Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Who are you...

and what have you done with my baby? If you look at these two pictures, taken almost exactly a year apart, you'll understand my question. There is no doubt that my baby isn't a baby anymore. He's stuck somewhere between toddler & kid. Every day he speaks more & more clearly and I'm constantly amazed at how smart he is. We have a book with pictures of various things; animals, food, toys, clothes, household items, etc., and he can identify nearly all of them! And somehow, he knows the letter "W". ??? What a strange letter to start with! He speaks in 2-3 word sentences and can most of the time get the point across for what he wants. Where, oh where, has my baby gone? I'm totally loving this stage; he's so much fun to play with, and he loves to give kisses & hugs. What more could you want?

Oh! And the best thing ever???? He's started saying "I love you"! It sounds kind of like "I Ya You", but it could sound like "pumpernickel" and it would still be the sweetest sound I've ever heard.



In another of my Skribit suggestions I was asked... "When and if you are planning on another munchkin?!?"

We definitely want another child. The time frame hasn't exactly been decided yet. I definitely know I'm not ready right now. I think Chris would be okay with having another baby now, but thankfully he understands how I feel. One of my main reasons for waiting is my weight. I really want to be at my goal weight for at least a few months before we start trying. I'd love to know what it feels like to go through pregnancy without being overweight. The obvious reason being that I want to be healthy & not have as much weight to lose once the baby comes... the frivolous reason is there are much cuter choices for maternity clothes if you're not heavy! LOL

The other reason is that I've learned alot about myself since becoming a mother. I always thought that I'd want my children close in age, maybe about 2 years. However, I've come to realize that I don't think I could handle having two kids so close together. I want Jonathan to be more self sufficient, hopefully potty-trained (please, God!) and be able to understand what's happening when a new baby joins our family. I really don't have any idea when I'll be ready, but I trust God will lay it on my heart when it's time.

Question... do you plan your meals out for the week? I'm trying to find ways to help us save money and thinking a weekly menu might be a good place to start. We've always been ones who spent too much on eating out. Finances are tight right now so we really have to cut back where we can, and eating out is certainly a luxury we can do without so much of. The problem is my "cooking repitoire" is quite limited. I'm a very picky eater & therefore have a hard time coming up with new meals to cook. My poor husband is probably so sick of baked chicken, grilled pork chops and Hamburger Helper that he's ready to jump off a bridge. If you make a weekly menu, where do you come up with meal ideas? Do you have a list of main dishes, side dishes, etc.? Care to share some of them? I'm at a loss.

One day this week I caught a few minutes of the new show on TLC, Take Home Nanny. Generally I don't watch these "nanny" shows, but I happened to stop there while it was on. During this particular episode Nanny Emma suggested that the parents take the TVs out of their children's rooms. (A great suggestion in my opinion, it's not neccessary, especially when they're young. I think the oldest may have been around 7.) Anyhoo... the dad was upset by this & made the comment (I'm paraphrasing) that they were good because it was like a talking book! I was shocked by this and I believe I spoke out loud to the television & said that he should be reading to the kids. What are your thoughts? Does your child(ren) have a TV in his/her room? I can't say too much about it as I had a TV in my room at one point, but if I'm not mistaken I was a teenager & bought it myself. (Mom/Dad, can you verify?)

Well, this turned out to be quite the rambling post. If you stuck around for the whole thing... thanks! I hope I didn't bore you to death.
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5 comments:

Rebecca said...

I totally agree with not having a tv in your childs room. But you know - I'm old school :)

Anonymous said...

i try to meal plan every week, and when i do, it is WONDERFUL. it makes the week so much better because i know what we're having, and i know that i have everything - no running to the store at the last minute. and yes, it does save money too.

for awhile i did the savingdinner.com thing - they send you a list of recipes every week. it gave me some new favorites. i don't do it anymore, but i have all the recipes saved so i can still use them (they even have a low-cal edition, i think). you can also do things like join a yahoo! group (i'm in one for crockpots, and every day they email some new recipes). what about ww online... do you use the online tools? i'm pretty sure they have a ton of ww-friendly recipes there too, and if you have a recipe that's non-ww, you can enter in all the ingredients and it will calculate points for you if you use points. then, i use my gmail account and put all my recipes in there (just email them to myself, label them as 'recipe') because the search function in gmail is so great, i can just type in 'chicken' and it will bring up all the recipes that use it.

i totally understand because my husband and i eat out WAY too often... we've been able to cut back a lot on that lately, and it feels good. and is often healthier, too. you're such an inspiration with your weight loss by the way!

Rach said...

Misti, we plan our menus ahead and it does save a lot of money. I have HUGE list of cheap, fast and family-friendly meals. For instance, one I love is called "hamburger patties and mushroom sauce." Of course, I use turkey patties, not hamburger patties but what I do is take the meat, add some bread crumbs (maybe half a roll of ritz crackers), one egg (two if you want them to be a little softer but only one if you are using turkey), and garlic and onions and whatever other seasoning you want. I brown the patties (they should be significantly smaller than hamburgers), one pound of meat makes about 8 or so patties. Then, once the patties are brown, I add cream of mushroom soup. Put it down to simmer and cook some rice. When the rice is done, so is the main course. I serve the patties on top of the rice and use the soup as gravy. Dennis likes it with peas and crescent rolls.

Tutus, Feather Boas, and Sticky Fingers said...

I ditto not having the tv in the kids bedroom, there is no reason too!

Also, I hope by example that having my two close together hasnt influenced your decision. It really is fun now and they are a hoot togther.

I always plan my meals ahead. I look what I have in stock and then what I need to add. You could set up monday as pasta night, Tues as Chicken, 3 as beef or ground turkey- so forth.

Kimberly said...

He really has grown!

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