Tag: babies

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One Decade Down

This coming weekend marks my 10 year Hickman High School reunion – The Class of 2000.  It took me awhile to find the Columbia Daily Tribune’s article about it (way back in their “archives”…that aren’t what I’d call “searchable”), mostly so I could remind myself of the statistics these kinds of things tend to include: 619 graduates, 73% of which were going on to four-year colleges, 13% to jobs, and the remainder to two-year schools or the military.

We’ll be heading down to Columbia this Friday to attend this year’s Hickman Homecoming Game, and hopefully we’ll get to see my old marching band play some of this year’s show while we’re at it.  Otherwise, the general “plan” is for people to get together for some Mizzou tailgating (which I won’t do, in favor of frolfing with Stu…) followed by a group dinner at Boone Tavern on Saturday night.  RSVPs for all of this were done over Facebook, so while I have some idea who is attending, I don’t know exactly because the invites were only sent to “fans” of “Hickman High School Class of 2000.”  If you weren’t a “fan” of that particular Facebook Group, you probably didn’t get the invite.  So yeah, to an extent, I have no idea who’s going to even be at this event, besides a few specific people I’ve chit-chatted with in the past few months.

That all aside, we’re due for a visit to Columbia.  We haven’t been down there for a few months now and Mom is itching to take Meg shopping for some winter clothes (which is good, ’cause Iowa is COLD).

But back to the Reunion.  This will be the first time most of my “Group of Friends” from high school meet Meg.  In a few cases, this will be the first time they meet Brooke!  I guess part of the fun of going to a 10 year High School Reunion is “reconnecting” with friends you haven’t seen in years (or a decade), but it’s going to be fascinating to see what trajectories we all ended up on.  I was friends with a wide variety of folks in high school, ranging from valedictorians to band geeks to space station simulators.  To date, I’m the only one I can think of from high school that was part of that group and also has a child.  I’m also one of the few that is married (although most have “significant others,” to some degree).  Considering 10 years has passed, I find those particular milestones to be rather interesting, as I’d argue that the preceding generations had a higher percentage of individuals that were married and had at least one kid 10 years after graduating high school (my Mom had 2 kids within 10 years of graduation).

I guess  I’m just reflecting on how I ended up here, as compared with others from my graduating class.  Whether it was always subconsciously in the plan to be married, have kids, and have a Ph.D. in time for my 10 year reunion.  Whether that notion was part of other people’s plans, or whether their lives took them in completely different directions than they’d otherwise intended.  Whether I will be considered the odd-man-out, or whether someone else’s shocking revelation will trounce anything I could come up with in this post.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not worried about going to the reunion.  On TV, you see people fretting about going back to their high school reunions, usually that they’ll seem somehow “less successful” than their brethren, or that they have memories of the “high school experience” that no one else remembers like you do (think of the season three 30 Rock episode, “Reunion“).  Despite my questions above, I’m just genuinely intrigued by the idea of how my experience differs from the experiences of the other people I hung out with in high school.  Personally, I think if we were to rate attendees based on their “successes” post-graduation, I’d rate fairly highly.  I guess I’m just wondering if I meet the expectations that my friends had 10 years ago, and if they will all meet mine.

I guess I just find it all to be “curious.”

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Breastfeeding Savings

I debated about just adding this information to my Diaper Savings post, but decided that this topic might warrant it’s own comments!

Meg is breastfed and was exclusively (except for about an ounce of formula in the hospital because I was freaking out that she was hungry…I know better now) until she started eating rice cereal at 4 months. There’s another post coming about how that’s going for another time. I still continue to nurse and to pump while she is at daycare about 5-6 times each day, which I’m guessing gets Meg about 28 ounces of breastmilk a day, which should be plenty. I’m starting to think about weaning her to a combination of stored breastmilk and formula from a bottle in the next month or so, mostly because my work schedule is complicated and there’s not always time or a place for me to pump when I need to, and because I’m starting to feel like I’ve done my job in this arena. I have a feeling that weaning will go slowly to ease the hormonal and therefore emotional toll it will take on both of us (or all of us, really because Andy will have to deal with it, too).

I think to breastfeed or not is a very personal decision, just like I think most parenting decisions should be. It’s super easy to start thinking that your way of doing things is better than anyone else’s, and why this is true for each parent’s situation, I’m trying really hard to not worry what other people think of what I’m doing with my job and at the same time not judge other parents for their decisions.

That being said, when I was looking at how much money we’ve saved my cloth diapering, Andy was also interested in how much money we’ve saved by not buying formula. Here are the CDC’s statistics on the numbers of infants in the United States who were breastfed in 2006:
* 73.9% were ever breastfed
* 43.4% were still breastfeeding at 6 months of age
* 22.7% were breastfeeding at 1 year of age
* 33.1% were exclusively breastfed through 3 months of age
* 13.6% were exclusively breastfed through 6 months of age
So, obviously, most babies are being breastfed at least some, so this number isn’t this high unless a baby has only ever had formula. But, for a basic, name brand formula, for the first 6 months of life, you will have spent $717.93 to feed a baby. Breastfeeding is absolutely free!! In our case, since I have a pump and the necessary accessories for storing and feeding pumped breastmilk, the net savings is about $400.00. That’s pretty good from a purely monetary perspective, if you ask me (and I know you didn’t, but whatever…)!

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Diaper Savings

So, I bought a new pair of boots, and in trying to justify the purchase to myself and Andy, I started thinking about all the things I do to save money.

How we’re cloth diapering was discussed here, but not the costs. A lot of people will say that, in the end, the costs associated with cloth diapering doesn’t really save a lot over disposables, while others say that you break even with your first child and the savings come with subsequent children. I contend that disposable diapers are WAY more expensive than cloth. And, from my experience, I’d also say that anything that is cheap is also good for the Earth (hanging clothes on the clothesline, gardening, driving a high gas mileage car…), so we’re doing our part!

I also added in 20% of the cost of our new washing machine because we probably wouldn’t have bought such a nice one if we weren’t washing diapers 2-3 times each week. The amount of electricity used seems fair, as it also includes water since we have a well and sewage since we have a septic tank. We do not currently have trash removal, but if we used disposable diapers, we would have to pay for that as well!

The ongoing costs of cloth diapering from this point will include a few more covers as Meg gets bigger, but the current ones should fit her until she’s at least 18 pounds, and electricity. Our electric bill may increase a little in the winter when I can’t hang the diapers out to dry as often, but I really don’t very often now anyway because they have to hang outside all day and I usually need the clothesline space if it’s a Saturday and I’m doing lots of other laundry.

I totally paid for those boots just in cloth diapering the last 6 months ($186.00 saved!!!!), but now I’m looking for other ways that Andy can thank me for being so frugal! Up next, canning, canning, canning.

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New Diaper Design


I explained how we were doing our diapers a couple of months ago, but since I’ve had some time on my hands and plenty of room to spread out a project, I’ve amended things little. I’ve used scrap fabric and about a dollar’s worth of elastic to make about 20 fitted diapers. So, for about 5 cents each, I’ve made what we could have bought for about $14 each on Amazon, plus the new diapers are much prettier, easier to use, and don’t leak poo as readily! I tweaked my pattern several times for ease of sewing and ease of wearing, so if anyone would like my pattern, let me know and I’ll be happy to make you one!

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Unsolicited Parenting Advice, Part 1

There are a few things we’ve learned in Meg’s short 2 months and since no one really likes to hear other people’s opinions about raising their child unless specifically asked, I’m just going to put it out in internet-land in case you do want to know.

When Googling a problem or an ailment (like my recent “well water breastfeeding runny poop”) ALWAYS click on the link to the forums for other people’s experiences. Read the posts, then do the exact opposite of what they say. Those people are idiots! Hilarious, but idiots.

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Cloth Diapering

This is yet another baby-related post. Since we’ve both pretty much been home for the past 3 weeks, we don’t have much else going on, but I’ve been listening to a lot of NPR while breastfeeding, so there will most likely be some other commentary coming soon! Also, I’m determined to see Hot Tub Time Machine sometime soon, so Andy will review that when we get around to giving Meg up to one of my sisters for a couple of hours!

We decided to use cloth diapers early on in pregnancy, mostly because we’re cheap and disposable diapers are super expensive, but the “green” aspect is also nice. I perused Amazon for reviews of different types of diapers and diapering systems and ordered a few sample packs of different types, including a couple of All-In-Ones and different types of covers and inserts. In the end, we decided to go mostly with prefold diaper inserts and Thirsty Duo covers, both for price and ease of use. We’ve had lots of questions about how cloth diapering is going (several people doubted we would actually stick with it, but we haven’t used a disposable since the hospital!), so here’s what we’re doing:

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The whole process needs a prefold diaper, a cover, and a Snappi.

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The prefold gets folded into thirds, which we do when we take them out of the laundry. Then the top part is sort of unfolded a little and goes around Meg’s back and the rubber Snappi is used to keep the diaper together the way pins used to be used.

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Not my best job, but when you’re dealing with a squirmy baby, sometimes you have to take the best you can get.

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Finish by covering the prefold with a cover!

So far, we’ve only had a couple of “blow outs” and are washing diapers about every 3 days. We put in a “doubler” liner at night when Meg sleeps longer and we don’t want to wake her up to change her to help prevent leaks. I think I might be able to make some more of those myself, just like the wipes I made. Otherwise, we won’t have to buy anything else until Meg weighs 18 pounds, so we should be set for awhile. I ended up finishing the rest of our supply of diapers and covers at Cotton Babies in South County and have been really pleased with their helpfulness and willingness to only sell you what you want and not a bunch of other stuff! Also, it seems that their in-store prices are quite a bit lower than their website (the Thirsty Duos are $12.75 in the store!), so unless I find a better source in Iowa, we might have to make a run back to St. Louis to restock when Meg is bigger!

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Meet Meg

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Margaret Jean Linsenbardt (or “Meg,” as she’ll be called) was born at 8:57 am on Friday, March 5th. At birth, she weighed 6 lb 13 oz and measured 19.5″ tall.

I’ll leave all the details to Brooke, as she’s the one that actually endured the pregnancy. I’ll just say that it was more difficult than she’d originally anticipated, and it ended up being quite the ordeal! Albeit, a rewarding one. 🙂

There are more pictures available after the jump on our Picasa Web Album. I’ll be adding more to that album in the next few days, as we get to know our new daughter a bit better!

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We’re At The Hospital!

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We’ve been in this “waiting game,” of sorts, for the past few days. We had an appointment with the doctors last Thursday, and this past Monday, having “non-stress tests” done on the baby, and an ultrasound. Both turned out to be just fine (the baby’s heart beat was strong and regular, and the ultrasound showed enough fluid in the uterus, as well as a healthy placenta).

However, Brooke still hadn’t dilated all that far. Contractions have been increasing in frequency and intensity to the point where she “winces” most times when she has one, typically about every 5 minutes or so. Therefore, we had another appointment for today, having another ultrasound and another non-stress test. Again, everything looks good, but no increased dilation. The doctor said we could continue on, but now that we are 8 days past our due date, he’d be more wary of not scheduling another appointment until next Monday.

So, we’re inducing. Right now. And I have WiFi here at the hospital.

Could be tonight, could be tomorrow. Either way, very shortly, we should have a new addition to the family!

Also, it doesn’t escape me that Jim and Pam are scheduled to have their baby tonight. 😛

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“You were 2 ft away from Jon Foreman once, kiddo.”

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Brooke heard awhile back that loud music and subwoofers are good for helping “coax” your child out of your womb, so in looking into concerts coming to St. Louis, she found that Switchfoot was going to be putting on a show at The Pageant on February 15th. This is now the third time we’ve seen the band live – the first two were in outdoor settings, and we weren’t all that impressed (one concert was free), but this one was far and away the best of theirs we’ve seen, and amongst the best we’ve seen, period.

Interestingly, as the picture (from my cell phone…sorry about the poor quality…) above documents, their lead singer, Jon Foreman, came out into the crowd twice. On both occasions, he walked on the table directly in front of us while singing songs, so I think it’s safe to say this is the closest I’ve ever come to a famous person.

And, consequently, my baby girl already got close to a rock star. I’m not sure if I should be worried or not. 😛