Preparing for Baby #3 – Part IV

If you missed the first 3 parts of of my mini-series feel free to go here, here, and here, to read them.

One of the biggest decisions we had to make when we realized we were going from  a family of four to a family of five is where to put everyone.  We are fortunate to have a four bedroom house, but the fourth bedroom has always been a playroom for the girls.  We purchased a double bed for Natalie two years ago when we transitioned her from a crib with the thought that the room would serve as a guest room if needed.

Steve and I had decided that we wanted to move Natalie and Megan into the same room.  Natalie’s current room is now going to be a guest room, and Megan’s room is going to remain a nursery for “baby brother”.  Their new room is going to be the playroom.  We had already cleared out lots of toys that were missing pieces, not being played with anymore, or that they had outgrown.  We boxed up the toys that were gender neutral and would be appropriate for “baby brother”. We debated about what type of bed to get the girls for their new room.  The room isn’t small, but two twin beds would be rather tight.  We didn’t think that a double bed was a good idea, and we felt like the girls were too young for bunk beds.  We decided that a trundle bed was the best idea.  Steve found one for us on Craigslist that we were able to purchase at a good price.

The girls have enjoyed the trundle bed and getting to help pick out the bedspreads for their new beds and helping to bring over their clothes to the new room and organize everything. 

We are still working on “baby brother’s” room.  I have never been a mom that had a theme for the nursery.  I have also never had a true crib set for the crib.  I realized that I didn’t want the bumper pad, partially because of the SIDS risk, but also because it is easier to peek in on them without the bumper pad.  I also never used the quilt because we just swaddled up the little ones or put them in a sleep sack when we put them to bed.  The only thing I really used was a dust ruffle that a friend made for us when we were expecting Natalie.  I had a friend from church pass on some little boy curtains that work great with the colors we have in the room.  I have some pictures on the wall that will work for a little boy, and I just use white crib sheets.  I am always the one who sticks with white sheets because they can easily be bleached.  ;)

We have had to do other things besides set up new rooms for the girls and for “baby brother”.  We realized that we needed to break down and buy a mini-van.  Steve was driving a four door sedan that I had bought when I graduated from pharmacy school ten years ago.  I was driving a mid-sized SUV that we bought five years ago, before we even had any children.  The SUV can seat seven people and we can get a booster seat, a rear facing car seat, and a forward facing car seat in there, but it is going to be tight.  Steve knew that it would be difficult, especially for me,  to be alone with three kids and try to take care of daily errands and get everyone in and out of the car.  We had narrowed down our choices to either a Toyota Sienna or a Honda Odyssey.  We didn’t want to take on any debt with buying another vehicle, so we found a 2006 Honda Odyssey on Craigslist that was in the Richmond area.  We looked at it, talked to some people, researched it on-line, and prayed about the decision.  We were able to negotiate the price down a little bit more and decided that this was a good deal and that it was the vehicle that we were suppose to buy.  So, I am now a mini-van mom.  I didn’t think I would like driving a mini-van, but I have to admit it is easier to get the girls in and out of the vehicle.  I also like all of the remote open doors.  Mini-vans have come a long way from my parent’s 1988 Plymouth Voyager I grew up with and learned to drive. 

One other thing that I have been working on to prepare for the new baby is stockpiling and making freezer meals.  I worked on this last week.  I began this task by taking advantage of one of the “cooler” days.   I cleaned out and inventoried the contents of my freezers in the garage.  I took a few hours over the course of about 3 days to make and freeze several things.  Our church is always very thoughtful and generous to new moms and different families provide meals for the first two weeks that you are home from the hospital.  I figure that after those two weeks I will have enough meals to last us until almost October. 

Here is a picture of one of my days of cooking:

 

In this picture I have one batch of three cheese baked pasta that I divided into three small foil pans so each pan will work for one night.  I had leftover sauce that I made for the pasta that has Italian sausage and onions that will be great just to go with spaghetti one night.  I browned up a pound of ground beef and already added taco seasoning so we just have to pull it out, heat it up, and we have a ready to go taco night.  I also tried out a recipe that Savingourway sent me for individual macaroni and cheese cups.  I think these will be great for a quick lunch for the girls.

I spent another day cooking chicken.  I made a large chicken casserole and divided it among two foil pans.  I found some chicken breast on manager’s mark down in MARTIN’S on Saturday and baked them then pulled the skin off and the meat from the bone.  Steve helped me chop it up into chunks and divide it into about one cup portions and froze them.  I plan to use at least one batch of the chicken in these Spicy Black Bean and Chicken Enchiladas.  I already have one batch of these ready to go in the freezer that I divided into two foil pans.  I made an extra batch of waffles one morning and froze them.  (I am definitely stocked up on waffles now that I hit the Kellogg’s deal at MARTIN’S.)

I have also prepared one of my favorite freezer cooking tips.  I picked up an extra London broil last week and placed it in a freezer bag with a bottle of marinade that I had picked up earlier in the summer.  Now, I just have to pull out the meat let it thaw in the refrigerator and it will marinate while it thaws.  I have several pounds of ground beef and boneless skinless chicken breast that are uncooked and were frozen in one pound portions so I can pretty much with a little planning have a variety of meals just from “shopping” from my freezer.  I not only have my freezer stocked with meat and already prepared meals, I have plenty of frozen vegetables.  Now if I don’t have a chance to get to the store for fresh produce we can still have vegetables.

I am sure it won’t surprise any of you to hear that I also have a huge stockpile of diapers and wipes waiting for the little guy.  Megan is probably ready to potty train, but with a new baby on the way I am putting that off until we establish a new “normal” to our household.  I made sure to stockpile diapers for her as well.  If she potty trains before I run out I will just hold onto them for the little guy.

So, all in all we are ready for “baby brother”.  He still doesn’t have a real name.  There are things that I still would like to clean and organize.  But, if they don’t get accomplished he will have clothes, diapers, food, a place to sleep, and most importantly love.

Check back later in the week and hopefully I will have some pictures to share of the little guy and his big sisters.

Preparing for Baby #3 – Part II

I am doing a mini-series about preparing for baby #3’s arrival in less than a month.  Here is a link to part I to get you up to speed.  

I left off finishing up my first trimester still feeling yucky but relieved that we were expecting a healthy baby.

Valentine’s Day weekend was at the beginning of my second trimester.  Steve and I decided that we needed to get-away for a few days to spend some time without kids so that we could really talk and “digest” all of the changes that were to come.  We ended up finding a nice place with a weekend package in Washington, DC and found a great sitter to come over and stay with the girls for two nights so that we didn’t have to worry about packing them up.  It was a good thing for us.  I was able to get some extra rest without little ones waking me up and I was able to talk with Steve about the emotions I was feeling about having another baby.  I was really struggling with feeling selfish.  I was only looking at how this new baby was going to affect me and my daily life.  I was having trouble seeing past those sleepless newborn nights and all of the challenges a new baby can bring.  I wasn’t seeing the big picture of the happiness, joy, and love that this new little one was going to bring to our family and those around him. 

It was at this point that we were ready to start sharing our news with people outside of our family.  We actually shared the news with Natalie over dinner one night.  We knew that she wouldn’t understand that the new baby wouldn’t be here until late summer so we held off telling her until we were ready to tell others.  She was very excited and actually told lots of people about our new baby.  The day after we told her she went to school and told her teachers and then went to Ukrop’s and shared it with the employees in all of the different departments that we were going to have a new baby.  It was interesting to see people’s response.  Some people would look at me and say, “really?”  and some thought she was talking about getting a new doll and then later asked me if she meant a real baby.

I began to pull out the bin of maternity clothes I had and received bags of clothes back from friends who had borrowed my clothes during their pregnancies.  The world of maternity clothes, it is a love/hate relationship.  They are so comfortable at first because your regular clothes are getting too tight, but they are really too big for early in the second trimester so you feel like you are just trying to hide the fact that you have put on some extra weight.  I fell in love with anything with an empire waist.  It helped to hide the growing baby bump without making me feel frumpy and they were long enough to cover up the fact that the only pants I was really wearing now had an elastic waistband.

I was finally starting to feel good, the yucky symptoms of my first trimester had finally gone away.  I started to feel like I had energy again. 

We found out at my 20 week appointment (that coincidentally was April 1st) that we were having a baby boy.  Steve and I really thought it was going to be another girl.  We also found out that there was one possible problem – he has a two vessel cord.  Babies are suppose to have a three-vessel cord.  This is a very minor problem and with monitoring really doesn’t result in any long-term problems.  Babies with two-vessel cords can be on the smaller side, and sometimes the kidney on the side that isn’t getting as much blood flow can show some problems.  They also sometimes have to be delivered a little early because they seem to have low levels of amniotic fluid.  We have friends that had a healthy little guy in September who went through the same issue, so it really didn’t worry us.  It just required me to see a neo-natal specialist every 4 weeks until 36 weeks for an ultrasound to make sure he is still growing well, and that his kidneys and liver are doing well.  It has allowed us to see his little profile more often and have more ultrasound pictures of him.  Thankfully he is doing fine and the two-vessel cord thing isn’t slowing down his growth.  He has been measuring 95% on the growth charts and two weeks larger than he should be.

We were able to take a short family vacation in early April and meet some of my family in Washington, DC for a few days so that we could visit the National Zoo and the Smithsonian.  It was an incredibly hot for April but they had fun. 

I started getting into the swing of things again.  In mid-March I was in charge of reception honoring a missionary couple from our church who served in Europe for 40 years.  My mom, sister, and I started to plan a bridal shower for my brother’s fiancé for late May (they got married in early July).  I was in charge of a ladies luncheon at our church the Saturday before Mother’s Day.  I started to think about and plan out how we wanted to celebrate Megan’s second birthday.  Steve had a business trip to the UK and we talked about it and talked with my doctor and made plans for me to join him there for part of the trip.

During all of this Steve and I realized that one of the things that we needed to do was start to do was to look at our priorities again.  We had several commitments and things that we were involved with at our church.  The transition from Ukrop’s to MARTIN’S was taking place and we knew that that would affect my work schedule.  We talked and prayed about it and realized that we need to take a temporary leave of absence from our duties with the college students at our church.  We realized that with soon to be three children 4&1/2 and under that we wouldn’t be able to invest the time that we had in the past.  We talked to the youth pastor at our church about it and agreed that it would be best for us to step down in early May before the majority of our students who go to school outside of Richmond came home.  That way we wouldn’t have to get caught up with summer activities and then leave in the middle of the summer.  We decided that we would talk about going back to that ministry in January.  We figure that it is going to take us a few months to figure out what our “new normal” is going to be with three kids.

I will talk more about my third trimester and the list of things I have or want to get done before our little guy arrives in another post. 

Preparing for Baby #3 – Part I

We are expecting baby #3, who is an “unexpected blessing”, to make his arrival in less than a month.  So, now is crunch time to get our act together and start getting things ready for a new little one, and me being out of commission for a little bit.  I wanted to reflect a little bit on the journey I have been on for the last 8 months as I prepare to go from a mom of two to a mom of three.  I am going to share this in several different post to keep you from having to read one long post.

I found out in December that I was unexpectantly pregnant.  I cried off and on for 4 days when I first found out we had another little one on the way.  I was already feeling overwhelmed with an almost 4 year old and an 18 month old in addition to the commitments we already had and the holidays.  We went to the Christmas concert at our church and I really thought about how Mary felt when she was told by the angel Gabriel that she was going to be the mother of Christ.  Talk about an unexpected pregnancy!  I really thought about the emotional roller coaster that she must have been on – the public shame, having her fiancé believe her story, the rumors and whispering she had to endure.  I realize that our circumstances are not identical, but I began to relate to Mary in the Christmas story in a way that I hadn’t before.  I began to accept in my mind and in my heart that a third child was what God had planned for us.

I have to admit that although I was beginning to accept the thought of being the mother of three, I was dealing (and some days I still am) with the realities that being a mother of three is going to bring.  I started thinking about nursing a baby again.  Although that can be a sweet and wonderful bonding time with a little one, honestly it can be down-right inconvenient and time consuming, especially those first few months.  I began to think about having another child in diapers.  I realized that by the time baby #3 is potty trained I will have changed diapers for about 6 –7 years straight.  I began to think about the logistics of our daily lives.  There are some days that getting out of the house alone with the girls is a huge challenge, and I thought about adding in a new baby to the mix.  I know it sounds like I am only dwelling on the negative.  I don’t think that it is pessimistic of me, but realistic.  I was also dealing with feeling worse during my first trimester than I had with either of my previous pregnancies.  I am sure that being older, and chasing around two little ones who never seem to run out of energy had something to do with it, but the nausea never seemed to go away.  It actually didn’t go away until I was almost 16 weeks into my pregnancy.  I was thankful for all of the snow that we had this past winter.  It gave me an excuse to slow down, stay in, and just lay on the couch.  The girls read lots of books and watched lots of videos.

I had a friend that was expecting her second child at the end of January.  I knew that once I had a chance to visit with her and see and hold the newborn baby that the reality of having a newborn would go to the back of my mind and that I would remember the sweet newborn smell, how precious it is when a newborn snuggles up to your neck when you have them propped up on your shoulder, and how sweet and innocent they are when they are asleep cradled in your arms.  The girls and I went over one afternoon to bring them lunch and visit with them.  The visit did help me think about how special it is, even with the craziness, to be given this little blessing. 

I made it through my first trimester still feeling yucky, but thankful for the blessing we were being given.  I also had several of my worries relieved when I found out we were only having one baby.  (There are twins on both sides of my family.)  I also had some extra testing done due to my “advanced” maternal age.  (I had just turned 35.)  We wouldn’t have terminated the pregnancy, but it was a relief to know that everything looked good and that we didn’t need to start thinking about special circumstances.

I will share more in a few days.

Wow – it is already July!?!?

I realized that the last month and a half have been very busy and that I haven’t been doing very well with keeping up with my crazy life blog post in addition to my coupon savings blog post.  So, here is a a quick update of what we have done since the middle of May and I will hopefully find time to share more and some pictures in future posts.

May – During the last week of May the girls and I visited my family, Steve joined us Friday afternoon, and had a whirlwind time with celebrations.  My mom was an elementary school secretary for 24 years and officially retired the end of June.  The school had a retirement party for her and the other staff members who were retiring at the end of the school year.  That same week we had a bridal shower for my soon-to-be sister-in-law, and a family birthday party to celebrate Megan’s second birthday.

June – We had a family day with Megan on her actual birthday.  Steve took the day off and we got pictures taken, enjoyed lunch together at California Pizza Kitchen, and went out after naptime for bowling and finished the day off with dinner and ice cream at Friendly’s. 

Steve and I were able to add a trip for just the two of us to the end of a business trip he had in London.  He left a few days before me and then I left the girls in very capable hands and flew over to meet him.  We had a great time together exploring the city together and enjoying some time just the two of us before baby #3 arrives in August.  We even happened to get a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth during a parade in her honor. 

July – My brother (who is 12 years younger than me) got married on Saturday.  The girls were flower girls and my sister and I helped with coordinating the wedding.  It was a whirlwind few days with last minute preparations, calming nerves, and making sure everything was taken care of.  The girls did a good job as the flower girls, they were not perfect angels, but they definitely provided some comic relief.

The next thing I have “on my plate” is a reception for a missionary family at my church Sunday evening.  After that the next plan of attack is getting ready for “Baby Brother”.  I have to finish getting the girls settled in their new room, get his room ready for him, and start getting the house ready for guests.  I also need to start thinking about things like packing a hospital bag and picking out a real name for the little guy.

These are just the highlights of the things that have been keeping me busy.  Like I have said before my life is always crazy, just some times are crazier than others.  :)

~Ann

I’ve been fighting a war – against laundry stains

It appears that no one in our house, including myself, is able to keep their clothes clean.  My pregnant belly is just a huge stain catcher.  Add in a four-year-old and an almost two-year-old and you have a recipe for disaster.  Evidently being a stain catcher is contagious because in the last few weeks I have had to double check all of Steve’s clothes.  In his defense it is not always his fault.  He became Megan’s napkin the other night when we were out to dinner with his parent’s for Mother’s day.  He had a nice jelly handprint on his shoulder.  :) 

Here are some ways that I have been able to treat and remove most of our stains:

• Pre-treat the stain as soon as possible.  I have had lots of success with a Spray ‘n Wash Stain Stick or Shout Advanced Gel.  I keep a stain stick upstairs so that we can try to remember to treat the stain when we change our clothes.  (I really like the Shout product because it is in a spray bottle and can really saturate the stain.  All you have to do is spray it on, rub it in, and let it sit and do it’s magic.)  I have successfully removed strawberry stains with the stain stick and grease spots with the spray gel.

 

• Soak the clothing.  There are some things that my girls get on themselves that I just need to soak right away.  I actually keep a bottle of detergent upstairs.  When I need to soak something and laundry day is a few days off I just pour a little bit of detergent on the opposite side of the stain and rub it in.  I then just let the clothes soak in a bathroom sink for at least a day or until the next laundry day.  (I have double sinks in both of our upstairs bathrooms so it isn’t a huge inconvenience to lose a sink.)

 

• Let the really dirty or just dingy looking clothes soak overnight.  My washer doesn’t have a soak cycle, so I created my own.  I sort the laundry that has been treated or that needs to soak.  The night before I am going to do the laundry I fill my washer with the water, the laundry detergent, and Tide Stain Release liquid.  When the washer is almost filled to the water level I selected I add the clothes.  I close the lid for about a minute so that all of the clothes can get pulled into the water with the agitator then I open the lid to stop the cycle and let them sit overnight.  The next morning I just close the lid and let the cycle finish.

 

• If I have a small load of mixed colors I add a Shout Color Catcher to the load.  I have found that I can successfully wash lights and darks together without the colors bleeding onto each other if I use the color catcher. 

 

• I always double check the clothes before moving them to the dryer.  I always give everything a double look to make sure that it looks clean before I move it over.  If I am unsure if something came out, like a grease stain, I just let the item dry on a drying rack.  That way the heat doesn’t set the stain or make it harder to remove on the next round of laundry.

 

If all else fails here is a sure-fire stain removal tip from a friend of ours who has spent 30+ years in the dry cleaning business.  “Get a pair of scissors and cut out the stain.”  :)

How about you - do you feel like you are always fighting a stain war?  Do you have any stain fighting products that have worked wonders on stains?  Do you have any special techniques that work for removing stains?  Feel free to share any tips that work for you.

**The products that I mentioned are all products that I have purchased and use per the package directions a regular basis.  I have not received any sort of compensation for reviewing or using these products.**

A little of this & that…

I have had a crazy last two weeks.  We had one impromptu and one scheduled meeting that went late (like after 10PM) last week and my 15 hour shift on Saturday put me in a downward tailspin.  The extra 13 hours (over two days) I had to put in this week to learn a new pharmacy computer system for MARTIN’S this week didn’t help.  So, enough of my whining.  I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday that allowed me to have a babysitter watch the girls and give me some “me time” (in addition to seeing some more pictures of the little guy who looks healthy and is growing like crazy.)  I was able to relax a little after the appointment with a manicure and pedicure, hit CVS & Walgreens, met Steve for dinner, and then we headed to a baby class.  It was nice to be out of the house without going to work and without kids and to have a quick meal with Steve to talk and catch-up without little interruptions.

Our neighborhood is having a community yard sale this weekend and I am debating about participating.  Because of our busy schedules the last 2 weeks I haven’t really pulled much out, but I do have some things that I have pulled out in the past that I would like to unload.  I am also considering selling some of my unopened stockpiled toiletry items.  I realized I have TONS of body wash, shampoo, toothpaste, and razors.  My rule of thumb is that I don’t spend more than $1 after sales and coupons on these items.  I was thinking about marking them $2 and then figuring out what I want to do with the money.  I found out that one of my neighbors’ husband and daughter are going on a missions trip this summer and she is using her yard sale to help fund their trip.  (She called me and told me she has lots of little boys clothes if I wanted to come check them out.)  I may look at doing something like that with our profits.

I have had a chance in the last few weeks to find some little boy clothes on sale at different children’s clothing stores.  I have an Old Navy credit card and last week was part of the “stuff the bag” promo they have about twice a year.  This promotion gives you an additional 20% off your entire purchase including sale and clearance merchandise.  I found lots of little boy clothes in an assortment of sizes.  (Our girls were larger babies and this little guy is already measuring by ultrasound a week larger than he should be so we won’t need many little clothes.)  Some of the things were so cute I couldn’t pass them up – like the oxford shirt and sweater vest.  I also found a few things at The Children’s Place for the little guy.  Natalie actually helped me pick out a few things.  She is getting excited about having a baby brother and she picked some clothes and said “Ohhh, won’t he look so cute in this.” 

Here are pictures of the baby clothes I got at both stores last week (I couldn’t squeeze it all into one picture):

I got an assortment of pants, tops, and some pajamas at Old Navy that were originally $283.50 marked down to $137.69 and an additional 20% off for a grand total of $110.17 (before tax).  That gives me a savings of $173.33 or 61%!

I got a pair of overalls, a few shirts, a sleeper,and some socks at The Children’s Place that were originally $45.50 marked down to $19.96.  That gave me a savings of $25.54 or 56%! 

I now have a few baby boy clothes.  I have several friends who have offered up some clothes to us and I will probably check out my neighbor’s yard sale tomorrow.  I am sure he will end up with more than enough clothes!

My world is going to get crazier!

Today was an exciting day for us – I had my 20 week doctor appointment and ultrasound this afternoon.  The technician asked us if we were interested in the gender before we began the ultrasound and we answered “yes”. We wanted to find out because with two girls already we really wanted to know for planning purposes.  We were shocked when saw something on an ultrasound that we have never seen before - “boy parts”!!!!!!  I really had just thought of this baby as a girl because that is what I associated with my previous pregnancies.  The thought of actually having a boy really hadn’t sunk in.  I think Steve was even in more shock than I was – he really just assumed that we were going to have a third girl.
This is going to be the start of a new adventure for us - having a son.  We will get to learn about changing boy diapers in addition to playing with trucks, and trains, and cars instead of dolls and tea sets all of the time.  I have joked that at least now I will have a child that will love me as much as the girls love their daddy.  I know that it will be different, just like each of our daughters are different.  It will be a fun and I look forward to a new phase for our family, the introduction of blue baby clothes and baby blankets into our home.