it’s been a while

Probably because nothing much exciting has been going on here. We’re plugging away, we’ll have our Baby Emergency Fund fully funded as soon as our paycheck hits our account on Friday. When our second paycheck comes this week, we’ll be able to pay cash for my oral surgery. And we’re selling a bunch of stuff at the Post-Wide Yardsale on Saturday. So that should knock out almost half of our smallest debt. Then that will be completely gone by September. Add to that the 2 people who have looked at our car! And if we get THAT sold this week, we’ll pay off about $2000 with one big bang (after using $2-3k for a “new” car), and then we’ll have $300 extra a month to throw at those stupid debts!

I can taste the freedom… it’s coming! I can feel it in my bones!!!

Shoot ‘Em Up – Our Vaccine Dilemma

When I was pregnant with Vincente, I did a lot of research on vaccines, deciding whether or not to vaccinate. I grew up in a family of non-vaccinators, and I believe that my parents had good reasons for not vaccinating. So I decided to learn what I could about all this vaccination nonsense. After a while I came to the conclusion that I didn’t really want to vaccinate Vince for a while. I just wanted to hold off. I talked to some other friends about this and read a few books, and decided that was really the best plan for our family.

Well, now he’s 2, and we’ve got another needs-to-be-vaccinated child, and some of our life plans have changed (i.e. when Vince will start school – we previously wanted to homeschool, but our situation has changed a little, and we think I may be teaching full time, so Vince will probably go to pre-school and kindergarten). So now we want him to have many of the necessary vaccinations before school starts.

But then that raised the question of Joseline being vaccinated. With big brother bringing home all sorts of germs and nastiness from school, we feel like she should have some protection, as well.

But she’s SO little!

Back to the drawing board I went. I have spent several hours in the past week pouring over both sides of the vaccination argument, and reading a LOT from many different doctors – many of whom are middle-of-the-road as far as vaccines are concerned.

I came away from my vaccine-information-hunt with three conclusions:

1.) Vaccines are MUCH safer now than they were when I was vaccine-able age

2.) My children need to be vaccinated – for their own safety, and for the safety of those they interact with

3.) There has got to be a better fit of vaccination schedule for my family than the CDC’s one-size-fits-all schedule.

I found three very good “schedules” for vaccinations (not counting the CDC’s one-size-fits-all schedule), and merged the three along with some other advice into the

Rowley Family Immunization Schedule:

General Info

- only mercury-free vaccines, and aluminum free (where possible)

- check titers for antibodies before administering 2nd + doses

- our children are exclusively breastfed for 6 months, and breastfeed for at least 12 months

- preferred brand for Hib vaccine: HibTITER

-Vaccines-

Hib at 4, 8, 12 mos (check titers at 7 and 11 mos)

DTaP at 6, 10, 15 mos (check titers at 7 and 11 mos)

Rubella at 17 mos, 4 yrs (check titers previous to 4 yr booster)

Polio 2 years

Varicella at 5yrs (check titers)

MMR starting at 12 yrs (check titers)

This is only what works best for our family, based on our family’s lifestyle and personal beliefs about our health and the way our bodies work. I don’t want to convince anyone that our vaccination schedule is the best, just that it is the best for our family – and that you DO have options with how to vaccinate your children.

Basically I would stress two things:

1.) If you don’t want to put in a lot of research to come up with your OWN PERSONALIZED vaccination schedule, then use the CDC’s schedule, or Dr Sears’ schedule

2.) If you are at all uncomfortable with the CDC’s schedule, MAKE YOUR OWN (but PLEASE do the research!)

References:

Dr Robert Sears’ Alternative Immunization Schedule

Dr Stephanie Cave’s Alternative Immunization Schedule

Dr Donald Miller, Jr.’s Alternative Immunization Schedule

Hooray for Blessings!

The Lord will bless us when we try to do the right thing. I’ve always known that, and I am feeling it much more lately.

To bring you up to speed, Russ and I have made a pledge never to buy anything or do anything that requires money without FIRST planning it and budgeting for it. If we can’t pay cash, we don’t do it. SO…

We have received about a $170 a month blessing just today, which is AWESOME. Here’s why – by mid-August, we’ll have our $1000 baby emergency fund; by Sept 15 I will be able to fully pay for (in CASH) my wisdom teeth surgery. Starting in October, we’ll be able to put an average of $400/mo. EXTRA toward our debts.

That means that we will definitely be out of debt by the time we leave Monterey.

On top of that, next week I am going to go to the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District office to apply to be a substitute or temporary teacher in the fall. Hopefully (after childcare costs) we’ll be able to put another $1000 or so toward our debts each month, depending on how much I work.

Even if we can’t sell our car (which we’re trying to do) we’ll be able to make this debt snowball thing start rolling. And once it starts rolling, there will be no stopping us!

bedtime stories

  Papai has a unit test on Friday, so yesterday I told him to lock himself in his office and only come out for family prayer – I would get the kids ready for bed, and then after family prayer I would put them to bed. Well, as soon as he tried to go back in his office the kids attacked! Read us a story! Hold us! Love on us! We miss you! So, Russ, being the great Papai he is, took a few minutes out of his studying and held his babies and read them a book. I wish my old camera worked, because I wanted to take a video of Vincente laughing and laughing when Russ was playing with them. It was so perfect. It’s times like these that remind me of what a great little family I have. I love these bedtime moments. They are always so sweet and tender and so relaxed.

 

sunny day

Ah, the sun, the sand, the shore, the waves crashing on the beach, a perfect ending to a perfect weekend. We spent the day on the beach in Santa Cruz with the Wildes. It was fabulous. We didn’t even really do much. Just bummed around on the beach. I like bumming on the beach better than bumming at home – you’re bumming around either place,  but at least when you go out to the beach you feel like you’ve done something that day.

Mostly, Russ and Dan went out on the boogie boards, and Michelle and I sat near or in the tent with the babies, while Vince jumped around in the sand, explored the rocks, ate bananas and sandwiches, and made friends with some other little kids on the beach.

 

The babies were pooped after a while. Okay, well, Ethan mostly slept the whole time. Joseline was awake for the most part, but she was bored with Ethan (since he was just sleeping) and kept squawking at me, begging me to take her out to see the ocean. When I did, she would just stare at the waves crashing on the shore. It was really just a peaceful day. No rush to do anything. Just … living. That pretty much describes our weekend! (oh yes, that and potty training Vince – which has been WAY wonderful)

I got some pretty great shots – even with my dinky camera. It actually works really well out in the sun. Indoors is where it has problems.

On the way home we stopped at “Top-a-Lot Yogurt” in Santa Cruz. It was a self-serve frozen yogurt place. Think DIY Coldstone. You grabbed a cup, filled it with your choice of 6 different flavors of frozen yogurt, and then topped with any of dozens of toppings from candy pieces to fruit to sauces. Then they weigh your treat and you pay 39 cents per ounce of goodness. I think our total (including Vince’s chocolate ice cream topped with marshmallows) was something like $11. And Russ got a HUGE bowl of ice cream with just about every topping that had anything to do with peanut butter (pb cups, Butterfinger pieces, peanut butter syrupy stuff, chocolate syrup, etc). I should have taken pictures of the place. There are way too many things to think about these days now that we’re taking a two year old to the potty all the time.

This evening, some new friends from Delta Co. came over to hang out. It was a lot of fun. They have a daughter just about Vince’s age, and they are both potty training, and they both had accidents tonight. It was adorable. Okay, well, it was fun having friends over. The kids were exhausted, but they played pretty well together, considering. Joseline went to bed almost as soon as we got home. She was worn out from the beach, even though all she did was hang out in the tent with sleeping Ethan! I’m super ready for bed, but I’m waiting for Russ to finish some Chinese homework.

All in all, I am very satisfied with this weekend. I told Russ that I am neither anxious for him to go back to work tomorrow (like I usually am after the weekend – geez, just go back to work already! You’re messing up our routine!), nor sad to see him go back to work. It’s like the weekend was perfect, and I am completely content for life to just continue as normal! I think that is the sign of a perfect weekend.

Potty Training Part II – Days 2 & 3

Saturday – potty training went well in the morning. He didn’t have any accidents. Then we went to the beach. Russ tried to get him to go in the port-a-john, but to no avail. Then Vince spent most of the rest of the day in the ocean, or sopping wet on the beach, so we kind of let go for a while. I think he held it in, mostly. Vincente fell asleep on the drive home from the beach, so we just put him in bed in his undies and crossed our fingers.

Miracle of miracles, he didn’t pee in his bed! He woke up dry, so I told him to get on the potty as soon as he got out of bed. He threw a fit, though, and finally he asked me to hold him, but he peed his pants just as I was lifting him up. It would have been the best day of potty training had he not peed his pants.

Sunday – our first attempt going out while potty training. We tried to get Vincente to pee before Sacrament meeting, to no avail. Finally, he did pee halfway through Sacrament meeting and then again (a LOT of pee) halfway through the second hour (I hung out in his nursery class to make sure he would go potty, since he’s still not asking to go – although one of the times during Sacrament meeting, he told Papai that is was “potty time” – he didn’t actually pee, though). Anyway, after the second hour, he was getting really tired, and still hadn’t peed again, so we decided to just come home. He fell asleep on the way home, and we just put him in bed in his undies. Hopefully when he wakes up he will be in a better mood and go to the potty. I’m thinking we’ll probably just put him on the potty, whether he wants to go or not. He only had one accident today, before Church, and it was a pooping accident (I was trying to take a nap… so luckily I wasn’t the one who got to clean it up). I’m hoping now that he will poop on the potty – we’ll see.

*as you can see, our camera captures motion very well… as in, it captures THE motion… not “in” motion… but you can get an idea of how excited Vincente was to be wearing “quecas”! I can tell that he loves to wear undies. Last night he even refused to put on a Pull-Up at night! Of course, a few minutes after he had laid down, he wet the bed. After that, he didn’t refuse. But I think it’s great that he wants to wear undies! Now he just has to get used to this potty thing! Oh yes, and the picture of Vince in his camo shirt is from a few months ago when he asked to sit on the potty, but never went pee*

*UPDATE (7/6/09)– Vincente did in fact go poop on the potty on Sunday night! He went when I was at church for a teacher training meeting. I am sooo happy that he pooped on the potty. It’s like that was the big hurdle to overcome on our way to being completely potty trained! He is really good at holding his pee until he needs to go, and if he starts peeing a little, he realizes it and stops and runs to tell us he needs to pee on the potty! Our little man growing up so fast.

can’t resist

My little 3.1 MP camera actually produced a few good pictures today! (It’s hit and miss with that one!) The good pictures, coupled with a bit of touch-up using Picasa, and I have a few really adorable portraits of my little baby girl. I love her SO much. I don’t know what life would be like without her. She already has her own little personality.

Joseline is very chill – very mild tempered. She never gets really mad, unless she’s really hungry and I have delayed feeding her for too long, or if Vincente gets a little rough and smashes her leg with a toy truck, or knees her in the head while he’s jumping around on the bed. She certainly has a “mad” cry, and she uses it mostly in those situations.

Otherwise, she just hangs out. She’s perfectly content just to lay on the floor and do nothing. Even if we leave the room. Eventually she’ll start squawking. I say squawk because it’s not really a cry. It’s like she’s yelling “Hey, where’d everybody go!? Don’t forget about me, now!” Then we come into the room and as soon as she sees us she just beams at us the most adorable smile in the world. It melts my heart every time she smiles at me. She loves people, and shows it by melting their hearts with her smile!

She’s also quite the talker. Especially when Russ and I are sitting around talking, she joins in the conversation, yelling at us, cooing, squawking, etc.

We sure love having her as part of our family. It’s amazing how different your children can be from one another.

 

Potty Training Part II – Day 1 continued

Alas, we are almost finished with day one of potty training. Unfortunately, Vincente didn’t have a bowel movement today yet – which means he will probably have one before he falls asleep. Which means that he will need to stay up until he has a BM (unless he passes out before that).

As I type this, he is sitting on the potty. Unfortunately, he’s using potty-training as an excuse to keep getting out of bed (even though he’s in a Pull Up). We’ll see what happens.

If he would actually have a BM during the day, then I wouldn’t be letting him get out of bed 100 times a night.

Perhaps we will have to start implementing the 2-times out a night rule (thanks, Trisha!) but probably not until he starts self-initiating pottying.

As it is, today was a lot less crazy than I thought it would be. And way more successful!

Three cheers for potty training! :D

Potty Training – Part II – Day 1

Okay, so we took a rather long hiatus with the potty training business, due to me getting a wicked sinus infection, then having a baby,then getting mastitis, then getting something else, etc etc.

We’re back at it! And lucky us, we started just about where we left off!

Yesterday we told Vincente “Tomorrow, you get to start wearing underwear! No more diapers for you!” Which was actually perfect timing, because I used his last diaper last night when I changed him for bed.

This morning after breakfast, Vincente donned his “cuecas” – underwear. We started right away sitting on the potty, and we went straight to the big boy potty with his little ducky potty seat. We had him sit on the potty for about half an hour with no pee. During and after the first experience with the potty, he drank two 10oz sippy cups of water and juice.

Up until nap time, he only had two accidents. He’s to the point where he will pee in the potty every time we make him sit on it. He’s still not “asking” to go potty, or going to the toilet by himself, but at least he’s peeing on the potty.

We’re just going to be more vigilant about making sure he sits on the potty probably every half hour until he starts answering “Yes” to the “Do you need to go potty?” question. Right now his answer is always “No.” Or rather, “Nope.”

Tomorrow we’re going to a beach party. It will be our first real going-out-after-potty-trained experience. I’m going to bring plenty of extra clothes, but there is a bathroom nearby, so hopefully we’ll be able to make it to the potty often enough for him to figure it out. Wish us luck!