheetahs.

Tonight, in the middle of dinner she asked if we could pray for the food... which we had totally forgotten to do at the beginning of the meal! Is it bad if you're 18 month old holds accountable for praying more than anyone else does?

I just hope she continues to grow up and give God the glory for everything!

It's been a while

I haven't blogged in a while. Why? Because if I did it would be a horrible rant, and/or sob fest about who only knows what, because these stupid pregnancy hormones are making me go crazy! Unfortunately I seem to be feeling only negative emotions during this pregnancy. Of course I am happy about the baby, I just feel unhappy about everything else.

But, Friday marks the start of the 2nd trimester and hopefully my crazy emotions will take a turn for the better :-)

And hopefully this crazy, insatiable hunger will subside. Seriously, I'm the one in charge of the grocery shopping, and yet every single day I whine that we don't have anything good to eat! How is it that I do not have any chocolate, or cookies, or cake, or anything in my house right now?! Honey nut cheerios just isn't cutting it for my late night snack right now...

The End

weird kids

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a kid with weird eating habits. I'll share what she did with lunch today, feel free to share your weird kid's stories.

Today we started off with a handfull of cheese curls (to keep her happy while I made lunch). She bit off the ends of each cheese curl, and then asked for more..... she didn't want to eat the middle parts! Then I gave her a pb+j. Every time, she opens the sandwich up, then dips her finger into the pb or j, and then licks her finger. She does this until the middle is all gone, and then leaves the bread un-eaten.

(No judgment on the poor meal choice please, it's grocery day! haha. Plus she did eat about a million and five grapes)

Anyone else with a story?

In other words...

Ryleigh is getting a little better about forming actual sentences (or at least phrases), but there's definitely room for improvement. Today she came out with this "sentence".

"Maeve, cheese, ride, mouse, Barney".
Translation: I went to Chuck E' Cheese with Maeve. We saw the mouse, and I went on the Barney ride". haha.

At least she gets her point across, and I know what she means.

My insanity

I am going crazy! Due to Ryleigh's altered nap schedule I pretty much cannot leave the house between the hours of 11-4. For the past 2 weeks we have been dealing with Ryleigh's decision to drop her morning nap. And everything is fine if we stay home all day. But, trying to go anywhere, and having her fall asleep in the car, and then not napping at home later in unacceptable.
And seriously, I feel like 2 weeks should have been plenty of an adjustment period for her. But she just cannot stay awake until her afternoon nap, without turning into Mr.Hyde. The only time she is disobedient is when she is tired, so we've spent plenty of time in the time-out chair. And with my pregnancy grumpiness it is not a pleasant situation.

I just need socialization, and to not be stuck behind these boring, unpainted walls!! Thank God we have friends coming over on Thursday, at least I have something to look forward to!

Ready for baby?

In anticipation of getting pregnant, and having a baby in March we decided to rid all "baby" things in Ryleigh's life and replace them with "big girl" things.

The transition from a crib to a big girl bed went better than I expected. After only a couple of nights of Ry getting up, and us resetting her in her bed she now has no problem falling asleep.

We have all the stuff like the baby swing, bouncy seat, and boppy in her closet, so she does see them often, but anytime she sees them we just say, "those are for babies, you are a big girl".

I think the biggest hurdle so far has been getting rid of her binky. But, I am proud to report that she has been binky free for a week now! Yay!

The next step is potty training. She will go on the potty whenever I stick her on it, we just have to get to the point where she tells me she has to go. I am not absolutely adamant that she be potty trained by March, but I figure if she doesn't learn to go on the potty she'll just have to learn how to change her own diapers. haha. JK!

Our intentions are to have all the baby stuff behind her in order to ward off jealousy. We don't want her getting mad at the new baby for sleeping in "her" crib, or for sucking on "her" binky. Hopefully by the next 7 and a 1/2 months she'll forget that she ever used those things. That's a big hopefully, and I know that we have a lot to learn about sibling interactions, but it feels good to at least try some preventative measures!

It's kinda sad that my little girl is growing up, but it's also exciting to see her learning new things and entering new phases in her life (except that the next phase will probably be the terrible twos. grr).

If you work with kids....

If you work with kids, you should know a little bit about them.

For instance, if you are the director for the children's program at the library and you are going to put on a fun show to celebrate the end of the summer programs do not...
a) make them wait in line. No one will expect to have to wait in line for a library event. Seriously? Let's stick a bunch of kids together in a line for 15 minutes and expect them to not run around/go crazy/and get very impatient
b) start the show 15 minutes late. So, after kids have to wait in line they then have to sit quietly in their seats?! I don't think so.

So sadly, my "fun" plan to take Ryleigh to the library show this morning was a failure. We walked out 15 minutes into the show because she was just fed up by that point :-(



And as a side note: Thanks to a wonderful birthday gift card we go to go out to eat at the Hard Rock in AC for Ryan's birthday. When we were there I took Ry to the bathroom to change her diaper. As she was running around touching everything at her level while I was washing my hands, a maybe-21 year old girl said, "How old is she?". When I said, "18 months", she replied, "Wow! And she's walking already!".
Haha.... seriously, don't make comments about babies milestones if you know nothing about kids!

Backwards thinking

I just spotted an article on Yahoo about kids meals from restaurants that have high fat content. The article was talking about the epidemic of child obesity in this country, and it followed along with the book "Eat this, not that".

It explained how things like Fettuccine Alfredo from the Olive Garden is very fattening (duh!), and you should opt for something like cheese ravioli instead.

However, I read the article with a little twist. Rather than swapping "that" for "this" I was reading to find out what the most fattening meals would be so that I could give them to Ryleigh. haha.

The neverending story

Ryleigh had her 18 month check up today. She gained 9oz. Yay! I asked the doctor how much she needs to gain in order to get back on the growth chart. She said we can't hope that she'll get back on the chart until around 3 years old. But, she's staying along a nice steady curve, and continuing to grow, so that's good.

The pedia. also asked why we haven't followed up with all the specialists. I explained how much money we owe the doctors, and the labs, and she couldn't believe it. She explained that the insurance may not have the code for FTT under Ryleigh's records, so they may not be treating our bills as if she has an actual diagnosis. So, the pedia. gave me the code to give the insurance. Apparently she thinks the insurance should be covering more.

I was SO hopeful that we could get some help with all these medical bills..... until I talked to the insurance and they said the codes don't change anything, and we're still responsible for all of these expensive bills. :-(

The pediatrician also said we may qualify for Medicaid..... unfortunately she assumed Ryan makes WAY less than he does, because there is no way we qualify for the income standards..... um, 900$ a month? At least I can thank God that we have more money than that to live on!

So, after letting my hopes get really high when I talked to the pediatrician, and then having them slammed back down to reality I feel so frustrated and upset!

Living on a middle class income with 2 people in the family that require a LOT of specialized medical treatment is not easy. I just pray that we can somehow get through these times and still manage to buy a house next summer!

Just my thoughts

Here's something I don't understand. Why can't zoos and aquariums set everything at stroller height?

At the Philadelphia zoo the Big cats exhibits are great, the kids can stay in the stroller, and still clearly see the animals. At Adventure Aquarium there are several big tanks where, again, the kids in strollers can see everything. But then you run into exhibits where everything is so high up that you're forced to take your kid out of the stroller so they can see.

For those of you who aren't parents, you have to understand how difficult it can be to get a kid to sit back in their stroller after they've had a small taste of "freedom". Sometimes it can involve a lot of tears and/or screaming.

Not to mention, after walking around a large zoo and picking a kid up, then putting them back down, then picking them up again, and then bending over the stroller can be really tough on your lower back.

So, someday, maybe someone who designs zoos will realize that a large portion of their guests are in strollers, and they really should take that into consideration.

That is all. Now time to bathe my little peanut :-)