And so the adventure continues...

I've now decided to take on more responsibilities as I decide to stay home longer. Since I found a very part time job that pays extremely well, I will need another source of income that can be very flexible. I have decided to watch another child while they go to work every day. I figure this will still give me the time to spend with my daughter and yet help pay the bills. Have any of you ever decided to make a living doing this? I figure it won't hurt to try!

Watching a child for even minimum pay will pay for our weekly groceries. Since I only budget about $20-30 each week for them, this should be fine. If you're wondering how a family of 4 can get by on that amount of money for groceries please feel free to read my post on couponing. I am now keeping track of how much I save every week via my Facebook account. I saved $50 the first week of the year and $115 last week. I'm now starting to get together my couponing trip for this week saturday with the help of www.pocketyourdollars.com . It is shaping up to be a nice, bountiful trip.

I'm also in the middle of trying to purchase baby proofing supplies! It's that exciting time in Shaley's life where she has started to roll over and acts like she wants to crawl! She rolled over 3 days before she turned 5 months old. It was exciting to see. My husband was busy at the time and missed it, but she decided to do it again so he could see. We now need to purchase a baby gate so she does not fall down our stairs. This is a must because we live on the top floor and have our own entry way. I do not want her falling down those stairs! Next will come plugin caps and I'm praying for a play yard! Hopefully the money saved from coupinging will help me reach my goals!

Sweetpea Diaper Review

I just received a new diaper cover in the mail a couple days ago and I was so excited to try it out yesterday! It's a Sweetpea One Size cover and I already love the color! A quick heads up about the color though is that the color I have (Celery) is much darker in the picture on www.mombecks.com than what I received in the mail! It's still gorgeous though.

I was pleasantly surprised at the construction of this cover! It had great reviews and was at a very reasonable price point for my budget so I thought I'd give it a try. It seems like it will stand up to the day to day beatings of my now 5 month old quite well. It has double leg gussets, which are my favorite feature. I'm used to using Flips, but this cover is much better in my opinion. And the price is better too!

As for the fit of this diaper, it seems like it would fit well for a larger baby. Although it does have generous crossover tabs, my little one at the middle rise setting needs all the hip snaps available. I almost tried for the crossover tabs! I have no doubt this diaper will be around till potty training.  I believe this diaper only comes in snaps, and they hold quite well.

Overall, the Sweetpea one size diaper cover is a cover I will love having in my stash for quite a while. I do plan on purchasing more in the future. My only wish I have is that they would come in more prints! I am also interested in the Sweetpea AI3 that I plan on getting in the future as well.

Couponing

I've recently had a request to share my couponing knowledge! It's a hobby I aquired last spring and have been working on perfecting it ever since. The basics behind couponing are simple. The main idea is to find on sale items at your local store and match those sales with current coupons for those items. This can be done at any store in any area.

Some stores I have learned will double the value of manufacturer coupons which makes every deal even better! My local store, Pick 'n Save, doubles coupons on Wednesday. There are qualifications to doubling though. Pick 'n Save requires you to have a minimum $25 purchase AFTER store sales and BEFORE manufacturer coupons. You can request a coupon policy in your area to make things easier.

I have also learned that there are several sites that provide the current sale with coupon matchups for you. This makes couponing much less time consuming! I however, have found out that different matchup sites may have different matchups. I would advise to follow more than one site for this reason!

This is the basics of couponing. For more information you can follow the links below.

www.commonsensewithmoney.com
www.thekrazycouponlady.com

Insert Upgrade

I've just moved up my cloth diapers to the medium setting, this little girl is starting to get big! Since we've done that, I upgraded my Best Bottoms diaper to a medium insert. Since we live no where close to a cloth diaper store I waited till we were close and bought one instead of paying for shipping! I'm glad we upgraded because it showed me how rough and used the small insert really was. The new one is very soft, and much larger (I thought it was a large!)

Being a mom keeps me busy!

Shaley has got past the sleep regression (I hope!). It lasted maybe a week or two, and I'm thankful that she's sleeping well again, although not as well as she was before. Perhaps now I can work on getting her sleeping through the night. Our new routine is to wake up at 11, 2, and 5. This is similar to before but with the added 11pm time. I'm hoping it won't be hard to take out as it's only 2-3 hours after her last feeding before bed. Of course that is easier said than done. She refuses to take a pacifier from me, but will with little resistant from anyone else. She's quite a doll, but she can be a booger too.

Lately I've been kept busy by Shaley, who seems to be getting more clingy. She is getting more irritated when I'm not around and when her father is watching her. The eight hours a day I used to work felt so long, as did the early days when I was at home. Now the time flies by even though we've done little to nothing during the day. Since it is the Christmas season, Shaley and I have been making cookies at home! I've been making some every day this week and I will surprise the family with them in their stockings on Christmas morning. Of course I've also ate my fair share before putting them in the freezer!

Since I've still not started my new (very part time) job money is always tight and I've taken to couponed and homemade gifts for almost every gift that we will be giving. My dear husband likes to spend a dollar amount per person, but as I would like to see it, it is the thought that counts. I love the fact that me being money savvy has allowed us to buy presents for our children this year. It's almost a welcome change that our budget is so small because it has challenged me to be more resourceful than I ever would have before. We no longer fight over finances and I get to see my child grow more each day.

On a side note, I do believe she's growing hair and will not be bald/balding like her parents!

4 Month Sleep Regression

There are many things that I'm learning about this child that no one has ever told me, or found it worth while to explain! Other mom's may know what I'm talking about when it comes to this (engorgement anyone?!), especially the 4 month sleep regression. Perhaps it is just me that did not know these things?! Shaley was a good sleeper for 2 months of her still short life. The first 3 weeks were horrible in the sleep 'department'. Then we had a wonderful stretch of sleeping from 8 pm to 1 or 2 am, and then down till 5 am!!! That was an incredible time. Since then we've hit the 3 month growth spurt which caused us to wake up every 1-2 hours and sometimes multiple times in the same hour. Ugh. Just after getting through that stage things returned to normal...for a week. Her 3 month growth spurt lasted 3 weeks (her sleeping patterns didn't return to normal for that long). Now we've reached what I was surprised to learn, the 4 month sleep regression stage.

Why didn't I hear of this earlier?! Everyone I've talked to has said it gets easier after the 3 month growth spurt. Things aren't the same with every child. I know I should know this and expect that ever child is different, but sometimes you just follow with hopes that it rings true. Some days I would like to believe that there is a conspiracy out there to block such unpleasant events in the early stages of a child's life, just so women continue to have children. Granted, these thoughts only occur on nights where I've had little sleep!

One thing that hasn't changed is that I'm very thankful for that little girl, and I'm still thankful for her sleep patterns because I know it could be worse. We don't wake up every 2 hours most nights, and I know there are mom's out there that do those short bursts of sleep every night. One common bit of advice that does, however, stick with me is that even the worst days and nights will go away with time. Children grow up, and even though us mom's don't always think so, it's a good thing that they do. We want them to grow up and have the best life possible, even though we want them to stay babies forever! What the contradiction.

Balancing Time

I think the hardest part of being a new parent is balancing time between your husband and your child, or children. It seems I have slowly lost my husband in the mix. Between me being a full time mom, a job in itself, and my husband trying to make up the difference, we've spent little time with each other. Because I don't have any monetary income I would feel guilty spending money on getting a babysitter for one night. I cannot justify that expense until I start having some sort of income. Because of this guilt our relationship seems to have been where the impact of this has happened. We spend our days going through the motions, and although things aren't bad (we've definitely gone through more ups and downs while I was working) things are just kind of blah.

Being a mom has been great, but future mom's beware, it comes with it's own set of difficulties. Most people may not get into the downside of having children, but sometimes we need to hear that we're not alone in this! More work needs to be put into a relationship once there are children present, at least that's what I have found. Perhaps this is not true for all relationships, but I can only share what personal experience has taught me. There are more ups and downs that just in a wife/husband relationship, but that's another post! Children can bring much joy to your life, there is no doubt from what I have found. I was a skeptic on this before I had Shaley.  But now I can easily get lost in her loving personality and her cute little toes and put the relationship I had with my husband in the background.

This is wrote as a reminder to myself and possibly an insight to think of for a future mom. Sometimes the relationships we already have need to be worked on and not left stagnant.