Mommin’ It Up!

Today, Sammy is six weeks old. Six weeks!! How did that happen? We just weighed him, and he’s up to 13 pounds. Where did my little baby go? Last night our pastor commented that he’s not a little newborn anymore and I about cried.

My sadness over his growth doesn’t make any sense to Andy. He looks at it as proof that Sam is healthy and is thriving, and that is great. And it is, I know, but it’s just going by so fast. So fast.

As I wrote that last paragraph, it reminded me of when Sophie turned one - Jenny was feeling the way I am, and Bobby told her that he wasn’t sad at all… turning one meant she was that much closer to turning three. Men.

They have a point, really, I suppose, and day by day things are already getting easier with Sam. Last night he slept the best yet, and hopefully that will continue. He’s so aware of what’s going on around him now, and he’s starting to think about smiling at us (I don’t blame him for taking a while on that front - we’re not very funny.) So while there is and will continue to be a bright side to his growing up, it still breaks my heart.

For many years, I was, like millions of women, eyeshadow-challenged. Then, I met my BFF Luanne and she showed me the eyeshadow light. It doesn’t have to be that hard, ladies!! Now, all I do for an every day look is put on two colors. I put a light color on my browbone and my lashline, and a darker color in the middle - and voila! Here is a picture of my eye, with eyeshadow on. (I hope it doesn’t creep you out that it’s just my big ol’ EYE!)

I personally use Mary Kay eyeshadow and I think it is the bomb-diggity, but this technique should work with any eyeshdow as long as you have got the color placement right. That’s light on top and pbottom, dark in the middle. I use Mary Kay Crystalline on top & bottom and either Lucky Penny (which is what I have on in the picture) or Sugarplum, depending on whether I am wearing warm or cool colors that day.

So, Luanne’s eyeshadow tips work for me! Now, it is obvious from the picture that I DO need eyebrow help, but I am a big ol’ scaredy cat, especially after Emily’s experience with waxing! So, I am going to head over to Rocks in My Dryer to see if anyone has posted a Works for Me Wednesday on that topic! Go see if you can find the answer to anything you need help with!

Kate is in the midst of her first season of t-ball. It’s about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. They are all doing their best to remember which way to run and what to do when the ball is hit to them… and of course most of them are doing the requisite playing in the dirt. There are no outs, no keeping score - it’s all about learning the rules of the game and having fun.

Having fun. Yes, that is the idea. Most of them are doing just that… but there’s always an exception to the rule.

So what to do if your kid isn’t having fun? How do you know when it’s time to chalk the registration fee up to a loss and try again next year? How are you to determine if your kid’s just not ready for t-ball? It’s a tough decision to make, I’m sure (or at least it seems to be for one family on our team), so let me clear it up for you.

(I swear I am not making this up.)

– If he bursts into tears at the sight of the ball diamond, your kid might not be ready for t-ball.
– If you have to hit the ball for him, your kid might not be ready for t-ball.
– If you have to carry him from base to base, your kid might not be ready for t-ball.
– If you are the tallest person doing the team cheer, your kid might not be ready for t-ball.
– If you will forever be immortalized in the team picture because you’re forcibly holding your son in place, your kid might not be ready for t-ball.
– If, on the way to first base, he takes off his batting helmet and kicks it, your kid might not be ready for t-ball.
– If he spits in the coach’s face and, when asked to apologize, throws dirt at her, your kid might not be ready for t-ball.
– If he then hits the same coach as he walks off the field, your kid might not be ready for t-ball.

Yeah, call me crazy, but I think It’s time to give up the ghost. I feel really sorry for the poor kid - he is obviously miserable. I just don’t understand his parents’ insisting he continue to play. His future MLB career is not resting upon this season. I felt bad for the mom, too, until I saw her struggling to spank the little hellion without dropping her cigarette. Ugh.

Oh, and one more thing… if you tell the coaches your kid doesn’t respond to his given name and they should call him by the name of his favorite WWE wrestler, you might be a redneck.

I belong to my family, and they belong to me. But these days, I mostly belong to Sophie. Bobby and Joshua are trying, I think, to be patient until she is ready to let go of me a little. When I enter the room, whether I’ve been gone for two minutes or two hours, she greets me with unbridled joy. She lets out a shriek of glee and then gets to me as fast as she can, throws her arms around my legs, and then tries to climb up my body. If I pick her up, she rubs her face all over my chest. Any reunion, no matter how small the separation, is a reason for her to want to nurse. Last night as I nursed her before I put her to bed, she clutched a section of my hair in a death grip, and after a few minutes I was forced to wrestle my locks loose because she was pulling my head down so hard my neck was killing me. So then she started rubbing the bottom of her warm little foot on my cheek (ah, the flexibility!) while holding my hand. So sweet. So crazy!

Sophie girl, you wear me out. That’s probably an understatement. But tonight, I might just let you hold on to my hair, because I know one day, not too far from from now, I will wistfully long for the days when I was not only your Mommy, but your favorite toy, your plaything, and your prized possession.

All of my wildest dreams have come true: all of my local CVS stores are now accepting competitor’s coupons!! That means we can have a coupon FIELD DAY with Walgreens EasySaver (ES) catalog coupons and in-ad coupons and also Rite Aid coupons!! I have tried this several times in the last few days and have had no problems. All of my local CVSes now have a sign at the register that says “We gladly accept competitor coupons” or something to that effect. Sooo, since I love you, dear readers, for all those CVSers in the Dayton area, I put together some scenarios that match up current CVS ECB deals with Walgreens ES coupons. Just go into Walgreens and pick a few up! They’re usually right up front with the weely ad. YOU’RE WELCOME! Here ya go:

Schick Intuition Razor
CVS Price: $8.88, get 6 ECBs back (limit 1)
-$3 Walgreens ES catalog coupon
-$4 Schick coupon from 5/4 RedPlum
=$1.88 and get 6 ECBs back!

Colgate Max Fresh Toothpaste
CVS Price: $2.99, get 2 ECBs back (limit 5)
Buy two @ 5.98
-Walgreen’s ES catalog coupon for $2/2
- two $1/1 Colgate Max Fresh printable (available in the special offers section at Colgate.com)
= $1.98 and get 4 ECBs back!

If you have a CVS $3/$15 coupon, you can combine these deals (with a small filler) and spend about $1 plus tax and get 10 ECBs back!!

Viactiv Chews 60-90 count
CVS Price: $5.49, get 3 ECBs back (limit 5 - this is a monthly deal but sale price is only good this week!)
Use $3 off in-ad coupon found in Walgreens ad THIS WEEK and make a 51-cent profit!! Use the $2/1 coupon from the 3/02 RedPlum insert and get major overage!!

Other deals:
Buy $10 of select Irish Spring and Softsoap, get 4 ECBs (Qualifying items: 18 oz Irish Spring body wash $4.99, 12 oz SoftSoap body wash $3.99, 8 pk. Irish Spring bar soap $5.99, and 40 oz. SoftSoap hand soap refill (not sure of price on refill.)
Use Walgreens Easy Saver catalog coupons: $2 off Irish Spring Body Wash, $1 off SoftSoap body wash, $1 off 8-pk. Irish Spring bar soap
Combine with manufacturer’s coupons from 4/27 Smart Source: $1 off SoftSoap body wash, (there is also a printable for this on the special offers section of colgate.com), 50 cents of Irish Spring body wash, and 30 cents off Irish Spring bar soap.

Buy $20 of select Crest/Oral B products, get 10 ECBs
Crest Pro-Health toothpaste and and rinse are included in this at $3.99 and you can use the Walgreens ES catalog coupon for $3/2 as well as the manufacturer’s coupons that were in the P&G insert on 5/4! (I used all mine at Walgreens last week though!!)

Have FUN!!

Hosted By Sarcastic Mom

Happy Mother’s Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since I’ve recently developed a passion for photgraphy, I’ve decided to join Weekly Winners, hosted every Sunday by Lotus at Sarcastic Mom. This week all my good pictures were of Sophie! I swear I took some of Joshua, too, but the boy won’t stand still long enough for me to get a shot of him that’s not blurry! Next week hopefully I will have a shot or two of him…anyways, here’s what I came up with. All of these were taken with my Sony Alpha DSLR-300k.

Illuminated

Angel Girl

On the Move

Welcome to Sophie’s house!

Hanging on to Mama’s legs

Put down that camera and PICK ME UP, Woman!!

That’s all I got! Check back next Sunday for more of my photgrpahic efforts! Make sure to check out Weekly Winners HQ to see all of the great photos by this week’s participants!

CVS, I love you. I really, really, do. Which is why it hurts me to admit that this week, I totally cheated on you multiple times with Walgreens. And it was awesome!!

But I know Walgreens is very fickle and really can’t be trusted…so I promise to stay faithful to you (except for the two times a year when they have a really awesome sale like this one.)

Now that we have that cleared up, here’s what I did at Walgreens this week!

They were having this fabulous deal where if you bought 9 P&G items, you got $20 in Register Rewards. Crest Pro-Health toothpaste counted as part of this deal and cost $2.50 a pop. There was a coupon for $3 off of two Crest Pro-Health in the Walgreens Easy Saver catalog, and I had several Crest coupons - some for 50 cents, some for $1 off, and one for a whopping $3 off one tube of toothpase, which Walgreens took for the full amount even though they were on sale for $2.50!! The end result was all this toothpaste:

for $2.25!!!! (Which I paid for with my Walgreens gift card from previous rebates of COURSE.) And I got back $20 in Register Rewards (two $10 ones printed out)!!! I then took one of my $10 RR’s and bought these rebate items:

All of these were free after rebate, and I used a $1 off coupon for the toothbrush. I used my $10 RR and paid $1.49 on my gift card, and I’ll be getting back over $12 in rebates. Oot Oot! I’ll be using my other $10 RR to get some more REBATE ITEMS! Yay!

True confession time: I did a different version of the P&G deal three times!! I donated a LOT of toothpaste to a local shelter this week! And I now have a boatload of Cascade and boatload of Register Rewards.

But of course I did hit CVS a couple of times this week for necessities such as milk and chocolate syrup. And my BFF Luanne needed some nails, and I needed to get some more free after ECB monthly deals…soooo…

Colgate Deep Clean toothbrush $3.99
Kiss nails $5.99
Nail glue $1.99
Two Orapik travel piks $2.79 each
Total: $17.55
I used my $3/$15 CVS coupon and $13.96 in ECBs, paid 64 cents cash and got back $14.57 in ECBs! $5 for the Kiss nails & glue, $5.58 for the Orapik, and $3.99 for the toothbrush. Ohh, CVS! I do love you so! You’re always so good to me!!

Well that’s it for me my friends! For more fun tales from the CVS faithful, visit CVS Superstars at the “Cents”ible Sawyer. And for couponing feats of all kinds, check out Super Savings Saturday at Money Saving Mom!

About Twitter. Except me. I don’t get it! I signed up for it about one day before I had Sam, and I stared at the screen for a few minutes before giving up, and I haven’t been back. I keep getting emails saying people are “following” me on it, but that must be pretty thrilling because I’m not going anywhere. It must be fun, though, because it seems like everyone’s doing it. So will someone explain it to me?

I am hoping to get hooked on this Twitter thing, because my current internet addiction has become the victim of an upgrade. Has anyone been on Urban Baby in the past 12 hours?? W. T. F. No one has had an idea that great since New Coke. I’m seriously upset by this, but it’s a good thing I am on maternity leave or I would be staging an uprising. So if you UB dummies are reading this, which I’m sure you’re not, PUT IT BACK.

And in other completely random news, does anyone think that The Office hasn’t been as good after the writers’ strike? I hate to say it, but it’s true. Except for when Jim said he bought an engagement ring a week after he and Pam started dating… that was about the sweetest tv moment ever. But in general, I think The Office is spending too much time out of the office.

And that, my friends, is as deep as my thinking gets these days.

For those of you getting a tummy tuck, boob job, or nose job for Mother’s Day, I have great news. There’s a new book that just came out by a plastic surgeon that will help you talk to your kids about it!

AND…it makes me want to PUKE!

It’s called My Beautiful Mommy, and from what I gathered by reading the Newsweek article about it, it features a pretty midriff-baring mommy who just wants to be prettier. Thank God, a muscle-bound, super-hero looking plastic surgeon can take care of that for her! SHEW! Otherwise she might have to go through life looking just pretty. With the face that God gave her. And a body that - gasp! - bears the marks of childbirth! A fate worse than death, I say.

As you may have guessed from my sarcasm (were you picking that up I hope?), I think this book is ridiculous, and the fact that some actually see a “need” for it to be written (see Newsweek article) is just insane. The book is geared toward 4 to 7 year-olds. Here’s an idea: if you have a 4 to 7 year-old child and you are having cosmetic surgery just ’cause you wanna be prettier, don’t TELL THEM THAT. Your children will come up with self-esteem problems on their own. Your daughters don’t need the details of your inferiority complex to jump-start them on the Road to Bulimia.

I was discussing this book with my sisters-in-law and my mom, and I said, “It makes me want to keep Sophie from learning how to read.” My sister-in-law Sarah replied, “She doesn’t need to learn how to read. She just needs to be able to look out the window at a billboard.”

Ugh.

Time to invest in a baby blindfold.

I took a million pictures. I just had to share one.