Downs

• Calvin consistently starts waking up around 4:30 each morning. This means he’ll cry for about 10 minutes, go to sleep for 20 and repeat until he decides he really is ready to get up. It is routine enough that I’m now starting to wake up just before he starts crying. I had trouble going to sleep after that in anticipation of the next bought of crying.

Ups

• Calvin was in a very good mood today. He barely cried at all.
• So far, I’m liking the new schedule. I seem to be more productive at work which makes the rest of the day feel more better.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin has started doing some serious toddling without any support. He walked about 1/2 the living room several times today without stumbling.

Simplification

• Shredded a stack of old receipts from 2008.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Oatmeal with raisins and soy milk
• Lunch – A toasted cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread
• Snack – 3 dark chocolate pieces
• Supper – Asparagus, Red Pepper, and Tofu Stir-Fry over Brown Rice
• Evening Treat – A cup of hot chocolate

Downs

• N/A

Ups

• Today was Calvin’s first day to try the morning daycare shift. It went better than I had feared. I made his breakfast the night before so I had plenty of time to feed him and let him play a little bit before taking him to daycare. When I picked him up, daycare reported he had done very well. With the new schedule, he is taking his nap about 3 hrs later than previously and I was worried he’d have a melt down. However, he managed to get an hour of sleep which isn’t bad with all the distractions around daycare. I picked him up at 2:30 and then made his meals for tomorrow. Around 4, I took Calvin to the park in his backpack carrier. Normally, I would have used the Becco carrier or the BOB stroller. However, I’m trying to get Calvin more use to the backpack carrier so we can go on longer hikes without him getting fussy. Anyway, Calvin had lots of fun at the park, especially once the other toddlers arrived.
• We had our science fiction book club at Erie library this evening. Only Jaeger and I had actually read Affinity Bridge so there wasn’t a lot of discussion. We both concluded in was an amusing but not particularly compelling story. A nice breather for after a more intense book. Next month, we’re going to read Boneshaker which is a Hugo nominee. Personally, I’m not very thrilled by the idea of yet another steampunk novel, they seem to be getting out of control, but Jaeger and Zan Lynx were interested in it. Plus, it’s hard to resist a book that Publishers Weekly claims showcases “a phenomenal strong female protagonist.”

Calvin Moment

• I think I’ve mentioned before that Calvin loves people. When we were at the park, Calvin spent a lot of time trotting up to an older toddler, grinning, and then trotting away to find the next toddler to stalk.

Simplification

• Didn’t have time to do anything tonight. While Calvin’s new schedule seems to work well for him, I’m losing about 2 hrs of more normal productive time because he now is taking his nap at daycare. I’m not sure how I’m going to balance this yet.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Oatmeal with banana, soy milk, and honey
• Morning Snack – 5 triscuits
• Lunch – Pea Soup and a peanut butter & jam sandwich
• Snack – 3 dark chocolate pieces
• Supper – Black Beans over Yams and Garlic Green beans with 2 cookies for dessert
• Evening Treat – 1 piece of dark chocolate

Downs

• On Friday, daycare had an in-service day so I had to take the day off to take care of Calvin. It started out ok. Calvin was a little fussy before his nap but that isn’t unusual. However, he ended up fussing the rest of the day also. I did have a couple hours of quiet when we went to the library. Calvin loves the library and all the staff that fawn over him. Oddly enough, once Jaeger got home, Calvin perked up and was very enthusiastic and didn’t want to go to bed at his normal time.
• Somewhat related to Calvin being home, I ate a huge amount of food on Friday. When Calvin’s crying, I always feel like I need extra energy to be able to deal with him. After Calvin went to bed, I then felt like I needed an energy boost. I think I ate 1/2 a bag of milk chocolate chips by myself.

Ups

• I introduced Calvin to peanut butter on Friday and, so far, he hasn’t had any adverse reactions.
• Based on Yanthor’s recommendation, I checked out the first season of The Big Bang Theory and finished watching it Friday night. That was the highlight of my day.
• On Saturday night, I left Calvin with Jaeger and went to a “Ladies Fondue Night.” One of the young mothers in our church made 6 different types of fondue (3 savory and 3 dessert) and we all brought dipping items. It was very nice and I learned all sorts of useful things about the problems of houses built on “expansive soil” and tips about potty training. There was also the mother of 2 1/2 year old twins there which made me feel like a wimp because I have trouble surviving with just one kid.
• Today, Jaeger got up with Calvin so I got to sleep in.

Calvin Moment

• Currently, Calvin really enjoys crawling into things. In addition to crawling in and out of the container for his toys, he also enjoyed stepping into a box in his bedroom. Jaeger has an amusing picture of Calvin sitting in the box clutching the edge like he expects it to start moving at any moment.

Simplification

• Didn’t actually throw anything out but I did create a meal plan for Calvin for the week. Usually, I just look in the fridge and whiz up whatever seems appropriate. I try to get a good mix of proteins, grains, and vegetables but I’m never sure how good I’m doing. Now, I have a plan. (We’ll have to see how long it takes to fail).

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Pancakes with berries and whipped cream
• Morning Snack – 1 Graham Cracker
• Lunch – Spinach and cheese dish over brown rice
• Snack – 2 dark chocolate pieces
• Supper – 2 pieces of toast with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon

Downs

• N/A

Ups

• Calvin was in a good mood most of this morning. After breakfast, he sat quietly in my lap for several minutes while we read stories. Then he played around in the living until it was time for our mini-morning walk and his nap.
• I had 1/2 hour extra after I finished cleaning the house today. So I actually had a leisurely lunch before heading to work at Erie (normally I eat while I work to save time).

Calvin Moment

• Calvin is actually starting to “eat” with his spoon. That is, he understands the basic concept but has trouble actually getting food in his mouth. I was making a big deal and clapping every time he managed to get the spoon in his mouth which he really loved. It was obvious that he was repeating the actions because of the praise.

Simplification

• Threw out an old jar of bath salts.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Steel-cut oats with berries, and soy milk
• Morning Snack – 8 milk chocolate chips and a graham cracker
• Lunch – Pea Soup with 2 pieces of garlic bread spread with margarine and 1 piece dark chocolate
• Snack – 3 dark chocolate pieces
• Supper – 1 1/2 servings of Asparagus Ravioli with Marinara sauce and a dark chocolate piece
• After Dinner Treat – 3 Kiwi

Exercise

• 15 min walk around the neighborhood with Calvin on my back
• 15 min ab exercises

It has now been over one year since Calvin was born. In celebration of this momentious occasion, I decided it was time to figure out how much we spent on him. Since February 2009, when I started acquiring baby stuff, we have spent around $5,000 on Calvin. This number does not include any medical visits, daycare, jarred baby food, or gifts we were given. In addition, this doesn’t include the cost of the extra seat we pay for whenever we fly to visit our parents (we choose to buy Calvin his own seat as it is generally deemed safer than being a lap-infant). Here’s a breakdown of the more expensive items we have bought:

Medical Costs
I had a lot of abnormal things happen in the course of my pregnancy. That, coupled with Jaeger’s phenominal health insurance, makes my numbers meaningless for anyone else. I went back and counted and it looks like we visited the pediatrician’s office about 12 times in the past year. Most of these were routine checkups but a couple were due to Calvin being sick. However, he is a pretty healthy baby so we didn’t need many sick visits.

Daycare Costs
Most daycare centers will not take part-time infants. As a result, not only did we take a pay cut when I went to part-time work but we had to pay for full-time daycare. Since Calvin started daycare in late May, we have paid just over $12,000 in daycare expenses. We probably would have paid significantly less for in-home daycare. However, I didn’t know anyone offering the service and couldn’t find any personal referrals so I didn’t feel as comfortable with that option. While it’s a lot of money, I’m very happy with the daycare center Calvin is currently in.

Things we were given and didn’t have to pay for

• Infant Car Seat
• Snap N’ Go Stroller – amazing
• Changing Table
• Activity Center – essential for when you need to shower
• Many, many toys
• Many clothes
• Bassinet – though I bought a new mattress for it

If you’re amused by my recitation of infant expenses, you might also like poking around at the Cost of Raising a Child Calculator from the USDA.

Downs

• I’m gaining weight again I think I need to once again take a serious look at my snacking and portion sizes.

Ups

• Jaeger’s mom and I gave Willow a bath today and we all survived! I followed the directions from this site and it worked better than I feared. The poor thing was completely traumatized from the event but she was so dirty from her experience yesterday that I didn’t have a choice. She needed a bath. We used our kitchen sink and I held her while Jaeger’s mom scrubbed. We both wore thick jackets and gloves to avoid getting clawed. She appeared to forgive me after a couple of hours and cuddled up next to me as I worked.

Simplification

• Threw a stack of old yogurt containers that had been stored in the basement into the recycle bin. I’m not sure why I saved them as we never have any shortage of these containers.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin had fun walking outside today. With my help, he walked up and down the steps to our house. As he walked up the steps, he would make a noise that sounded similar to “up.” However, he made the same noise as he walked down the steps.
• Calvin has started moving his hand in a motion that looks like the “princess wave.” He holds his arm up and rotates his wrist back and forth. It is very amusing to watch.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Steel-cut oats with berries, honey, and soy milk
• Lunch – A little bit of brown rice, 1/2 a spinach quiche, a couple of carrots, and same tomatoes
• Snack – 2 dark chocolate pieces and 16 milk chocolate chips
• Supper – Tofu with Spinach over Brown Rice, Garlic Green Beans, Red Bell Peppers, and leftover Carrot Cake for dessert

Downs

• Saturday morning Calvin woke up a little past 3:30am. I got him to doze a bit by rocking him but by 5:30 he was completely up.
• I finally got a collar for 5 and so was able to put the city cat licenses on both of the cats. It was such a nice day that I decided to let them outside for a bit. 5 went outside, sunned herself for a bit and then came back in. However, Willow decided to wander off. She still isn’t back. I hope she’s ok. UPDATE: I found Willow. Our porch was built over concrete steps that came with the house. The earth under the concrete has eroded to form a little hole. It turns out that Willow was stuck under the concrete steps. I went outside to call to her and heard her meowing (though I had called before and hadn’t heard her previously). I suspect she got spooked by something and burrowed herself under the steps and then couldn’t get herself out. I crawled under the porch and expanded the hole a bit. Then, I got her to stretch her head far enough forward that I could grab the back of her neck. With some careful rotating, I managed to pull her out. However, now she’s filthy. She needs a bath but I didn’t want to traumatize her more tonight. Instead, I washed her off as best as I could with a damp washcloth and brushed her. I’ve put her in the basement for the night and will reevaluate the situation tomorrow.

Ups

• Jaeger got up with Calvin this morning. Jaeger’s parents are still here and they watched Calvin for much of the day as I did useful things like grocery shopping and then Jaeger and I went out for ice cream.
• We opened presents for Calvin after his morning nap. Nana, Jaeger’s mom, got him a little wagon that he can pull around that also came with blocks. He had a lot of fun playing with that today.

Simplification

• Organized Calvin’s toy collection. Or, more precisely, I made suggestions while Jaeger’s mom organized Calvin’s toys.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin actually petted 5 gently this morning a couple of times. He lightly brushed her fur instead of banging his hand like he use to. Hopefully this is a new skill he has mastered.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Potatoes O’Brien and Apple, Peach, Cranberry Crumble.
• Lunch – A couple pieces of cheese and some triscuits
• Supper – A potato curry burrito
• Evening Snack – A hot fudge sundae with mint ice cream

Downs

• N/A

Ups

• Today is Calvin’s birthday. It’s amazing how much he’s grown in just a year.
• Jaeger’s parents are here for Calvin’s birthday and Nana took care of Calvin most of the day while I worked on everything on my to-do list. I made Calvin a Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese frosting, which we’ll serve tomorrow for lunch, and also was able to finish most of the other meal items for tomorrow. In addition, I’m playing for church so I put in some more last minute practicing. Playing at church always fascinates me because my perception of how well I did rarely coincides with everyone else. It’s not uncommon for me to get sincere lavish compliments for a piece I really messed up. I haven’t had enough time to practice this week so hopefully tomorrow is another case where people’s perceptions don’t meld with reality.
• Calvin had his 1-year checkup today. The doctor said he’s doing very well. He’s right at 50th percentile for height, length, and head circumference. We’re still struggling with Calvin eating textured food but the doctor said to keep trying. I’ve also been given permission to start introducing peanut butter to Calvin! In addition, the doctor said to start introducing Calvin to whole milk instead of formula as soon as I run out of my current formula stockpile. Unfortunately, I just bought another 4 packs from Costco.

Simplification

• Didn’t have time to do anything today.

Calvin Moment

• Sunday, we went to Costco and I bought a large pack of diapers for Calvin for daycare. I brought it in to the house but it was still languishing by the piano on Wednesday. Calvin crawled over to the box and discovered that if he stood on it, he was at a perfect level to bang on the piano. Once I saw this, I moved the box into a slightly better position and for the last couple of days he has entertained himself for quite a while each day playing on the piano.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – 9 grain cereal with berries, soy milk, and honey
• Lunch – Sweet potato Curry with Rice
• Snack – Snacking while I made the cake and dinner items for tomorrow
• Supper – A large burrito
• Evening Snack – 1 cookie

Downs

• I accidentally ruined Calvin’s morning nap. Often, he’ll wake up for a couple of minutes 20-30 min into his nap. He’ll cry a little bit and then settle down and go back to sleep. Today, he woke up shrieking. It sounded like he was in real pain so I bounded up the stairs and cuddled him in the rocker by his bed. Well, he might have been in real pain, I can’t really say. However, he quickly recovered and decided he wanted to play with mommy instead of going back to sleep.

Ups

• This is the first day since Wednesday that Calvin didn’t require an outfit change due to various bodily secretions.
• I mostly got back into my normal routine. I had a dentist appointment today so I didn’t work as much but other than that, everything appears to be back to normal. Hopefully it will stay that way.
• Yesterday, we got a babysitter and Jaeger and I went to Costco and then hung out at a Starbuck’s reading before heading back home. It was nice to get out and not have to worry about Calvin.

Simplification

• Yesterday, I reorganized our fiction bookshelves. We’ve been running out of room on our “favorites” bookshelf downstairs so I had to move some of those book upstairs. Unfortunately, I was also out of room upstairs which is a little sad since we got 2 large bookcases just last year. Part of this is probably due to the massive book buying binge I went on a couple of weeks ago. It’s dangerous to be employed at the library since we get a very nice discount on books. In any case, it was time for a weeding project. I discarded 27 books which gave me just enough room for the books from downstairs.

Calvin Moment

• Some of the books I discarded were in such bad shape that I didn’t think they were even good enough for the thrift store. Originally, I was going to give them to Jaeger to take to the hard-to-recycle place in Boulder. However, it occurred to me that Calvin might like playing with them. I was right. Calvin had a blast opening the books, trying to turn the pages, and moving them in and out of the box. Some of the books were pretty thick and probably weighed a couple of pounds. It was really funny to watch Calvin holding these books with two hands like he was using them for weight lifting.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Oatmeal with peaches and soymilk
• Lunch – Cliff Mojo bar, triscuits and cheese and bread
• Snack – 2 pieces of dark chocolate
• Evening Snack – 2 cookies

Downs

• Calvin has been sick for the last couple of days. Daycare called me Thursday afternoon to come take him home and since then, he has been alternating diarrhea with vomiting a couple times a day. The most spectacular incident occurred this morning when he threw up while in the carrier on my back. That was very messy. Fortunately, he seems in a pretty good mood most of the time and doesn’t appear to be getting dehydrated.

Ups

• Calvin was in a pretty good mood today. I didn’t take him to church just in case he’s infectious so we all hung out at home and relaxed. Well, we relaxed as much as one can with an infant.
• Took a quick trip to the library and picked up 8 new books. Part of the problem with working for the library is I see all sorts of interesting books come through. I put holds on them and then when they arrive, I’m not sure when I’m going to have time to read them. However, one of the holds was the Apple Turnover Murder audio book by Joanne Fluke. This is one of my favorite cozy mystery series to listen to. In my opinion, the mysteries are secondary to the fun characters and food descriptions. This is a great series to listen to because if I want to make any of the recipes listed at the end of each chapter, I’d have to take the time to first transcribe them.
• Ordered a potty chair for Calvin. One of the books I picked up was Diaper-Free Before 3 and I was excited to see that Lekovic, the author, recommended the potty chair I had already been considering for Calvin.

Calvin Moment

• Thursday I brought Calvin home from daycare and we went for a walk outside (even though he’s “sick” he’s still pretty energetic). He was holding on to my figures as we walked down the path behind our house. Every so often, he would stop, bounce on his legs, and then look at me expectantly. Obligingly, I would jump up and down which at which point he would break into delighted giggles. We continued this way for almost 20 minutes.

Simplification

• Cleaned up a lot of the stuff that has been accumulating on Calvin’s bookshelf. We moved all the picture books to another room (he finds them interesting but at this point tends to tear the pages) and distributed various other papers and booklets to either Calvin for destruction or the recycle bin.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – 2 pieces of French Toast with Peanut Butter and Maple Syprup
• Lunch – Pasta in a butter garlic sauce, Asparagus, and Rosemary bread with a tiny portion of chocolate pudding for dessert
• Snack – 3 pieces of dark chocolate
• Supper – Cornbread with butter and honey