2 Years of O

There are no more babies at my house--today Oscar is officially 2 years old.  I have two little people living with me.  When did that happen?

I crack up at my youngest little person.  He wants to do everything that Elsie wants to do.  If she says something, he wants to repeat it and does, putting "too" on the end.  Makes for some humorous situations.

Elsie:  Mommy, I need new panties!

Oscar: I need new panties, too!

Elsie:  I want to be a princess!

Oscar:  I want to be a princess, too!

Elsie:  I just farted.

Oscar:  I just farted, too!

And yes, we use the word "farted."  That's just life. 

For a while Eli was concerned that Oscar might not have any musical genes, but he has become musical, singing to himself, making up happy songs (particularly when there is cheese involved).  At bedtime, he wants me to sing "Jesus Loves Me Dino" ("this I know" somehow sounds like dino to him).  He sings along loudly.  He love the Sing-a-ma-jig that we have, and can match it tone for tone.  No worries, Eli.

His favorite saying is "Go to bed!  Right now!"  Elsie used to tell me to put him to bed when he was annoying her, and now they tell each other.  It's pretty funny, except not so much when he tells me.

He wakes up earlier than Elsie and loves to just talk talk talk.  The other morning Eli left early, so he put Oscar on the bed where I was still sleeping. He practiced: "Mommy, go to bed, right now!"  "Daddy, go to bed, right now!"  "Eh-see, go to bed, right now!"  And he cycled through again and again.  It was entertaining, to say the least.

He'll frequently tell me "I want to carry you."  I always tell him I'm too heavy, and then we "figure out" that he wants me to carry him.  He's getting clingier and clingier and we're probably going to go through full-blown separation anxiety soon, much like we did with Elsie when she was a little over two.

And recently, he has started telling me that he needs to go potty, and I'm not sure what to do with the information.  Sometimes I set him on the seat, and others I just ignore since he's never done anything on the potty.

But, he's also still so sweet and super cuddly.  Where did my baby go?

Oscar, in the hospital at birth:

My little man, within the last couple of weeks.

Frankly, I'm glad he grew out of his "ugly baby" phase.  Now I just want to kiss his sweet head every time he comes near me.

We will not, however, forget that he is going through a biting phase.  This is a "picture of Oscar's teeth" on Elsie's inner thigh.  Poor girl has been bitten more times by Oscar than by ants, and that's saying a lot.  Thankfully, it's slowing down and happening less frequently now.

As far as birthday parties, we didn't do anything formal.  We spent the weekend at the beach with Eli's mom's side of the family and had cupcakes for him there.  I'm okay with that, I think.  It was just crazy because Eli was gone to drill.

Anyway, that's my little man.  Can't believe my baby is not a baby anymore.

Cheers!

August 2012 Debt Update

Well, at this point probably nobody cares about our debt progress, but I'm trying to keep track of it for the purpose of looking back when we become debt-free, and when people ask how we did it, I can say, hey, I have a whole string of blog entries labeled "debt"--you should go look at those.  Or something.

Anyway, July was pretty much a bust.  We made minimum payments on students loans, and that was about it.  Still, progress is progress, right?


 Second 10K Chunk, started 5/1/12
  Fundraising Thermometer

This slow-down in progress was 100% my fault.  You see, a cash budget is only good if you don't lose the cash.  The night before we left to go see my family in Texas,  I ran to Walmart--twice--to get some last minute items.  On one of the trips, it was raining when I exited the store, and when I got to the car after a quick jog, my purse was--forgive me for this Southern term--tumped over.  I glanced back up the row and didn't see that anything had fallen out, and I went home.  The next morning we got on the road and drove--and at some point during our trip to Texas, I realized that the cash was missing, and that I hadn't put the cash in the envelope system, so it could be anywhere.  Once we unpacked the car, I looked for it--even took everything out of the car and vacuumed and cleaned while in my parents' driveway.  Not there.  I dumped out my purse and cleaned it out.  Not there.  I emptied the trunk.  Not there.

When we returned to Alabama, I went into Walmart as a last resort, knowing that if it had fallen out in the parking lot, it was long gone.  The manager went into the office to look if someone had turned it in.  Not there.  Surprise, surprise.  So we spent the month surviving without our cash, which meant that any "extra" money that would ordinarily go to our loans, went to making up for me losing the money.

Moral of the story:  Put cash in designated envelopes and don't lose it!!  Lesson learned the hard way.

This month coming up is a weird months since Eli is spending half the month at annual training for the National Guard and the other half of the month at his civilian job, so cash flow will be forthcoming, but not regular.  We'll make minimum payments again, and will break the halfway point on debt thermometer #2 with just that.  Hopefully we will do more, but it will come at the last minute.

Cheers.