Why I LOOOOVE Coupons!

Today, in addition to a wonderfully fun day hanging out with my family, I took a brief trip to Publix to pick up a couple of things before some of my coupons expired.  And I was reminded once again why I love couponing so incredibly much.

See this?

I purchased all of this at Publix for $7.15+ tax.

To give you a feel for the value, that is the price of just the two Wholly Guacamole packages.  So, effectively, I got 2.5 lbs of ground round, 2 packages of King Hawaiian Sandwich Buns, and 2 packages of granola bars for free.  And the only thing that was really on sale were the granola bars.  Everything else was regular price (notwithstanding a 50 cent per pound markdown on the meat).

Here's a look at the receipt to get an idea of it all, and I can break it down for you to give you an idea of how I swung this.  Even the cashier was impressed today. :)

Bummer, I think it's too small to read.  But either way, I'll break it down for ya.

The Hawaiian King Rolls were 2.99 each.  I had 2 Publix coupons, A.K.A. PQs for short, (which can be used in addition to manufacturer's coupons) for $1/1.  I addition to this, I had a $1/1 Manufacturer's coupon, MQ for short, that I got from a magazine I subscribe to, and a $2/1 MQ that I got for signing up for email newsletters from Hawaiian King. That made for a total of $5 off of $6 worth of bread.

Next came the Wholly Guacamole packets which were $3.59 each.  I had 2 MQs for $1.50/1 that I received for "liking" Wholly Guacamole on facebook.  This brought my price down to $2.09 each.  I would consider this to still be pretty expensive, but in this case, I needed to purchase the guacamole and the bread in order to be able to use my coupons on the meat.

For the ground round, I had 2 coupons which I got out of the Sunday news paper from my mother-in-law who brought all her coupon inserts with her from Texas when she came to stay for a month when Brighton was born. The coupon is an MQ for a FREE pound of ground beef with the purchase of Hawaiian King Rolls and Wholly Guacamole.  I knew that if there was a good sale on either of these products or high value coupons were to arise, that it would make for a great deal.  So I kept my eye out for coupons or sales.  So, purchasing the bread and the dip earned me $4.91 and $4.99 off my meat. I realized after the fact this was an error on the cashier's part...I couldn't find packages that were exactly 1 lb., so I got the next smallest sizes... 1.23 lbs, and 1.25 lbs.  He accidentally took off the full price of both packs instead of $3.99 per package (the cost of 1 lb.).  This ended up being an error of almost $2 in my favor.  Very rarely does that happen, but occasionally it does.

And last but not least, I had a $1/2 MQ for the Quaker granola bars that I found on a couponing website and printed off.  The regular price of these granola bars is $2.99 per box.  They were on sale BOGO, which in GA means half off (i.e. you don't have to buy two to get the sale price), making them $1.49.  Thus with the coupon they were .99 each.

All in all, between my coupons and the store sale prices, I saved 23.11.  That means I got a whopping $30.26 worth of groceries for $7.15, which is a savings of just over 75%.

And my favorite thing of all...it's on yummy, high quality foods my family will love to eat.  Often, I think coupons get a bad wrap because people think that you can only get junk food with coupons.  And it's true -- you can get a lot of junk with coupons.  But you don't have to choose to buy that junk!  We sure don't!  In fact, we consistently eat higher quality, even organic foods that I wouldn't have probably ever tried or even noticed in the grocery store because of coupons!  Did I mention I LOVE COUPONS! :)

I'd love to give any tips, or answer any questions about couponing if anyone has any.  It's really not as hard as it looks, I promise! And it has done a lot for our family's wallet and health.  Cheers!

Say My Name, Say My Name...

When Lorien was a baby and started to talk, I was so excited!  I had been thrilled with coos, and smiles, and other more subtle forms of communication, but I was itching to hear her be able to verbalize what was in her sweet head.  And of course, I was just dying to hear her sweet little lips utter the all important "mama"!  Unfortunately for me, this took quite a while.  Her first word was 'boop" for book, followed shortly there after by 'bef' and 'bewwa' for our dogs, Macbeth and Bella, and then 'da-da' for daddy.  Once da-da showed up, I started getting particularly hopeful.  But she continued on to many, many more words before arriving at my name.

I'm not sure why this is, but during that time span, I noticed how much the older generation of mothers like to pick at the younger generation of mothers.  I'm not sure what that is motivated by...perhaps its generational?  Perhaps women really are that against each other in our fallen nature?  I don't know, and that's not the point of this post, but repeatedly being the recipient of the odd social norm that permits being picked on in public by other women you don't know, led me to learn something profound about myself and my relationship with Lorien.

You see, one day in the grocery store (these interactions almost always happened at the grocery store) a random middle aged woman started commenting on how verbal Lorien was for being such a young age.  I agreed with her, and then the woman said that she could bet I was already getting tired of hearing "mama, mama, mama" all the time.  I told her, as I had told many, many other inquiring women, that she didn't say mama yet.  Yes, she could say ball, man, book, doggie etc, but no mama.  The woman turned from Lorien and looked sharply at me, "Well, she must not care for you very much then, huh?"  That was by far the most directly any woman had antagonized me before, and I found myself answering out loud the questions I had been wondering about Lorien's 'mama silence' for a couple of months. "No, I don't think that's it at all.  I think, well, I think that I am so in synch with her needs, and anticipating them, that she just doesn't have any reason to say my name."  The woman had no idea what to say to that, and she walked away with a stunned and superior looking expression on her face.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon contemplating and fleshing out what I had said to her.  I'm sure it sounded arrogant or presumptuous, but I said it to her in a very calm manner and I discovered it was true as I was saying it.  That child really didn't need to say my name. I think using the parent directed feeding method really succeeded in making me in tune with her, and for many many months I pretty much anticipated her needs before she even had the chance to request anything.  I realized that she didn't say any verbs whatsoever, only nouns.  I had been wondering why she would never use her sign language to say "more", and I finally realized it was because I always gave her more before she ever needed to ask.  She didn't start saying more until I told her that I wouldn't give her anymore unless she asked for things.

And the beautiful thing about this, to me, was that this anticipation of her needs came naturally and in a very healthy way for me.  I was not and am not an attachment parenting mom.  Both my children have done their fair share of crying it out when I know that it is for their best interest and long term good.  I love being their mama, and I love loving them and meeting their needs.  And I stand amazed at the mama instincts that I had no idea I have that have allowed me to predetermine and meet needs so well that my firstborn didn't even need to say my name.

This, however, is proving difficult with two children.  I read once, on a blog of a woman who is a mother of eight, about how hard it is to learn that you cannot always meet all of your children's needs all of the time.  Sometimes, you just can't.  There isn't enough mama to go around (especially with 8 kids!).  I am already finding this to be true, and it is so hard not to be weighed down with guilt when you are actively very busy meeting the basic physical needs of your 2 month old (i.e. feeding her) while the two year old is crying hysterically in her bedroom for some unknown reason, or you're busy making and supervising lunch and starting the nap time routine for the older one and the baby starts sobbing in her crib.  Sometimes, you just can't be two places at once, no matter how badly you long to be!

I have spent a number of hours frustrated and condemned by this in the past couple of weeks, and finally, in all my praying that the Lord would help each child to be content long enough for me to meet the needs of all of them, I finally had the revelation that what I should be praying for is the wisdom, grace, and new strategy to parent two children as best as I can to the glory of God, and not trying to parent as if I am just parenting one child anymore.  It is me who needs to grow, not necessarily either one of them who needs to change.  Brighton -- she is going to wake up 45 minutes into her nap and cry sometimes.  It's just life.  And Lorien -- she is going be occasionally jealous and rebellious as she adjusts to no longer being the center of attention and will sometimes get a boo boo that I can't give all my attention to because I am nursing her little sister.  And that is ok.

I get to learn to parent two children to the best of my ability, and learn to entrust my children to God's care when I cannot help.  Sometimes Lorien will cry alone in her room, afraid of who knows what, or perhaps just mad that she knows I'm leaving her to her nap to go get Brighton up.  And I won't be able to soothe those fears as immediately as I'd like, but I can and do pray for the Holy Spirit to be her Comforter, and for His voice to speak more loudly than any emotion she feels or lie she may be believing.  Moreover, sometimes Brighton will cry longer in her bed than I would have ever have allowed Lorien to cry in bed because I am in the middle of putting Lorien down for her nap, or cleaning up a boo boo, or consoling her.  And all of this is ok because I am doing all that I can for both of my girls to the best of my ability (and beyond that by God's grace and strength!).

I have spent too many moments feeling frantic inside, that I'm not doing enough, and not doing it well enough.  And finally, I quiet myself long enough to stop praying and just listen to Him.  And the voice of truth speaks into my life and bring timely truth and peace.  I'm guessing I'll hear "mama" a lot earlier on from this little one than I did from Lorien.  But that is more than OK, because I get to be mama to both of these wonderful and precious girls. And I would never trade one for the other.

Note to self:  I've got to learn to anticipate and pray about the internal changes in me that come with new seasons of life. Being prepared to the hilt for the externals of change (marriage, moving, job changes, babies) doesn't do a whole lot of good for me if I've not considered how these external things will effect me on the inside.  Please stop learning this the hard way! :)

Tongue Tied Much?!

Until a couple of days ago, I had never even heard of a medical condition known in the vernacular as being tongue tied or lip tied.  But I had a very fun and enlightening conversation with my cousin's wife who has a baby boy, Blake, who is about 2 weeks older than Brighton.  She was telling me about having a lot of difficulty with nursing due to extreme pain, and that she ended up finding out that her son with both tongue and lip tied, as is his daddy.  In case you were in the dark on this one as I was, it is when that little thingy at the top of your mouth between your gums and your upper lip is connected too far down near your two front teeth.  Or in the case of being tongue tied, when the similar thingy beneath your tongue is incorrectly attached.  Kind of hard to explain...so perhaps a couple of pictures will help illuminate what exactly these "thingys" are. :)

Class II (closest to normal but still problematic)

what mine looks like

Class III 

what Lorien's looks like

Class IV (most severe)

what Brighton's looks like

Needless to say, these incorrectly attached "thingys", aka in the medical world as frenum, are incorrectly attached, it can cause all kinds of problems with breastfeeding, and then later on down the line with speech and placement of teeth, particularly the two front teeth.  And, yet, no one seems to ever talk about this!  Not lactation consultants, not pediatricians, not dentists.  Even though the fix to this problem is so quick and simple that a small baby doesn't even need any general anestesia when having them clipped. WHAT?!

So of course, this is wildly ridiculous.  But why, you may wonder, why does Christie care so personally about this topic that she feels the need to blog about it?!  Well, if you recall, I learned this from my cousin's wife, about her son and her husband.  And these traits are apparently genetic.  Doesn't take much to make the connection, though it did take my genius self 3 days to make it!  I too am tongue and lip tied, and so are both of my girls!  The things I don't know about myself and my children could apparently fill a book.

The thought to check into this for my family occurred to me because my husband Brian has a gap between his two front teeth, which is a classic sign of being lip tied.  My oldest daughter, Lorien, also has this huge gap and very crooked two front teeth.  So I checked my husband a couple of days ago, but he doesn't have this problem and so I forgot about it.  Then, this afternoon as I was putting Lorien down for her nap, I suddenly remembered and much to my shock, found that her lip connector thingy is almost all the way down to where her teeth start to grow from her gums!

My sweet girl had such a hard time learning to nurse, took no less than 45 min. to nurse every time she took to the breast, could never drain off all my milk even for all that time, and had a fair amount of difficulty gaining weight.  Lactation consultants confirmed that her latch was good, and both the pediatrician and my ob/gyn said that my milk supply was great, so I was reassured that I shouldn't worry or be concerned.  And frankly, no one, including myself, seemed all that taken aback by how painful it was, or I would get lumps in my breasts from time to time.  I mean, I knew that breastfeeding isn't supposed to be easy, so I just thought it came with the territory I guess.

This knowledge makes my heart so sad.  Could Lorien has nursed easily and received much more milk, much more quickly for the 14 months she nursed?  Why yes.  I do believe she could have.  Could she be above the 25 percentile for her weight?  Likely so!  Could her teeth have grown in straight?  Quite likely.

As soon as she went down for her nap, I went to get up Brighton to nurse.  She has had so many less problems with nursing, that it just started to seem to make sense that most of Lorien's nursing/weight gain problems had probably come from being lip and tongue tied even more than from being a preemie.  I was so surprised I started texting my cousin, Cindy, about this while I was nursing Brighton.  Then, all of a sudden, a lightbulb went off, and I checked Brighton's mouth.  And lo, and behold!  Her's is the same way too!

My cousin must think I'm a real genius, because she was getting the real time texts...Oh my gosh!  Brighton has it too!  Wait!  Are you kidding me?  I have it!

While Brighton is much bigger and healthier, and doesn't have nearly as much difficulty with nursing as Lorien did, I still have noticed a few peculiarities with the way she nurses.  Sometimes she seems to struggle to establish a good latch.  And other times, rather than trying to latch on, she will just suck in as hard as she can to get my nipple in her mouth.  This concerns me for when she gets teeth, so I asked her pediatrician about it, and he didn't know what to make of it and suggested that she might outgrow it as she gets older.  So far, that hasn't happened.  And she struggles to get a good latch, especially when she is tired...which would be mostly in the evenings.  The biggest side effect she has shown so far is not sleeping well at night.  I have tried everything I know to figure out why in the world this girl wants to eat all night long, and have managed to cut her back quite a bit, but she still consistently wakes up hungry.  And I think I now know why.

I don't know any of the details about what it will take to get her to someone who can help correct this problem for her, but I sure don't want this to go on and on.  And I don't know yet if it is even worthwhile to try and correct it for Lorien now that she is no longer nursing.  I will have to find out, and post info as I learn it if anyone is interested.

Mostly, I'm just shocked that this problem exists, is so prevalent, and is so easy to fix.  And yet, I repeat, NO ONE KNOWS about it!

Swinging Through the Trees

This whole postpartum recovery thing has not been a walk in the park.  I still really want to write my birth stories so that all this can make more sense in context and so that I'll have them written down, but it just takes so much time, I haven't gotten to it yet.  I mean seriously, when does a mama with a 6 week old and a two year old have time to sit down and write a story out from start to finish? And thats how I work.  I really want to do it all at once.  We'll get there.  Eventually.

For the meantime, I'm thinking about how crazy this past 6 weeks has been.  I've had a bladder infection that lasted over 3 weeks and took 3 different rounds of antibiotics to clear it up, including a majorly itchy allergic reaction to one of those meds.  This was followed up by a yeast infection that has been going strong for a few weeks after 2 rounds of meds.  I still haven't stopped bleeding.  Last time they had to put me on antibiotics and some other fun drug that simulates your entire menstrual cycle in 24 hours to get the bleeding to stop.  But since I've been on so many antibiotics they don't want to do that just yet.  So we're waiting another 4 weeks.  Whats another 4 weeks of bleeding when you've already been bleeding for 6?!  Of course, none of this includes any of the drama of the first week after Brighton was born.

First there was the engorgement.  Doctor said it was the worst of any patient he's ever seen in all the time he has practiced, and he called in literally everyone on the medical staff to come and take a look.  Then there was the very deep episiotomy I had, and how unhappy feeling that first week was with that.  And let's not forget the site of the botched epidural that got all inflamed and put so much pressure on surrounding nerves that I literally almost passed out if/when I or anyone else touched it.  The day of Brighton's first doctors appointment I was in so much pain from all 3 of these things that I couldn't stand, couldn't sit, and couldn't lay down.  I didn't know that was humanly possible, but now that I do, I'll never forget what that was like.  And of course the doctor was taking forever.  By the time he finally came in to see us, I was propped up on a counter just trying to stay on my feet.  Fortunately, these things were the short lived part.  All resolved within the first week of my sweet little girl's new life.  Praise Jesus for that!

But its the lingering things that have been the most difficult.  And then I got a call from the doctor that my lab work came back with my thyroid off again.  With my medication, I've swung to being quite hyperthyroid at this point.  They switched up the dose of my meds, but it takes about 2 weeks to fully take effect.  In retrospect, I have been a bit high strung the past month or so (I'm guessing Brian would say VERY high strung), and I bet we have found the culprit here.  A hyper thyroid does exactly what it sounds like...speeds everything up.  I haven't been depressed.  I've been on emotional speed!  If I am happy, I couldn't be happier!  But if I'm mad, you had better watch out.  Lorien keeps waking Brighton up yelling in the hall outside her room, and I finally realized last night that it's just not appropriate (not to mention sinful) to want to bash your child in the head for disturbing your other child.  Nor is it appropriate to wish that your crawl space were a dungeon you could banish them to.  And even after realizing this, I couldn't get a level head.  I was just plain livid.  So. Not. Like. Me.

Oh thyroid.  Please stop.  Go back to my normal.  Or a new normal.  Just chill out long enough for us to figure out the correct dosage of my meds.  And bleeding.  Please stop.  I mean seriously, you've done your job.  Chill out.  And yeast infection.  I'm not even speaking to you anymore.  So take a hint. I'm done with all of you.  And so very ready to get back to normal life. Because I love it.  And I am so blessed beyond what I could have ever dreamed up.  And I really just want to enjoy my life to the fullest, thankyouverymuch!