My Pal Scout - Someone Please Help Me!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had a shower last weekend. One of the gifts included My Pal Scout, the talking dog.  I will admit, this dog is really cute and I think P is really going to like it.  He talks, and even more beneficial, you could plug it into your computer to program your baby's name and some other information so that he says more meaningful phrases :) 
 
Well, the past two days my husband has gone into P's room before work to grab some of his clothes (husband's closet is in P's room).  As early as 5-5:30am, I have heard "Ruff Ruff Ruff, take me home and I'll learn your name".  The reason I'm asking for help is because I have a feeling my husband will be playing with all of the talking toys and I will go crazy... just kidding! It's funny to see a 30 somethin' year old guy find these types of toys amusing, especially bright and early in the morning before I've had my first cup of coffee.  These are the types of things I will endure for love.

How a White Noise CD Changed My Life

I thought I've seen it all in terms of baby gadgets and items that claim to calm your baby or put them to sleep, but I never ran across a CD that includes tracks of vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, hair dryer, running water, clothes dryer and electric fan noises.  These sounds are called "white noise" and the CD claims that "your baby and you will love baby white noise..."  Well, I don't particularly "love" listening to a hair dryer.  I'd much rather listen to whatever I have on the TV, but I love that my baby loves it.  It's like a miracle CD.  I tried it for the first time the night of my shower.  He fell asleep instantly. So then, I thought to myself, "Self, it was a coincidence".  He must have just been really tired from all the commotion at the shower, so I tried it again the next night.  Once again, he fell asleep right away with track 3, which was the hair dryer (I skipped to track 3 the first night, and since it worked, I didn't want to try the other tracks). 

Now comes nap time.... would it work or wouldn't it? That was the question. Weeeeelllll.... IT DID! Instantly - 1 second later and he was out!  No bouncing, rocking or rapping "twinkle twinkle little star" on my part necessary.  Amazing!

The CD is "Baby White Noise Sampler CD". 

What Did I Just Say??

I catch myself doing and saying things that may be abnormal (well, for those of you who really know me, I guess you'd picture me saying some things I'll mention).  I catch myself forgetting a lot of things. For example, I was out and about the other day and had a taste for Taco Bell, which I normally don't eat.  I called my husband, asked him what he wanted and placed the order.  1) I forgot to hangup my phone after he gave me the order and I said "OK, see you soon" and 2) I forgot half of his order.  Luckily, he was still on the phone and screamed out the rest of his order as I was driving to the '2nd window'.  That's minor, though, because I have a slight feeling you all forget a lot as well.

Today alone, I caught myself saying (singing) certain things to baby P...

1) After his bottle, I was rocking and bouncing him in an attempt to make him nap.  I'll preface the following with "I don't know very many baby songs".  Well, okay, I don't know any other song except for 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', and I'm not even sure I sing the words to that correctly.  I must have sung TTLS about 99 times before he finally fell asleep. Apparently, I was bored with the original tone of this song because towards the end I found myself rapping the words of the song and actually bouncing as if I was dancing to a rap.  I believe I may have a slight problem!

2) The past couple days, he's been drinking his 6 oz of formula super slow.  It takes an hour to drink his bottle where several days ago, it took about half hour.  He screams for his food, but then 2 oz into it he takes a 5 min nap.  Today, I needed to get a few things done around the house so I kind of wanted him to not take an hour.  I found myself chanting "CHUG CHUG CHUG' to a 7-week old.  I hope this doesn't have long term effects.

What have you been known to do or say that will make me feel better about my situation?

Facials + Workouts = Clean House

When I thought of taking a leave of absence to care for my son, I knew I'd love every second of it - even his crying fits and figuring out what soothes and calms him.  I had heard from other moms that the 12 weeks would go by fast.  Well, it's definitely going by way too fast.  Although I work from home, I will miss caring for him throughout the day when I start my workdays back up.  The days seem to go by super fast, which I'll admit, I'm a little surprised about.  I thought that my house would be spotless and that I'd spend a lot of time watching TV in between his naps.  Boy, was I wrong! I feel busier than ever between the laundry (I can't believe how fast the washing machine fills up with his little clothes), feeding him, putting him to sleep, cleaning, cooking (although seldom now) and of course, catching up on Facebook and Blogging :)

So, you may be wondering why the title of this blog is "Facials + Workouts = Clean House"?  It's because I recently bought a Shark Portable Steamer. I was actually dying to try it out on my shower grout as well as my bathroom and kitchen tiles.  After giving my son a bath the other day, I had a good 2 hours (surprisingly) to try it out on my kitchen tiles.  As I hunched over on my knees, with raggedy clothes cleaning my tiles like Cinderella, I realized that I was being very efficient.  The steam from the Shark gadget was opening my pores, the constant bending was helping me slim my thighs, the back and forth movement of my arms was helping build my biceps & triceps, and by the end of the 2 hour session with Shark, I got a good workout. So good, in fact, that my thighs and arms were actually a bit sore the next day.  That's what I call being efficient.  Now if I could figure out a way to get a 6-pack without doing crunches, that would be awesome!

Do any of you have stories to share or tips on how to be as efficient as possible?

Savings! Savings! Savings!

I took a trip to Babies R Us yesterday and saved $85 on 6 containers of formula. So, that got me wondering, what do the rest of you do to save $$$ on everyday items like diapers, formula, baby food, etc.?

At BRU, I was able to combine the 6 manufacture coupons I had for formula and the 7 "check like" coupons I had from Similac.  They were each worth $5, plus I used the BRU coupon that provided me with a $20 gift card to use on my next purchase.  As a bonus, the formula was on sale, so needless to say, I was a proud lady walking out of BRU!

One thing I do often, besides shop on Amazon, is use the Amazon app on my iPhone.  It allows you to scan barcodes to see if you could purchase the item cheaper on the Amazon website.  If you don't shop on Amazon, I recommend that you do (they should pay me for free advertisement).  If you don't have the Amazon app, I recommend that you get it ASAP.  I use the barcode scanning functionality often and  did this for the Huggies refill wipes I purchased at BRU and found that with the sale they were having and coupons I had, I could get them for cheaper at BRU.  I love Amazon for the convenience of free delivery that I get, but since I was at BRU, why not buy refills at a cheaper price?  


Some helpful websites that I suggest are:


* https://similac.com/signup-similac - - If you use Similac, I totally recommend signing up so that you get free samples and coupons.


* https://www.amazon.com/gp/mom/signup/welcome  - - Subscribe to Amazon mom. I order my diapers from Amazon for the discount, convenience and automatic subscription which sends me diapers once a month automatically.  You could manage your subscription for various "mom" related items.

What websites and/or subscriptions can you recommend to start saving?