We’re feeling this with daycare. I can withhold $5000 in an FSA account. In some areas of the country that might cover all your expenses but in southern California it’s less than six months.

No one ever approved comments so it always looked like a dead blog. I would love a baby (or pregnancy) hacking blog, especially with a 16 month old and number 2 on the way.

I LOVE Gordon Korman! He came to my tiny middle school in the late 1980s and everyone read the Bruno and Boots books in preparation. I especially loves the high school books, Don’t Care High and Son of Interflux. I think Losing Joe’s Place came out later but I’ve probably read all of them a dozen times. Now I want to…

No one told me that was going to be an issue, but damn, it was excruciating. I didn’t even have a c-section but it was excruciating for weeks. Especially the first two. I think it took me a good hour the first time, using a step stool to hold up my feet. I couldn’t stand it anymore and probably used too strong a…

You can do that in 2013 and up. Or, you can just open one instance of excel, spread it across both windows and size the workbooks within so that they fall on your two screens. Or multiple instances of excel but I always have trouble with that one, especially if I need to cut and paste.

I keep trying to get index match down but vlookups are just quicker because I’m already experienced with them. My problem with pivot tables is the inability to pull in text. At least I don’t worry about sorting my vlookups because I always require an exact match.

yeah, it’s a shame. I should probably hide the news feed because you get tired of reading the new moms freaking out about all the same stuff I freaked out about a year ago. But the in-person support groups were great for encouraging me to get out of the house with the newborn and made me feel comfortable nursing in…

We had to navigate this carefully this year. My winnings from jeopardy were taxable and treated as gambling winnings. My pregnancy disability from the state of California was tax exempt by the feds and state for the first six weeks post childbirth but the feds tax the second six weeks. Glad we pony up for a CPA now.

If you want to buy in bulk for a big diaper donation, I recommend doing it this week at Target. They’re having one of those big gift card specials, you get gift cards for buying diapers plus gift cards for buying baby items. Basically, you get six big boxes of diapers for $150 and then $55 back in gift cards. I also…

This is such old news for People to be promoting. She’s been all about the goat’s milk formula since she quit breastfeeding three years ago:

My breastfeeding support group (mostly Facebook with some in-person meetings) is always dissing women who switch to or supplement with cow’s milk at 12 months. They push goat’s milk (or camel milk) or alternative milks but mostly just keep breastfeeding. Luckily, my 15 month old LOVES cow’s milk but I don’t share that…

in the newborn stage, I much preferred prefolds and covers. You will have to change that baby CONSTANTLY. Baby poo that appears to have stained the prefold will actually fade away with sunlight, it’s magic. When baby is about 10 pounds you can probably switch to one-size diapers, whether you’re looking at all-in-ones,…

I’d be very worried about the age and history of any borrowed car seat, whether from AAA or a car rental agency. We bought the cosco scenera from Wal-Mart for $50. It’s not the Cadillac of car seats but it’s light weight and safe. Perfect for traveling. Babies are safer on planes in a car seat than on a lap so we…

It was tough forcing myself out of bed in the dark this morning but the baby stayed asleep till her normal wake up so I had a glorious hour all to myself.

I came to that realization as an adult and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

I thought my 15mo loved sushi but last night she pushed all the tuna back at me. She ate a little gyoza and nommed on some sushi rice. But I think she was also just having a “not interested in food” kinda day. Usually we split a rainbow roll just fine, she loves avocado and fish and I get a california roll out of it…

We managed to get a photographer who was “up and coming”. Our $1250 photographer (including a second photographer and engagement photos) is now $3,000 for the cheapest package. We were incredibly lucky.

Ours was about $14K in 2010 for 80 people in southern California. And we really skimped, only bouquets, no other flowers. It’s not easy here, I’m surprised California wasn’t the top of the list.

I’m sorry to say that my breasts continued to grow while breastfeeding. I was a 34B before pregnancy (though I may have been wearing the wrong size). I got fitted for a fancy nursing bra when baby was about 2 months old: 34F. They have deflated a bit but now I’m pregnant with #2. Who knows where we’ll end up?

it’s rare that they used the exact same long themed clues in the same order. Yes, there are many common fill words that are used universally, but even they won’t be clued the same way depending on the day of the week.