Free Toy!!! Provides hours of fun!!!

If you follow my blog, you'll know that I wasn't thrilled about getting Samantha too many plastic toys or that her favorite thing in the world is a plastic water bottle. I was happy, however, that the plastic water bottles are free since we reuse and reuse them, so she just got an old one we've had for god-knows-how-long. Well, things have gotten better! She has a new favorite "toy" that is free AND environmentally friendly! Wanna know what it is?

My belly fat. For real.

After nursing her, my shirt's lifted up, thus exposing my belly fat (which I am trying to get rid of...not very hard, though). The other day after nursing her I laid down, belly fat exposed, and put her on top of me. She kind of "crawled down me" until she was face to face with said belly fat, looked up at me, and gave me a great big toothless smile, like she couldn't believe her good fortune! She then gave it another good long look, buried her face into it, and blew a great big raspberry! She raised her head to look at me and had the expression of having just completed the BEST thing she's ever done. She'll do it for a loooong time, too, like 15 minutes (which is a long time for a baby to do anything... except cry...they can do that for a really long time).

It's really funny to see. I'd post a video of it if it didn't mean exposing my fat to the world. So for now, only my husband and my sister have been privy to this phenomenon. My husband expressed concern that she may suffocate "in there" and to be careful. I think he's the one who ought to be careful now after saying that!

I Need a Sub

I'm sick. I don't get sick very often, but when I do, it hits hard. So what I have is "just a cold," but man, I have the cough from HELL. I think I coughed for 4 hours straight the other night...no exaggeration. I managed to get to the doctor today and got some good stuff for sleeping (Tylenol with codeine), but there's not much out there for breastfeeding women. Those are my doctor's exact words. Thank god I can take cough syrup as that is safe for bf'ers, but this over-the-counter crap wasn't cutting it, which is why I went to the doctor.

Before going to the doctor, though, I was rummaging through my medicine cabinet in desperate search of something to relieve my symptoms. Everything, and I mean everything, comes with a warning for breastfeeding or pregnant women. Vicks Vapo-Rub? Come on! When I told my doctor this, even she was like, "What???" Apparently she lived on the stuff while she was pg, so I don't feel so bad having ignored the warning and applied it on myself anyway.

I had a point to this post. Oh yeah, I miss working for one reason only: sick days. I used to rarely use my sicks days, even when I was sick! I just hated having to prepare for a sub in my classroom. Man, what I would give for a sub now!

Gone are the sick days of watching tv all day and falling in and out of sleep during the afternoon. This is not one of the perks of this job. Samantha is clueless to my condition. In fact, I think she's a bit annoyed that I can't sing to her while rocking her to sleep without exploding into a fit of coughing. Poor thing, I about scared her half to death the other night with my coughs.

At least now it's the weekend and I'll have a temporary sub: Daddy!

Money Saver

Even before our daughter was born, my husband and I tried to live as eco-friendly as possible: we recycle religiously, we drive fuel-efficient cars, we reuse everything until it basically falls apart, we keep our heat down, etc. Now that we have a daughter, we try to raise her in an environmentally-friendly way as we can. Aside from cloth-diapering, we try to avoid buying too many plastic toys for her. Actually, since she has 2 sets of grandparents and many loving friends, we haven't had to buy much of anything for her since she's been born!

This Christmas, though, I really wanted to get her something. It's her first Christmas after all! So I went to Timeless Toys, this great toy shop here in Chicago, to pick out something for her that, hopefully, would not be plastic and made in China.

I came home with something plastic that was made in China. I spent more money on it than I would have liked, but whatever. It's cute and fun and she actually really likes it!

What she REALLY likes, though, and in fact I may say that she LOVES and GOES CRAZY FOR are, interestingly enough, plastic water bottles. (Again with the plastic!?!) I swear, if you walk up to her holding a plastic water bottle, she will give you this huge grin that just melts your heart. You think she's showing you how happy she is to see you, how much she loves you. No, she's excited to see the water bottle.

Thanks, kid. Now I know what to get you for Christmas next year.