Love, Erika

Free after rebate at Ace Hardware

Good stuff this past weekend at Ace Hardware, they had lots of items in their flyer listed as free after rebate and 99¢ after rebate. I got all you see here for free +$3 profit after rebate, after using a $5 off $25 coupon for being an Ace Rewards member.

A walk around the dam

A couple of weeks ago Dave and I took Drew to the Everett Dam just to get out of the house and walk around a bit.

Things I have learned in the past year

Drew is now one year old, and I am now 400 years older.  I thought I would share some of my favorite baby products, and things that didn't work out so good...k.

A few things that were unnecessary:

• baby shoes, jeans, and sweaters, cute outfits, etc. Drew lived in pjs for months on end.
• pacifiers (he never accepted a binkie after about 6 weeks or so)
• baby bottles (I only used them for storage/freezing of breastmilk, Drew hardly ever drank from one)
• Baby Bjorn carrier:  he took so long to be able to hold up his head enough to use it, even with him facing my chest, that by the time we got to where we could walk with him it was October already and too cold to take him out anymore. Then when spring came he had gone past the weight limit so it didn't get much use.
• Diaper Genie: we have a Safety 1st brand, but because we were never able to find refills for it, we never used it, and never missed it. It is totally not a big deal to just carry out the trash when it needs it. Breastmilk poops don't really smell anyway.
• "baby" laundry detergent.  Excuse me??  I admit I fell for that in the very beginning, but once I finished that one bottle I never bought it again. Now I just use All Free & Clear or some other perfume and dye free detergent (much easier to find good deals on that). 

Things worth their weight in gold:

• Carter's blanket sleeper pjs
• Carter's onesies (really only 5 per size was all we really needed... anything else is just excess),
• infant carrier car seat and travel system stroller--love that thing!
• cloth diapers for burp cloths
• crib mobile
• Gripe water and mylicone drops
• play gym mat
• exersaucer
• Jumperoo
• Medela breast pump
• baby swing (Drew slept for about the first four months of his life in that thing, and we still used it for emergencies up through 8 months)
• Maclaren umbrella stroller
• breastfeeding!!!  So fast, simple, clean, perfect temperature, no mess, efficient, convenient, and the best nutrition around. No dishes, measuring, and best of all.... FREE!!

Drew's Menu

Here are the things Drew is eating these days..... I'm trying to expand his menu because I want him off that dang baby food because it's so expensive. Any suggestions for things a 12 month old can eat (that are also nice and convenient for Mom to prepare)? I've been reading menus on the web and getting ideas.

Breakfast

1 jar fruit
1/4 cup baby oatmeal
1/2 banana
puffs

Lunch

1 jar fruit (or a veg)
1/4 cup oatmeal or whole grain brown rice cereal
puffs, goldfish, crackers, rice cakes, etc.

Supper

1 jar veg
1 jar fruit
1/4 cup brown rice cereal
bite sized rice cakes or crackers

Snacks (varies)

goldfish
puffies (these are falling out of favor--he gripes when he sees 'em because he wants something better)
crackers (whole grain minimally processed if I can help it, like Kashi)
mini rice cakes
toast w/ margarine
fruit (banana)
daddy's waffles
graham crackers
fruit cup

Beverages

breast fed 4X per day
drinks water throughout the day
I offer milk at each meal but he's not accepting it yet

The annual trip to Hampton Beach, NH

With Dave's sister and her 3 kids, and Dave's brother in town this past week, we've had our annual Week of Fun!  We usually do more activities in this one week than we do in the entire summer. Most notably is our trip to the beach that we do every summer, which is my favorite part....  even though it's less than an hour away, we just don't get there as often as we should.  Drew was only 6 weeks old when we went last year!  But we sure do have a good time when we go with the whole family. We were shocked that Drew actually seemed to have a good time that day--it must be a first for him!!!  He actually laughed being carried out in the surf, and played in the sand a little bit. I cannot believe he even touched it, I thought he would be gagging at it (like he does with cake, flower petals, wet sponges, etc) The pictures speak for themselves!

Drew's First Birthday Party

As we all know, 1st birthday parties are not for the kids, they are for the parents. And I had a ball planning our little shindig. On Friday evening we just had close family come over to our house for a cookout, and cake & ice cream.  Even though it rained and sort of thundered, it was very comfortable (except maybe for Dave who was outside grilling) and pleasant to stay on the screened porch.
The cake was sooooo yummy and I had it special ordered from Just Like Mom's Pastries in Weare. She did a fantastic and beautiful job, and I will definitely be using them again next time I need a cake made.
Drew got lots of great birthday presents: a Learn & Grow piggy bank, lots of bath toys, a car wash, a set of stacking/nesting cups and snap-n-lock beads. Some great toys! He also got a savings bond!  I tried to let him tear some wrapping paper but he wasn't interested.

The cake thing didn't really go over like you imagine it might. I've seen tons of pictures of babies digging their hands into their cake and smearing it all over their faces but Drew had other ideas about it. Apparently the texture of the icing grossed him out, because he started gagging all over the place when he touched it.... and gagging and gagging, and finally he just puked from looking at it!  Oh my GOD it was so funny (to me, anyway....)  The odd thing is that he actually does love sweets and cake, but I guess he just doesn't want to touch it. After he was taken out of the spotlight, I was eating my cake and he helped me with it, so he did get to have some of his own birthday cake after all.

You know that cute tradition where on a baby's first birthday they gleefully smash up their first piece of cake?

One year well visit

Today Drew had his one year well visit and here are his stats:

Weight: 21 lbs, 8 oz (30-35th percentile)

Height: 32 inches (97th percentile)

Head: 52 cm (I think that's what she said)-- off the charts, as usual.....

Happy Birthday: Drew is ONE YEAR old today!

Happy Birthday to my little June Bug! I can't believe he's one year old, and a toddler now. What happened to my baby?

• I dropped the last middle of the night feeding and now he sleeps all night! I decided I wanted to have that done before his birthday. It would have been very possible to do this a long time ago, but I guess I'm a softie. Anyway, it wasn't that hard, only took 2 nights, and then he was over it. However his latest problem is that he wakes up at the crack of sunlight which these days is about 4:15am so it's not that much of an improvement as far as more sleep for me! I had heard from other parents how nice it is that babies sleep 12 hours a night..... HA HA. Not in my world.  Drew is great in a lot of ways, but he's never been a good sleeper from birth.
• He can stand up by himself for a couple of seconds.
• He cruises around, walking by holding onto things.
• I find random objects and toys placed on various surfaces, it's so cute. It's like a big neon sign that says "Drew was here."
• Still no signs or waves or anything. No new words other than "ma" (and it's been a while since he said that).  I think that time we thought he made the sign for "more" was a fluke, or maybe a one-hit wonder. He hasn't repeated it since.
• He definitely understands certain words, and simple instructions. He knows what "NO" means, and he does not like it!! LOL.
• We started the Goldfish thing..... Lord help me. I should buy stock in Pepperidge Farm.
• I want to wean him, but I'm concerned about his water intake. He's not that good with the sippy cup, so I don't want to eliminate the liquid part of his diet until I know he can drink fluids in some other way.  He'll drink some water if I hold the sippy cup for him, but he doesn't know how to hold it himself and won't tip it up.  Ironically he did better with the sippy cup at 5 months than he does at 12 months.
• it was just in this past month that he stopped spitting up all the time after he ate. Thank GOODNESS. I was constantly running around after him with a rag mopping up puke, so I'm thrilled that he seems to have finally outgrown that.  
• He has 7 teeth (only 2 are new this month). I'm really surprised at that because there were 3 solid weeks of screaming and finger chewing (whole lotta fun, let me tell you) and it only produced 2 teeth. He has all these swollen bumps on his gums, including a big fat molar, but nothing is coming through, they are taking their sweet time.
• He's really good at pushing buttons now on his toys. Before, he'd smack at buttons and could make them do stuff, but it was kind of hit or miss. Now he very deftly and purposefully uses 1 or 2 fingers to touch the exact button he wants, and knows that a different button corresponds with a different action.
• He loves to stand beside the office chair and make it spin around and around and around.... and doesn't understand why the kitchen chairs don't do the same thing. I watch him heave and push on them, and they're not spinning! 
• He can now put the rings back ON his ring stacker, and he's very proud of that. Suddenly that toy got a lot more interesting for him, now that he can take them off AND put them back on.
• He just learned how to clap a few days ago. Still not consistent with it, but he has been caught experimenting with slapping his hands together several times now.
• One of the cutest things that he does now is he'll "play DJ" for me and Dave. One of the buttons on his exersaucer plays music in 10-second bursts, and he'll push the button for music and look up at me smiling while I dance to the  music, and as soon as it ends he'll push it again to make me dance more. And so on, and so on, until I'm so tired from dancing! It's just so cute to watch him play the music and look at me expectantly to dance.

What a difference a year makes

This is June 12 last year, and June 12 today.....