The Mom Crowd

I don’t have a helpful or interesting topic today. I am still battling All Day Nausea. I have spent the entire weekend in bed or on the couch and I have missed two parties. In fact I haven’t left my house in over a week. Yesterday, my husband and I walked to our mailbox and I immediately threw up when we got back to the house.

Last Thursday night I broke down crying. Being sick is lonely. You don’t get to go out and see anyone. I don’t what the heck I want to eat most of the time. In fact, I don’t want to eat at all, but I know I have to for the baby and so I don’t have to get an IV. I hate that I can’t do anything around the house to help and I feel like I just boss my husband around all day. (I am sure most women would love that.) But we knew before starting the whole process of a second one, that would mean that Daniel has to do everything. He is doing a fantastic job feeding Ace and taking care of her. I try to watch Ace from the couch in the afternoons so he can at least get some work done.

So I just wanted to whine again here on The Mom Crowd. Morning sickness is really horrible. I keep thinking, “What if I can’t do this a third time and we only have 2 kids?” People say I can make it through it again, but I hate this. If my morning sickness lasts 20 weeks again like it did last time. I don’t know if I will want to try for number 3.

What I do know is that tomorrow I am 8 weeks along. In two weeks I will be able to hear my baby’s heartbeat and that will make it all worth while. But I still have two weeks of vomiting and hating food to go.

P.S. As I wrote this up I smelled the dry cat food and totally threw up my lime sherbert. Oh, I did get some meds. The Zofran works really well, but my insurance would only give me 12 pills every thirty days. I may have to call back my doc’s office to push it through insurance. When I called last week they gave me Phinagrin(sp?). I took it Saturday morning and it knocked me off my butt and I slept all day.

Thanks for letting me whine again.

Recently our family had the opportunity to take a little vacation (or vay-cay, as I’ve been continuously calling it) to Panama City Beach, Florida.  We have not gone anywhere together as a family in about a year, and we were due some days of quiet away from home.  Thankfully, a family from our church let us use their beach house free of charge!  So we loaded up our car and hit the road.

The house we were in was perfect for the kids.  They were so enamored with the sun room up front that they weren’t the least bit interested in opening the cabinet doors and nooks & crannies throughout the house.  We brought one baby gate, which was perfect to block them out of the bathroom; they had free reign everywhere else.  It was a little one-level bungalow right across the street from the water.  All we had to do was cross the street and hike through about 10 yards of sand to see the waves.  To top it off, the beach was “private”!  So there was no one else around for great distances.  Nice!

The first morning we were there, we suited up and got lathered in our sunscreen, donning our hats and looking good.  I even had a new swimsuit to wear (Wow!  We’re talking 3 years, people, since I’ve cared about that at all…)  The kids were ecstatic to use their new sand shovel and beach toys.  I brought a blanket, Dave remembered the umbrella for shade.  We were set.  I was thinking we’d be there for a couple of hours and then go back to the house for lunch.

Except that two hours was about 90 minutes too long.  Turns out, the kids were kinda freaked out by the waves and had no interest in getting wet.  This didn’t stop me from trying to get them in the water, mind you.  I held Eli and tried to let him get a little cooled off as the waves lapped up.  One little splash of saltwater on his face was all it took to convince him he didn’t like it.  They weren’t quite sure what to do about the sand, either, though that was easier for them to handle.  And boy, was it hot.  Upper 90s, sticky and humid.  The only enjoyment Dave and I found was when we could individually step away for quick little dips into the water.  (My swimsuit was great – stayed in place and everything!  Score!)

After 20 minutes of playing in the sand, Lucy was soaked from sweat.  Poor girl was so hot.   But she was not going in that water.  It became clear that if we weren’t going to swim, we might as well go back to the house.  Otherwise, we were going to melt away into the Gulf.  We didn’t have access to a swimming pool, which would have changed the way we spent our days completely.  Instead, we cleaned ourselves up and decided to see what else the beach town had to offer, which turned out to be a lot.  We enjoyed fun window shopping and cruising along the strip, and the kids weren’t too traumatized to head back to our beach in the evening hours to collect sea shells and watch the sun go down. 

On our last day, we decided to drive a little further east and see St. Andrews Park.  We didn’t know what we were going to find, honestly, but we brought a picnic lunch.  It turns out we should have brought our swimsuits, too, because we found this:

It was utterly kid-friendly, this little wading area for families.  It was like “Beach for Beginners”, and Lucy loved it.  She and Dave wandered around for awhile and ended up swimming in their clothes for about an hour.  Oh, how I wished we knew about this from the start!  We would have done this on the first day and then she probably would have warmed up to the “big waves” at our beach not much longer after that.  Eli would have enjoyed sitting around in the shallowest parts of the water with me, too.  Oh well.  Maybe next time.

Looking back, I realized we did lots of things right on our kids’ first beach trip:

• We packed everything we needed for beach fun: towels, blankets, toys, sunscreen, beverages, and the camera.
• We knew not to include eating while on the beach.  Nothing’s worse than a sand-covered snack!  We scheduled beach time around eating times.
• We kept a flexible and positive attitude with every activity.
• We all looked really good.  Seriously, we’re a family with good fashion sense.   (Okay, I’m reaching, here…)

Here is what I learned to do for next time:

• Research what there is to do before leaving home!  Had we done this, we would have known how to introduce beachy fun to our young ones in a more effective manner.
• If possible, go in a month when it’s not quite as hot.  The water was a great temperature for swimming, but it was sweltering outside of it.  We looked for shade at every opportunity.

Some links on the subject:

• 10 Tips for Your Beach Vacation
• Packing Tips for Beach Trips
• Tips for Taking Your Toddler to the Beach
• Little Toddler Beach Bums

What about you, moms?  How have your beach endeavors fared this summer?  Any stories or tips that you’d like to share?

I got this idea from an online friend a while ago and I thought I’d share it with you guys. This is a very easy and fun craft to make. It makes a great gift for a friend or grandparent and your kids can be big helpers too!

I found all the supplies at Walmart except for one (noted below).

Here are the supplies you need:

• Clear, glass, flat marbles–usually found in the floral section
• 3/4″ magnet rounds–can be found in the craft section
• Clear Silicone Adhesive–in the hardware section
• 1/2″ hole punch–found at Joanne’s or Michaels
• Small pictures found in magazines, your own pictures, clip art from the computer, letters printed out from your computer etc. (Use you imagination!)

Directions:

1. Use the 1/2″ hole punch to punch out pictures of your choosing. If you don’t want to use a whole punch then you can just use scissors. But, the hole punch takes a lot less time and kids like doing that part too.
2. Squirt a pea size amount on the back of the marble. Put it on top of the picture and press down until the silicone spreads over the whole image.
3. Wait a few minutes for the silicone to dry and then attach the marbles to the magnets using a small amount of silicone. Wait for them to dry and you are finished!

We made some for my niece’s birthday. We picked out a cool font on the computer and spelled her name. We cut out the letters and made the magnets so she would have her own special magnets to hang up her stuff on their refrigerator. I made a black background with hot pink letters and it turned out really cool. I wish I had a picture of it!

The cool thing about the glass pebbles is that they end up magnifying the picture so even though it looks really small when you cut it out, it looks really neat when you are finished.

Buying all the supplies cost me less than $20. The special hole puncher cost almost as much as all the other supplies put together. But, I have enough supplies to make a ton of magnets! This is a simple, fun, inexpensive, and easy craft. I hope you have fun making it to!

I recently fell in love with Seeqpod. Seeqpod is a Web 2.0 application that allows users to create playlists with music, videos, and rich media files.  Creating an account is completely easy and fast. Once you are in you search for the song you are looking for and Seeqpod finds it in a file that is already online and streams it. Then you click on the arrow of the song you want and add it to your list.  It is totally legal, this is from their about page:

Our technology is legal, and we diligently observe industry-standard DMCA regulations for search engines, otherwise known as .information location tools.. We do not support, nor facilitate, illegal downloading, and we do not host files. But, we do support artists and makers on and offline.

You can’t download a song, but you can listen to the entire song before you go buy the song on iTunes. You can listen to your mix while you are online or if you have a computer with an internet connection near by. I love bringing my laptop into the kitchen and playing my Seeqpod mixes while doing dishes.

Once you have created your playlist you can embed the player into your site. It doesn’t start playing automatically when your site loads. Your readers can chose to hit play themselves.

Not every song can be found in Seeqpod, but most of the popular songs can be found. Also, I added one song to my list only to find that it didn’t have the full ending, so I had to find another listing of my song. Remember you don’t have to be a great music aficionado to use it, just play what you like!

I first used the program to create my playlist for Myra’s Mix Tape Mondays.  If you haven’t checked it out yet – you must! Dawn and I were recently feautured. So you have to go to her blog to hear our mixes. I have listened to mine at least 20 times. I love my mix (if I don’t say so myself.)

Amanda’s Mix

Dawn’s Mix

If you create one and post it on your blog let us know!

I recently hired two regular sitters for my kids when the fall semester starts up. We’ve always relied on family members to babysit for us, so this will be the first time we are trusting our children in the hands of non-family. This will also be the first time that I am regularly away from my children. Due to this upcoming change, I put together a handbook for our babysitters. When I was a babysitter, I would have LOVED it if my families left me with a handbook like this! I babysat for many years as a teenager and it was very hard to remember all of the last minute instructions parents left me as they were kissing their children goodbye. I can’t expect that a babysitter is going to remember when bedtime is, what to feed them for dinner, whether they need to bathe Susie first or give her a bottle first, etc…

I opened up my word processor and got to typing! For those of you who are crafty, I could totally see the handbook being done in a cute scrapbook style!  Mine is in a cheap, navy blue folder with prongs.  Some of this may be excessive, however I would rather be over-prepared than under-prepared.

So, what’s in my handbook?

Contact information

• Our full names
• Our home address and phone number
• Our cell phone numbers and my husband’s work phone number
• Emergency contact (Grandma) home/cell/work numbers

Rules

• I listed my children’s basic no-no’s (climbing on table, hitting each other, etc…)
• I gave basic household rules (no shoes on in our house, our policy on television, etc…)
• I gave the babysitter basic rules as well (keep stair gate and bathroom doors shut at all times, no smoking, guidelines on having visitors over, etc…)

Special instructions

• Potty/Diaper instructions-I listed where diapering materials are kept and instructions on what to do with dirty diapers. I also gave instructions on where the kids are at in potty training and instructions on when to let them sit on the potty.
• Outdoor instructions-I gave instructions on outdoor play. I asked that the sitter check for fire ants and check with me before hand if they wanted to play in the pool. I mentioned where the wagon is kept and other quick notes about outdoor play.
• Mealtime instructions-I noted where mealtime accessories are kept and a few notes about mealtime with my children.
• Bedtime instructions-I mentioned their nap schedule and bedtime routine. I most importantly noted that Darah must have her lovey for bedtime to be successful!
• Discipline instructions-I explained our discipline strategy with our children, located time-out and the buzzer for them, and explained which offenses deserved a time-out. I also explained redirection when time-out was over and what I expected from each child after time out (apology, hug, etc…)

List of foods

• I basically just listed the foods my children will eat so they don’t have to guess what to feed them if they need a meal or a snack.

Medical information

• I gave a complete list of all of our medical providers and specialists, including their addresses and phone numbers. This has been a handy list for myself!
• I typed up each child’s full name and their birthday and indicated if they have allergies and typed up the medications they are on. I also typed up their health issues, including a list of all surgeries and medical procedures and dates.
• Health insurance information, including copies of our insurance cards.
• Darah and Connor both carry a special card indicating their need for an antibiotic in case of an emergency due to their heart defects. I copied these for our babysitters.

More resources for creating a babysitter handbook:

Children’s Safety Zone Guide for Babysitters

Checklist for Preparing a New Babysitter

A Babysitter’s Guide to Babysitting for a child with diabetes

Printable Babysitter Checklist

What else would be beneficial in a babysitter handbook?