knitting librarian

Zoe and AJ both had well child visits today. (Remind me to never schedule them the same day again, my brain is still reeling!)

AJ is 35 lbs and 40.5 inches tall (but both are with his shoes on.) His vision was good I guess. I think they checked hearing too but since they were checking him while the doctor was checking Zoe, I’m really not sure about much of anything. He got four shots and was excited about it before he got them.Then they had two of us hold him while two of them gave him shots…he didn’t like them then. I think it may have been a combination of the shots and being restrained so much. Last year, he got two or three shots and didn’t flinch or cry and he kept asking for more shots (CRAZY KID!) They tell me these burned and that’s why it hurt him this time around.

Zoe is 22.5 inches long and 10lbs9oz. Her length percentile has dropped off a bit. Her weight percentile is staying steady so that’s good. Four shots plus rotavirus vaccine. She’s only eating 16oz plus some breastmilk so he wants me to get her eating closer to 500 calories a day (25oz.) If she won’t go up in amount, he will switch her to a higher calorie formula 24 or 25 calories per oz. to help her keep up her nutrition. Hopefully I can get her to take more, but that’s a whole lot more than she’s used to! I really don’t want to force her to overeat. She’s happy, healthy and active. We’ll see how this goes.

He didn’t mention adding solids at all. I guess I’ll have to do some checking online to see if I can find “signs” that she’s ready. Certainly that would help with calorie intake too, but I know they’re not supposed to be getting a lot from solids at this point. Can anyone tell me what their doctor said? This is the first I’ve seen this guy. I definitely like the female PA better. She’s more helpful than he was. I think I’ll call and change her next appointment to her so I get some more direction.

When we were getting around to go to Mom and Vince’s today for lunch, Mom called to suggest that we bring long pants and a long sleeved shirt for AJ. She said that when he was there on Friday he wanted to try riding his bike without the training wheels the next time. We dressed him appropriately, added knee and elbow pads and gloves and helmet and Vince and John played “catch” with AJ in their driveway. He did very well and managed to stay up on his own for a pretty good stretch each time. He fell a few times but didn’t get hurt at all—well, his pride was hurt a little on the first fall—but that’s it. He was so proud of himself and we’re proud of him too! (Click on the picture to see the video.)

Zoe has really become social over the last few weeks, smiling more and more at others.

As you can see, her hair is really coming in and she’s no longer Miss Bald USA 2007. Compared with her brother, she’s still pretty lacking in the hair department, but I think by Christmas I might be able to use some barrettes or bows in her hair!

She loves her swing and is content to be there for hours (in fact, most evenings after her dinner, she hangs out there until I wake her up for her bedtime feeding.)

People still come up to me and say that at first they thought she was a doll or are surprised at how small she is. I went to the doctor to do a quick weight check last week and she was still under 10.5 pounds. She’s our little honeybee—AJ’s nickname for her, well, he calls her that or “princess of all the babies.”

AJ ate some Moose Tracks tonight before bed and I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of him with this little mustache and soul patch of chocolate sauce. (Don’t mind the Amazon box in the background!)

Pics of Zoe are coming next!

Well, this is going to sound very pathetic, but I achieved my 38th birthday yesterday and for the first time (ever!) John and I spent the evening looking at our income and our expenses for the next four weeks and wrote a budget. We planned what bills we’d pay when. We scheduled everything in our online bill pay to send the money when we need it sent. We realized we’ll make it through this month.

I’ve never had a written budget, if there was money, I spent it, if there wasn’t, I didn’t. We haven’t used credit cards in probably 3 years (except for a few business trips John’s taken in that time and had to pay for his hotel.) We haven’t been in financial trouble or anything, but it always seemed like something came up that took away at least part of the meager savings we’d accrued up until the point of the urgent spending need (it seems most of them were related to car repairs or replacements.)

We’re going to do this course, Financial Peace University, that is taught via video by Dave Ramsey. We’re finally growing up and going to create and maintain a budget. We’ve talked about what bills would be paid with what pay check for most of the time we’ve been married, it’s not like we don’t talk about money, but truthfully until the last year or so, there was no planned savings. It feels good. It’s also kind of scary right now, because it is 6 weeks until I get another pay check. My maternity leave pay off was in May. No problem, we were managing everything really well and my pay off was going to cover the mortgage and the van and preschool for AJ for the summer.

Then, with two weeks left in June, our old car needed over $2000 of repairs to pass inspection by June 30th. It’s worth about $1500. We did the math and decided we weren’t going to repair it. A friend connected us with someone who was selling her old car for $600. Perfect! We could pay for that outright. The day after I test-drove it, the fuel pump went. The owner said she’d split the cost with us. And it was due for inspection…the price ended up at about $750…but she suddenly decided she wanted more money for the car, and it was 2 days until the inspection ran out, so we were down to the wire, so she’d “give” it to us for $850. She even charged us $20 for the gas she’d put in the tank. Unbelieveable. But, we got a car with taxes and tags for under $1000. It didn’t deplete our money, but made it a bit tighter.

So, here we are, with a plan for how the money will be allocated and spent for the month of August. We still need to figure it out for September. Our birthday checks are all going into savings so that we’ve got some additional money to get us through those next two weeks until I finally get a paycheck. We’ll make it, but ooooh is it going to be tight! The class starts the week I finally get paid. I hope our budget gets us through till then!