Tag: parents

We Need to Talk About this 20K.

Published on by Darlene Dee13 Comments

Twenty thousand dollars is a lot of money.

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Do you know what you can buy for $20,000?

A Volkswagon Beetle.

A Mediterranean Cruise for four.

Cartier diamond earrings.

Vespas for all four of the adults in my family.

An entire kitchen remodel.

A two bedroom house, if this Zillow listing is to be believed. 

I have never claimed to be a budget shopper, and I sometimes often buy completely unnecessary things for Babystar. But, like, she doesn’t have a PONY or two story playhouse or anything. I freaked out yesterday when the one changed to a two. But Babystar still brings me a million times more joy than everything on that list. Well, except maybe the Vespas.

YOU GUYS HOLY CRAP BABY COSTS A LOT OF MONEY!!

RAISING BABYSTAR: $20,336.21

 

 

Storing the STUFF.

Published on by Darlene Dee17 Comments

Where does it all come from? I am writing a blog about literally all of the stuff we buy for this baby and I STILL DON’T KNOW where it all comes from!!

Ok, some of this stuff was given to us (and we are very grateful), but that alone cannot possibly explain what is happening here.

For the first time since we moved into this townhouse nine years ago, we have had to rent a storage unit nearby to help store all of our crap. Yes, it’s all mostly crap. And it is definitely not worth the cost of the storage unit. But it IS cheaper than marriage counseling.

I’m joking.

No, I’m not.


Due largely in part to some very good things — my son moving back home and going back to school nearby but of course needing some closet space of his own, my oldest daughter going away to school and packing up a bunch of her things in boxes that we have to put somewhere, being lucky enough to have a little surprise Babystar but needing to pack up a lot of breakables that were previously stored all around the house — we ran out of room in our not-that-big townhouse.

I blame the baby. We were always able to make room before, but now we have to be really careful where we put things. Plus she needs a room (even though no she doesn’t because she sleeps with me). Plus she has way more stuff than the rest of us (and it’s all sticky).

Example: Her things take up FULLY HALF of our already-small townhouse patio, and she is only 1/5 of our family. Size-wise, she is only like 1/20.


I don’t even want to talk about our living room.

So, yeah. The cost of the storage unit is ALL ON HER.

I paid $35 to open the unit, and it will be $127 per month. (I actually did this last month so I already paid $127 for June.) Going forward, I’ll add the recurring charge to her monthly food posts. Baby costs MONEY, y’all.

MAYDAY MAYDAY: Does anyone else live in a tiny house with a tiny person? How do you do it? Where do you put everything?

RAISING BABYSTAR: $19,311.45

 

 

 

It’s Calling Meeeeeeee.

Published on by Darlene Dee1 Comment

Babystar sings over and over: it’s calling me, it’s caaaaallling meeeeee.

Have you seen Moana yet? Have you seen Moana one hundred times? I have, and I’m not even mad.

This movie is everything. I feel so lucky that Babystar stumbled onto this film as her I-need-to-watch-it-all-the-time-let’s-watch-it-again-again-again movie. Every toddler has one. And for over a full year it was Frozen, right? My niece was obsessed with Frozen. Who wasn’t? (My nephew is currently obsessed with Zootopia. It’s very good, but I need more singing in my cartoon movies if I am to watch them twenty million times.)

We were all so proud of Disney for making Frozen, a movie with no romantic happy ending (except it sort of did have one with Anna and Kristoff).

We were all so excited about how FEMINIST is was that the princess saved herself. Or at least, her sister saved her.

And the songs, while a bit too EVERYWHERE, were indeed amazing. I still love them. And Idina Menzel. Yes, please!

SO I CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY MOANA IS NOT MORE POPULAR!

Is it because she’s not white? Please tell me that it is not because she is not a snow white girl from the snow white north. Please. It’s not, right? Ok. Moving along.

I’m going to pretend that no one saw Moana (ok I realize that a LOT of people saw Moana but only like half as many as Frozen and I have never heard any of the songs unless I played them) because we were all terrified that it was full of Cultural Appropriation. We were all erring on the side of caution. Disney has a pretty bad track record with that kind of thing (*cough*Song of the South*cough*).

We were all wrong. Instead, they actually did a lot of research and had a lot of consultants making sure they ‘got it right.’ So you CAN teach an old mouse new tricks. (SPOILER ALERT) Moana is a movie about a ‘daughter of the chief’ who saves the world. She doesn’t do it for love of a man but for love of her island and her people. There is literally no boy-girl love story in the movie. NONE. It is incredibly refreshing.

See the light where the sky meets the sea, it calls me.

We finally have a capital-F-Feminist Disney ‘princess’ role model and I for one am so excited. Moana does not need saving at all, but the world does, and Moana T-C-bloody-B-ed.

If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me, one day I’ll know how far I’ll go.

AND OH YEAH THE SONGS.

You guys, the score was written by Lin-FREAKING-Manuel Miranda. Did you know that? HOW DID IT LOSE THE OSCAR FOR BEST SONG? How!? But whatever about the Oscars, how is our Hamilton-obsessed society not belting out these songs in unison a la ‘Let it Go’??? There is not a bad song in the movie. I’m a big fan of ‘Shiny’ sung by my boyfriend Jemaine Clement. My older kids love both the opening number and Maui’s song ‘You’re Welcome’. Babystar loves when Moana sings about things that call her. THEY. ARE. ALL. SO. GOOD.

And the call isn’t out there at all, it’s inside me.

Moana is on Netflix month so get excited. 

You’re welcome.

Babystar was having a rough go of teething a few weeks ago so we surprised her with Maui to help her feel better ($8.99). She loves chewing on his hook.
 


RAISING BABYSTAR: $17,776.28

 

 

Balloon Life.

Published on by Darlene Dee1 Comment

Toddlers like balloons.

Toddlers love balloons.

Toddlers are obsessed with balloons.

I know, I know, I shouldn’t generalize. MY TODDLERMONSTER CAN NOT GET ENOUGH BALLOONS in her life. She’s living that balloon life.

This Peanuts balloons has been around longer than the actual Peanuts comic strip. I think we brought it home in late January. I will miss this one when it’s gone. $6.99.

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This lucky little guy moved in at the beginning of the month, but he’s still hanging around looking shiny. $3.99.

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And these superstars were given to Babystar when we left the Children’s Museum last week, or the week before, they are all running together. We drove them ninety miles home because we love that little ToddlerMonster.

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They hang out near the sky because they are stars, duh. Also because one of the strings is only about four centimeters long.

Does anyone else have a balloon-obsessed toddler?

RAISING BABYSTAR: $15,665.97

 

 

Worker (Ba)Bee.

Published on by Darlene Dee2 Comments

Babystar likes tools.

Since it’s kinda dangerous and pretty dirty and maybe illegal to let her play with the tools on my workbench, we got her a set of toy tools. (Yes, I said MY workbench. I 100% guarantee that my husband would agree.)

They are cute and sturdy and BPACDEFG-free and made of recycled materials in the USA. This is my first Green Toys purchase, but I totally dig them. I bought them at Home Goods so they were less expensive than usual. Which I also totally dig. ($16.99 instead of $27.99.)

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Babystar digs them too. She took the pliers on the airplane to Florida earlier this month,  and ‘fixed’ the airplane window. Whew. Those other travelers don’t know how close we came to a possible broken window. Babystar to the rescue.

(Note: I had to go to their website to look up the actual retail price since I bought them at Home Goods. They have a pink set. Gross. GIRLS LIKE BLUE TOO. At least the tea set comes in both pink and blue too. BUT STILL.)

And while we are on the topic of fixing things, the living room ball pit has been getting some serious abuse aggressive love by visiting older kids. It’s totally to be expected, and a large part of me wants it to break completely and be out of my life, but alas. Babystar loves it too much. So we bought some Duck tape (yes, Duck, that’s the brand) and fixed the broken loops. $3.77. She picked yellow, so they don’t match the other loops at all but whatever. Also, we took the ball pit downstairs so it maybe gets less abuse and so I maybe don’t have to look at it as much. Win-win.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $15,654.99