Let's Get Back To Basics

So we can be a bit unfocused...we apologize. Being the mommy of a terrible two drama queen is a tough job. But it is time we refocus a bit. To do that, we here at Champagne Mommyhood will be getting back to basic through a 10 part series inspired by our blog title. So without further ado, enjoy. =)

How To Have A Champagne Mommyhood On A Beer Budget

Part 1: Entertainment

Let's say you and your dearest have come upon the perfect storm....the stars have aligned and you actually have a day or night where you are both off work with no other duties...and someone is watching your offspring. *le gasp* Now, on a beer budget, how do we maximize our fun without emptying our wallets?

1. Movies - Nothing is nicer than watching an entire movie without having to worry about a short one burning down the house or maiming the cat. But that mess is expensive. How do we cut corners here? Make it a day date. Hubs and I had a wonderful day date on Tuesday. We went to the noon showing of "Chernobyl Diaries" and had a blast! By going to an earlier showing, we saved at least a few dollars. Another way to trim the cost...if the movie is showing in 2D and 3D, just go for the 2D. In my opinion anyway, 3D is very overdone right now..and since everyone is trying to get in on it, a lot of times it is just not worth the extra $3 per person. But if you have heard outstanding reviews for the 3D version and simply cannot pass it up, just go before 5PM (or whenever your local theater ups the price).

Now if you are looking to take your short one(s) to a movie, check the website (or box office/concession stand) of your preferred local theater for their summer movie schedule. One of mine will be doing a different movie a week, twice a week, for 9 weeks. Admission is FREE. w00t! My favorite of favorite words! And since the movie will be filled with other short people, noise coming from yours will be no issue at all.

2. Arcades, Bowling Alleys, Family Centers, ETC - After our movie on date day, Hubs and I went to the new bowling alley behind the theater. The prices are a bit higher than the other nearby bowling alley (and more than we were looking to spend) so we hit up the wonderful air-conditioned arcade instead. This arcade uses swipe cards instead of money or tokens. When you win tickets, they are deposited digitally onto your card also. We initially put $5 each on 2 cards, one for each of us. Since we had not been there before, we started small to get a feel for the place. After a round of fun, we decided to get another $5 each. I went over to one of those big prize drop games. This one was called Keymaster. You have to line up this "key" with the hole in a piece of plexiglass perfectly so it will pull on the plexiglass and release your prize...the prizes in this machine ranged from a few video games to a couple of iPads. I figured I would give it a shot to see how it worked. I ended up winning a $130 digital camera for my $1 investment! Hubs tried for the iPads and Kindle Fires, but neither of us could quite get them. So we moved on and played skee ball, this massive connect four game, and a few others. So the $20 dollars we would have spent on only 1 hour of bowling and shoes went into an hour or more of arcade games, a new digital camera, and toys for Lil Bit, which we used our tickets on. We maximized the fun while keeping the cost at a minimum. Putting just a little money at a time on the cards helped us not get carried away also. It's like, for me at least, putting $5 in gas in at a time versus filling the tank....the full tank makes me invincible and drive more than when I do just a little at a time.

I grabbed the price chart for the lanes...so maybe we will have a less expensive bowling option in the future. It never hurts to check in with even the pricier places to see when rates are at their lowest.

3. Parks - I am blessed to live an hour from the Gulf of Mexico (and glorious sugar sand beaches!) and about 10-15 minutes from Mobile Bay. There are also a ton of swimming holes dotted throughout my area, one about 5 minutes away. The bay does charge for parking seasonally, but I can go to our utilities board and get a free parking pass since I am a resident of the city. Otherwise it would be 8 bucks to get in. (Or a little polite sweet talking with the old guy manning the booth...a special thanks to him for letting me through for a friend's child's birthday party! I was upfront with him that I only had 5 on me, seeing as that was the first time I had seen someone manning the booth and had yet to get by the utilities board. Never underestimate the kindness of others, but never expect special treatment.)

Don't forget to check out your local playgrounds. In my little town we have a handful, so at least we have some options. The school I am hoping to send Lil Bit to in a couple years let's us visit and use their playground while we get a feel for the place too.

If you have a national park nearby, get a fee schedule so you can know the best times to go. Take a picnic lunch and spend a day in nature. The kids will sleep well that night for sure.

Kids+Playing+Sun=Happy restful night for mama...just keep the sun block handy. When you need a cheap way to wear the babies out, the outdoors is always one of your best bets. Lately Lil Bit and I have been going outside almost everyday to play with chalk and bubbles. We usually play in the water hose too. Even that little bit of play helps wear her terrible two-ness out. And she can play in the mud and get as dirty as she wants because I can just hose her off before we head inside...or just plop her straight in the tub.

4. Television - Heading back indoors...let's tackle the awful bills we accumulate so we can sit on our butts after bedtime and unwind...or so we can occupy the short ones long enough to clean the kitchen. Right now, I am so sick of our cable company that I could scream. Hopefully we can let them go soon. Once they are out of the way, we are planning to rely on Netflix and maybe Hulu through our XBOX 360. We can also browse YouTube through it and play DVDs. We may not see everything on the first run, but the money saved will be more than worth it...even if my husband is completely in love with the DVR. ;)

That's all I can think of for now, but if you have a topic you have not seen covered here, let me know in the comments, and I will add it to the list. Feel free to leave your own advice in the comments as well. =)

<3

Truvy

We KNEW!

     Ouiser here, and I feel a rant coming on.

     Now that the Mother's Day dinners have been consumed, the flowers are starting to droop a bit and the chocolate is starting to melt, let's get down to the nitty gritty here.  In the past couple of weeks, I've been reading the local paper at work (as usual) and on Sundays in the Life section(front page of it no less) there is a local columnist who is a relatively new mom herself.

     Now that's all fine and dandy, great! But she complains a lot. Or at least she has in the last two articles I've read of hers. Perhaps I'm just reading too much into it or making it out to be a bigger deal than it is. Sadly, the paper doesn't link to the article in question, but the gist of it is that the woman wants a vacation from her kid.

     She spends the entire column whining about how she wants to get away, doesn't want to be a parent for a day etc etc blah blah blah. This week she finally gets her way and spends Mother's Day AWAY from her child. Awww she feels SAD about this.

     Newsflash sweetheart. We KNEW what we were getting into the minute we saw that second line appear on the pregnancy test.  Your life is no longer your own. Sleep? Fuggetaboutit. Girls Nights Out? Goodbye! *unless you're like me, and never went on those ANYWAY, but I digress).  The point is. WE KNEW.

     There are no sick days, no vacations, no pay when you become a mommy.  If you have a spouse or a significant other, yes they will (theoretically) pick up the slack when you get sick, but guess what? Unless you're on your deathbed, YOU ARE STILL MOMMY and BABY will still need and want you regardless of whether you're sneezing, snotting, shitting or hacking your brains out. YOU ARE A MOTHER. Life doesn't stop just because you have popped a kid out of your hoo-ha and it doesn't go back to the way it was afterwards either.

     We KNEW this. For someone to whine and complain to get their way and then be all sad because they got what they wanted just literally makes me ill. There is a difference between venting and just flat out constantly complaining and then for all intents and purposes running away for a weekend which happens to be the very weekend you are celebrated BECAUSE you're a mom!

     Don't get me wrong, there are times that I'd love to just crawl into a hole with a blanket, a flashlight and a book and just be left alone.  This usually occurs when The WeeMan is showing his muscle in what we like to refer to as "99 Ways to Make Mommy Lose Her Schmidt'. This usually occurs right about the time I get home from work in the morning and he doesn't want to eat, doesn't want to sleep, wants to play play play, get into everything, bang on the walls with his toys. But the second he puts those chubby little arms around my neck and wraps those legs around me in a big bear hug, who cares if the floor is food covered and he's just stripped down to his diaper because he hates clothes? Not me.  He may drive me crazy at times but you know what?

     I wouldn't change that for the world.



    


     

Mommygasm: Defined

I got high tonight....on education. =)

In my hometown, where I still live, there is a magical secret which I have just unveiled...an Organic School. Not like crunchy, hippy organic...organic in the sense that every child is a unique individual. Their beliefs in childhood education mirror my own from learning through nature and doing to learning at their own pace.

I can already tell Lil Bit will learn by doing, much like myself. The kid just turned 2 in March, and she is already trying to sing the alphabet. She even gets it right some of the time, parts anyway. Like "ABC ABC ABC LMNO QRS ABC ABC Now I ABC ABC ABC ABC. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Thank you, thank you." Childhood prodigy I tell ya! Lol.

So I have dubbed my almost endless squeeing as a mommygasm. It was seriously like a high. I kept clicking different links on the school website looking for a bigger buzz. It's addicting. =) Luckily my sister came home, and I could force her to look at the website. That is the only way to come off a high that good. Bahahahaha.

And before I finish, here is an update on the bedtime front...SHE WENT TO BED AT 6:30PM TONIGHT and has yet to wake up. =D No tears, just some playing and reading and she snuggled in for a long summer's nap. Today was a day of win, really. Last night she fell asleep around 8PM, woke up about an hour later, went back to sleep about 30 minutes later, then slept until just before 7AM. We had breakfast, I tried to catch a few more winks, and then we went to the park and grabbed my Grandma's pants from the cleaners. When we got home we played on the porch and in the yard armed with sidewalk chalk, colored bubbles, and a garden hose. She had a blast. No nap, but we had an impromptu second lunch with my sister-in-law. After dinner we had another round of chalk, bubbles, and garden hose. Lil Bit got to run around in the front yard in her Applejack panties like a boss while she slung the garden hose around screaming "Got you! Got you!" at me. Then we both took a bath, put on jammies, and by 5pm, we were both ready for bed....of course, you see where I am now at midnight, but that is beside the point. Bahahaha.

And now, Mommy must head to bed to prepare for another potential 7AM wake up call.

<3
Truvy

Zombie Mommy

Sleep......it is so wonderful. So why on Earth does my child not like it anymore? She has been on the worst sleep regression of all time. Nap? No thanks. Go to bed before midnight? Psh, Mommy please. Oi. The worst days are when she doesn't take a nap at all...the lack of sleep causes her to want to stay up super uber late. If I can wrestle her into a nap, bedtime is a wee bit more manageable. But I have figured it out...if she isn't asleep before Tiana turns into a frog, naptime is hopeless. I was, however, able to get her to sleep before 9:30pm Sunday night. We will overlook the fact that the child who wakes up at 9am like clockwork usually decided to follow the advice of her jammies and get "up with the sun" at 6:40am. I blame my mom for picking out those jammies for her to wear that night. Lol.

But last night....was heaven! My sister-in-law asked if Lil Bit could have a sleepover. A choir of angels appeared as she asked. So when Lil Bit woke up from her noon-3pm nap, I took her on over. I actually got to rest! I made the most of it by having a red velvet cupcake and a glass (ok, maybe 3) of wine. Then I corralled my sister into a Bones marathon and junk food. It was marvelous! I even slept til noon today! Every Mommy needs a break like that once in a while. Especially during a 2 year old's unruly sleep regression. I'm picking her up tonight at 7pm...let's hope tonight is an easy one.

We are also potty training right now. Yesterday from about 7:30am-noon we went panties only. She has about 10 pair of panties. She peed in every single one...and 2 or 3 of them got peed in again after i did a load of laundry. But after the third accident, she start saying "Mommy help!" every time she got wet...so I will take that as progress. I think tonight I will make cookies so I can bribe her to actually go in the potty this time. Any tips and tricks are more than welcome. I keep her potty in the living room aimed at the TV in hopes it will help her sit still long enough to go. Hopefully Caillou can help us make some progress tomorrow.

And on that note, I bring you this...





I found it while searching for potty training videos. I want to put it on a CD so we can go down the streets ballin.

<3
Truvy

...AAAAAAANNNNNDDDD We're Back. Again.

Granted we didn't actually LEAVE in the first place, but whatever. I'm still too much of a weenie to hit submit on that form I was telling you about in the last entry. But...I will. "Boxes and Doors" is still coming along. Slowly but surely.

Wee Man has been chattering and jabbering up a storm as of late. He's actually using REAL words now as opposed to...gibberish. We even got a full sentence out of him the other day! We will TRY to overlook that it was "NO!Don't like clothes!"

Have to admit, it's straight and to the point though.

Most of his winter clothes have now been repurposed into spring wear. HOPEFULLY we won't have another cold snap up here otherwise he'll freeze his butt off. I've had to now take ALL of his feetie pajamas and cut the feet out up to the zipper, remove the sleeves and zip them up backwards, pretty much making him little sunsuits. I'm thinking that perhaps this weekend or next, I'll actually completely dismantle one of them to use as a pattern, get some material (on sale of course!) and try and see what I can whip up. Truvy is the seamstress around here though. Too bad she lives like 300 miles away otherwise I'd totally be hiring her to come make Will a new wardrobe.

The freebie finds have been piling in my snail mail box and I have some pretty awesome ones on the way. The best one so far was a bottle of Bayer Advanced yesterday. It also came with a two dollar off coupon. If you keep up with the FB page, I'll start posting some of the links to freebie finds daily. Everyone knows I need a hobby yes?

xoxo
Ouiser(don't call it a come back!)