He Gets It From His Mama!

If there is one thing that my husband and I argue over (in a fun way) the most- it's who does Gage get his smarts from?

Of course, it's his mama! And, since he doesn't blog- I'll have the final word on here!

Just as proof, here is a video I shot this week of him...showing off his zillion animal sounds. And, lets remember, he's only 14 months old.

I hope to get a video of him up soon reading...that's right, he can read too! I'll let you believe it when you see it.

And, why is this on my "happiness" post? Because nothing makes me happier than having a smarty pants baby!!!!

Enjoy the video: http://youtu.be/3DRK1AeHKP4

He's an artist, too!



One p-r-o-u-d mama,

Erica

Its Liquid Gold

It's the newest birthing health craze- and I'm a huge proponent!

While pregnant, we received information in the mail regarding cord blood banking on a daily basis. We looked over the information and weighed the pros (all of the life saving options) against the cons (#1 con= it's E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E!).

Here's our list:

The pros (straight off of viacord.com):

- Treatable diseases include 12 cancers, 16 bone marrow diseases, 8 blood disorders (including sickle cell anemia), 18 metabolic diseases, and 17 autoimmune diseases

- They are SUPER close to finding the cure for diabetes, cerebral palsy and brain injury using cord blood.

- There have already been over 200 successful cures of diseases in children using their cord blood

- There is absolutely 0 risk to you or your baby during collection. It's totally non-invasive.

The cons:

- Having to make certain that the doctor collects the blood correctly. Its a pass or fail procedure. If they do it wrong, there's no going back and you've already paid to have it collected...

- It's super expensive and there's no "end date." The initial collection fee was around $2500 (which you can pay off monthly for 6, 12 or 18 months) and there is a annual $125 fee that pays for storage for the next year. That means $125/year for the rest of your child's life...and I'm hoping my kid lives to be 100- so that's $12,500.00.

With Josh being a diabetic (although there is no current guarantee that it's a familial trait), and cancer running throughout both sides of our families, I couldn't take the risk of NOT saving my baby's cord blood. Honestly, I think that I would pay almost anything to have the ability to save my child's life. We chose the 12 month payment plan so we've already paid off the cord blood and now we're just paying $125 annually. It's great. And, to know that I could possibly save my child from having an insulin pump attached to his side for the rest of his life- yea, that's a pretty good deal.

Oh, and you can put it on your Baby Registry! I didn't know that when we decided to buy the service- but, I do for the next kid!

If you're pregnant or know someone that is, please look into this service. You child's life is always worth saving- there is no dollar figure that you can attach to it...

The link: http://www.viacord.com/
The phone number: 866-668-4895

Fresh Out!

Thankful for the availability to save a life,

Erica

We wipe butts with dollars...

When I was pregnant, I thought that I could budget having a kid. WRONG! You can never begin to imagine how expensive these little boogers are until you have one of your own. Just to think of all the things a baby/toddler/kid/teen/adult needs is o-v-e-r-w-h-e-l-m-i-n-g.

While pregnant, I did decide that we would cut costs by making our own baby food (a topic I'll cover later), but there was NO WAY I was going with cloth diapers. Instead, "we wipe butts with dollars"- not literally of course, but diapers and wipes are pure gold!

You ask, where does the "wealth" part come in (remember, I promised I'd do a blog alternating health, wealth and happiness!?!?)...

#1: You have to allocate money to buy these diapers and wipes

#2: You have to spend time searching for ways to SAVE money on diapers and wipes

#3: You must find ways to reward yourself for buying wipes and diapers

Enter, budget queen Erica!

As for topic #1, I am a HUGE budgeter to say the least. Again, a topic we'll cover later. However, in brief, I choose to buy diapers in bulk when they are on sale. Even if I do not need them, I buy them. There's always a stinky butt to be changed later down the road. Also, allocate space on that baby registry! I thought that a few cases of each size would get me by...WRONG! An infant poops more times than seagulls...honestly. I don't see how they gain any weight! So, buy in bulk when they are already on sale in the store. Now onto #2: there are coupons galore for our brand, Huggies. But, again, you may have to buy diapers when they are not needed. I've never seen an expiration date on diapers (is there one??) so buying when there's a coupon is a must! In many cases of Huggies, there are coupons for the next case. SWEET! And, rewarding yourself (#3)for buying diapers? Not in the Starbucks run so to speak (although that's a GREAT reward for tired mama's), but in the diaper/wipe points. Yes. They are wonderful! Huggies uses Enjoy The Ride Rewards. I cannot begin to explain how many free things that we have gotten from this program. Feeding tools, learning tools, toys, coupons, music downlowads and even a pair of  Crocs! It's a bit time consuming to save the little labels inside the diapers packs but well worth it! And, you can't complain about FREE! Even Donald Trump wouldn't complain about free.

So, continue to wipe those butts with dollars all you little Mama's! But, find ways to save and reward yourself for doing so!

Our little butt...with his baby duck friends at Easter 2011

Until next time,

Erica