A Couple Good Things and One Enormously Shitty Thing

I've got a new article published, How I Save on My Utility Bills During the Summer. As you can tell, I'm a little addicted to saving money. I wouldn't call myself cheap or a tightwad but when you're on one income you really need to stretch those dollars.  And I'll admit that I'm a little panicky about Brandon getting out of the military next year and having to find a job while he goes to school full-time.  Does health insurance REALLY cost $500+ a month for a family?!

C started crawling.  She did it for the first time on Saturday.  It was the day after my birthday and I had gone out with my friend for lunch when she decided to crawl for the first time.  I'm home with her ALL DAY long and she waits till I leave to crawl?  Stinker.  At least Brandon witnessed it, though he didn't think to record it for me.  Nevertheless I got some video evidence later that night.  Ever since then she has been on the go.  She's much faster now, even though it's only been a few days since she started.  I didn't realize she could perfect her crawling so quickly.  Time to baby-proof.

Oh, and last night she learned how to blow raspberries.

And the enormously shitty thing?  My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer last week.  They found a tumor the size of his fist in the upper lobe of his lung.  He started chemo on Monday and C and I are going to Pennsylvania to visit him next week.  He seems a little nonchalant about the whole thing.  I'm a little skeptical that maybe he's just downplaying the seriousness of the situation for the sake of me and my sister.  We'll just have to see how well the chemo and radiation works and hopefully they will be able to shrink the tumor enough to do surgery and remove it.  Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers.

C Has a Lovey and I Have a Dilemma

It seems that C has finally become attached to something, besides us of course.  She has a little white security blanket that we purchased LONG before we were matched.  So anyway, this little blanket stays in her crib and she enjoys chewing on it, covering her face with it and just generally abusing the thing.  I remember so many moms telling me that it's wise to buy a duplicate when a child gets attached to a lovey, just in case the first one falls to pieces or, God forbid, goes missing. 

The problem is that I just discovered that C's lovey has been discontinued with none available on ebay at the moment.

I'm left wondering what to do.  Should I just leave it be and hope for the best for C's little blankie to make it through her childhood?  I still have my lovey from when I was a kid and it's literally in shreds.  Or should I try to find another lovey for her that I can buy two of and secretly make the swap?  This brand does have a pink lovey that says "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" so it's possible for me to get a couple on ebay that look very similar to her original one. I would love to hear your suggestions!

Below is a picture of the lovey mentioned.

A Few Random Updates

• C turned 6 months old a few weeks ago and I'm left wondering what happened to my little peanut and who this new baby is that has taken her place. She's not babbling that much, or saying consonents but instead prefers to just make random moaning sounds and practicing her vowels. No crawling yet but she wants to so badly. She can get up on her hands and knees and rock but she will either go back down to her tummy or make a huge lunge forward on her knees and face plant onto the carpet.  I've been making her baby food and so far we've introduced her to avocado, bananas, sweet potatoes and apples which she has loved and sweet peas which she has not.  This week we will keep feeding her apples and next week I think we will try peaches (I went peach picking so I need to puree these peaches while they're still fresh).  

• My weight loss journey has been great so far.  I've stayed on track and listened to my body more than I usually do.  While I count my calories every day there are some days that I just feel SO hungry all day, no matter what I eat.  On those days I choose to eat more calories instead of starving myself.  Yesterday was one such day.  My daily calorie deficit is 750 so I can eat an extra 100-200 calories if I'm hungry and still have a deficit for the day.  I never beat myself up over eating extra food on those "hungry" days.  

• Exercise is another story.  It's been in the 90's all week this week and our house lacks central air.  While we have some window A/C units we tend to close off some unused rooms to keep the air conditioning costs low.  Those rooms are where I usually work out.  Even with the A/C units running all day our house only gets down to about 75-78 degrees during the day.  So to sum it up it sucks working out right now.  Some morning I do a little strength training with my free weights and yoga mat but most days I don't work out at all.  However I do take advantage of the cooler, rainy days with workouts so I can still stay in shape.  My short-term goal is to be able to run my first 5K this fall and my long-term goal is to run in the Disney Princess Half Marathon in 2015. 

• I've been looking for ways to stay busy while at home so I've gotten back into writing articles for Yahoo! (check out my list on the right sidebar).  I'm also looking for ways to get C more socialized.  Next week we will attend a free class at Kindermusik.  I'm trying to decide whether to sign her up for those classes or sign her up for swim lessons.  I think that getting out of the house once a week will be good for both of us.

• In a couple of weeks C and I will be going on our first road trip alone.  We're driving back to Pennsylvania to visit family (the ones she saw when she was 3 months old).  My sister and nephew will be coming up from NC as well and we plan to take a trip to Idlewild Park.  This was an amusement park that we went to as kids and so we want our own children to have the experience of going.  I can't wait to walk through Storybook Forest and ride the trolley through Mister Roger's Neighborhood.  It brings back such wonderful memories!

• We still haven't finalized C's adoption yet.  We were hoping to get a date set sometime this month but with all the delays that the court has been giving us it seems that we could end up finalizing as late as September.  I'm pretty disappointed about that. 
• I finally decided to link my travel blog to this one.  It's on my sidebar under "Other Blogs".  The title is Travel Fearlessly.  Pretty fitting huh?  I'm planning our next international trip (and C's first!) to Nova Scotia next summer.  

Well that's about all that's going on for now.  Sometime this week I need to clean up the blogroll and hopefully add a few more new faces to the list.  If you're a follower and have your own blog please introduce yourself in the comment section and I'll get you added to my list!

New Article

I've written a new article for Yahoo Voices titled Living Rich on a Poor Man's Budget. Check it out!  Also click here for another money-saving article I wrote, mostly geared toward parents but many of the tips (and links) work for those without kids as well.  Happy reading!

Starting Solids

C is finally ready to start solid foods. I mean "real" foods since she's been having oatmeal cereal since she was 4 months old. About a month ago we tried avocado but the blowouts in her diaper were horrible so we stopped. It may have been the few drops of lemon juice we added to the puree (to prevent the avocado from browning, per the recipe). We don't know. So we stopped with introducing solids, spent almost two weeks clearing up the diaper rash and now we're trying again.

I do have a few questions that I can't seem to find the answer to.  Do we keep her on the cereal as we introduce new foods?  With the avocado we didn't  Now we're introducing banana and we're keeping the cereal.  Yesterday we fed her banana alone in the evening, this morning we mixed mashed banana with her cereal.  And once she's graduated to solid #2 do we still keep feeding solid #1 (the banana) or do we only feed her one food at a time?  I don't mean in the same meal but just in the same day.  I think our next food will probably be sweet potato or peas (I am making C's baby food at home).  So would we quit the banana and then introduce the sweet potato?  Or should we feed the banana at a morning feeding and then sweet potato at an afternoon feeding?  Currently C is only getting one solid food feeding per day so I know that eventually we will need to start feeding her solids twice a day.  I am really paranoid about upsetting her tummy like last time so I want to make sure I don't do that again.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

P.S.- For my Irish readers, at what age do you introduce steel cut oatmeal to your baby?  C's oatmeal cereal is like mush but we do have steel cut oatmeal that I would love to feed her instead.  I thought about cooking some and then blending it but again, I don't want to upset her little tummy. 

A Heavy Heart

Sweet Morgan earned her angel wings this morning. My heart is heavy with grief for her family. I cannot imagine how it must feel to lose a child. Please keep the Lastowski family in your thoughts and prayers.