Budget Smudget

The Husband and I took a giant hit to the cash flow when the child arrived. Though we are still using diapers that were given as gifts at the shower and we have enough hand- me- downs to dress an army, we no longer have the luxury of two salaries to pay the bills. And since the Hub just started a new job, what’s coming in is depleted after paying for the necessities.

The irony of all of this is that before having the baby I blogged about personal finance for a savings bank. And here we are, with little to no savings, trying to scrape up rent money. If only I had taken my own advice.

So since Jane arrived, I’ve come up with a few surefire ways to save money. And by save money I mean to successfully pay all of the bills and break even at the end of the month. By budgeting strategies will work for people at any stage in life, not just those of us starting out with a little one in tow.

The Grocery Bill. Don’t go to the store hungry. Plan meals. Buy things on sale only if they are cheaper than the cheapest item of its kind. A lot of times, ACME brand will be ten for ten when something else is .89. If you HAVE To have Skippy brand creamy peanut butter, fine. Just make up for it by buying a store brand of something else.

Stay IN. We have enjoyed a lot of time here at home with friends since the baby came. It’s less stressful since we don’t have to pack her up to leave and listen to her cry the whole time we’re out. And by we (let’s be honest) I mean I’ll be listening to her cry while I’m bouncing her around the restaurant lobby.

A lot of times we take turns going out for a drink or two after dinner with a friend instead of going out for dinner with each other. It saves a lot of money and gives us time to talk crap on each other. Juuuuuust kidding.

Use Your Asssssets. This one’s more for the ladies. But I guess if you’re a guy with really smooth game and a knack for catching a Sugar Mama, it might work for you, too. A few weekends ago the girls and I managed to go out for dinner and drinks without paying a DIME of the tab. This can all be attributed to a certain friend that just so happens to work at a high- end spa. It’s really all about whom you know. You better believe that I’ll be dragging her along every time I go out around here.

Sacrifice your Vice. As stated previously in this blog, I love TV. We recently canceled our cable (EEK) and got an antenna and converter box. It’s really not bad. We get the major networks, and I can still watch Judge Joe Brown and The View during the day. And it’s FREE. (Why didn’t we think of this before?!) This could be equated to any number of habits, like renting movies on Demand or shopping for new duds for every occasion outside of your living room.

So I’ll leave it at that. Tight budgets suck. But credit card debt sucks even more.

The Husband is always talking about how Jane will pay our tab once she becomes the tennis star that she is meant to be. Or maybe we’ll mold her into a triple threat child star and embezzle her funds Gary Coleman style. All I know is, she sure as heck better pay my nursing home bill. And come and visit me a few times a month if she knows what’s good for her.

The Crazy Mom

My mother often talks about how blissfully ignorant she was when she had her babies. Sure, she read a few books, but mostly relied on my grandmother and her elderly neighbors when it came to deciding how to parent. Parenting was learned from trial and error for the most part.

But now, a new breed of mother has developed that I like to call “The Crazy Mom”. The Crazy Mom asks everyone that touches her baby to use hand sanitizer (something I gave up on in less than a month). She wipes down every inch of her house and keeps a dust free environment. She wipes her baby’s hands fifty times a day and bleaches every toy the baby touches on a regular basis. She doesn’t use a crib bumper and has one of those monitors that will beep if the baby stops breathing. She never misses a day of her prenatal vitamins, drinks three gallons of water to keep up her milk production, and makes sure she has a daily update on SIDS recommendations sent to her email.

I can’t stand The Crazy Mom. The worst part about her is, she thinks she’s right about everything. She thinks if you aren’t doing these things to protect your baby, you are an unfit parent and your children need to be confiscated by child services.

I met a mother of twins in the mall the other day, and she had a really great attitude when it came to mothering. She confessed that she never got her kids’ car seats checked, uses blankets in their cribs, and (the mother of all sins) didn’t even read What to Expect When You’re Expecting. She said that she just watches her kids closely and generally doesn’t want them to die. I have confidence that her twins will survive until adulthood.

So to all you Crazy Moms out there, I understand, I really do. Keep doing what you’re doing, but keep it to yourself. It really will be okay if I don’t boil Jane’s binks for five minutes every day, or dust my bookshelves. Just sayin.

Vomit

Disclaimer: I won’t get graphic, I promise. Your weak stomach can probably handle this one.

Thankfully, I’ve lived a life with little experience in the vom department. Except, of course, for one particular night in college which I spent holding a certain friend’s hair back while she went at it in the dorm room trash can. Not to name any names, but girlfriend, that was intense.

I became close friends with The Porcelain God starting early in my pregnancy. I would spend a lot of mornings sitting on the edge of the tub trying to think of anything gross or repulsive in hopes that I could get on with it and leave for work relatively on time. The last thing the world needed was a pregnant woman with raging hormones weaving in and out of traffic on 476 with her emergency flashers on (not that I ever actually did that…)

My sister, who was also pregnant at the time, had it a lot worse than I did. She found herself pulling over on I-95 and in parking lots just to preserve her vehicle’s upholstery and new car smell. It’s a really awful feeling to be so much of a slave to your stomach sphincters.

After the first five or so months, trips to the bathroom became less frequent. And then a few months later, the baby came.

Does anyone else notice a running theme in these blog entries? THE BABY CHANGES EVERYTHING!! Just putting that out there.

I was blessed with a beautiful baby girl with a pretty horrific reflux issue. I swear she spits up over half of what she eats. The older she gets, the less frequent the regurgitations occur, but it seems like there is a lot more now. My husband has gone into full wardrobe preservation mode. If he is dressed for work, there’s no WAY that child is going within three feet of his body. So I make sure he's the one to get up when she cries at 4 am. Of course I only do it to make sure she gets her Daddy time. It has nothing to do with the extra few hours of sleep for me, honest.

Which brings us to the main event. This afternoon, the spit up went to a whole new level. Now that Jane is quasi- mobile, she really likes to wiggle when I hold her. Her favorite thing in the WORLD is standing up on my legs. And by standing I mean keeping her knees locked while I support ninety percent of her weight.

Out of this emerged a game my husband likes to call “helicopter”. (Can you guess where this is going?) Helicopter just means that I raise her up, fairly slowly, until she is above my head, and then bring her down again while making a really annoying helicopter noise. She thinks it’s hilarious, and I really want to get her to laugh, so I do this basically all day. WELL. Today, while in midair, she vomited. I mean, VOMITED. All I have to say is, thank God my mouth was closed. Yeah. That bad.

I haven’t even told my husband because I’m sure he would never hold her again. I just put her in her crib to play while I jumped in the shower. It’ll be a while before I bring her up over my head again.

So yeah, I know a lot about vomit. But I figure this is only the tip of the iceberg. I can’t WAIT until she gets a stomach virus. My husband suggested just putting down newspaper and letting her roll around on it until she’s over whatever she’s got. And since now I know what it’s like to have your child’s vom in your hair, that idea doesn’t sound half bad.

Nip Slips: Passies, Binkies, Boo Bahs and Nuckys.

Every parent has an ideal in their mind of what their child will be like. Meek, mild, QUIET, you know. Taking the whole “sleeping like a baby” idea to the next level.

And then the baby is actually home, in the house, infiltrating every area of life that its parents hold dear. For me, this caused a simultaneous jump for joy and cry out for caffeine. “Sleeping like a baby” must be some sick myth created to encourage couples to procreate. Whatever the case, I’m not amused.

Which leads me to the subject of pacifiers. Pre baby, I had strong opinions against popping passies to make my baby quiet. I don't want my baby to end up with bucked teeth, a speech impediment or "rotten R's" because of a bink. That’s what God gave us appendages for. But then she was home, screaming her head off, and wanting to be nursed every forty- five minutes because of a pretty intense reflux issue. All bets were off.

Now, three months and some change later, binkies are everywhere. There is a corner of her crib that I call “The Binky Graveyard… where binkies go to die” because you can find three or four multicolored nips there at any given moment. I’ve strategically spread them throughout the house so they are always within an arm’s reach at the critical moment. I shove them down in the corners of her car seat. I’ve even become a pro at contorting to pop one in one handed while driving. Never go anywhere without them.

I guess the moral is, it’s easy to make certain judgments and ideals before the baby arrives. It's only normal to give in. And if the worst thing I do to damage my children is pop a bink, they'll probably turn out okay anyway.

Social Media

My sister and I were recently discussing all of the things that we had to learn to do one handed once our babies came. Like making dinner, using a fork, cleaning things, etc. But for both of us, the most important one- handed accomplishment was turning on the computer to check Facebook.

It’s really sick. A whole new era of stalking has emerged. I care more about posting baby pictures and stalking other peoples’ (including my sister) than ever before. Yeah, weddings are alright, but baby pictures are where it’s at.

And then I discovered all the baby stuff you can buy on sites like Etsy. The bows and hats are so stinkin cute I can’t even stand it. And one of a kind, which makes it even better. I want every single thing I can find for her on there. I eventually had to forfeit my store cards to my husband for a Christy Debt Consolidation Program.

And with a change of subject, I’m going to use this opportunity to set everyone straight on something. A few weeks ago, I went out with some college friends for a drink after the hubbo got home from work. One of my friend’s husbands remarked that it is super annoying when new moms and dads post pictures of their children on facebook ALONE. Like, without a parent present in the photo.

What couples without babies and single people need to understand is we really don’t want you to see our atrocious post pregnancy bodies until we bounce back a little. Like I’m not about to post fat pictures of myself. Single people and couples without babies are not expected to do this, so why should I be? A baby bump is cute up until delivery, but really, nobody wants to see that mess afterwards. Just sayin. So let’s give the new moms (and even dads) a break on this one, just this once.