Asher has always been a very happy, content, quiet baby. Even in the hospital, he was quiet. So much so that the nurses were worried. He didn’t cry or scream or anything. He “mewed”. They sent him to the NICU, but the pediatrician there said he was just fine. A quiet, content little dude.

So, at 2 o’clock in the morning, when he made his quiet little whimpery “feed me” noises, I heard him, got up out of bed, and went to his room. However, when I picked him up and he started screaming at the top of his lungs, I freaked. He wouldn’t nurse, wouldn’t settle, nothing. He just screamed. At 3 a.m., I actually considered calling 911. I didn’t, but I considered it. He stopped screaming at 5:15. Nursed a little bit, and fell asleep. I got him back down in his crib at 5:45, and crawled back to my own bed.

Of course, Miriam, the 2 year old, woke up at 6 a.m. I growled at my husband that he needed to get up with her, and captain wonderful did. THANK YOU!

Asher made his whimpery “feed me” noises again at 7. I got up to feed him, expecting the worst, but he basically slept through the feeding. I put him back down in his crib, and he slept until 9.

He seems fine today, just a little clingy.

I’m still on edge though.

Before going to bed last night, I made my husband help clean up. We got the living room all clean. The rug was vacuumed, the toys were all put away, floor swept, sofas straightened out, etc. It didn’t look like a spread from Better Homes and Gardens, but it did look reasonable. I was pleased.

90 minutes after the children woke up, this is what I’m looking at.

It’s snowing like crazy and 16 degrees outside, too cold to take my monsters out.

Anyone know if Calgon still answers?

Everyone has their simple pleasures.  Amelie (yes, from the film) loved to put her hands in tubs of lentils. My husband’s favorite time of day is when Asher falls asleep on his chest in the evening. Everyone has one. Take a moment and think about your own simple pleasure.  Just a little thing that makes you happy.

Well, mine is a cool pillow.  I don’t mind getting up 3 times during the night to feed my growth spurting baby, because when I get back to bed, my pillow is nice and cool.  It makes me so happy.

Except for when my darling husband decides to snuggle my pillow while I’m awake and get it all hot, and oh ugh, drooly.

Then it is not so much fun.

My husband and I are very careful with our money.  We eat out occasionally, but we rarely purchase “stuff”.  We cloth diaper our kids, and I breastfeed – so no formula or diaper expenses.  Our kids wear a lot of hand-me-downs, kids grow so fast and our kids don’t care about their clothes anyway.  I think grand total this year, my husband and I have spent under $200 on clothes for ourselves.  Our debt (non-mortgage) is very very low.  One of our cars is completely paid off, and the other will be soon.  Otherwise, we keep our credit card and other debt to a level that we can pay off every month.

So, why do I obsess so much about what others think about how I choose to spend our money?  Because when I do buy something, I generally buy something expensive.

Miriam’s high chair is a TripTrap chair.  Yes, I spent $250 on her high chair, and plan to do the same in the next few months on a chair for Asher.  It’s a solid wood, well constructed, adjustable chair that doesn’t have a tray – so the kids sit at the table with us.  It will work for them in their rooms later on as desk chairs, but until then, they’ll each have thier very own chair at the dining room table.  The chair holds up to 300 freaking pounds!

$250 for a chair that will last their entire lives doesn’t seem like a bad decision to me.

So, now I am in the market for a kitchen play set.  The library purchased one recently, and Miriam LOVES the thing.  However, I don’t want plastic, and I want something that is durable enough to last two toddlers (and friends) the entire length of “kitchen set play”.  It would be even better if it’s something I can put away when they are done with it for when they have kids.

When I was little, my dad put together a kitchen playset of us made of sheet metal.  He cut his hands up really bad making it.  If I were skilled, or if DH had time, I’m sure we could make one that would meet our wants and needs, but neither of those are true.

So, the play kitchen that I’m looking at is $200.  I know I could pick one up much cheaper at target, made of plastic or plywood, and have to replace it in a year or two.  Instead, I’m going to lay out the money once, and be done with it.

Terry Pratchett wrote a great explanation of wealth.  To paraphrase it, a poor man buys a cheap pair of boots because it is all that he can afford, and has to replace them every 6 months.  A wealthy man buys a pair of boots that costs 4 times as much, but never has to replace them.  They last forever.

I believe that the path to true wealth is to buy quality, not quantity.

So, I’m not going to apologize for spending a fortune on a high quality toy which will be a combination birthday and hanukah gift for my child instead of buying 9 seperate plastic toys which require batteries and will be broken within the year.

This is the right decision for us, and anyone who judges me for it can take a flying leap!  Especially that little voice inside that always judges me.  She can just shove off! 

I need one good reason to not kill my husband.  Please.

He twittered today that his Ipod was dying, so I chatted him back and asked how bad it was. He didn’t reply.  I said that if it was indeed dying, we’d go get him a new one.  He uses the thing all day at work, and it is more than 2 years old. It’s a justifyable expense.  Not what I was planning to use our “entertainment / household” budget category for this month, but okay.

I figured that I need a few things at the mall anyway, and I could certainly use to get out.  Lord knows I can’t do a mall trip by myself with both babies.

Several hours later, my darling husband calls me.  It turns out he already went out, leaving work, and bought a replacement.  A zune.  Considering what all he does with his Ipod, a Zune is not an appropriate replacement, but Mr. Know-it-all with a history of buying inapropriate MP3 players (you think I’m kidding) and having to replace them within 48 hours (again you think I’m kidding) is sure he did just fine.

Did I mention he used up an hour of comp time to do this?  One of his 8? With which we had already discussed that he was going to take a full day off and give me a hand?  Yeah.  One of those hours.

So now, I don’t get a mall trip (which I was actually looking forward to), he blew the budget on a non-returnable item which will not meet his needs, and I lost my day of having help.

Oh, and he called to tell me all this after Asher projectile-vomited 5 times in an hour.  Each time immediatly after I got him bathed, cleaned up, changed, and changed the blanket etc.  Seriously, I’d get everything all clean and nice, and 5 seconds later, erruption.

Oh, and Mr. Helpful has to work all weekend, after working all of last weekend, and two 12 hour days this week.  In addition to his normal 8+ hour days.

And it is supposed to snow.

Well, both kids are crying again. There goes my break for the day.

Want to see what happens when a male geek dresses a female toddler while Mommy sleeps in?

Are you sure?

gonna fill you in here. I don’t promise that this will make any sense. Some of you already know parts or all of this, for others, it’ll be new information.

I went into labor at 10:45 p.m. on Tuesday. I still am in labor. Yeah, it stinks.

Went to the doctor, and then the hospital Wednesday, they sent me home. The phrase is apparently “real contractions, false labor”, which is a misnomer. What that means is that the contractions aren’t causing a lot of dilation.

Back to the doctor today, and there is a little progress, but boychild’s head is still bouncing around (a true Froebe).

If nothing changes, I go see the doctor again tomorrow morning.

Doctor thinks this baby will be born tomorrow sometime.

I told him (the doc) that I have an appointment scheduled with him on Tuesday, should I just go home and if nothing changes keep that one? He laughed and said that I won’t be at that appointment. This baby will be here before then.

We shall see.

So, there you have it.

Day 4 of labor, and no baby. I’m so grounding this child randomly at some point!

Happy Birthday Miriam!

366 days ago, you came into our lives (2008 was a leap year!), and made me happier than I knew it was possible to be.

Happy birthday to my little girl. May you grow and be happy.

We are home, and glad to be so.  It’s a lot of fun to visit family and friends, but it is also very, very nice to be home.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and are so far past tired that we are approaching it from the other side (whatever that means).

Traffic was decent, but not insane.  The weather was fairly cooperative for the drive home, and there is nowhere near the 10+ inches of snow on the ground that we were hearing about this morning.  In fact, I don’t think there is any at the moment.  Tomorrow is another matter though.

We are tired.  Did I mention that?

Oh, and I think that if we try to put Miriam in the car seat again, she will run away.  Seriously.

Love and hugs to all.  Hope I didn’t miss anything too important over the last week.  I’ll try to get caught up, but it may take a while.  For now, I’m off to bed.