Woohoo!

I weighed myself today at the gym. I don't own a scale, so this is where I have to do it.

Anyway, I am proud to say that I have reached pre-baby weight. The bad news is, I'm still not back in shape, so this must mean I've swapped some lean muscle mass for some baby flab, but I'll get that sorted out - sooner rather than later, I hope.

I've still got a few pounds to go even beyond "pre-baby" weight, but that's just so that I can feel better. It's never about the number with me (hence, not owning a scale) - it's about how I feel and how my clothes fit. Not surprisingly, these two things are directly related.

It was the first time I have been back in the pool since the baby was born. Did you know it's a lot easier to swim without a giant belly? Go figure. Plus, my arms are pretty strong from holding up my "solid" child so much, which also makes swimming easier, so all in all, it was a better experience that I had expected. I'm not quite as out of shape as I had thought.

I also got a pair of my old jeans on and zipped up/buttoned. I'm not going to lie - it was pretty dicey around the waist (can you say muffin top?), but it was a milestone nonetheless, and I'm going to count it. This is key, since I can't afford a new wardrobe, so I'd like to be back in my old one by the time winter gets here.

Wish me luck!

Time is Money

Who knew that when you don’t have a full-time job you actually have time to save money??

I’ve been reading coupon blogs (oh yeah, they exist, and they’re stunning – I’m not half as serious as these women are) and printing coupons and getting all the circulars from the Sunday paper. In fact, if the Richmond paper had more of these savings inserts that I keep hearing about, I’d be really dangerous.

However, I must say I haven’t done too shabby as of late, even without them. I promise not to post this regularly, but this week was my first full-throttle deal week, and I made out like a bandit.

At Babies R Us, I used $7 in coupons on diapers and wipes, and saved 15% on a baby gift for a shower we are going to next week.

Target has a weird receipt, but I know I saved at least 33.5% of my bill (not including a gift I had to buy for a shower I can’t attend) – and that’s including an emergency purchase of over $7 (on ant killing supplies, yuck) that I didn’t have time to find coupons for or deals on. Sorry for ending the sentence in a preposition, but fixing it would have been a mess. Plus, I got a $5 Target gift card as part of a savings deal, too.

At Walgreens I only saved $6.28, but that represented 41% of my total bill (including tax).

At CVS I saved $34.96 PLUS got $12.50 in extra care bucks (which is essentially like cash because that’s how much will be subtracted from any future purchase), which represents – including the extra care bucks – a 58% savings on my total bill.

And at Kroger, I saved $28.50, plus I got $3 off my next purchase. This was only 28% of my total bill, but that’s still not too shabby for the grocery store!

As Coleman reminded me, you have to spend money to save money, but I assure you that 98% of all these purchases were things we needed anyway: food we already eat, razor cartridges, toothpaste, contact solution, detergent, etc. And I didn’t buy any toiletries we weren’t low on already. Plus, all three locations are nearby, and I just did one per day so that I wasn’t harried and stressed (not to mention that shopping with Cora pretty much prohibits piling on too many stops in one trip).

All in all, I officially proclaim Deal Week a success!

P.S. - My mother used to clip coupons and make spreadsheets for what items were cheapest and where, which she did while holding down a full-time job, commuting, cooking daily meals, and taking care of two kids. I have nothing on this woman!!

My little yogi

Do any of you do yoga? You know when you get in a particularly challenging pose, when you're stretched as far as you can go, and then you just relax into it and breathe into it, and all of the sudden you find yourself sinking further and further into it until you're way past where you thought was your limit?

That's the best way I can describe Cora's newest quirk.

She'll be sitting upright on my lap with her legs out in front of her and will begin to bend forward until she's in about a 45 degree angle and halts. Then slowly, slowly, she keeps bending further and further until her nose is nearly between her feet. She looks like she's folded in half.

And I still haven't figured out why she's doing this. Is she fascinated by her feet? She doesn't really grab them when she gets to them, but perhaps she's just trying to get a closer look? She's shoving everything in her mouth these days (and I mean shoving), so perhaps she thinks all those little piggies would be fun to gnaw on. Who knows?

Or maybe all that prenatal yoga got through to her early.

We're also getting really ready to see some family. My Aunt Mileta and Uncle Carter are coming up for a visit. They're flying into DC to see my cousin Jerrod, their son/my cousin, who is in grad school there, and his girlfriend Shana, and they are all coming down to spend a few days in the area, so they're going to get to meet Cora. Yay! Aunt Mileta has already said how excited she is that she won't have to share her with the rest of the family and can have her all to herself. Aunt Mileta was the person who acted most excited out of everyone when we told the family that we were having a baby last Christmas, so she's definitely due for some Cora time.

Then, next weekend, Sparkypants and I are flying to Texas to visit/meet the rest of the family. (For those of you shuddering right now, Sparkypants is the baby, not Coleman.) We're very excited and hope to see many of you very soon.

Baby Loves Her Mommy

I don't think I've made it into too many pictures thus far...that will tend to happen when one is attempting to lose the 36 pounds one gained while pregnant (yikes!), has little sleep, and no time for things like putting on makeup or fixing one's hair. Hey, in those early days, it was tough to manage clean hair, much less fixed hair!

So, I am posting a few pictures I ran across of the baby and me. I'm not any more glamorous that I was a few months ago, but my standard has been lowered quite a bit, I think! I just wanted you to know that I do still exist...

I told you I love to kiss her!!

Look at that beautiful little girl. She's mine, can you believe it?!

What a steal

Some of you have seen the bebe au lait nursing covers or the "hooter hider" brand, but I hadn't heard of "udder covers" before. However, they look the same to me and they serve pretty much the same function.

And they're free.

They're having a great promo right now (can't get much better, actually), where you can get one for free as long as you pay shipping and handling (a $32 savings!!). The s&h is $8.95, so this is only a deal if you were planning on getting one anyway. But if you're nursing, going to be nursing, or have a baby shower to go to soon, I wouldn't pass this up.

Just go to their site here:

https://www.uddercovers.com/

And then enter the promo code "backorder" when you checkout. I did it. It works.

(and be sure to disregard the photo in the slideshow where the two friends are drinking wine in front of the nursing mother, who isn't. Jenny pointed this out to me, and I think that's hilarious. What jerks!)

As I told a couple of you to whom I sent this deal earlier, I'm not usually intensely modest about breastfeeding in public. I do cover, but don't go hide away somewhere and don't make a concerted effort to shield everyone from everything. For me, it's a matter of principle. No one asks women in low-cut blouses to cover up, and they're flashing at least as much breast as I am when I'm breastfeeding AND I'm feeding my kid!! They're just showing them off for funsies and it's okay, but me doing the most natural, God-given thing in the world is somehow offensive? I think not.

I think that the message that sends (woman's body as sex object = okay; woman's body as nourishing, comforting life-giver = gross) is demeaning to women and the people who have a problem with breastfeeding in public are the ones who ought to be ashamed of themselves.

And like I told the girls earlier, they're boobs, you know - this is what they are for.

Okay, so if I'm all hot and bothered about this, why did I get one? Yeah, good question. However, I'm going to be flying soon and do feel like that's pretty close quarters in which to be exposing myself, in addition to which, Coleman won't be there to help me get set up (sometimes it's difficult to keep something draped on you while you need two hands to get positioned, latched, etc.). So, I'd been thinking about getting one and this deal just made it an easy choice. I think I may like the two-free-hands thing in the future, too, you know?

So, I'm proud of you if you don't want one (power to the milk mamas!), but if you do, check it out. It's quite a deal.

What a morning

I've just spent the better part of an hour on the phone with the electric company (always a joy, and no, my issue is still not worked out) and the postal service.

It turns out, the moron they employ as our [former] postal carrier says he "didn't know" about the forwarding order we had on file. It has been in effect for FIVE WEEKS and has been on file even longer than that. And the only reason I suspected this is because two people told me mail had been returned to them. Who knows how many other pieces of mail he returned??

Now normally I would be loathe to call anyone a "moron" who provided me with a valuable and necessary service on a daily basis, but this is also the braintrust who broke three dvds in the first month we lived there by shoving them into our mailbox. Three! Broke them in half. How much force does it take to snap a dvd in half? And you can imagine what our other mail looked like if that's what happens to a disc.

Incidentally, this is also the post office that, when I called about the three broken dvds, responded with, "What would you have us do about that?" Yeah, really instills the confidence in their level of service, doesn't it?

So anyway, this is all just to say: if you have tried to mail us something and it has been returned, I'm sorry. We were not so remiss that we didn't have our mail forwarded, it just didn't work, apparently. We have gotten some mail here, so if it hasn't been returned, you can be relatively sure that we got it. Well, maybe "relatively sure" is even stretching it. Hey, why don't you just check with us?!

Indoctrination: Starting Early

In the past, Coleman and I have made fun of people who use their kids (well, their clothes anyway) to exhibit their own personal views, preferences, and political stances. You see babies wearing onesies with peace signs or "future republican" on them (I always read those - and others like it, I'm nonpartisan on this issue - to myself as "future kid who will totally rebel against you for stuff like this."). Or they just say things like, "Does this diaper make my butt look big?" or "I'm a flirt." Your kid is not a flirt: you just think that onesie is cute.

And let's face it - we still mock them.

But we've also joined them.

This is Cora's Tree Hugger onesie:

We love it. And yes, we know that it says way more about us than it does about her and attributes our attitudes to our daughter who cannot yet express her own, but we don't care.

It's hilarious.

And doesn't it look like she loves it, too? Look at her grinning and posing. She IS a tree hugger!