Perhaps wearing them with rolled-up denim capris is a Fashion Uh-Oh, but these dark pink cowgirl boots are on clearance at Target for $3.74. Don’t be fooled by the very similar new-design dark pink cowgirl boots that just came out at $14.99: it’s only the ones with tall skinny flowers on them that are marked down. I bought them for Elizabeth in size 6, 7, 8, and 9, and I am not even usually into cowboy-type stuff.
I have really, really, REALLY been trying to enjoy this summer with Rob and William–especially with William, because this is the year William starts first grade, and I learned with Rob that first grade is when kids take a giant step away.
But I am NOT enjoying this summer with Rob and William, and do you know why? It is because I don’t like my children anymore, apparently. They are loud and obnoxious, and they have two modes: (1) giddy and (2) bickery. They are either saying, “Imagine if, like, a strawberry crashed into the wall and went [*loud spitting sound*]!!!” and then laughing wildly until they fall over, and then saying it fifty more times, laughing just as much each time, getting higher and higher pitched until I feel like covering my ears and screaming, or else they are saying in teeth-clenched irritation, “Give me that thing.” “WHAT thing?” “THAT thing.” “WHAT thing?” “ROB!!BERT!! GIVE IT TO ME!” “OW!! Mommy, William hit me!!” “It was an ACCIDENT!!” “NO IT WAS NOT!!” Or, worst of all, they are doing this sort of nauseating baby talk, and using it to say nonsense. They are as annoying as a flashing banner ad plus a car alarm plus a shirt that needs to be tugged down every 5 minutes.
We did all three days of Week Two of the running program. We thought we might die, but we did it. We’ve had a little trouble with knowing when we’re supposed to stop doing sessions of jogging. Like, if you alternate jogging and walking for 20 minutes as instructed, you do jogging, walking, jogging, walking, jogging, walking, jogging, walking, jogging, walking–and there are 2.5 minutes left. Should you jog for 1.5 minutes and then only have 1 minute of walking before you’re done? Or should you walk that whole last 2.5 minutes to cool down? We’ve been jogging 1 minute and then walking the last 1.5. I’m sure a real runner would be making air quotes all over the place: “Oh, you want to know how long you should ‘cool down’ after ‘all that running’? [*gigantic eye roll*] Gosh, are you sure this is ‘Couch to 5K’ and not ‘Couch to Iron Man’?”
I don’t know how we’re going to be able to do Week Three, which goes up to 3 minutes of jogging. [Real Runner rolls eyes so hard he/she risks popping them off their tethers entirely.] We’re going to try it, but if necessary we’re going to go up one 30-second increase at a time: a week of 2-minute jogs, a week of 2.5-minute jogs, and then, MAYBE, a week of 3-minute jogs. We’ll see. [Real Runner has to consume sports drink to replenish electrolytes lost from disdain.]
Comment here if you’re interested in getting Swistle’s Angel DVDs, season 1, watched once, mailed to you free of charge so that you will get addicted and I will have more people to talk about it with out of nothing but love. For those who are unfamiliar with the show, it is about a tall handsome broody vampire with vulnerable eyes and a long leather coat. He used to be evil but now uses hair product and works on the side of Good for 42 minutes once a week. I’m looking for (1) names of people who want the DVDs and (2) suggestions on how to decide who gets them, especially if it’s something fun.
I tried the cookies with mint extract and regular chocolate chips, and they are good. If the ones with mint chocolate chips are a 10, the ones with extract and regular chocolate chips are maybe an 8.5, maybe a 9. They lack the “little bursts of mint” effect, but retain the overall chocolate/mint excellence.
I have Angel season one on DVD. I have watched it, and I really liked it a lot, but I don’t plan to watch it again. I’d like to pass along the contagious Joss Whedon virus find a good home for it. It occurs to me that I could infect give it to one of you.
But how to decide who gets it? I suppose you could tell me sob stories of how pitiful and deserving you are, but that would be barfy and boring that would be sad.
A contest? Maybe, if there’s a fun idea for one. A drawing? Meh. Insufficiently fun.
This assumes that more than one person would be interested in having it.
El-e-e has brought to my attention a Serious Situation regarding the Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies recipe I posted the other day: mint chocolate chips are only available seasonally, and this is not the season.
It’s true that I bought mine during the Christmas season. I bought many bags, because I was so enchanted by their existence. In fact, I had six bags, and what do you mean, “Why the past tense?”
So many bags on hand is why I had not yet noticed that none of you would be able to make the recipe unless your grocery stores were of a particularly exemplary sort; if I had known, I would not have teased you so cruelly.
Okay! Okay! Let’s all remain calm. Luckily, LoriD has solved the problem: she added 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract (make sure you get peppermint, not mint) and used regular chocolate chips. You may want to adjust the chocolate chip quantity: the mint chocolate kind are 1 and 2/3 cup bags, the regular chocolate kind are 2 cup bags, and I thought it was best with more like 1 and 1/4 cups.
LoriD also tried Crisco instead of butter. I tried it myself, and I think the butter is significantly better-tasting in this recipe. I’m going to try the mint extract variation as soon as I get some more butter in the house.
Beth is pregnant! So exciting. I like to know a lot of pregnant people so I can daydream about their pregnancies, waiting excitedly for the baby to be born and thinking about what I would name it if it were up to me. (Any takers for Millicent? Paul won’t let us use it.)
Speaking of pregnancy and babies, I heard from Semi-Desperate Housewife‘s mother. I’ve been a little worried about SDHW and hoping her baby boy stays put a little longer. (And also: waiting excitedly for the baby to be born and thinking about what I would name him if it were up to me.) Here’s what her mom says:
I happened to click on your names from my daughter SDHW’s post and saw that I could email you. There were only a couple of you who I could find the emails for. Just wanted to update you on her situation. She woke up Sunday morning so incredibly dizzy that she couldn’t move without vomiting. She ended up in the hospital on IV fluids by Sunday afternoon. They did a CAT scan Monday morning because she wasn’t getting better, but that turned out all clear. Baby is just fine, too. The diagnosis is that she has some weird viral inner ear infection that is affecting her equilibrium. Basically, she can’t move without vomiting and hasn’t been able to keep hardly any food down since Saturday. She came home Monday evening, but is totally confined to bed and is so dizzy that she just can’t move and needs a lot of help walking to the bathroom, etc. We even have to keep Addy away from her because the jostling about of a toddler makes her so sick. This is apparently viral and will run its course in anywhere from days to weeks. PLEASE pray that it is only for a couple more days and that baby boy stays put until she is feeling more normal. Labor at this point would be torture!!! I know you check her post frequently, so thought I’d give you an update.
HER MOM :)
UG! And YIKES. Like it’s not hard enough to be late-third-trimester pregnant, without also barfing from the smallest movement and worrying about pre-term labor. SDHW’s husband is going to be posting an update soon, too, on SDHW’s blog.
I keep waiting for it to be okay to write about Harry Potter without worrying about spoilers, but it occurs to me that day will never come. I’m thinking of how I’m only watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel NOW, so I’m STILL not happy if I stumble upon spoilers (though I can hardly blame people at THIS late date).
So how about this, instead. If you would like me to tell you which HP7 death I don’t accept, you can email me and I’ll tell you. There is one I in fact DENY. It DID NOT happen, that is my feeling about it.
Really good sandwich: a “hearty” bread (quotes to indicate that it should be the kind that looks nutritious by being full of lots of little bits, rather than the kind that is actually nutritious and doesn’t taste good), deli turkey, Caesar dressing, lettuce, and white corn tortilla chips to add salt and crunch. Mmmmmmmmmm.
So what you are telling me is that Old Navy shirts are plenty long, they’re too short, they’re long at first but then they shrink to be too short; they run a bit small, they run true to size; they stretch out and look floppy, the material is flimsy, they’re really nice and they last for years. I ordered four perfect fit tees in two different sizes. Then I also ordered four graphic tees, because I liked them. Whatever doesn’t fit, I’ll return. Whatever I keep, it sounds like I’d better line-dry.
AND I ordered two more packages of bodysuits in size 3-6 months for poor Henry, whose mother does not seem to know how old he is and so last time ordered sizes like 6-12 and 12-18 months. And I ordered a 99-cent flag tank top for Elizabeth for next year.
Now let’s turn our attention to issues other than what I am shopping for. Let’s talk about what someone else is shopping for. Sarah asks for our help:
Ok, I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but can you help me figure out what a baby wears?! Currently, my 15 week old son is wearing rompers (today is his first day at daycare so I put him in what I call an outfit, but at home with me, he’d be in onesies!). That’s fine. But what about when the weather is colder? He’ll be about 6 months then – am I really supposed to dress him in full on outfits (pants, shirt, sweater, etc?) – who can afford that?! Do they make wintery rompers or are they just pj’s. What’s wrong with wearing pj’s to daycare (joking…or am I?). I just spend more money than I care to admit at this Old Navy sale (all for next summer if I planned the sizing correctly – who knows) – but what I really need help with is what you dress a baby in realistically, and where I can find said clothing for not too much money (garage sale is good in theory but a lot of work for slim pickings). Resale shops are ok. Old Navy sales are great.
There are two questions here:
I will say how I do things, but I’m hoping you will say, too, since I want to steal your ideas. Unless one of your ideas is the body-selling thing.
Babies can be dressed a number of different ways, from onesies/pjs around the clock up to coordinated pants/shirt/shoes/socks/hat/bib ensembles. I dress little-ittle babies in the same stuff day and night: Henry wears sleep ‘n’ play type outfits (footed sleeper things sold in 2-packs or 3-packs for about $10 but regularly available on sale or clearance) day and night, and I change the outfit when it needs it, not “in the morning” and “before bed.”
When a baby is a little older, I start changing the baby into pajamas at night as part of the bedtime routine. At that point I usually find the baby looks “too babyish” in sleep ‘n’ plays, and that’s when I start dressing him in soft one-piece outfits. When the baby is older still, I start dressing him in jeans/shorts/overalls and shirts.
How to buy the clothes without spending too much. I have changed my clothes-shopping methods over the years. When Rob was born, we lived in an area chock full of consignment shops. I could go into one and come out with a huge pile of nearly-new stuff for practically nothing. So that’s basically what I did: I shopped consignment shops.
When Rob was ten months old we moved to an area without such good consignment shops. I persevered with what was available, but when Rob started needing 2T I noticed the stock dropped wayyyyy off: suddenly there were only pilly sweatpants and worn-out character t-shirts. And then William was born, and going to consignment shops with a toddler and a baby was getting rough.
Luckily, by this time I had discovered Target clearance racks. Clearance rack stuff was cheaper than consignment shop stuff, and of course it’s new which is nice since it’s going to end up being handmedowns (consignment shop jeans have already been worn by 1 or 2 children, so that’s 1 or 2 fewer who can wear them at my house). I started buying clothes end-of-season at 75% off. It didn’t always work (sometimes there wasn’t much in his size or I wouldn’t find the clearance until almost everything was gone), but in general I could get a nice assortment of things for Rob that way. I wasn’t sure even what I liked him to wear, so I was willing to try things if they were cheap enough.
I also bought AHEAD: if I found some nice basic solid-color t-shirts at $.94 each, I’d buy them in his size 2T but also in 3T, 4T, and 5T. This helps a lot with the “nothing left in his size” problems: if you’re looking three years in a row for 5T stuff, you’re likely to have a nice stash by the time the child needs it. I kept boxes in his closet labeled 3T, 4T, 5T, etc., to make it easy to keep things sorted. When he went up a size, I pulled out a new box.
When Rob was in kindergarten, I opened up the next box of clothes and found he had only two long-sleeved shirts in that size. I had to scramble to find more shirts for him to wear, and that’s when I started finding the fun in buying some of his stuff on sales as well as on clearances, and on more expensive store clearances: not just the $1.74 Target clearance shirt, but also the $4.99 Target sale shirt and the $6.99 Baby Gap clearance shirt. What I do now is buy a lot on clearance ahead of time, but then fill in the gaps (including the “fun to buy a few more things” gaps) with sales while the child is actually wearing that size.
When Elizabeth was born, I made a new policy for girl clothes. The policy is this: “This is the only time in my life I will be buying baby girl clothes for my own girl, and I don’t want to be sorry I missed it.”
I still buy things on sale, on clearance, and ahead–because I love to do that. But I buy her more than she needs, and if something is only 30% off I might still buy it, not waiting for 50% or 75% off. I’ve even bought a few things at *hushed tone* full price.
I think the keys to dressing a baby affordably are (1) buying clearance and (2) buying ahead. You can get a baby a cute, extensive wardrobe that way, and it’s a fun shopping hobby–especially with online stores, which mean you don’t have to hit the mall twice a week to keep up with deals. It’s easier when the child is a little older and going up one size per year rather than one size every time you step out to get the mail.
So tell us: what does/did your baby wear, and how do/did you buy it relatively inexpensively?
Paul took Rob and William swimming yesterday, so I didn’t have my running partners. I went out on my own, and learned this: children make excellent shields. When I run with the children, I don’t worry that the neighbors are looking at me, because I am certain they are instead trying to figure out what we’re running away from so slowly. When I run with the children, people are too busy trying not to hit us with their cars to notice if my rear is, or is not, jogging more than I am. When I run with the children, I look like I’m participating reluctantly in some sort of Family Fitness Fun!! program, not like I think I am Getting Ripped. When I run with the children, the sound of questions (“What’s the difference between a cul de sac and a dead end?” “How many more seconds?” “Are you GLAD or NOT GLAD that we’re doing this?”) drowns out the sound of gasping and swearing.
Running still felt easier without them, though, perhaps because my heart rate was not already elevated from seeing a child jog aimlessly toward the center yellow line or carom off a mailbox. I’d planned to repeat week one, but as an experiment tried a week two session. Week one’s sixty seconds of jogging was a nearly insurmountable eternity of jogging, but ninety seconds turned out to be just as nearly insurmountable–and then there’s 2 minutes of breathing walking instead of 90 seconds, and that’s worth the additional suffering.
May I suggest my favorite post-run snack? Try half a batch of these babies and feel the suffering ease.
Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
2/3 cup butter (1 stick plus a scant 3 tablespoons), softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup flour
approx. 1 and 1/4 cups mint chocolate chips*
*OR: use regular chocolate chips and add 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract (make sure it’s peppermint, not mint) to the batter when adding the vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream butter and sugar; add egg and vanilla and mix well. Add baking soda and salt and mix well. Add cocoa powder and flour very carefully or you will have cocoa powder on more surfaces than you thought possible; cocoa powder is not bound by the laws of physics and I have found it coating the underside of the base of the mixer. Add mint chocolate chips. You can put in a full bag (which is about 1 and 2/3 cups), but I thought it was better with fewer (I know–I’m as surprised as anyone). Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8-9 minutes; err on the side of underbaking, because they’ll set up more after they come out of the oven.
The first time I baked them, they almost didn’t change shape from the dough balls they started out as. The second time, I mixed them a little more thoroughly and made the dough balls a little smaller, and they flattened out like cookies. Both times they tasted excellent.
If you make this recipe, you will want to kiss me or curse me, but your mouth will be too crammed to do either one. These are like mint-chocolate-chip brownie cookies. Last night Paul went to bed early because he wanted to stop eating the cookies and couldn’t think of any other way.
I’m thinking of ordering a couple Old Navy perfect tees. I’ve never bought Old Navy for myself before. If you’ve purchased Old Navy women’s clothing, did you find that it fit large? small? or true to size? I wear two different shirt sizes depending on the brand, and I’m not sure if I should order the larger size or the smaller one.
A second question: How’s the shirt length? I’m tall, and it’s common for shirts to be too short.
I had such a good online shopping trip this morning! Old Navy is having one of their stuff-and-save sales, which are my favorite: 20% off everything, even clearance. You have to have an Old Navy card to get the deal, but I highly recommend having one anyway, because if you do you can also get free shipping (use coupon code SPECIAL–they don’t go out of their way to remind you) on $50+.
When I shop at The Children’s Place I tend to buy mostly girl stuff, but when I shop Old Navy I buy almost all boy stuff. I bought Rob and William some pigment-dyed polo shirts (all three colors) and dark-tint jeans. I also bought a whole pile of long-sleeved bodysuit three-packs for Henry: I had those for the twins and they’re so soft and so nice under overalls or for extra warmth under a long-sleeved outfit. What I don’t understand is why I only bought them in size 6-12 and size 12-18. What was I thinking? I should have gotten 3-6 for this fall. And when he’s in 12-18 months, it’ll probably be summertime. Well, I lost my mind, that’s all. But I lost it in cute colors! I got the gray combo (brown, gray, white) and the blue haze combo (dark blue, light blue, white), and also plain white. They have cute girl colors, too. Damn it, why didn’t I get them in size 3-6? I think I forgot how old my baby was, I think that’s what happened. Oh come on, like I can be expected to remember EVERYTHING.
I did buy one shirt for Elizabeth, a green floral one. I don’t even know if I like it; I just couldn’t resist $1.99 plus another 20% off.
Rob and William and I did our third day of running. We might repeat Week One next week, because we were still struggling. When I say “struggling,” I mean “begging the gods to spare our lives.” It definitely helped, though, to take your advice about running heel-first, running slower, lacing our shoes less tightly (I was thinking they were supposed to be MORE tight for running), and stretching more afterward. Also helpful: drinking a leeeeeetle too much coffee beforehand; and, once we were at the halfway point and heading back home, reminding myself that there was a pan of brownies waiting for us. (I’m running for my health!)
Maybe I should just place another order with Old Navy. It’s really bothering me that I didn’t get the bodysuits in 3-6 months. And maybe I should have gotten the uni combo (yellow, light green, white) too. I wonder if the stuff-and-save code can be used more than once? I wonder if I can find a full $50 worth so I can get the free shipping? Well, it’s only $5 flat-rate if I can’t. I hate this kind of thing! I’m going to be agitating about this all day, and then I’ll finally decide to just DO it–and they’ll be out of stock.
Grr. Well, if any of you buy anything, tell me what you bought and maybe I’ll love it and want it and be happier about placing another order.