Sleep or lack there of

So Jocelyn has not been sleeping very well. I decided to read The No-Cry Sleep Solution and see if it would help. One of the first steps is to journal your baby's sleep. So here is the first set of journals for Jocelyn.

NAP LOG - 9/13/2010; Almost 11 months old

11 am - 11:15 am in car
1:40 pm - 2:30 pm in crib; nursed to sleep in glider

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PRE-BEDTIME - 9/13/2010

6:00 pm Dinner
6:30 pm Groceries
7:00 pm Play
8:00 pm PJs, Nurse, Rock
8:30 pm ASLEEP

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NIGHT WAKING LOG - 9/13/2010

8:30 pm ASLEEP
12:21 am Cry, Nurse, Rock,
12:41 am ASLEEP
1:52 am Cry, Diaper, Nurse, Rock
2:07 am ASLEEP
2:17 am Cry, back rub
2:19 am ASLEEP
4:20 am Cry, Nurse, Rock
4:40 am ASLEEP
5:45 am Cry, bring to bed with mommy, nurse
6:00 am ASLEEP
7:00 am movement, nurse
7:05 am ASLEEP
7:45 am Up for the day

Asleep time : 8:30 pm
Awake time : 7:45 am
Longest Stretch of Sleep: 3 hrs 51 min
Total Hours of Sleep: approx. 11 hours
Night Wakings: 6

Adventures in canning

I know I haven't posted in awhile. It can be hard to post with a toddler. Yes I said toddler. Jocelyn has been walking for 3 weeks or so now. She can really move and loves to plan on the local playgrounds climbing all the steps.

So I tried my hand at canning. We now have a pantry full of tomato juice (yeah not so sure that was a good call), salsa (super yummy), and ketchup. Plus some homemade relish. The ketchup is really good but it took a LONG time. Not a project to start at 7 pm.

Went grocery shopping today and the bill with coupons came to only 73.01. I feel like that was a good trip. Not going to bore you with all the details but I used the Weis $10 coupon from the paper. The great thing about that bill is it included food for entertaining tomorrow and meals for the week. Now last week's bill wasn't so nice but we had stocked up on ground meat and fish for the freezer. I am sure that and the CSA are part of why this week's bill was more reasonable.

Groceries again

Ok so with the CSA I really thought we could eat cheap this week. I didn't really plan that many meals since this week is crazy and I have dinner plans out 3 nights this week. But somehow we still spent over $80 at the grocery store. I won't list the whole receipt but some highlights:

13.99 for a jar of cashews! My husband takes these in his lunch and it really is a better buy to get the big 40 oz jar but still the price is mind blowing. This should last awhile so hopefully it won't be on the bill again for awhile.

7.99 * 2 for coffee. I am a bit of a coffee snob at times and I like to buy the whole bean favor coffees and grind my own. So I was stocking up since this was going to be such a low grocery bill.

Some dog stuff... our neighbor got a new dog and I thought I'd do a little welcome to the neighborhood doggie package for her. So a $5 dog toy and $3 treats get added to the bill.

Pretzel Jello. This is the best dessert recipe I've made in awhile but it isn't that cheap to make if you don't have stuff on hand. I had to buy almost everything (but the butter and sugar). Here is the recipe if you are interested. I made raspberry so replace strawberry with raspberry and have at it.

1.5 - 2 cups crushed pretzels
1 stick melted butter
1 cup sugar (divided in half)
1 packet strawberry jello
2 cups boiling water
16 oz cool whip
8 oz cream cheese softened
16 oz frozen strawberries (could use fresh)


Combine pretzels, butter, and 1/2 cup sugar. Press into the bottom of a 13x9 pan. Bake at 350 for 6-7 mins. Add jello to boiling water and mix well. Then add strawberries. I then put this in the fridge to start to gel while I combined cream cheese, cool whip, and 1/2 cup of sugar. Put cool whip mixture on top of pretzel crust. Pour partly chilled jello on top of cool whip, chill the whole thing for a few hours. Serve.


The rest of the list was some basics like bananas, milk, etc. I also bought a few baby items (teething biscuits, organic puffs) for our upcoming beach trip. I don't like giving Jocelyn packaged foods but for traveling I figured I'd get some in case the grocery stores don't carry them and we eat out a lot. So that's that. A seemingly slow food week turns into $80 + at the store. I feel like I can't win some times. Well at least it wasn't $100 and I shouldn't (knock on wood) need to go back for anything. We will get through this week with what we have and then go on vacation and probably have a big bill when we get back.

CSA

Today I picked up our first week of local produce from the Barbour Farm's CSA (community shared agriculture). We signed up for a half share of produce from July through late September/early October. Today I got 6 zucchini, 4 yellow squash, 3 cucumbers, two onions/scallions, radishes, and some broccoli. I am hoping this cuts down our weekly grocery bill while also helping us to eat healthier. Doesn't it look yummy:

Whoot! A low grocery bill

Ok so I really didn't buy much of anything worth while (like meat or actual fixing for a meal) but I have a low grocery bill to show off. :-) We are still eating up meats, etc. from my weekend run for our company plus meat from the freezer. So this week I went to Weis and got:

5.16 Warm Delights (4 @ 1.79 plus I had two coupons and they round up so I saved $2)
2.99 OJ
1.29 Honey Bar (impulse buy)
2.50 Ice Cream
4.29 Cheese Sticks
2.59 Yogurt
.50 Plum
2.49 Broccoli
2.19 Raspberry Iced Tea
3.92 Grapes
3.00 Potato Chips
2.79 Rice Crispies
2.99 Honey Nut Cheerios
4.29 Laundry Detergent (long story)
6.38 Cascade Rinse agent (2)
2.00 Potato chips
2.99 Blueberries
.98 Bananas
12.50 Soda
3.00 Soda Deposit


Then I had coupons for a free soda, ice cream, iced tea, and potato chips. Plus I already mentioned my two coupons that got rounded up for the warm delights (a guilty pleasure of mine but I only buy them when I have coupons). So the total bill came to $58 even. I saved 17.79. So I finally got a grocery trip in under my $75 a week goal. Of course I had a lot of freebies and I didn't buy any meat. This is an eat from the freezer type of week but it is still nice to see the bill so low. I also stocked up on soda (5 - 12 packs) so that should make next week's bill smaller. I had to buy a special laundry detergent for almost $5 because we had issues with our water this weekend and I now have iron stained towels. This detergent is suppose to get the iron stains out. If that hadn't occurred, I would have had an even lower bill.

I also made a trip to CVS where I got a giant box of Pampers and some fiber pills. I had $8.50 in extra care bucks plus a $1.50 off pampers coupon and a $3 off CVS coupon. So I got the whole thing for $22 which is great considering the pampers typically run that much by themselves. I also got $3 extra care bucks for next time and a $4.50 off coupon for my next giant box of Pampers. Since Pampers are on sale this week at CVS I think I will head back and get another box. We only use disposables at night and for long trips out of the house so two giant boxes should last us a long time. I like the Pampers Baby Dry because they are the only diapers that Jocelyn doesn't leak out of at night. I admit to being a lazy parent who doesn't want to change a diaper at 2 am so it is worth it to me to buy the name brand diapers for that alone.

4th of July

Jocelyn's first 4th of July was very busy. Her Mimi (grandmother), Grand-Bob (grandfather), and great aunt Mary Ann came to visit. We took her to the BMets and then hung out around the house first in her pool and then in her NEW sandbox. Check out some of the pictures.

Here she is with her Great Aunt Mary Ann (check out the Penn State dress)

At the BMets with Ballwinkle (it was starting to get a little weird with how long he held her)

Check out that tongue and yes she can get her toes in her mouth

Trying to get the doggies to go swimming

Her new sand box


It took Grand-Bob and Daddy trips to Toys R Us, Sears, Target, Walmart, and finally Kmart to find this sandbox. Toys R Us had other ones but they were $70. This one is perfect for her. Of course now I have sand all over my house. Oh well. Jocelyn also tried some olives and loved them this weekend. She was also a fan of the grilled chicken which turned out to be pretty spicy so I was surprised that she liked it. She ate well. So maybe Pittsburgh was just an off week and I shouldn't worry too much about what she is or isn't eating yet. The fireworks were less then a hit with her. She had seen some at a BMets game over Memorial Day weekend and enjoyed them but this time she was too tired. So she ended up back inside before the fireworks were done in our neighborhood. It was a very busy weekend.

Paper Towels

So I have been looking at how to save money and also be a little more green and I am disgusted by how many paper towels we use. I find myself reaching for a paper towel to:

Dry my hands
Clean up spills
Dry a pan
Wipe the stove
Clean up the baby
Clean the windows/bathroom/etc

Basically, we have two rolls of paper towels out at any given time and probably go through more then a roll a week. I also have an entire drawer full of dish towels that we could be using instead. I am also going to go and get some of those microfiber towels and cut them into paper towel size. I make, wash, and reuse baby wipes I can surely make, wash, and reuse towels each week. So I here by vow to only use paper towels to clean up the really yucky stuff like dog vomit and to stop using them for the every day stuff. We have 4 rolls of paper towels left in the house. I am hoping they will last us until October instead of just until the middle of July.

Ok enough groceries... how about some poop?

So I haven't updated on Jocelyn's eating or potty training lately. Well I am proud to say we had a nice big messy poop on the potty yesterday morning. Honestly, I couldn't be prouder as a mom yet I know that it was just dumb luck. I put her on there each morning and just hope that something happens. Usually we get a pee. Yesterday we got a poop. Nice huh? The stuff I look forward to as a mommy.

Eating has been more of a challenge. She loves to nurse and I think she would live off of breastmilk until she was 18 years old if she had a chance. Don't worry I would definitely wean before high school... :-) Anyway, she has tried salmon and tuna now and liked both. She still loves green beans and she definitely eats better at home then when we travel. Last week I don't think she ate a single solid morsel the whole time we were gone. EVERYTHING went on the floor. I tried to explain that we didn't bring the dogs but I guess she thought they must be hungry and just hiding somewhere. Now that we are back home she is eating blueberries, cheerios, green beans, and some meat again. We tried kiwi and that wasn't a big hit. Oh she had some corn bread tonight too. So we are trying to introduce more foods but I try to have something that she 'likes' around too. Of course, what she likes this week might not be what she likes next week. I am finding this method of feeding very frustrating. I am hoping once she gets some teeth she will really take off with eating. I am also hoping that she might consider dropping a few night time nursing sessions. I really don't want to push for night weaning but some nights are rough (and we are co-sleeping).

I have also decided that I need more me time. I haven't been able to get out to knitting in a LONG time and I think my attitude is suffering because of this. I need some non-baby time. I feel awful saying that but it is true. I am hoping to get back into daddy-daughter night (aka mommy gets out of the house night) at least once every other week. It is tough because I want to save money and the hubby still has a lot of commitments but I think it is something I need. Today I did the first part of the 30 day shred and the hubby took Jocelyn for a walk at the same time. When I was done, I was so confused and happy to be all alone in the house (well except for the dogs). It was nice to be able to work out without listening to a baby babble in the next room and wonder if she was ok or tired or hungry, etc.

More groceries

Jocelyn and I are back from our world tour (ok just a PA state tour but still it felt like a LONG trip). We visited my grandma, uncle, aunt, mom, dad, sister, and a 'cousin' (not sure if it is second cousin or first cousin once removed). Then we visited Kevin's grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, cousin, and great-aunt. Plus we hit the Pittsburgh Zoo. All in all it was a good trip. It only really cost Jocelyn and I gas as meals and entertainment were covered by family plus free lodging. The hubby ate out of the fridge, freezer, and pantry. So no grocery bill last week. WHOOT! However, since I did get gas 3 times we should probably assume our grocery bill just went to pay for gas. Ok so the tentative meal plan for this week:

Pesto Pasta
Fish
Burgers/Hot Dogs
Beef Tamale Bake
Swiss Steak Supper
Pineapple/Orange Cake (ok so a dessert but had to try the recipe)

We went to Wegman's on Saturday morning which turns out not to be that bad of a time to go shopping. It was crazy but not as crazy as a typical weekend Wegman's trip which was odd since it was graduation weekend for so many high schools. I thought it would be much busier. Ok here is the damage:

3.19 - Potato Rolls
2.99 - Yogurt
1.88 - Milk
3.99 - OJ
1.29 - Eggs
1.99 - Shredded Cheese
1.19 - Whipped Topping
1.19 - Corn Meal
3.79 - Cran-Raspberry Juice
0.89- Angel Hair Pasta
0.89 -Rigatoni
0.89 - Penne Pasta
0.67 - Mandarin Oranges
1.99 - Salsa
0.99 - Crushed Pineapple
1.19 - Diced Tomatoes
0.99 - Cake Mix
1.99 - Honey Nut Cereal
0.39 - Pudding Mix
20.98 - Beer (2 - 12 packs)
0.99 - Tomato Sauce
6.01 - Beef Round Steak
18.04 - Ground Beef (7 lbs)
13.98 - Salmon
2.49 - Graduation Card
1.50 - Blueberries
2.50 - Raspberries
2.29 - Onions
1.71 - Green Beans
3.49 - Potatoes
1.31 - Bananas
1.00 - Kiwi
0.99 - Baby Carrots
7.99 - Coffee

We had a bunch of bottle returns and a $1 off coupon for the coffee. So in total we paid $113.05. Yikes. That is no where near the $60-75 weekly bill I am hoping to get down to. Now in fairness we stocked up a bit on this trip. We got 7 lbs of ground beef. I am using 2 lbs this week and putting 5 lbs in the freezer. We got frozen salmon which will last us for a few meals. Those two items alone total over $22. We did not buy any soda which usually costs us $10 but we did spend over $20 on beer. We stocked up on pasta ($3 or so) because we didn't have any in the pantry. So mixed feelings on the grocery trip. Good stocking up but still spending too much money. We have company coming into town for the weekend again so we will likely be hitting the grocery store before Saturday to get food for the weekend. I am hoping to keep the damage to a minimum but it is hard with big holiday cook-outs, etc. I am looking for a good red/white/blue dessert idea. Any suggestions?

Groceries

I have been reading some other blogs that deal with saving money. One (http://www.trenchesofmommyhood.blogspot.com/) is currently trying to live the month of June on $1200. Now we couldn't live on 1200 seeing how our mortgage plus taxes plus utilities come to more then that each month. But it got me thinking about how much we have been spending on food lately. We are easily spending $100 or more on food a week and this is with us cutting out a lot of eating out. We still probably eat meals out 2-3 times a week. Jocelyn and I have been going to that STM breakfast each Thursday and that costs us around $10. Kevin and I and the baby typically will meet for a lunch out once a week so that will cost us $15-25 depending on where we go. Then if we do one dinner out we are taking probably another $20-35 again depending on where we go. So that is another lets say $50 on food. I feel like we need to cut our weekly grocery bill but I don't know how. Here is my latest grocery bill (now this is not a typical week, in fact this was just a trip to the store to get food for the weekend for the in laws visit):

3.39 Two packs of Thomas' English Muffins (buy one get one free saved 3.39)
2.99 Honet Nut Scooters
2.39 Shake and Pour Pancake mix
1.29 Cream Cheese
4.99 Two packs of ball park all beef franks (buy one get on free saved 4.99)
4.49 Bacon
4.19 1/2 lb Tavern Ham Deli Meat
2.00 Wheat Bread
2.29 Butter
1.99 Potato Buns
4.79 Chicken Breast
2.50 Lupos Marinade
0.99 Hot Dog buns
4.99 Cole Slaw
3.99 Two packages of Choc. Chip Cookies (buy one get one free saved 3.99)
2.79 Cool Whip
4.19 Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry Juice
2.59 5 lb Sugar
3.00 1/2 lb Deli Cheese
5.98 2 packages frozen Raspberries
12.00 2 packages of Angel Soft (this was a sale)

I used a $2 off coupon from Enjoy the City. With tax, it all came to $76.77. That seems crazy to me. Now I am feeding 5 adults and one baby for basically 2 days. So far I have used 1/2 of one pack of English muffins (I'll freeze the second package), all the chicken, 1/2 a pack of hot dogs (will freeze the second pack), 1/2 a pack of rolls (will freeze the second pack), 1/2 the bacon, the marinade, cool whip, raspberries, cream cheese, some of the cole slaw and deli cheese. I figure we will use the pancake mix for breakfast and the deli meat/bread for lunch. Obviously the toilet paper won't be wasted. But I seriously can't believe that I spent that much on a quick trip to the store. I'll be away this coming week but next week I'll post our weekly menu and the grocery list. Ideally I'd like to get our weekly spending down to around $65-70 for groceries. As it stands with last week's initial $100 trip and this weekend's trip we are about $105 over that goal. I guess I need to get planning better and shopping smarter. Oh and my receipt says I saved 19.64 on this trip. Sure that makes me feel good but still I can't help thinking I can do a LOT better then that.

Zoo

We went to the zoo with our great friends from STM. Here are some pictures:

Jocelyn is also standing up. Check it out:
Eating has improved a lot. She will typically try things now. There is evidence of swallowing in her diaper. She loves (LOVES) green beans and turkey. She seems to be a lot less interested in fruits now. Fruit used to be a go to but now it is green beans, turkey, and rice cake (or bread). She shared a grilled cheese with a friend at Panera the other day after the zoo. She even enjoyed some of my steak at Olive Garden when we took Auntie Shelly out for her birthday. Her pincher grip is starting to develop so even through BLW suggests giving strips of food she is doing really well will smaller pieces. She seems to do better with small pieces of things then big strips. The big pieces end up getting thrown to the dogs. Found another thing the dogs do not like to eat, watermelon. :-)

In potty news, we have been slacking a little with the potty since vacation. We are trying to get back into putting her on the potty after waking up. We can brag that we had a poop on the potty one morning. That was very exciting. I think once she starts eating more regularly we might start adding in potty break after meals and see what other stuff we can luck into.

Swimming

So we went to California for a wedding and were able to take Jocelyn to the pool at the hotel. Here she is in her suit:

Here she is in the pool:

She had a blast. She also got to try turkey sausage at the hotel breakfast. She loved it. She actually had pieces in her mouth and swallowed some. BLW is still going slowly. Most days we make a big mess more then anything. She got some gerber puffs today from a friend at breakfast. She actually did pretty well with them. So while I was going to avoid processed packaged baby foods we will probably buy some just as an extra to have. It seems like something easy to keep in the diaper bag for when we are out.

Pictures

Here are some pictures, first Jocelyn on the potty. A typically day involves 2-3 visits to the potty and successful pees just about every time.


First foods, broccoli and carrots steamed, she didn't know what to do with them.
Next up a banana... At first, it was just a cool new play thing but I have seen her actually gumming some banana now.


Her favorite food so far is peach. Here she actually got one into her mouth.

Some words on the potty

So just to update we have given Jocelyn peaches and rice cake. Both have made it to her mouth. :-) The dogs surprisingly are not fans of peaches but they do fight over a dropped rice cake.

I recently read the book Diaper Free Before 3 and wanted to share a little bit about how I am using the book. Jocelyn is just over 6 months old and she will pee on the potty (yes really she does. I'm not making this stuff up) anywhere from 1 to 3 times a day. The book explained that building the potty into a daily routine helps to get the child potty trained. The author suggests that the best times to add the potty are right after waking (either first thing in the morning or after a nap), right after eating, or before bath. So one day Jocelyn woke up from her nap and her diaper was dry. I thought hmm let's try this potty thing. So I held her over the toilet and made some psst noises and won't you know it she peed. I was so proud I wanted to run out and tell the whole neighborhood. She was not even 6 months old and had peed on the potty. At this point I was hooked. I went out and bought an infant potty and we have been using it anywhere from 1 to 3 times a day. For now, I have been just putting her on it when she wakes up from a nap or in the morning. In fact, I have found that if I don't put her on it after a nap she will pee while I am trying to put on a new diaper. (That was a fun discovery to make) I had a few objections to the book. The main one being the author's bias to bottle feeding. However, I do have to say the principles about starting early and that babies can use the potty at a young age have converted me. Jocelyn might just find some cotton underwear in her pile of gifts for her first birthday. I am not naive enough to expect that she will be trained by then but I am thinking 18 months might be a good goal to aim for. Each time she pees I am still in awe and she smiles at me like 'aw mom it is so nice not to be sitting in my own urine.' Ok so maybe she isn't thinking that but she sure is a cutie. I'll have to get a picture of her on her potty.

Food and 6 month appt

So Jocelyn made it to 6 months on breast milk alone. :-) I'm so proud. We are taking the baby led weaning approach to solids which basically skips purees and goes straight to finger foods and the baby feeds herself. So far we have offered her steamed carrots and broccoli as well as raw cucumber and banana. The dogs are really enjoying this as they have had carrots, broccoli, and banana so far. Jocelyn licked the carrots and put the cucumber in her mouth. So it is slow going but I know she'll get the hang of it. Plus it isn't like she is hurting for food. She weighed 17 lbs at her 6 month appointment (75th percentile) and was 28.5 inches long (off the charts). So she is growing just fine. We have some pictures of the first foods that I'll have to get off the camera soon. She is also 'crawling'. She basically can drag herself where ever she wants to go. All fours can't be too far behind. The doctor said to get baby proofing as she will likely be walking around 9 months.

Long time

It has been a very long time since I updated this blog. Baby has arrived. 7 lb 11 oz 21 in long girl on October 16, 2009 after a two day failed induction due to low fluids around the baby. A c-section was not what I had wanted but the birth story will wait for another day. She is the love of our lives. So beautiful and funny and smart and activate. Her name is Jocelyn. She will be 6 months old at the end of this week. I am proud to say that she has been exclusively breastfed since birth. No formula here. We even survived my gall bladder surgery without supplementing (that's a story for another day). So we are about to embark on the world of solid foods with Jocelyn. I have been doing a lot of reading and have decided to go with the baby led weaning approach to solids. Basically, it allows the baby to feed herself from about 6 months on regular adult table foods like broccoli, carrots, bananas, pork, etc. No purees, no force feeding. Just a baby exploring and enjoying her food along side her parents. I'm hoping to document this journey and a few others on this blog. For more information on BLW, check out these sites:

Baby-led Weaning - based around the book by Gil Rapley
BLW blog - two moms following their children's journey through solids

So now how about some pictures:

In the hospital

First day home

First Christmas

In her Easter Dress

Smiling :-)