Random title for a blog post, I know! :)
Anyway, one of my new year's resolutions was to try to save some money each week on our grocery bill by using coupons. Little did I know that this can be very time consuming. And time seems to be something that there is never enough of around here! I talked to my SIL, Kelli over New Year's and she was praising a coupon class that she had attended recently that taught how to save lots of money at Publix. I was so excited to get started once we moved and got settled.
Problem: Apparently Kentucky is "Kroger Country" as people have told me. There are no Publix up here! Sad, sad. There are 2 Krogers where I live and after visiting the first one, I was seriously missing our Ingles back in Athens!! The store was small and kinda dirty looking. No thanks. I'll stick with Walmart if this is what grocery stores are like in this town.
Then...I ventured out one night last week after Lauren was in bed to visit the OTHER Kroger. (hey, everyone deserves a 2nd chance!) After learning that Kroger is OPEN 24 HOURS A DAY...I grabbed all my coupons, the sale flier and told Jason not to wait up! Ha!
From the moment I walked in the door of this Kroger, all my mean Kroger thoughts were laid to rest. This Kroger is new and sparkly and clean and HUGE and I LOVE IT!! They even have shopping carts with little cars attached to the front for Lauren to "drive" while we shop. The produce department was seriously impressive, they even had things I've never heard of! I think I literally heard the angels singing.
What I was MOST impressed with (and we don't even buy this stuff....) were the aisles and aisles of gluten-free, or dairy-free, soy, meatless, etc. W.O.W. I know that this stuff is hard to find for the people who need it, but this Kroger had everything that you could want.
And Kroger DOUBLES coupons that are .50 or less, so I was loving that! I got some really good deals, including French's Mustard for .19 a bottle. Yay. We eat lots of mustard. Seriously, we do. (Jason and I both hate mayo!)
Anyway, I am now a happy girl when it comes to Kroger. I will gladly drive the extra 2 miles it takes me to get to the nicer Kroger in favor of contracting Ebola or H1N1 from the one closer to my house. It was really not a nicely-kept store!!
Yesterday, Lauren and I "cooked" together for the first time. We made jello. Hey, you gotta start somewhere. I let her pour in the cold water and try to stir a little.
Today at lunch, I unveiled our finished product. She was enthusiastic, to say the least. I have always heard that if you let children help make something, they will be more interested in eating it. Guess that's true for Lauren and jello.
She pretty much couldn't get it in her mouth fast enough.
She gave up on the spoon and went for the fingers! :)
In jello heaven.
One happy, jello-lovin' little girl!
Here she is studying the"Bible"of Cooking...Paula Deen's "The Lady and Sons" HA! Just wait, Lauren...we will cook something from here, next!!
this is how my floor looked after lunch....jello is surprisingly hard to clean up
After lunch, Lauren decided to go to her room and get busy whipping up some recipes in her Dora kitchen.
She's a natural, what can I say??
Finally, I was reading my American Academy of Pedicatrics "The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Caring for Your baby and Young Child Birth to age 5" (say that 5 times fast!)....which I consider to be the "Bible" of child-rearing. Not because it's the best book out there, but because it is 701 pages of information right at your finger tips. It's like having a pediatrician in a book! You can use the index at the back of the book to look up a symptom and it will send you straight to the info you need to know! :)
Anyway.....I was perusing the section on "Your child's second year" and scanning the milestones. We have a problem, people. This book says that my sweet little girl should be speaking in 2 word sentences by her second birthday. Hmmm...it is hard for me to imagine that in the next 4 months, Lauren is going to begin to do this. Several of my mommy friends with children her age are already reporting that their children are doing this. I know, I know...you shouldn't compare...but I always worry. (It's the "first child syndrome")
Lauren will probably start saying 2 word sentences the day of her 2nd bday. After all, she walked 3 days AFTER her 1st birthday (thank goodness, because I was panicking!) Lauren tends to hit her milestones RIGHT ON TIME, not early, but not late. So, that is completely normal. It's just that when all the other kids her age are doing them early, I wonder if there is something wrong.
Lauren was spinning around in circles the other night in the middle of the living room (which she does from time to time) and Jason asked me if I thought she was autistic?! He told me he read (he read?) somewhere that it was a sign of autism. I assured him that Lauren was not autistic as far as I could tell, she did not exhibit any of the signs that I had been taught to look for as an educator (never heard of the spinning in circles one, though!)
So, I think it's perfectly normal for parents to worry about every little thing their child does, but I'm fairly sure that Lauren is going to be ok. I just wish she would start talking some more. (she says lots of words, just not together).
On the other hand, she can follow pretty much any spoken command, so I know that her receptive language is great. To my mommy blog readers at what age did your little ones start putting words together? Is there anything that I should be doing to "help" Lauren with this??
5 comments:
I'm so glad you found the other Kroger! That's what we had in NC and I LOVED it. I mourned (seriously) not having a Kroger in AL, but have since embraced some Publix love. www.southernsavers.com puts up a Kroger grocery list every week with coupon matches. You probably already know about that site because I rave about it all.the.time, but just in case :-)
As for the two word sentences, you might try getting Lauren to repeat after you. I'm not sure we did it intentionally, but I found that Cady could repeat two words together before she could think say them on her on. For example, if Lauren wants to get up from the table, ask her to say, "Up, please" or if she wants some particular food have her repeat, "Food, please" I found that please was a word Cady could add pretty easily.
Another strategy is to pick one of the words that Lauren's been saying the longest and try to add to it. So, get her to repeat, "Yes, Mommy" or "Yes, Daddy" or "Bye, Mommy" or well, you get my point. :-) You are right that it's normal to worry about our children, but I think you are also right not to worry about the sentence thing just yet. 4 months is a LONG time in baby development. Plus milestones are not hard and fast rules. They're merely guidelines (and I say that to myself and not just you!!!). As some of my friends say, "normal is just a setting on a washing machine."
Just wanted to put in my endorsement for Southern Savers too! I love her.
As for the mommy and me cooking, we love the C is for Cooking Sesame Street cookbook. Lily likes to pick out the things we are going to make. They are easy, healthy recipes. Paula Deen has a kids cookbook too! We got it for Christmas, but haven't tried it. I'll let you know when we do!
Be sure to talk to some Kroger associates and get a feel for when they TRIPLE coupons up to a dollar. It's something- generally- that they do at least once or twice a year.
Willa just turned 2, and is just now talking in two word sentences. I think. I say that because I hadn't thought of it before I read this post. I asked myself, "does Willa talk in 2 word sentences?". Well, yes. No, mama. Bye Bye Daddy. Ada don't. No bite, Micah, boo boo (peek a boo). She's way behind where Ada was at the time, but that's the crux of not being a first child.
If I were good at math, I would figure out what 4 months is to a person who is only 20 months old- but it is a really long time. Think of what 3 week old Micah will be doing in 4 months. You're a great mama, and appropriately concerned. It's not like you're one of those nutso moms that I come in contact with every so often. I left a playgroup once because a lady was crying because her son couldn't eat a cracker. She said that her book said that at so and so months, he should be able to sit in his high chair and eat a cracker independently. He couldn't, so they did it every night. She was hysterical. As a mom who had just lost a medically fragile and developmentally delayed child, it was all I could do not to strangle her as I walked out the door. It's all a matter of perspective. You've noticed that Lauren is just a little off on her schedule, doing it days after the book says she should do it. And as you know, by time they're three, they're all usually the same developmentally. Just remember that those milestone calculators are just estimates, and that each kid develops on his or her own schedule.
We have the Paula Dean cookbook, our copy is from the library. I just keep checking it out.
To my Waurenhead: "You are never gonna be jello." -Julia Roberts, My Best Friend's Wedding.
Oh, and Jason, just because Lauren spins in circles does not mean she is autistic; it merely means she is a Reak, we have problems. :)
Sarah! I cant believe how long Lauren's hair is getting! She is SO beautiful! Hope yall are doing good! We love and miss yall!!!
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