Green, Frugal, Simple for Baby

Reading the parenting magazines and listening to all the hype, you'd really believe that it costs thousands and thousands of dollars to raise a child.  But I'm looking forward to attachment parenting and frugal green living, followed later by Waldorf-inspired homeschooling. 

Baby's got to eat.  Well, God thought of that when He gave me boobies!  Barring any complications, we plan to arrange our lifestyle such that I can exclusively breastfeed baby until s/he no longer requires breast milk.  For the few times I may be away from baby when s/he's hungry, I'm partial to using a baby syringe as a nipple replacement, instead of bottles.  We'll need that for medication anyway, and it's free at most pharmacies.

Baby's gonna pee and poo.  We do want to keep that content off the furniture and clothing, so we are diapering.... with cloth diapers.  One time expense, and a much greener and more comfortable option for baby, plus helps encourage potty training since baby learns not to enjoy that moist butt feel as a toddler.  We opted for simple prefolds with white velcro covers.

Baby's gotta get around.  Since we do live in an area where we utilize a car often, a car seat is a must.  What is not a must is three or four different car seats and boosters as the child grows.  We're opting for a convertible car seat that can be set up rear-facing with the appropriate inserts to keep baby from flopping all over the place, and eventually to serve as a booster chair.  When not driving, a baby carrier will be our first choice of transportation.  It keeps baby and parent close together, plus baby gets to see what's going on at a higher level than in a stroller.  Having said that, we do have a stroller we bought years ago second-hand that converts from a bassinet style to a sitting position, which also lets you move the handlebar so you can either be facing baby or you can both be looking in the same direction. 

Baby's got to wear clothes.  At least in public!  We're fans of unisex clothes for the first few months for several reasons.  First of all, we are not finding out the sex of the baby.  Second, I don't like color-coding kids, and if we knew we were having a girl, for instance, many of our loved ones would shower us with frilly pink princess themed stuff, which makes me want to gag!  But most importantly, babies grow.  Very fast.  Any item of clothing in the first 12 months of life or so will only be worn a handful of times anyway.  With unisex items for this stage, should we be blessed with baby #2, there won't be a reason not to reuse the same stuff.  Speaking of hand-me-downs, if you've got baby clothes you want me to take off your hands, let me know!  I am anything BUT a hand-me-down snob.  I love hand-me-downs.  We practically dressed our foster daughter in the hand-me-downs of a nice lady I met online who didn't need her kids' clothes anymore.

Baby's got to be clean.  Wet washcloth baths in the very beginning and baths on a towel in the tub later on sound like a plan to me.  I watched my siblings bathed this way, and I don't see any reason to purchase items to complicate a simple process.  Baby can also use the same towels we use (obviously clean), so no need to designate one with a hoodie that can't be used once baby is too big.

Baby's got to be healthy.  So there are a few items that I think need to be in our first-aid kit.  A thermometer, baby syringe, nose aspirator.  This category is hardly a bank-breaker.

Baby's got to have fun and get some exercise!  First of all, toys for babies are like bicycles for fish.  Completely pointless, though the fish owner may get a kick looking at the fish and toys in the tank together.  Since I'm focusing on the very early time period right now, I won't go into toys that I do think are advisable for toddlers and beyond.  But babies?  They play with their toes, your finger, a sock.  Just be creative.  They don't care if it's made by Disney.

Most importantly, baby needs mom and dad.  And no store in the universe can compensate for one-on-one time with the parentals!

Thinking of Homeschooling Already!

The idea of homeschooling fascinates me.  For one thing, I’ve had my share of negative experiences with the public school system to know that I want something better, much better, for my children.  For another, homeschooling strikes me as an extension of attachment parenting, a way to keep my children in the home when they are young, and not delegating my job to teachers who may not share my values.  Finally, I have spent 10 years of marriage waiting for the time when I could be a mother.  The last thing on my mind is getting my child out of the house for the majority of most days of the year.  Instead, I look forward to the one-on-one time we will spend together, benefitting both our relationship and the child’s education.

What I did not expect was the sense of being overwhelmed by the options of methods (never mind curricula!) available to homeschoolers.  Luckily, I do have several years to iron out the details, as my baby is not even due for 5.5 more months.  So I’ve taken to writing as a way to figure out where to begin.

                 

The first step, after writing a mission statement to gather our attitudes and beliefs about the purpose of education and homeschooling, is to tackle one grade at a time.  What I’m learning from the blogosphere of homeschoolers is that the general trend is not to simply choose a method and a curriculum and stick with it for 12 years.  Furthermore, I will have to consider the child’s individual learning style when deciding on the best way to approach learning with her or him.  Then, it’ll be a matter of trial and error, committing to a method and perhaps curriculum for one grade at a time and reassessing our needs each year.

                 

With this in mind, I am more relaxed in knowing that this is simply not something I can plan in advance and put away to wait for my child to be “school-aged”.  In fact, what is considered school-aged is the first thing I need to take into account.  Here, I am attracted to Waldorf and Montessori methods of education, in that both stress the importance of letting little children be little children, and not trying to teach academics before they are ready to learn them.   In the same vein, both of these methods discourage exposure to electronic media for young children. One difference between these two approaches at this early stage is that Montessori focuses more on children learning through work, by doing age-appropriate chores around the house, for instance.  The Waldorf approach, on the other hand, focuses pretty much entirely on allowing the children to play, thus building the foundation for later academic learning.  Another, perhaps inconsequential, difference is that Waldorf would have the child wait until age 7 to begin any sort of concrete homeschooling, whereas Montessori starts a year earlier, at 6 years old.

                 

For the time being, I see that my approach to “Kindergarten” will definitely come from some overlap of these two approaches.  Since my child is due to be born in December, I think it’s best to plan to start first grade in September of the year when s/he will turn 7.  One benefit of Waldorf is that I have already found ready curricula available for all 12 years (should we end up sticking with this method), and I do feel the need to have some guidance, at least in the beginning of my homeschooling career.  Since Montessori is more child-led, the expectation is to focus on what the child shows an interest in learning at the time, so homeschooling parents have to gather their own resources independent of a set curriculum.  I certainly appreciate this approach to a degree.  However, I also crave structure, and I envision establishing some boundaries within which we can spend more or less time depending on the child’s interests.

                 

The only thing I have found somewhat concerning about the Waldorf approach is its focus on art, since I am not very artistic.  I look forward to various arts and crafts we can learn together, but an artist I am not.  Still, at the early stage, this is not something to lose sleep over.  Therefore, I think I’ll settle into the expectation that we will utilize a Waldorf homeschooling curriculum in the 1^st grade, with the understanding that I will most likely pick and choose eclectically to change or supplement as needed.  After all, I am looking for a curriculum as a guide, not as a rule-book. 

                 

With this matter settled, I can go back to more pressing plans, like a gentle birth and attachment parenting.

Remembering Rachel a Year Later

My best friend has been gone for a year now.  A year is a milestone.  In Poland, it's considered the appropriate amount of time one mourns for a very close deceased relative.  This is done (almost exclusively) by women in part through the wearing of all black throughout this time period.  It's a reminder both to the person in mourning and to others that a great loss has been suffered.  I think sometimes we try to minimize the grief because it's so painful.  While I definitely think there's a place for looking on the bright side ("She's no longer in pain", "He's in a better place now", "We'll see each other again someday"), it is important to let yourself actually feel the hard, ugly, disturbing emotions as well.

I have had periodic dreams of Rachel over the past 12 months.  At first, I welcomed them as signs that she was indeed in a better place and visiting me in my subconsciousness to let me know this.  But as the first year anniversary began to approach, the dreams led to me waking up in tears and remembering what it was like in the months and days leading up to her death.

Now that I am pregnant, I have conflicting feelings.  On one hand, I wish she were here for me to share this time with her.  Even more, I wish that her desire for us both to be pregnant at the same time and become "mommies" together could've come true.  Remembering her now just reminds me that this didn't happen.  On the other hand, her memory still makes me angry and sad, and I now worry about any negative effects of grief on my developing baby.  I don't want baby to think mommy is sad because life on the outside sucks!

Tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of Rachel's funeral, and also what would've been her and her husband's eight wedding anniversary.  In honor of this, I wanted to just briefly reflect on a few of the memories of that day, because I think it's important to incorporate her funeral and burial into my framework of our relationship, to better ease me into a life without her, without a best friend.

Alex and I flew to Florida for the funeral.  As we entered the funeral home, Rachel's sister-in-law, who had apparently remembered me from Rachel's wedding, welcomed me with a hug.  Soon, one of Rachel's grandmothers (and she had a fun family tree!) greeted me, saying "I knew you'd be here."  Indeed.  I hadn't realized until that day how important I must've been to Rachel as a friend, since so many of her loved ones knew me. I was told we should sit in the family section, because we were practically family.

I went up to greet Rachel's mom, step-father, brother, and sister-in-law.  Then I went up to Rachel's open casket.  I recognized her, yet I distinctly remember thinking that "Rachel", the animated soul that I knew as a friend, was not in that body, in that box.  They had dressed her up, combed her hair, put on her make-up, but she was no longer there.

On the flight there, the airline was gracious enough to bump both of us up to business class.  It was there that I noticed Alex's half & half that he was using in his coffee.  Rachel and I had an inside joke from our teenage years.  We used to hang out late at night at Denny's, and I once made a comment asking what does "ha-ha, lf-lf" mean, because the way the words were written on the container separated the first and second syllables down the middle.  Rachel laughed, corrected me, and never let me live it down after that.  So I got an idea to return the favor of an inside joke by keeping one of the half & half containers in my purse.

As I stood there alone by the side of Rachel's casket, I carefully slipped the empty half & half container under the scarf she had wrapped around her and her arms.  For my 30th birthday, she made me a frame with three pictures.  The frame read "laugh", and she added above that the words "she makes me..."  In the middle was a picture of the two of us at her 30th birthday party.  To the left was a picture of me reading a book on women she had given me, and to the right a picture of me hugging a palm tree.  Surrounding the photographs, she had written, "What makes Karolina so great?... Her strong beliefs (first picture, referring to my early feminist days), her wonderful friendship (second picture, referring to my trip to Florida for her birthday), her quirkiness (third picture, referring to my sense of humor.)  And so, I thought she would appreciate a half & half reference now.

I spoke at Rachel's funeral, per her widower's request.  I was the only one to actually stick to the requested 2 minute limit, but that's fine.  I felt I needed to redeem myself after I bombed big time trying to give a toast at her wedding, where I was so overcome by emotion that I doubt anyone could decipher what I was blubbering.  I even got the crowd (Yes, there was a crowd of people whose lives she touched who came to celebrate her life.  They had to add chairs up and down the aisles to fit everyone into the church!) to laugh when I mentioned that Rachel learned how to say "I'm 19 years old" and never adjusted it as she grew older.  I remember reaching out to her father's shoulder on my way up, making eye contact with her mother while I was speaking, and hugging her husband as I was returning to my seat.  I ended my eulogy in Spanish, a language she was fluent in and loved as long as I knew her.  "Te amo, chica.  Nos vemos al otro lado."  ("I love you, girl.  I'll see you on the other side.")

The burial was not what I expected, as it was my first American funeral.  I abided by my own, perhaps Polish sentiments and Alex and I remained in our car as the crew finished covering her grave even after everyone else left.  I couldn't imagine leaving before she was properly laid to rest.  When they finished, we approached to say a final goodbye and take a few pictures.  That's when I noticed that they had put the wrong name plate at her site!  We rushed to track down the crew and had them call the funeral director.  We were told they would come back and fix it.  Meanwhile, I made a make-shift corrected name plate with her name and dates of birth and death.  I couldn't imagine the added grief the mistake might've caused Rachel's mom or husband if, upon their return, they found her grave improperly marked.

The reception was surreal.  It was my first time visiting her house.  Her widower gave me a tour, and I remember distinctly as he softly pushed on her glasses case on the dresser and commented on the his & hers sinks he was grateful for because of her hair clogging up the drain.  He also showed us where he had found her on the day of her death.

I mingled with her family, some friends.  I saw evidence of her influence throughout the house.  I cringed at the thought of being in her widower's shoes, surrounded by remnants of her but not quite her. And in keeping with Rachel's expectations (which she voiced to me as we discussed my planned visit to see her), I hugged the palm tree in her front yard. 

I remember thinking in the weeks following her death if I would have a new best friend down the road.  I questioned if it's normal to have a best friend, and if that one passes away, a new one arises.  I entertained the idea of going through life without a best friend.  Now, a year later, I understand.

If anyone asks, I used to have a best friend.  Her name was Rachel, and she loved me unconditionally.  Now she is home with God, where I will join her someday.  There is no replacing her.

Rachel's tombstone.  Note the picture of a teacher in the upper right corner.

If Dogs Could Preach... part 5 (God's unconditional love)

Recently, one of our dogs - the troublemaker - got into a garbage bag where there were chicken bones.  Please note - we did NOT give him the bones, we do know better!  When Alex saw him, he of course gave the command to drop it, which had the opposite effect on Hunter, who began to gulp it down even quicker to make sure Alex didn't take the precious, forbidden treat away. 

We quickly realized that there was something wrong when Hunter started acting erratically, scratching at his mouth with his paw, which was bloody.  At first, we couldn't figure out what was bleeding - the paw or the mouth.  When we realized that we couldn't risk getting bitten by putting our hand in his mouth to try to remove the bone, we put his muzzle on him and Alex rushed him to the veterinary hospital.

Everything happened so quickly, within 5 minutes they were out the door.  But in that time period, I managed to be angry at Hunter for costing us an unknown amount in hospital bills while at the same time being scared that he may not make it.  At this point, we weren't sure if he was choking or what.

As it turned out, he got the bone stuck behind his upper hind teeth, so he was definitely in pain (he was bleeding, after all), but not in imminent danger.  The hospital staff made him wait as they tended to real emergencies.  He ended up needing anesthesia in order to allow the vet to remove the bone.  While he was under, he got a complimentary pedicure, so that was good.

When Alex finally returned with Hunter after 3 hours, we were both relieved.  The bill wasn't as bad as it could've been: $200.  And most importantly, Hunter was ok.  He gets on our last nerve pretty much on a weekly basis, but this episode made us realize that we love him anyway, he's part of the family, and we'll just have to accept that he comes with drama and trouble.

While I was praying to St. Francis of Assisi to intercede and help Hunter, I realized that we are so often just like Hunter.  We sneak things we're not supposed to do, and when we're reprimanded, we get even more adamant about having our way, until we finally get hurt.  Even as God tries to help us, we resist, not realizing what is good for us.  Yet how awesome to think that just like we put up with Hunter, God puts up with us.  He loves us even though He'd much rather we didn't bring so much drama and trouble everywhere we go!
 

Finding One's Niche

They say that the goal to successfully uncovering your niche is by noticing a need in your surroundings and figuring out how to fill that need based on your own skills.  What they don’t tell you is that your niche may not come with everything you would hope.  You may need to compromise in order to do work that you love.

The needs in my community are endless, but what are the skills that I can offer?
I speak Polish, but there isn’t a need for anyone to learn Polish or to have things translated between Polish and English in my community.

I also speak Spanish, though not fluently and I am self-conscious about my limited vocabulary.  Still, there have been many opportunities when I was able to translate for random folks wherever I happened to be - at work, at court, at school, at the store.  In fact, I taught Spanish speakers English when I first got into ESL.  They were so basic in their level, that for the first 6 months or so, I actually taught in Spanish.  I also taught Americans Spanish for a summer.  That wasn't nearly as fulfilling as teaching English.  But then, I got greedy.

I loved the work, but not the pay.  On a fluke, I inquired about a teaching position at my local community college, which ended up being an interview, and voila!  A couple of years of doing what I love for more than twice the money followed.  But then, I found something else wrong with the arrangement.

I had to commute to another campus to teach, and I often had early morning classes followed by late evening classes.  My choices were to make the commute twice each day, or to lolligag all day long in between classes.  I chose the latter.  I still found fulfillment from teaching immigrants and older folks, but I wanted it all.  So when the opportunity to teach all of my classes at my local campus opened up, I didn't think twice.

It actually took me several years before I realized that I was now teaching a different segment of the population.  I already knew that it mattered who you taught and what you taught, because I had the opportunity halfway through my ESL teaching career to substitute teach linguistics at my alma mater for an old professor.  I hated the experience, even though the schedule was great and I had a corner office!  There was no appreciation from the students, and I wasn't nearly as competent in teaching linguistics (my major) as I was in teaching ESL.  I turned down the opportunity to teach there again the following semester.

Yet, I only made a partial discovery when I opted not to teach linguistics.  The part that terrified me was that I was still in a PhD program for linguistics with the intention of teaching it after graduation, and I had just had a first-hand glance at what it would be like and I didn't care for it one bit!  Which of course led to panic as to whether or not to finish the program and if no, then what would I do instead?

The part that I didn't fully appreciate until just recently was that it was not just the subject but the student population as well.  Yet by this time, I had been teaching more and more daytime intensive English classes due to the better schedule and pay.  Slowly, it dawned on me that my foreign ESL students, those here on student visas who usually didn't have to pay for their own tuition, were more interested in goofing off than in learning.  It was the rare student who truly showed an interest in self-improvement.  I had been duped!  I was teaching the fresh-out-of-high school students just like when I taught linguistics at my alma mater, and there wasn't much difference in their work habits, behavior, or attitude.

And that's when I came full circle to understanding that I simply cannot have it all.  It turns out that if I want my work to have meaning, to be fulfilling, then that work correlates with a schedule that isn't ideal for me, and that doesn't pay what I would hope.  On the other hand, the work that comes with the perfect schedule and decent pay just doesn't do it for me anymore.

This past semester, I had another great class.  About a year ago, I got the opportunity to start teaching more advanced ESL, which also came with a more secure schedule and better pay.  Nearly all of these students were fresh out of high school, and most of them still acted as if they weren’t fully grown.  But this semester, out of financial need, I agreed to teach a Saturday morning class.  

I lamented losing my weekend, but what I got in return was a class full of thoughtful students who took the content of the class seriously, whose behavior I didn’t have to constantly correct, and who showed pride in their work.  The majority of them were older students, working during the week and thus needing a Saturday class to accommodate their busy lives.

Currently, I am taking a sabbatical from teaching ESL.  For one thing, our international move is still up in the air and likely to happen in the next couple of months.  For another, I will need time to be home with our baby when s/he is born later this year.  So maybe this is as good a time as any to reflect on where my work-for-pay has taken me over the years, what turns I’ve taken, mistakes I’ve made, and experiences I’ve had.  

Perhaps it’s good that I can ruminate on what all of this means without having to make immediate decisions about it.  My life’s priorities have to be readjusted.  Either I want as much money as I can get, or I want as much fulfillment as I can get.  If I cannot have both, I must choose one.  Which one would it be?

We Still Do! (Vow Renewal / 10th Wedding Anniversary)

This past weekend Alex and I celebrated our 10^th wedding anniversary with a vow renewal ceremony during Mass.  In attendance were:  my parents, my brother, my sister and her new husband (married 3 days prior), Alex’s mom and her gentleman friend, Alex’s sister and her daughter and husband, our friends Courtney, Melissa, Yessenia, Liz (with her new baby Nick), and Erick, and a couple from our Marriage Encounter Circle.  

As we waited for Mass to start, Alex was encouraging the reader walking up with the processional to participate in Worldwide Marriage Encounter.  It was precious to hear my husband spreading good news about marriage.

Entrance procession at start of Mass

We walked in with the priests during the processional and sat at the front.  Fr. Kevin and Fr. Frank were co-celebrating, which was awesome!  The music director included all four of our requested hymns in the Mass:

Here I am Lord (by Dan Schutte) 

How Great Thou Art (by Stuart K. Hine) 

They'll Know We Are Christians (by Peter Scholtes)  

Lead Me, Lord (by John D. Becker) 

We chose these songs because they have had an impact on us and our faith journey.  We are at the service of the Master, and as a married couple, we are called to share Christ's love with the world, starting by modeling His love within our marriage.

The altar at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church

We got some awesome photos with the beautiful altar as the backdrop.  And just like 10 years ago, I continue to be 100% satisfied with my choice of wedding dress, which I wore to the renewal.  I cannot imagine a more beautiful dress or color!  

Alex wore his wedding vest, and I wore my wedding dress and shoes.

 For some reason, we hadn’t realized that we would actually be repeating the same vows we said on our wedding day.  There we were, standing up at the altar, holding hands and gazing into each others’ eyes as we made lofty promises that we already knew we could keep because we had kept them for the past 10 years!  Between the intense eye contact and the realization of how much more meaningful the vows were this time around, by the time it was my turn, I had to pause several times to soldier through the tears.  Fr. Kevin said “that’s one happy bride... do you know something we don’t?”  And of course he was hinting at our miracle baby, but not everyone knew yet.  

 There was a part of me that wanted to address the community and share some of the difficult things we’ve been through, and how through it all the Lord brought us closer and closer together.  I wanted them to know that it is possible to have a solid marriage, if you only include God in it the way He intended.  I wanted them to know that you will fight, disagree, be disappointed or even hurt, have to compromise, change your goals, and hold your tongue.  You won’t always like each other, but marriage – and love – is about a commitment. Alex and I promised each other that we would be there for each other no matter what, and we both believe each others’ promises.  If we didn’t believe, we’d have no trust, no foundation on which to build a solid marriage.

We brought up the gifts this time as well, just like at our original wedding.  Only this time, we weren’t in a tiny chapel with a mere 20 or so people, but in the main church with the entire parish community (at least those who go to the Saturday vigil mass) with us.  We loved being able to share with so many people the joy of our marital bliss, especially in a society that degrades marriage to an unpleasant rite of passage, generally temporary, and certainly self-serving.  

We had dinner with our families afterwards and spent some time at our favorite karaoke joint with a few close friends.  Then we went to our hotel room and opened up our unexpected but wonderfully thoughtful gifts and cards.  It truly felt like we had gotten married all over again!

I’m already thinking about the next time we renew our vows, with our child or children sitting in the pews, rooting us on.  This time, “Dino” was there and behaved quite well, but we won’t see her/him on pictures. Next time, we will :-)

The Cost of Raising a Child, Really?

I recently came across an estimate of what I can expect to spend on a child in the first year.  The official guess?  Over $10,000.  Yeah, right.  Somebody’s sniffing glue.  Then again, let’s itemize some of the biggest expenses.

Nearly $7,000 of that estimate is in childcare costs.  I will be staying home with the baby, so while we will be losing my income, it’s always been a bit sporadic and unpredictable anyway.  And since we can swing it, then there is no one better to take care of our baby then one of us!

$864 in disposable diapers for the first year, so roughly $1,700 from birth through potty training.  $228 for the year if I use and wash my own cloth diapers, which should pretty much remain the same through potty training and a sibling.  Taking into account the fact that we’ve already purchased our diapers previously and used them with our foster daughter, we only have to purchase a few more prefolds and covers that got lost along the way.  It won’t be more than about $100.

Roughly $630 for 6 months worth of formula, compared to zero for exclusive breastfeeding.  If I can help it, I will tap into my magical power of milk production!

Another expense that my personal experience cautions me against is saving for college.  First of all, not everyone goes to college, and not everyone has to.  There are various career fields where our child can be successful without a four-year degree.  They may open up their own business.  They may be an artist or an athlete.  They may have a calling to the religious life, where they may not even need to come out of pocket for their education.  Second of all, the first two years of college cover what I believe everyone should know before they graduate high school anyway.  College is a right of passage, more about social life than academics.  I’m not going to chip away year after year so my kid can have an on-campus experience.  Our investment in our child’s education will come in the form of homeschooling – the socially tapped-in kind.  That’s up to $1,000 per year we can be applying towards family travel, which can be much more educational than a couple of semesters in a classroom!

Another expense that I can’t promise bc I’m married to Mr. Likes-to-shop is kids’ clothing.  Obviously, in the first year of life, a child goes through a lot of clothes for the simple reason of regularly outgrowing them.  Yet this is all the more reason not to have 30 outfits in any single size!  There are a few staples that will be needed in each size, but I will not apologize for my child wearing the same outfit twice in one week, so long as it’s clean!  What’s more, people tend to like buying baby clothes (and toys, another unnecessary expense!) as gifts, so we will only supplement whatever we don’t receive from our generous family and friends!

I mentioned toys.  There are some fascinating toys out there, but two caveats with that.  One, babies don’t need toys.  That doesn’t come into play until they’re a little older.  Two, toys are mostly for the adults anyway, to relive their happy childhoods.  Kids’ imagination should be encouraged as much as possible.  Only a few select classics like books, blocks, a doll or teddy, crayons, etc. are necessary.  Many everyday household items can be easily used for pretend play – boxes, pots and pans, mom or dad’s house clothes and accessories for dress up.

Then there’s the baby gear – stuff everyone tries to make you think you need when you actually don’t need it!  Most of this stuff is either a luxury that can be bypassed if you don’t mind an extra step here and there, or it’s stuff to distance you from your baby, discouraging close physical contact between the two (three) of you.  I won’t go into parenting styles here except to say that I do not believe we have a right to expect our lives not to change, and to try to make our baby fit into our schedule.  The baby didn’t ask to join our family.  We invited him or her.  Therefore, we have to accommodate the baby as best we can with whatever she or he needs to get the best start in life.  In our home, this will involve a lot of babywearing, skin-to-skin contact, and just overall togetherness at the expense of whatever was previously considered fun or entertaining for us.  Perhaps this is different in different families, but we longed for this baby for years.  We want our lives to change, we’ve prepared for our lives to change, and we are willing to change our lives to make room for this little addition. 

I’m sure there’s a few other expenses that don’t even come to mind right off the bat, like regular professional photo shoots (I take decent pictures myself, thank you very much.)  There’s others, no doubt.  One thing that gets talked about a lot is upgrading car and house when baby arrives.  This seems laughable to me.  We have a 3 bedroom right now that we don’t know what to do with.  We’ve been looking for ways to downgrade and simplify, so with a third human family member on the way, we simply won’t, considering we also hope to have grandparents visiting.  But you know what?  A baby doesn’t need a private room.  Again, this touches on parenting style, which is best left for another post.  But I see getting your very own room as a right of passage, not a given.  The whole home is ours... who’s to say mom and dad can’t sneak out for a romantic romp on the sofa when they need privacy? 

At any rate, there’s my first go at a critique of what the powers that be would have me believe about the cost of raising a child.  My motto?  Don’t believe everything you hear.