rain on tulips

I went to a meeting for the local DDD group who is putting together their new 3-year plan for the Birth to Three program funding for the legislature, and everyone went around the room introducing themselves and telling about their children. I, of course, mentioned that I have seven kids — its a big part of my life, so there it is.

But at the end of the meeting, while I was waiting for Fuul and the kids to pick me up (they had been at a Scouts Court of Honor), several of the participants asked about my having all these kids: how do you do it? how do you keep up? and (the one that is always the biggest shock in that I don’t know how to answer) how do you afford it!?

How do I afford it?

Well, its not just me. Fuul and I do this together. He has a good job. He makes decent money. He is in a position to let me stay at home (read: I don’t have to pay for childcare). And as for me: I’m a bargain shopper (within reason — won’t kill myself for a bargain, but won’t go overboard paying for convenience).

When I go into the grocery store, I will have a list in hand, and I try to make sure that I have all the stuff on the list when I leave. But, I won’t pay for stuff that I can get at another place for less than half the cost. So, sometimes I come home empty-handed. I actually find myself physically gasping when I see the prices on some things! ($9 for a 2-pound block of cheese? *gasp!*)

The other night Fuul and I went out to dinner (Cheesecake Factory – yummy! But not a regular occurrance!), and while we were out, it got COLD outside! I hadn’t worn a sweater or even long-sleeves, and a storm blew in while we were out. While we waited for a table, we stopped into a department store next door: cute, cute, cute outfits on display, and I even agreed with Fuul that I needed to just suck it up and buy a cute sweater to wear, so I wouldn’t freeze all night long!

And then I saw the prices.

Shudder! (imagine heart-stopping, gasping for air sounds here!)

As much as I liked some of the looks, I just could not bring myself to pay that much for a sweater! I tried. And then was saved by the fact that they didn’t have ANY of the cute, on-display sweaters that I liked actually available on the racks. (Funny, how they can display one thing but not have it available to buy). We looked at a few other things, but nothing that I loved. And if I was going to possibly shell out that kind of cash for a sweater, I’d better well LOVE it!

And that, my friends, is how I afford seven kids. We don’t do the ’spend all the money on the fancy brand names’. We shop at the ‘bag your own groceries’ places. We buy annual family passes to places, spreading out the costs over a year, and generally cutting the individual costs into reasonable, managable bits. We plan our big vacations far in advance (scheduled time for beach and Disneyland next September today!) And we only drive one car! (Funny watching the conniption fits that this little tidbit evokes!)

Its funny, because in the big picture, unless someone points out how I do things so differently, I just don’t see it. And it only makes me feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong when they ask and then give that “look”.

But we’re doing good. The kids are good. We’re happy, and well-fed, and reasonably well-rounded. And benefiting from having all these kids… couldn’t trade a one of them!

Well, mostly conquered!

The kids and I went through the boxes of ’stuff’ that we have purchased for the back-to-school thing. All the backpacks are filled, mostly sorted, and ready to go. We have the final “things we are still missing” list compiled, and it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Mostly a few specific pens, on specific pair of scissors, and a few jump drives (that’s the ugly one!).

But, its done, and that’s the main point!

I found jeans at WalMart* today! They are not quite perfect, but oh, so close! (They have a little extra room in the back waistband, but I’ll wait til I’ve washed them once before I decide if they need to be elasticized!)

I bought ‘tall’ jeans, boot cut, so I can cuff them like my beloved jeans, and they don’t have any holes in them!

I bought two pair, just to be sure I don’t wear them out too quick! (Want more, but hate to buy more, in case they just are completely out of style come a year or two from now!)

Ah. One less thing to worry about!

*I looked at WalMart.com to find a picture, and for some reason they don’t even show the brand I got in jeans on their website. Kind of sad, since, if these did turn out to be perfect, I’d be inclined to buy a couple more off the website rather than drive up to the store again! Ah well.

So, I do the church newsletter; its my job, and I don’t mind it because I don’t have to prepare lessons every week, and I don’t have to stand up in front of people and talk (and make a fool of myself?). And, I’m good at putting together the newsletter.

Unless, of course, I don’t receive content to include!

I used to do the newsletter every month, so around the 20^th of the month I’d send out a one-week reminder, then send out a one-day reminder, then run with what I got. But, the decision was made that I only really need to do the newsletter on a once-every-three-month basis, which is great for me — less work! — but also worse for me, because no-one is ready to send me stuff when I send out the reminders!

I sent a reminder more than two weeks ago. I set the deadline for last Friday. Here I sit on Monday night, with phone and email promises from the last two contributors, but nothing I can put into the newsletter. (I guess I could put in the email and a trascript of the phone excuses… but no, that wouldn’t be the prudent course!)

If those last things come in, I can save to .pdf, print for editing, edit, correct, and email out the final copies. Before the end of the month (which is really the most important part anyway!).

But, as each minute ticks by, I’m getting less and less convinced that the stuff is going to get here!

In spite of EK’s technicolor fall the other afternoon, she decided to take off and start walking – unassisted!! unencouraged!! unprovoked!! — at church on Sunday! She walked clear across the foyer from a table to the couch on the opposite side! Then, when we were leaving church and she was walking out holding Fuul’s finger, she would occasionally let go, take a few steps, then grab back hold of him giggling!

She’s not stable yet, and not consistent, but she is definately making progress! Pretty soon we’ll be chasing her down those halls at church, I think!

(We’ve also been trying something else new: before either Fuul or I will pick her up off the floor, we insist that she stand up; its not much, only takes her a couple of seconds, but the exercise she is getting in the process is going to help her out in the long run!)

Go, Pixie!!

Here is a picture from EK’s faceplant into the bedframe the other day. The bruises are now turning purply-green around her eyes, and the line across her nose is fading to a nice greyish purple. There is still some swelling, and it looks painful to blink.

The pictures just don’t do justice to the real myriad colors that she’s got going on!

CC got his introduction to ‘real’ food with a nice rice cereal/formula/banana concoction! He sure did like it!

I tried emailing you, and it bounced back as undeliverable! Please email me, and i’ll let you know what I’ve learned about blogging!

Oh, and feel free to take up all the comment space you want! You always have such useful things to add!

Thanks for the head’s up on Kira: I don’t know anyone having a boy, so I’ll definately keep her in mind for forwarding CC’s stuff as he outgrows it! (I just pulled all the little newborn onesies out, but the rest are still hit or miss if they fit him!)

Talk to you soon… and glad you didn’t lose more in your harddrive crash! (Of such are my nightmares constructed!)

Kids had sleepovers last night. (What’s a few more kids among all the chaos?)

CC ate his first baby cereal — pretty sure he liked it!

EK practiced walking, then fell face-first into the metal bedframe under my bed — lovely bruise and swelling that will likely lead to black eyes, but no trip to the doctor.

Family trip — Fuul too! — to the zoo; EK growled at the goats and the bunnies and the monkeys… what? You didn’t know they all growl??

Dinner out at the wonderful, “Kids eat for $1.95 on Saturdays” mexican place… yum!

Need to free up disk space on my computer tonight, and put together the church newsletter — should go fast, since I only got content from about four people.

I have pictures of CC’s first foods, EK’s bruised nose, and the zoo; I’ll try to get some of them up for sharing either tonight or tomorrow, depending on how the rest of my stuff goes!

I’ve been busy this week, what with dentist appointments (GC got a filling and her spacer for her pulled tooth), learning evaluations (JS got his — good news, bad news, but then what isn’t?), physical therapists (EK is doing really well, and is cutting back to every-other-week appointments), floor cleaning, laundry-ing, and clothes-sorting… well, all that with the not sleeping well at night, and I get so doze-y on the couch in the afternoon!

Unfortunately, EK and CC don’t coordinate their naptimes, and the other kids don’t see the reason for napping at all!

Wahhh!

OK. Back to your regularly scheduled program. Maybe I’ll even get back to real posts when I’ve slept or something.

find jeans that fit? Ones that don’t hang off your waist? Ones that don’t have to be surgically altered when they come home just to remotely match your shape?

I have one pair, that I love, that fit wonderfully, that fit most of my pregnancy with a nice Bella Band over top… and the knee went out the other day, and, if I hold them up to the light, I can see light through the backside*.

I need new jeans. I have tried on different styles, at different stores, and just can’t seem to find anything that works!

And, you may say, why don’t I simply go back and buy another pair like the beloved ones on their last legs? The answer is simple: they were bought, untried, off a ‘novelty’ rack at WalMart: you know, the ones that they come out with that look cute, that the teenagers buy because they have the cute scarf belt? With the stretch denim and the 6-inch folded cuff? The ones that you only find once, and never again???

Yeah, those would be my jeans.

I’ve tried several different stores. Several different brands. Granted, I’ve not tried on everything they have to offer, but I’ve tried two or three of each kind, when I can get the kids-in-tow to let me!

My requirements: I want mid-rise (I’m shortwaisted, so regular or tall are too high, but low-rise ‘accentuate’ the extra-baby-hips a little too much!); I want stretch denim; I want light-weight denim; boot cut or flare; cuffed or not. Not too picky, but I just can’t find them!

So… where do you go? Have you found the place that has the perfect jean?

I’m getting desperate! (All my cute cropped pants aren’t going to last long; I had to run the heater again last night, and its not anywhere near A/C temps yet at 3pm!)

*Don’t worry; the really dangerously thin backside thinness is not visible when I am wearing the jeans; otherwise, they would have been long-ago relegated to the trash. I’m holding on to them, and sitting delicately, hoping for a suitable replacement!

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, at least. In retrospect, maybe not so much!

The high-traffic walkway from the kitchen to the living room was black-spotted and hideous, and sticky in some places. (I don’t even want to hazard a guess what was there!) So, in a fit of ‘I can do this’-itis, I pulled out the high-traffic floor scrubber stuff, a good scrub-brush, the vacuum, and set to!

In the beginning, things were looking up: the black spots were disappearing (or at least fading); the sticky spots were wasting away; and the carpet was looking much cleaner!

But, after vacuuming, and then letting the area dry completely, I realized that the black spots were not gone, merely faded, only to stand out even more in the really clean areas where I had scrubbed so hard, which now show up as ‘light’ spots on the grayish carpet. Now, instead of black spots on gray, I have gray spots on light spots on gray.

I’m not sure that its an improvement.

grimace

Funny how cleaning — using the appropriate cleaning aids — can cause a doozy of a headache.

I just spent most of an hour scrubbing the carpet in the high-traffic area between the kitchen and the living room; its so much better, and yet still not good. sigh

At least we had the wise foresight to tell the landlord when we moved in not to bother replacing the old carpet til after we moved out; why put in the investment, when I know that we have seven kids? (And, plus, we got an A/C unit out of it! That’s a rare luxury for this area, apparently!)

So. Off to treat the burgeoning migraine, and see if anything else can get done today*.

*I did manage to get JS to his ophthalmology appointment (threats of eye surgery after the end of October — ugh), and get DA and DS’s hair cut. And more laundry done (all the kids bathed last night, which filled up all the baskets again with towels and stuff).

Nate at Adventures in Raising a Disabled Child posted yesterday about his daughter’s upcoming surgery for strabismus correction. His little one has been patching one eye for a while now, trying to regain use of her weak eye; things have improved, but her eyes are now not focusing in tandem, and the doctors need to do minor ‘tweaking’ surgery to correct it.

Its so amazing seeing all the similarities between EK and his little girl. EK has not developed strabismus, though she is under watch for that happening. But, she is being watched for eye pressure issues, and ‘low lids’, which may eventually block her line of sight because they sit so low. We have already been told that she really needs to have surgery to correct this issue before she starts school (at 4 or 5 years old). I try not to think about it, since its just one more worry, and there is nothing I can do about it for two or three more years.

Via Notes from the Trenches, a yummy-sounding, Mexi-style dip:

2 blocks of cream cheese
3 cans of vegetarian refried beans (why vegetarian, I have no idea other than that is what I always buy. One last hold over from when I was a vegetarian and felt a smug superiority buying vegetarian beans, because no one is sneaking pig feet into my beans!)
2 jars of salsa
2 packages of taco seasoning mix
2.5-3 lbs of ground meat (turkey, chicken or beef will do)

Brown the ground meat in a pan. Add the taco seasoning mix and cook according the instructions, which I think is universally add water and the contents of the packets and cook some more.

Take out a large pyrex baking dish. Mine is bigger than a 9×13…11×14? I don’t know. Are these things standard size? Do you see why I don’t give out recipes?

Spread the two blocks of cream cheese on the bottom of the baking dish.

Then spread the cans of refried beans.

Then pour the jars of salsa on top.

Then pour the browned and seasoned meat mixture on top. And sort of mix it around with the salsa a bit.

Then sprinkle the cheese of top.

Put into the oven… oh maybe 350 for like 20 minutes or so. Until it is hot and the edges are bubbly.

I may be back later to update on how it went over. (By the way, the plan is that we will have this alongside tortilla chips and taquitos… we’ll see how it goes!)

Update, 9:30pm:

Well, it was a hit! Everyone loved it… well, let me rephrase that: everyone who tried it liked it. Fuul was this close to trying it, when DA walked in and said something like, “Wow! I couldn’t even tell it had beans in it!” Cue ominous music, as Fuul looks up and asks as though betrayed, “There’s beans in it??” Well, at that point, he’s not going to like it even if he likes it, if you know what I mean. Silly man. But everyone else loved it, and we have half a pan left for ‘later’ — maybe lunch with nachos for the kids tomorrow or something! I think next time, we’ll halve the recipe, and not wind up with so much leftovers!

Oh, and because I do it every time, I made a few changes: only 2 cans of refried beans; only one bottle of salsa (maybe she uses littler bottles than I do?); and only 2 pounds of meat. I also used cheddar cheese on the top (I noticed that she said to sprinkle with cheese, but that it had been omitted from the original list of ingredients).

Anyway: consensus is yumminess!!