The Price is right

Wowza. You know how I said in my last post that being a grown-up was expensive? I should have had at least forty comments to that saying, "Honey, you ain't seen nothin' yet."

The past four weeks have been a veritable keg party at our new house. DishNetwork, Cox internet, painters, movers, ADT, Pest Control, Garage Door Servicemen, appliance deliverymen, Air Conditioning repairmen, and more appliance deliverymen have been parading through our door since we signed the papers. It's amazing what move-in ready really means when you're *slightly* high-maintenance like we are. I can only imagine what would have been needed had we purchased a fixer-upper.

To keep the baby from growing another arm due to paint toxicity, Sprocket and I spent last week with my parents in Pinetop while Corey supervised the entire house being painted (did I mention we decided to paint the entire house?) from down here. It looks great, and once we find a camera in one of these boxes I'll be sure to post some pictures.

But the really expensive part isn't even the house. Sure, one of our very new air conditioning units decided not to work one day, the doorbell almost started a fire in our hallway, and painting a two story house with a great room that seems fifty feet tall is amazingly pricey, but the Peanut - well she's a whole different spending story.

I picked up a copy of a book called "Baby Bargains". Sounds frugal, right? Many a mother told me I HAD to have this book, and I'm very glad we purchased it because the world of baby purchases might as well have been Mars to us. However, safe baby stuff is not cheap.

Sure, there are cribs and car seats and strollers that pass safety inspections and sell for reasonable prices. But, you want the car seat with side impact? Oh, that sucker's gonna cost you. Cute cribs at Walmart? Of course. And baby probably won't die in it. But, do you want to make sure it wasn't made in China from particleboard that contains lead and asbestos? You're lookin' at $500++.

As we made our way down the list and picked out each specific brand and model for each necessity, the tab really started to add up. And when I say add up I mean that I started to hyperventilate.

Yes, we have a baby fund for this stuff. And yes, it's good that we overestimated said baby fund because we're going to use it. But, I'm cheap now. I almost threw up spending $50 on maternity clothes yesterday (oh yeah, I'm finally in maternity clothes. Yay, me. (Dripping with sarcasm, in case you're confused.))

I've resorted to buying Babies R Us coupons on ebay because they will save us hundreds of dollars, but beyond that there isn't much I can do to save on this stuff. You can't buy used, they rarely put the good stuff on sale, and scrimping on safety is not an issue for us. So, the debit card is on fire.

Lest I make life seem tragic, we are feeling very blessed. Peanut is routinely doing the cha-cha on my insides and although it is painful when she gets a foot all up in my adhesions, her Daddy sure loves to feel her kick and watch my enormous belly gyrate with her movements. She also loves to hear his voice, so he reads to her every night when we settle into bed. She calms down to hear him speak, but if he dares take a breath or turn a page she gets impatient for him to resume and knocks me around a bit.

Unfortunately, the bladder instills haven't been helping so we're going to discontinue them for now. My doc says I'm carrying her low and she likes to use my bladder as a pillow (albeit a diseased and shriveled pillow) so that's probably not going to be helped by some heparin pumped in from a catheter. Fifteen more weeks - I'll survive.

I alternate between telling her to hurry up already, and holding onto my sanity by a kite string as I realize that three-ish months from now I will be solely responsible for another human being who will need me to do EVERYTHING for her. Sure, Sprocket needs more attention than a fat mom on "Toddlers and Tiaras" but at least he sleeps for six hours a night. I pray daily that we get one of those angel children who gets wrapped up in her Miracle Blanket and sleeps until 8am. Maybe she'll learn just how crabby her Daddy is when he doesn't get enough sleep and she'll cut us a break now and then.

Or maybe her millions of dollars in Miracle Blankets and soothing nursery white noise machines will knock her out for days at a time.

One can only pray to the Visa and Mastercard gods.