The Official New Mom Thread

[tkyes]

adorable tasha! i can't believe how much hair she has!

 

[Minnesota!]

Beautiful little girl there :O)

Gymboree - OBSESSION for me. I think if you return w/ old receipt you will get a merch. credit. Nothing bad there, especially with the new lines coming out next month :O)

Lucas will be 1 a week from today. How is that possible?? We are all doing well. He is walking and he is talking up a storm. His fave thing is when you say "Lucas, what does a kitty say", and he will really quietly say "mow". It's so sweet.

 

[justhat]

Kylie is so adorable!! Amazing how fast she's growing, isn't it?

 

[DisKim]

Kylie is so cute! What precious pictures!

Well, I survived my first day back at work. I think I only had about 2 hours of sleep. I made it through but my heart actually felt like it was breaking. I missed Aidan so much. Apparently he missed me too. My mother watched him. He cried all day and refused to sleep or eat. He only ate 3 ounces the entire day (6 am to 2 pm). He just refused the bottle. It was awful. I would call from work and hear him crying and just want to die. Thank goodness it is only for five days. I really have to think seriously about whether or not I want to do this full time in September. The problem is I have to. We can't live on DH's salary alone. Maybe we'll win the lottery over the summer.

 

[Alice28]

Kylie is a little .

DisKim-- it's soooooooo hard going back to work. I remember having to go back when Josh was only 8 weeks old and my husband calling me 3-4 times (it was back to school registration night) and I could hear him SCREAMING in the background. I wanted to die...I left 20 minutes early and raced home.

I hope you win the lotto this summer too.

 

[Alice28]

I think I converted my mother---she went to Gymboree today and bought Molly an outfit and some clothes for Joshua's birthday and scored 2 more Gymbucks!

I, uh, have 7 now. I think I will be doing the boys back to school shopping at Gymboree. Thank God Sam will fit in it one more year because I would have a really hard time justifying $350 worth of clothes for Josh and Molly this fall. (Since Molly already has about 15+ outfits for fall and Josh has boxes of Sam's handmedowns and is just going to preschool).

Then I saw a coupon on the paper that they finally opened a Gymboree play place near us and it actually seems like a decent deal for the classes for Josh. I am contemplating enrolling him in some of the art stuff this summer. The only problem is, what do I do with Sam and Molly while I am doing Gymboree with him?

 

[justhat]

Madison goes to a Gymboree play class on Wednesday mornings and some of the moms have older/younger kids (the class is for kids 14-28 months).

The ones with older kids let them play in the little entry room during the class and the ones with babies just bring the baby in with the older one. It's basically all one big room, so it's not like the waiting room is separate-it's the same room, just with a half-wall separating the area where the cubbies are for your shoes from the play area. The older kids are around 5yo.

It's a little hard for the mom with the infant to watch her toddler climbing and hold the baby, but in an art class it would be much easier to take Molly along.

The art classes at our Gymboree are in a separate room though, now that I think about it, with a door. so you probably would not want to leave your 7yo while in a room with a closed door. In that case, just bring him in. There's a little boy in Madison's class (18 months) and his nanny brings him and doesn't want to leave his older sister (she's 4) in the waiting area so she comes to the class and plays with the toddlers. She knows that she has to let the babies go first in any activites, but otherwise she's allowed free play.

They also have a sibling class, but not sure what the ages are on that. But if that works, maybe you could let the older 2 take that.

 

[Alice28]

Hmmm...thanks for the info justhat...

The lady I spoke with on the phone said they only went up to age 5 with their classes there. She said they have a newborn class. I just think it would be a lot of juggling with Molly and Sam while Joshie does his art. Maybe if my parents are moved up by then (I was looking at some August classes) they can take Sam or Molly and I will take 1 sibling along. I've always heard such positive things about the Gymboree classes and now that one is close, it's kind of cool!

 

[katerkat]

I have a random question: does anyone know who sells Tykes by Carter? I got two 0-3 month outfits from Tykes, without a gift receipt, and I can't find some place to return them! Carter's outlet couldn't take them, nor could Walmart.

 

[justhat]

I think Target sells Tykes. We have a few things from that brand and I shop at Target a lot so I'm thinking it's from there. What's confusing me is now they also have the Just One Year line at Target, but pretty sure they have Tykes too. Babies R Us would be my other guess if it's not Target.

That's too bad that the Gymboree classes stop at 5, I can see that for the play classes, but the art and music classes could go a little older. Madison likes her class, but she's the youngest one in it, so the other kids are all more advanced than her. She was at a funny age when she started though (in May). She just turned 14 months, and her class options were GymWalkers (which says is works on pre-walking/early walking skills) which is for 10-18 months or GymRunners, which is 14-28 months (says it is for walkers to learn running, climbing, balance skills). We figured since she'd been walking for 3 months that the GymWalkers was gonna be boring for her, but we were afraid the other one would be too advanced. Well I saw some GymWalker babies and they looked so young, mostly non-mobile or barely mobile babies, so I knew that wasn't for her. Another baby just started in Madison's class yesterday and he's 16 months though, so now I don't feel as bad about it since she's got someone close to her age.

 

[justhat]

Ugh, I just got an e-mail from Gymboree that the stuff I bought last week is on sale now! I got Madison the little blue fish dress (On the Beach, I think) and the tank and capris and now they're on sale. The dress was $30, which was kinda hard for me to agree to buy, but it was so cute-now it's $23.99! The worst part is that my husband was adamant that I not get that stuff till it went on sale, but I was getting nervous since there was only 1 18-24 month dress in the store (like we don't have 4 Gymborees within driving distance of me!). If I return it and rebuy it, what will they do about the buy 2, get 1 free promotion? I'd lose my Gymbuck, but I'd get it back when rebuying (I'd be sure of that, can always spend more if I have to) so that's not a problem, but it's just that the buy 2 get 1 has money taken off of each product and stuff.

 

[Alice28]

Yes, it's Target that sells Tykes. Good luck trying to return without a receipt though.

Justhat- what did you actually pay for the dress? I know my Gymboree's cash register grouped the highest products together, the medium prices products, and so forth. So, I ended up getting about 31% off each purchase. I bought two $30 dresses (my third item was $26) and they ended up being under $21. So, double check your receipt and see if you paid more than $23.99 for the dress. If it's close to that, it may be more of a hassle to try and return it if the price you paid is within a dollar or so.

If you want to go in and return everything and rebuy, I understand a lot of their shoppers do that. I think for this sale there were no price adjustments...probably too complicated.

It is frustrating in some ways all their different sales and such. I am sticking to my guns and not going in there....I haven't been in a whole week!

 

[justhat]

Thanks so much! Though I knew that there were reduced prices for each item, I didn't realize that I actually purchased each thing for less cause I saw where it said they're rank your items by cost, but mine weren't like that. 1st item was $30, then $12, $26, $18.99, $14, $11.49, so I was very confused. I added it all up the way I bought it, and what it would cost to buy it now (including the socks which I got at full price, not on the sale day) and I saved $2.21 the way I bought it. So thanks sooo much, I was getting annoyed for no reason and would have hurt myself by exchanging it!! I never do that, mostly cause I usually only buy on sale, but also cause I just figure, oh well, that happens, but cause I just got the stuff a week ago I was in shock. So you just save me a lot of time and $2.21! Now, of course, if I bought it all in NJ, then I'd save about $4.50 on the tax....

 

[Alice28]

Oh good, I'm glad it worked out in your favor and you don't have to run around.

I love living in OR with no sales tax.

 

[Tasha+Scott]

Have any of you had a baby w/terrible hiccups? Dd had them 3-4 times a day in utero and has had them atleast 2x a day since birth. They make her so miserable! I feel terrible for her. Does anyone know of anything to help w/it?

I had my 6 wk checkup today. Everything looked fine and I will be starting back on bc pills as soon as my period comes back. I can't believe it has been 6 weeks already!

 

[justhat]

Ugh, I know, the sales tax thing drives me crazy. For 22 years I was in a no sales tax state, so I hate buying things in DC (or MD/VA, where I usually shop) cause there's tax. Restaurant tax in DC is 10%!!! Unreal. I try to wait till I visit my mom in NJ to buy clothing/shoes, but it's hard since we're not there often. Madison and I are actually leaving for the train in a few minutes though, to go to a wedding in NYC on Sunday. So I might have to do some shopping while we're there this weekend!

Tasha, Madison had hiccups all the time-before and after she was born! She still gets them now from time to time, but after about 2 or 3 months the # of times a day she got them went down dramatically. There's a medication for it, not sure what it's called but a little girl I babysat for took it when she got hiccups. It didn't really work though so I wouldn't even bother with trying to get some. She'll outgrow them as she gets older.

 

[tkyes]

I had my 6 week checkup today too. Everything looks good. I'm on progesterone only birth control pills since I'm pumping.

On my way home I got a killer migraine. I called DH in tears and he came home. I felt so bad asking him to do that, but it knocked me out for hours. He got home at 3:30 and I layed in bed and slept until 7:00! I still have a dull ache in my right temple, but I'm better than I was. Has anyone ever had a migraine accompanied by numbness? It says it's a very common side affect for migraines but my mom is freaking out and wants me to go into the Dr.

Have a good night everyone.

tamie

 

[Alice28]

I get migraines all the time...but no numbness. That would worry me too if I were your mom- I think you should call the doctor. Where are you having the numbness?

 

[lissawynn]

Hi everyone! Just a little drama here tonight. I have the invasion of the pop-ups on Monday and had the tech guy at my school wipe my hard drive clean and start over. Well, tonight I came to the realization that ALL the PHOTOS saved on my hard drive were gone, too. All of the photos of Jimmy literally from birth until last week were saved on my laptop. Before he started to wipe things out he called and asked if there was anything that needed to be saved. DUH! I just saved all of my word documents, so I said no, go ahead. Well, I almost got sick/cried when I realized what had happened. I began calling everyone I knew with any kind of computer knowledge to see if the problem could be fixed. I even called a data recovery number I found on Google. The nice man in California (Hi Lou)! told me if the data could be recovered it would cost me $750-$1200 (but I would get a 25% educator's discount). OMG! It was then that I realized I may have saved the photos to disk last week when I saved my document. I did! Thank goodness! Panic attacks while taking care of a little guy do not mix well. That's enough excitement for me for a long time.
Lesson: back up everything all the time!

I'm starving... I have to find something to eat. I've been so preoccupied that I haven't eaten.

 

[Alice28]

Hi everyone! Just a little drama here tonight. I have the invasion of the pop-ups on Monday and had the tech guy at my school wipe my hard drive clean and start over. Well, tonight I came to the realization that ALL the PHOTOS saved on my hard drive were gone, too. All of the photos of Jimmy literally from birth until last week were saved on my laptop. Before he started to wipe things out he called and asked if there was anything that needed to be saved. DUH! I just saved all of my word documents, so I said no, go ahead. Well, I almost got sick/cried when I realized what had happened. I began calling everyone I knew with any kind of computer knowledge to see if the problem could be fixed. I even called a data recovery number I found on Google. The nice man in California (Hi Lou)! told me if the data could be recovered it would cost me $750-$1200 (but I would get a 25% educator's discount). OMG! It was then that I realized I may have saved the photos to disk last week when I saved my document. I did! Thank goodness! Panic attacks while taking care of a little guy do not mix well. That's enough excitement for me for a long time.
Lesson: back up everything all the time!

I'm starving... I have to find something to eat. I've been so preoccupied that I haven't eaten.

OMG---I would have died... I am SO glad you had a backup!