Three Months To Go!

Let me start out by apologizing in advance for my overuse of caps in this post.

I can NOT believe that in three short months I will be the mother of TWO kids! That's crazy! And I'll be honest with you, I am kind of expecting to have this baby a little early. Isaac was just over two weeks early, and my OB said that history has a tendency to repeat itself (although there are no guarantees). I'm half expecting to be in the hospital on Isaac's birthday. Which leads me to my second thought of the day.
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I also can NOT believe that my baby boy is going to be TWO YEARS OLD in just three months. He's getting so big! Potty training will be happening soon. J and I decided we'd start after Easter. I'm not looking forward to it, but it needs to be done. And he's been telling us lately (although not consistently) when he poops, and sometimes when he goes into the bathroom, he'll say, "potty". Maybe that's a start.

And now for a comical, and slightly embarrassing story. Okay, it wasn't so funny while it was happening, but now I'm able to look back on it and laugh.

On Monday, while Isaac and I were walking out to the car in the morning, we both wiped out on the wheelchair ramp that leads to the driveway from the porch (the people who lived there before us had a child in a wheelchair, and we just haven't taken the ramp down yet, although it's on our to-do list). Isaac just whined a little, and he was fine. I, on the other hand... well, lets just say that I haven't had that much fluid escape since my water broke when I was pregnant with Isaac. So I got nervous and called the doctor, who had me come in for an ultrasound and an pelvic exam. Everything was fine. Turns out baby used my bladder as an airbag, and my water didn't break, I just peed a little when I landed. I've never been so happy to have peed myself! :) Oh, the joys of being pregnant.

...aaand I can't believe I just wrote a blog post about peeing my pants. What is the world coming to?

Surveys and Stuff

Once in a while, if I have some spare time after Isaac goes to bed, or if it's a slow day at work, I like to take paid surveys. Of course, you don't make a whole lot of money doing this, but if you'd like to make an extra $20 here or there, it might be worthwhile to check out. In this post, I've highlighted a few survey sites out there. I'm sure there are way more than this, but these are the ones I use and have been happy with.

FYI - if you sign up through the link I provide, for some of these sites I'll get some sort of referral bonus.

Toluna - This is one of my favorite sites. You can get your rewards in the form of a check (which is what I usually choose) or music downloads, etc. There are a LOT of surveys available so you won't have to wait long to take one. And if you don't qualify for a survey, you'll be entered in a sweepstakes to win some cash. There are also several mini survey questions you can answer that you don't have to qualify for. These usually only take a few seconds, and you'll receive 10-75 points for them. Those points add up really fast!

 

Opinion Outpost - Another one of my favorites! Actually, this one is probably my favorite. The rewards come in the form of gift cards (Amazon GC, Citi GC), a donation to the red cross, or a check. And the minimum balance you need to cash out for some of the gift cards is only $5! If you want a check, though, it's $20. Either way, my balance is building quickly. Opinion Outpost won't give you quite as many surveys as Toluna, but for me that's fine because I don't spend all that much time doing it anyway.

Survey Savvy - I haven't actually gotten paid from this one yet, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. The surveys are much fewer and farther between than the other sites I've mentioned. They give you a dollar amount for each survey, and it's usually very good.

These next two site are a little bit different, but I love them:

Inbox Dollars - This is a site that will send you emails, and you get paid for clicking on them. You can get about $0.02 per email, but it adds up. The only bad thing is that you need $30 in order to get a check, and that can take a while if you only click on emails. If you want to boost your account balance, you can also take surveys. Their surveys, however, usually take a long time to complete for a minimal amount, like $0.50 usually. Also, you can respond to offers, but that typically involves spending money, so I never have. There are other things you can do, too, but I haven't really looked into them too much. It's really easy to click on the emails though, so that's generally what I stick to.

MyPoints - I've been a MyPoints member for years. Like, since I was in high school. It's awesome. The main thing I do is click on emails. You get 5 points for just clicking on an email. I have also shopped through MyPoints on various occasions. You can get a certain amount of points per dollar you spend at participating online stores. And there are a lot of participating stores. So if you're going to buy something online anyway, you might as well shop through the MyPoints link and earn some points. Points will get you gift cards to just about anywhere. There is a HUGE variety of options for gift cards. I usually will get a GC for a restaurant or Target. If you only join one site listed in this post, this is the one to join.

I just wanted to put these out there for my readers. I don't spend much time doing this stuff, but the time I have spent has been worth it.

I Have Your Hat

This is a sign that I saw posted in the gym at the YMCA a few months ago. I had taken a picture because I thought it was funny, and then I promptly forgot about it. Until now.

In case you can't read what's scribbled in the corner, here's a close up.

LOL!

Puke

No, I'm not talking about that disgusting Eminem song where the intro consists solely of the sounds of a person vomiting. Although, that's an awful lot like what my house sounded like on Wednesday...

Wednesday started like any other day. Up in the morning, off to daycare, went to work, and picked Isaac up from daycare. That's where the normalcy ended. I picked Isaac up a little early from daycare so that we could get ready to go to the Wednesday night kid's music class (taught by my old classmate and music therapist, Natasha). I fed him a snack later than usual, because music class is at 5:30, and last week he got hungry half way through the class and threw a fit. He had a banana and a glass of milk. When I took him out of his high chair, he was whining and crying a bit, which is out of the ordinary for him.

I sat down on the floor to play with Isaac. He came over and snuggled with me a little. Then he stood directly in front of me, looked at me funny, and proceeded to projectile vomit all over me. Not just all over me, but all over himself and the floor, too.

As I stood there in shock, contemplating what to do with the handful of puke I had (apparently, when I noticed he was going to throw up, I put my hand under his mouth, thinking I could catch it or something - not sure what was going through my head at that point), he suddenly vomited a second time.

Everything was covered with puke: my shirt, my pants, the floor, Isaac's shirt, Isaac's pants, and even his shoes. So I stripped him down, stripped myself down, and threw our clothes in a pile on the kitchen floor. When I turned around to assess the damage in the living room, I found my wonderfully psychotic dog cleaning it up for me. That's right, Gizmo was eating the piles of banana vomit. I want to gag just thinking about it. So I herded Isaac and Gizmo upstairs, closed the gate behind me so Gizmo couldn't do any more "cleaning" while we were up there, and gave Isaac a bath.

About 15 minutes later, J came home from work. The moment I heard the door open, I yelled down to him, "Get Isaac's bath towel and bring it up here... and pay no attention to the vomit in the living room." J later told me that it was unclear to him at the time exactly who the vomit belonged to - his toddler son, his pregnant (and often nauseous) wife, or his anxiety ridden Terrier.

Isaac vomited a few more times that evening, so we decided not to send him to daycare the next day. It was clear that he had some sort of stomach bug. Oh yeah, and music class obviously was a no-go, too. I had a hard time cleaning the banana acid puke smell out of the carpets, and ended up having to use my parents' carpet cleaner (that we borrowed like, a year ago and haven't returned yet - thanks Mom and Dad) to shampoo the areas where he had thrown up.

Oh, the joys of parenting.

I hope you enjoyed this disgusting post. Sorry for grossing you out. But, come on, the title of the post is Puke. What did you expect?

Big Boy Bed

That's right, we made the leap to the big boy bed. We converted Isaac's crib to a toddler bed on Wednesday because both J and I had Thursday and Friday off of work. We just wanted to see how it went, and if it goes well, we'll get him a toddler bed when it gets closer to my due date so that Sequel can have the crib.

It's going wonderfully so far! Bedtime is a breeze, as usual, he just climbs into bed himself now. How on Earth did we end up with such a great kid?

The only problem we have is nap time, and this issue developed just yesterday. When we put him in bed for a nap, he thinks it's fun to climb out of bed once we leave the room, take all the blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals off the bed, and lay on them right in front of the door. Then we have to put everything back in the bed, and he'll climb in and say, "night night". Then when we leave the room, he climbs out and piles everything behind the door. Lather, rinse, repeat. I found a trick that works, though. I just keep the door open a crack and watch him after I put him to bed. Then if he climbs out of bed, I open the door right away and tell him to lay down. He'll get back in bed, and then he knows that I'm watching, so he'll stay there. It worked like a charm both times I did it today. Hopefully it will continue to work.

I'm extremely impressed that he hasn't once gotten out of his bed in the middle of the night (knock on wood). He did fall out once on Wednesday night, but I guess he learned his lesson because he hasn't done it since.

Here's a picture. I sneaked into his room and took it about 20 minutes ago. Precious.

March Book: The Choice

The other day, I finished my book for March. I read, The Choice by Nicholas Sparks. Now I only have one more Nicholas Sparks book to go before I've read them all! :)

First, I'd like to say that I realize that my book reviews (if that's what you want to call them) lately have been sort of negative. Well, maybe negative is not the right word... skeptical, maybe? Jaded? Maybe I'm hard to impress when it comes to reading a book. I don't know. The last book I read where I enjoyed the entire thing was Breaking Dawn. Other than that, I seem to get bored during certain, more drawn out parts of books.

That being said, I feel like Nicholas Sparks needs some new material. His only book that hasn't followed the exact same pattern was The Guardian, if I remember correctly. It makes reading his novels so predictable. And they're pretty unrealistic. I mean, nobody actually falls madly and truly in love in, like, a week. But that's what happens in every. single. one. of his books. Other than that, I like them - obviously, because I keep reading them. They keep me entertained, and I guess that's the point, right?

Ok, back to The Choice. I'll try not to spoil it too much for you.

This book is about a man named Travis, who falls in love with a woman named Gabby, who happens to be his new next door neighbor. Gabby, however, is in a relationship with her long time boyfriend. Apparently she wasn't too in love with him though, because she eventually dumps his ass for Travis. There's a lot more to the first part of this book, but it's really pretty irrelevant to the story so I won't go into it.

In the second part of this book, we find out that something has happened, and Travis is faced with an extremely difficult choice. The rest of the book is mainly about his emotional struggles and the implications of his decision.

This book makes you think. How do certain choices you make affect the lives of your loved ones? What would you have done in Travis' position?

And I'll admit, I cried at the end. Leave me alone, I'm pregnant. I'm allowed to cry at the drop of a hat.

Basic Lasagna

I just realized that I forgot to post the last recipe from my freezer cooking day. Lasagna, yum! So I decided to post it now, even though it might take a while because I'm also indulging in my guilty pleasure of watching Teen Mom 2, not to mention getting karate kicked in the bladder by Sequel (read: multiple trips to the bathroom).

But I digress.

I really don't use a recipe when I make lasagna. Mine is pretty easy and basic: meat, sauce, cheese, noodles. The end. I also like to make it in a big 9x13 pan because this is another dish that is excellent warmed up as leftovers.

Ingredients
2 lbs ground beef
Jar of spaghetti sauce (26 oz)
1 pkg lasagna noodles
Cottage cheese (22 oz) or ricotta
4 cups mozzarella cheese

Brown the beef, then drain it. Add the spaghetti sauce to the beef. Boil the lasagna noodles until they're very al dente. I like to use whole wheat lasagna noodles because with all the other stuff in lasagna, you can't even tell that it's whole wheat.

Now grab your 9x13 pan and start layering. Here's the order I layer in, but you can do whatever you want. The world is your burrito, er... lasagna? Whatever.

Noodles
Beef mixture
Cottage cheese
Mozzarella
Noodles
...
Lather, rinse, repeat until it's to the top of the pan. Try to end up with beef mixture on the top, then top it with some mozzarella.

Bake it at 350 degrees for about 45 min to an hour. If you freeze it, you really should thaw it before baking or else it's going to take a looooong time to cook. Bake it with some tin foil on top, then remove the foil for the last 10-15 minutes of baking. This will prevent the cheese on top from getting crusty.

And that concludes my recipes for February freezer cooking. :)