SAHM-to-be!!!

Warning: this post might make some of you loyal readers (and you know who you are) angry or uncomfortable that I am airing dirty family laundry, but this is MY blog, and I can share what I want to. If you don't like it, start your own blog! If you think it will make you upset, please read everything except for the tangent. The rest of you will love reading about "someone else's" dysfunctional family. It is my opinion that all families are dysfunctional - just in varying degrees. I bet you can't wait to read on. After all, who doesn't love drama when it is about other people? But I promise that the main point of this blog entry is my very, very good news.

I have never been nor will I ever be a "career woman." I always had grand ideas about what type of job I wanted to have before I had children, but ultimately I have always wanted to be a mom and stay at home with my kids. Even in college, I always knew that I wanted the SAHM title. I looked at my college degree as a back up plan! I loathed the idea of having daycare-raised-children and preached that "I won't have kids unless I can stay at home and raise them myself." Unfortunately, I am a mom living in the wrong era. 60 years ago what I wanted was the norm. These days most women aspire to be anything but Donna Reed. *Not that there is anything wrong with working moms. I realize that most families today need 2 incomes to get by. I just didn't want that for MY family.* But then Jake came along much earlier than we expected, and my dream of being a SAHM flew out the window. No matter how many numbers we crunched, we just could not afford to have me stop working. We could afford the mortgage, the bills, the groceries, etc. on Joe's income alone, but without my paychecks we could not afford Joe's student loan payments (which are essentially a second mortgage!!!) The most frustrating part for me was that my checks were going solely to child care and student loans. And obviously we wouldn't need to pay for child care if I was at home, so what was I working for? Student loans? Are you F-ing kidding me?

Begin tangent here: The worst part about it was that we were not even supposed to be paying for these student loans in the first place! Both Joe and I are very grateful that our parents footed the bill for our college expenses. And we were ecstatic when Joe's dad claimed that he would also be paying for Joe to go to Law School. Joe was going to take out student loans and then his parents were going to make the payments on them once Joe graduated. Which was wonderful because Joe went to a private (ie very expensive) Law School! If we would have known ahead of time that we would be paying for Joe's Law School, he may have made a different choice on which school to attend, and we would have been EXPECTING this financial burden. Fast forward to 3 years later...Joe graduates and lands a great job, and then his dad decides that he cannot afford to pay the student loans. Just another one of the many broken promises from his A-hole father. Yes, I said it. It is MY blog and I refuse to have it be the elephant in the room. Joe's father is a douchebag. Not just because of the student loan BS but for MANY, MANY, MANY reasons. Here are a few of the other reasons: Almost exactly one year ago Joe's dad CHOSE not to be a part of our life anymore, blamed Joe (and has since blamed Joe's mom and my family and me) for all of his own problems, and has not even acknowledged the existence of his first (and so far only) grandchild! As far as I'm concerned, Jake only has one "Pa Pa" (Grandpa) and that is my father. His other Grandfather doesn't exist.

Why pay for therapy when you can blog for free? End tangent.

Then along came nanny-from-hell and "snotty kid germ" daycare. I have always believed that everything happens for a reason and I felt like God was trying to tell me that Jake's child care situation wasn't working out because I needed to be at home with him. Then came Joe's raise (yay!) and we decided to reevaluate our finances. We found out that we do have a few options to lower the student loan payments (they will still be high but not as high). We decided we would try to live off of just Joe's paychecks (and use my paychecks strictly for child care expenses and savings) for a few months to see if we could make it work. And then Jake got sick. Again. I had another breakdown last week (I have been an emotional wreck and total stress case - even more than normal! - ever since I came back to work after my maternity leave) while trying to balance taking time off from work and tending to a sick child (who got sick once again from the other sick babies at daycare). Joe and I decided this weekend that it is just not worth it for me to continue working. Although we would have loved to save up more money, we just refuse to keep exposing Jake to snotty kid germs. Yes, he will be exposed to TONS of germs at preschool and elementary school. But we would like to limit his exposure to colds and flus and high fevers during his first few years!! So...

I gave notice yesterday. It was really hard for a lot of reasons: 1) I didn't know how my bosses would react (but they were so awesome and though sad to lose me, very happy for me since they knew I had always wanted to be a SAHM!) 2) I have worked there for 6 1/2 years and many of my coworkers are like family (or better than family in some cases!) so it will be very hard to not see them every day. 3) We are taking a huge risk trying to live off of one income. We are hoping and praying it all works out! We will not have the luxury to see if we can make it work. We will just have to make it work. 4) I hate feeling poor/cheap since I have never had to live like that before. I've never been rich either, but penny pinching is quite new to me. I just don't like feeling guilty if I spend an extra $10! Too bad I will not be getting paid the $131,471 that I am worth (see above chart)!

But...it is a trade off. Jake comes first, and his well-being is the most important thing. We are doing everything we can to make things better for him. Wish us luck!

I do not yet know when my last day will be because they will be hiring for my replacement, and I have offered to stay on to train the new person. We are hoping Jake doesn't get sick again in the mean time!

Even though Jake is only (almost) 5 months old, this has been a long road and an emotional roller coaster ride with a lot of tough decisions. We have been blessed with this beautiful baby boy and we just want what is best for him. I have a feeling it will be a much harder job than I expect, but I know it will be much more rewarding! And although it will be hard work, and very hard on us financially, I'm up for the challenge.

My dream is about to come true! Stay tuned to find out how it goes...

more drama for Jakey

Well, it's been another drama-filled week in the life of Jake. He has had a snotty nose and another yucky symptom (I'll spare you the gross details) since last weekend but was in a good mood, sleeping ok, keeping food down, etc. Then on Wednesday night he felt really hot so we took his temperature (for infants they suggest rectal thermometers to get an accurate reading - fun stuff, let me tell you! God bless digital thermometers!) and it was 103! So we gave him Tylenol and I called the pediatrician. I had already talked to her earlier in the week regarding his other symptoms and she said to call back if it gets worse (103 = worse!) She told us to keep giving him Tylenol and to come in to the office the next day. I took the day off of work on Thursday and into the pediatrician we went. Luckily it is NOT another ear infection but a stomach virus this time. Come to find out that the other babies at daycare had similar symptoms last week! The doc said to keep him on the Tylenol and to call back if the fever doesn't go away in 5 days! I thought it had gone away yesterday morning and I attempted to go into work for a few hours. His baby-sitter called me after an hour and said "he's really hot." Great. Up until last night he still had a fever (last night it was up to 103.8)!!! But so far, so good today. It gets worse at night though so the true test will be tonight. Everyone please keep your fingers crossed that we are rid of the fever for good!

The good part about this sickness as opposed to the ear infection is that he has been in good spirits. A little fussier than normal but for the most part, pretty happy. The scary part is the high fever. According to the doctor there is no need to worry unless the fever reaches 106! Let's pray that he gets over this bug ASAP! This is the second illness he has had since being at daycare and hopefully the last!!!

The majority of the pictures I posted are recent (but before his illness). The last 3 I took this morning though! He finally seems to be getting the hang of the eating thing. As long as we alternate between cereal and bottle, he's ok! It gets everywhere though! Such a messy eater. Takes after his mommy. When I was pregnant with him I think I spilled on myself at every meal! That big belly gets in the way! My stained maternity wardrobe will give me an excuse to go shopping for new maternity clothes for next time!

Yes, I am already starting to think about next time. Every time I talked about having more than one kid, my mom always said "wait until you have one." She couldn't handle more than one (even though according to her I was an easy baby). I guess she didn't want to jinx it. Now that I have one, I'm absolutely sure about having more. We have a very easy, happy baby. He's a GREAT sleeper and a good eater, and is hardly every fussy. We KNOW we are lucky, and we know we may not be so lucky next time. But, we still want more! We want at least 2 and no more than 4. I MUST have a girl, so we will keep trying and if we end up with 3 boys, we'll adopt a girl. I'm hoping to have the girl next, and then have a third and not find out the gender of the third...that would be fun! Joe thinks we should stop if we get the girl next time. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. My friend Kelly who has 2 boys already and is pregnant with her third child, just found out that she is having a girl this time!!! So there is hope for me yet!

Our "next time" will not be for a few years though! We want to enjoy Jake for a while and let him get out of the baby stage before we have another one. I refuse to have "2 under 2" if I can help it. That's just too crazy!

Hope you all have a great weekend! We are hoping Jakey's fever stays away so that we can attend a birthday brunch tomorrow (Happy Birthday Aunt Gin!) and a Super Bowl party at Jen & Mark's house. Think good, healthy thoughts for Jakey! I hope he gets better quickly since Joe will be going to Montana next week on a business trip...the single parent thing is hard enough as is when you have a healthy baby!

that's how Jake rolls (part 2) and "stands"

Jake mastered the tummy to back roll over a while ago (see: http://babybalice.blogspot.com/2009/12/thats-how-jake-rolls.html ), but this week he finally figured out the back to tummy roll! He was VERY close for weeks, but couldn't quite get get his arm out from under him...until now!

Jake also loves to practice "standing" and he looks like a little surfer boy while trying to balance himself on mommy's lap :)

Jakey had his 4 month check up on Monday and here are his current stats: 15. lbs. 7 oz. (between the 50th & 75th percentile) and 26.75 inches long (still in the 95th percentile!) The nurse who gave him his shots was shocked that he was only 4 months old. My constant reply to people who comment on his size is "I know, he's a big boy!" What else am I supposed to say? I'm hoping he stays tall even though he does not get that from his mommy or his daddy! I have tallness on both my mom and dad's sides of the family though, so hopefully Jakey has those tall genes!!

As much as I hate needles/giving blood it is much worse to see Jake get his vaccinations. Poor baby! The screams and tears from the pain of the needles are just horrible. And when he looks at me like 'why are you letting them do this to me mommy?' it just breaks my heart. I know it's for the greater good, but it's REALLY hard to watch! Luckily he did not get a fever from this round of shots, and though we did give him some Tylenol just to be safe, he seemed to recover really well.

Besides the shots, the appointment went really well and the pediatrician gave us the ok to start Jake on rice cereal (which we had already been giving him!) and then baby food once he gets used to the cereal. He is still trying to figure out the spoon thing and his swallowing needs work, but practice makes perfect, right? He has already been a messy eater with just bottles of formula, so we know that his food will go everywhere! So far he has had cereal and applesauce, and tonight we tried peas for the first time. Since he is still getting the hang of the whole eating thing, we are going to wait until he gets a little better at it before we start him on any other foods. Can't believe he gets to start eating already!!! Before we know it, he will be walking & talking...

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Happy (Belated) Festivus!

Sorry, no pictures of Jakey this time. A couple of things inspired me to write this post tonight. If you read Joe's blog http://10-8suited.blogspot.com/ you can find out the back story on this, but we acquired a Festivus pole last night! For those of you who live under a rock, here is the definition of Festivus according to Wikipedia:

"Festivus is a secular holiday celebrated on December 23. It was created by writer Dan O'Keefe and introduced into popular culture by his son Daniel, a screenwriter for the TV show Seinfeld[1][2] as part of a comical storyline on the show. The holiday's celebration, as shown on Seinfeld, includes an unadorned aluminum "Festivus pole," practices such as the "Airing of Grievances" and "Feats of Strength," and the labeling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles."
Celebrants of the holiday sometimes refer to it as "Festivus for the rest of us," a saying taken from the O'Keefe family traditions and popularized in the Seinfeld episode to describe Festivus as "another way" to celebrate the season without participating in its pressures and commercialism."

While I think that acquiring the Festivus pole itself is AWESOME, tonight I am more concerned with another important aspect of Festivus: the Airing of Grievances! My friend's blog also inspired this post. One of her biggest pet peeves is being invited to weddings and not being allowed to bring a date. Although I tend to disagree with the "plus one invite" (unless the person is in a serious relationship), her blog post made me think about one of MY biggest pet peeves: when guests do not RSVP for an event at all OR they RSVP after the deadline.

RSVP is taken from the French “repondez, s’il vous plait” which means “please reply.” SO PLEASE REPLY, PEOPLE! It is seriously not that hard. And "maybe" or "I'll try" is not a proper response. I am inviting you to an important event where I will be forking out my own money to pay for you to eat, drink and party, so the least you can do is respond to my invite. I have taken the time to stuff an envelope, pay for a stamp and mail you an invite. You are obviously an important person in my life (or in the person's life who I am throwing the party for). Please take the time to respond! I try to make it as easy as possible for you. I give you both a phone number and an email address. It takes 2 seconds to email me a "yes" or "no". And I need to know by the deadline printed on the invite! Not 3 days later after I have already ordered/bought all of the food, tables, linens, etc.!!! Anyone who cannot take the time to RSVP by the deadline is RUDE! And if you do not RSVP at all, I assume you are not attending. I will NOT take the time to call/email you to see if you are coming. I will NOT be expecting you. If you show up without RSVP-ing, you cannot expect a seat or a meal. Simple as that. I prepare for the party based on the number of guests who respond "yes" by the deadline. And if you do RSVP "yes", please do not "forget" to attend. This may be worse than not RSVP-ing at all! It says to me 'I did not care enough to remember to come to your party even though you had already counted me in and spent money for me to attend.' If something comes up at the last minute (like an illness -- a real one; hangovers do not count!) and you cannot attend after all, a phone call or email is appreciated.

I just do not get what is wrong with some party guests. This year I threw a baby shower, had a baby shower thrown for me, and threw a baptism party and for all of those events, the above mentioned grievances occurred! In fact, for every "RSVP event" that I have ever thrown, including OUR WEDDING, these grievances occurred. WTF, people?

If this does not happen at my next "RSVP event," it will truly be a Festivus miracle! Now, help me celebrate Festivus a month-ish late, air your grievances (it feels good!) I want to hear your biggest pet peeves...

4 months old today!

There are several reasons why I HATE digital cameras (or why they do not work for ME):

1) Before digital, I used to buy "throw away" cameras all the time and get my photos printed cheaply at a 1 hour photo. If I lost/damaged the camera it was not that big of a deal, because the camera was cheap, and it only held 24 pictures or so. Once I bought a digital camera, I hardly ever get actual prints. I have the pictures saved on the computer, or Shutterfly, or on the memory card, but I NEVER get around to sorting through the zillions of photos, deleting the bad ones, ordering the good ones, etc. The task seems too overwhelming for me and it just doesn't happen. I have tons of photo albums from college and none after that (besides our wedding album which my photographer put together). What is the point of taking pictures if you don't have actual photographs to look at? The majority of actual photos I have from the last 5 years or so are from other people who have made prints for me! This sucks because I have tons of Jake pictures but hardly any actual photos (yay for Sears or I would have zero framed Jakey pics up in the house).

2) I am the world's worst photographer. No, this is not the camera's fault but no matter what kind of digital camera I'm using, most of the pictures turn out blurry. We bought a new camera before Jake was born thinking this would solve the blurry problem. Nope, it just made things worse! Before digital, my pictures turned out pretty good. Digital is just too fancy for me. Too many settings, too much to worry about, too much to screw up. I feel like the more pictures I take, the worse they get. And there is no excuse for taking bad pictures since you can see right away what you've taken.

3) Digital pictures are too easy to delete! If you have not uploaded them to the computer yet, and you accidentally delete all of the pictures from your camera, you're screwed. No negatives. No pictures.

Why am I freaking out about this all of a sudden (besides the fact that I have no printed pictures from my camera of my baby - which I know is entirely my fault but I still blame it on the medium)? Well, let me "splain"...

Reason #3 happened to me tonight! This post was going to be filled with pictures from Jackie's baby shower AND Jake's 4 month pics, BUT I accidentally deleted ALL of the pictures from my camera tonight. I was trying to be efficient and delete unwanted photos before uploading them, but then I got distracted and accidentally deleted EVERYTHING!!! We had to retake all of the 4 month pics we had taken earlier in the evening, and I now have NO photos (from my camera) of Jackie's shower. Can't retake those. I know that there are tons of other people's pictures from Jackie's shower, but I wanted MINE! I had a picture of the two of us that I don't think anyone else captured, and, despite my sucky photography skills, I always like seeing pics from my perspective :(

So...check out Jackie's blog: http://minitipdawg.blogspot.com/ or her SIL (Jen's) blog: http://mimibellaboo.blogspot.com/ to see pictures from Jackie's shower. Because I don't have any!

I loved seeing how Jackie's shower came together since the four of us we were planning it "together" from separate locations! God bless email! Everything turned out great, and we all had a wonderful time - tons of pink, tons of adorable girl clothes (I kept saying out loud and to myself "I NEED to have a girl next time!"), great food and decor (thanks Shaunna, Joliene and Jen), fun games provided by yours truly, and a really cute cake (GREAT job picking out the cake Joliene!) Jackie received tons of presents for Baby Kyra including Kyra's very own pink iPOD! Now Jackie can MAKE SURE Kyra knows every Madonna song before she can speak! It was a fun day, and I was very glad I had Janice with me to keep me company on the long car ride to "The OC" and back. There were several adorable babies at the shower (all girls!) and it made me miss my baby and made Janice miss her twins! It is so hard for mommies to leave their babies behind, even for a few hours! Now that Jackie's shower is over, it won't be long until we get to meet Baby Girl Kyra!!! Jackie is due 1 month from today, and I am so happy for her! The anticipation is so exciting!

Only a little over 4 months ago, I was anticipating the arrival of Baby Balice, and just look at how time flies! Jake has changed so much over these 4 months, and I can't believe how quickly time is passing and how fast he is growing! He has his check up on Monday, so we will find out his official stats at that time :) He is such a happy baby, and what a morning person (HE DID NOT GET THAT FROM ME!) - he wakes up smiling and cooing every day! He still loves to "talk" but is not screeching as much as before (yay!) It is so fun to see his personality take shape, and I just love my little man so much! I can't wait to see what the next 4 months bring. Oh, and he is getting his hair back! No more Charlie Brown. Hallelujah!

the Blessed Baby and the Budget Baptism

the proud parents waiting for the ceremony to begin

Jakey hangin' with his bestie Gavin

oil on his chest makes Jake sleepy

just like bath time at home (minus the lights, crowd, Deacon & seashell)!

hot candle wax and very difficult baby attire make for an extra long and very humorous ceremony :)

all eyes on you baby boy!

what an attentive audience!

And FINALLY, Jake is baptized!!!!!!!!

the mommy, the baby and the Godmother!

posing with the Godparents (Jen & Mark)

maybe Joe and I should have started chewing on our arms too?

Uncle Mike & Grandma

Pa Pa, Gran and Nana

the Godmothers (Geary-Ellen is Joe's and Jen is Jake's)

the half eaten spread

the busy mommy's solution to a last minute peep toe pump decision: paint 4 toenails only :)

blue Anisette in honor of our baby boy...a family tradition

the proof that baptisms are exhausting

I don't have the energy to write very much, but wanted to share the photos from Jake's Baptism on Sunday. He was a champ and didn't cry (or screech) once! In fact, he slept through the oil-on-chest portion of the ceremony, and didn't wake up until the "bath time" portion! Luckily, the warm water and sleepy baby make for an ideal baptism candidate. The only hiccups were the outfit - which we did not practice putting on him and it took FOREVER to get him in it - and the fact that the Deacon-in-training kept calling Jake by the wrong name (Jacob). I know "Jacob" is biblical and all, and we were in church, but that is NOT his name! I kept my mouth shut on that one, which was REALLY hard. We did receive his baptismal certificate in the mail today and it says Jake, so at least it is correct on paper!

After the ceremony, we had a party back at the house, and a good time was had by all. At least I think so! Since we are on a tight budget now (babies will do that to you!), I had to cook for the party people instead of calling a caterer. My hard work in the kitchen paid off, and my lasagnas and cross cookies and cupcakes were a big hit! The only thing I didn't make was the salad, which came from Big D's!!!! Big D's was a restaurant I used to work at in high school and they had THE BEST creamy Italian salad dressing ever! My mom and I joke that there was crack in it :) Sadly, the restaurant closed down several years ago but they just reopened for catering only! It was seriously the best day ever when I found out that I could eat the crack dressing again. If I could have it "catered" everyday for a party of 1 I would. Thanks mom and dad for the amazing salad and for sponsoring my dressing addiction!

Thank you to everyone who attended - it meant so much to have you there to share in Jake's special day. And thanks for all the wonderful gifts for Baby Jake! Thank you to Jen (Bad Girl) & Mark (OGBG) Valdez for proudly accepting the important position of being Jake's Godparents - we love you guys and are so happy that you are such an important part of Jakey's life and that our baby boys get to grow up together! THANK YOU to Barb and Geary-Ellen, Christine & Elizabeth for all of their help on the weekend - they helped me in the kitchen and also helped watch Jakey while I was busy with party prep. They also took charge of cutting the lasagnas and refilling the bread, cheese, dressing, etc. You girls are awesome and I couldn't have done it without you! And last but not least, thank God for the unseasonably warm weather! Short sleeves in January? Only in California. It was so nice out that most of the party sat outside on the patio (if it had been cold or rainy it would have been way too crowded indoors and we would not have had enough seating for everyone!)

We are so glad that Baby Jake is now blessed and baptized (and that we don't have any more parties to plan for a while), and we thank God every day for our beautiful baby boy!

pterodactyls and parentheses

As promised, Jakey's pterodactyl call! Apparently, it works on cats too.

I should be working on stuff for Jakey's baptism or Jackie's baby shower, but I am entirely too tired to get up from the couch right now. Jake is asleep in his crib, Joe is asleep on the couch next to me and I should be sleeping too, but instead I am blogging. It's my outlet...

Jake is just getting over cold #2, and (crossing my fingers and knocking on wood with the other hand) is FINALLY done with the ear infection that outlasted the Energizer Bunny. I'm so over the day care thing - the other babies are cute and all, but their snotty noses are not ok. Jakey is entirely too young to be exposed to so many "snotty kids." Hopefully we will have an alternative child care solution figured out ASAP. I still think one-on-one care is the way to go. I can't deal with any more 19-year-old nannies though. Sigh.

We are looking forward to Jake's baptism this weekend and hoping he will be a good boy during the ceremony (as in no tears and no pterodactyl calls - although, the latter would be pretty funny to hear in church). Despite my best efforts to keep his fingernails trimmed, he has managed to scratch himself twice this week - once on the nose and once on the cheek - so the baptism pictures will turn out awesome! :) As I said before, babies are unpredictable! It's a good thing they are so adorable, as this outweighs the holiday screamfests and what I like to call the the trifecta: spit up, projectile pooping and the peepee fountain all at the same time (yes, this has happened before...right Elizabeth?!?!)

Hope you all are enjoying the first full week of 2010! I have been a good girl so far and have NOT broken my resolution about the fried foods. Even when tempted with two baskets of tortilla chips on Saturday I restrained myself (and then proceeded to eat an ENTIRE super burrito because I didn't eat any chips as my appetizer course! But a burrito is better for me than deep fried tortilla chips, right?) I know we are only 5 days into the year so far, but this no fried thing is hard! Especially since I was pregnant for most of 2009 and gave myself carte blanche on food. I loved my "Brat"ney (as in B. Spears) Taco Bell pregnancy diet almost as much as I love using parentheses and smiley faces :) So wish me luck that I can handle another 360 days of BAKED chips...at least I can have caffeine and alcohol this year!