Baby sitting co-op

Last night we had our kick off meeting of the baby sitting co-op. It went really well. The idea is that you create your own economy with tokens and each hour you sit is a token. You take turns sitting and having a sitter so hopefully at the end of each month you have gotten to go out and have taken a turn to sit- all for FREE!!!!
Now, I don't know if you know this, but for one child even at night when they are asleep- it costs at least $7 an hour!!!! So can you imagine how much your night will cost you if you did any thing besides a picnic? I never made that much!
Hence the baby sitting co-op. A few of us in my Mom's group have talked about it for awhile, but it wasn't until I did pay the $7 an hour that I decided we needed to get it in gear!
So I turned to the know it all Google to find out all the info we needed to get started.

We came up with some rules like:
Keep animals put away.
Fill out the emergency info card we created
Leave enough money for the co-pay at the doctor in case of an emergency.
No husbands, just us for right now.
We are going to contact each other through email when we need a sitter and if we can't do it we just don't reply.
Our tokens are poker chips (I have a lot so we used mine. Although I might need some more for Tripoly at Christmas!) Colored ones are 1 hour and the white ones are 1/2 hour.
In doing my research I found that one person wrote an economy paper on baby sitting co-ops. The ideas is that you can't hoard your chips or you create a recession in that every one starts to hoard their chips. So we also decided that each person will try to the best of their ability to sit and to go out at least once every 2 weeks.
We know we are not a perfect system yet. We decided to try it out for two months and then get together to talk about what works and what doesn't.
We already many people wanting in. So that's first on the list to talk about next meeting.
We also hope to have someone come talk to us about CPR. Cool.

I have already signed us up for sitting next Thursday. I'll keep you posted on how it works.

Her First Tooth

Its been a good week. Gianna got her first tooth. Its on the bottom jaw. The tooth is not high but quite jagged. The down side is that she has a bit of a fever from teething and at the same time she caught a cold. :( Poor little girl woke up last night because she had pain in her gums and a hard time breathing from being stopped up.

Through it all she has been great. Still smiling all the time and wanting and willing to laugh at just about anything. I told her I had eggs for breakfast and she laughed like I told her a joke. So for her, eggs are now my best joke. " Hey Gianna, poached eggs are my favorite." (LOL hahahaha see how funny it is, if you were Gianna you would be cracking up.)

Amazing to us how each day is a new discovery, wonderment and awe for her little world. And she continues to be a source of awe for us as well.

Ebay addiction

Well, I think the title says it all. I have a new addiction- eBay. Remember a few months ago I blogged about LOVING little girl clothes? So I've been on eBay trying to get a few fall things for Gianna. My sister in law, Wendy has been such a blessing and has passed down to us her girls' things. They should fit at the same time because Gianna was actually born on my oldest nieces' (Grace) birthday. But our little petite cutie is a tad smaller (well she WAS a preemie) so we have lots of 12 month winter things. But, she doesn't have very many winter things in size 6-12 months. She actually is still in 3-6 month clothes and I don't see her getting out of them any time soon.
So hence the ebaying. Well not quite hence. I used to be quite the garage saler in my pre-Gianna days. But I can't quite bring myself to get early on the one day John lets me sleep in. So I thought eBay would help fill the void. I could get some really cute things for really cheep. Not so much. Some things I have gotten are cute, but some things I have REALLY wanted have been stolen in the very final last seconds of the auction. If you have ebayed then you know the frustration. (Or the joy as you did it to someone else!) But I have found myself this last week just bidding and checking ebay SEVERAL times a day.
After just one day I told John I had an addiction. After two days I told him the same thing. After 3 days he asked if I wanted him to fix my "problem" or just listen. I told him I was done- for now. After loosing 2 really GREAT items that I REALLY wanted was enough for me to take a break. Plus my favorite neighborhood is have their annual garage sale his weekend. So I'm curred from ebay..... Just what to do about those garage sales!?!?!?!?!?!




A shout out to my Maid of Honor Holly Jack Nobel who just found out she is having a BOY!!!!!!
Not as many cute clothes to choose from, but she gets her trucks and tractors forever!

Sleep

Well it seems I've blogged a lot on the subject of sleep. But I am doing dances in the street because not only is our darling daughter going to sleep all through the night--- She is also going to sleep in her crib! And miracles for the miracle baby- when I put her down in her crib at night- most nights she just grabs her lovey and rolls over with NO crying and goes to sleep!
AMAZING!!!! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers! We are getting to be a well rested crew here! (if only I can sleep through the night again!:)
Looking back I know it seemed so major, but now - even only a few days into it- it seems like it wasn't that bad.
Here's what I mean: When something is a problem for you and it seems to be a BIG problem and some one else has it figured out then you wonder what you did/ doing wrong. At least as a girl I do. John always maintains that it was an external problem not an internal one!
I know there will be many "major" things that come our way. I just hope that I learn from this one that prayer and patience work.

Groovy BABY!

Check out our 7 month old baby and how groovy she is!

My New Computer

Sunday, John got me a new computer because our 5 year old Dell was dying a slow and painful death. We gave it a good burial. I've been trying all week to get used to the new one. It's like when you get a new cell phone and you have to put in all the numbers again and you are totally lost because you DO NOT remember any of the numbers!
So my computer is like that too. I've had to re-look up old bookmarks and such. John is awesome and he is transferring them from one computer to the new one for me so I can get about the business of reading other people's blogs. Because I for sure do not have those sites memorized!
Soooooo what kind of computer is it?!?!?!?!?
It is the coolest and most awesome MacBook! That's right you mono-user Windows people- I speak two languages- IBM and MAC. I really do love it. It has a cool feature that is called photo booth and you can take pictures of yourself as you look in the computer!
John has been busy at work this week so I haven't been able to figure out how to get the Picasa albums on my computer yet, but I know John will soon and then you faithful blog readers- we will have more pictures of that great girl we all know as Gianna.
Who by the way is now 7 months old! Can you believe it? I went in to feed her at 3:30 this morning and I KNOW she grew from when I put her down last night. It's amazing.

Famous People in Research Valley

Check us out online here. We are on page 64.

We did this awhile back as is evident by Gianna still "inside" Charissa. But we have the faithful dog. A lady I work with talked to me about how we came to College Station. She liked the story and wanted to interview Charissa and I for a local magazine. A few days later a photographer came to take some snapshots. We didn't think much of it and forgot about it actually. Then last night I randomly googled Charissa Ludlow. It was the first hit. The pic below is from the magazine. The Ludlows are in print! and world wide web! and also a blog!