Educating the Wheelers

I’m trying to keep the food budget tight, and more importantly, I’m trying to avoid lengthy trips away from the house now that we’ve passed 38 weeks.  Audrey was born about 5 hours after my very first contraction, and within about 20 minutes after my first contraction, I was 2 minutes apart and would have been completely unable to drive myself home … or even tell someone else where I lived.  Heh.  [In fact, about an hour of that short labor was because her shoulder got hung up.  It would have been even shorter!]  With second labors statistically going shorter than first labors … well.  I’m getting leery about even running errands right now.

With that in mind, our meal plan this week is primarily out of the pantry and cleaning out the vegetable crisper of what we already have:

• Sunday: Gnocchi with Pesto and Turkey Sausage & green salad [It was very yummy, and Andrew’s getting the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.]
• Monday: Pot Roast with Carrots and Mashed Potatoes
• Tuesday: Chicken Souvlaki Bowl
• Wednesday:  Penne with Blue Cheese Pesto, Walnuts and Asparagus
• Thursday: Baked Taco Chicken and Broccoli
• Friday: Thai Roll-ups or Vietnamese Chicken Salad [depends on whether I’m willing to go get a cabbage for the salad]
• Saturday: Low-fat Hamburger Gravy on Whole Wheat Biscuits and Broccoli

With this menu plan, I should be able to avoid going to the grocery store all week, though we will run out of green leafies pretty early in the week. 

[Update on previous post about Audrey’s sickness: She’s better now, thankfully.  She was able to feel better enough around 7:30am to go back to sleep until about noon.  She’s been pretty normal since she woke up.  I, however, am a zombie.]

 …I’d run with my hammer, and trip in the pile of leaves!

(Anyone know how to get pfblogs.org to not aggregate personal posts?  ) 

As we are coming upon the third trimester for the next baby, I’ve been taking a look at what the costs associated are going to be.

Almost all of Audrey’s old clothes and swaddling blankets were yellow, green or orange, so he’s good to go for a long, long time clothes-wise. He’ll be in bed with us in the Snuggle Nest [like Audrey was] until he’s robust enough to sleep without worry of being rolled onto. Not that that has ever been an issue for us — I am an extremely light sleeper and perhaps too in tune with where the little ones are when I’m next to them. But there’s no reason not to be safe, anyways. He’ll be on the other side of me than Audrey so I shouldn’t need to worry her rolling on top of him, either. Good thing we have a big bed. The cat will just have to be content at Andrew’s feet.

Audrey’s car seat is still good [and no recalls], we never used the stroller or crib anyways [maybe we should sell them?], and my old sling didn’t get too stained, so I don’t think I need a new one of those, either.

As long as we *knock on wood* don’t have any complications with the birth, it shouldn’t be too expensive. Babies just don’t need that much. Heh.

Audrey is really interested in cooking. I suppose since I do quite a bit of it, she wants to know what the heck Mom is up to.

Her first “recipe” that she learned and has been able to make [with help] in the last few weeks is guacamole, which she charmingly calls “avocado seed” after the first step of cutting the avocado in half and popping the seed out.

Today she was rummaging through my stash of Christmas cookie ingredients and fixated on the white almond bark. She brought it to me and said, “Audrey cook.” So, we melted it down on low in a heavy bottomed pan and then stirred in a cup of peanut butter. Into a pan and then into the fridge. Boy, was she thrilled a few hours later when she got to eat her first piece of “fudge.”

Later on, she helped me make a lentil/brown rice salad, and then jambalaya for dinner. She’s really starting to get in there and help!

Today is Audrey’s 2nd birthday! We had two of her play buddies over this morning, and that was a hoot — 3 toddlers is enough to fill a house, that’s for sure!

We also had our ultrasound yesterday, and everything seems to be in its right place and all that, which is always a relief. I’m not exactly getting too old for this stuff, as they say, yet — but I’m creeping up there in age, and you begin to worry about this kind of thing.

Oh, and it’s a boy!

Audrey has been learning up a storm lately.

She knows her alphabet [and can sing the song!] and letter sounds, knows the numbers 1-10 solid and loves to count things, and knows a huge number of general vocabulary words — great since she lagged way behind in communication for awhile there. In the last few days, her favorite activity bar none has been playing with Tux Paint on her Dad’s tablet computer. She has it totally nailed. She can start the program, use almost any of the tools or brushes and start new pages. She likes to draw faces, rainbows and umbrellas. She’s not even 2! It blows my mind.

I used to cook a lot before I had kids. And then after Audrey was born, I had to learn a whole new ballgame. Different recipes, different techniques. Nothing too elaborate — and most importantly! — something that could be broken down into a lot of atomic operations that were not too time dependent. For instance, there was a short period of time when I never cooked pasta because invariably I would be tied up in something when it was time to drain the pasta. This sort of thing reached its peak during 14-20 months, the clingiest, highest need period of her toddlerhood.

And then something magical happened a few weeks ago [Don’t ask, because I’m not even sure what], and now not only can we get tasks done around the house, but she’s a big helper. [Her first recipe mastered was guacamole. Oh, how she loves guacamole.]

But this now opens up a lot of new options for us, and allows us a lot more latitude in eating healthier and much more frugally. Right now, I’d say our food budget is down at least 50% from when I started really working on getting it down.

Okay, so it’s been almost a year since I’ve posted. At least I didn’t
only make one post and never post again! Heh. [I wonder what percentage
of blogger posts fit that description … ]

Anywhoo, Audrey is 17 months old now and soaking up vocabularly like a
sponge. She will very rarely attempt to say any of her new words, but she
can point to the objects named. And not just animals! She’s also figured
out colors, numerals, and she’s beginning to pick out individual letters.
And to think that just a couple of months ago, our doctor wanted us to
take her in for a hearing check because she wasn’t responding to much of
any verbal communication. I think she was sandbagging so she could blow
us all away when she was ready to unleash it.

In other news, we are feeling more and more comfortable with our decision
to homeschool. I feel confident that I can provide an excellent
education, and I hope that someday in the near future Audrey will have
another sibling or two to learn with. [But will I stop ending sentences
with “with” before then?]

Our first daughter, Audrey, is nearly 7 months old, and already my husband Andrew and I are struggling over where/how to educate her.

The current options we’re kicking around include public school, Catholic school, the very nearby Waldorf school and homeschooling.

Admittedly, I’m not thrilled about public school. I went to a handful of public schools and a handful of Catholic schools. I had a good experience at a small, neighborhood Catholic school, a great experience at a small, rural public school, a poor experience at a wealthy Catholic school and and particularly crappy experience at a suburban “good” public school. I left there after the 10th grade and started at my local community college. But Andrew had a good experience in the Austin, TX public school system [years ago], and isn’t nearly as jaded as I am. At the risk of stereotypical old cooter “everything is going to hell”-speak, I do feel like the public schools have only gotten worse since we were there.

Thankfully, we have a few years to decide.