September is almost over! Which means I am WAY behind on getting my kids Halloween costumes made… Our family theme this year is going to be incredible, just wait!
Monday, I went grocery shopping, and literally less than 5 minutes in the store I lost my list. I could. not. find. it! So I had to guess what was on it, because I couldn’t remember, I made it Saturday or Sunday and the only thing on the menu I could remember was green chili enchiladas for Taco Tuesday! Hopefully, I am not running to the store a bunch more times this week.
So here it is, ONE STORE! HEB, I got some lettuce, shredded cheese (Y’all I KNOW block cheese is cheaper, but I do not have time to shred cheese or wash more dishes, plus 2 pounds shredded for $5 is a great price.) Chicken broth, and a misplaced can that snuck in masquerading, beef broth, HEB brand Shell Mac and Cheese (I have no idea what we will do if we ever leave Texas, this Mac and Cheese is the BEST EVER, well beside homemade.) More cream of rice, sour cream, diced green chilis, hotdog buns, grapes, tortillas, and two loaves of bread (2 for $2 sale! One went straight into the freezer.) Total spent: $26.16, which leave a grocery roll over of about $20. WHOOP!
This is my final recap of the summer, and as today is the first day of Fall, it is fitting!. Other than the 18 things on our to-do list {Part 1 and Part 2}, we also had plans to travel to San Antonio for a family reunion on my mother’s side.
We are extremely lucky that now, we only live about 3 hours away from my grandparents, my mother’s parents. Growing up we never lived close to them, and never were able to visit as much as my other cousins. Sometimes it make us, my siblings, feel like we are the odd ones out. Since moving, and being older now, I see that really it’s just that they don’t know us as well, but my grandparents WANT to have that kind of relationship with us.
Getting together with all the cousins, I think only one or two was unable to come, and their families was crazy! My grandparents had 5 kids and those 5 had: a total of 14 kids. Of those cousins, 6 of us have had at least 2 babies. I believe the total is now at 15 great-grand-babies! Plus some of my grandparents cousins came down. There was a lot of people at the big party.
Even though this wasn’t our first time to San Antonio, we finally got the chance to do some touristy things.
Like The Riverwalk:
All of us on the new boatsTower of The AmericasLunch at the old restaurant on the Riverwalk, Casa Rio. We enjoyed it!
The Alamo:
Living history on medical proceduresLiving history, on firearms
No, we didn’t have two hats for Mr. Z. At some point before we road the river boats, Mr. Z lost his hat and we had to get a new one. His little dino hat was my FAVORITE and I am still devastated, so if anyone can find a replacement for Baby Hercules to wear send it our way!
Hotel shenanigans
Lastly, we were able to get Mr. Z a set of private swim lessons! He did a lot better this year than last year in the group lessons. Next year, both boys can do them!
Mr. Z: Daddy, will you come have lunch with me today?
Mr. Wonderful: I can’t today, I have to finish a big project. I don’t get to even stop for lunch, I eat while I work on it.
Mr. Z, sad: Soon?
Mr. Wonderful: YES!
The conversation this morning, broke my heart. I remember wanting and asking my parents to eat lunch with me at school, but they always were “too busy.” What does “too busy” even mean when it comes to our children?
This morning I left late to get run some errands, and on my way home I had to drive by a 3 car rollover accident involving a garbage truck, a sports car, and the same make, model, and color compact SUV that I drive. The SUV was the one that flipped.
I was on my way home from a 2 mile walk, sweaty and wanting to shower. Baby Hercules needed a diaper change and I didn’t bring any. After driving past this accident, and seeing “my” car, I needed to hold my babies. Remembering the conversation my two Misters had this morning out the door, I glanced at the clock, decided to forgo the shower, got lunch and showed up for lunch with Mr. Z.
We had a fun little lunch together, and he enjoyed that I surprised him with Whataburger. He also didn’t mind that I needed to hold and love on him.
It is important to me that I let my children know that they are on my “Most Important” list. I don’t want to be “too busy” to go to lunch at school with my kids. If that means, we have to sacrifice the income that me working would bring in, and we eat rice and beans multiple times a week, then that is what it looks like.
It’s time for Part Two of our Summer! Missed Part one? Look HERE.
This summer we created a list of 18 things to do. I do this list so that we have something to do other than not melt in the Texas heat. We did not get to everything on the list, but here are the ones that we did!
10: Photo Scavenger Hunt
This was totally my fault, I never put it together!
11: Visit the Brazos Valley Children’s Museum 10 times.
“All systems ready for take off.”
Checking the patient on the way to the hospital.
Brothers
I went shopping. The Ice cream is for me and the veggies are for you.
Building the arc.
“Do I have to pose?”
Light board
Looking for fossils
Craft time!
This is one of our favorite places, it is indoors and air conditioned, and since we have a membership, it’s free! The plan was to go at least weekly, but we didn’t always make it. Then I found out our membership expired in July! We decided that we would not renew with Mr. Z starting full day kindergarten we would not use it as much as we did this last year. We did make it 7 times before our membership expired, plus a trip to the Houston Natural Science Museum and to San Antonio children’s museum the Dosuem.
12: Watch Fireworks
We decided to check out the fireworks at the George Bush Presidential Library this year. It was pretty good. Plus the show had a live orchestra playing during the firework display, so the timing was almost perfect. Mr. Z also enjoyed some fun bounce houses and slides before it got dark.
13: Go to the Physics Roadshow
This one was another one of, mom made a mistake. I wrote down the wrong date on the calendar, and we showed up to the library 2 weeks too late!
14: Sponge Water Fight
I got this idea off pinterest, and Mr. Z loved it! No need for water guns, plus it’s more fun.
15: Picnic at the park
Summer is not the time to have a picnic outside in Texas. It was always too hot, and I just couldn’t bring myself to force us to do it.
16: Go to the Chemistry Roadshow
This one we did make! I think all the fire and “Ooohh! Aaahhh!” factor they have built into the show makes it a favorite for all kids.
17: Visit Washington on the Brazos
This was another one, that we made plans but weather did not agree with us. Once we got rained out and twice it was over 100*.
18: Write Letters to Friends.
This one was a bust. We got all the stuff out a couple of times and then Mr. Z decided he didn’t want to do it, or Baby Hercules would wake up and need my attention and Mr. Z would not finish. I think I’ll save it for next year, it might have been too early to do it this summer.
Next week I’ll post about our Big Trip and about some of the summer dreams we got to do.
Grocery shopping this week, with what happened Monday, was not in budget or really planned. Plans often go out to the wayside when unpredictable things like that happen.
The whole family headed to HEB late on Monday, so it took longer and we got a handful of impulse buys. I was not in the mood to fight for the budget.
At HEB we spent $67.98 (oops! That’s the whole budget for this week!)
$67.98 at HEB
We got, some frozen pizzas (there was no way I was cooking dinner after my morning), lettuce, chicken breasts, oatmeal, lunch meat, granola bars, salad dressing, strawberries ($0.87 a pound! We are going to slice and freeze mosts of them.) Oatmeal digestive cookies (Baby Hercules likes these ones, I got the wrong ones last time.) Hummus, and some cheddar bunnies.
Tuesday, I made it out to Aldi, and after loading up, realized I forget the peppers and had to drag the kids back in. I spent a total of $31.94 at Aldi.
$31.94 at Aldi
At Aldi I stocked up on some things that we need for lunches and pizza night; pasta sauce, pepperoni, trail mix, yogurt, mini cucumbers, yellow potatoes, pretzels, grapes, and bell peppers.
This week’s total on groceries was $99.42. Yikes! If I am careful, I think we can manage skipping the grocery store next week! That will help the budget, and maybe, just maybe give us a small rollover.
I also had a helper today with pictures… Good thing he is cute!
This summer we created a list of 18 things to do. I do this list so that we have something to do other than not melt in the Texas heat. We did not get to everything on the list, but here are the ones that we did!
1: Learn to ride a bike!
All decked out in safety gear to practice.
Mr. Z got a bike for Christmas last year, and getting him to learn to ride it has not been easy. We did get a few practice sessions in.
2: Ride a pony.
The pony
Mr. Z explaining why he won’t touch the horses.
A mom’s group that we are in, has a summer trip out to one of the members home, where she has horses and a pony. She leads the kids around for a ride on the pony. We went, but Mr. Z was scared of the large animals and wouldn’t ride or touch it. I am hopeful, that one year he will ride the pony!
3: Vacation Bible School!
He loved the sport themed VBS.
Mr. Z did two weeks of VBS. IT WAS AMAZING, for us at least! Both were evening sessions and so we got to have time with just Baby Hercules. Mr. Z did enjoy VBS and loved having fun crafts to learn about bible stories.
4: Finish Summer Reading
Summer reading logs
Our library does the national summer reading program, but it is very different from our old library in Pullman. Most of the prizes here are coupons for discounted or free kids meals. But we do summer reading, more for the fun of making sure we read every day in the summer. This summer we read The BFG and James and the Giant Peach. Mr. Z loved them and I think reading at lunch will be a summer tradition for us.
5: One Week of NO TV!
This was one that Mr. Z was not excited for at all. But I knew we needed it. The first few days were hard, but by Wednesday, TV time wasn’t even asked for. We have also carried over no TV Sundays, from this.
6: Visit the 3 Splash Pads.
Mr. Z is great at making friends with everyone at the parks.
This one is one of my favorite things to do in the summer, plus, with Baby Hercules getting more mobile over the summer, he also enjoyed the splash pads. We have 3 splash pads at different city parks. One is our favorite and one we don’t really like, but I don’t like going to the same place every time. So I wanted to make sure we went to each one this year.
7: Find a 4-leaf Clover.
Mr. Z was unsuccessful in his search.
8: Read The BFG!
It only took us 10 days to read.
Like I said in 4, we did read it. It was so fun to read at lunch in the summer. Mr. Z just loved it and if I could, I think he would have wanted me to read it in one sitting!
9: Make Popsicles.
One of our favorite things, we have a couple different molds, and we like coming up with fun fruit and juice mixes. Mr. Z’s favorite this summer was strawberries and blueberries with orange juice.
Next week I’ll post the other 9 things on our 2018 Summer list.
Have y’all seen the grocery haul videos on YouTube? They are when some budget blogger goes over everything they purchased at the store that week and how much they spent. Usually, the person is single and able to get everything for some crazy low amount. OR they have some crazy large family and bought a ton of processed food for cheap.
Well, I am not single, we are a family of 4. We also, live on a graduate student stipend. Our grocery budget is small and not really flexible. We budget about $70 a week. Some weeks, depending on the sales, we go over stocking up on meat or something non perishable. Some months, there is more month than money.
I don’t think we eat extravagantly. But I wanted to share what a real family actually buys and eats. So I added a menu for the month. You can see it here. I usually meal plan for the week, so I will add to it every week. I have also added links to recipes for some things.
This week’s grocery shopping trip I went to Aldi and HEB, two of my FAVORITE grocery stores.
At Aldi I spent $28.49 and here is what I got:
Aldi Grocery Haul
Mango salsa, pretzels, raw honey, butter (2 lbs), organic whole milk yogurt (I love this yogurt), 2 limes, low sodium bacon, garlic bulbs, brown mushrooms, cilantro, broccoli crowns, romaine hearts, and carrots.
At HEB I spent $51.99 and got:
HEB Grocery Haul
Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, vegetable broth (2), unbleached all-purpose flour (2), canola oil mayo, roasted red pepper hummus (2, they were out of the big tub we usually get), one grapefruit (per Mr. Z’s request), extra virgin olive oil, oatmeal digestive cookies (these are for Baby Hercules), ranch dressing, apple cider vinegar, Mexican blend shredded cheese (2 lbs bag), granola bars, instant oatmeal packets (one apple cinnamon and two maple and brown sugar).
In total, we spent $80.48. Yes, we are over, but I had to get a few items that are more expensive, olive oil and honey, that we don’t normally need. Without those two items we would have spent $66.03. Sometimes we spend more, sometimes we spend less. I also was able to buy a couple of duplicate items for things that we use regularly, like an extra bag of flour, extra oatmeal, and broth. Let’s see how next week goes! Budget goal is is spend less that $68.
We have been taken up to Labor and Delivery, and are put in a closet.
Seriously, this room is so small the bed and two chairs hardly fit. She attaches me to the oh so lovely monitors and says I need to be still for 20 minutes so they can check on baby. Then she will run the test to check that my water has broken and to see how dilated I am. Oh and “if” I am having decent contractions they will admit me. Awesome, everything stops. So I lay there attached listening to the baby’s heartbeat and waiting. Nurse, after we tell her that this isn’t baby number one, we kinda know what is going on, decides to check me and do the test before making me sit on the monitors for 20 minutes. So she does that, repositions things and leaves.
The doula looks at the output and says that when we first got there I was contracting every 4 minutes, now after about an hour of sitting, it was about every 10. I don’t feel the contractions, I feel tightening but it isn’t uncomfortable. The nurse comes back in and says that she talked to Dr. Rice (my doctor, not the doctor on the floor like she planned to) and I am getting admitted to have a baby, and that we will be in the low intervention room. Dr. Rice comes about noon and we talk about what our options are.
At this point we had been in the hospital for two hours and things had basically stopped. She gave us some options: walking, nipple stimulation with the a breast pump, the Cooks Balloon. I ask, “what is the time line?”, I know we are on a clock now, so what does SHE need to see and when. Ideally she wants baby here by 2 am. At 8 pm if things are not moving she would like to start pitocin. We decide to eat lunch, and walk until doctor will be back after office hours about 3.30 pm.
Mr. Wonderful runs and gets lunch, and Rachel, our doula, and I start walking… We pause for lunch and we walk more. Rachel leaves to take care of a few things at home. So Mr. Wonderful and I walk a little and have some “adult time”, and get back to walking. Dr. Rice comes back and checks me and does a cervical message and says that I am at a 3 and if she wanted to be generous I could be stretched to a 4. Baby head was coming down, but we still had a lot of work to do.
Back to walking, and walking, and walking. Now, I wasn’t just pacing the halls, I would get a contraction and I would stop, hold onto the handrails and try to just let everything go as loose and relaxed as I could. Around 5, I ask the nurse to check me, feeling like I was maybe at a 7, only to have her say, “Well would you like to try the breast pump now?” (I am not actually told where I am at.) Disappointed, I say I would like to eat dinner because I know it is going to be a long night and I try to take a little nap. Mr. Wonderful lays with me for a bit and I tell him that I am feeling really disappointed and really lacking the motivation to do this. 8 pm seems so close and I don’t want to have pitocin. Plus, I am trying to relax but I am afraid that I will just go backwards if I do nap. He goes and talks to the nurse and Rachel before going to get dinner. Rachel comes over and talks to me about how far I have progressed already in a short amount of time and that taking a nap won’t close my cervix, and that it might actually help me to relax and help me later having conserved some energy.
So I try to nap, but I start to get some contractions in bed. (The low intervention suites at this hospital have really comfy queen sized beds, so I had lots of room.) After a few contractions I decide to walk more because it was more comfortable. So off Rachel and I go. Mr. Wonderful comes back with dinner and I eat a few bites and decide that if I keep eating I am going to throw it up, and I really don’t want to ruin Chick-Fil-A. I pace the room while Rachel and Mr. Wonderful finish eating and start to have some good contractions.
We stay in the room and we put a large exercise/birth ball on the bed and I am leaning over it and squatting during the contractions. At about 7, I let out a good moan that has Mr. Wonderful and Rachel ask, how was that different? Shortly, my two nurses come in, the day nurse and the night nurse, shift change. They contact Dr. Rice and she comes right over. I am oblivious to most of what is going on, just doing my thing and making jokes about the music choices Mr. Wonderful is playing.
At this point in my head, I have an hour before the doctor hooks me up to the pitocin and in my mind everything will cascade. The doctor checks me after she get there and tells me I can’t push, I still have work to do. So I keep going; swaying, squatting, grunting, moaning and changing positions: Standing, kneeling, lying down, on my side, you name it. The doctor checks me again probably about an hour later and tells me I am really close, I have a lip that needs to open up before I can push. I don’t know what time it is, I haven’t noticed that they have wheeled in a few things, or that there is a nursing student watching me.
I just keep doing what I am doing, until I start to express to Mr. Wonderful how I really can’t do this anymore. In my head I am thinking about how great some drugs would be, and am trying to think about how to ask from something, “Maybe they can just give me some Tylenol.” is what I am trying to figure out how to express. Things keep going, I roll over exhausted, and say “I can’t do it, it hurts too much and is too hard.” Dr. Rice checks me again and says I can start pushing if I want.
Now this whole time I have to poop. I have already mentioned it, and the staff joked about how it was for them, my nurse, doctor and doula, all in turn share and we all kinda chuckle about it. So I keep just trying to poop, but I also don’t want to push too hard, because I don’t want to tear really badly like it did with Mr. Z. So now that I am feeling mentally and physically done and have given a few pushes, the doctor tells me she is going to help things move and relieves me. I think, ok sure, whatever, I don’t think this baby is really ever going to make it out of me.
Doctor is coaching me, and has been doing hot compresses to help keep things loose to help prevent tearing. I finally say, “I am done, I can not do this.” “I need you to give me one good push on this next contraction.” I start to push but then I am worried about tearing and stop in the middle. “NO! Don’t stop, keep pushing.” “I can’t! It hurts too much.” “Baby’s head is right here, PUSH!”
So I do, I push, it burns, I know I tore, but baby head is born, my water fully brakes in a gush and the rest of baby slides right out. Baby Boy Teare was born at 9.27 PM. Mr. Wonderful announced to the room it was a boy, as he gets placed on my chest, and I comment on how much hair he has. We get about an hour of time with baby on me and I get to latch him and nurse him before they take him and weigh and measure. Mr. Wonderful got to help with all of that in the room. He was 5 pounds and 14.8 ounces and 18.5 inches long. I had a second degree tear and Dr. Rice did an extra thorough job of checking and there wasn’t any extra damage like with Mr. Z, recovery has been so much better than with him.
Wow, it has been since February! Well, let me give you some updates, I finished my last trimester of prerequisites in April for my IBCLC, Mr. Wonderful spent a week in Colombia, we moved apartments, bought a house, and had a baby.
So life was a little crazy and stepped away from a few things so I could keep a bit of sanity. I promise to tell more details of the whirlwind 2017 was for us. First, because many are asking, here is the story I know a few of you are waiting for.
Many of you know how Mr. Z’s birth went, and for those of you that don’t, let me summarize it. Crazy. Fast. For a first birth, it was the fastest most of the hospital staff had seen. No one was prepared.
Baby Boy Teare, as he was know for almost his first 24 hours, was not like his brother’s birth at all. Around week 28, I started to get fairly good contractions. One night, they were consistent enough, that with our history of Mr. Z’s birth, we decided to go into Labor and Delivery. Four extremely uncomfortable hours later, I was allowed to no longer be strapped to monitors and to go home, NOT in labor.
No one was able to decide what was going on, and so I decided to mostly just ignore them. For the next 9 weeks if I was too active, walked too far, stood too long, twisted wrong, I would get a few contractions and would therefore, have to do a lot of resting.
Now, you would think with all the contractions that I was having we would have been ready for an early baby, but no. Mr. Wonderful, came home Wednesday from an overnight work trip and woke up Thursday morning feeling really sick. He had a high temp, and so everyone stayed away from him. He slowly got to feeling better and Saturday I went to my baby shower. It was fun and my girl Colleen is crazy creative. I really should have taken some pictures.
Sunday morning, I wake up and realize I caught whatever it was the Mr. Wonderful brought home. I start watching my temperature, because in pregnancy it is extremely dangerous if it gets too high. I call my doctor’s on call service, and wait while taking Tylenol and downing fluids. I don’t hear anything back and call the office first thing in the morning telling them I am 37 weeks pregnant and I think I have the flu. I get in that afternoon and they run a flu test. Doctor is positive I have the flu, and orders up Tamiflu for me and Mr. Z, and suggests we get the flu shot for him. He wasn’t showing any symptoms. My test comes back negative, but she suggest that I still take the anti-virals just in case baby does come early, we need me to better fast. So we get Mr. Z the flu shot, and pick up anti-virals for us.
I start taking them, but they make me so sick, I fight throwing them up for about an hour to an hour and half and then lose. So I take them for two days and make Mr. Z do the same. His, we had to bribe him to take, it was not fun for any of us. So now it’s Thursday, I am starting to feel close to 100%, Mr. Z hasn’t shown a single symptom and Mr. Wonderful is back to about 90% and finally heads back to campus after being gone for a week.
Thursday afternoon/early evening I am starting to feel more crampy than normal, so I eat dinner and lay down to rest. I get things to stop and Mr. Wonderful convinces me to go out with some friends for a girls night. I go out, laugh, and have a good time. I go home feeling fine and go to bed.
Friday morning, I wake up about 8 (Mr. Z is a night owl like us, and sleeps in to about 8-8.30, don’t hate. His bed time is 8.30, but usually is it 10 before he is actually asleep, oops!) I go to the bathroom, and notice bloody show. I text my doula, as I did not experience this will Mr. Z and get back in bed for a few more minutes of sleep. I am thinking that this normal and in a week or so MAYBE there will be baby. Mr. Wonderful gets up and so do I. I then have this moment where I think, “That’s not me peeing, I just went.” So I go back to the bathroom and realize my water just broke. So I inform Mr. Wonderful he will unfortunately not be going to campus today and he needs to pack some bags.
Now, I am not contracting, so I am calm in knowing that this baby isn’t going to shoot out onto my bedroom floor. I get in bed so I can relax and start calling our list of people to watch Z. I also start texting the doula about when she should come and what we should do. Mr. Wonderful packs bags for Mr. Z for school and for overnight and a friend comes and picks him up. Our doula arrives about that same time and we chat about how we should progress. We get the hospital bag packed and I start making a list of what we need to do ASAP. With my water broken, we know this baby will be coming within the next 24 hours and we are not prepared. On my to-do list for the first was install car seat and pack hospital bag, we were not ready!
My idea labor was to labor more like Mr. Z’s and be at home for as long as possible. The hospital policies here are very different than where he was born and from our earlier visit 9 weeks before, I knew would need to go in much earlier than I wanted. With my water breaking and knowing I was on some artificial clock, we wanted to err more on the side of caution. Who knew, maybe my water had not broken.
So we take a little bit of time, Mr. Wonderful and I go for a little walk and talk about what we should do. We decide that for everyone’s peace of mind we would go in after morning traffic dies down a bit, but before the lunch rush, as we live about 20 minutes away from the hospital. Yes, there are two closer hospitals to us, but I found a doctor that I KNEW was going to listen to me and let me deliver this baby how I wanted and she only delivered at this hospital.
We get to the hospital at about 10.30 am. We have to wait in the ER to be sent to through to admittance, where we have to fill out some paperwork. Finally a nurse comes down and we are allowed to go up to the maternity wing. I ask to walk, not take a wheelchair, because I want my very irregular contractions to pick up. This frustrates the nurse, and we also ask to be allowed straight into the low intervention suite. She states that won’t be happening and puts us in a closet.
I haven’t given an update on our Daily Doings, as life has just been BUSY! Thanksgiving we drove up to Dallas, and spent a few days with my cousin and her family. Mr. Z has a second cousin who is 6 month younger than him and they had a blast chasing each other, riding bikes, and being boys.
Then for Christmas, we drove down to San Antonio to spend it with most of my mom’s side of the family. I believe at the height of the weekend there was 22 people in my grandparents house!
We had a good Christmas, and Mr. Z is enjoying all of his gifts. I think his Aunt won the Best Gift award this year with a set of gears. With his imagination and his desire to understand the world, those gears are constantly being constructed into some new contraption.
In January, Mr. Wonderful and I started school back up. We had a quiet birthday celebration for me. And the next day we had an ER visit.
Mr. Z almost cut the tip of his finger off and got four stitches to reattach the tip. It was terrible and bloody, with tears and screams.
I know that all the medical procedures that had to be performed were necessary, but listening and watching your child scream, yell, and fight against what is happening to him, is not easy. It was repeated, when we got his stitches out. I just hope now that he will be able to understand that hard things are necessary.
Our January has not been a great start for 2017. With an ER visit in our little family, our extended family has had its share of tears. Our hearts have been heavy with the death of my grandpa Dick. On Mr. Wonderful’s side, his grandfather is slowly approaching the other side. His dear mother has been by her father’s side for over a week. We pray for comfort and peace. We wish that we could be closer, so that we can physically mourn with those we love.
I didn’t get a chance to post this before, but Wednesday morning, Mr. Wonderful’s grandfather passes away peacefully in his sleep. We are grateful for his influence in our lives and wish peace to all who knew him.
