Teething and Shopping

I have the sweetest baby ever. She has the best temperament ever. But teething is teething. It's no fun for anyone around. Amelia almost has her first tooth, but it's taking forever to pop through her gums. So here we are watching Baby Signing Time at 1:30 in the morning because she is so uncomfortable. She can't sleep, she's just so restless, nothing like Noah when he cut teeth. He was a pure monster.

We have this stuff called "gripe water" that apparently many moms just love for teething and other baby issues. I tried it once a few months ago because Amelia seemed so uncomfortable. She spit it all out. Tonight I gave her a few drops and she immediately went into her moon shaped squinty eyes and whole body shudders. But she didn't spit it out. To get her mind off the pain, she's currently pulling herself up. She goes all out on pulling herself up: she's not simply grabbing onto a couch and standing up. No. She has got, at the moment, both hands stretched out above her head clutched tightly to the edge of the entertainment center and she keeps pulling herself up so that her toes are slighted off the ground momentarily. She gets a kick out of this and turns around with the biggest smile ever, to see if I saw her amazing feat. I did.

We've got a big day ahead of us. Daddy goes back to work for the first time since arriving home from Afghanistan a month ago and the kids and I all are headed to Costco and H.E.B. (the absolute best grocery store in the world) for some shopping. Fortunately and unfortunately it's shopping on a tight budget now!

Yup, hubby and I sat down and worked out our January budget the other day and "our" goal to pay off our debt is in 18 months. By "our" I mean that I set the goal and hubby laughed in my face. Okay he's not mean like that, but let's just say that he is pessimistic about the time frame. I think that he's underestimating my commitment to paying off this pesky debt of ours. He joked about cutting up our credit cards but when he found out I thought it was a GREAT idea, he retracted his offer to cut them. He's thinking about it now: maybe I'll be writing about a plasectomy party soon! Anyway, we worked out our budget which means cutting out everything not absolutely necessary.

Date nights with a hired babysitter are necessary. Brow waxing is too. So is going out to dinner once a month with the kids. How else would we teach them how to act civilized in public? Other than that, we are going to be spending A LOT of time hanging out with each other playing games at home or hiking or something. I personally think it will be a lot of fun. I always love a good challenge!