Saturday, January 7, 2017

new year, same excuses

So...a happy New Year is in order, it seems?? Ha! So much for all those long, newsy, insightful blogs I'd planned for the end of 2016. What a shame. Don't worry, I don't plan to quit blogging...I'm just too busy/lazy to do it with any sort of regularity, apparently. 

Moving on! To summarize the end of 2016...let's see, there was a heartbreaking election. There were (are) terrible atrocities taking place all over the world and throughout our country. That's kind of all I remember. Maybe that's why I don't feel like writing anymore. I feel silly writing about my adorable child and generally happy life when there is so much real hurt and pain and injustice. It feels trite and trivial. I prefer to lose myself in fiction, to be honest, so that's what I spend most of my nights doing. I guess that led to one noteworthy thing: I read 31 books in 2016! Yay me. My goal was 40, so I did fall a little short, but I feel pretty good about 31. My goal for 2017 will remain 40, and so far I'm working on #3, so I'm off to a good start. (Side note for the book lovers or other people who would like to escape reality for a few hours: it seems that my reading "kick" for 2016 was books that took place in occupied European countries during WWI/WWII. I can't get enough of them!! A few of my favorites/top recommendations are All the Light We Cannot See, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Life After Life, and The Girl You Left Behind. Anyone else read TGYLB? I just finished it last week and it blew my mind and I'm dying to talk to someone about it. SO GOOD!!!!! Anyone have other recommendations in this genre?)

Annnnnyway. So I spend all my spare time reading. The end.

So I failed to blog about the super fun end-of-year holidays, which Millie found MOST exciting this year. I swear, she is SO MUCH FUN right now. She understands things, she remembers things (for better or for worse...like she remembers when I vaguely mention she can have a cookie later if she _______...and homegirl will CALL ME OUT on that!! Ha.), she anticipates things....it's awesome!! So Christmas was particularly fun.


We finally fulfilled my lifelong dream of matching family jammies!! And as it turns out, these were actually really comfy, too, so we all wear them basically all the time. Oh, and Millie will sometimes call us "mama bear" and "papa bear" now, so that's pretty much the funniest thing ever. JAMMY WIN!


We didn't make it to see Santa this year. Well, Millie sorta did...from a distance, with my mother-in-law, and she was fine checking him out from afar, but when it was her turn to sit in his lap, she (semi-predictably) freaked out and was hysterical. Thankfully, my MIL didn't make her sit in his lap and just let her leave, but for days, all Millie could talk about was "NO LIKE HO-HO-HO!!! I NO SIT ON HO-HO-HO! I CRY!! HO-HO-HO BITE ME!!" and it just didn't seem worth it to me to try to inflict that trauma on her again when she so clearly was NOT INTERESTED (slash terrified). So no cute or crying Santa pics. Maybe next year, unless he (apparently) bites her again, ha.


She was MUCH more interested in any holiday traditions that involved food. This girl. We've certainly never had to worry about her going hungry! Food is her JAM!


We've also never had to worry about her lacking in personality or opinions. Her sweet daycare teacher describes her like this: "Oh, Millie always helps us know what we are doing. She tells the other children what they should do and not do. She knows where everything is and whose stuff everything is! She is a great leader!"....well, that's such a positive way of framing it. ;) Thank you, teachers! But seriously. She knows what's going on, and she will LET YOU KNOW if you step out of line. Ha!


Her big present from Mama & Papa Bear this year (not giving credit to mean old Ho Ho Ho!) was a dollhouse. She's a big fan, and I have high hopes that someday soon she will start playing with it in a way that makes sense to me. Instead of, you know, mixing in like eighteen genres of toys and various items from around the house...here in the dollhouse kitchen we have a dollhouse refrigerator, a dollhouse grandpa doll, a green Lego, a jar of yellow paint, an empty toilet paper roll, six used stickers, a Daniel Tiger figurine, an eyelash curler stolen from mama's makeup cabinet, and a dirty sock. And I'm harshly reprimanded if I try to move any of those things, because THEY ARE VERY IMPORTANT AND SHE IS PLAYING WITH THEM ALL. Excuse me for feeling slightly overwhelmed at the notion of tying all of those things in to a play storyline that makes any sense...


She is so silly and creative and (I hesitate to proclaim this for fear of jinxing us, but...) POTTY TRAINED as of very recently! I was kinda half-assing the potty training ever since about September, doing undies occasionally and pull-ups most of the time, but since we had some extended time off over the holidays, we finally really committed to the undies- even in public!!! and in the car!!!- and she's done great!! We still do pull-ups at night and naptime, but she actually wakes up dry most of the time (or wakes up and goes potty in the middle of the night) (with our help, because HECK YES she is still in her crib)! I'm so proud of her and we'll be going to collect her reward (getting her ears pierced) very soon.

Also, please note that apparently using the idea of being a "big girl" for all sorts of ideas and explanations has caused some confusion in her brain. And it's hilarious.

Exhibit A: We told her earrings are for "big girls" and that when she was going tee-tee on the potty all of the time and didn't wear baby pull-ups anymore, she would be a big girl and could get earrings (or "ear holes," as she calls it, since she understands that you have to first get special holes in your ears that you can put the earrings in!).

So understandably, every day or so, as soon as she finishes up using the bathroom, she reaches up and touches her ears, saying "I big girl! I tee-tee on potty! Where my ear holes?"

Exhibit B: As she was sitting on the potty one afternoon, I was sitting on the stool and leaning over towards her. Apparently my shirt was hanging down and exposing my cleavage a bit, so she reached out and pointed to one boob and had a slightly alarmed and curious look on her face as she asked "what dat?" "Oh...um, that's Mama's boobie!" She touched the other boob. "What dat?" "That's Mommy's other boobie." She touched her own chest. "Where my boobie?" "Ummm...you get boobies when you're a big girl." She looks up with panic in her eyes. "BUT I TEE-TEE ON THE POTTY!! I a big girl! Where my boobie??!" (Sorry, couldn't even hold it together after that one. She has inquired about/requested boobies several times since then, so I'm trying to come up with a better explanation for when she can get hers.)

Exhibit C: Sometimes you just don't want to be a big girl. Because as she's learned, Big Girls do not get pacis all the time (only at bed time! and in the car. and during breathing treatments.), and they sometimes have to do very terrible things like stop playing to go use the restroom, etc. So the other night, she very calmly sat me down and explained "I not big girl. I tiny! I need paci. I tiny!! I want dipe-dipe. Where my paci? I tiny. I NOT BIG GIRL! I no have ear holes."

Look at that tiny not-big-girl.
I mean, as fun as she was as a baby, this whole language thing is priceless. I just don't know how I ever lived without hearing her ridiculous commentary on life all the time. I've been going through some of her baby things lately (to pass down to a niece that will arrive any day now!) and it's so bittersweet, but I don't know if I'd go back to her being a baby, even if I could. She is just SO full of life and love and sweetness...I can't get enough of my not-quite big girl.


We were supposed to have a Significant Winter Weather Event last night, but I don't know, something happened and we didn't. Our whole town shut down at like noon on Friday, just in case!!!!!, and we got all prepared and I was SO optimistic I even went out and spent ungodly amounts of money on two cheap plastic sleds that were clearly marked up 3000% just for the rare event...and then we watched videos on YouTube of kids sledding...and then Millie was SO excited all night and we promised that when she woke up, we would play in the snow....and then we woke up and there was like a fraction of a millimeter of heavy frost on the grass. WOMP WOMP WOMP, biggest disappointment ever. But Millie was not to be deterred. We promised she could sled, so dammit, she was gonna sled. And she had a blast. And we went and had French toast brunch with some new friends, and the kids gathered microscopic handfuls of snow off the playground equipment in the backyard and marveled at it melting in their hands, and that's how our snow day went down today. It was pretty fabulous, minus the part where we totally got gypped on actually GETTING SNOW.

So that brings us pretty up-to-date. I'm going to save the sleds, because a) I'm an optimist at heart, and maybe- just maybe!!- we will have reason to use them sometime soon...and b) the sketchy store I bought them at doesn't do returns. ??????? and potentially c) I could always just save them and mark them up another million percent next time there's a chance of snow and turn a sweet lil profit off another desperate mama, huh? So, options. They're good to have.

So Happy New Year! I promise to try to do a better job sharing things here- but if I don't, feel free to follow me on Instagram or Facebook or- let's be honest- Goodreads, haha. If you've made it this far, I will reward you (??? haha) by asking a completely off-topic question to close: does anyone still actually balance their checkbook/somehow reconcile monthly expenses against a budget on a regular basis? I'll go first: I do. I save every receipt and have an Excel workbook that everything goes into (I update it usually twice a month; each time we get paid). But I've discovered that apparently not a lot of folks my age/stage do that anymore. I guess folks just keep a general eye on their bank balance and keep on rollin'?? So I'm just curious. Anyone else out there still carefully saving and recording every single stupid receipt like I am? It's so annoying and time-consuming and I hate it, but I can't think of another way to make sure that I stick within our budget(s)?? I have Mint, and it's really similar (but easier)...but I can't bring myself to not still do the stupid Excel thing. So please weigh in and either enlighten me to a better way or let me know I'm not alone in boring tediusville over here! 

28 comments:

  1. Dear Erika, Happy new year! Please don't feel silly sharing your amazing stories and pictures - it's exactly because the world can be a dark and sad place we need to hear wonderful things too. I have read every post you wrote since I found your blog (before Millie came along) and it is always exciting when you pop up in my blog feed.

    My son is a few days younger than Millie and it's so much fun to read about someone a similar age. I imagine little ones with mums who blog reading what we wrote when they are older, how much will they love having such a sweet and personal record (most of the time, Sam might roll his eyes at some of my posts about his babyhood!)

    So whenever you do post, know there are people who will truly love to read your words.

    PS I am totally an excel spreadsheet girl when it comes to finance, with a tab for each month and blocking out cells as money gets spent. I should probably find a better tool but I find it hard to let go of my spreadsheet comfort blanket : )

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  2. This made my day! I especially love the part about using the potty, ear holes, and boobies. Too funny! Please keep sharing these little things. It's so nice to be able to hop online and read something happy and positive for a change. Happy New Year to you, Matt, and Millie!

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    1. Thanks, Megan!! I will try to keep it up...as long as Millie keeps being funny! ;)

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  3. I agree that language explosion is the best yet stage with my toddler. As for expense tracking, we put everything on a rewards credit card, which we pay off monthly. We look over each statement to verify that we recognize all the charges, and we have a total dollar amount that we want to stay under, but we don't balance or reconcile anything.

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    1. That's a great idea! We also put as much as we can on a rewards card...but then I still go through the tedious task of moving the money around on Excel. Hahaha. Not so efficient. I need to be less of a control freak, maybe??! :) (Sorry, I couldn't find your email address- maybe you will see this??!)

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  4. Oh! You need to get YNAB. I did the excel thing and it took forever. And then Tom took over and just looked at the bank account and it was awful. YNAB is really similar to an excel sheet but you can do a lot of it as you go on your phone. So you have much more control that Mint, which I really hated.

    Millie is so cute I can't stand it. And she is the reason I'm never afraid of Abbie getting older because Millie always makes six months from now look glorious!

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  5. WW2 books are my jam! Read War Brides, Lilac Girls, and The Nightingale-all awesome. The Millie big girl stories are the absolute best!! We are a 'glance at the bank statements' family. I tried for 1 month to plot everything and made it maybe 20 days ha!

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  6. Yea for WWII books! I am reading Prague Winter right now, about Madeleine Albright's childhood in Czechoslovakia. Also, please let Millie know that,sadly, even when she becomes a big BIG girl she may not ever get boobies...sigh... ;)

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  7. Waiting to hear your take on Gilmore Girls Revival!

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  8. Happy New Year in the blogiverse to you! Glad you have been doing fun things with your time instead of blogging! Although if you blog about nothing else this year, just keep the Millie quotes coming, because those are the best things to look back on. Oh and yes, we still reconcile monthly expenses on a regular basis - we keep every receipt and manually enter in an Excel spreadsheet, too, except I enter them on a daily basis. It may seem like a hassle, but it's so quick to just enter in a couple at a time and that way if there was anything I didn't get a receipt for, it's still fresh on my brain. But whatever works is best!

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  9. Love reading about your success in potty training with such great parenting skills and positive reinforcement for your daughter in achieving this goal. Love your Exhibit A when you said, "... she reaches up and touches her ears, saying "I big girl! I tee-tee on potty! Where my ear holes?" Mommy, sounds likes it time for her to get those beautiful, little ears pierced so she can ear "pretties" like her mommy.

    Will look forward to reading about her adventure getting her special "ear holes" soon.Since your close doing it, let me know if you need our ped's suggestions for moms having their daughter's ears pierced again and I'll resend to you.

    She will be adorable with "big girl earring and be very proud of her accomplishment in becoming a "big girl!"

    Amy
    amyswor1765@gmail.com

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  10. Thanks for the update! Millie sounds like an absolute blast to be around. What a funny, smart big girl/not-big girl! :)

    I live in Cleveland, OH so the south amuses me with their "major snow events". I do understand though that your cities just don't have the equipment and procedures to clean it up efficiently. In Cleveland a major snow event would probably start at 12+ inches accumulation for anything to be considered being shut down or people leaving work early. Here it snows and life goes on. We commute in it and live life as usual. That's good and bad of course. I'd love a snow day but they rarely happen for working adults. School closings for extreme cold and heavy snow are more common.

    We have about 3-4 inches on the ground right now. Millie would love it!

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    1. Yes, it is quite different!! I was actually born in Cleveland (moved to GA when I was 2), and there are pictures of the snow being as tall as I was...but apparently I lost my ability to function in the cold as soon as my family moved south, haha!! :) Millie for sure would LOVE it!

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  11. Oh and I meant to answer your financial question too, but forgot! Here's our system. I tried the keeping every receipt thing and just couldn't keep up. It was time consuming, so here's what we do.

    We have two checking accounts through the same bank. One account is a bill account and all essential bills are paid out of that account. This is things like our mortgage, gas, elcetricity, internet etc... The other checking account is monthly spending. So stuff like car gas, groceries, eating out, clothing etc... For the spending account we have our bank's app on our phones and it sends us a phone notification every day with the balance of the account so we know what it is. This system is working well for us because we budgeted for the bill expenses so no matter what the money for those is in that account each month. We round up so a bit of extra money ends up the bill account which has proven to be an easy extra emergency fund that builds up. The money is automatically deposited into the bill and spending accounts from our pay checks. Hope that all makes sense!

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    1. That seems like a really good system!! Thanks for sharing!! (Sorry for replying here...I couldn't find your email address to reply that way!! No idea if you will even see this!!)

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    2. Just saw it because your blog sent me an email about a new comment. Small world that you were born in Cleveland!

      The financial system does work well for us. After seeing another comment I am tempted to try YNAB but I'm pretty sure my husband will not be up for it. We tried minted and hated it. I think we'll always stay with the two bank account system even if we eventually change the way we track our spending. It's really nice to seperate out bills and spending expenses.

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  12. I am probably really doing it the old way. I have a little journal type book that I write every transaction down in. I feel like once we started writing it all down it held us more accountable for what we spent. I use one page for all the bills that month then the following pages are for deducting everything. I have a section for each month. We have been doing this probably 4-5 years now and I would be lost now without my book! haha I still log into our account several times daily because you just never know when something fraudulent will come through. Oh that Millie cracks me up!! I can't wait for Bowen to start talking!!

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  13. Yay! You're blogging again! Yes to all the reading. And yes, sorta, to the excel. I was doing that but the Mr. was all, "no, there's mint for that! Save your time!" So I stopped. And our budgets, while still being good, were not on point as I want them to be. Currently searching for a hybrid method combining the two methods.

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  14. I totally keep an Excel spreadsheet (or 3, because 1 checking & 2 savings) and also keep a checkbook. And a separate budget breaking down what each paycheck is going toward. Most people our age do nothing but check their online balance every once in a while, but I do all of it weekly. It's nerdy and time consuming, but also helped us to save from $0 after IVF (boo) to fully funded for adoption (yay) in one year. We don't make a ton of money so that was a big dang deal, and hence I shall continue the madness.

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    1. Um, that is AWESOME!! You should keep about 10 excel spreadsheets (and maybe like start offering classes or something!!) with those kinds of results!! ;) Congratulations and good luck!!!

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  15. I really like your sweet little owl ornament. This is evidence of true love.

    Also, Millie should really work on looking less impressed with life.

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  16. Okay, I have to tell you a few things:
    1. Your blog is one of the only things on the entire internet that can make me laugh SO HARD that I truly CRY TEARS because I am laughing THAT hard!

    2. I am not surprised that Millie is so fun/funny because YOU are, too! And it seems like Matt is, too. Just a cool, funny family you've got there.

    3. Every time I hear Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" (which was a ton of times this past Christmas season because I only listened to the oldies station that plays Christmas music here from Thanksgiving-Christmas) I burst out laughing thinking of that story you told about lip syncing it to Matt at a mall years ago and he thought you were having a stroke or something (not that strokes are funny at all, that is definitely the only story mentioning "stroke" that gives me the giggles). And one time last month I was making your Moroccan stew recipe for dinner and then that song came on the radio, and it was almost too much for me! Your recipe and that song! Ah!

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  17. Happy New Year!

    I def don't keep track of each and every receipt but a lot of my friends do! So . . . We use Mint and like resources.

    Isn't toddler commentary the best??? Camille says the funniest things some days!! Also, totally laughing about the big girl/ear holes. :)

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  18. Happy new year! Looking forward to intermittently reading more about Little Miss Personality, especially as she becomes more and more of a big girl, ha! We still do the old school Excel tracking receipts against the budget thing, and I still balance the checkbook as well, so you're not alone!

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  19. Happy New Year, and yay, you're back! Glad you and your family are well, and please keep the Millie stories coming :) It's amazing how creative you have to be with answering their questions--my girls know you get boobies when you're a grown-up, and eyes in the back of your head when you become a mommy. (Elaina's complained at me brushing her hair--"Stop, Mommy, you're hurting the eyes!", to which I respond, "They're not there yet because you're not a mommy." "Yes, but you're hurting where they will be!") The big girl thing is a hoot, too. Even at almost 5.5, Ellie still likes to play with the line of "big girl". She still likes to be carried, and since she's only 32lbs, it's not hard to do, but sometimes I just look at her and say, "How old are you?" Without blinking, she responds with: "I'm two. Just a big-sized two." I hope Millie earns her earrings soon!

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  20. Love the update! I generally see on insta how things are going but I am so happy for your family and that things are going well! I read so many books over winter break so I will have to check out the one you recommended. I finally read Me Before You and really enjoyed Jojo Myers so if you combine her and WWII, I can't imagine anything better. If you want more WWII fiction, secrets she kept is another one that is great. We read it for book club last month and all loved it.

    I don't keep track of expenses well at all. I check my bank account and some months try to do the only cash spending for food and 'fun' items so that I'm not constantly swiping my debit card but even that is a challenge. I just feel thankful that we have enough to not have to stress about budging too much, our savings account would probably just be happier if we did. :)

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